_{Cover of the August 1988 issue of Byte}

Byte was among the earliest computer magazines. It was published from 1975 until 1998, covered just about every computer, and tended to lean toward the technical side. The August 1988 issue includes:

Products In Perspective

What's New - The FlexNode 286 and FlexNode 386 "world's smallest" PCs; Mitsubishi mp286L laptop; Unix based QB2 386 from Cubix; Gigatape's Giga 1200 DAT subsystem store 1.2 to 84. GB on a single tape; ColorCapture board by Data Translation for the Mac II; ATI Technologies 2400etc modem for $239; PaperClip Publisher from Electronic Arts for the Commodore 64; and much more.

Short Takes - A brief look at new products including the Dell System 220 80286 based PC, T-DebugPLUS 4.0, Z86 Portable (conceptually similar to the TRS-80 Model 100), Grammatik III (grammar checker), Watcom C 6.0, and Paradox OS/2

Expert Advice

Computing at Chaos Manor: A Fond Farewell - Jerry Pournelle discusses writing using his CompuPro S-100 system with 8-inch disk drives. Other products discussed include the APX-3200, Cheetah 386 Motherboard, Print Shop, Grammatik II and III, SideKick Plus, and more.

Applications Plus: New Directions - GrandView from Symantec, Professional Write 2.0, and Procomm Plus (in later versions, this was my favorite terminal program).

Down to Business: Staking Out the Territory - Optimizing database access on a LAN. Products covered here include XDB Server and related products.

Macinations: What's Up with Apple? - Problems with MacPascal plus a look at Apple Macintosh System Tools 6.0, A/UX 1.0, FoxBase 1.0, and FullWrite Professional.

_{Table of Contents from the August 1988 issue of Byte}

First Impressions

25-MHz Computing Buzzsaws - A look at the Compaq Deskpro 386/25, Everex Step 386/25, Intel SYP302, and Netpro 386/25. These are among the first machines based on the 25 MHz 386 CPU.

Reviews

Product Focus: Communications According to Script - A survey of communications software including Carbon Copy Plus, Crosstalk Mk.4, Crosstalk XVI, HyperACCESS, Instant Terminal, MaxOnline, Mirror II, Move-It, PC BLAST II, Procomm Plus, Relay Silver, Smartcom III, and Softerm PC.

Variations on the 20-MHz Theme - A comparison of three 20-MHz systems including the Tatung TCS-8000, Proteus 386A, and Everex Step 286/20. RAM amounts range from 1 MB to 4 MB and all systems include a 1.2MB 5.25" floppy with other storage (including hard drives) being optional). Prices range from $3190 to $8522 depending on the system and options chosen.

Four Surrogate Mice - A look at trackballs and other mouse alternatives. Included here are the PC-Trac, FastTRAP, Trackball Plus, and Felix.

_{Table of Contents from the August 1988 issue of Byte (continued)}

Features

Making the Moves to OS/2 - Programmers from Borland, Norton and Lotus discuss the process of porting their software to OS/2.

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar: Why Microcontrollers?, Part 1 - A tutorial on the Intel 8031/8051 microcontroller family.

Departments

Editorial: Touching All the Bases - An overview of what's in this issue including a look at a new 80386 chip, four new columns, and a section on the C programming language.

Microbytes - New adder circuit to speed up processors; ParcPlace develops new features for SmallTalk; Synchronous SCSI may be new standard for peripherals; AMD develops Am95C85 chip for performing database tasks; YARC 50 MHz coprocessor board for the Mac II based on AMD's Am29000 processor; and more.