Kilobaud Microcomputing was a magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

 dedicated to the computer homebrew

Homebrew Computer Club

The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist users' group in Silicon Valley, which met from March 5, 1975 to December 1986...

 hobbyists from the end of the 1970s until the beginning of the 1980s.

How kilobaud started

Wayne Green

Wayne Green

Wayne Green is an American publisher and writer, and consultant. He was formerly editor of CQ magazine before he went on to found 73, 80 Micro, Byte, CD Review, Cold Fusion, Kilobaud Microcomputing, RUN , InCider, and Pico, as well as publishing books and running a software company...

, the Publisher/Editor of kilobaud, had been the publisher of Byte magazine

Byte (magazine)

BYTE magazine was a microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage...

, (another influential microcomputer

Microcomputer

A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...

 magazine of the time) where he published the first four issues in his own office. But one day in November 1975 Wayne came to work, and found that his ex wife and the rest of the Byte magazine staff had moved out of his office and had taken the January issue with them. Consequently the January 1976 issue had Virginia Green listed as publisher instead of Wayne Green. Wayne was not happy with this development, so he left Byte to start a new magazine to compete with the fledging Byte. He wanted to call it "KiloByte" to trump Byte. But the people of Byte quickly trademarked KILOBYTE as a cartoon series in Byte magazine. So he named the new magazine "kilobaud" instead.

Many name changes

The full title for the first magazines was "kilobaud The Computer Hobbyist Magazine, (Jan 1977)". These issues are unique for having a full index of the contents on the front cover but no illustrations (photographs). Later issues did have illustrations but also still had a full index on the cover, (a feature that remained for many years). The title was now shortened to only read "Kilobaud Microcomputing".

From the beginning of 1979 to the end of 1980 the subtitle "for business...education...FUN" was added. Later, after 1981, the "kilobaud" denominated was dropped altogether and the magazine was now simply called "Microcomputing" with the subtitle, "a wayne green publication". In 1984, the magazine folded.

After the success of kilobaud, Wayne Green diversified with magazines targeted to specific brands of home computer

Home computer

Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...

s, such as 80-Microcomputing (also known as 80-Micro

80 Micro

80 Micro was a home computing magazine published by CWC/I publications between 1980 and 1988. It featured articles, humor , letters and reviews about the TRS-80 microcomputer built by Tandy Corporation and sold through Radio Shack...

) a Magazine for TRS-80

TRS-80

TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...

 users, InCider a magazine for Apple II

Apple II

The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...

 users, Hot CoCo a magazine for TRS-80 Color Computer

TRS-80 Color Computer

The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer was a home computer launched in 1980. It was one of the earliest of the first generation of computers marketed for home use in English-speaking markets...

s, RUN a magazine for Commodore 64

Commodore 64

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...

 users and many others.

Intended readers

Even more than Byte magazine, kilobaud contained articles written for people who were building their own 8 bit microcomputers at home, or were writing homebrew software for these systems. kilobaud, (much more than Byte) contained articles written for electronic engineers (or hobbyists interested in electronics

Electronics

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

), rather than for people who were technically interested in computers but not in building their own computer from scratch

Scratch building

Scratch building is the process of building a scale model "from scratch", ie. from raw materials, rather than building it from a commercial kit, kitbashing or buying it pre-assembled....

. Articles like "Two Hobbies: Model Railroading and Computing" and the article (written by the famous Don Lancaster

Don Lancaster

Donald E. Lancaster is a prolific author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer best known for his magazine columns. He is also known for his "TV Typewriter" dumb terminal project, his book on technical entrepreneurship The Incredible Secret Money Machine, and his work on and advocacy of early...

) "Building a cheap video display

TV Typewriter

The TV Typewriter was a video terminal that could display 2 pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The Don Lancaster design appeared on the cover of Radio-Electronics magazine in September 1973. The magazine included a 6 page description of the design but...

 for your Heathkit

Heathkit

Heathkits were products of the Heath Company, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Their products included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and...

 H-8" (a computer you could build yourself from a kit

Electronic kits

An electronic kit is a package of electrical components used to build an electronic device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram , assembly instructions and often a printed circuit board or another type of prototyping board.There are 2 distinct types of kit,...

) are good examples.

In the May 1982 issue an article about building the Sinclair

Clive Sinclair

Sir Clive Marles Sinclair is a British entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s....

 ZX-81

Sinclair ZX81

The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public...

 kit, the first, (and probably last) "mainstream" "do-it-yourself" computer kit was published.

After that the magazine more and more lost its hobby background and by 1984 it looked like any other computer magazine.