Popular Electronics

The cover of the first ever Popular Electronics magazine

Popular Electronics was started by Ziff-Davis in October 1954. In November 1982 the magazine became "Computers and Electronics" and stopped publication in April 1985. The title "Popular Electronics" was sold to Gernsback Publications and their "Hand On Electronics" magazine was renamed to "Popular Electronics" in February 1989. This version was published until it was merged with "Electronics Now" to become "Poptronics" in January 2000. Gernsback Publications when out of business in late 2002.

In 1965 Popular Electronics had a monthly paid circulation of 410,000, and in 1970 it was 375,000 (this data is in the back of each year's January issue.)

Popular Electronics was aimed at the electronics hobbyist and each issue had several construction articles. Authors were paid a few hundred dollars for the article but the real money was from selling a kit of parts. By the mid 1960s companies like Southwest Technical Products Corp (SWTPC) wrote articles and offered complete kits. You could build the projects without ordering the kit but smart authors designed their project to use at least one hard to find part to ensure kit sales.

In the five year period between 1967 and 1971, Southwest Technical Products published over 50 articles in Popular Electronics written by Daniel Meyer, Don Lancaster, Louis Garner and others. In 1967 alone they had 7 cover stories. Around 1971 there were some editorial changes at Popular Electronics that caused Daniel Meyer and Don Lancaster to start writing for Radio-Electronics. Authors such as John Simonton of PAiA Electronics (Music Synthesizers) wrote for both magazines.

The early 1970s saw heated competition between Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics. In July 1974, Radio-Electronics published Jon Titus's "Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer". However Popular Electronics published its most famous project in January 1975 with the MITS Altair 8800 computer.

Popular Electronics began as a ham radio hobbyist magazine, but was the first to bring TTL digital electronics and personal computers to the hobbyist. Among its landmark stories and projects were the introduction of a homebuilt video display terminal called the Tom Swift terminal and the debut of the Altair 8800 personal computer.