alt Hacker NewsIts hard to express what it was like in the early/mid-80s (before I had my drivers licence) to bike a few miles to the bookstore at the start of every month and see all the new computer magazine covers for that month. It was so exciting.
I didn't have much money so I stuck with Micro Cornucopia as it had the biggest signal to noise ratio (and before that Rainbow Magazine). I did pickup Computer Shopper later when I started building/rebuilding my mini-tower every few months.
While I'm glad I have the world's information one web page away now I feel like something has been lost.
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I recall the same thing with each new edition of Rainbow magazine. I would read it cover to cover several times. Eventually I would hand type in some of the BASIC programs. I remember reading about people connecting to various BBS's and be jealous of them. Now it's all at our finger tips for better or worse. I guess today there needs to be a conscious effort to filter out distracting noise, our attention has become monetized.
Oh yeah, it was really joyous to go on such bike rides and so on. The newsagents were really important to my young developing, hacker mind.
It was transformative to go, each week, and see new stuff or review things this way.
It should now be possible to discard my boxes of old Byte - but it is not easy.
I had a similar experience in the early 90s (im and 1981 kid). I loved going to the magazine stand and get whatever local programming magazine they had at the time.
Also, I loved Linux Journal (later years) and Linux Magazine. I got a subscription sent to a cousin who lived in the US (In Alaska!!). She came to Mexico every six months and would bring the stacks of those magazines, which i would read back to back.
One thing I miss from thise type of magazines was the high SNR ratio and most importantly the information "push" character of it. You would learn stuff that was related but adjacent to your interests. But it will make you expand your knowledge horizon.
Nowadays sure, everything is a search away... but, you dont know what you dont know. So what would you search for?
Additionally, most content on the internet is VERY low effort. High quality content got heavily devalued.