Byte: The Small Systems Journal (November 1980)

darth-azrael(73)

Published in

#retrocomputing

Words

783

Reading

4 min

Listen to this post

~5 min

_{Cover of the November 1980 issue of Byte}

You had to be pretty hardcore to be computing in 1980. However, Byte was there to help you along. It covered all kinds of systems and much of the content was highly technical. The November 1980 issue includes:

Foreground

Home In On The Range! An Ultrasonic Ranging System - Building a range finder based on the hardware used in the Polaroid SX-70 Sonar OneStep Land Camera.

Micrograph, Part 1: Developing An Instruction Set For A Raster-Scan Display - The first of a three part series on the theory, design, and construction of a low-cost, color-graphics display processor based on the Motorola MC6847 video-display generator.

Graphic Color Slides, Part 1 - Today if you want to create a presentation you can just load up a copy of PowerPoint or equivalent. In 1980, it was a little harder. You would have to write programs to create the graphs, charts and other items you want to display, take a photo of the screen, and literally use film slides and a projector.
Three-Dimensional Graphics For The Apple II - Creating 3D graphics on the Apple II visible using red/green glasses.
A General Interpolating Graphics Package For The TRS-80 - Software for the TRS-80 that helps you plot graphs.

An 8088 Processor For The S-100 Bus, Part 3 - Implementing a system monitor for the single-board 8088 processor add-on for the S-100 bus discussed in the first two parts of this series.

_{Table of Contents from the November 1980 issue of Byte}

Background

The Future Of Computer Graphics - Some speculation on the future of computer graphics, particularly 3D graphics.

Language Control Structures For Easy Electronic Visualization - A programming language and operating system written in assembly language for the Z80 designed for creating graphics.

A Simplified Theory of Video Graphics, Part 1 - A discussion of how raster scan displays and graphics work.

Getting To Know Your Monitor - A detailed look at how CRT monitors work.

Digital Storage of Images - Methods for capturing and storing images from a video signal.

Machine Problem Solving, Part 3: The Alpha-Beta Procedure - The third part of this series looks at modeling two decision makers with conflicting goals.

Add Macro Expansion To Your Microcomputer, Part 2 - The second part of a series on creating a macro processor and tying it into your assembler.

Nucleus

Editorial - An overview of the importance of computer graphics.

Letters - Letters from readers on FORTH, STOIC, speeding up programs on a Tektronix 4051, the Video Brain home computer, LISP, computer literacy and public libraries, and more.

Technical Forum - A small program for generating 'kinetic string art' on the Apple II.

Book Reviews - Reviews of Applied Mathematical Physics With Programmable Pocket Calculators by Robert M. Eisberg, The Little LISPer by Daniel P Friedman, and more.

Programming Quickies - BASIC subroutines for handling complex numbers and functions including sine, cosine, log, and others.

Byte's Bits - Newspapers experiment with electronic delivery, tuition free electrical engineering program for women, and more.

Product Reviews - Reviews of the Altos ACS8000 Single-Board Computer (Z80 based), VisiCalc, and the MicroAngelo Video Display.

SIGGRAPH Convention Report - A report from The Associate for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics.

BYTELines - DEC opens a computer museum; Fujitsu sales overtake IBM in Japan; IEEE expects networking standard by end of year; AMES Research Center plans super computer capable of performing a billion floating point operations per second (your average phone can do like 2000 times this now); Microsoft signs agreement to develop a version of Unix; and more.

Ask Byte - Questions answered about X-10 automation, op amps, LEDs, and more.

What's New? - A brief look at new products including floppy drives for the HP-85, the AM-26 26-inch color monitor from Amtron, the Addmaster 612 paper tape reader, OIS Model 115-1 and 115-2 systems from Wang, the Casio FX9000P computer, the TX-10 and TX-15 6809 based computers from Canon, the DS-65 Digisector video digitizer for the Apple II, and much more.