BYTE Bound Volumes 2001

In 1975, my BYTE magazine idea came to fruition with its September 1975 first issue. As a result of its publication, the California Silicon Valley folks who had organized the first Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop in April 1975 asked me to attend the April 1976 second instance of what was to become an annual gathering of microcomputer cognoscente. With one or two exceptions, I have traveled to California every April since then to attend the Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop. This annual three day workshop was and still is a major source of my current information about what is going on in the world of computer silicon and applications.

During the first few years of BYTE , my BYTE Publications Inc business partner thought it would make good business sense to present our regular advertisers with bound volume sets for each year as their businesses grew along with the magazine. We ended up creating bound volume sets for 1975/1976 (the first 16 issues) and the years 1977 and 1978 (two volumes per 12 issue year.) As editor and part owner of the magazine, I retained several complete sets of all 6 bound volumes and a number of random individual bound volumes from the series. When I heard about the Computer History Center [now called the Computer History Museum] at the 2000 Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop I had a perfect perpetual home for some of my extras.

As I noted in one of my 2001 “Provenance” documents that I provided with the volumes when I donated them in 2001, there is no way I would ever consign my babies to ignoble burial in a landfill. In fact I had rescued the 1977 & 1978 sets from exactly that fate sometime in the 1980's.[See Provenance writeup for 1977 & 1978 bound volumes .]

Knowing about the Computer History Museum from the previous year's workshop, I followed through with my year 200-promised donation of these ideal artifacts for the nascent museum's collections. While the bound volumes are not artifacts in the sense of the computers from the earliest years of the personal computer era, they are definitely physical representations of the ideas of the time as provided by many writers as editorial fodder for me to draw upon as editor of BYTE.

A longtime Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop friend of mine, workshop organizing committee member and Computer History Museum volunteer, Bernard Pueto became my contact person for the donation. So I packed all 6 volumes containing the first 38 issues of BYTE [weighing 32.1 pounds!] with me on the airline and rental car trip to the 2001 Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop. At a special ceremony at one AMW session Bernard accepted the stack of bound volumes on behalf of the The Computer Museum History History Center as it was named at the time.

Another Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop attendee used my first generation digital camera to capture this image of Bernard and myself with our respective right hands on the stack of bound volumes. The brown paper covered package I am holding in this image is the framed certificate acknowledging the donation which the Computer History Museum people had prepared for Bernard to give me at the ceremony.

Here is an image that I scanned from the certificate (temporarily removed from its frame) while writing this piece in late April 2007 after returning from the 2007 Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop:

I included a “Provenance” document with each BYTE bound volume that I donated to the Computer Museum History Center in 2001, describing how the bound volumes had become mine. The 1975/1976 pair of bound volumes I had retained personally when I was part owner and edited BYTE from 1975 to 1980. Here is a WWW version [retaining original line breaks] of the provenance document I wrote for the 1975 & 1976 bound volumes:

Provenance of this book

This volume is part of the set of bound volumes donated to the

Computer History Center

on the occasion of the 2001 Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop

April 25-27, 2001

These 1975/1976 bound volumes represent the first 16 issues of my

first magazine business’s product, BYTE, starting with volume 1,

number 1, the September 1975 issue. That first issue went to the

printer exactly 49 days after my publishing business partner (Ms.

Virginia Londner) and I made the decision to go ahead with our

BYTE magazine project on May 15, 1975. We sold our company,

BYTE Publications Inc. to McGraw-Hill, Inc. on April 20, 1979.

I had fun dreaming up, then writing monthly editorials, selecting and

technically editing nearly all the articles in BYTE, and interacting

with all of the major players of the then nascent personal computer

business of the time. This joyride lasted until shortly before I left

BYTE McGraw-Hill at the end of 1980.

I first went to the Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop (its second

instance) in April, 1976. Since then with one exception, I have

attended every instance of the AMW. The trip has become my “rite

of spring” trip to California, visiting my friends and relations...

I always knew I had saved too many BYTE bound volumes for one

person... But there is no way I would ever consign my babies to

ignoble burial in a landfill... When I heard about the Computer

History Center at the 2000 Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop I had

a perfect perpetual home for some of my extras...

Hence this note in these volumes.

April 2001

Carl Helmers

carl@helmers.com

[former NH address deleted]

As noted in this text of the provenance document I wrote circa 2001 for the 1977 and 1978 pairs of BYTE bound volumes that I donated to the Computer Museum History Center these four volumes were literally saved from the Peterborough NH landfill in the 1980's. A Peterborough neighbor of mine [name forgotten circa May, 2007] found them in the recycling shed and saved them for me. Here is a WWW version [retaining original line breaks] of the provenance document I wrote and included with the 1977 and 1978 bound volumes of BYTE:

Provenance of this book

This volume is part of the set of BYTE Magazine bound volumes donated by

me to the

Computer History Center

on the occasion of the 2001 Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop

April 25-27, 2001

I came into possession of these 1977 and 1978 volumes in the following

typically small town New Hampshire way:

A neighbor found them in the mid 1980's at the used books corner of a shed for

used (but possibly reusable) junk located at the town dump in Peterborough

N.H. The neighbor had nothing to do with BYTE or computers... But this

neighbor knew that I had had something to do with BYTE and picked them up

for me figuring that I might want to keep them. I did, not knowing in the

ineffable future of over a decade ago that they were destined for the Computer

History Center in the year 2001!

These volumes apparently had been abandoned by a Ms. Pamela R. Haeslip,

who signed them as her personal copies... (Ms. Haeslip was a clerical

employee of BYTE Publications Inc. as is shown by her listing as "Circulation

Assistant" on the monthly "masthead" starting in the December 1977 issue.)

As a member of the staff, she no doubt was given this set of the ’77 and ’78

bound volumes at the time they were produced shortly after the end of the

years in question... To my knowledge, no further BYTE bound volumes were

produced for years after the 1978 set. [I left BYTE at the end of December

1980; my equity in BYTE Publications Inc. was purchased by McGraw-Hill,

Inc. on April 20, 1979...]

I had fun dreaming up, then writing monthly editorials, selecting and

technically editing nearly all the articles in BYTE, and interacting with all my

fellow technical entrepreneurs of the then nascent personal computer business.

This joyride lasted until shortly before I left BYTE McGraw-Hill at the end of

1980.

I first went to the Asilomar Microprocessor Workshop (its second instance) in

April, 1976. Since then with one exception, I have been to every instance of

the AMW. The trip has become my “rite of spring” trip to California, visiting

my friends and relations...

I knew I had too many BYTE bound volumes for one person, so in April

2000, when I heard about the Computer History Center at the 2000 Asilomar

Microprocessor Workshop I promised to donate an extra a set from my

collection...

Hence this note in these volumes.

April 2001

Carl Helmers

carl@helmers.com

[former NH address deleted]