Illustrous

(Warning: Nostalgia ahead)
Someone brought up the “good old days” of computing and computer magazines in one of the chat groups I frequent, and I realized I hadn’t really given it much thought until then. So I started browsing around and came across this interview with Robert Tinney that really brought back memories.

For those of you who never read the signature on BYTE Magazine covers, Tinney was the guy that illustrated BYTE for about the first three-quarters of BYTE’s existence. By the time I got to BYTE, Fred Langa had already nixed the whole illustrated cover thing in an effort to compete with PC Magazine, so I never had the pleasure of commissioning a Tinney cover.

But that didn’t mean I didn’t love them. When BYTE was bought by rivals and closed, its new masters decided to clean house and erase the magazine. Literally. They took the Aeron chairs and any stray office equipment home, then tossed everything else, including the entire BYTE library, into the trash. All those covers, issues of BYTE going back to its debut, interviews and manuscripts of the greats in computing…all gone.

We warned our west coast office to try and save any duplicates and bureau chief John Montgomery made a quick call for help to the local computer museum. Thankfully, they jumped in the truck immediately and managed to save whatever was left before the dumpsters arrived.

But the Tinneys were pretty much gone, and losing them almost hurt more than losing my beloved job. Jenny, our managing editor, knew that I particularly loved one Tinney cover (above), managed to find it and dig it out of the trash for me.

I still have it; I was happy to see they reproduced it in this article. I’ve always been fascinated with computer graphics and Tinney’s literal translation of “screen painting” was delightful.

OK. Enough nostalgia. Back to work!

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