Computer magazines are about

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

s and related subjects, such as networking and the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Most computer

magazines A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

offer (or offered) advice, some offer programming

tutorials A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete ...

, reviews of the latest technologies, and advertisements.

History

1940s–1950s

*''

Mathematics of Computation ''Mathematics of Computation'' is a bimonthly mathematics journal focused on computational mathematics. It was established in 1943 as ''Mathematical Tables and other Aids to Computation'', obtaining its current name in 1960. Articles older than fi ...

'' established in 1943, articles about computers began to appear from 1946 (Volume 2, Number 15) to the end of 1954.

Scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. Content Articles in scientific journals are mostly written by active scientists such as s ...

. *''Digital Computer Newsletter'', (1949–1968), founded by Albert Eugene Smith. *''Computers and Automation'', (1951–1978), was arguably the first computer magazine. It began as ''Roster of Organizations in the Computing Machinery Field'' (1951–1952), and then ''The Computing Machinery Field'' (1952–1953). It was published by

Edmund Berkeley Edmund Callis Berkeley (February 22, 1909 – March 7, 1988) was an American computer scientist who co-founded the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1947. His 1949 book ''Giant Brains, or Machines That Think'' popularized cognitiv ...

. ''Computers and Automation'' held the first Computer Art Contest circa 1963 and maintained a bibliography on computer art starting in 1966. It also included a monthly estimated census of all installed computer systems starting in 1962. *''

IEEE Transactions on Computers ''IEEE Transactions on Computers'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of computer design. It was established in 1952 and is published by the IEEE Computer Society. The editor-in-chief is Ahmed Louri, David and Mari ...

'' from 1952, scientific journal. *''Computing News'' (1953-1962?), was an early computer magazine produced by Jackson W. Granholm out of Thousand Oaks, California. The first documented copyright was applied for on September 1st, 1954, for issue #36. The magazine was released on the 1st and 15th of each month, which places issue #1 at March 15, 1953. The last documented release was issue #217 on March 15, 1962. *''

Journal of the ACM The ''Journal of the ACM'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering computer science in general, especially theoretical aspects. It is an official journal of the Association for Computing Machinery. Its current editor-in-chief is Venkatesan ...

'' from 1954, scientific journal. *''

Datamation ''Datamation'' is a computer magazine that was published in print form in the United States between 1957 and 1998,

'' from 1957, was another early computer and

data processing Data processing is the collection and manipulation of digital data to produce meaningful information. Data processing is a form of ''information processing'', which is the modification (processing) of information in any manner detectable by an ...

magazine. It is still being published as an ePublication on the Internet. Futurist

Donald Prell Donald B. Prell (July 7, 1924 – July 28, 2020) was an American World War II veteran, venture capitalist and futurist who created ''Datamation'', the first magazine devoted solely to the computer hardware and software industry. Early life Prell ...

was its founder. *''

Information and Computation ''Information and Computation'' is a closed-access computer science journal published by Elsevier (formerly Academic Press). The journal was founded in 1957 under its former name ''Information and Control'' and given its current title in 1987. , t ...

'' from 1957, scientific journal. *'' IBM Journal of Research and Development'' from 1957, scientific journal. *''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers with ...

'' from 1958, mix of

science magazine ''Science'', also widely referred to as ''Science Magazine'', is the peer-reviewed academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and one of the world's top academic journals. It was first published in 1880, ...

trade magazine A trade magazine, also called a trade journal or trade paper (colloquially or disparagingly a trade rag), is a magazine or newspaper whose target audience is people who work in a particular trade or industry. The collective term for this ...

, and a scientific journal *''

The Computer Journal ''The Computer Journal'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering computer science and information systems. Established in 1958, it is one of the oldest computer science research journals. It is published by Oxford University Press on beha ...

'' from 1958, scientific journal.

1960s–1970s

*''ACS Newsletter'' (1966–1976), Amateur Computer Society newsletter. * ''

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...

'' (1967) * ''

People's Computer Company Newsletter People's Computer Company (PCC) was an organization, a newsletter (the ''People's Computer Company Newsletter'') and, later, a quasiperiodical called the ''Dragonsmoke''. PCC was founded and produced by Dennis Allison, Bob Albrecht and George Fire ...

'' (1972–1981) * ''

Amateur Computer Club The Amateur Computer Club (ACC), founded in 1973, was an early British club "open to all interested in the design, construction or programming of computers as a hobby". Most of its members lived in the United Kingdom. In 1976 an educational journa ...

Newsletter'' (ACCN; 1973–) * '' Dr. Dobb's Journal'' (1976–2014) was the first

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PC ...

magazine to focus on software, rather than hardware.

1980s

1980s computer magazines skewed their content towards the

hobbyist A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...

end of the then-

market, and used to contain

type-in program A type-in program or type-in listing was computer source code printed in a home computer magazine or book. It was meant to be entered via the keyboard by the reader and then saved to cassette tape or floppy disk. The result was a usable game, ...

s, but these have gone out of fashion. The first magazine devoted to this class of computers was ''

Creative Computing ''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format th ...

''. ''

Byte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

'' was an influential technical journal that published until the 1990s. In 1983 an average of one new computer magazine appeared each week. By late that year more than 200 existed. Their numbers and size grew rapidly with the industry they covered, and ''BYTE'' and ''

80 Micro ''80 Micro'' was a computer magazine, published between 1980 and 1988, that featured program listings, products and reviews for the TRS-80. History Wayne Green, the creator of many magazines such as '' 73'', founded ''80 Microcomputing'' as a ...

'' were among the three thickest magazines of any kind per issue. ''

Compute! ''Compute!'' (), often stylized as ''COMPUTE!'', was an American home computer magazine that was published from 1979 to 1994. Its origins can be traced to 1978 in Len Lindsay's ''PET Gazette'', one of the first magazines for the Commodore PET c ...

''s editor in chief reported in the December 1983 issue that "all of our previous records are being broken: largest number of pages, largest-number of four-color advertising pages, largest number of printing pages, and the largest number of editorial pages". Computers were the only industry with product-specific magazines, like ''80 Micro'', ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and have continued to the present d ...

'', and ''

Macworld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macint ...

''; their editors vowed to impartially cover their computers whether or not doing so hurt their readers' and advertisers' market, while claiming that their rivals pandered to advertisers by only publishing positive news. ''BYTE'' in March 1984 apologized for publishing articles by authors with promotional material for companies without describing them as such, and in April suggested that other magazines adopt its rules of conduct for writers, such as prohibiting employees from accepting gifts or discounts. ''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

'' stated in June that many of the "150 or so" industry magazines published articles without clearly identifying authors' affiliations and

conflicts of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...

. Many magazines ended that year, however, as their number exceeded the amount of available advertising revenue despite revenue in the first half of the year five times that of the same period in 1982. Consumers typically bought computer magazines more for advertising than articles, which benefited already leading journals like ''BYTE'' and ''PC Magazine'' and hurt weaker ones. Also affecting magazines was the computer industry's economic difficulties, including the

video game crash of 1983 The video game crash of 1983 (known as the Atari shock in Japan) was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985, primarily in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including ma ...

, which badly hurt the home-computer market.

Dan Gutman Dan Gutman (born October 19, 1955) is an American writer, primarily of children's fiction. His works include the '' Baseball Card Adventures'' children's book series that began with '' Honus & Me'', and the '' My Weird School'' series. Early li ...

, the founder of ''Computer Games'', recalled in 1987 that "the computer games industry crashed and burned like a bad night of ''

Flight Simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

''—with my magazine on the runway". ''

Antic Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977-1978 by ...

''s advertising sales declined by 50% in 90 days, ''Compute!'' number of pages declined from 392 in December 1983 to 160 ten months later, and ''Compute!'' and ''

Compute!'s Gazette ''Compute!'s Gazette'' (), stylized as ''COMPUTE!'s Gazette'', was a computer magazine of the 1980s, directed at users of Commodore's 8-bit home computers. Announced as ''The Commodore Gazette'', it was a Commodore-only daughter magazine of the ...

''s publisher assured readers in an editorial that his company "is and continues to be quite successful ... even during these particularly difficult times in the industry". ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

'' stated in 1988 that it was the only one of the 18 color magazines that covered computer games in 1983 to survive the crash. ''Compute!'' similarly stated that year that it was the only general-interest survivor of about 150 consumer-computing magazines published in 1983. Some computer magazines in the 1980s and 1990s were issued only on disk (or cassette tape, or CD-ROM) with no printed counterpart; such publications are collectively (though somewhat inaccurately) known as ''

disk magazine A disk magazine, colloquially known as a diskmag or diskzine, is a magazine that is distributed in electronic form to be read using computers. These had some popularity in the 1980s and 1990s as periodicals distributed on floppy disk, hence the ...

s'' and are listed separately.

1990s

In some ways the heyday of printed computer magazines was a period during the 1990s, in which a large number of computer manufacturers took out

advertisement Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

s in computer magazines, so they became quite thick and could afford to carry quite a number of articles in each issue, ('' Computer Shopper'' was a good example of this trend). Some printed computer magazines used to include

covermount Covermount (sometimes written cover mount) is the name given to storage media (containing software and or audiovisual media) or other products (ranging from toys to flip-flops) packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the ...

floppy disks, CDs, or other media as inserts; they typically contained

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

demo Demo, usually short for demonstration, may refer to: Music and film *Demo (music), a song typically recorded for reference rather than release * ''Demo'' (Behind Crimson Eyes), a 2004 recording by the band Behind Crimson Eyes * ''Demo'' (Deafhea ...

s, and electronic versions of the print issue.

2000s–2010s

However, with the rise in popularity of the

, many computer magazines went bankrupt or transitioned to an online-only existence. Exceptions include ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fra ...

'', which is more of a technology magazine than a computer magazine.

List of computer magazines

Notable regular contributors to print computer magazines

{, class="wikitable sortable" ! Name ! Occupation ! Magazines (years of regular contributions) , - ,

Ken Arnold Kenneth Cutts Richard Cabot Arnold (born 1958) is an American computer programmer well known as one of the developers of the 1980s dungeon-crawling video game '' Rogue'', for his contributions to the original Berkeley (BSD) distribution of Uni ...

, Programmer , ''

Unix Review ''UNIX Review'' was an American magazine covering technical aspects of the UNIX operating system and C programming. Recognized for its in-depth technical analysis, the journal also reported on industry confabs and included some lighter fare. Histo ...

'' (1980s–1990s) , - ,

Charlie Brooker Charlton Brooker (born 3 March 1971) is an English television presenter, writer, producer and satirist. He is the creator and co-showrunner of the sci-fi drama anthology series ''Black Mirror'', and has written for comedy series such as ''Bras ...

, TV comedian, TV reviewer, newspaper columnist , ''

PC Zone ''PC Zone'', founded in 1993, was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as ''PC Leisure'', ''PC Format'' and ''PC Plus'' had covered games but ...

'' (1990s) , - ,

Orson Scott Card Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...

, Science fiction author , ''

Ahoy! ''Ahoy!'' was a computer magazine published between January 1984 and January 1989 in the US, focusing on all Commodore color computers, but especially the Commodore 64 and Amiga. History The first issue of ''Ahoy!'' was published in January 198 ...

'', ''

'' , - , Chris Crawford , Game designer , ''

BYTE The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...

'', ''

'' , - ,

Pamela Jones Pamela Jones, commonly known as PJ, is the creator and was editor of Groklaw, a website that covered legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community. Jones is an Open Source advocate who previously trained and worked as a ...

, Paralegal, legal blogger , '' Linux User'', others , - , Stan Kelly-Bootle , Writer, consultant, programmer, songwriter , ''

UNIX Review ''UNIX Review'' was an American magazine covering technical aspects of the UNIX operating system and C programming. Recognized for its in-depth technical analysis, the journal also reported on industry confabs and included some lighter fare. Histo ...

'' (1984–2000), ''OS/2 Magazine'', ''Software Development'' , - ,

Nicholas Negroponte Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte ...

, Professor, investor , ''

Wired magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online magazine, online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquar ...

'' (1993–1998) , - ,

Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...

, Science fiction author , ''

'' (1980–2006) , - ,

Rhianna Pratchett Rhianna Pratchett (born 30 December 1976) is an English video game writer and journalist. She has worked on '' Heavenly Sword'' (2007), ''Overlord'' (2007), '' Mirror's Edge'' (2008) and ''Tomb Raider'' (2013) and its follow up, '' Rise of the ...

, Game scriptwriter, journalist , ''

'' , - ,

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is a Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman Klein Cente ...

, Security specialist, writer, cryptographer , ''

'' , - ,

Charles Stross Charles David George "Charlie" Stross (born 18 October 1964) is a British writer of science fiction and fantasy. Stross specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. Between 1994 and 2004, he was also an active writer for the magazine '' ...

, Science fiction and fantasy author , ''

Computer Shopper (UK magazine) ''Computer Shopper'' was a magazine published monthly between 1988 and 2020 in the UK by Dennis Publishing Ltd. It contained reviews of home computers, consumer technology and software as well as technology-focused news, analysis and feature ar ...

'' (1994–2004) , - , {{flagicon, US

Don Lancaster Donald E. Lancaster is an American author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer. Background Lancaster is a writer and engineer, who authored multiple articles for computer and electronics magazines of the 1970s, including ''Popular Electronics' ...

, Writer, consultant, programmer , ''Dr. Dobb's Journal'', ''Byte'', etc.

References

Magazine genres

History

1940s–1950s

1960s–1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s–2010s

List of computer magazines

Notable regular contributors to print computer magazines

See also

References