Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia
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Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia with the subtitle "Running Light without Overbyte" was the full title of the pioneer microcomputer hobbyist newsletter published from early 1976 by Bob Albrecht and Dennis Allison's People's Computer Company. Jim Warren was the first editor, but for years the magazine observed a habit of rotating staff out of positions after comparatively short terms.
The title was later shortened to Dr. Dobb's Journal, then changed to Dr. Dobb's Software Tools as it became more mainstream. The magazine presently appears as Dr. Dobb's Journal with the byline "Software tools for the professional programmer", with the abbreviation DDJ also used for the corresponding website.
The reason for the original subtitle was that the first page of the first issue showed an image of Robert Redford running with a lit torch. From the image, it was clear that his teeth were perfect, hence "without overbyte". This explains the orthodontia, while the running presumably was the inspiration behind calisthenics. "Dobb's" came from collapsing together Allison's and Albrecht's first names, the pasteup artist titling the original newsletter thinking Allison's name was Don. Back in those days of microcomputers with minuscule resources, "running light without overbyte" was a meaningful catchphrase. The publishers had also considered the somewhat shorter title Byte, but that was already taken the year before.
The newsletter's content was originally pure hobbyist material. Initial interest circled around the Tiny BASIC BASIC programming language interpreter, but this soon broadened as Dr. Dobb's turned into a full magazine. Much of the content came from volunteer contributions, Steve Wozniak counting among one of the more well known early contributors. Today the magazine receives contributions from developers all over the world working in application development and embedded systems across most programming languages and platforms. The magazine's focus is now all professional. Among the more popular columnists are Michael Swaine and Verity Stob (the pseudonym of an English programmer).
Computer program source code published during the early years include:
- Tiny BASIC interpreter
- Palo Alto Tiny BASIC by Li-Chen Wang (copyleft, all wrongs reserved)
- Small-C compiler by Ron Cain
External links
- Dr. Dobb's homepage (http://www.ddj.com)
- Dr. Dobb's in India (Developer 2.0) (http://www.developer2.com)