The Golden Age of InfoWorld Covers, 1984-1985

Return with us now to the days when Radio Shack was a PC giant, Apple was on the ropes, and people thought laptops were a foolish fad.

Posted by  | Wednesday, February 3, 2010


“Can Apple Hold Together?

June 24th, 1985

For something like a decade and a half, woe-is-Apple stories were staples of the technology and business press. (Here’s a famous example.) InfoWorld’s story notes that CEO John Sculley had forced co-founder and Chairman Steve Jobs out of day-to-day decision making, and quotes EA founder Trip Hawkins saying Jobs wasn’t qualified to make important engineering decisions. Jobs, meanwhile, says that his fight to run Apple is just beginning.



Slides: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

5 Comments For This Post

  1. Stilgar Says:

    Cool. As I recall, Apple was actually more profitable after Steve Jobs left. It didn’t last long though. 🙂

  2. Matthew Says:

    Love the sidebar on #9 – it says “Businesses can buy software electronically.” And that was news then!

  3. Michael Swaine Says:

    But the Google Books collection only seems to go back to late 1986. What about the 1981-1986 issues? Are they adding gradually? Or should I help them out with my back-issue collection?

  4. Cassie Maas Says:

    I remember your writing Michael!

  5. Wade Watson Says:

    These were from the later period of Infoworld for me. When I first subscribed it was more of a tabloid style with a newspaper-style cover. Anybody could get a subscription for free if you said you were a business. Every issue was worth reading if for nothing else John Dvorak’s column. Before he was a podcast cramugin he was the go-to guy for tech scoops. Albeit, he pretty much had that field to himself back then.

2 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. I Love the Eighties! Says:

    […] View The Golden Age of InfoWorld Covers slide show. […]

  2. And That’s What You Missed on Technologizer Says:

    […] I took a look back at tech of the early 1980s, in the form of old InfoWorld covers. […]