Datamation

From Free net encyclopedia

Datamation was a computer magazine published in the United States between 1957 and 1997. When first published it wasn't clear there would be a significant market for a computer magazine given how few computers there were.

Until microcomputers came along Datamation was the main general periodical of the computer industry. By reading it from cover to cover, and being very careful to study the ads also, it was possible to get an overall view of what was going on. When microcomputers finally started to become important in business and government it became necessary to read both Datamation and Byte magazine.

Computer humor

Traditionally, an April issue of Datamation contained a number of spoof articles and humorous stories related to computers.

However humor was not limited to April. For example, in a spoof Datamation article (December 1973), R. Lawrence Clark suggested that the GOTO statement could be replaced by the COMEFROM statement, and provides some entertaining examples. This was actually implemented in the INTERCAL programming language, a language designed to make programs as obscure as possible.

Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal was a letter to the editor of Datamation, volume 29 number 7, July 1983, written by Ed Post, Tektronix, Wilsonville OR USA.

Some of BOFH were reprinted in Datamation.

Trivia

The first usage of the word Kludge listed by the Oxford English Dictionary is by J.W. Granholm in Datamation magazine in 1962.Template:Mag-stub