February 12, 2026
Byte-sized heartbreak
Byte magazine artist Robert Tinney, who illustrated the birth of PCs, dies at 78
Fans: his covers made us love computers—modern mags look boring
TLDR: Robert Tinney, the artist behind Byte magazine’s iconic computer covers, has died at 78. Fans flood comments with nostalgia and debate, saying his imaginative art helped them understand tech and that today’s photo-heavy covers feel soulless—proof that visuals can shape how we learn about technology.
Robert Tinney—the painter who gave early home computers their face—has died at 78, and the comments section turned into a memory lane road trip. Readers called his Byte covers a gateway to another world, the kind of art that made strange new tech feel friendly, funny, and just a little magical.
Strongest opinion of the day: product photos killed the vibe. Old-school fans say Tinney’s airbrushed scenes taught them what “networking” and “programming” even meant, while modern magazines look like catalog pages. Cue the mini-drama: a few push back, saying photos were inevitable as computers went mainstream, but the louder chorus is: bring back weird covers. Another thread spirals into “AI art could never”—with folks insisting Tinney’s surreal, Magritte-meets-Escher whimsy can’t be auto-generated. Meanwhile, a hero drops archives for a nostalgia binge, and jokes fly like: “Kids think Byte is a snack; we know it was a universe.”
One commenter dubs him computing’s Norman Rockwell, and it fits: his work walked a tightrope between playful and precise. People swapped stories of library stacks, sold‑out prints, and T‑shirts from expo booths. The mood is tender, funny, a little spicy—and very clear: Tinney didn’t just paint covers; he painted beginnings.
Key Points
- •Robert Tinney, Byte magazine’s primary cover artist from 1975 to the late 1980s, died on February 1 at age 78 in Baker, Louisiana.
- •Tinney created more than 80 Byte covers, using airbrushed Designers Gouache for vivid, smooth-finish illustrations.
- •His process typically took about a week of painting after design approval, following phone discussions with editors about each issue’s theme.
- •He connected with Byte via Carl Helmers; his first cover appeared in the December 1975 issue.
- •Byte transitioned to product photography around 1987; Tinney’s final cover was the magazine’s 15th Anniversary issue in September 1990.