Editing Datamation (section)

==Computer humor==
Traditionally, an April issue of ''Datamation'' contained a number of spoof articles and humorous stories related to computers.

However, humor was not limited to April. For example, in a spoof ''Datamation'' article<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.fortran.com/fortran/come_from.html |title=Comefrom Statement |access-date=2004-05-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180716171336/http://www.fortran.com/fortran/come_from.html |archive-date=2018-07-16 |url-status=dead }}</ref> (December 1973), R. Lawrence Clark suggested that the [[GOTO]] statement
could be replaced by the [[COMEFROM]] statement and provided some entertaining examples. This was actually implemented in the [[INTERCAL programming language]], a language designed to make programs as obscure as possible.

''[[Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal]]'' was a letter to the editor of ''Datamation'', volume 29 number 7, July 1983, written by Ed Post, [[Tektronix]], [[Wilsonville, Oregon]], USA.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/real.programmers.html |title = Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal}}</ref>

Some of the [[BOFH]] stories were reprinted in ''Datamation''.

The humor section was resurrected in 1996 by editor in chief Bill Semich with a two-page spread titled "Over the Edge" with material contributed by ''[[Annals of Improbable Research]]'' editor [[Marc Abrahams]] and MISinformation editor Chris Miksanek. Semich also commissioned BOFH author [[Simon Travaglia]] to write humor columns for the magazine. Later that year, Miksanek became the sole humor contributor (though in 1998 "Over the Edge" was augmented with an online weblinks companion by Miksanek's [[alter-ego]] "The Duke of URL"). The column was dropped from the magazine in 2001 when it was acquired by Internet.com.

A collection of "Over the Edge" columns was published in 2008 under the title "Esc: 400 Years of Computer Humor" ({{ISBN|1434892484}}).