Dr. Dobb's Journal – Vol 1 (1976)(archive.org)
archive.org
Dr. Dobb's Journal – Vol 1 (1976)
https://archive.org/details/dr_dobbs_journal_vol_01/page/n316/mode/1up
44 comments
That really does capture it in a way I haven't thought about in while. Reading DDJ wasn't just about programming (much of it I honestly only, at best, barely understood) , it was also discovering the existence of this cool exotic culture 'out there' of smart people who sounded and acted nothing like anything I'd seen or heard before, and that I desperately wanted to be part of.
I was really young and only knew Pascal from School so all this was far beyond my league. I'd love to go back and see what sort of info I can glean now that I know a lot more. Maybe some of it makes sense now! I never bought any because it was far beyond where I was at, at the time. Of course the tech changes, but at least I was alive for some of it so it won't be as foreign as it would be to a young millenial/gen z person.
100% agreed. It's hard to describe to younger people how much a gulf geography provided in the earlier days of tech, although it arguably led to the UK having more of its own tech vibe and scene than it seems to nowadays.
All that said, the US magazines did not have the late, great Wilf Hey.. and we did :-)
All that said, the US magazines did not have the late, great Wilf Hey.. and we did :-)
Same effect for me inside the US, west coast versus east coast.
Dr. Dobb's had an incredible run of relevancy, from the 70's through the 90's.
Dr. Dobb's had an incredible run of relevancy, from the 70's through the 90's.
Including computer systems, Iberian Penisula was basically a Speccy + Amiga/Atari + PC holdout, C64, game consoles or Apple stuff hardly mattered during those days, other than coming up on computer magazines.
Indeed! I had mine reserved and it was really something to look forward to collecting. I seem to recall Scientific American had some similar allure via some small math/comp-sci article somewhere near the back pages? Pretty sure that's where I learned about cellular automaton, fun times!
I seem to recall Scientific American had some similar allure via some small math/comp-sci article somewhere near the back pages?
Possibly A. K. Dewdney's "Computer Recreations" and "Mathematical Recreations" column [1]? I think it was the first place I came across CAs and the concept of computer viruses.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._K._Dewdney#Computing,_mathe...
Possibly A. K. Dewdney's "Computer Recreations" and "Mathematical Recreations" column [1]? I think it was the first place I came across CAs and the concept of computer viruses.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._K._Dewdney#Computing,_mathe...
Like with early-ish Wired, there are also specific issues of DDJ that I remember, and specific articles.
For so many other magazines I only have a vague notion of the magazine as a whole, or long-running features, but it otherwise all blurs together in a vague mass of nostalgia.
For so many other magazines I only have a vague notion of the magazine as a whole, or long-running features, but it otherwise all blurs together in a vague mass of nostalgia.
I was an avid Computer Shopper consumer, alongside the Speccy and Amiga magazines, not only due to the depth of articles, the typical British humor on the reviews was also quite appealing.
We had Computer Shopper in the US.
If anything it was Computer Shopper that was the end of most of the other computer magazines.
If anything it was Computer Shopper that was the end of most of the other computer magazines.
I always loved the full original name
> "Dr. Dobb’s Journal of COMPUTER Calisthenics & Orthodontia"
subtitle Running Light Without Overbyte
> "Dr. Dobb’s Journal of COMPUTER Calisthenics & Orthodontia"
subtitle Running Light Without Overbyte
Yes! I was waiting for someone to mention this :-)
Weird that such a 'techy' mag was created by a dentist...
In those days, you had to have a decent job to afford a personal computer.
> Weird that such a 'techy' mag was created by a dentist...
... oh, was it? ISTR that the "overbyte" thing was because of/in reference to the picture of Kirk Douglas(?) showing off their choppers, and didn't make the connection (all those years ago)
... oh, was it? ISTR that the "overbyte" thing was because of/in reference to the picture of Kirk Douglas(?) showing off their choppers, and didn't make the connection (all those years ago)
When I was running a micro-ISV way back in the day I thought I had really made it when I could afford to advertise in Dr. Dobb's journal. The magazine was a really big deal many years ago, and I still miss those days.
It only recently struck me, watching Ben Eater's new videos, that BASIC can almost be thought of as high-level assembly. That's why it was so popular in the early days of personal computing (look at all the articles here), that's why you can have a BASIC interpreter that fits in a couple kilobytes of ROM.
It's a relatively light abstraction layer over what the computer can do, plus some I/O functions.
It's a relatively light abstraction layer over what the computer can do, plus some I/O functions.
I'm proud to have published a few pieces in DDJ back in the day, when Jon Erickson was at the helm. It was sad to see it fade away over the years. It definitely felt special to have your name appear in those pages, and writing for DDJ gave my young career a great boost.
Dr. Dobb's Journal
Byte Magazine
Wired before it got taken over by Wedding Bells Magazine, and overrun with consumer porn.
And to a much lesser extent, PC Magazine and PC World, which were read principally for the ads.
These are the organs that formed computer culture in the golden age of computers. But more than any of the others, DDJ.
Byte Magazine
Wired before it got taken over by Wedding Bells Magazine, and overrun with consumer porn.
And to a much lesser extent, PC Magazine and PC World, which were read principally for the ads.
These are the organs that formed computer culture in the golden age of computers. But more than any of the others, DDJ.
One little magazine that I discovered in its later years was Micro Cornucopia. Its articles were quirky dives into (what I thought at the time were) the coolest micro computer technical topics. I just saw that Walter Bright had a few articles published in there. I need to go dig out my old copies and give them a good perusal...
Byte was pretty good..but oddly seemed much less 'techy' then DDJ...
But Chaos Manor/Jerry Pournelle was always fun.
But Chaos Manor/Jerry Pournelle was always fun.
What an amazing magazine. I used to order copies from the library of congress every month via my local town library here in the UK. They would always show up eventually although a month or two out of date. I would have been about ten at the time in 1978. My dad got me into them. I have no idea where he heard about it. Maybe via amateur radio probably. As a kid I can't describe the sense of wonder in the air back then. Something was happening for sure. It's so nice when posts about these old publications occasionally show up on here.
Nothing quite replaced Dr Dobbs... Hacker News offers random links to the kind of technical articles that Dr Dobbs used to have, but of course - for better or worse - it's a lot less focused.
The internet has negativity and criticism. Probably doesn’t matter what you do, someone will crap on it. (Heck, I'm guilty here too)
DDJ was just affirmational, “here is some knowledge” “here is how I built <x>” there is an innocence to it. You might ignore it, that knowledge might alter your career. It was a neat magazine of people doing cool stuff in areas I’m interested without the baggage. Just possibilities.
Hard or impossible to replace with that scale today.
DDJ was just affirmational, “here is some knowledge” “here is how I built <x>” there is an innocence to it. You might ignore it, that knowledge might alter your career. It was a neat magazine of people doing cool stuff in areas I’m interested without the baggage. Just possibilities.
Hard or impossible to replace with that scale today.
There were quite a few magazines of the era: Dr. Dobbs, Byte, arguably some of the electronics mags, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science... that would have looked very unfocused through the lens of 15 years or so later.
Creative Computing was great too
I hope it’s not too controversial of an opinion, but the audience for written long form software engineering content is very small.
In the 70s through the mid 90s, before the WWW v1.0 bubble taught the world you could get rich quick in software, there was a greater appetite to, say, take your time working your way through an article on a new technique in C. Now the vast majority of people just want copy/paste Python code examples from Stack Overflow. At most they may suffer through a brief video tutorial.
Part of this is not some “kids these days” sort of reason, but the reality that most code is much more short lived than ever before.
In the 70s through the mid 90s, before the WWW v1.0 bubble taught the world you could get rich quick in software, there was a greater appetite to, say, take your time working your way through an article on a new technique in C. Now the vast majority of people just want copy/paste Python code examples from Stack Overflow. At most they may suffer through a brief video tutorial.
Part of this is not some “kids these days” sort of reason, but the reality that most code is much more short lived than ever before.
When I was starting out in the late 80s, DDJ was an absolute must read.
Back in the 90s the only book on programming my school library offered was Dr Dobb's Toolbook of 80286/80386 programming which was a compilation of articles from the journal. Even though most of it was way over my head it was the only thing I had at the time so I studied it religiously. Purely out of scarcity of knowledge this led to learning basic assembly because the only thing I had access to was this book's code snippets and Microsoft Assembler on the school computers.
DDJ was one of the more serious computer magazines in the early 80's. As a teen facinated by computers I devoured anyting digital I could get my hands on.
Those were the days.
I acutely miss Dr. Dobbs to this day. We are poorer for its passing.
Dr. Dobb’s Journal and the C/C++ Users Journal were my favorite magazines growing up! I miss them both so much. Yes I was a really nerdy kid.
Same here, bought all their issues since 1992, and there is an article from me on The C/C++ Users Journal regarding Gtkmm.
Sadly several moves ended up with me throwing them into the recycle bin, only keep the ones that were kind of top value to me and able to fit into a single box.
Have long learned that keeping stuff just for sentimental value isn't worth the extra space, and I own the DVD copies anyway.
Maybe I should have kept them to sell on ebay or something.
Sadly several moves ended up with me throwing them into the recycle bin, only keep the ones that were kind of top value to me and able to fit into a single box.
Have long learned that keeping stuff just for sentimental value isn't worth the extra space, and I own the DVD copies anyway.
Maybe I should have kept them to sell on ebay or something.
Same. I used to take the bus for 1h and go to a bigger city nearby, just so I could buy the magazine at the newsstand. They'd get just a handful of copies each month, so I would have to go several days in a row so I could get one before they ran out.
I learned so much reading Dr. Dobbs while growing up. I'd probably understand a third of the content at max, and many things I read didn't really "click" until much years later. But it was still very formative for me, and remember with fond memories several of the articles. I still have a box full of them somewhere.
It's a shame it didn't survive the internet era.
I learned so much reading Dr. Dobbs while growing up. I'd probably understand a third of the content at max, and many things I read didn't really "click" until much years later. But it was still very formative for me, and remember with fond memories several of the articles. I still have a box full of them somewhere.
It's a shame it didn't survive the internet era.
Dobbs and Microsoft Systems Journal were amazing tools for learning. When MSJ turned into MSDN it was not the same. Both usually had some article that I could apply to whatever I was working on and usually with a nice example.
I first found Dr Dobbs journal in my city's central library in the mid '90s when I was still in high school. I visited now and then to read the latest issue. I once loaned a whole previous year's editions just to find and re-read an old article about C++ programming techniques.
"Without overbyte" doesn't quite hit the same anymore.
There was a time when one would have been in mortal danger of having cabinets containing 3.75MB worth of storage tip over onto one; these days 1TB could fall on one's head without effect, but may instead be a choking hazard.
There was a time when one would have been in mortal danger of having cabinets containing 3.75MB worth of storage tip over onto one; these days 1TB could fall on one's head without effect, but may instead be a choking hazard.
> these days 1TB could fall on one's head without effect, but may instead be a choking hazard.
I like to point out that Johnny Mnemonic would have seemed a whole lot different today, when he could have transported "all" that data in his head without damaging his brain by stuffing a microsd card up his nose instead (or any number of other places).
I like to point out that Johnny Mnemonic would have seemed a whole lot different today, when he could have transported "all" that data in his head without damaging his brain by stuffing a microsd card up his nose instead (or any number of other places).
DDJ published Stallman's GNU manifesto, demanding people take up the mantle of free software and I daresay that movement is one of the most impactful things to ever happen to computer science/information technology, regardless of how much credit any one person wants to give RMS. Wish I still had my original copy strictly for the sake of nostalgia.
I loved reading that in the 80s and 90s, in high school and college, before I really knew that much about computers or programming. There was always stuff in there way over my head that I would read and re-read to try to grok. DDJ is a big reason I became a software engineer.
I recall purchasing Dr Dobbs magazine in 1978 from Computerland. I still have them..
The review on that page points to 14 more volumes indexed here, just in case you missed that:
http://6502.org/documents/publications/dr_dobbs_journal/
http://6502.org/documents/publications/dr_dobbs_journal/
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[1] Compared to the domestic UK magazines that were available at the time: Computer Shopper. Personal Computer World, etc.