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Robert Tinney’s Visions Of The Future

Though I’ve seen a few of these on bookshelves over the years, I’ve only recently come to truly appreciate Robert Tinney‘s beautifully painted covers for Byte magazine.

Tinney’s futuristic paintings appeared on Byte’s covers from 1975-1986 and and really set the magazine apart from other tech journalism of it’s era. Here’s a great write up about Tinney and Byte.

The cover of Byte magazine from January 1977. It features a painting by Robert Tinney. It shows a computer in front of a large window. The point of view is from inside the building, looking out. The computer in the foreground shows a beautiful scene of futuristic buildings on green grassy hills on a bright blue day. Outside of the window, the view is of a smog filled city. The sky is yellow and brown and smoke is coming from nearby buildings. There are telephone wires everywhere.
The cover of Byte magazine from 1977, featuring a painting by Robert Tinney. The painting shows a close up of a circuit board, but gives it the feel of an outdoor scene. The chips look like buildings and the capacitors look like trees. Along the circuit tracing is a red and black train. This helps make the circuit board look large and outdoors.
The cover of Byte magazine from January 1980. It features a painting by Robert Tinney. It's a classy painting showing a cocktail glass and a pair of white satin gloves in front of a fancy computer in a wooden case. The text on the computer screen says "Madam: Dinner Is Served"

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