Cover of the April 1985 issue of Byte
You really got your money's worth when you bought an issue of Byte in the 1980s. For only $3.50 per issue (less if you were a subscriber), you got a whopping 500+ pages. And the cover story in April 1985? Artificial Intelligence. Contents of this issue includes:
Features
- Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar: Build The Home Run Control System - The first part of a series on building a home control system using X-10 modules, sensors and a single board computer.
- Coprocessing in Modula-2 - Writing concurrent programs in Modula-2.
Table of Contents from the April 1985 issue of Byte
Themes
- Communication With Alien Intelligence - How we might communicate with aliens from an artificial intelligence perspective.
- The Quest to Understand Thinking - Attempting to understand how the brain works starting with the simplest steps.
- The LISP Tutor - Developing a computer based tutor effective at teaching the LISP programming language.
- PROUST - A knowledge based systems for automatically debugging Pascal programs.
- Architectures for AI - Improving computational throughput for artificial intelligence.
- The LISP Revolution - LISP was the first language primarily used for AI applications. It is still used today though Python and C++ seem to be the main players now.
- The Challenge of Open Systems - In this context, "open systems" refer to systems of interconnected and interdependent computers.
Table of Contents from the April 1985 issue of Byte (continued)
Reviews
- The ITT XTRA - An IBM compatible computer with 256K of RAM, two double-density 5.25" floppy drives, and monochrome display for $2395.
- Insight - A Knowledge System - Review of this rule-based knowledge system for the IBM PC.
Kernel
- Computing At Chaos Manor: Over The Moat - A look at various products including CP/M Utilities, WRITE, dBASE III, Framework, S1 Operating System, Symphony, System Backup, The World Plus, and more.
- BYTE West Coast: Lasers, Office Publishing, and More - A look at products from Canon, Imagen, Interleaf, Kurzwil, Ricoh, Sun Microsystems, Tardis Software, and Xerox.
- BYTE U.K.: New Database Ideas - A look at Frame Theory for use in database management systems.
- BYTE Japan: The Fifth Generation in Japan - A look at the Hitachi S-810 family of vector super computers. The S-810 was the second super computer from Japan and the first from Hitachi. The fastest of them could reach about 630 MFLOPS.
- Editorial: Golfers and Hackers - A comparison of golfing and hacking.
- Microbytes - An IBM PC emulator for Macintosh users; a memory upgrade for the Mac; Microsoft releases C compiler; Zenith releases new portables with backlit LCD displays; Proteon offers 80 megabits per second networking ($8000 per node); and more.
Back cover of the April 1985 issue of Byte
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Books I am reading or have recently read:
Red Star Falling by Steve Berry.
A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry
The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 by Rick Atkinson
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