Byte magazine archives: Comparing early microcomputer evolution with AI's speed
PTrubey · x · 2026-08-17
The author shares a website hosting all issues of Byte magazine, which chronicled the early days of the microprocessor.
- Hobbyist Era: The early golden years belonged only to nerdy hobbyists. 1970s home-built computers couldn't actually do anything really useful.
- Rapid Evolution: The industry evolved quickly. It took only six years from storing code on cassette tapes on hand-soldered computers to the arrival of the IBM PC in 1981.
- AI Comparison: The author draws parallels to how fast AI has evolved since the ChatGPT release in 2022.
The author notes that PCs were the last true hobbyist revolution. The Internet skipped the "useless hobbyist" phase, and AI required too many resources for hobbyists before ChatGPT turned it into a mass consumer app.
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