#kilobaud microcomputing

A thousand-dollar "MS-DOS" computer (there was a list inside of what IBM PC software the Sanyo MBC-550 could run, but also a comment it couldn't run many PC games) made the cover of this issue. The article on it led off with some praise for its appearance. While the tagline below the cover logo had changed from "A Wayne Green Publication" to "A CWCII Publication," Wayne Green still provided the editorial, where he dwelt on a Taiwanese firm offering "any Apple or IBM program, complete with a manual and disk, for just $10 FOB Taiwan."

Kilobaud Microcomputing magazine #42, June 1980.

November 1980 Kilobaud Microcomputing Magazine Cover

To mark the new design of this magazine, Wayne Green provided an editorial talking about where it had come from (although he didn't quite mention he had started Kilobaud after losing control of BYTE...) A high-end portable computer from Hewlett-Packard featured on the cover; there were multiple articles on different portables inside.

A Hewlett-Packard "MS-DOS" computer received the feature review in this issue. You didn't have to actually touch the CRT glass to use its "touchscreen," but the invisible beams you broke only allowed for a "40 by 23 matrix," which wasn't quite even character-by-character selection. The TRS-80 Model 4P was also reviewed with an approving comment people would surely be buying it rather than the Model 4 desktop. One other article looked at a "subliminal message" system for the Commodore 64; Wayne Green's editorial took the subject quite seriously and offered warnings about it.

Epson's new PX-8 Geneva strove to leapfrog the TRS-80 Model 100 the way that computer had leapfrogged the Epson HX-20; this issue's look at the new portable (which offered an optional external floppy disk drive in addition to its built-in microcassette recorder) was almost as enthusiastic as the fellow on the cover might have implied. The article on "Mac hard disks" (which mentioned the hassle of still having to boot the computer off a floppy disk to load the hard disk driver, but didn't mention what happened once you had several hundred files in mass storage) was accompanied by a look at the "Bernoulli Box," which used removable cartridges. One note in the back-page "News Window" described "the Computer Museum of Canada" to open at Toronto's Harbourfront "in mid-1986"; the museum never got built.

The Apple IIc received plenty of coverage in this issue, and some of it pitted it directly against the IBM PCjr as a "high-end home computer." Wayne Green's editorial pondered a magazine about "briefcase portable computers" such as the TRS-80 Model 100, but alluded to an unnamed magazine that had tried to focus on the Model 100 only to find "few potential subscribers and even fewer firms—known as advertisers—making support products." He looked ahead to "electronic magazines," but supposed they'd need faster modem speeds and improved "systems for sending pictures over the telephone lines".

Articles on computer languages (including the Macintosh Basic from Apple that never quite reached official release before Bill Gates dealt with it) and a Compaq transportable with a hard disk built in (with a sidebar on how Phoenix Software had created a "clean room BIOS" that would permit truly compatible IBM PC clones from just about anyone) made this issue's cover. Wayne Green was no longer providing an editorial; instead, Eric Grevstad insisted (capable) computers were too expensive, and hoped that $1000 "in my fantasy world" would buy "a really first-rate eight-bit system," working up from there to $3000 buying "mammoth memories, hard disks, multi-user capability and other supermicro features."