A mid-80s era issue of Computer Shopper magazine is worth looking at. Giant magazine, literally hundreds of pages of ads for gear. Man, I loved those things.
Byte back in the early 80s too. Page after page of esoteric gear. So many different kinds of computers before the PC completely dominated the world.
The other really cool magazine was early 90s, I think. Midnight Engineering, run by a guy named William Gates (different one), which was all about tech entrepreneurship from the very bottom up. Guy printed the magazine himself, bought this huge industrial printing press. His columns on getting it up and running were one of the best parts of the magazine. Also, a running theme was that patents were useless for the little guy since you couldn't afford the costs of protecting them.
Byte back in the early 80s too. Page after page of esoteric gear. So many different kinds of computers before the PC completely dominated the world.
The other really cool magazine was early 90s, I think. Midnight Engineering, run by a guy named William Gates (different one), which was all about tech entrepreneurship from the very bottom up. Guy printed the magazine himself, bought this huge industrial printing press. His columns on getting it up and running were one of the best parts of the magazine. Also, a running theme was that patents were useless for the little guy since you couldn't afford the costs of protecting them.
Same as it ever was.
Contemporaneous article on Midnight Engineering and the printing press: http://www.westword.com/1995-10-18/news/one-s-company/