Starving for Software? Eat a tapeburger

For some reason, I find few things less appetizing than a black and white hamburger. (Maybe one with a computer tape on top of it.)

But we’re not here to eat this advertisement for Hayden Book Company’s 1979 computer tape offerings. We’re here to look at it.

I know very little about Hayden itself other than that it originated as a New Jersey-based book publisher and later transitioned into selling software on disk and tape as well (as “Hayden Software”). That stands in contrast to what I think was the firm’s first approach to publishing software — in paper books full of source code.

It’s worth noting that this might be the first-ever advertisement for what was originally called “Sargon: A Computer Chess Program“, a pioneering chess game and engine for personal computers that debuted at the 1978 West Coast Computer Faire. I recall my brother playing Sargon II for the Atari 800 and Sargon III on the IBM PC, and I had a copy of Sargon II for the Apple II. It was a stalwart, well-respected chess series for many years.

Discussion Topic: What’s the best computer chess game you’ve ever played?