Merger With Electronics World
Radio & Television News became Electronics World in 1959 and in January 1972 was merged into Popular Electronics. The process started in the summer of 1971 with a new editor, Milton S. Snitzer, replacing the longtime editor, Oliver P. Ferrell. The publishers decided to focus on topics with prosperous advertisers, such as CB Radio and audio equipment. Construction projects were no longer the feature articles. They were replaced by new product reviews. The change in editorial direction upset many authors. Dan Meyer wrote a letter in his SWTPC catalog referring to the magazine, Popular Electronics with Electronics World, as "PEEW". He urged his customers to switch to Radio-Electronics.
Don Lancaster, Daniel Meyer, Forrest Mims, Ed Roberts, John Simonton and other authors switched to Radio-Electronics. Even Solid State columnist Lou Garner moved to Radio-Electronics for a year. Les Solomon, the Popular Electronics Technical Editor, wrote 6 articles in the rival Radio-Electronics using the pseudonym "B. R. Rogen". In 1972 and 1973 some of the best projects appeared in Radio-Electronics as the new Popular Electronics digested the merger. The upcoming personal computer benefited from this competition between Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics.
In September 1973 Radio-Electronics published Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter, a low cost video display. In July 1974 Radio-Electronics published the Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer based on the Intel 8008 processor. The publishers noted the success of Radio-Electronics and Arthur P. Salsberg took over as Editor in 1974. Salsberg and Technical Editor, Leslie Solomon, brought back the featured construction projects. Popular Electronics needed a computer project so they selected Ed Robert's Altair 8800 computer based on the improved Intel 8080 processor. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics had the Altair computer on the cover and this launched the home computer revolution. (However, Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs incorrectly identified the magazine that ran the article as Popular Mechanics.)
The magazine was digest size (6.5 in × 9 in) for the first 20 years. The cover logo was a sans-serif typeface in a rectangular box. The covers featured a large image of the feature story, usually a construction project. In September 1970 the cover logo was changed to an underlined serif typeface. The magazine's content, typography and layout were also updated. In January 1972 the cover logo added a second line; "including Electronics World" and the volume number was restarted at 1. This second line was used for two years. The large photo of the feature project was gone, replaced by a textual list of articles. In Aug 1974 the magazine switched to a larger letter size format (8.5 in × 11 in). This was done to allow larger illustrations such as schematics, to switch printing to offset presses, and respond to advertisers desire for larger ad pages. The longtime tag line, "World's Largest Selling Electronics Magazine", was moved from the Table of Contents page to the cover.
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