PC Magazine itself hit something like 800 pages at some point in the 80s at which point it went from monthly to bi-weekly. It was quite good at its peak. For example, it had regular assembler and power user columns. I was certainly more corporate and product-oriented than BYTE with some massive product comparisons. I subscribed to both for a long time.
How about another - do you remember Computer Shopper?
That was the go-to magazine if you were building your own machine. It's heyday was sometime in the early 1990s, when PCs were starting to branch out and become consumer-oriented items. But in the 386-486 era - that was an insane magazine to peruse (big too!).
Really, one could say it marked the end of a particular era - that of hobbyist machines. While it was a technically oriented magazine, it did cater to those who wanted to build their own systems (maybe not from the component level). Once the PC became something you could easily pick up just about anywhere, it started to get thinner and thinner, then finally disappeared.
That was also the end of the "mom-n-pop" style PC computer parts stores. There are a scant few that linger on today (mostly they sell used machines refurbed or rebuilt - though some have gotten into building and selling retro machines, sometimes for steep prices).
Computer Shopper was awesome, but calling it a "magazine" is a bit of a stretch. It was more like a shared catalog in which companies could rent space. :-)
If I remember right, it had just enough editorial material to squeak past the line that divided the less-expensive postal rates for literature from the more-expensive rates for advertising.
Yep. Monstrous. Even if you didn't start building your own, whatever you had was too slow so you were always looking to upgrade components.
Also the Ken Gordon Computer Shows.
I actually upgraded/built a system a few days ago but even I'm pretty much out of doing that sort of thing. Wouldn't have done it if it wasn't a Linux server thing and I already had a number of parts.
