Datamation

February 1998, the final print edition of Datamation magazine. Image Copyright 1998 Datamation

Datamation was a print computer magazine published in the United States between 1957 and 1998. When first published it wasn't clear there would be a significant market for a computer magazine given how few computers there were. Today, Datamation is owned by QuinStreet and published as an online magazine at Datamation.com.

The idea for the magazine came from Donald Prell who was Vice President of Application Engineering at a Los Angeles computer input-output company. In 1957, the only place his company could advertise their products was in either Scientific American or Business Week. Prell had discussed the idea with John Diebold who started AUTOMATION magazine, and that was the inspiration for the name DATAMATION. Thompson Publications of Chicago agreed to publish the magazine.

In 1995, working in partnership with Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), Datamation launched one of the first online publications, Datamation.com. In 1996, Datamation editors Bill Semich, Michael Lasell and April Blumenstiel, received the first-ever Jesse H. Neal Editorial Achievement Award for an online publication. The Neal Award is the highest award for business journalism in the U.S.

In 1998, when its publisher, Reed Business Information, terminated print publication of Datamation 41 years after its first issue went to press, the online version, Datamation.com, became one of the first online-only magazines. In 2001, Internet.com (WebMediaBrands) acquired the still-profitable Datamation.com online publication. In 2009, Internet.com (and Datamation.com) were acquired by Quinstreet, Inc., and Datamation.com continues Datamation's 53-year tradition of in-depth IT reporting today.

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, Oregon, USA.

Some of BOFH were reprinted in Datamation.

The humor section was resurrected in 1996 by editor in chief Bill Semich with a two-page spread titled "Over the Edge" with material contributed by Annals of Improbable Research editor Marc Abrahams and MISinformation editor Chris Miksanek. Semich also commissioned BOFH author Simon Travaglia to write humor columns for the magazine. Later that year, Miksanek became the sole humor contributor (though in 1998 "Over the Edge" was augmented with an online weblinks companion by Miksanek's alter-ego "The Duke of URL"). The column was dropped from the magazine in 2001 when it was acquired by Internet.com.

A collection of "Over the Edge" columns was published in 2008 under the title "Esc: 400 Years of Computer Humor" (ISBN 1434892484).

Misc

One other humor item may be worth a mention, just because of the participation of a major figure in the industry. In 1978 Datamation published a piece called Excuse me, what was that? that documented a Today Show interview by Tom Brokaw of John Peers, who was demonstrating his company's speech recognition system. When that system didn't recognize a phrase, it would respond "Excuse me, what was that?" In the excitement of setup for the demo, the system was overtrained, so everything sounded the same to it, and every few seconds during the interview, it would repeat that phrase, driving interviewer and interviewee nuts. George Glaser, one of the proprietors of the system, was present. On hands and knees, he crept behind the equipment, hoping not to be seen on national television, intending to stop the distraction by yanking some wires. Brokaw had the presence of mind to switch the machine off before George came into view. Datamation illustrated the piece with an excellent caricature of the scene, showing the distinguished Mr. Glaser creeping under the rug. The story got a lot of attention, and George told me that he was later introduced at an important meeting as "The Lump Under the Carpet." --Nels Winkless

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