The Golden Age of InfoWorld Covers, 1984-1985
Return with us now to the days when Radio Shack was a PC giant, Apple was on the ropes, and people thought laptops were a foolish fad.Posted by Harry McCracken | Wednesday, February 3, 2010
“Radio Shack Tackles Its “Schlock” Image”
Radio Shack once had a schlocky image? Seriously? I kid because I love, but let it be noted that a quarter century has passed and the company still believes its customers don’t understand it. Jim Bartimo’s story is largely pro-Shack–it notes that Tandy was a larger company than Apple, and claims that nobody refers to its computers as Trash-80s anymore–and concludes that it “will always be in the computer industry.” (It stopped manufacturing machines about a decade after this story appeared.)
Also in the issue: a story on a $12,000 graphics card/animation package and an update on Apple’s proto-Mac, the Lisa.
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I Love the Eighties! Says:
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:57 am[…] View The Golden Age of InfoWorld Covers slide show. […]
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And That’s What You Missed on Technologizer Says:
December 31st, 2010 at 12:34 pm[…] I took a look back at tech of the early 1980s, in the form of old InfoWorld covers. […]
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:42 am
Cool. As I recall, Apple was actually more profitable after Steve Jobs left. It didn’t last long though. 🙂
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Love the sidebar on #9 – it says “Businesses can buy software electronically.” And that was news then!
February 4th, 2010 at 8:50 am
But the Google Books collection only seems to go back to late 1986. What about the 1981-1986 issues? Are they adding gradually? Or should I help them out with my back-issue collection?
June 29th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
I remember your writing Michael!
February 5th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
These were from the later period of Infoworld for me. When I first subscribed it was more of a tabloid style with a newspaper-style cover. Anybody could get a subscription for free if you said you were a business. Every issue was worth reading if for nothing else John Dvorak’s column. Before he was a podcast cramugin he was the go-to guy for tech scoops. Albeit, he pretty much had that field to himself back then.