alt.hn

2/12/2026 at 11:26:15 AM

Byte magazine artist Robert Tinney, who illustrated the birth of PCs, dies at 78

 https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/byte-magazine-artist-robert-tinney-who-illustrated-the-birth-of-pcs-dies-at-78/

by rbanffy

2/12/2026 at 2:01:52 PM

Various archives:

* https://archive.org/details/BYTE-MAGAZINE-COMPLETE/197509_By...

* https://archive.org/download/BYTE-MAGAZINE-COMPLETE

* https://vintageapple.org/byte/

* https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Byte_Magazine.htm

* 5mo ago, "Show HN: A zoomable, searchable archive of BYTE magazine": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45028002

Had a subscription to it in the 1990s. Probably one of the best computing magazines that existed (it covered all sorts of topics, from CPU cache workings to file systems (like Veritas)).

by throw0101a

2/12/2026 at 2:52:05 PM

It was an amazing magazine, one we still need to this day. I still subscribe to a couple magazines, IEEE's Computer, Micro, and Spectrum, and Communications of the ACM, on paper, and IEEE's Software on PDF, but none covers the breadth and depth of BYTE.

I still feel a bit like an orphan.

by rbanffy

2/12/2026 at 3:39:15 PM

I bought myself a 3 year subscription with my very first pay cheque. I got 2 or 3 issues before it went under. As a way of teaching a teenager about the full range of computer technology from the Cambridge Active Badge through to Big Data, it was and is unmatched.

by timthorn

2/12/2026 at 10:08:26 PM

That was a very sad day, not only for your cheque.

by rbanffy

2/12/2026 at 2:36:56 PM

wonderful stuff

I have a bunch of the old ones from my late father, I have sunk thousands of hours in old computer magazines, there's something special to them that the new world cannot capture anymore.

by muyuu

2/12/2026 at 3:31:02 PM

It was the accessibility. You were learning computing concepts from scratch, that would then increase in complexity in real-time as your learning caught up if you were actively engaged.

by xattt

2/12/2026 at 5:15:39 PM

also the importance and the degree of care that was put into things that were published, and what all the constraints meant also in computing itself

there were strong positives to that, and they just cannot be replicated in a society of hyper-abundance and slop

by muyuu

2/13/2026 at 6:56:39 PM

Helped Carl Helmers start Byte along with another Intermetrics co-worker Dan Fylstra (who founded VisiCorp a bit later, the first PC software company that published VisiCalc) in the summer between semesters at Harvard.

Wrote a couple of articles and spent some time in Nashua (IIRC) with Helmers and Green (the publisher), but had to get back to school in the fall so faded out, and didn't overlap with Tinney's work.

Fun times.

by cpr

2/12/2026 at 4:28:44 PM

The logo for Smalltalk-80, and later Squeak, came from the Robert Tinney cover of the Byte issue which introduced Smalltalk. The story behind it is documented here:

https://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/3459

by taolson

2/12/2026 at 4:04:22 PM

As recently as a few years ago, Robert was directly answering emails and shipping out signed prints of his BYTE covers. We have had some hanging in our office for inspiration. He set the best tone for what computing feels like.

by nrp

2/12/2026 at 4:24:01 PM

Felt. Not feels. Now it is turning into a sausage factory.

by jacquesm

2/13/2026 at 2:31:47 PM

There are still bright spots, but the space is so much larger it’s hard to find them. I still love all the companies that present at SC and Hot Chips.

One I like in particular is Cerebras. Wafer scale didn’t work when wafers were 3” but, somehow, they managed to make it work when they are the size of a manhole cover.

BYTE would run entire issues on the exploits of IBM in POWER and Z, on Intel and AMD’s latest tricks, and on the latest 250TB 2.5” SSDs.

by rbanffy

2/13/2026 at 4:37:54 PM

Yes, Cerebras is very cool. But that sort of thing is also becoming the exception. I use the homepage of HN as a sort of thermometer, the trend seems to be towards 'more' rather than 'better'.

by jacquesm

2/13/2026 at 7:45:54 PM

Same here. HN is an excellent way to take the pulse of our industry.

This "more over better" is a natural trend - a lot of money can be made for a relatively low effort. Cerebras did the Really Hard Thing, something many other brilliant companies and people failed at for decades. I remember Gene Amdahl failing at wafer-scale back when wafers were tiny.

by rbanffy

2/12/2026 at 1:35:13 PM

I clearly remember his covers and being inspired and stimulated by them. RIP Mr. Tinney, thanks for your great art.

by sombragris

2/12/2026 at 1:42:05 PM

Magazine and game covers had such cool art then. It's still a joy to look at them after so many years.

RIP Mr Tinney.

by forinti

2/12/2026 at 4:22:53 PM

For a long time Byte magazine was my only window on computing (I didn't have a computer yet because they were too expensive) and I always loved the covers. Same with Scientific American.

So much effort went into these and they always hit the mark.

by jacquesm

2/12/2026 at 4:38:25 PM

Some of Robert Tinney's artwork is still available for sale at his website, limited edition runs of several of the Byte covers and other art.

https://tinney.net/

by jeffwass

2/12/2026 at 5:13:16 PM

Amazing. I just ordered some. I hope someone fulfills it?!

by azinman2

2/12/2026 at 2:25:35 PM

Robert's cover art set the tone for each issue. His covers danced a fine line between whimsical and informative.

by rgacote

2/12/2026 at 2:52:39 PM

He always managed to capture the soul of the subject.

by rbanffy

2/12/2026 at 4:24:21 PM

Yes, that's it.

by jacquesm

2/12/2026 at 1:13:24 PM

When I was 10 years old in elementary school in rural Alberta, Canada in the early 80s this man's art (along with stacks of older Byte magazines that the librarian gifted me) were a gateway to another world.

RIP. Thanks for all the amazing imaginations and for being part of setting me on this career.

by cmrdporcupine