ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (07/28/88)
[ I hope the line eater gets diarrhea from this. ]
Once again, I open myself up to the unknown: Either I'm going to
get praised to high heaven, or flamed to a smoking pile of ashes for this.
The probability of BYTE actually publishing this in their letters section
seems to me to be rather low. In any case, I think it's something that
needs to be said out in the open. Feel free to disagree with me on this;
I'd love to be dead wrong about it, but I don't think I am.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape INET: well!ewhac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU
\_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac
O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack")
"Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Letter to editor of BYTE follows: _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
61 Martens Blvd.
San Rafael, CA 94901-5028
8807.26
Frederic S. Langa, Editor
BYTE Magazine
One Phoenix Mill Lane
Peterborough, NH 03458
Cc: Scott Harris, Subscription Manager, BYTE Magazine
Letters Editor, BYTE Magazine
comp.misc, USENET
Sir,
I received in the mail today a notice informing me that my BYTE
subscription is about to expire, and that I should renew. After having
received your magazine for what will shortly be three years, I was prompted
to write this letter after having received your notice.
Having been involved in computers in one form or another for nearly
twelve years (I am now 24), I have found the industry exciting, and its
possibilities without end. As imaginative people continue to enter the
field, new and wonderful things continue to happen all over the world.
Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that, of late, your magazine has
not kept up with these changes. What was once a wonderfully diverse and
interesting publication has, in my view, degenerated into a Mac and IBM
proselytizer. You have, in editorials, vigorously denied that you have
lost your diversity. However, one needs only to look at the editorial
balance of your articles over the past three years to know that you have
heavily curtailed non-Mac and non-IBM material.
As an Amiga owner, and staunch supporter of same, my perception of
your publication may come as no surprise to you. It is true that many
Amiga owners tend to believe that the Amiga is the Center Of The Universe
as far as computers go. But even stepping back from this position, BYTE
has still lost a great deal of the diversity which made it a once great
publication that every computer owner should subscribe to.
To your credit, you do make attempts from time to time to present
your readers with new programming tricks, and occasionally preview new
hardware. But it seems that these articles are written around the PC, or
in comparison to the PC.
Your publication also appears undecided about whether to accept
that Motorola's 68000 series CPU is a powerful force in the industry.
After promising for many months to produce a 68000-only issue, you turned
around and merely made it your in-depth focus for the September 1986 issue.
However, in the August 1988 issue, you have devoted a substantial portion
of the magazine to the Macintosh. While this is a step forward, Macintosh
is in no way a complete representation of available 68000 systems. There's
also Amiga, Atari, Sinclair, Dual, Sun, and Apollo, to name just a few.
While the 80x86 series can be adequetely represented by a single machine
(the PC), the 680x0 series can not.
Further, in my memory, I can not recall you ever covering to any
great degree the Commodore 64/128, the AT&T 3B series, the MicroVAX,
PostScript programming, or the National Semiconductor 32032 CPU. Your
Apple ][ coverage has dropped to almost nothing, and you only bothered to
mention Sun Microsystems when they came out with a PC-compatible
workstation.
Losing your diversity is, in my opinion, an unwise decision and a
disservice to your readers. While it may be true that the majority of your
readers are PC and Mac users, this is not a reason to fail to cover other
systems in a balanced way. Consider a hypothetical reader, Mr. X, who is
an MIS administrator for some company. Suppose that this person is looking
for a computer solution that will provide him with the ability to do
"desktop video", perhaps as a means to do quarterly reports for his
company. By reading your magazines, he would be inclined to believe that
the only way to do that was to purchase a Mac ][ with an NTSC video card
and a piece of $2000 software that won't be available for several months.
He would be unaware that such solutions exist NOW on the Amiga, for
substantially less money.
More generally, a person who may be heavily PC-oriented may need to
solve a problem which has already been solved on a non-PC system. By
reading about the solution, he may be able to apply it himself on his
system, or purchase the system in question to solve it if his problem is
important enough. Also, people like to know what's happening outside the
realm they've chosen for themselves. Perhaps they will learn about
something happening elsewhere that interests them enough to investigate
further on their own. By failing to maintain your diversity and report on
it, you are depriving your readers of valuable information, which is the
greatest disservice any publication can do.
If a person has solved a particular problem, it should not matter
which system that problem was solved on. A solution is a solution, and
someone somewhere is going to want to hear about it. Ray tracing, once
exclusively the domain of supermini- and mainframe-computers, can now be
done on systems costing less than $1000 complete. Did you report on ray
tracing when it was first developed? Have you reviewed any of the current
crop of available ray tracing packages?
Diversity. It's what this industry is all about. Lots of people
in lots of places doing lots of things, some of them rather interesting.
When people do interesting things, they like to brag about it. There
should be a forum where these people can come and say, "This is what we
did. This is why we did it. This is how we did it. We think it's
interesting. We hope you do, too." Your magazine used to be such a forum.
Sadly, it appears this is no longer the case.
In a recent readership survey, you asked which computer the person
owned. You enumerated every Mac and PC model ever made, made a casual
reference to UNIX, and covered the remainder of the market with the entry
"Other". For a magazine that claims to be diverse, this is extremely
suspicious.
But perhaps the most telling example of the narrowing of your
editorial scope is revealed on BYTE's cover. Beginning with the July 1988
issue, underneath your new hard-edged logo, your magazine no longer proudly
proclaims, "The Small Systems Journal."
I invite you to go through your archives and pull out the March
1981 issue of BYTE: "Structured Programming and Structured Flowcharts",
"Three Dimensional Computer Graphics, Part One", "A Beginner's Guide to
Spectral Analysis, Part Two", "A Simple Approach to Data Smoothing",
"Computer Music: A Design Tutorial", "Desktop Wonders: Hunt the Wumpus
with Your HP-41C". This is what BYTE once was. This is what BYTE should
be. This is the BYTE I want. I am deeply saddened that this kind of BYTE
is no longer published.
It is for these reasons that I am electing not to renew my
subscription to BYTE. I will continue to occasionally check up on you on
the newsstands to see if you have improved, and I earnestly hope that this
will not be in vain. I hope you are able to see and understand what has
happened to your magazine, and will have the desire to correct it. You can
become great again, if you want to.
I bid you farewell.
Sincerely,
Leo L. Schwabcjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) (07/28/88)
I wish you were wrong, but you aren't. You ARE obviously biased toward your Amiga, but that is understandable. Byte is a mass-market rag pointed toward the majority, which is IBM/Mac. Dr. Dobbs has gone the same way. I sometimes feel Byte is a 400-page ad for BIX, as there is little/no background, no listings, no references - just a repeated encouragement to 'see the discussion on BIX regarding this'... Even Wayne Greene (the Ted Turner of magazines) looks good now... -- Charles Lord ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl Usenet Cary, NC cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Bitnet #include <std.disclamers> #include <cutsey.quote>
cck@deneb.ucdavis.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (07/29/88)
The magazine has also become much more ethnocentric. I haven't seen any coverage on Japan, Korean, Taiwan, for over a year. When was the last time they dealt with international communications, text processing for non-European (or even European) languages, computer-aided devices for the handicapped, etc.
york@altger.UUCP (york) (07/29/88)
I am subscribing BYTE for two years and reading it for four years. For I am using UNIX-boxes, IBM compatibles, Control- Data machines and last not least the ATARI-ST, I think, I am not biased. In the good old days of BYTE I spend more than two days with one issue. Today I read it for about two hours. BYTE is still worth reading but only from time to time for its 'in depth' sections. Therefore I suggest not to subscribe it, but to decide wether to by or not, after reading the table of contents at your local bookstore. Ulrich Liesenfeld uli@analyt.chemie.uni-bochum.dbp.de Bochum mcvax!unido!gmdzi!analyt.chemie.uni-bochum.dbp.de!uli FRG uli%analyt.chemie.uni.bochum.dbp.de!ddagmd11.bitnet
evas@eurtrx.UUCP (Eelco van Asperen) (07/29/88)
Sad to say, but you're quite right; BYTE is not what it used to be. Even the quality of their reviews is dropping fast; anyone who read the "AT-class Hard Disks" review in one of latest issues will know what I mean. I get the feeling that BYTE is no longer the main activity of the editors; they like BIX so much they have no time left to make a good magazine.... -- Eelco van Asperen uucp: evas@eurtrx / mcvax!eurtrx!evas #include <inewsfiller.h> earn/bitnet: asperen@hroeur5 #include <stdjunk.h> "We'ld like to know a little bit about you for our files", -Simon & Garfunkel, Mrs. Robinson.
jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) (07/29/88)
In article <5479@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) writes: > Byte is a mass-market rag > pointed toward the majority, which is IBM/Mac. They do run a certain amount of Mac-oriented articles, but I really think that their main bias is toward IBM/Intel. When the new ballyhooed BYTE benchmarks show times for the infamous sieve program such that my CoCo 3, with its 1.8 MHz 6809, can run the sieve faster than all the 680x0 computers BYTE lists but the Mac II, I am driven to the conclusion that their 68K Small C compiler has to be truly horrible. What is the reason for this? I don't know, but the al- ternatives that come to mind don't speak well for BYTE. James Jones [The above is absolutely, positively my very own personal opinion. Do organ- izations have opinions?]
adam@hpmtlx.HP.COM ($Adam Kao) (07/30/88)
Bravo! No matter how much I respected you before, it pales in comparison to how much I respect you now. Calm, rational, yet wistful, your letter says exactly what I would have said, if I could have. No anger, no contempt, just - disappointment. Most of us have already given up on BYTE, but your letter, at least, will make them understand the cost of the path they have chosen. Thank you very much for posting it here. Adam
kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) (07/30/88)
Would it be ghoulish to investigate the cause of death? Perhaps you're reading it. Byte is an ok rag for the IBM PC user without too much on his mind (except for the occasional excursion into Karmarker's Algorithm). But the techie types don't like it much anymore. Maybe that's because we all have UNIX boxes, amigas, Mac II's, and so forth at home, and each other on the net to pass around sources and ask questions. It's been years since I last used a Dr Dobbs source. Why type it in when I get megabytes of sources each week on net.sources? Maybe the techies have outgrown print media? Better watch yer ass, McGraw Hill. There's something sneaking up behind you...
seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) (08/01/88)
[lots of stuff said by many people.] Sadly, as others have said, you're right. BYTE used to be a very interesting magazine, from my point of view. Then, it started becoming too much advertisements, too much Pournelle (who used to be interesting), and not enough articles on what I wanted to read about (new processors, that type of stuff). Unfortunately, the best "magazine" I've found has been UseNET. Think we should publish? 8-) Sean. -- Sean Eric Fagan | "An Amdahl mainframe is lots faster than a Vax 750." seanf@sco.UUCP | -- Charles Simmons (chuck@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com) (408) 458-1422 | Any opinions expressed are my own, not my employers'.
cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) (08/01/88)
In article <466@scolex>, seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes: > Unfortunately, the best "magazine" I've found has been UseNET. Think we > should publish? 8-) Hell, no! then McGraw-Hill would buy us and make this a piece of crap too! I agree with Sean. This net is more informative and timely than any magazine, or Compu$erve or [especially] B$x... -- Charles Lord ..!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!cjl Usenet Cary, NC cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Bitnet #include <std.disclamers> #include <cutsey.quote>
randy@bcsaic.UUCP (Randy Groves) (08/02/88)
In article <6646@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >[ I hope the line eater gets diarrhea from this. ] > > Once again, I open myself up to the unknown: Either I'm going to >get praised to high heaven, or flamed to a smoking pile of ashes for this. >The probability of BYTE actually publishing this in their letters section >seems to me to be rather low. In any case, I think it's something that >needs to be said out in the open. Feel free to disagree with me on this; >I'd love to be dead wrong about it, but I don't think I am. > Thanks for posting this letter - I hope that the editors read it and take note, but I have my doubts. I too, when called by some service or other as to why I had not renewed my subscription, declined. I was not as diplomatic as you evidently were, though. Thanks for the cogent and on-target letter that is closer to what I was thinking and probably SHOULD have said. When are people going to finally learn that the world out there is not all painted blue? (or shades trying to be blue)? -- -randy groves - Boeing Advanced Technology Center UUCP: ..!uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!randy USNail: Boeing Computer Services CSNET: randy@boeing.com PO Box 24346 M/S 7L-68 VOICE: (206)865-3424 Seattle, WA 98124
ked@garnet.berkeley.edu (Earl H. Kinmonth) (08/02/88)
In article <5494@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) writes: >In article <466@scolex>, seanf@sco.COM (Sean Fagan) writes: >> Unfortunately, the best "magazine" I've found has been UseNET. Think we >> should publish? 8-) > >Hell, no! then McGraw-Hill would buy us and make this a piece of >crap too! A Wall Street Journal article several weeks ago noted that McGraw-Hill had pulled out of the Japanese market, where they had a joint venture with Nihon keizai shinbun to publish magazines and other materials on business and computers. Another brilliant corporate decision. As any twit can see the Japanese have no competence or future in either business or computers!
wjc@ho5cad.ATT.COM (Bill Carpenter) (08/02/88)
In article <6646@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: > Unfortunately, I am of the opinion that, of late, your magazine has > not kept up with these changes. What was once a wonderfully diverse and > interesting publication has, in my view, degenerated into a Mac and IBM > proselytizer. You have, in editorials, vigorously denied that you have > lost your diversity. However, one needs only to look at the editorial > balance of your articles over the past three years to know that you have > heavily curtailed non-Mac and non-IBM material. > One place that tired PC fan magazine hasn't lost its diversity is in the "Programming Tips" (or tricks or whatever it is called) and the letters to the editor. To keep up the variety, these appear to be selected by a first-year Computer Science student. Does anyone else find it a bit aggravating to read/flip past articles like "The Turing Machine" (late '87), or the apparently unending series of articles on allegedly new sorts and searches for degenerate special cases? My most recent favorite letter to the editor goes on at length about how it will at least a few years before it becomes economically feasible to have virtual memory on any desktop machine (due, apparently, to several shortcomings in the fields of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science that will eventually be solved through innovation by Intel and Microsoft). Not that this sort of stuff doesn't have a place. There are plenty of folks sitting around thinking things like, "I agree with Pournelle. Why would I want multitasking?" Those folks probably don't have the reference materials (apparently due to a Microsoft documentation shortage which will eventually be solved through innovation) to judge whether a technical article is worth reading by asking if it can be replaced by the phrase: "See Knuth, vols I-III". Hint for people who find _Byte_ educational: :-) -- -- Bill Carpenter att!ho5cad!wjc or attmail!bill
mills@baloo.eng.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Mills) (08/03/88)
In article <717@mcrware.UUCP> jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) writes: > >They do run a certain amount of Mac-oriented articles, but I really think that >their main bias is toward IBM/Intel. When the new ballyhooed BYTE benchmarks >show times for the infamous sieve program such that my CoCo 3, with its 1.8 MHz >6809, can run the sieve faster than all the 680x0 computers BYTE lists but the >Mac II, I am driven to the conclusion that their 68K Small C compiler has to >be truly horrible. What is the reason for this? I don't know, but the al- >ternatives that come to mind don't speak well for BYTE. > > James Jones > Well, Small C is not horrible, as long as you run it on an 8085. I would imagine that all they did is change the code generation sections. This is a real drag for the 680x0, because the Small C compiler assumes two general-purpose registers (HL and DE on the 8085). The 680x0 has 16 registers, 8 address and 8 data, so I imagine there is a lot of unneccessarry stack movement and register motion going on. The 680x0 is at its best only when you keep lots of operands in registers. Not to mention all the neet 680x0 addressing modes that aren't being used. They also used int == 32 bits, which roughly doubles the time on the 68000 (I believe the 8086 version used 16-bit ints). I don't know that much about the 80x86 architecture, but I would imagine it maps onto the 8085 much better than the 680x0 does... Anyone out there actually download the code of the thing (Small C 68K) and look at it? I'd be curious know what they did. My home-brew C-like language (STAPL), which has less optimizations than Small C (I've got to write that peephole optimiser some day...) did the same benchmark on my Amiga FASTER than the Mac-II did it with Small C. What a crock! I can't imagine how they thought that using Small C would make the benchmarks fair. I don't want to know how fast a Mac II or PS/2 can execute bad code. Let them use the best compiler they can find. Oh, well - back to my thesis... _________________________________________________________________________ | Christopher Mills | "There are lies, damn lies, and | | mills@baloo.eng.ohio-state.edu | benchmarks." | ====== My thoughts are not my own--I'm posessed by mailer daemons. ====== -=- _________________________________________________________________________ | Christopher Mills | "If you see someone without a smile, | | mills@baloo.eng.ohio-state.edu | give them mine - I'm not using it." |
scutero@xanth.cs.odu.edu (<scutero>) (08/03/88)
Add one more to the list of disgruntled ex-subscribers. I used to
get a lot of usable information from _Byte_, but the past couple of
years have found me using it more of a source of mail order prices
than technical help and/or amusement.
Yes, I have two PC clones in the house and use them at work, but
for pity's sake guys-at-Byte -- I also have a Franklin Apple ][
clone, an Atari, and two flavors of Commodore around, too!
And I use two versions of UN*X at work on systems that in the old
days would have qualified as a _Byte_ 'small system.'
My horizons are broader than the scope of the magazine these days,
and I've voted with my checkbook. I'm saving the $55 renewal and
putting it to better use.
I was disappointed when _Creative Computing_ went under because I felt
that it did a good job of covering the micro market and software reviews
of _all_ machines out there on a mid-tech level. It was a good balance
to the hard-tech _Byte_. But at least _Creative Computing_ stuck to
their founding principles and died an honorable death. I feel as
though _Byte_ has simply sold out to the barbarians and the Madison
Avenue creed.
Sigh. At least we have the net.discussions.
Lenore
==============================================================
"Anything worth doing is | Nyssa of Traken
worth overdoing." | a.k.a.
-- Lazarus Long | scutero@xanth.uucp
==============================================================ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward) (08/03/88)
In article <429@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>, mills@baloo.eng.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Mills) writes: > In article <717@mcrware.UUCP> jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) writes: > > > > ... I am driven to the conclusion that their 68K Small C compiler has to > >be truly horrible. What is the reason for this? I don't know, but the al- > >ternatives that come to mind don't speak well for BYTE. > > > > James Jones > > > > Well, Small C is not horrible, as long as you run it on an 8085. > > I would imagine that all they did is change the code generation > sections. This is a real drag for the 680x0, because the Small C compiler > assumes two general-purpose registers (HL and DE on the 8085). > The 680x0 has 16 registers, 8 address and 8 data, so I imagine there is a > lot of unneccessarry stack movement and register motion going on. The > 680x0 is at its best only when you keep lots of operands in registers. > Not to mention all the neet 680x0 addressing modes that aren't being used. > They also used int == 32 bits, which roughly doubles the time on the 68000 I believe Rick Grehan (of Byte benchies fame) stated that no optimizations were done for any of the code generation. His various Smallc adaptations were also done from an 8085 version (2.1 or earlier) rather than the new 8086 version. The lack of peephole optimizing to eliminate register data motion on the 68K no doubt contributes to the poor MAC benchmark showing. The conversion from int=16 bits to in=32 bits should not cause any slowdowns but is a possible source of inefficiency if "hacked" into place. Note that the MAC itself is likely to be a major source of slowness. As I recall, the MAC (other than the MAC II) uses a 7.mumble MHZ (almost 8 MHZ) 68000. The 68k cpu is used for about everything: it is time-sliced into four major function blocks. One is DRAM refresh, two is mass storage (floppy) I/O controller, three is bitmap display controller, and four is general purpose compute engine. This slicing is done in hardware. Each 1/4 of the cpu (implemented as four consecutive timing slots) is dedicated to that function; the timing slot is dedicated to that function whether there is something to do or not. This means that the MAC operating system AND user program only run in 1/4 of the available cpu clock space, using only 1/4 of a approx. 8 MHZ 68000. For this reason don't expect any computational benchmarks to be sizzling on the original MAC product line. I don't know if the MAC SE follows this scheme, but I suspect it does. The MAC II definitely does not. Disclaimer: I got this information from MAC users and we know how users can be! :-) 0
jpd@etive.ed.ac.uk (Paul Dourish) (08/03/88)
In article <6807@bcsaic.UUCP> randy@bcsaic.UUCP (Randy Groves) writes: >In article <6646@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >>[Stuff about how bad BYTE has become these days] The problem is by no means restricted to BYTE. I recently found a copy of a UK magazine called "Practical Computing" in a coffee room, and picked it up to have a look. This is a magazine I remember fondly from 6 or 7 years ago, when it was full of articles with a reasonably technical micro-type content. I should have been warned by the fact that it now has, printed in small letters on the cover underneath "Practical Computing", a banner reading "for Corporate Decision Makers". And sure enough, corporate decision makers are the people who would read this magazine now. Sigh. -- Paul. -- Paul Dourish, JANET: jpd@uk.ac.ed.itspna Concurrent Supercomputer Project, ARPA: jpd%ed.itspna@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk Edinburgh University Computing Service UUCP: ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!itspna!jpd "Ain't they got no barbers where you come from, boy?"
dae@shire.cs.psu.edu (Dave Eckhardt) (08/04/88)
In article <342@eurtrx.UUCP> evas@eurtrx.UUCP (Eelco van Asperen) writes: >I get the feeling that BYTE is no longer the main activity of the >editors; they like BIX so much they have no time left to make a good >magazine.... Which editors? I first noticed signs of decay around two years ago when they got a whole new editorial staff. Instantly they started using sll sorts of new fonts, "modern" layouts with bars of this color with that stipple pattern, and so on--more energy spent on appearances without noticeable improvement in content. The *worst* thing was that they tossed one of the *best* features of the old Byte. Time was, you could open the front cover of your Byte magazine and read straight through to the back, close it, and start waiting for next month's issue. The first thing the new editors did was start doing the "continued on page 11,232,445,343, column 79, sector 3" garbage. I seriously considered dropping my subscription right then and there. To be fair, Steve Ciarcia's column still interests me. Aside from that, it's only random scraps. The only reason I'm still a subscriber is that I keep getting it given to me as a gift... Is anybody from Byte listening? --Daemon
jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle) (08/04/88)
It's not clear, at this late date, what BYTE is for. The Mac and
PC markets are better addressed by other periodicals.
I don't think that BYTE can be faulted for ignoring the Amiga, though.
Everyone ignores the Amiga. (I own one. It's in a box.) It's one of those
machines with great promise and a number of fans that didn't really make it.
John Naglepss@unh.UUCP (Paul S. Sawyer) (08/05/88)
Macs and Mac info are beginning to show up in a lot of places where only Intel Based Monsters used to appear... Even Byte recently ran an editorial explaining how it had ALWAYS presented Mac info, and to some extent, that's why my subscription has hung in there, BUT... try to find an ad for Mac items... Even some of the Mac biggies (e.g., Borland, Microsoft) who buy Byte advertising seem not to acknowledge that they have Mac products when they write their Byte ads! So Mac STILL comes across as a poor relative - and other systems as outcasts. I still read Pournelle and Ciarcia, but I rarely have to steal away to a quiet spot to study a Byte article in depth as I once did. Remember when "pc" meant "personal computer" and not "IBM-PC or knockoff" ?? -- = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Paul S. Sawyer uunet!unh!unhtel!paul paul@unhtel.UUCP UNH Telecommunications Durham, NH 03824-3523 VOX: 603-862-3262 FAX: 603-862-2030
woods@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Greg Woods) (08/05/88)
In article <1903@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >If you people really want to make this point, you ought to be discussing >it in BIX, where the people who matter will be reading it, rather than >here. That's just the point. They igonre the rest of the world and hide in their little hole. It (BYTE) is no longer the "small systems journal", but the "intel-based PC journal" BIX is a tremendous rip-off. Compuserve provides a better service for the PC world, and Usenet is better (and non-commercial) for us (Unixites). The only problem is that the commercial ones won't admit the others exist. You can probably still pay to download Usenet sources from BIX! I can even remember discussions in the Unix forums that included articles from Usenet, that some generous fool(s) paid to upload. >-- >Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 -- Greg Woods. UUCP: utgpu!woods, utgpu!{ontmoh, ontmoh!ixpierre}!woods VOICE: (416) 242-7572 [h] LOCATION: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/05/88)
If you people really want to make this point, you ought to be discussing it in BIX, where the people who matter will be reading it, rather than here. The original "open letter" had valid points, but they will be lost because the author admitted he was a disgruntled Amiga owner looking for more Amiga coverage. The letter would have had a lot more impact if it did not mention the Amiga. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
woolsey@nsc.nsc.com (Jeff Woolsey) (08/05/88)
Add to the list of reasons for letting BYTE subscriptions expire: The annual Editorial Index disappeared several years ago. I vaguely recall that they were thinking about putting it on machine-readable media, but I can't remember when they said that. Perhaps there's a reference in the annual index. But there is no annual index. Catch-22 -- -- And Leon's getting LARGER! Jeff Woolsey woolsey@nsc.NSC.COM -or- woolsey@umn-cs.cs.umn.EDU
sdowdy@charon.unm.edu (Stephen Dowdy) (08/06/88)
In article <606@unh.UUCP> pss@unh.UUCP (Paul S. Sawyer) writes: >Remember when "pc" meant "personal computer" and not "IBM-PC or knockoff" ?? You mean IBM/Intel/MicroSoft Pile o' Crap, dontcha? And i just thought i was getting bored with the world when i opened up a BYTE and said "gee, nothing i want to read anymore". I now have a renewed faith in life now that i known that it's not just me. --stephen -- $!####################################################################### $! stephen dowdy (UNM CIRT) Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87131 (505) 277-8044 $! Usenet: {convex,ucbvax,gatech,csu-cs,anl-mcs}!unmvax!charon!sdowdy $! BITNET: sdowdy@unmb $! Internet: sdowdy@ariel.unm.edu $! Team SPAM in '88! SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM! $!#######################################################################
ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) (08/07/88)
[ Food. ] It would seem that my letter has stirred some degree of support, which has been, to say the least, very heartwarming. There are a few additional comments I'd like to make. Someone made the comment that perhaps BYTE is being superceded by things like USENET. This tends to make a lot of sense. Perhaps we've grown too sophisiticated for magazines like BYTE, and should be subscribing to CACM or something (assuming I know what CACM is). "Realtime" information systems such as USENET, Compu$erve, The $ource, et al are going to become the wave of the future. McGraw Hill has attempted to enter this arena with BIX (BUX?), but is trying to impose old-world rules on it. For all its faults, BIX seems to earn them a lot of money. And face it: Fooling around on-line is fun, so you can hardly fault the "editors" for hanging around on it so much. After all, they all have free accounts :-). Brad Templeton made the observation that, because I mentioned the Amiga, the letter's credibility went down the toilet. I thought I had attempted to keep the Amiga proselytizing to a minimum and keep it in the scope of the basic premises I was trying to impart, which is that BYTE has lost its diversity, and is doing its subscribers a disservice by doing so. I would consider BYTE's editors to be extremely shortsighted if they are unable to see beyond the Amiga remarks. >Remember when "pc" meant "personal computer" and not "IBM-PC or knockoff" ?? >Paul S. Sawyer uunet!unh!unhtel!paul paul@unhtel.UUCP Until the Pee-Cee came out, I always thought it stood for "printed circuit". So what should I subscribe to now? CACM? Computer Graphics and Applications? NewsWeak? :-) _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape INET: well!ewhac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU \_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: UUCP: pacbell > !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") Happy Birthday to me!
evas@euraiv1.UUCP (Eelco van Asperen) (08/07/88)
in article <1903@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) says:
] If you people really want to make this point, you ought to be discussing
] it in BIX, where the people who matter will be reading it, rather than
] here.
Send me some cash and I might give it a go.... Make that *lots* of cash...
Perhaps somebody could compile all the messages posted here and send
it to Bix as an open letter from the USENET community.
] The original "open letter" had valid points, but they will be lost
] because the author admitted he was a disgruntled Amiga owner looking
] for more Amiga coverage. The letter would have had a lot more impact
] if it did not mention the Amiga.
Not at all; one of his main complaints was the orientation towards
IBM PC-clones and MAC's rather than 'small systems'. The Amiga
just happens to be one of the small systems Byte ignores.
--
Eelco van Asperen.
uucp: evas@eurtrx / mcvax!eurtrx!evas #include <inews/filler.h>
earn/bitnet: asperen@hroeur5 #include <stdjunk.h>
"We'ld like to know a little bit about you for our files" - Mrs.Robinson, Simon & Garfunkelbrad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/08/88)
It's not that Byte's editors would be unable to see beyond Amiga remarks, it's that they won't want to. Nobody likes to be told they are screwing up their job, and if you get a complaint, you look for something that isn't your fault. Thus the letter could easily get filed as "Amiga user annoyed at lack of Amiga coverage," no matter what else it said. The Amiga decision will be one the editors view as beyond their control -- the machine didn't take off, so they don't have to write about it. Thus they will be glad to pass the blame in your letter onto it. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
ericb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Eric Black) (08/09/88)
In article <6756@well.UUCP> ewhac@well.UUCP (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) writes: >>Remember when "pc" meant "personal computer" and not "IBM-PC or knockoff" ?? >>Paul S. Sawyer uunet!unh!unhtel!paul paul@unhtel.UUCP > > Until the Pee-Cee came out, I always thought it stood for "printed >circuit". > Uh, no, it really meant "Programmable Controller". This term has been munged into "Programmable Logic Controller", which used to be the name of the particular product that Allen-Bradley sold, but has now become somewhat generic. -- Eric Black "Garbage in, Gospel out" Atherton Technology, 1333 Bordeaux Dr., Sunnyvale, CA, 94089 UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hpda,pyramid}!athertn!ericb Domainist: ericb@Atherton.COM
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (08/09/88)
in article <717@mcrware.UUCP>, jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones) says: > Keywords: BYTE, subscription, letter, fed up > Summary: bias toward Mac? kinda hard to believe... > > In article <5479@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>, cjl@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Charles Lord) writes: >> Byte is a mass-market rag >> pointed toward the majority, which is IBM/Mac. > They do run a certain amount of Mac-oriented articles, but I really think that > their main bias is toward IBM/Intel. Apparently Apple came up #2 on their readership survey (being the only thing other than a PC[lone] or a UNIX system actually mentioned). They must have a token "alternate system" to write about, or they're required by moral law to change their name to "iBmYTE". > James Jones -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (08/29/88)
In article <3047@teemc.UUCP> wayne@teemc.UUCP (/\/\ichael R. \/\/ayne) writes:
: [A lot of BYTE trashing]
My first comment is that a lot of what he says is just plain
noise: it isn't true of BYTE. Please, guys, if we are going to
bash at someone, lets do it for the right reasons!
: USENET? What's that? Must be some newfangled thing that some new
: company dreamed up.
They're not that stupid.
: The editors at BYTE can not be expected to keep up
: with every new product that comes along, you know. It takes a lot of
: time to chase down all those C compilers for MS-DOS and write those
: clone articles.
Bull. As you ought to know, they *do* make quite an effort to
keep up with the industry. Call them up some time and ask them
about Usenet. If you get the right person, I'd imagine that he
could tell you things *you* don't even know. Keep in mind that
they can't publish even a *tiny* minority of the things that can
be published. As for why Usenet isn't mentioned: ask yourself
what percentage of the personal computer *hackers* are on
Usenet. (My guess is less than a percent.) Never mind the
computer *users*.
: Oh, it's a network you say? Well, they never got the
: free AT-compatible card, software, manual and cables to hook it up on the
: 47 PCs in the office (or maybe it got lost in the mail?). Oh, a conferencing
: type network. Well, they know all about that. After all BYTE was responsible
: for the finest, best, most user-driven, most revenue-generatig (oops, strike
: that) conferencing network around: BIX! EVERYone knows that there is
: nothing better than Bix! Why USENET probably doesn't even RUN on a PC/AT.
: Who could possibly be interested in it? After all, if Jerry didn't write
: about it in his column, it can't be worth much. 1/2 :-)
You can't be serious. Obviously you aren't. You know and I know
that they aren't that dumb, or that ignorant. So why do you
expect us to take this criticism seriously? And if you didn't,
why did you post?
: Well, considering that their market segment is PC-based (And this
: month, we spend 150 pages teaching you how to identify which type of clone
: you are looking at from 50 paces), why should they care if they have abandoned
: the type of people who are responsible for the magazine being in existance?
Look, they are in business to inform their readers, who are no
longer just those who brought the magazine into existence. *Of
course* they are going to shift their focus, since their reader
have changed. It is legitimate to complain that the magazine no
longer fills *your* needs. And to change magazines if they don't
listen. It is not legitimate to comdemn them for it.
: After all, they already got OUR money, they need to pump more hype to get
: the new suckers, er, subscribers to pay them. Gotta be careful, don't
: want to scare off those new users with any big words. Gotta run another
: clone article this month, that'll sell more on the newsstands.
Oh, don't be silly. If they weren't serving their existing
readers, they'd be getting so many cancellations that their
parent company would tell them to change.
: > 3) They have no good arguments against what we say.
: How can you argue against the truth? We don't like what the rag
: has become. When a 350 page magazine takes < 20 minutes to read, the
: information content must be pretty low.
For you. And for me as well, but I'm not going to condemn them
for it. I'll just read a lot of other magazines as well.
---
On the more positive side, you might recall that I posted a gripe
about a review they did of a product of ours. Well recently,
they did a review of another one, Choice Words, a combination
dictionary (you know, the thing with definitions) and thesaurus.
(And yes, part of the product contains some of my work: the
initial database structure for the thesaurus, and project leading
for some of the thesaurus maintenance.) Well, I found *nothing*
to complain about. Not even a minor quibble. And they
complained about one aspect of the product. Correctly.
Good for them.
---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!billwayne@teemc.UUCP (//ichael R. //ayne) (08/30/88)
>>>>> The very last paragraph is the most important! <<<<<< In article <661@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >In article <3047@teemc.UUCP> wayne@teemc.UUCP (I) write: >: [A lot of BYTE trashing] But nowhere NEAR enough! Nothing I could say would be enough derision for what they have done to us. But on to other things! >My first comment is that a lot of what he says is just plain >noise: it isn't true of BYTE. Please, guys, if we are going to >bash at someone, lets do it for the right reasons! Many other people sent private mail that felt otherwise. I did and still do. Byte has abandoned it's readers. I stand by my comments. >: USENET? What's that? Must be some newfangled thing that some new >: company dreamed up. > >They're not that stupid. The article was obvious satire to make a point. Sure I slightly overstated my point but, reading the magazine, this is the impression I get. I truly believe that most "serious" computer users have to have a Usenet account. It just is not possible to keep current in our industry without one. There are so many free systems available that there is not a good excuse to not do so (Unless, of course, you work at Byte where you might damage the Bix revenues if any of your subscribers found out that there was anything else out there). >: The editors at BYTE can not be expected to keep up >: with every new product that comes along, you know. It takes a lot of >: time to chase down all those C compilers for MS-DOS and write those >: clone articles. > >Bull. As you ought to know, they *do* make quite an effort to >keep up with the industry. What good does it do if they don't TELL THEIR READERS? I don't care what they KNOW, I care what they PUBLISH! They make quite an effort to keep up with the MS-DOS industry, I'll grant you that. > As for why Usenet isn't mentioned: ask yourself >what percentage of the personal computer *hackers* are on >Usenet. (My guess is less than a percent.) Never mind the >computer *users*. Most of the real *hackers* I know have AT LEAST one account on a Usenet machine. Many have 4-5 in case some "go away". Many purchase hardware to make REAL sure that their access doesn't "go away". Of course most of them don't touch PCs. They use PC-Pursuit to call around the country at night to explore Unix machines. Some start private access machines. (Some spend hours trying to break into my machine :-) >: Oh, it's a network you say? Well, they never got the >: free AT-compatible card, software, manual and cables to hook it up on the >: 47 PCs in the office (or maybe it got lost in the mail?). Oh, a conferencing >: type network. Well, they know all about that. After all BYTE was responsible >: for the finest, best, most user-driven, most revenue-generating (oops, strike >: that) conferencing network around: BIX! EVERYone knows that there is >: nothing better than Bix! Why USENET probably doesn't even RUN on a PC/AT. >: Who could possibly be interested in it? After all, if Jerry didn't write >: about it in his column, it can't be worth much. 1/2 :-) > >You can't be serious. Obviously you aren't. You know and I know >that they aren't that dumb, or that ignorant. So why do you >expect us to take this criticism seriously? This is the impression I get of the magazine. As I said earlier, my article was satire, with a point. BiX gets space EVERY issue, how often do other networks get mentioned? Commodore has sold 700,000 Amigas, how much space do they get? What about FSF, the single most revolutionary thing going on in the software industry? Nah, let's write about something REALLY important, a Tandy clone, yeah, that's it. Now THERE's a thought! Let's see if we can get JP replaced with Richard Stallman! I'd buy (and ignore) the rest of the magazine just for that. >: After all, they already got OUR money, they need to pump more hype to get >: the new suckers, er, subscribers to pay them. Gotta be careful, don't >: want to scare off those new users with any big words. Gotta run another >: clone article this month, that'll sell more on the newsstands. > >Oh, don't be silly. If they weren't serving their existing >readers, they'd be getting so many cancellations that their >parent company would tell them to change. This is an interesting point. I've been doing a bit of research on this. It appears that the McGraw-Hill people are getting a LOT of people who ARE cancelling the magazine because of the tact it has taken. The Byte staff wants to go even FURTHER into a PC magazine. There is a war going on. SEND THOSE LETTERS!! Call them on the phone. Make noise! McGraw-Hill is on OUR side! Let's get Byte back into a useful magazine Let's make them put "The Small Systems Journal" back on the cover and then live up to it! /\/\ \/\/ Permission granted to upload this article to any computer network or conferencing system. Oh, sorry, and to BiX. -- Michael R. Wayne --- TMC & Associates --- wayne@teemc.uucp INTERNET: wayne%teemc.uucp@umix.cc.umich.edu uunet!umix!teemc!wayne
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (08/31/88)
in article <661@proxftl.UUCP>, bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) says: > Look, they are in business to inform their readers, who are no > longer just those who brought the magazine into existence. *Of > course* they are going to shift their focus, since their reader > have changed. It is legitimate to complain that the magazine no > longer fills *your* needs. And to change magazines if they don't > listen. It is not legitimate to comdemn them for it. Sound to me they're changing their focus for one reason only -- buckeroonies from their advertisers. If they're attracting readers from outside their traditional readership, those folks must be there for some reason. My guess is that they went there for something different, maybe they're outgrowing the single-line computer magazines, or just want something with a broader view. I certainly read BYTE for that latter reason. BYTE can't possibly cover Macs better than a Mac-specific, or PCs better than a PC-specific, so why should it even try. > Oh, don't be silly. If they weren't serving their existing > readers, they'd be getting so many cancellations that their > parent company would tell them to change. I don't think that's necessarily true. They can cut the level of that service severly before most readers will cancel their subscriptions. They loose the disenchanted folks during re-subscription time. Even though I take about 1/2 hour to read the thing from cover to cover, rather than the several nights it used to take, I probably won't cancel (maybe if I could "join byte.cancellations" on BIX I would, but otherwise, it's just too much trouble). I'm certainly not going to resubscribe. > Bill > novavax!proxftl!bill -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy "I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (09/07/88)
First thing I want to say: I agree with the people who say that
Byte is going down hill, insofar as that judgement means that
Byte is no longer serving the interests of technically oriented
computer people. I have less and less interest in Byte, except
for how it helps me keep up with the marketplace. My major
complaint about the Byte-bashing is that it mostly is complaints
about why Byte doesn't serve the purposes of some particular
individual.
In article <4060@teemc.UUCP> wayne@teemc.UUCP (/\/\ichael R. \/\/ayne) writes:
: I truly believe that most "serious" computer users have to have
: a Usenet account. It just is not possible to keep current in our industry
: without one.
I disagree. We managed nicely until early this year. I do agree
that Usenet makes the job easier, though.
: What good does it do if they don't TELL THEIR READERS? I don't
: care what they KNOW, I care what they PUBLISH! They make quite an effort
: to keep up with the MS-DOS industry, I'll grant you that.
I do wish it were that simple. The main problem that Byte and
other computer mags have is that this is getting to be a big
field. It is not *possible* for them to publish everything that
might interest their readers. They have to have an editorial
focus, something that lets them pick and choose. And the proper
thing to complain about is the standard by which they choose. It
is sad, but perhaps inevitable, that their editorial focus has
been on the most visible parts of the field.
: > As for why Usenet isn't mentioned: ask yourself
: >what percentage of the personal computer *hackers* are on
: >Usenet. (My guess is less than a percent.) Never mind the
: >computer *users*.
:
: Most of the real *hackers* I know have AT LEAST one account on a
: Usenet machine. Many have 4-5 in case some "go away". Many purchase
: hardware to make REAL sure that their access doesn't "go away". Of course
: most of them don't touch PCs. They use PC-Pursuit to call around the
: country at night to explore Unix machines. Some start private access
: machines. (Some spend hours trying to break into my machine :-)
You have a biased sample. Most of the hackers I know don't have
access to the networks (well, this was true till I started
getting connected); the best they could do was to access a local
BBS. From what I hear, that is changing. I do agree that access
to the networks makes hacking much easier. One of the reasons I
am buying a machine for myself is so that I can get into the
networks without having to worry about using company resources.
: This is the impression I get of the magazine. As I said earlier,
: my article was satire, with a point. BiX gets space EVERY issue, how often
: do other networks get mentioned? Commodore has sold 700,000 Amigas, how much
: space do they get?
In the last six issues, four of them list Commodore in the
editorial index. JP mentions the Amiga occasionally; I vaguely
recall that another of their columnists mentions the Amiga fairly
regularly. And in April they had a review of the Amiga 2000.
Not too bad for a machine with less than three percent of the
market.
: What about FSF, the single most revolutionary thing
: going on in the software industry? Nah, let's write about something REALLY
: important, a Tandy clone, yeah, that's it.
:
: Now THERE's a thought! Let's see if we can get JP replaced with
: Richard Stallman! I'd buy (and ignore) the rest of the magazine just for
: that.
Uk. However much we might disagree on Byte (and I think we
actually agree and are arguing over words), let's not push FSF
and friends. Their philosophy would make the computer business
nonexistent. Please do not respond to this on the net; if you
want to talk about the FSF, send me e-mail.
: This is an interesting point. I've been doing a bit of research
: on this. It appears that the McGraw-Hill people are getting a LOT of
: people who ARE cancelling the magazine because of the tact it has taken.
And that is an interesting point. I really hope that you are
right; I'd too would like to see Byte return to its original
intentions, and this might let them know that there are plenty of
readers who agree.
---
Bill
novavax!proxftl!billmorrison@ficc.uu.net (brad morrison XNX SE#) (09/20/88)
In article <661@proxftl.UUCP>, bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: > In article <3047@teemc.UUCP> wayne@teemc.UUCP (/\/\ichael R. \/\/ayne) writes: > : [A lot of BYTE trashing] > > Oh, don't be silly. If they weren't serving their existing > readers, they'd be getting so many cancellations that their > parent company would tell them to change. As I recall, this whole affair began with someone posting an "I've been trying to cancel my BYTE subscription for about six weeks now, to no avail! Has anybody else run into this problem?" article, which had several followups which seemed to confirm the ineptitude of the new management. That was, what? Three months ago? Maybe the cancellation department is getting better with practice. :-) -- Brad Morrison Ferranti International Controls Corporation phone: (713) 274-5449 12808 W. Airport Boulevard UUCP: uunet!ficc!morrison (morrison@ficc.uu.net) Sugar Land, TX 77478 ------------ grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines -------------
tbetz@dasys1.UUCP (Tom Betz) (09/22/88)
Quoth morrison@ficc.uu.net (brad morrison XNX SE#) in <1550@ficc.uu.net>: |In article <661@proxftl.UUCP>, bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: |> Oh, don't be silly. If they weren't serving their existing |> readers, they'd be getting so many cancellations that their |> parent company would tell them to change. | |As I recall, this whole affair began with someone posting an | | "I've been trying to cancel my BYTE subscription | for about six weeks now, to no avail! Has anybody | else run into this problem?" | |article, which had several followups which seemed to confirm the |ineptitude of the new management. | |That was, what? Three months ago? Maybe the cancellation department |is getting better with practice. :-) Actually, about six months ago, McGraw-Hill canceled a contract they had with a subscription fulfillment service. Since the contract was cancelled, said service had no interest in providing service, and as a result, Byte subscribers were suffereing an endless deluge of mailings to re-up, and were unable to cancel subscriptions. McGraw-Hill has, as of this week, taken over the task themselves (with an 800 number... I am sorry, I tossed the note it was on) and are providing prompt cancellation and other subscriber service. I called them to insure that my sub was actually still active for the last year I will probably subscribe, since I had paid for it in July, but was still receiving expiration notices as recently as last week. |-- |Brad Morrison Ferranti International Controls Corporation |phone: (713) 274-5449 12808 W. Airport Boulevard |UUCP: uunet!ficc!morrison (morrison@ficc.uu.net) Sugar Land, TX 77478 |------------ grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines ------------- -- "If I found the truth I would tell you |Tom Betz and you would have me shot." |ZCNY, Yonkers, NY 10701-2509 -- Carlos Fuentes -- |UUCP: tbetz@dasys1.UUCP or "What is truth?" -- Johnny Cash | ...!cmcl2!phri!dasys1!tbetz