On February 1, Robert Tinney, the illustrator whose airbrushed cover paintings defined the look and feel of pioneering computer magazine Byte for over a decade, died at age 78 in Baker, Louisiana, according to a memorial posted on his official website.

As the primary cover artist for Byte from 1975 to the late 1980s, Tinney became one of the first illustrators to give the abstract world of personal computing a coherent visual language, translating topics like artificial intelligence, networking, and programming into vivid, surrealist-influenced paintings that a generation of computer enthusiasts grew up with.

Tinney went on to paint more than 80 covers for Byte, working almost entirely in airbrushed Designers Gouache, a medium he chose for its opaque, intense colors and smooth finish. He said the process of creating each cover typically took about a week of painting once a design was approved, following phone conversations with editors about each issue's theme. He cited René Magritte and M.C. Escher as two of his favorite artists, and fans often noticed their influence in his work.

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© Robert Tinney / Byte Magazine

As he reminisced about his life, Edward Mitchell Bannister’s strength of spirit and sheer determination had been the only way for the Black artist to reach his goals. Read More

Move over Snoopy, because NASA has a new character helping to promote its deep space exploration plans. His name is Uncle Traveling Matt.

No really, move over.

Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure has taken over the same theater the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida previously used for All Systems Are Go, featuring the comic strip beagle. The new stage show stars the Jim Henson Company's subterranean Muppets as they discover outer (outer) space for the first time.

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© Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex

If you know anything about the history of id Software, you know how 1992's Wolfenstein 3D helped establish the company's leadership in the burgeoning first-person shooter genre, leading directly to subsequent hits like Doom and Quake. But only the serious id Software nerds remember Catacomb 3D, id's first-person adventure game that directly preceded and inspired work on Wolfenstein 3D.

Now, nearly 35 years after Catacomb 3D's initial release, id co-founder John Romero brought the company's founding members together for an informative retrospective video on the creation of the oft-forgotten game. But the pioneering game—which included mouse support, color-coded keys, and shooting walls to find secrets—almost ended up being a gimmicky dead end for the company.

Texture maps and "undo" animation

Catacomb 3D was a follow-up to id's earlier Catacomb, which was a simplified clone of the popular arcade hit Gauntlet. As such, the 3D game still has some of that "quarter eater" mentality that was not very fashionable in PC gaming at the time, as John Carmack remembered.

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© id Software

Forty years ago, a stack of bright red tags shared a physical connection with what would become NASA's first space shuttle disaster. The small tags, however, were collected before the ill-fated launch of Challenger, as was instructed in bold "Remove Before Flight" lettering on the front of each.

What happened to the tags after that is largely unknown.

This is an attempt to learn more about where those "Remove Before Flight" tags went after they were detached from the space shuttle and before they arrived on my doorstep. If their history can be better documented, they can be provided to museums, educational centers, and astronautical archives for their preservation and display.

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© collectSPACE.com

Mmm… the chewy, delicious candy with a distinctive flavour is a Canadian favourite, produced by two brothers in 1895 at their newly-established factory in St. Thomas, Ont. Made with high-quality butter and real cream, Edinburgh Toffee was one of the early specialties at Kerr’s Candy, with many more sweet developments to come. Read More

50 years and 29 days ago, The Movie 'Nashville' had its 50th. anniversary. .
"when you pay more for an automobile then it cost Columbus to make his first voyage to america, that's politics."
Henry Gibson as Haven Hamilton. (slyt)