The truly epic BYTE magazine covers by Robert Tinney

During the 1970s and 1980s, Robert Tinney illustrated some of the most amazing computer artwork for BYTE magazine.

They just don’t make computer magazines like they used to. The computer mags of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s had style. Attitude. There was something truly special about them.

Quite possibly the greatest among them, being BYTE (technically it was just “Byte”, but they always drew it as uppercase on the cover). Starting in 1975, that beautiful publication — which focused on “micro computers” — ran all the way until 1998.

The content was astounding. If you were a computer nerd, you knew BYTE. You loved BYTE. You devoured every single article

But, as I look back on BYTE magazine, it is the cover artwork that stands out to me.

Especially those by the amazing Robert Tinney.

It’s like a 1970s Rock album cover… for computers.

There simply has not been computer magazine covers like this since. I’m collecting a few of my favorites here to help give all of you a taste of what 1970s and 1980s computer magazine art was like.

It was… beautiful. In large part thanks to Robert Tinney.

If you’d like to dig in a little deeper, I highly recommend reading a 2006 interview with Tinney over on VintageComputing.com.

When I graduated high school, I really wanted to make my own cap based on this cover artwork. But I couldn’t make it look right.

This one might be my favorite. I love everything about this cover.

This makes me want to build a model train set… that is a circuit board.

The Altair! The atmosphere! There’s just so much here!

Tinney is like the Norman Rockwell of computer magazines. Truly stellar work.