Escape from the Dungeons of the Gods

Escape from the Dungeons of the Gods is a single-player text adventure written by Ray Sato for the TRS-80. The original and versions for the Atari 8-bit family and Apple II were published in the August 1982 issue of "SoftSide". It was subsequently republished in "The Best of SoftSide" (1983) and released on accompanying 5¼-inch floppy disks.


Surface Book

The Surface Book is a 2-in-1 PC designed and produced by Microsoft, part of the company's Surface line of personal computing devices. Surface Book is distinguished from other Surface devices primarily by its full-sized, detachable keyboard, which uses a dynamic fulcrum hinge that expands when it is opened. The keyboard contains a second battery, a number of ports and an optional discrete graphics card used when the screen part, also dubbed as the clipboard by Microsoft, is docked to it. Contrary to Surface Pro devices, which are marketed as tablets, the Surface Book is marketed as a laptop, Microsoft's first device marketed as such.
History.
Surface Book was announced at the Windows 10 Devices Event by Microsoft at October 6, 2015, alongside the Surface Pro 4. It was available for a pre-order the following day and was released and shipped to customers beginning on October 26, 2015.
When unveiling the Surface Book to the press, Panos Panay, corporate vice president for Surface Computing at Microsoft, initially presented the device as being a laptop (using part of a promotional video which shows the screen remaining attached to the keyboard base) and positioned it as a competitor to the MacBook Pro, before revealing its true nature as a hybrid device by showing the rest of the video where the screen is revealed as detachable and compatible with the Surface Pen.
On October 26, 2016, Microsoft announced an updated Surface Book with a new Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M GPU and additional battery life over the original model.
On October 17, 2017, Microsoft revealed the successor to the Surface Book, the Surface Book 2, which was itself replaced by the Surface Book 3 in May 2020.
Features.
Design.
The Surface Book's design was influenced by a goal to design a 2-in-1 convertible tablet that could be folded like a laptop, and not require the keyboard to be heavier than the tablet portion in order to support and balance the tablet portion. To reach this goal, the Surface development team developed a special hinge on the keyboard that would increase the footprint of the device when opened, thus maintaining the balance without increasing the weight differential between the two parts. The hinge is accompanied by muscle wire locks that secure the tablet portion to the keyboard. The wires are made from nickel titanium—an alloy that contracts when exposed to an electrical current; pressing a release button on the keyboard sends an electrical impulse through the wires that attach or release the clips. The team also worked with the Microsoft team developing Windows 10 to implement a switchable graphics system, where the tablet would be able to switch to a discrete graphics card located within the keyboard when docked, and revert to internal graphics when undocked.
The Surface Book's use cases are reflected by several design decisions, such as referring to the tablet portion as being a "clipboard". Additionally, while the device as a whole is rated as having 12 hours of battery life, this capacity is divided between two separate batteries within the clipboard and keyboard portions: the clipboard has a 4-hour battery, while the base has 8-hour. The Surface Book's keyboard is considered a major component of the device, and is bundled with all models.
The device consists of a tablet portion with a , 3000×2000 resolution display, and a keyboard attachment. That allows it to function similarly to a traditional laptop. Both components are constructed from machined magnesium. The Surface Book's keyboard utilizes a "dynamic fulcrum hinge", which compresses when closed, and expands outwards when opened. The hinge design allows the tablet portion to be held up at an angle resembling a traditional laptop screen without the use of a "kickstand", a supporting part found in Surface-series devices, and increases the physical room between the keyboard and the tablet.
Hardware.
Surface Book is a first-time Surface-family 2-in-1 to be shipped with a keyboard. Contrary to a "Type Cover" optional keyboard accessory of other Surface tablets, Surface Book's keyboard is a thick and sturdy part, capable of folding back behind the display. It contains two USB 3.0 ports, full-size SD card slot on the left, Mini DisplayPort and "SurfaceConnect" port on the right, has an integrated additional battery and an optional Nvidia discrete GPU with 1 GB of video memory. It can be used for non-demanding tasks such as web browsing without the connected keyboard part, and when laptop convenience, extended connectivity, performance, and battery life are needed — with the keyboard attached.
The 2-in-1's display features the same 3:2 aspect ratio and 10-point multi-touch display, found in other Surface tablets starting from Surface Pro 3, but its size and resolution are significantly increased at and 3000×2000 (267 PPI) respectively.
Surface Book models are built with a 6th generation Skylake Intel Core i5 or i7 processors. The top CPU option, i7-6600U, has a clock rate of 2.6 GHz, with up to 3.4 GHz in Turbo Boost mode.
There is an Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU available, integrated in all processor options, however it is possible to order a Surface Book with an additional custom variant of Nvidia GeForce 940M Maxwell-architecture discrete GPU for the improved operation of GPU performance-demanding programs such as Adobe Premiere Pro. During the presentation it was stated that the models with Nvidia GPU can comfortably run games with a performance footprint of League of Legends. The Surface Book is able to connect and disconnect the discrete GPU automatically, on-the-fly and without an OS reboot needed, when user attaches and detaches the keyboard part.
Two system memory options available are: 8 or 16 GB and four SSD options: 128, 256, 512 GB, or 1 TB, but the higher SSD option is not available in some countries.
The front camera contains an infrared sensor that supports logging in with Windows Hello.
Surface Book with Performance Base.
At the Microsoft Windows 10 event on October 26, 2016, Microsoft announced a version of the Surface Book that contained an updated Nvidia GeForce GTX 965M discrete GPU along with an additional 1 GB of GDDR5 video memory (meaning the new Surface Book now has 2 GB of vRAM instead of 1 GB). The base of this updated Surface Book is also thicker than the original in order to incorporate an additional cooling fan for the new GPU and more internal batteries, allowing for an additional 4 hours of video playback - upping the total claimed runtime of the device to 16 hours. This model is also heavier and is available only with an Intel Core i7 processor. There are no upgrades to the processors, RAM, or storage in the Surface Book with Performance Base over the original.
Software.
Surface Book models ship with a pre-installed 64-bit version of Windows 10 Pro and a 30-day trial Microsoft Office suite.
Accessories.
A "Surface Dock" was announced alongside the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, and is compatible with both devices. It is also backward compatible with the Surface Pro 3. The "Surface Dock" adds two Mini DisplayPorts, one Gigabit Ethernet, four USB 3.0 and one audio out port to the 2-in-1.
Just like the Surface Pro devices, Surface Book includes a "Surface Pen". Surface Book ships with the latest version of the pen with 1024 levels of pressure. A "Surface Pen Tip Kit" is also available for order, which includes a set of pen tips of various diameter aimed for artists and illustrators.
Reception and issues.
Critical reception.
Upon release the Surface Book received critical acclaim for its design and functionality, as well as its integration of a secondary GPU into the keyboard. However, the lack of certain features, such as LTE connectivity and USB-C ports, was noted along with the price of the highest-specs model (US$3,200 for one with 1 TB of storage and a Core i7). In addition, many reviewers had pre-release issues with the hinge undocking mechanism and graphics display drivers, both of which Microsoft resolved at a later date through a Windows software update. The first review versions of the hardware did not initially have Windows Hello enabled, but after a firmware update enabled it reception of the feature was positive. The "teardown" site iFixit scored the Surface Book 1/10 for repairability mainly due to the use of glue instead of screws to hold the unit together and the impossibility of upgrade things such as the CPU and RAM that are both soldered to the motherboard.
Issues.
The Windows Hello driver included in a firmware update failed to properly reinitialize the infrared camera after waking from sleep mode, causing Windows Hello to fail until a reboot. Firmware updates were issued in April and May 2016 to fix the camera. The device had a battery life issue where it failed to sleep properly, draining the battery very quickly. Microsoft developed a fix that was available on February 17, 2016. An additional issue raised by many Surface owners is problems with expanding lithium batteries that causes screen discoloration and separation of the screen from the body of the computer. This has led to concerns about potential fire and explosion hazards. The design of the Surface does not allow for the battery to be easily exchanged.
Return rates.
The Surface Book has had high return rates since its launch because of the issues it had.


MySQL Manager

MySQL Manager is an application that is included in the Mac OS X Server that starts and stops the MySQL Database service that is within the server. The application is located in . Unlike other server tools, this tool is only installed on the server itself.


SmartQ 5

The SmartQ 5 is a budget mobile Internet device manufactured by the Chinese company Smart Devices. It was officially announced 11 February 2009.
Overview.
The SmartQ 5 comes with a custom version of Ubuntu Linux installed which is adapted for use with a touchscreen. It uses the LXDE desktop environment.
Ubuntu's main pre-installed applications are:
It is possible to install another Linux besides the default OS. Several Linux distributions like Mer and a ported Android support the SmartQ 5.
Smart Devices has obtained a Windows CE 6.0 royalty, the OS has been made available on the official site. Although a license from Microsoft needs to be purchased to activate Windows CE.


Surround Video

Surround Video was a Microsoft technology, announced as a competitor, to Apple's QuickTime VR for creating panoramic 360-degree 3D images. It was evaluated by reviewers as an equal to Quicktime VR. Despite never having shipped as an actual end-user product, Microsoft released a "Surround Video" ActiveX control.
The Surround Video control was used by websites such as CarPoint and Expedia. It also ships as part of Encarta encyclopedia where it is used for panoramic interactivities.
A somewhat similar modern initiative by Microsoft is Microsoft Live Labs Photosynth.


Embedded operating system

An embedded operating system is an operating system for embedded computer systems. Embedded operating systems are computer systems designed for a specific purpose, to increase functionality and reliability for achieving a specific task. Resource efficiency comes at the cost of losing some functionality or granularity that larger computer operating systems provide, including functions which may not be used by the specialized applications they run. Depending on the method used for multitasking, this type of OS is frequently considered to be a real-time operating system, or "RTOS". Embedded systems are mostly used as Real-time operating systems. QNX, WinCE, and VxWorks are the most widely used embedded operating systems today.
All embedded systems contain a processor and software. There must be a place for software to store the executable code and temporary storage for run-time data manipulations. These take the form of ROM and RAM respectively. All embedded systems must also contain some form of inputs and outputs to function. Within the exception of these few common features, the rest of the embedded hardware is usually unique and varies from application to application. The hardware running an embedded operating system can be very limited in resources, therefore embedded design of these operating systems may have a narrow scope tailored to a specific application in order to achieve desired operation under these constraints. The embedded operating system that organizes and controls the hardware usually determines the rest of the embedded hardware needed.
In order to take better advantage of the processing power of the CPU, software developers may write critical code directly in assembly. This "machine efficient" language can potentially result in gains in speed and determinism at the cost of portability and maintainability. Often, embedded operating systems are written entirely in more portable languages, like C, however.
An important difference between most embedded operating systems and desktop operating systems is that the application, including the operating system, is usually statically linked together into a single executable image. Unlike a desktop operating system, the embedded operating system does not load and execute applications. This means that the system is only able to run a single application.
History.
The Development of Embedded Operating Systems.
In the late 1970s, the concept of real-time multitasking kernel was proposed. In 1980s, while the application of embedded system becomes more and more complex, the embedded operating system with real-time multitask kernel could not meet the requirement of embedded development. The real time multitasking kernel began to develop into a complete real-time multitasking operating system (RTOS) that included a network, file, development and debugging environment.
Nowadays, RTOS has formed an industry in the world. The world's first commercial embedded real-time kernel (VRTX32) was developed by Ready System in 1981. Then in 1993, Ready System and the famous Silicon Valley embedded software company Microtec Research Merger developed two new RTOS kernel VRTX32 and VRTXsa on the basis of VRTXmc. At the same time, VRTX integrated development environment (Spectra) appears, which greatly improves the development of embedded software.
Microsoft, which dominates the desktop operating system, also released its own embedded 460operating system in 1996. The embedded operating system is WinCE, which is originally based on Windows 95 in the 1.0 version, and subsequently 2.0 version, 3.0 version, until up to 6.0 version, supporting x86, ARM, SH4, MIPS and other processor architecture. WinCE is a preemptive multithreaded operating system. Through the thread, WinCE is better to achieve the embedded operating system task scheduling, inter-task communication, mutual exclusion and other functions. In order to solve the problem of priority inversion in preemptive real-time scheduling in WinCE, priority inversion mechanism is realized.
The Arrival of a New Era of Embedded.
Nowadays thousands of embedded devices are used in the system of Internet of Things and hundreds of sensors are used in a car. Compared with the traditional embedded system, the Internet of Things system requires lower power consumption, safe and reliable, and has the ability of ad hoc network. The communication section needs to meet the conversion between various communication protocols and the application layer must have the ability of cloud computing. This puts forward higher requirements for the design of the operating system.


Gyrodine

 is a top-down, vertically scrolling shooter developed by Crux and released in arcades by Taito in 1984. Ports to the Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom and MSX followed. The player flies a helicopter that can shoot air and ground targets.
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Gyrodine" on their August 1, 1984 issue as being the ninth most-successful table arcade unit of the year.


FM-7

The FM-7 ("Fujitsu Micro 7") is a home computer created by Fujitsu. It was first released in 1982 and was sold in Japan and Spain. It is a stripped-down version of Fujitsu's earlier FM-8 computer, and during development it was referred to as the "FM-8 Jr.".
Although it was designed to be a cut-down version of the FM-8, most notably removing the (expensive) bubble memory technology, the FM-7 was given a more advanced AY-3-8910 sound chip capable of three voice sound synthesis, leading to a strong uptake among the hobbyist computer market in Japan and making it a more popular system than the FM-8.
The FM-7 primarily competed with the NEC PC-8801 and Sharp X1 series of computers in the early 1980s. It was succeeded by the FM-77 series of computers in 1984, which featured backwards compatibility with the FM-7. The FM-77 series was later succeeded by the 32-bit FM Towns in 1989.
The FM-7 is based around the 6809 chip, which was also used in home computers such as the TRS-80 Color Computer and Dragon 32/64, as well as several arcade games.
F-BASIC.
The included "F-BASIC" is an enhanced version of the Color BASIC language used on the TRS-80 Color Computer. Changes include a different character set that includes katakana and a few kanji, the ability to have graphics appear on the default text screen, and several new commands such as codice_1, codice_2, codice_3, codice_4, codice_5, codice_6, codice_7, codice_8, and codice_9. There are also strings for codice_10 and codice_11, which access a temporary built-in internal clock, though if the power is turned off, the time and date are lost.
It's worth noting that, while F-Basic has commands that Color BASIC does not, most commands featured in both versions of the language operate in exactly the same fashion.
While the BASIC codice_12 command works the same as on Color BASIC, the cursor position is important on the FM-7: there is a small keypad on the upper-right of the FM-7 with cursor-control keys (arrows, INSERT & DELETE), and wherever the user decides to position the cursor, it will move it there and affect whatever is underneath it.
Both Microsoft and Fujitsu share the copyright on the BASIC.
Models.
There were several models of the computer:


RTAI

Real-time application interface (RTAI) is a real-time extension for the Linux kernel, which lets users write applications with strict timing constraints for Linux. Like Linux itself the RTAI software is a community effort. RTAI provides deterministic response to interrupts, POSIX-compliant and native RTAI real-time tasks. RTAI supports several architectures, including IA-32 (with and without FPU and TSC), x86-64, PowerPC, ARM (StrongARM and ARM7: clps711x-family, Cirrus Logic EP7xxx, CS89712, PXA25x), and MIPS.
RTAI consists mainly of two parts: an Adeos-based patch to the Linux kernel which introduces a hardware abstraction layer, and a broad variety of services which make lives of real-time programmers easier. RTAI versions over 3.0 use an Adeos kernel patch, slightly modified in the x86 architecture case, providing additional abstraction and much lessened dependencies on the "patched" operating system. Adeos is a kernel patch comprising an Interrupt Pipeline where different operating system domains register interrupt handlers. This way, RTAI can transparently take over interrupts while leaving the processing of all others to Linux. Use of Adeos also frees RTAI from patent restrictions caused by RTLinux project.
RTAI-XML.
RTAI-XML is a server component of RTAI, implementing a service-oriented way to design and develop real-time (RT) control applications.
This project was born to fulfill the needs of a university group, mainly focused to have a flexible platform for learning control systems design, allowing the students to test their programs remotely, over the Internet. Leaving the first wishful thinking and going to the real implementation gave rise to the alpha version of RTAI-XML, that showed the potential impact of the basic idea of a net separation of "hard" and "soft" real-time tasks in the programmation logic. What was necessary to assure that students could not crash the RT process, is now becoming a new RTAI paradigm.
RTAI-XML consists of a server component waiting for incoming calls on a box where a real-time process, the Target, is running (or ready to). A generic client program, the Host, can reach the server through the TCP/IP network, using a standard protocol based on XML, and hence interact with the Target, in order to monitor the status of the RT process, to see the signals collected (or generated) by the system and also to fetch and change the RT parameters (for example, the gains of a PID feedback ring). In other words, RTAI-XML provides a simple way towards remoting of control applications, adding flexibility to the RTAI project, without losing the key features of an open and standard implementation.
The RTAI-XML section of this site presents the details of the implementation. The general architecture is revised, in order to focus the three key components, the Server, the "Server-Target" interface and the "Server-Host" communication. The Applications section contains some examples of control systems based on RTAI-XML and the References section contains hints and links for further readings on this topic.


Graphics BASIC

Graphics BASIC is a third-party extension to the Commodore BASIC V2.0 programming language of the Commodore 64 computer. It was originally written in 1983 by Ron Gilbert and Tom McFarlane. The program was licensed to Hesware, who briefly sold the program in 1984 as part of their product line before going out of business. The program was later extended by Ken Rose and Jack Thornton, and repackaged and sold in 1985 by Epyx under the title "Programmers BASIC Toolkit".
Graphics BASIC adds over 100 new commands to the BASIC language, providing an easy-to-use API to the relatively advanced (at the time) graphics and sound hardware capabilities of the Commodore 64. The only access to these features with Commodore BASIC alone is through the cumbersome use of PEEK and POKE commands. Graphics BASIC was delivered on a single 5.25" floppy disk, containing the language itself and numerous, very simple demo programs showing off the new features of the language. A cartridge version was also available.
Features.
Graphics.
Graphics BASIC's main feature is its easy-to-use graphics commands, including commands to draw dots, lines, circles, ellipses, rectangles, and polygons. The following gives an example of how the commands were used:
 DOT 160,100
 LINE 80,50 TO 240,150
 BOX 10,10 TO 20,20
As can be seen from the above, the syntax is somewhat similar to that of GW-BASIC's or AmigaBASIC's graphics commands, but different enough to prevent source-code compatibility.
The Commodore 64 has separate video modes for text and graphics. Switching between these is extremely easy in Graphics BASIC. codice_1 switches to text mode, codice_2 switches to 320×200 two-colour graphics, and codice_3 switches to 160×200 four-colour graphics. Graphics BASIC also allows the screen to be horizontally split between multiple modes.
Using all 16 colours is possible in both HiRes and Multi modes, but if two incompatible colours are drawn onto the same 8×8 pixel block, the entire block fills with the colour drawn later. This is due to a technical limitation of the Commodore 64's VIC-II display chip.
One of the more unusual choices of syntax in Graphics BASIC was the setting of graphics colours. To set the foreground and background colours of the text mode, you use the commands codice_4 and codice_5, followed by either a number from 0 to 15, or a pre-defined symbolic constant such as codice_6 or codice_7. To set the colours of the graphics mode, the command syntax is of the form:
 COLOUR HIRES x ON y
where x is the foreground colour and y is the background colour. (For example, codice_8).
Sprites.
Graphics BASIC also provides commands to manipulate the Commodore 64's eight sprites. These sprites are 24×21 pixels in size, drawn in either 2 colours (1 colour + background) or 4 colours (3 colours + background). Each sprite has one individual colour to its own. In 3-colour mode, the horizontal resolution is halved, and all 3-colour sprites share the same 2 extra colours.
The compact syntax of the sprite commands has more in common with the command-line options of Unix programs than conventional programming languages. In essence, several sprite manipulations can be combined into one command, starting with the word codice_9 and the sprite's number, from 1 to 8. This is then followed by any number of keywords, and the parameters they need. As an example,
 SPRITE 1 ON AT 160,100 COLOUR BLUE XYSIZE 2,2
does a total of four things: set sprite 1 as visible, move it into the location (160, 100) on the screen, set its individual colour to blue, and double its physical size both horizontally and vertically.
Graphics BASIC also supports automatic sprite movement (change in place), animation (change in shape), and collision detection. This is implemented in the language core itself by adding hooks into the Commodore 64's software interrupt routines. (The language does not support adding your own interrupt hooks.)
Sprite shapes can be drawn by hand with a built-in sprite editor, accessed with the command codice_10. The editor, while simple to use, was somewhat rudimentary. Sprite shapes can be loaded or saved to disk with the codice_11 and codice_12 commands. Programmatically drawing new sprite shapes can be done by drawing the shapes on the normal hires or multicolor screen, then copying the shapes with the codice_13 or codice_14 command.
Sound.
Graphics BASIC also provides various commands to control the Commodore 64's built-in audio synthesizer, allowing the selection of waveform type, tone (frequency), and amplitude envelopes. In addition, sequences of tones can be specified and played automatically in the background.
Other commands.
In addition to graphics and sound commands, Graphics BASIC also provides various other useful commands such as codice_15 to list the file directory of a device, codice_16 to return the position of a joystick, codice_17 to program function keys, codice_18 to renumber the current program line numbers. Graphics BASIC also added an codice_19 command to perform error capturing, a codice_20 command that allowed variables to be passed to subroutines, and added codice_21 to the codice_22 command.


Microsoft Graph

Microsoft Graph is a Microsoft developer platform that connects multiple services and devices. Initially released in 2015, the Microsoft Graph builds on Microsoft 365 APIs and allows developers to integrate their services with Microsoft products, including Windows, Microsoft 365, and Azure. At its Build 2017 conference, Microsoft announced it would use the Microsoft Graph to bring new functionality and connectivity between Windows and other OS platforms, including Android and iOS.


VTech PreComputer 2000

The VTech PreComputer 2000 (also known as the Genius Leader 2000/2000 Plus) is an electronic learning aid manufactured by VTech and released in 1992. It contains a dot matrix LCD, standard size keyboard, 34 activities for teaching in 4 different levels for 1 or 2 players and introductory computer programming with the BASIC programming language. It has an 80,000 word spell checker and a SAT word builder. It can be powered by battery or AC adapter. It is the successor to the VTech PreComputer 1000 model.
Specifications.
The VTech PreComputer 2000 relies upon a Z80B clone as its processing core.
A 1MBit (128Kbyte) ROM contains the Operating system and program data which can be expanded via the cartridge slot.
Output is supplied by a 2 row 20 column dot-matrix LCD panel.
This machine features a rudimentary implementation of BASIC offering truth tables, arrays, input statements and variables, allowing users to create simple text programs. One program may be held in memory at a time.
Features.
The VTech PreComputer 2000 offers the following features:
Expansion Cartridges.
Cartridges for the VTech PreComputer 1000 could be used but the following cartridges were available for the VTech PreComputer 2000: The cartridges could only be inserted with the power off before re-powering and pressing the 'Cartridge' button to activate.


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MOS Technology

MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group), was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.
History.
MOS Technology, Inc. was originally started in 1969 by Allen-Bradley to provide a second source for electronic calculators and their chips designed by Texas Instruments (TI). In the early 1970s TI decided to release their own line of calculators, instead of selling just the chips inside them, and introduced them at a price that was lower than the price of the chipset alone. Many early chip companies were reliant on sales of calculator chips and were wiped out in the aftermath; those that survived did so by finding other chips to produce. MOS became a supplier to Atari, producing a custom single-chip "Pong" system.
Things changed dramatically in 1975. Several of the designers of the Motorola 6800 left Motorola shortly after its release, after management told them to stop working on a low-cost version of the design. At the time there was no such thing as a pure-play semiconductor foundry, so they had to join a chip-building company to produce their new CPU. MOS was a small firm with good credentials in the right area, the east coast of the USA. The team of four design engineers was headed by Chuck Peddle and included Bill Mensch. At MOS they set about building a new CPU that would outperform the 6800 while being similar to it in purpose and much less expensive. The resulting 6501 design was somewhat similar to the 6800, but by using several simplifications in the design, the 6501 would be up to 4 times faster.
Mask fixing.
Previous CPU designs, like the 6800, were produced using a device known as a contact aligner. This was essentially a complex photocopier, which optically reproduced a CPU design, or "mask", on the surface of the silicon chip. The name "contact" referred to the fact that the mask was placed directly on the surface of the chip, which had the significant disadvantage that it sometimes pulled away materials from the chip, which was then copied to subsequent chips. This caused the mask to become useless after about a dozen copies, and resulted in the vast majority of chips having fatal flaws; for a complex chip like the 6800, only about 10% of the chips would work once the masking process was complete.
In 1974 Perkin-Elmer publicly introduced the Micralign system, the first projection scanner. Instead of placing the mask on the surface of the chip, it held it far from the surface and used highly accurate optics to project the image. Masks now lasted for thousands of copies instead of tens, and the flaw rate of the chips inverted so that perhaps 70% of the chips produced would work. The result was a similar inversion in pricing; the 6800 sold in small lots for $295, with no other changes than using a Micralign, the same design could sell for $42.
The change to the Micralign revealed a further advantage. Previously the masks were mass-produced by photography companies like Kodak, who would make tens of thousands of copies of a master mask, or "reticle", and ship the masks to the aligners by the truckload. This meant that if a flaw was found in the design, it would cost a significant amount of money to fix it, as all the older masks would have to be thrown out. In contrast, with Micralign there was only one mask per aligner, so there was no inherent cost in replacing the mask if need be, although the cost, and especially time, of producing these master masks was considerable.
MOS developed the ability to "fix" its masks after they had been produced. This meant that as flaws in the design were discovered, the masks could be removed from the aligners, fixed, and put back in. This allowed them to rapidly drive out flaws in the original masks.
The company's production lines typically reversed the numbers others were achieving; even the early runs of a new CPU design—what would become the 6502—were achieving a success rate of 70 percent or better. This meant that not only were its designs faster, they cost much less as well.
6502 family.
When the 6501 was announced, Motorola launched a lawsuit almost immediately. Although the 6501 instruction set was not compatible with the 6800, it could nevertheless be plugged into existing motherboard designs because it had the same functional pin arrangement and IC package footprint. That was enough to allow Motorola to sue. Sales of the 6501 basically stopped, and the lawsuit would drag on for many years before MOS was eventually forced to pay $200,000 USD in fines.
In the meantime MOS had started selling the 6502, a chip capable of operating at 1 MHz in September 1975 for a mere US$25. It was nearly identical to the 6501, with only a few minor differences: an added on-chip clock oscillator, a different functional pinout arrangement, generation of the SYNC signal (supporting single-instruction stepping), and removal of data bus enablement control signals (DBE and BA, with the former directly connected to the phase 2 clock instead). It outperformed the more-complex 6800 and Intel 8080, but cost much less and was easier to work with. Although it did not have the 6501's advantage of being able to be used in place of the Motorola 6800 in existing hardware, it was so inexpensive that it quickly became more popular than the 6800, making that a moot point.
The 6502 was so cheap that many people believed it was a scam when MOS first showed it at a 1975 trade show. They were not aware of MOS's masking techniques and when they calculated the price per chip at the current industry yield rates, it did not add up. But any hesitation to buy it evaporated when both Motorola and Intel dropped the prices on their own designs from $179 to $69 at the same show in order to compete. Their moves legitimized the 6502, and by the show's end, the wooden barrel full of samples was empty.
The 6502 would quickly go on to be one of the most popular chips of its day. A number of companies licensed the 650x line from MOS, including Rockwell International, GTE, Synertek, and Western Design Center (WDC).
A number of different versions of the basic CPU, known as the 6503 through 6507, were offered in 28-pin packages for lower cost. The various models removed signal or address pins. Far and away the most popular of these was the 6507, which was used in the Atari 2600 and Atari disk drives. The 6504 was sometimes used in printers. MOS also released a series of similar CPUs using external clocks, which added a "1" to the name in the third digit, as the 6512 through 6515. These were useful in systems where the clock support was already being provided on the motherboard by some other source. The final addition was the "crossover" 6510, used in the Commodore 64, with additional I/O ports.
Commodore Semiconductor Group.
However successful the 6502 was, the company itself was having problems. At about the same time the 6502 was being released, MOS's entire calculator IC market collapsed, and its prior existing products stopped shipping. Soon they were in serious financial trouble. Another company, Commodore Business Machines (CBM), had invested heavily in the calculator market and was also nearly wiped out by TI's entry into the market. A fresh injection of capital saved CBM, and allowed it to invest in company suppliers in order to help ensure their IC supply would not be upset in this fashion again. Among the several companies were LED display manufacturers, power controllers, and suppliers of the driver chips, including MOS.
In late 1976, CBM, publicly traded on the NYSE with a market capitalization around US$60 million, purchased MOS (whose market cap was around US$12 million) in an all-stock deal. Holders of MOS received a 9.4 percent equity stake in CBM on the condition that Chuck Peddle would join Commodore as chief engineer. The deal went through, and while the firm basically became Commodore's production arm, they continued using the name MOS for some time so that manuals would not have to be reprinted. After a while MOS became the Commodore Semiconductor Group (CSG). Despite being renamed to CSG, all chips produced were still stamped with the old "MOS" logo until 1989.
MOS had previously designed a simple computer kit called the KIM-1, primarily to "show off" the 6502 chip. At Commodore, Peddle convinced the owner, Jack Tramiel, that calculators were a dead end, and that home computers would soon be huge.
However, the original design group appeared to be even less interested in working for Jack Tramiel than it had for Motorola, and the team quickly started breaking up. One result was that the newly completed 6522 (VIA) chip was left undocumented for years.
Bill Mensch left MOS even before the Commodore takeover, and moved home to Arizona. After a short stint consulting for a local company called ICE, he set up the Western Design Center (WDC) in 1978. As a licensee of the 6502 line, their first products were bug-fixed, power-efficient CMOS versions of the 6502 (the 65C02, both as a separate chip and embedded inside a microcontroller called the 65C150). But then they expanded the line greatly with the introduction of the 65816, a fairly straightforward 16-bit upgrade of the original 65C02 that could also run in 8-bit mode for compatibility. Since then WDC moved much of the original MOS catalog to CMOS, and the 6502 continued to be a popular CPU for the embedded systems market, like medical equipment and car dashboard controllers.
GMT Microelectronics.
After Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994, Commodore Semiconductor Group, MOS's successor, was bought by its former management for about $4.3 million, plus an additional $1 million to cover miscellaneous expenses including EPA license. Dennis Peasenell became CEO. In December 1994, they entered into a Prospective Purchase Agreement (limiting the company's liability in exchange for sharing the costs of cleanup) with GMT Microelectronics.
In 1994, the company, operating under the name GMT Microelectronics ("Great Mixed-signal Technologies"), reopened MOS Technologies' original, circa-1970 one-micrometre fab in Norristown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania that Commodore had closed in 1993.
GMT would have provided foundry services based on TelCom's Bipolar and SiCr Thin Film Resistor processes and would have been licensed alternate sources for TelCom's Bipolar based products, with production running at 10 thousand 5-inch wafers per month, producing CMOS, BiCMOS, NMOS, bipolar and SOI devices.
The plant had been on the EPA's National Priorities List of hazardous waste sites since October 4, 1989. This was due to a 1974 leak of TCE from an underground 250-gallon concrete storage tank used by Commodore Business Machines in the semiconductor cleaning process. Leaks from tank had caused the local groundwater to become contaminated with trichloroethylene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 1978. By 1999 GMT Microelectronics had $21 million in revenues and 183 employees working on the site. In 2000, GMT Microelectronics discontinued operations and abandoned all of its assets at the Commodore Semiconductor Group superfund site.
Chip naming convention.
Most of the MOS chips are named according to following rules, which shows used technology (logic gate design):


Personal Animation Recorder

PAR, the Personal Animation Recorder, is an analog video playback device for Amiga computers built by DPS (Digital Processing Systems, Canada) in 1993. It fits into an Amiga's Zorro II/III slot available in the Amiga 2000/3000/4000 models. It's capable of PAL or NTSC full-frame realtime or single-frame playback, using dedicated harddiscs connected to the board's IDE controller. Additional devices for the PAR include the DPS AD-3000 (PAL) video capture board, the DPS Personal TBC IV (NTSC) video capture and time-base-corrector board, and the Sunrize AD-516 audio recording and playback board.


IBM 9370

The IBM 9370 systems were "baby mainframe" midrange computers, released 1986 at the very low end of, and compatible with System/370.
Summary.
The announcement described the IBM 9370 as a "super-mini computer" for commercial and engineering/scientific use—compact, rack-mounted, designed for an office environment, not needing a data center to be used.
At the time of announcement the systems were positioned between IBM's midrange systems (IBM System/36 and IBM System/38), and the IBM 4300 mainframe series in performance.
Intended to be sold in large amounts as departmental machines ("VAX killers"), the 9370 initially suffered from lack of software and the failure of IBM to market it properly. Nevertheless, the systems were popular at least with users actually "needing" System/370 compatibility while not wanting to accept the expense of a larger system (like e.g. smaller software houses) or with users (like some large IBM customers) preferring hierarchically structured distributed processing solutions rigidly managed by central communication controllers like IBM 37xx. By 1990 the 9370 line had around 6,300 installed systems and generated over 2 billion dollars in sales for IBM.
While becoming part of the IBM Enterprise Systems Architecture in 1988 ("ES/9370" like "ES/4300" and "ES/3090"), the 9370s weren't XA systems. In 1990 IBM announced the "ES/9000" series; the rack-mounted models 120-170 with 31-bit "Enterprise Systems Architecture" (ESA) and ESCON were the suggested upgrades for ES/9370 users.
History.
Initially, the lineup contained four models: 20, 40, 60, and 90.
The IBM 9370 was partially a replacement for the also-not-so-successful IBM 8100 distributed processing engine.
High-level 9370 models were mentioned as a substitution when low-level 4300 models were withdrawn from marketing 1987.
The 9370 evolved into ES/9370, which itself was complemented with, and later followed on by the ES/9221 in 1990.
Models and options.
During the 9370s product lifecycle, several models have been available.
Early models.
The 9370 core was an IBM 801 CPU.
All models included a floating point accelerator as well as a processor console to install, operate and maintain the system.
Each "DASD/Tape Controller" had eight device addresses and provided a data transfer rate of 3 MB. IBM 9332 (368 MB) and IBM 9335 (824 MB) DASD and IBM 9347 nine-track half-inch tape have been announced for the 9370s.
Each "Workstation Controller" could interface up to 32 IBM 3270 terminals / printers.
Software for all models included VM/SP+VM/IS, VSE/SP, and VM/SP+IX/370, while MVS/SP was only available for larger models.
Enterprise systems architecture models.
An upgrade ("Miscellaneous Equipment Specification", MES) was available which involved - among other things - replacing the 9332 FBA drives with CKD enabled DASDs.
In 1988, "Distributed Processing Programming Executive" DPPX/370 for ES/9370 was made available to customers wanting to migrate from the IBM 8100 running DPPX.
The "Micro Channel 370" Models 010, 012, 014 (later 110, 112, 114) ES/9371 introduced in 1990 used the Micro Channel bus and a 386 CPU for input/output (I/O) processing. Additionally, a dual-processor model was offered, providing a second 386 CPU for DOS and OS/2 applications, implementing a high-speed link between the processors. With the models mentioned, APPC support was added, using LU6.2 based on SNA PU2.1.


Legends of Valour

Legends of Valour is a role-playing video game developed by Synthetic Dimensions and released by U.S. Gold and Strategic Simulations in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS, with the additional FM Towns and PC-98 versions in 1993-1994 in Japan only (as Legends of Valour: Gouyuu no Densetsu). As the game was planned to be a first part of the series, its full title is Legends of Valour: Volume I – The Dawning. The proposed unreleased sequel to "Legends of Valour" was to take place in the world outside Mitteldorf, the enclosed city where the entirety of "Legends of Valour" takes place.
Plot.
The protagonist arrives in Mittledorf (which translates to "middle village" in English from German) to visit their cousin Sven (named Gareth in the early version). Shortly after their arrival, the city is quarantined due to an outbreak of plague and they are barred from leaving. Sven is missing, and throughout the course of the game the protagonist seeks to find him. This is the starting point of the game's main quest, and throughout the protagonist's mission to find Sven the protagonist restores a king to power and slays a demon.
Gameplay.
"Legends of Valour" is played in a first-person perspective, being one of the first RPGs after it to use a smooth-scrolling three-dimensional environment engine in the style of "Wolfenstein 3D". The game also features a point-and-click interface, an either automated or realtime combat, and day/night cycle. The game's mechanics are complex for its time, requiring the player to eat, drink, sleep, pay taxes and take out life insurance. The game takes place in a walled capital city called Mitteldorf, where the player can explore the streets, buildings and a massive network of dungeons and sewers connected through a natural cave system, while completing various missions given by its numerous citizens. Mitteldorf is over a square mile in size and among its many buildings are several taverns, hostels, shops, guilds, temples, prisons as well as other places of interest - well over a hundred locations in total. The player may join guilds, such as the Thieves, Mercenaries, and Men At Arms guilds, or temples for deities, including Asegeir, Loki, Set, Odin, Freya, and Aegir. Joining a guild or temple may prevent membership with others, for example, joining the Thieves Guild prevents the player from joining the temple of Odin, but the player may still join the temples of Asegeir, Set, or Aegir. The guilds and temples offer the player career paths with unique missions and provide a weekly wage. "Legends of Valour" has two different types of spells: magic spells, and religious spells, the latter may only be obtained by joining a Temple.
Characters in "Legends of Valour" are defined by four attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Speed, and Health. These four statistics are determined by a dice-roll and can be re-rolled as desired during character creation, and the player's race adds bonuses to certain attributes. Strength determines a character's combat prowess, Intelligence determines magical ability and ability to reason, and speed determines a character's movement speed, ability to dodge attacks, and accuracy in combat. The player can choose to play as a human, an elf, or a dwarf; the chosen race influences relations with other characters. Elves gain bonuses to Intelligence and Speed but lower health, dwarves gain bonuses to Health and Strength, but lower speed. Human characters are average in all statistics. The protagonist's gender has no effect on statistics, but affects interactions with NPCs.
During the game, the player's character can become a vampire or a werewolf. The player character can become drunk, which impairs movement and vision, and be arrested for this. Characters can become undernourished if they neglect their needs (food, water and sleep) and are more likely to catch a disease. Passing guards may overhear illegal conversations.
Development.
"Legends of Valour" first began development in May 1991, and was developed in two years. U.S. Gold describes "Legends of Valour" with the catchphrase 'A Virtual World'. Advertisements for "Legends of Valour" claimed ""Ultima Underworld", move over! ... Experience the hottest, smoothest 3-D scrolling graphics ever in an underworld, or any world!" "The One" interviewed Kevin Bulmer, one of "Legends of Valour's" designers, for information regarding its development in a pre-release interview. Bulmer states that the game's city of Mitteldorf is "a mile and half ["sic"] long from North to South and three-quarters of a mile from East to West. According to US Gold's playtesters, the ground plan of the town is eight times the size of "" and they reckon that to visit every location on the ground level, doing nothing else and playing the game all night and at the weekends, would take you over two weeks." In regards to the design of the game's dungeons, Bulmer explains that "we design the puzzles we're putting in the map, rather than draw a map and then fit the puzzles into it." "Legends" was first developed on PC using texture mapping, but this could not be directly ported to the Amiga version, as "on the Amiga each pixel is represented by a number of bits scattered over several bytes. So, wherease ["sic"] on the PC you can change a pixel in one go by writing to just one byte, on the Amiga you have to write to several bytes, making sure that you don't alter any of the other bits in the process, which takes a lot longer."
Bulmer says that "We did the Amiga first as a texture-mapped polygon game like the PC but it was so slow because the maths is a nightmare ... So what we're now doing is ray-tracing the player's view, which is a scheme Ian came up with for the PC but we never had time to do." Programmers for the Amiga port, Graham Lilley and Paul Woakes, implemented ray tracing for the Amiga version to help the game run better, "and solved any problems there were" with it. "The One's" interviewer notes that ray tracing the 3D scenes is more complicated mathematically, to which Bulmer responds that "It is and it should be incredibly slow ... But it isn't. Now we know why it works but we're not telling anybody else! Theoretically the Amiga version should be playing on an 8MHz 286 PC but using this technique we've developed it's more like playing on 16MHz 386. It's given us a huge increase in performance. In fact, we want to take it back over to the PC for the sequel when we get time." The Amiga's ray traced 3D allows functional windows, through which the player can see into or out of a building. Bulmer enthuses about this feature in the Amiga version, stating that "You can look diagonally across a building, through a window, into a room, out of the window on the other side and into another street to another building and into a window there."
A key feature of "Legends"' combat are the three ways of striking with a weapon: crushing, jabbing, and swinging with it. Bulmer notes that "each weapon has an optimum way of being used and each monster has an optimum way of being attacked." People in "Legends" are stored as a set of eight 50-pixel high sprites, while monsters and large objects such as trees and streetlights are kept at a 100-pixel scale. The eight sprites correspond to each possible rotation at which a character can be viewed, and sprites are "shrunk" in real time to correspond to how much of the character is positioned in the player's view. When in dialogue or combat, characters are shown close-up; this sprite is shown in greater detail than when the player is not in dialogue or combat with them. "Legends of Valour's" dialogue operates in a tree structure, and as the player explores, more conversation topics regarding specific items, areas, and people of interest become available.
Legends of Valour is currently being redeveloped for an updated release (Date TBA) by its new owner Charles Hoskinson.
Reception.
The PC version was generally poorly received. "Computer Gaming World" called the game "a stimulating new perspective on fantasy role-playing", but strongly criticized its "general lack of atmosphere" and other "numerous deficiencies", including the difficulty in saving the game or finding food, drink, and sleep. Despite liking the 3-D VGA graphics, the magazine warned that the "grandiose claims" SSI made about the game and "" threatened the company's "long-standing reputation for quality". It received 2 out of 5 stars in "Dragon". According to "VideoGames & Computer Entertainment", ""Legends of Valor" is an ambitious attempt that couldn't get itself out of the starting gate."
The Amiga version was received much better, and was rated 88% by "CU Amiga", with "Amiga Format" stating in their original review, ""Legends of Valor" is a cross between a "Dungeons and Dragons" game and a graphic adventure ... the [actual] interface is intuitive and well designed ... there are plenty of nice touches ... if you've met the person before then they'll remember you." In a 1993 issue, "Amiga Format" rated the game 91%, but in a 1995 issue the re-release was given 86% despite being the same game. "Amiga Power" continues the same trend, giving the game 88% in a 1993 issue, and the re-release 89% in a 1995 issue.
"The One" gave the Amiga version of "Legends of Valour" an overall score of 92%, referring to its first-person 3D perspective as "revolutionary ... Until you've seen the 3D in action it's hard for words to explain just how exhilarating the experience can be." "The One" praises the UI, calling it "intuitive", and the combat and graphics, stating that "The excellent use of 3D extends to the combat as well - at last you can see your sword blade or axe head hitting home, and the animation on the enemies is superb ... Visually "Legends" is nothing short of breathtaking". "The One" extends critical acclaim to the quests and worldbuilding, expressing that "As a game "Legends" is beautifully structured ... as the player grows in experience and power new tasks and different areas of the gameworld are slowly revealed, ensuring that the player is constantly being presented with fresh challenges and surprises ... "Legends" is nothing short of a revolution in computer role-playing, and has become the standard by which future additions to the RPG genre will be judged."
Finnish gaming magazine "Pelit" gave the Amiga version of "Legends of Valour" an overall score of 45%, beginning their review by stating that "["Legends of Valour"] sets the standards that all role-playing games will be compared to - that is, for the worse ... The game has been successfully buried under idiotic design." "Pelit" criticises "Legends of Valour's" gameplay, expressing their disdain for the length of time it takes to travel to specific locations, and states that "moving along the streets has been hampered by 'ingenious' random arrests ... To stay alive, one has to sleep, drink, and eat, but cannot when it is so IMPOSSIBLE! One of the reasons behind this problem is money, or its lack thereof." "Pelit" further criticises the implementation of the need to drink, expressing their frustration that drinking alcohol may result in the player being arrested, and states that "Apparently one must constantly return to a pond to drink muddy water. It cannot be bottled because the game has no bottles to refill." "Pelit" further criticises "Legends of Valour's" gameplay and items, stating that "except for weapons, items are useless" and "The gameplay under all this idiotic design is pathetic. The Commodore PC-10's homemade text adventures offer more variety. Interaction with other people is very limited. No one lives anywhere, they just wander. Houses are empty except for tables. About 90% of the buildings are insignificant and there is nothing usable in the shops. People will attack you if they don't like how you look. Yes, your character is arrested, even though the city is filled with psychopaths."
"Pelit" expresses their frustration for guilds in "Legends of Valour", stating that "There is no point in joining the guilds because the hero has no abilities to develop! You need to join the guilds only because the design of the game requires it." "Pelit's" only compliment for "Legends of Valour" is its graphics, calling movement "technically sound" and expressing that "Externally, it looks good and with the smallest window, it updates quickly, which is a plus." "Pelit" concludes their review by stating that "In ["Legends of Valour"] EVERYTHING is so perfectly (swear word) that the human brain capacity is not enough to understand it. Maybe we're just stupid."
Legacy.
Bethesda Softworks's Todd Howard cited the game as an influence on Bethesda's RPG series "The Elder Scrolls". The first game in the series, "", was inspired by "the unheralded" "Legends of Valour" and "Ultima Underworld". Ted Peterson, a writer and designer for several Elder Scrolls games, said: "There was another game that came out while we were working on "Arena" called "Legends of Valour", which was a free-form first-person perspective game that took place in a single city. It got pretty pitiful reviews and not many people bought it, but I really had fun with it. It's completely forgotten nowadays, but I probably logged more hours playing it than any other game."
A demo for "Legends of Valour" is featured on Amiga Format issue #40's coverdisk.
Purchase by Charles Hoskinson.
In 2020 long time fan of the original Charles Hoskinson purchased the rights to Legends of Valour. He plans to remaster the original for re-release. He is currently in the process of setting up a game development studio.


Olympus PEN E-PL7

The Olympus PEN E-PL7 is a rangefinder-styled digital mirrorless interchangeable lens camera announced by Olympus Corp. on August 28, 2014. It succeeds the Olympus PEN E-PL6. The EPL-7 was succeeded by the Olympus E-PL8 that was announced on September 19, 2016.


Samsung Ativ Tab 3

The Samsung Ativ Tab 3 is a tablet manufactured by Samsung. The Ativ Tab 3 was announced on June 20, 2013 at the Samsung Premier 2013 event in London, incorporates a dual-core 1.8 GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor, and runs the Windows 8 operating system.
The incorporation of Windows 8 instead Windows RT operating system of its predecessor has received mostly favourable reviews, the Ativ Tab 3 itself received positive reviews for its lightweight design, its pre-loaded software such as a free Microsoft office suite, and its overall performance for a device positioned as a budget device.
Hardware.
The design of the Ativ Tab is relatively similar to its Android-based counterparts (such as the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 and the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition)built using a mixture of plastic and glass. A micro HDMI port and a microUSB port are incorporated into the design, as well as a volume rocker, power button and MicroSD slot are located on the top. A physical Windows button is located directly below the screen. A charging port and headphone jack located on the left edge. The Ativ Tab 3 uses a IPS display at a resolution of 1366x768. The tablet is available with either 32 GB or 64 GB of internal storage.
Reception.
Whilst demoing the device at the Samsung Premier 2013 event, TechRadar praised the Ativ Tab 3's Windows 8 operating system, lightweight design, and the ability to expand its functionality and storage with its S-Pen and keyboard cover package. However, it was also said thought that there is a minimal amount of USB ports which was due to its slim design which was seen as similar only to that of its Android counterparts. Yet overall they deemed the device as "a decent device in its own right".
CNET said that despite not having the lightning speeds of processors such as the Intel i7, the Ativ Tab 3 performs exceptionally well in basic tasks for a budget Windows 8 tablet. The tablet's relatively fast performance, battery life, pre-loaded software, and lightweight design were regarded as positive aspectsdespite considering the design itself to be merely recycled from its Android counterparts. The Intel Z2760 chipset used in the Ativ Tab 3 was also judged as an adequate processor for the device noting that its performance was sufficient and responsive in comparison to the chipsets used in competing Windows 8 devices. The addition of the S-Pen and, in some regions, the free Bluetooth keyboard-cover accessory is greatly welcomed in increasing the device's productivity.


HT 3080C


MIDAC (University of Michigan)

MIDAC was the acronym for the Michigan Digital Automatic Computer, a pioneering digital computer at the University of Michigan, the University's first. Work commenced on it in 1951, under collaborative sponsorship of the Wright Air Development Center and the United States Air Force, and the Willow Run Research Center of the Engineering Research Institute at the University of Michigan. The intention was to produce a machine to assist with “the solution of certain complex military problems.”
History.
MIDAC was patterned after SEAC (Standards Electronic Automatic Computer), built in 1950 for the U.S. U.S. National Bureau of Standards.
The sixth such digital automatic computer at a research university, and the first computer of its kind in the Midwest, MIDAC was a massive installation. It featured 500,000 connections and vacuum tubes, which required 12 tons of refrigeration to cool. Its main memory was a rotating magnetic drum, capable of storing 6,000 "words" of encoded data.
The MIDAC went online on June 1, 1953, and was operated by Willow Run's Digital Computation Department under the leadership of John Carr III until 1958, when it was supplanted by the faster Michigan Digital Special Automatic Computer (MDSAC) – an IBM 650 – and the Air Force removed the equipment.
ENIAC.
Although it was not created there, a piece of the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) exists at the University of Michigan. It was developed at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and was brought to Michigan in the mid-1960s by professor Arthur Burks, who had served as a principle designer of ENIAC. Burks came to the University of Michigan in 1946 as a professor of philosophy, but went on to study at the Moore School before being drawn into the ENIAC project.


Pac-Land

 is a 1984 side-scrolling arcade platform game developed and released by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Bally Midway, and in Europe by Atari Games. Controlling Pac-Man, the player must make it to the end of each stage to return a lost fairy back to its home in Fairyland. Pac-Man will need to avoid obstacles, such as falling logs and water-spewing fire hydrants, alongside his enemies, the Ghost Gang. Eating large flashing Power Pellets will cause the ghosts to turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for points.
"Pac-Land" was created by Namco Research and Development 1 programmer Yoshihiro Kishimoto, who was tasked with creating an arcade game based on the American "Pac-Man" cartoon television series by Hanna-Barbera. The backgrounds were made to be vibrant and colorful, and the characters to be detailed and move smoothly to match the show's animation style. The control scheme was inspired by Konami's "Track & Field" (1983), using buttons instead of a traditional joystick to make it stand out among other games at the time. A new Namco Pac-Land arcade system was created to make it easier to develop the game and was used for several later Namco games, including "Baraduke" (1985) and "Metro-Cross" (1985).
"Pac-Land" was well-received by critics for its colorful graphics, stage designs, and soundtrack, although was often criticized for its difficulty. It is cited as an important and influential game in the platform genre, paving the way for many games to follow such as "Super Mario Bros.", "Ghosts'n Goblins", "Alex Kidd" and "Wonder Boy". It was ported to several home consoles and computers, including the Family Computer, TurboGrafx-16, Commodore 64 and Atari Lynx. It is the first platform game in the "Pac-Man" series, and was followed by "" (1993).
Gameplay.
Controlling Pac-Man, the player is tasked with reaching the end of each level while avoiding enemies and other obstacles. Stages are known in-game as "trips" and are broken into four sections — the first three have Pac-Man running to return a lost fairy back to "Fairyland", and the last having Pac-Man return home to his family. Pressing either of the directional buttons will make Pac-Man walk in that direction, and repeatedly tapping either button will make him run. Pac-Man can also jump over pits and obstacles by pressing the jump button.
In each stage, Pac-Man will encounter the four ghosts from the original game — Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde — alongside a purple ghost named Sue, originally a replacement for Clyde in "Ms. Pac-Man". Eating large flashing Power Pellets will cause the ghosts to turn blue for a short time, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points. The ghosts are often seen driving vehicles, such as airplanes, buses, cars, pogo-sticks, and flying saucers, and will sometimes drop miniature ghost enemies from the air to try and hit Pac-Man. Other types of obstacles are also present in stages, such as water-spewing fire hydrants, springboards, falling logs, quicksand, and geysers.
Trips consist of cities, forests, deserts, and abandoned castles. Most trip sections end with a large sign saying "BREAK TIME" with a church on a hill in the background, and bonus points are awarded for jumping at certain points at the end of each section. The final section of a trip gives Pac-Man a special pair of boots that will allow him to jump infinitely into the air, and tasks the player with returning home to Pac-Man's family. The player can find hidden items by pushing against specific objects in certain stages, including a helmet that protects Pac-Man from falling mini ghosts, an item that makes Pac-Man temporarily invincible, and a "Galaxian" flagship that awards the player a large sum of points. Jumping in certain spots will reveal fruit items that can be consumed for points.
The game features the theme song from the "Pac-Man" cartoon series, which plays in a constant loop throughout. The North American version of the game by Midway features the characters being re-designed to more closely resemble the designs found in the show, while the Japanese Namco version has the characters modeled after "Pac-Man" marketing material and cabinet artwork.
Development and release.
"Pac-Land" was programmed by Yoshihiro Kishimoto of Namco Development Division 1, who would later work on the "Family Stadium" franchise. After seeing the success of the American "Pac-Man" cartoon series, Namco requested Kishimoto that he create an arcade game based on the show. Kishimoto stated that the hardest part of development were Pac-Man's animations. Most arcade games in Japan at the time simply used two or three frames to convey movement, which he found unconvincing. The team wanted the game's backgrounds to be vibrant and colorful, and to have the characters move smoothly to replicate the show's animation style. Pac-Man himself was given 24 different frame patterns, alongside several facial expressions and clothing swaps.
Kishimoto cited Konami's sports video game "Track & Field" (1983) as the "number one influence" on "Pac-Land". The game's controls were heavily influenced by "Track & Field", a game that allowed the player to become faster by constantly tapping the button in succession; Kishimoto thought the idea was interesting and that it would make it stand out among other games. To allow for two-layer scrolling backgrounds, more sprites, and more colors, the team created the Namco Pac-Land arcade board, which was used for several later Namco games including "Baraduke" (1985) and "Metro-Cross" (1985). The game was tested in Yokohama, where Kishimoto recalls the springboards being difficult for new players.
The arcade game was released in Japan in 1984, but there are conflicting release dates. "Arcade TV Game List", a Japanese-language book of arcade release dates authored by Masumi Akagi and published by the Amusement News Agency in 2006, lists the Japanese release date as August 1984. However, John Szczepaniak in the second volume of "The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers" (2015), when including biography details taken from Kishimoto's resume, lists the release date as October 1984. The game was later released in North America by Bally Midway in December 1984, and in Europe by Atari Games in early 1985.
Conversions.
The first home port of "Pac-Land" was for the Nintendo Family Computer, released in Japan on November 21, 1985. Versions for the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, MSX, and Atari ST were published by British company Grandslam Entertainment in 1988, followed by a Commodore 64 release by Gannon Designs. Namco released a PC-Engine version in June 1989, which was later released for the TurboGrafx-16 by NEC in January 1990. Atari Games developed and published an Atari Lynx portable version in 1992, and Dempa Softworks released a Sharp X68000 conversion in 1994.
"Pac-Land" is in the 1996 compilation "Namco Museum Vol. 4" for the PlayStation alongside five other Namco arcade games from the 1980s, and later in the iOS game "Namco Arcade". In 2014, it was ported to the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC as part of "Pac-Man Museum", and the Famicom version was digitally re-released for the Wii U Virtual Console and "Namco Museum Archives Volume 2". Aside from the "Namco Arcade" version, all home ports of the game are based on the Japanese Namco version.
Reception.
"Pac-Land" was a commercial success in arcades. In Japan, it entered the "Game Machine" arcade charts at number-two on the table arcade cabinet chart in September 1984. In North America, it was in the top 20 "RePlay" upright arcade game charts up until November 1985.
The game well received by critics for its colorful graphics, level structure, and challenge. Mike Roberts gave the arcade game a positive review in the May 1985 issue of "Computer Gamer". He called it an "interesting game" where Pac-Man is an "animated character that moves along a horizontally scrolling landscape" while praising the "very colouful" graphics and stating it is "easy to play once you've got the hang of it."
Reviewing the Atari Lynx conversion, "IGN" praised the game's colorful graphics, controls, and faithfulness to the arcade original. "Raze" magazine echoed a similar response, saying the visuals, stage layouts, and soundtrack added replay value to the game. "Computer + Video Games" called the TurboGrafx-16 version a "marvelous conversion" for its vibrant visuals, stage layouts, gameplay, and accuracy to the coin-op game; they had a similar response for the Lynx version, claiming its accuracy to the original would entice fans of the arcade release. Japanese publication "Famitsu" praised the PC-Engine version's graphics and overall challenge, awarding it the "Silver Hall of Fame" badge.
"Raze" disliked the Lynx port's limited amount of lives and lack of continues, saying that the high difficulty would repel younger players. "IGN" stated it provided little replay value for veteran players, adding that it could be easily finished. "AllGame" was particularly critical of the TurboGrafx-16 version, lambasting its poor graphics, bland stage layouts, and lack of challenge, jokingly saying it was only recommended to collectors interested in "the most morbidly poor games in existence". In a retrospective review for the TurboGrafx-16 conversion, "IGN" disliked the game's difficulty for lacking any real challenge, and said the game seems to have been made simply to keep Pac-Man relevant at the time instead of as a "real deal" game.
Legacy.
It is considered an important and influential game in the platform genre, paving the way for games such as "Ghosts'n Goblins", "Alex Kidd", and "Wonder Boy". "Pac-Man" creator Toru Iwatani has since labeled it as his favorite "Pac-Man" sequel for its interesting concept and gameplay. He said Shigeru Miyamoto told him it had a profound influence on the creation of "Super Mario Bros."
Shortly after the game's release, Namco produced a board game adaptation for its "Fantasy Board Game" series, based on the player reaching the end of the board without losing the "fairy chip". A Japanese LCD handheld game was released in 1990. Many of Pac-Man's moves in the "Super Smash Bros." series are directly based on "Pac-Land," such as his fire hydrant attack. "Super Smash Bros. for Wii U" and "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" include a stage based on the game, featuring automatic scrolling.


Brian Bloodaxe

Brian Bloodaxe is a British platform game written by Charles Bystram for the ZX Spectrum and released by The Edge Software in 1985. It was ported to the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC 464 by Trevor Inns.
Plot.
In "Brian Bloodaxe", our Viking hero wakes from an ice block in which he has been trapped for hundreds of years. Upon discovering that the year is now 1983 he decides to do what he originally set out to achieve - the conquering of Britain. Working his way through more than 100 screens of platform mayhem, Brian's ultimate goal is to steal the Crown Jewels and seat himself upon the British throne.
Gameplay.
"Brian Bloodaxe" plays as a platform game with some very simple "collect and drop objects" aspects. Although Brian has to dodge most of the game's varied and often surreal enemies, some of them can be killed either by headbutting them thereby stabbing them with the horns of his helmet, or using weapon objects found in the game - axe, bomb and pistol.
The game is notable for its esoteric humour which was strongly influenced by the humour of sketch comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus", its in-game music (The "Liberty Bell March" by John Philip Sousa, better known to most as the "Flying Circus" theme tune), and colourful graphics.
Reception.
The game polarised critics on different platforms. It impressed many, scoring 86% in "CRASH", 3 out of 3 "hits" in "Your Spectrum", and 8/10 in "Sinclair User", but "Zzap!64" were unimpressed by the Commodore 64 conversion which they felt had not been altered sufficiently from the original version to take advantage of the machine's technical abilities. It was awarded an 18% overall rating and described as "very disappointing".


Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2 is a digital camera that was announced on February 8, 2005. It has Universal Serial Bus connectivity and a mass of 224 grams. It was replaced in 2006 by the LZ3. The camera has optical image stabilization, which alleviates camera shake problems. The camera lacks manual control over shutter speed and aperture and has no optical viewfinder.


Sony Ericsson LiveView

The Sony Ericsson LiveView is a wearable device that connects to an Android phone and can display Twitter feeds, RSS feeds, SMS, control the phone's media player, and is capable of running third-party plugins obtainable from Google's Play Store. It is compatible with most Android-powered devices.
LiveView comes with a belt clip and watch band and features a 128x128 OLED display, and Bluetooth radio.
LiveView was introduced on 28 September 2010 and released by the end of the year.


Aamber Pegasus

The Aamber Pegasus is a home computer first produced in New Zealand in 1981 by Technosys Research Labs.
The hardware was designed by Stewart J Holmes. The software was designed by Paul Gillingwater, Nigel Keam and Paul Carter.
It is thought that Apple Computers introduction of the Apple II computer into the New Zealand market, and its subsequent heavy educational discounting was the final nail in the coffin for Technosys and the Aamber Pegasus computer. Total production numbers are unknown, but it is thought "around one hundred" were sold.
Software.
An optional multi ROM board in conjunction with a rotating dial allowed switching between 6 EPROM banks containing multiple language environments, games and applications. The EPROM based language environments include EXTENDED BASIC, PASCAL, BASIC (a variant of TinyBASIC), MAD (Assembler/Disassembler) and FORTH. Games available on EPROM are TANKS, INVADERS and GALAXY WARS. Other software included MONITOR (the system BIOS which needed to be present for the system to run) and a word processor application called WORD. The system allowed loading of programs by cassette. Some available cassettes include SNAKES, STAR TREK, HANGMAN and CHARACTER GENERATOR.
Networking.
A network version of the Aamber Pegasus provided connectivity to a 6809-based server (SWTPC-6809). Especially the networking version attempted to address the New Zealand Government's computers in schools initiative, but never produced the hoped-for large orders.
Unusual design features.
One of the most unusual aspects of the machine is that to save the cost of a CRTC, the processor set up some bits on the 6821(PIA) to control the row being read out, then stepped through a series of NOPs so that the address lines of the CPU could act as a big counter. This counter drove the X address of the display RAM. On every row, the CPU updates the row number selected from the character ROM (and programmable character RAM) and every 16th row it increments the Y address of the display RAM. At the end of the screen the output is blanked, and the CPU gets to do some “real” work until the FIRQ pin is pulsed by the 50 Hz line from the power supply. Essentially the Pegasus used the mains frequency to trigger vertical sync. Because of this, the CPU is ~90% occupied as a counter, so in a non-real-time application you could disable the FIRQ (one bit in the 6809's CC reg) and the Pegasus ran ~10x faster – albeit with a blank screen. In this respect it was similar to the Sinclair ZX81 which used its ‘FAST’ mode in much the same way.
On the left side of the Pegasus motherboard you can see a small blob of putty. This putty is hiding a series of diodes that act as a simplistic 8-bit ID. This 8-bit ID will only allow EPROMs encoded with a corresponding ID to work in any individual machine. For example, an EPROM from a machine numbered 2569 will not work in another Pegasus with a different ID.
Modern emulation.
The MAME emulator supports the Aamber Pegasus under the name "Pegasus", and a number of the original manuals are available at the Internet Archive.


Graphics System Extension


Canon EOS 5DS

The Canon EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R (known as the EOS 5Ds and EOS 5Ds R in Japan) are two closely related digital SLR cameras announced by Canon on February 6, 2015. Both are professional full-frame cameras with 50.6-megapixel sensors, the highest of any full-frame camera at the time of announcement. The only difference between the two models is that the sensor of the "R" version includes an optical filter that cancels out the effects of a standard optical low-pass filter. This distinction is roughly similar to that between Nikon's now-replaced D800 and D800E (with the E having a self-cancelling filter). Canon stated that both the 5DS and 5DS R will not replace the older EOS 5D Mark III, so therefore both the 5DS and 5DS R will have their new positions in Canon's DSLR camera lineup.
At the time of announcement, estimated prices were US$3,699.00 and US$3,899.00 (EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R), with announced date of availability, through authorized Canon retailers, in June 2015.
Despite the record-high pixel count and related storage and processing power, these cameras do not shoot 4K video or high frame rate 1080p video.
Full-size demosaicked jpeg files from this camera occupy approximately 20 megabytes and exceed 8K resolution.
Trivia.
The apparent design difference between the 5DS and 5DS R is the colour of their name: the name 'EOS 5DS' is printed in gold on the 5DS and in silver on the 5DS R (like on all Canon EOS cameras); the letter 'R' of the 5DS R is printed in red.


The Datestones of Ryn

The Datestones of Ryn is a role-playing video game released in 1979 for the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 by Automated Simulations (later Epyx). "The Datestones of Ryn" was the second title in the "Dunjonquest" series, but was actually a prequel to the first game, "Temple of Apshai". Like its predecessor, this game was written in BASIC.
An Atari 8-bit family port programmed by Aric Wilmunder was published in 1981.
Description.
The player assumes the role of an adventurer, Brian Hammerhand, the hero from the first game, "Temple of Apshai". But, as this game takes place chronologically before "Temple", Hammerhand is a young soldier, not a tired veteran. Thieves have stolen Datestones for the calendar of Ryn and escaped to a cave. Hammerhand's leader has sent him into the cave to retrieve them.
Unlike "Temple", players have a time limit - 20 minutes - in which to complete the game. Given this, the adventure is much shorter than its predecessor, consisting of just one level. Thus it served as Epyx's first "MicroQuest" and sold for half of their regular games. This was also Epyx's first attempt at making RPGs more action-oriented and ushering the creation of the action role-playing game.
The adventurer encounters brigands and monsters in the dunjon. Slaying them and bringing back their heads garners higher scores. Retrieving the Datestones and bringing them back to the cave entrance must be done within the time limit, or the game is forfeit. Hammerhand can only carry a limited weight, so he must return to the cave's entrance several times, all eating up precious time.
Given that the combat system has a high random factor and the time limit, this game was difficult to complete.


Surface Laptop

The Surface Laptop is a laptop computer designed by Microsoft as part of the company's Surface line of personal computing devices.
The laptop was announced at the #MicrosoftEDU event by Microsoft on May 2, 2017, alongside Windows 10 S and an updated version of Surface Arc Mouse that includes a large capacitive surface. It became available for pre-order on the same day, and began shipping on June 15, 2017.
Hardware.
The Surface Laptop is the 5th addition to Surface lineup, following the Surface Pro, Surface Hub, Surface Book, and the Surface Studio. Unlike the other products, the Surface Laptop is aimed toward students. Microsoft claims a 14.5-hour battery life when running Windows 10 S, but testing suggests that the battery can be depleted to 50% in just 2.5 hours. It comes in four colors: Platinum, Graphite Gold, Burgundy, and Cobalt Blue as advertised.
It has a 13.5-inch "PixelSense" Display at 2256 × 1504 using a 3:2 aspect ratio. It features a 10-point touch screen along with Surface Pen support. Unlike other ultra-portables by Microsoft, this does not feature any sort of detachment mechanism from the keyboard.
The Surface Laptop uses seventh-generation "Kaby Lake" processors, with both Intel Core i5 and i7 variants. It uses Intel HD Graphics 620 on the Core i5 version, while the Core i7 model uses Intel Iris Plus 640.
Three system memory options are available at purchase: 4, 8, and 16 GB and three SSD options: 128, 256, and 512 GB. These cannot be upgraded in the future. The SSD has a transfer speed of 110.6 Mbit/s, which is quite slow when compared to its competitors.
The Surface Laptop cannot be opened without destroying it, making it impossible to repair or upgrade by anyone except Microsoft.
It has an unremovable battery with a capacity of 45.2 Wh. All other parts are either glued or soldered.
Software.
Surface Laptop models used to ship with Windows 10 S, a feature-limited edition of Windows 10 with restrictions on software usage which has now been replaced with Windows 10 in S Mode; users may only install software from Windows Store, and system settings are locked to only allow Microsoft Edge as the default web browser with Bing as its search engine, since third-party web browsers using custom layout engines are banned from Windows Store.
The device may be upgraded to Windows 10 "Pro" for free, which removes these restrictions.


Commodore 64 Games System

The Commodore 64 Games System (often abbreviated C64GS) is the cartridge-based home video game console version of the popular Commodore 64 home computer. It was released in December 1990 by Commodore into a booming console market dominated by Nintendo and Sega. It was only released in Europe and was a considerable commercial failure.
The C64GS came bundled with a cartridge that featured four games: "Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun", "International Soccer", "Flimbo's Quest" and "Klax".
The C64GS was not Commodore's first gaming system based on the C64 hardware. However, unlike the 1982 MAX Machine (a game-oriented computer based on a very cut-down version of the same hardware family), the C64GS is internally very similar to the complete C64, with which it is compatible.
Available software.
Support from games companies was limited, as many were unconvinced that the C64GS would be a success in the console market. Ocean Software was the most supportive, offering a wide range of titles, some C64GS cartridge-based only, offering features in games that would have been impossible on cassette-based games, others straight ports of games for the original C64. Domark and System 3 also released a number of titles for the system, and conversions of some Codemasters and MicroProse games also appeared. Denton Designs also released some games, among them Bounces, which was released in 1985.
The software bundled with the C64GS, a four-game cartridge containing "Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun", "International Soccer", "Flimbo's Quest" and "Klax", were likely the most well known on the system. These games, with the exception of "International Soccer", were previously ordinary tape-based games, but their structure and control systems (no keyboard needed) made them well-suited to the new console. "International Soccer" was previously released in 1983 on cartridge for the original C64 computer.
Ocean produced a number of games for the C64GS, among them a remake of "Double Dragon" (which was only sold at trade shows), "Navy SEALS", "RoboCop 2", "RoboCop 3", "Chase HQ 2: Special Criminal Investigation", "Pang", "Battle Command", "Toki", "Shadow of the Beast" and "Lemmings". They also produced "Batman The Movie" for the console, but this was a direct conversion of the cassette game, evidenced by the screens prompting the player to "press PLAY" that briefly appeared between levels. Some of the earliest Ocean cartridges had a manufacturing flaw, where the connector was placed too far back in the cartridge case. The end result was that the cartridge could not be used with the standard C64 computer. Members of Ocean staff had to manually drill holes in the side of the cartridges to make them fit.
System 3 released "Last Ninja Remix" and "", although both were also available on cassette. Domark also offered two titles, "Badlands" and "Cyberball", which were available on cartridge only.
Through publisher The Disc Company, a number of Codemasters and MicroProse titles were also reworked and released as compilations for the C64GS. "Fun Play" featured three Codemasters titles: "Fast Food", "Professional Skateboard Simulator" and "Professional Tennis Simulator". "Power Play" featured three MicroProse titles: "Rick Dangerous", "Stunt Car Racer" and "MicroProse Soccer", although "Rick Dangerous" was produced by Core Design, not MicroProse themselves. "Stunt Car Racer" and "MicroProse Soccer" needed to be heavily modified to enable them to run on the C64GS.
Commodore never produced or published a single title for the C64GS beyond the bundled four-game cartridge. "International Soccer" was the only widely available game for the C64GS but had actually been written for the C64.
Hardware-based problems.
The C64GS was plagued with problems from the outset. Firstly, despite the wealth of software already available on cartridge for C64, the lack of a keyboard means that most cannot be used with the console. This means that much of the cartridge-based C64 software, while fundamentally compatible with the C64GS, was unplayable. The standard C64 version of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" was designed for the console, but was included on a cartridge that required the user to press a key in the initial menu to access the game, rendering it unplayable, despite the game itself being entirely playable with joystick only on a conventional C64.
To partially compensate for the lack of a keyboard, the basic control system for the C64GS was a joystick supplied by Cheetah called the Annihilator. This joystick, while using the standard Atari 9-pin plug, offers two independent buttons, with the second button located on the base of the joystick. The joystick standard is fundamentally compatible with the ZX Spectrum's Kempston Interface and the Sega Master System, but no other joystick on the market offered compatibility with the proprietary second-button function. Standard C64 joysticks and Sega Master System controllers were fundamentally supported, but the lack of second-button support (the Sega Master System's second button did not function in the same way) meant that the Cheetah Annihilator was essential for playing certain titles such as "Last Ninja Remix" and "Chase HQ 2". However, it was poorly built, had a short life, and was not widely available, making replacements difficult to come by.
Primary reasons for failure.
Prior to the console's release, Commodore had generated a great deal of marketing hype to generate interest in an already crowded market. "Zzap!64" and "Your Commodore", Commodore 64 magazines of the era, reported that Commodore had promised "up to 100 titles before December", even though December was two months from the time of its writing. In reality 28 games were produced for the console during its shelf life - most of which were compilations of older titles, and a majority of which were from Ocean. Of those 28 titles, only 9 were cartridge-exclusive titles, the remainder being ports of older cassette-based games.
While most of the titles that Ocean announced did appear for the GS (with the notable exception of "Operation Thunderbolt"), a number of promises from other publishers failed to materialize. Although Thalamus, The Sales Curve, Mirrorsoft and Hewson had expressed an interest, nothing ever materialized from these firms. Similar problems plagued rival company Amstrad when they released their GX4000 console the same year.
There were other reasons attributed to the failure of the C64GS, the major ones being the following:
Commodore eventually shipped the four-game cartridge and Cheetah Annihilator joysticks in a "Playful Intelligence" bundle with the standard Commodore 64C computer. Several years later, Commodore's next attempt at a games console, the Amiga CD32, encountered many of the same problems, although overall it was a lot more successful than the C64GS.
Technical specifications.
The specifications of the C64GS are a subset of those of the regular C64; the main differences being the omission of the user port, serial interface, and cassette port. Since the system board is a regular C64C board these ports are actually present, but simply not exposed at the rear.
Trivia.
The C64GS is the lowest-selling console of all time, with only 2,000 out of the 20,000 units that were made getting sold.
Commodore used all the useless Terminator 2: Judgement Day (which was going to be the launch title) copies as bundles for the C64, which demolished sales of the GS, making Commodore recall all GSes to turn them back into C64s.
Internal hardware.
The ROM contains two important differences from a standard C64 ROM. The first is that switching on the machine without a cartridge present results in a character-based animation asking the user to insert a cartridge. The second is an additional set of windowing commands, designed to compensate for the lack of a keyboard. However, there is no known software that uses it.


Captain Dynamo (video game)

Captain Dynamo is a vertically scrolling platform game developed by Codemasters and released in 1992. Versions were published for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and MS-DOS. Versions for Game Gear and Sega Mega Drive were planned but never released. Captain Dynamo, an aging superhero, is brought out of retirement to recover a haul of stolen diamonds from the trap-infested rocket-ship of the villainous Austen Von Flyswatter.
Gameplay.
The goal is to collect as many diamonds as possible in each stage and then enter the teleport unit at the top. The task is complicated by various mechanical hazards and creatures.


RTAudio

RTAudio is a Microsoft produced adaptive wide-band speech codec. It is used by Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and the related OCS clients (Microsoft Office Communicator, and Microsoft Live Meeting Console).
RTAudio was designed for real-time two-way Voice over IP (VoIP) applications. Some of the target applications include games, audio conferencing, and wireless applications over IP. RTAudio is the preferred Microsoft Real-Time audio codec, and is the default voice codec for Microsoft’s Unified Communications platforms.
The RTAudio encoder is capable of encoding single-channel (mono), 16 bit per sample audio signals. The encoder can be configured to operate either in the Narrow Band mode (8 kHz sampling rate) or the Wide Band mode (16 kHz sampling rate). The RTAudio decoder has a built-in jitter control module as well as an error concealment module.
Licensing.
RTAudio is a proprietary codec. Like RTVideo, this protocol can also be licensed from Microsoft.


HP 38G

The HP 38G (F1200A, F1892A) is a programmable graphing calculator by Hewlett Packard. It was introduced in 1995 with a suggested retail price of 80 USD. HP credits a committee of eight high school, community college, and university teachers with assisting in the design of the calculator.
The calculator is derived from and the hardware is based on the more powerful science/engineering oriented HP 48 series of machines.
The HP 38G, unlike most of HP's other calculators, uses infix notation rather than Reverse Polish Notation (RPN), a postfix notation. The calculator is programmable, supporting small, interactive applications called "aplets".
Successors.
After a HP 38G+ prototype was cancelled in 1998, the 38G was replaced in 2000 by the HP 39G and (in Europe and some other markets) HP 40G. The two models were differentiated by the inclusion of a Computer Algebra System (CAS) in the HP 40G. An unofficial method of operating the 40G's CAS on the 39G was addressed in the next follow-up device, the HP 39g+ introduced in 2003, for which there is no known CAS implementation.
Further successors have included the HP 39gs and HP 40gs (with and without CAS) introduced in 2006, and the HP 39gII in 2011.
Beginning with the 39g+, all of these successors have been built using an ARM architecture CPU with varying degrees of emulation to support software written for previous members of the series, and have gradually added more modern methods of connectivity such as USB to either replace or supplement the original RS-232 and IR.


Nikon D40x


VZ Editor

VZ Editor (VZ, ) is a commercial text editor developed by a computer programmer for DOS. It was initially developed for the Japanese PC-98 computer series, and published as EZ Editor by PC World Japan in 1987. It was rebranded as VZ Editor by Village Center, Inc, in 1989, and added support for other Japanese computer platforms. Its features include small size, smooth scrolling, file manager, enhancements for a command-line, advanced customizing and automated macro operations.
History.
In 1984, Hyodo went work for Hitachi after graduating the Nagoya Institute of Technology, and developed a text editor for the Hitachi S1 personal computer. In 1985, he purchased the NEC PC-9801 U2, and developed a text editor for himself to write programs on that machine. After Hitachi dissolved the development team of S1, Hyodo left the company, and worked for video game development. In 1987, he released his text editor as "EZ Editor" which was sold by a computer magazine publisher, PC World Japan. In 1989, the publisher faced financial problems, so Hyodo requested another publishing company, Village Center, to distribute his software.
VZ Editor offered a reasonable price in comparison with other commercial softwares. It priced at 9,800 yen while the biggest competitor, "MIFES", priced at 38,000 yen. "ASCII" magazine wrote in 1991 that "Its TSR mode and file manager are useful. Also, its operability and functions are refined". VZ Editor was entirely written in assembly language because Hyodo was used to writing in assembly language rather than C language. This enhanced speed of program operations. He stated it was not his intention but an inevitable result of minimal coding.
VZ Editor sold 175,000 copies by 1992. It was voted the best PC software in Japanese computer magazines, "ASCII" (Best 5 Softwares Recommended by Subscribers; 1992 and 1993) and "Nikkei Byte" (The Best Utility Software; 1991 and 1992, The Best Editor Software; 1993 and 1994).
Despite its popularity, Hyodo stated in 1993 that he wouldn't offer a new major version nor an Windows version. If the program size become bigger, the macro buffer become smaller, and existing macros cannot run. He concluded there was no way to add a new function. Also, he stated "Anyone casually say they want the Windows version of VZ, but I never plan to bring VZ to Windows. To achieve it, I think it should break its past. VZ is designed for DOS". In January 1994, the last version of VZ Editor was released. He stated in an interview that "The development of VZ has already become my past job. If I create a new software in the future, I need to learn Windows and C++. At present, I don't have the energy to do that".