Interact Home Computer

The Interact Home Computer is a rare, very early (1978) American home computer made by "Interact Electronics Inc" of Ann Arbor, Michigan. It sold under the name "interact Model One home computer". The original Ineract Model One computer was designed by Rick Barnich and Tim Anderson at 204 E. Washington in Ann Arbor, then moving to an office in Georgetown Mall on Packard St in Ann Arbor. Interact Electronics Inc was a privately held company that was funded by Hongiman, Miller, Swartz and Cohn...a lawyer firm out of Detroit. The President/Founder of Interact Electronics Inc was Ken Lochner, who was one of the original developers of the BASIC language based out of Dartmouth college. Ken had started Interact Electronics Inc after a successful startup known as ADP Cyphernetics, the original computer time share company in Ann Arbor, now known as ADP Network Services. Only a few thousand Interacts were sold before the company went bankrupt. Most were sold by the liquidator "Protecto Enterprizes" of Barrington, Illinois through mail order sale. The Interact Model One Home Computer debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago in June 1978 at a price of $499. The majority of sales were thru Mail Order houses and you could buy it off the shelf at Highland Appliance in the Detroit, MI area and Newman Computer Exchange in Ann Arbor also Montgomery Wards in Houston, TX area Probably the most successful application available for the Interace was a program called "Message Center". With it, a store could type in whatever message they wanted to appear scrolling on a TV screen...like Advertisements, or welcoming messages to guests in an office. Although it was mostly a Game machine at the time with games such as Showdown, BlackJack and Chess, there was also BASIC programming where users could create their own programs in the BASIC computer language. Customers began hooking up Interact to control everything from lights in their house, doors, windows, smoke detectors, to a Chevrolet Corvette.
Later on the design was sold to a French company, and re-branded as the "Victor Lambda" for the French market.


CompuServe Information Manager

CompuServe Information Manager (CIM) was CompuServe Information Service's client software, used with the company's Host Micro Interface (HMI). The program provided a GUI front end to the text-based CompuServe service that was at the time accessed using a standard terminal program with alphanumerical shortcuts.


The Goonies (MSX video game)

The Goonies is a 1986 platform game by Konami for the MSX based on the film of the same name. The music is a simple rendition of the song "The Goonies 'R' Good Enough", by Cyndi Lauper.
Gameplay.
"The Goonies" is a platform and puzzle game, featuring five 'scenes'. After each successfully completed scene, a key word is given and thus the player can continue the game from this point at any time.
Remake.
A fan-made remake titled "The Goonies: 20th Anniversary Edition"," was released in 2006 by Brain Games for Windows, Mac, and Linux.


IBM TouchMobile

The IBM TouchMobile is a robust and practical hand-held computer announced by IBM in 1993. This device has a bar code scanner with on-screen signature and data capture. Certain models are capable of wireless communication.


Fujitsu Celsius

The Fujitsu Celsius is a line of laptop and workstation computers manufactured by Fujitsu. The brand name has also been used for graphic accelerators.
The laptops have Intel Core vPro, i5, or i7 processors, while the workstations have one or two Intel Xeon processors.
History and usage.
The computers are intended for applications such as computer-aided design, digital content creation, geographical information systems work, architecture, engineering, financial forecasting, flux balance analysis, scientific simulation, electronic design, and virtual reality.
Fujitsu Celsius equipment was used to stitch together thousands of individual photographic images to create large-scale 360-degree panoramic images: an 80-gigapixel image of London was published in November 2010, stating: “using this excellent workstation allowed this record-breaking photo to be created a few weeks faster than would have been possible on any other available PC.” The 320-gigapixel photomosaic of London published in February 2013 was prepared on a Celsius R920 in three months' time.
Models.
Desktops.
Celsius R630 specs
Celsius R920 - 2012's model; The R920 is able to accept up to 512 GB of RAM.
Laptops.
Celsius H710 and Celsius H910 - 2011's models.
TFTS, “Fujitsu Brings Out Pair Of New Laptops, The Celsius H710 And The Celsius H910 [Described As Workstation Laptops, Fujitsu's New Hardware Offers Variety Of Configurations And High Power]”, Steve Anderson, May 23, 2011 http://nexus404.com/Blog/2011/05/23/fujitsu-brings-pair-laptops-celsius/
See also.
Largest photographs in the world


Panasonic JR-200

The Panasonic JR-200U (Panasonic Personal Computer (PPC)) was a simple, relatively early (1983), 8-bit home computer with a chiclet keyboard somewhat similar to the VTech Laser 200. It's part of the JR Series.
Made of silver grey plastic, it had a black matte area around the keyboard area. Most of the 63 rubber chiclet keys were grey, with some (the more important) keys in marine blue, and with white control and break keys. Each of the grey keys could produce any of five inputs: Upper and lower-case letters (or numbers and symbols), two graphic characters (similar to the graphic symbols of PETSCII), and a BASIC keyword. Two keys, ALPHA and GRAPH, are used to switch back and forth between character and graphics modes. Holding down the CONTROL key while pressing any grey key produced a Basic keyword. In total the JR-200 had 253 built-in characters. 96 letters, numbers and symbols, 5 Greek letters, 63 graphical symbols, 79 Japanese (katakana) symbols and 10 music and other symbols. All symbols formed in an 8x8 pixel matrix, and the JR-200 could display 32 characters per line and 24 lines. All relevant keys would auto-repeat when pressed continuously. The JR-200 used a very unusual 8-bit CPU, the MN1800A, which was compatible with the Motorola MC6802, a slightly improved version of the Motorola 6800. It ran at a slow 0.89 MHz (according to unconfirmed information). There is also a second processor, the 4-bit MN1544CJR, which is used for I/O and contains 128 bytes of RAM plus four kilobytes of ROM.
JR-Basic.
The JR-200 did not use Microsoft BASIC, but its own dialect, one that was designed to be mostly compatible with Microsoft BASIC. JR-BASIC was a greatly extended Basic, with, (for example) graphical commands such as COLOR, (which selected character color, background color and display mode) and PLOT which permitted direct addressing of the low resolution graphics mode (64×48, using text semigraphics characters, which represented pixel blocks that used one-quarter of each character). Eight colors were available for the background and foreground use: blue, red, magenta, green, cyan, yellow, white and black. By re-programming a part of the character-set a limited high resolution graphics mode was achievable with a resolution of 256×192. The basic also supported on-screen editing and direct execution of basic instructions. the machine came with 32K of RAM, and had 30,716 bytes free for a Basic program. User memory could be expanded to 40K. JR-Basic itself occupied 16K of ROM, while the character set video memory and I/O used another 6K.
The JR-200 ROM also contained a machine code monitor to enter and execute machine code programs.
Sound.
The JR-200 was capable of producing a wide range of sounds. The JR-200 had a general purpose timer - I/O chip, with three of the timer outputs being hooked up to generate square wave tones. The Basic supported the sound capabilities with commands ranging from a simple BEEP command (BEEP 1 producing an 880 Hz "middle octave A" sound), to the SOUND (f, d) command which took two numerical parameters for frequency and duration, and the PLAY and TEMPO commands which could take multiple commands to play a tone over a 5-octave range, and played them in the background while the Basic program continued. Clever use of the three square wave voices could be used to generate a range of other sounds, such as explosions. A keystroke could be accompanied by an audible feedback signal. Audio was output from an RCA (Tulip) connector onto which an eight ohm speaker could be directly connected, but the JR-200 also had a small built-in speaker. On the back of the device there was a volume control potentiometer that controlled both the internal and external speaker.
I/O connectors.
On the back of the device you could also find an eight-pin DIN connector for a cassette recorder with which you could load programs at 2400 bit/s. Then two connectors for video output, an RCA connector RF output and an eight-pins DIN connector that could output NTSC or RGB video. The JR-200UP variant outputs composite PAL and RGB. Two other connectors provided a centronics compatible printer port, (supported by Basic with LPRINT, LLIST and HCOPY, a "screen dump" command) and an expansion interface port. The expansion port connector also had signal lines for an RS232 serial connection which Basic supported with several commands, but its main use was to connect a 5¼-inch floppy disk drive.
On its left side the JR-200 had two DB-9 joystick connectors which could be connected to standard (Atari style) joysticks, which could be read by the Basic STICK command.
In contrast to most other home computers of the time the JR-200 did not use an external transformer unit but had a built-in, completely contained, power supply.
Reception.
The computer received favorable reviews on its launch. Creative Computing wrote "The Panasonic JR-200 is one of the nicest new computers to make the scene in some time."


ST Review

ST Review was a computer magazine in the United Kingdom covering the Atari ST during the early to mid 1990s. Published by EMAP and launched in May 1992 and placed at the "serious end" of the market, it catered to ST users who wished to use their ST for a variety of productive uses, such as its MIDI capabilities, programming or word processing, as opposed to casual gaming. The title was sold to Europress after EMAP decided to close it due to lower-than-expected sales and it ran for another two years with Freelance Editor Vic Lennard, full-time Deputy Editor, Tony Kaye and a full-time designer. This three-man team, along with several freelance contributors, kept the magazine popular for almost another two years before it finally succumbed to falling sales and the lack of success of Atari's Falcon, the expected replacement of the ST. This was due in part to the increasing PC market.
The magazine was eventually sold to Future Publishing, producers of rival ST Format. The last issue was published in January 1995.
Like many similar magazines, it contained sections of news, game reviews, previews, tips, help guides, columnists, reader's letters, and cover-mounted disks of software.


Input (magazine)

Input was a partwork published by Marshall Cavendish in the United Kingdom during 1984 and 1985, covering the subject of home computer programming. This magazine is not to be confused with Input, a website founded by former editor-in-chief of Engadget, and founder of The Verge, Joshua Topolsky.
Overview.
"Input" was composed of 52 weekly editions which introduced several parallel themes (such as computer graphics, word processing, CAD, games etc.) in each edition. These themes then were slowly developed with each new edition into BASIC and assembly language programs. The resulting programs were intended to run on a selection of the most popular home computers in the UK at the time: the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron and Dragon 32. A subset of the programs were also suitable for the Sinclair ZX81, Commodore VIC-20 and Tandy TRS-80 Color Computer.
The magazine was well-known among hobbyists using these early computer architectures, since it provided a useful source of interesting programs in a wide range of themes.
As was usually the case in home computer magazines of the era, the programs were listed in the pages of the magazine, and readers had to type them manually into their computers.
The magazine was published in other countries, such as Italy and Brazil.
Sections.
Each magazine had various colour-coded sections which denoted the main subject of the article. These subjects included BASIC Programming, Machine Code, Applications, Games Programming, with occasional sections on Peripherals. Later issues included introductions to other computer languages: Logo, Pascal, Lisp, and Forth.


Windows Live Expo

Windows Live Expo (codenamed "Fremont") was described by Microsoft as an "online social marketplace". The website ceased operations on July 31, 2008.
The site was similar to Craigslist in that it provided online classifieds. A major focus of the site was that users could choose whose listings they want to search, sorted either by friends and contacts or by geographical proximity.
Expo integrated with several other Windows Live services. Results could be mapped using Live Search Maps, users could contact the poster of a listing via Windows Live Messenger and promote their own listing on Windows Live Spaces.


Do! Run Run

Do! Run Run, also known as Super Pierrot (スーパーピエロ "Sūpā Piero"), is the fourth and final incarnation of "Mr. Do!", the Universal video game mascot. Returning to his Mr. Do! roots, the clown has a bouncing powerball with which to hurl at monsters. Mr. Do runs along the playfield picking up dots and leaving a line behind him, which the player is encouraged to create closed off sections with. Precariously balanced log traps, can be rolled downslope, crushing enemies. The resulting game is somewhat of a cross between "Mr. Do!", "Congo Bongo", "Pac-Man", and "Qix".
Gameplay.
The goal of "Do! Run Run" is to rack up points while completing screens. A screen is completed whenever all the fruits/dots are eaten, or when all of the regular monsters (not Alpha-monsters or their sidekicks) are defeated. Using the rope that follows Mr. Do to inscribe dots will convert them into cherries, a familiar fruit for Mr. Do to collect. Cherries are worth more points than dots, and eating them restores the powerball more quickly than eating dots would. Each time Mr. Do inscribes fruit, they progress to a higher tier, dots become cherries, cherries become apples, apples become lemons and lemons become pineapples. Eating a dot awards 10 points and 1/16 of a powerball recharge; eating a pineapple is worth 160 points and 1/4 of a powerball recharge.
Players are additionally encouraged to inscribe sections of the playfield by the letters E, X, T, R, A, a constant feature of the "Mr. Do!" games. Randomly, one of the inscribed fruits will turn into a flashing letter spot, corresponding with the movement of the Alpha-Monster at the top of the screen. If Mr. Do! runs over this spot, the monster sporting that letter will release from the top of the screen with three blue henchmen (which resemble the three ghost-like monsters from the original "Mr. Do!", and chase after Mr. Do. Defeating the Alpha-monster will lock in that letter, and once all 5 letters are earned, the player earns an extra life (as well as progressing to the next stage, you also earn a 5,000 point bonus).
Points are also awarded for defeating monsters. Directly firing the powerball at a monster awards 500 points and consumes the powerball, which needs to be replenished by eating fruit. More points are earned if the powerball bounces off of a surface; each bounce raises the bonus by 500 points until a maximum of 3000 points are earned. Smashing monsters with a rolling log earns 1000 points; it is possible to roll over multiple monsters and earn a cumulative bonus of 500 per extra monster (so, 1500 for the 2nd, 2000 for the 3rd, etc.). Apparently there is a 10,000 point bonus for smashing 5 monsters.
Monsters.
Like other Mr. Do! games, the monsters are nameless (except Alpha-monsters) and defy easy description. Two types of monsters attempt to foil the clown's efforts, a green clam-like monster, and a blue snake-like monster. Neither are particularly sophisticated, although the clam monsters have some seemingly clever moments where they bumble into your path or out of the way of the powerball. The blue snakes will, if you linger too long on a direct path from them, convert into a fireball and charge across the playing field. In this state, they are immune to the powerball. As is common with arcade games, contact with monsters is instantly fatal, with Mr. Do shown to be electrocuted, complete with visible flashing skeleton, and then reappearing as a black skeleton.
After some time on each stage elapses, the music changes and any surviving monsters convert into a different form; the clam monsters become blue and armored with spines, the snake monsters essentially become different looking snake monsters. The speed of each monster, and the willingness to chase Mr. Do, are about the only other major changes; they can be fairly easily eluded so long as the player does not simply run away from them. Instead, Mr. Do should climb up or down the terrain if too closely chased; monsters lose a lot of time changing levels on the playfield whereas Mr. Do gets a slight speed up for going downslope. After a short duration, the music resumes, and the monsters transform back into their old selves, with the pattern of transformation repeating.
Alpha-monsters, when they are summoned by the letter circle, are released with three henchmen. The henchmen home in on Mr. Do! and typically precede the alpha-monster. Killing the Alpha-monster rids the playfield of the henchmen, although it is easier to lure all four into the path of a log and smash them. Alpha-monsters are also released every time the score reaches increments of 5,000 points unless there is already an alpha-monster on the playfield.
Free games.
While this can be configured by the ROM to not occur, infrequently, a bonus diamond worth 10,000 points will show up in the same manner as the letter circles when fruit are inscribed. If the player collects this, the stage ends and they are awarded a bonus credit in the fashion of the original "Mr. Do!".


Articulating screen

An articulating screen is a liquid-crystal display (LCD) which is not fixed, but rather can be repositioned using a hinge or pivot. The articulating screen is known under different other names such as flip-out screen, flip screen, adjustable screen, articulated screen, or hinged screen. According to the way it moves, there are three main types:
Articulating screens are used in a variety of electronic devices such as laptops, camcorders, digital cameras, desk phones, mobile phones, DVD players and others; also TV screens and computer monitors can be articulating screens.
This article focuses on digital photography, where an articulating screen allows convenient or unobtrusive shooting from various perspectives.
Digital cameras with a tilting screen.
"The tilting screens of camera models marked with an asterisk (*) here below can be tilted by 180 degrees or close to it so that they may be used to take self portraits more easily."
Accessories.
Aftermarket products are available which can be fitted to static screen cameras. These reflect the screen image, or capture and duplicate the image.


DOS Shell

DOS Shell is a file manager, debuted in MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS version 4.0 (June 1988). It was discontinued in MS-DOS version 6.22, but remained part of the Supplemental Disk. The Supplemental Disk could be ordered or could be downloaded through Microsoft’s FTP server. DOS Shell was retained in PC DOS until PC DOS 2000.
Overview.
DOS Shell was one of the first successful attempts to create a basic graphical user interface (GUI) type file manager in DOS, although it is properly referred to as a text user interface (TUI) or Character-Oriented Windows (COW) even though graphical modes were available on supported hardware (VGA-equipped PCs). The shell is very much like a DOS version of File Manager found in Windows up to versions 3.11 and NT 3.51, and File Explorer on later versions.
In MS-DOS 4.x and 5.x the program was implemented as COM file (codice_1). In MS-DOS 6 the executable had an .EXE filename extension (codice_2).
Features.
The shell includes common features seen in other file managers such as copying, moving and renaming files as well as the ability to launch applications with a double-click. The shell could be run by the command “codice_3“. It had the ability to set simple colours and styles.
The shell also has a help system, “program list”, and a “task swapper”. Like many modern file managers, it had the ability to display dual hierarchy directory and file lists, i.e. left and right panes, displaying both a list of directory contents and the hierarchical file path to the current working directory. The mouse was supported, however, like any other DOS application, it required an appropriate device driver.
One feature was the ability to list all files on a hard drive in a single alphabetized list along with the path and other attributes. This permitted the user to compare versions of a file in different directories by their attributes and easily spot duplicates.
Shortcomings.
DOS Shell was incapable of full multitasking. It supported rudimentary task switching; it could switch between programs running in memory, at the cost of performance hit. However, all the running programs had to fit into conventional memory area, as there was no support for swapping to disk.
In time, Windows 3.1x, with its own graphical user interface, became much more popular among computer users. Windows was capable of multitasking. System performance was much higher, with complete access to extended memory.


Super Nova (video game)

Super Nova is clone of Atari, Inc.'s "Asteroids" arcade game published by Big Five Software for the TRS-80 in 1980. Co-author Bill Hogue called "Super Nova" "the game that started the company."
Gameplay.
In "Super Nova" the screen is filled with asteroids, and the player uses explosive missiles to blow them into middle-sized chunks, and then split them into small hunks which can be blown out of existence.
Reception.
Jon Mishcon reviewed "Super Nova" in "The Space Gamer" No. 36. Mishcon commented that "I found this game to be a real challenge. Recommended for any arcade buff."


Interactive Picture Systems

Interactive Picture Systems, or IPS, was a software developer located in Philadelphia from 1982-1985. The company was run by partners Guy Nouri of NYC and Eric Podietz of Philadelphia. Staff included Jimmy Snyder, Mark Scott, Ken Appleman, Bob Svihovec, and Chip Kaye. IPS developed educational and creativity software initially for the Atari 8-bit family, then for the Apple II and Commodore 64.


GE/PAC 4000

The GE/PAC 4000 computer systems are an obsolete line of computers manufactured by General Electric in Phoenix, Arizona beginning in the 1960s. PAC is short for "Process Automation Computer", indicating the intended use of the systems for process control.
All 4000 systems are 24-bit, using fixed-point binary data, with between 1020 and 65,536 words of magnetic core memory, and a magnetic drum memory with 8192 to 262,144 word capacity. The CPU logic is implemented with discrete transistors. The systems can be configured with a wide variety of analog and digital inputs and outputs.
The 4020 is the low-end model of the system. Three models of the 4000, the 4040, 4050, and 4060 differ in storage speed— 5μsec, 3.4μsec, and 1.7 and 2.38μsec respectively— and by the implementation of a serial arithmetic unit on the 4040 vs. parallel on the other systems,
Software.
The operating system for the 4000 series is called "G-E-MONITOR", a "skeleton real-time system program." "Several versions of MONTIOR are available, each tailored to the needs of a specific industry or process." Other software included "Process Assembler Language" (PAL), FORTRAN II, and "Tabular Sequence Control" (TASC). A set of memory load, dump, and change routines was provided.
Applications.
A product brochure highlighted potential uses in the utility industry, food processing, manufacturing, the metal and chemical industry, paper and cement manufacturing, and petroleum.


RTL 24

RTL 24 started as a mobile TV news channel on 5 June 2008. It was available through KPN DVB-H. Its broadcast as a mobile TV channel stopped when KPN ceased its DVB-H services on 1 June 2011.
After a short break, "RTL 24" re-launched as a mobile app for smart phones, tablet computers and other mobile devices in November 2011. On 19 January 2012 the app changed into "RTL Nieuws 365" and therefore the brand "RTL 24" discontinued.


Videoface

Videoface Digitiser is a video digitiser interface for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer. It was produced by Data-Skip from The Netherlands and later on by Romantic Robot UK Ltd from UK in 1987. It was originally sold for GBP 69, but the price dropped to 30 GBP within few years.
"Videoface" takes signal from any video source with composite video out capability. It produces a 256 × 192 pixel 4-bit screen. Scanning speed is just below four frames per second. These screens can be saved as single pictures or animations with variable speed, and later loaded into any drawing program for editing. During scanning, the contrast of the picture can be adjusted by turning the knob on top of the "Videoface", and the picture can be shifted horizontally and vertically.


Sony NEX-5R

The Sony α NEX-5R is a mid-range rangefinder-styled digital mirrorless interchangeable lens camera announced by Sony on 29 August 2012.


MSX Video access method

The ColecoVision, SG-1000, CreatiVision, and first-generation MSX computers use the TMS9918A Video Display processor (VDP), which has its own 16 KiB of video memory that was not shared with main memory. Compared to the unified system and video memory used by other 8-bit computers of the time, such as the Apple II, ZX Spectrum, and Commodore 64, separate memory has the advantage of freeing up of the Z80 processor's 64 KiB address space for main RAM, and the VDP does not need to steal CPU cycles to access video memory. The disadvantage is that the program has to use the CPU's dedicated I/O instructions to command the VDP to manipulate the contents of the video RAM. This not only slows down video access but also makes the porting of games from unified-memory platforms more difficult. Attempts of porting ZX Spectrum games (in the UK, the system most similar to the MSX) were often thwarted by this difference. Also, programmers had to learn to optimally use the more advanced capabilities of the VDP.
The TMS9918A's method of accessing the video RAM is slower than direct access, as used in unified-memory computers, because accessing video memory involved first outputting the low- then the hi-byte of the (14-bit) video memory address to I/O port $99, then one or more bytes of 8-bit data to port $98. After each write, the memory pointer advances to the next address, so consecutive addresses can be written to with repeated OUT instructions to $98. Z80 had as fast OTIR/OTDR block instructions which could be used instead of LDIR/LDDR, still, allowed VRAM access rate was restricted unless during vertical blanking.
However because of the screen layout, (which was top-down for each character of 8 lines then advancing to the next character) this was difficult to use for programmers who tried to convert existing software originally written for a system that had another arrangement of the screen layout. So when trying to use the TMS9918A high resolution mode video memory in the conventional way this method of indirect-access could be far slower than in 8-bit computers with unified memory, like any other piece of RAM. Consequently machines using this VDP could be inefficient at certain graphical tasks, such as scrolling games, which entailed moving the entire background memory. Instead of being able to use the Z80's efficient and fast block move instructions they had to write elaborate routines that first read bytes from video memory into system memory, and then back to another location in video memory, all one byte at a time.
To increase the speed to an acceptable level the programmers then often limited the scrolling to 8-pixel steps, which looked primitive in comparison to the 1 or 2 pixel scrolling steps available to the ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64 machines (although the Commodore 64 also used 8-pixel steps it had a fine-scroll register which could compensate for this, the MSX-1 did not).
The TMS9918A did have several features to make up for this shortfall, for example a programmable character set which allowed indirection, (to greatly increase scrolling because only the character table had to be moved, instead of the pixel data) and by having 32 hardware sprites. These sprites however were more limited than those in (for example) the Atari-8-bit systems. Because in their highest resolution they were only 16x16 pixels in a single-color (with transparency). A bigger drawback though was that in reality only scan line segments from a maximum of 4 sprites could simultaneously be displayed on any one picture scan line. Attempting to place a 5-th sprites scan line segment on the same scan line as the four others would result in flickering or missing scan line segments. Still, with care multiple multi-color sprites could be created this way, as many Japanese games prove. The ZX Spectrum did not have sprites, but when porting games it was often too much trouble to re-write the game structure to take advantage of the sprites. So most often they were simply ignored when porting games.
There were tricks available to circumvent the scrolling and other speed related problems by using clever programming techniques and video chip capabilities that were not available in the ZX Spectrum, such as using an undocumented text mode that supported multiple colors. In addition, by using the built in re-programmable fonts, it was possible to combine high resolution graphics with faster scrolling while also being able to use sprites. This method was widely used by Japanese programmers writing native software, but rarely by British programmers who were porting Spectrum software.
Most of the video problems described above, especially sprite limits and scrolling, were fixed with the newer MSX-2 video chips. However, by that time 16 bit systems like the Amiga and Atari ST had started to dominate the market.


Asmutils

Asmutils is a rewrite of the standard Unix commands in x86 assembly language aimed to have smallest possible size of ELF executables. All standard Unix commands (ls, cat, sh, etc.) executables are less than one kilobyte in size.
Asmutils is available for Linux, UnixWare, Solaris, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and AtheOS and is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2.
Linux mini distributions based entirely on asmutils are a-Linux and SAMEL Linux. Some utilities from asmutils are included in MuLinux and Lepton.


Shc (shell script compiler)

shc is a shell script compiler for Unix-like operating systems written in the C programming language. The Shell Script Compiler (SHC) encodes and encrypts shell scripts into executable binaries. Compiling shell scripts into binaries provides protection against accidental changes and source code modification, and is a way of hiding shell script source code.
Mechanism.
codice_1 takes a shell script which is specified on the command line by the codice_2 option and produces a C source code of the script with added encryption. The generated source code is then compiled and linked to produce a binary executable. It is a two step process where, first, it creates a codice_3 file of the shell script file codice_4. Then it is compiled with codice_5 to create the binary from the C source code with the default C compiler.
The compiled binary will still be dependent on the shell specified in the shebang(eg. codice_6), thus codice_7 does not create completely independent binaries.
codice_1 itself is not a compiler such as the C compiler, it rather encodes and encrypts a shell script and generates C source code with the added expiration capability. It then uses the system C compiler to compile the source shell script and build a stripped binary which behaves exactly like the original script. Upon execution, the compiled binary will decrypt and execute the code with the shells'codice_9 option.


Rastan (video game)

 known as Rastan in North America, is a side-scrolling hack-and-slash action game originally released by Taito for arcades in 1987. The game was a critical and commercial success, and was ported to various home platforms.
Plot.
Taking place in a fantasy setting, the player controls a barbarian warrior who has embarked on a quest to slay a dragon. While on his way to the dragon's lair, Rastan must fight hordes of enemy monsters based on mythical creatures such as chimeras and harpies.
Gameplay.
The controls of "Rastan" consists of an eight-way joystick, a button for attacking, and a button for jumping. By using the joystick in combination with either button, the player can determine the height of Rastan's jumps, as well as the direction he swings his weapon (including downwards while jumping). The game uses a health gauge system along with limited lives, although certain obstacles (such as falling into a body of water or being crushed by a spiked ceiling) will instantly kill Rastan regardless of how much health he has left.
There are a total of six rounds, each consisting of three areas: an outdoor scene, a castle scene and a throne room where the player must confront the stage's boss. The backgrounds of the outdoor areas feature broad landscapes with changing sunlight effects with detail.
The game's bosses (names according to the MSX2 version), in order of appearance, consist of:
The player can pick up any item by touching it, as well as new weapons by striking them with his current one. All the weapons and power-ups picked by Rastan will be equipped only for a limited time, except for the Ring power up. The Ring will remain equipped on Rastan for the entirety of his current life, even carrying over to the next stage. When Rastan picks up any equipable item, an icon will appear on the lower right corner of the screen as an indicator of the item's effect until it wears out. Rastan can only wield one weapon at a time (a mace, an axe, a fireball-shooting sword, or his standard sword), as well as only one type of protector (a shield, a mantle, or a body armor), but other items (such as the necklace and ring) can be worn at the same time. There are also jewels that gives out bonus points, as well potion bottles that restore or deplete the player's health depending on the color. The rare golden sheep's head restores Rastan's health completely.
Regional differences.
"Rastan Saga" (the Japanese version) features an opening sequence, when the player starts the game, which explains the purpose of Rastan's journey. It is not included in the versions released in other countries (which are simply titled "Rastan"). Also, in the Japanese version when the player completes a stage ("Round") the "victory" screen has text pertaining to the storyline. In the international versions, there is a "generic" victory screen with generic text ("You are a brave fighter to have cleared such a difficult stage"). However, the international versions feature a different attract sequence which shows all the items that can be obtained by the player along with their effect.
In the Japanese version there are far fewer bats during the bat swarm sequences in the castle of level 1 than in other versions.
In Europe, the arcade game was originally released with its Japanese title "Rastan Saga".
Ports.
"Rastan" was initially ported to various 8-bit home computers in Europe (the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC) by Imagine Software in 1987. The ZX Spectrum version was awarded 9/10 in the July 1988 issue of Your Sinclair and was placed at number 54 in the "Your Sinclair"'s Top 100 list. Taito imported Imagine's C64 version to the United States in 1988 and also released in 1990 two additional ports for the IBM PC and Apple IIGS, both of which were developed by Novalogic.
An unreleased version for the Atari ST was discovered in demo form only.
In 1988, Taito developed its own conversions for the MSX2 in Japan, and the Master System in North America and Europe. Both ports featured redesigned level layouts, with the Master System version replacing some of the boss characters as well. The latter was itself ported to the Game Gear and released exclusively in Japan on August 9, 1991.
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Rastan" on their May 1, 1987 issue as being the second most successful table arcade unit of the month.
Clare Edgeley of "Computer and Video Games" reviewed the arcade game upon release, stating the "coin-op of the month has GOT to be Taito's suberb "Rastan Saga"" with praise for the "beautifully drawn and very realistic" graphics, fast-paced action and addictive gameplay. Tim Rolf of "Sinclair User" called it a "hacking and a-slaying" game that is "very, VERY good." Peter Shaw of "Your Sinclair" also gave it a positive review in 1987, with the magazine later calling it the "best ever slash 'n' slice 'em up" in 1988. The game drew comparisons to the character Conan the Barbarian, Capcom's platformer "Ghosts 'n Goblins" (1985), and Konami's run-and-gun shooter "Green Beret" (1985).
"Your Sinclair" reviewed the ZX Spectrum version, rating it 9 out of 10.
Legacy.
An emulation of the "Rastan" arcade game is included in "Taito Legends", released for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows PC in 2006.
The game was followed by two sequels, "Rastan Saga II" (known as "Nastar" in Europe and "Nastar Warrior" in North America) and "". "Rastan" also made an appearance in another Taito game titled "Champion Wrestler" as "Miracle Rastan".
The Saffire developed game "Barbarian" was released under the name "Warrior Blade: Rastan vs. Barbarian" in Japan as Taito published the game in the region. The game has nothing to do with "Rastan" despite the title change. The game was released in Japan on the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo GameCube. The GameCube version's release was cancelled in North America and Europe due to poor sales.
Indie game "Völgarr the Viking", developed by Crazy Viking Studios for Windows, OS X, Linux, Xbox One, and Dreamcast, was described on its Kickstarter page as based on "Rastan".


PearC

PearC is the name given to the line of personal computers produced by German manufacturer HyperMegaNet UG, that sells PCs with Mac OS X, similar to Psystar. HyperMegaNet UG claims it is acting within the law because Apple's EULA – that forbids installation of Mac OS X on non-Apple branded computers – only applies if it can be seen before purchase, according to German law.
The PearC line of personal computers consists of six models: PearC Starter, PearC Advanced, PearC Professional and PearC Expert, PearC Supreme, and PearC Business. All models are built using off-the-shelf components from Intel, Gigabyte Technology, Corsair, Nvidia, Western Digital and Lian-Li. Every computer ships with a USB drive of Mac OS X Mountain Lion to allow re-installation of the operating system. The company also offers dual-boot computers that run Windows 7 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
PearCs ship with a completely unmodified copy of Mac OS X. Instead they use the freely available Chameleon bootloader and a number of kernel extensions installed on the EFI System partition to allow them to boot Mac OS X Mountain Lion. If an Apple software update is likely to cause problems, the company advises its customers and releases a freely available patch in the form of a package installer.
All PearC personal computers come with a two-year warranty.
The company sells from websites in Spain: https://web.archive.org/web/20100402070452/http://www.pearc.es/
and Germany http://www.pearc.de/
All current products capable of running Mac OS X use Intel's 'Ivy Bridge' generation of processors.


Sony Xperia Tablet S

The Xperia Tablet S is a touchscreen Android tablet designed by Sony Mobile. It was announced at Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin (IFA) 2012, and debuted in the US on September 7, 2012. The tablet directly succeeded the Sony Tablet S, with a thinner and lighter design, a faster processor, and an improved camera. It is the first Sony tablet to be marketed with the Xperia branding.
Hardware.
The Xperia Tablet S features a magazine inspired design similar to its predecessor's, but the angle is less pronounced than in the original. It includes a full sized SD card slot, along with a proprietary Sony charging port and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It also features an infrared blaster, which acts as a universal remote.
Sony advertised the tablet as "splash proof" with its multi-port cover installed. Sales of the tablet were suspended in October 2012 when it was discovered that a manufacturing error left gaps between the screen and the case, which compromises its waterproofing.
Software.
A modified version of Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich ships on the tablet. Some alterations include the ability to add multiple user accounts and control of the tablet's IR blaster. It is now upgradeable to Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.
Variants.
The Xperia Tablet S is sold in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB models. These are Wifi-only in the US, but 3G/4G models are available in the UK.
Reception.
Critical reception has been mixed. In his review, Engadget writer Joseph Volpe stated that the Xperia Tablet S "misses the mark in everyday performance." However, David Pierce of The Verge gave the tablet a 7.6 out of 10, concluding that it had "no glaring flaws."


Moon Cresta

 is a fixed shooter video game released by Nichibutsu for arcades in 1980. In North America, it was licensed to Sega/Gremlin and Centuri, the latter releasing it in arcades as Eagle. Incentive Software published ports of "Moon Cresta" for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, Dragon 32 and ZX Spectrum home computers.
Gameplay.
The player begins the game with a small spaceship armed with a single laser cannon. After successfully completing the first four waves of alien attacks, the player must attempt to dock the ship with the next 'stage' of the ship. This second stage has two lasers in addition to the original one. Each docked stage is one of the player's "lives".
After successfully clearing two more waves of aliens, the player must again dock with the third and final piece of the ship, which also has two more lasers (giving the player five lasers in total). The trade-off for this is that the entire ship is a much larger target. Failure to correctly align the stages during either docking sequence causes the destruction of the stage being docked with.
After completing the first eight waves, the player's ship reverts to the first stage and the process is repeated. If any of the player's three ships are lost along the way, the docking sequence occurs only after the first four waves have been completed. Play ends when all three of the player's ship-stages are destroyed.
Reception.
"Moon Cresta" was a success for Nichibutsu. It helped propel them into the video game business, and is one of their most successful arcade games. "Computer + Video Games" commented on the game's visuals for being bright and colorful, and its gameplay for being captivating. "Game Machine" felt the same way, recognizing it as a sure-hit for arcades because of its gameplay and mechanics.
The ZX Spectrum version in particular was met with average reviews. "Your Spectrum" said that the gameplay was close to the arcade original, but felt that it was beginning to show its age. "Sinclair User" had a similar response, and commented that the only reason to even play it was to win a contest held by Incentive. They said that the game was a good conversion of the original, but the gameplay itself was dated and not as fun as other games for the system. "Crash" magazine was a lot more positive towards the game, awarding it a "Crash Smash" award; they applauded it for its simplistic gameplay, accurate portrayal of the arcade game, and its overall addictiveness, saying: "At a time when the emphasis tends to be on complicated arcade/adventures or third generation platform games, I think it’s brave of Incentive to release an old fashioned shoot em up like this, and I’m thankful that they have. Great fun!"
In 1998, "Allgame" said that while "Moon Cresta" had several unique ideas, particularly the ship docking mechanic "slick" controls, and its fast-paced action, it was ultimately hampered by its high difficulty level. They said that the tough gameplay would put off a lot of players: "Slick controls, distinctive graphics and almost-musical sound effects add up to a memorable package, but one which was too tough for some casual gamers to master". By contrast in 2007, "Eurogamer" greatly praised the game for its addictive nature, creativity, and overall challenge that helped set the standard for games to follow. They said: "I still, to this very day, admire Moon Cresta for being an adrenalin-fuelled, no nonsense shmup that epitomises the simplistic gaming challenges of early arcade games. Left, right and fire was all it took to take a young impressionable teenager from a world where potting the black was the challenge of the day".
In a 2016 retrospective review, "Hardcore Gaming 101" labeled "Moon Cresta" as being an influential and well-regarded shooter from the era. They greatly praised the game's key differences from games like "Galaxian" and "Galaga", such as the ship docking mechanic. "Hardcore Gaming 101" felt mixed towards the Super Famicom and PlayStation conversions, disliking both version's modifications to the enemy speed and other characteristics in the game, which they said might put off fans of the original. "Retro Gamer" felt the same way about the arcade original, saying that "Moon Cresta" had several differences that made it stand out from "Galaxian" and "Galaga", and that it was an entertaining and important game in its own right. They praised the game's large layer of strategy and scoring, alongside the ship docking mechanic. "Retro Gamer" concluded their review by writing: "By predating "Galaga"s multiple ship mechanic and introducing a range of diverse enemies, "Moon Cresta" is rightfully regarded as a key stage in the development of arcade shooters".
Legacy.
"Moon Cresta" spawned a long series of sequels, spin-offs and alterations for dozens of other platforms. The first of these was "Eagle", produced by North American game distributor Centuri, which changes most of the visuals and adds a new eagle-shaped enemy. Gremlin Industries followed it with "Super Moon Cresta", a modification kit that allows the enemies to fire back at the level and changes some of the text. Nichibutsu itself created "Moon Quasar", a spin-off that gives the second ship more firepower and a brief "refueling" segment, where the player must dock their vessel into a mothership towards the center of the screen.
A true sequel to "Moon Cresta" was released in 1985, titled "Terra Cresta". It features radically different gameplay from its predecessors, being a vertical-scrolling game where players must collect different ship pieces that each provide a new weapon, which can also be separated to use a secondary weapon. Another spin-off game, "UFO Robo Dangar", was released in 1986 that was similar to "Terra Cresta", only the player controls a giant mecha instead of a starship. In 1987, Nichibutsu released "Terra Force", which adds horizontal-scrolling segments alongside the vertical-scrolling ones from "Terra Cresta". A direct sequel to "Terra Cresta", titled "Terra Cresta II: Mandler no Gyakushu", was released in 1992 for the PC Engine in Japan, adding new stage designs, additional bosses, and more weapons and power-ups to use. A 3D follow-up, "Terra Cresta 3D", was released in 1997 for the Sega Saturn, being one of Nichibutu's final games; it serves as a 3D update to "Terra Cresta", with new stages and weapon types. A fourth sequel, "Sol Cresta", is currently in development by PlatinumGames.


R8C Tiny

R8C Tiny is series of low-cost microcontrollers from Renesas. Having 16-bit CPU core M16C with 8-bit bus, the R8C Tiny series offer wide variety of on-chip peripherals include 8-bit Multifunction Timers, UART/Clock Synchronous Serial Interface, Input Capture Timer, Watchdog Timer, etc.


Skia (typeface)

Skia is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Apple Computer in 1994. "Skia" is Greek for "shadow", and the letterforms take inspiration from stone-carved 1st century BC Greek writing. The typeface was the first QuickDraw GX font, and has been pre-installed in Mac operating systems since System 7.5 (1994), and is in the current Mac OS.
Skia includes "GX variations" technology that – if an application offers the UI – allows its weight to be adjusted smoothly between thin and bold, and its width between narrow and extended. (Adobe’s "multiple master" technology was similar.) In 2016 it was announced that several technology companies, including Google, Microsoft and Adobe are adopting Apple’s GX variations as the basis of the variations specification inside OpenType 1.8, and since that announcement Skia has been much used to demonstrate the capabilities of the technology.


Cubieboard

Cubieboard is a single-board computer, made in Zhuhai, Guangdong, China. The first short run of prototype boards were sold internationally in September 2012, and the production version started to be sold in October 2012. It can run Android 4 ICS, Ubuntu 12.04 desktop, Fedora 19 ARM Remix desktop, Armbian, Arch Linux ARM, a Debian-based Cubian distribution, FreeBSD, or OpenBSD.
It uses the AllWinner A10 SoC, popular on cheap tablets, phones and media PCs. This SoC is used by developers of the lima driver, an open-source driver for the ARM Mali GPU. At the 2013 FOSDEM demo it ran ioquake 3 at 47 fps in 1024×600.
The Cubieboard team managed to run an Apache Hadoop computer cluster using the Lubuntu Linux distribution.
Technical specifications.
Cubieboard1.
The little motherboard utilizes the AllWinner A10 capabilities
Cubieboard2.
The second version, sold since June 2013, enhances the board mainly by replacing the Allwinner A10 SoC with an Allwinner A20 which contains 2 ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore CPUs and a dual fragment shader Mali-400 GPU (Mali-400MP2).
This board is used by Fedora to test and develop the Allwinner SoC port of the distribution.
There is also a version available with two microSD card slots.<ref name="cb.org/model"></ref>
Cubietruck (Cubieboard3).
The third version has a new and larger PCB layout and features the following hardware:
There is no LVDS support any longer. The RTL8211E NIC allows transfer rates up to 630–638 Mbit/s (sending while 5–10% idle) and 850–860 Mbit/s (receiving while 0–2% idle) when simultaneous TCP connections are established (testing was done utilising iperf with three clients against Cubietruck running Lubuntu)
To connect a 3.5" HDD the necessary 12 V power can be delivered by a 3.5 inch HDD addon package which can be used to power the Cubietruck itself as well. Also new is the option to power the Cubietruck from LiPo batteries.
Cubieboard 4.
On May 4, 2014 CubieTech announced the Cubieboard 4, the board is also known as CC-A80.
It is based on an Allwinner A80 SoC (quad Cortex-A15, quad Cortex-A7 big.LITTLE), thereby replacing the Mali GPU with a PowerVR GPU. The board was officially released on 10 March 2015.
Cubietruck Plus (Cubieboard 5).
The fifth version has the same PCB layout and almost the same features as the CubieTruck.


Bad Street Brawler

Bad Street Brawler, originally released for home computers as Bop'n Rumble in North America and as Street Hassle in Europe, is a 1987 video game by Beam Software. Versions were released for the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 and MS-DOS by Melbourne House and Mindscape with a NES version following in 1989. The NES version was one of only two NES games specifically designed for use with Mattel's Power Glove.
Gameplay.
The player plays the character Duke Davis (the back of the box calls him Duke Dunnegan), who goes from stage to stage beating up gangsters that get in his way, dressed in a yellow tank top, sunglasses, and yellow pants. He is described as a former punk rocker and the "world's coolest" martial artist.
Before the start of the next stage, quotes are introduced to entertain the player (such as "Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you"). The player fights a variety of enemies, such as gorillas and circus dwarves who throw hammers at the player (old ladies in the computer versions who throw purses at the player).
There are 15 stages in this game.
Moves include the "bull ram" attack and "trip" move.
Reception.
"Electronic Gaming Monthly"s Seanbaby placed it as number 16 in his "20 worst games of all time" feature.


OFTP

The Odette File Transfer Protocol (OFTP) is a protocol created in 1986, used for EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) between two communications business partners. Its name comes from the Odette Organisation (the Organization for data exchange by teletransmission in Europe).
The ODETTE File Transfer Protocol (ODETTE-FTP) was defined in 1986 by working group four of the Organisation for Data Exchange by Tele-Transmission in Europe (ODETTE) to address the electronic data interchange (EDI) requirements of the European automotive industry. It was designed in the spirit of the Open System Interconnection (OSI) model utilising the Network Service provided by the CCITT X.25 recommendation.
OFTP 2 was written in 2007 by Data Interchange, as a specification for the secure transfer of business documents over the Internet, ISDN and X.25 networks. A description of OFTP 1.3 can be found in RFC 2204, whilst OFTP 2 is defined in RFC 5024.
OFTP 2 can work point-to-point or indirectly via a VAN (Value Added Network). A single OFTP 2 entity can make and receive calls, exchanging files in both directions. This means that OFTP 2 can work in a push or pull mode, as opposed to AS2, which can only work in a push mode.
OFTP 2 can encrypt and digitally sign message data, request signed receipts and also offers high levels of data compression. All of these services are available when using OFTP 2 over TCP/IP, X.25/ISDN or native X.25. When used over a TCP/IP network such as the Internet, additional session level security is available by using OFTP 2 over Transport Layer Security (TLS).


Printf (Unix)

In Unix and Unix-like operating systems, printf ("print formatted") is a shell builtin (and utility program) that formats and prints data.
The command accepts a printf format string, which specifies methods for formatting items, and a list of items to be formatted. Named historically after the intention of printing to a printer, it now actually outputs to stdout. Characters in the format string are copied to the output or, if a codice_1 is encountered, are used to format an item. In addition to the standard formats, codice_2 causes printf to expand backslash escape sequences (for example codice_3 for newline), and codice_4 outputs an item that can be used as shell input. The format string is reused if there are more items than format specs. Unused format specs provide a zero value or null string.
History.
 is part of the X/Open Portability Guide since issue 4 of 1992. It was inherited into the first version of POSIX.1 and the Single Unix Specification. It first appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno.
The version of codice_5 bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie. It has an extension for escaping strings in POSIX-shell format.
Examples.
$ for NUMBER in 4 6 8 9 10
> do printf " » %03d %d« \n" $NUMBER $RANDOM
> done
 » 004 26305«
 » 006 6687«
 » 008 20170«
 » 009 28322«
 » 010 4400«
This will print a directory listing, emulating 'ls':


ICL DRS 6000


Boogie board (product)

Boogie Board is a paperless LCD, which uses a stainless steel telescoping stylus, or also can be drawn on with other implements, like fingers, brushes, cookie cutters, etc., as it is pressure-sensitive.
Most of the boards contain no active electronics; they are therefore as responsive as real paper.
Lifespan is estimated at 50,000 erasures.
Principle of operation.
Boogie board is based on reflex display technology, i.e. LCDs that use cholesteric liquid crystal technology to reflect light in one state, and to be dark (non-reflecting) in the other state. The dark state occurs when no voltage is applied (voltage is needed to keep the light areas of the image reflecting).
Boogie Board Sync.
The Boogie Board Sync added a digitisation panel, capturing the user's input as vector graphics in PDF form for later review on a computer, phone or tablet. The board itself does not allow direct review of stored pages.
Founders.
Boogie Board is developed by Kent Displays Incorporated, by researchers at
Market uses.
It is currently used for drawing.


The Judges (demogroup)

The Judges was a Dutch Commodore 64 group from Roosendaal known for being one of the earliest dedicated demogroups. The Judges released several demos for the Commodore 64 home computer between the years 1986 - 1988. Groups such as The Judges are regarded as early pioneers of what came to be known as the demoscene.
In some respects they mirrored The Lords, a "rivaling" ZX Spectrum group also from Roosendaal, to the extent that concepts, artwork and even titles were identical between the two groups.
A technical milestone often attributed to The Judges, particularly the programmer Bart "White" Meeuwissen, is the invention of the FLD (Flexible Line Distance) technique, which was used in the "Think Twice" series of demos. As the name implies, FLD made it possible to have a variable distance every eight pixels between the individual text or graphics lines generated by the VIC-II video chip.
The group's musician Jeroen "Red" Kimmel went on to compose and sell video game music commercially for different platforms such as the C64, Amiga and MSX computers.


Butcher Hill

Butcher Hill is an action game developed and published by Gremlin Graphics in 1989. In this game, the player controls a team of five soldiers who have to survive in the Vietnamese jungle and kill as many enemies as possible. In the first part, the player's team is in a boat on a river with many rocks, mines and enemy fighters trying to sink it. If there is at least one remaining soldier at the end of the first part, the player enters the second part, a simulated 3D view of the jungle, shooting enemy soldiers and evading mines.
Reception.
The Spanish magazine "Microhobby" gave the game the following scores: Originality: 40%, Graphics: 70%, Motion: 60%, Sound: 70%, Difficulty: 80%, Addiction: 60%.


Ulysses (text editor)

Ulysses is a text editor for Apple Mac OS X, iPad, and iPhone. It is targeted at creative writers who do not want to worry about text layout, formatting, or other distractions, and who want to focus on their words, although it does support Markdown for basic formatting.
History.
Ulysses was named after the novel Ulysses by James Joyce.
The Ulysses software was originally released for Mac OS and in version 2.5 support was added for iPhone and iPad.
The license for Ulysses has been a subscription model (SaaS) since version 11.


Andromeda Conquest

Andromeda Conquest is a 1982 strategy video game released for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit family, Commodore PET, MS-DOS, and TRS-80. It had an influence on the 4X game genre.
Reception.
Brian J. Murphy of "Creative Computing" praised "Andromeda Conquest" for its playability and multi-player mode but criticized the solitaire game, describing it as "dull". "Computer Gaming World"s Floyd Mathews praised the game as "relatively simple, but exciting". However, in 1992, in its retrospective survey of science fiction games, the magazine gave the title two of five stars.


List of Apple II application software

Following is a List of Apple II applications including utilities and development tools.


Asia Commercial Co. Ltd.

Asia Commercial Co. Ltd. (ACC) was a Hong Kong-based computer company which manufactured the "ACC 8000", a MOS 6502-based personal computer compatible with the Apple IIe. It could run Apple DOS 3.3, CP/M or FLEX. The ACC 8000 was built for business and professional use, and used a mechanical keyboard. It was not successful, and is today quite rare.
See also.
Other Asian computer makers include:


MSN Direct

MSN Direct was an FM radio-based digital service which allowed 'SPOT' portable devices to receive information from MSN services. Devices that supported MSN Direct included wristwatches, desktop clocks, in-car GPS satellite navigation units, and even small appliances such as coffee makers. Information available through paid "channels" included weather, horoscopes, stocks, news, sports results and calendar notifications. The service also allowed users to receive short messages from Windows Live Messenger.
Some Garmin GPS units, such as the "nüvi 680", allowed traffic notifications, weather forecasts, movie schedules and local gas prices to be received through MSN Direct.
As a radio-based service, MSN Direct did not have universal coverage, but was available in populated parts of the United States and Canada. It was not launched in other areas.
Microsoft's latest expansion of MSN Direct was to the Windows Mobile platform. MSN Direct for Windows Mobile took advantage of both cellular and Wi-Fi connections, and allowed Microsoft devices to better compete with the information services available on other mobile phone platforms.
There were three versions of the MSN Direct software for Garmin "nüvi" GPS receivers:
The service was shut down on January 1, 2012, as originally announced in October 2009.


IBM RISC System/6000


OLinuXino

OLinuXino is an open hardware single-board computer capable of running Android or Linux designed by OLIMEX Ltd in Bulgaria.
The project's goal was to design DIY friendly industrial-grade Linux board which everyone can reproduce at home.
It leverages widely-available hand-solderable components which are reasonable to purchase in low quantities, housed in TQFP packages.
The project's CAD files are hosted on GitHub, allowing everyone to study and customize them according to their needs.
Initially OLinuXino was designed with EAGLE.
In March 2016 the first boards designed with KiCad became available as OLIMEX Ltd announced plans on switching development to Open Source CAD tools.
A13.
The Chinese company Allwinner released in April 2012 Cortex-A8 SoC in TQFP package, this was spotted immediately by OLinuXino developers and they start working on OLinuXino board based on A13
Three OLinuXino boards with A13 processor were released:
A10S.
In November 2012, Allwinner released a new A10S processor with HDMI and Ethernet and dual-core A20 processor.
The A13 has no native Ethernet capability, so the A10S processor was chosen for new OLinuXino boards.
Operating systems.
Officially supported:
Third party:


Tesco Hudl 2

The Hudl 2 was a tablet computer that was produced for British retailer Tesco and manufactured by Pegatron. It was announced in October 2014 as the successor to the original Tesco Hudl, which was released on 30 September 2013. The device features an 8.3-inch screen, a 1.83 GHz quad-core processor and 16 GB of internal flash memory. The tablet was originally launched with Android 4.4.2 KitKat and is officially upgradeable to Android 5.1 Lollipop.
On 23 October 2015, Tesco announced that the Hudl 2 had been discontinued and that no successor was planned.
History.
The Hudl 2 was announced at a launch event on 3 October 2014 with the tagline "We want to show you the bigger picture", accompanied by the hashtag "#Letshudl".
Hardware.
Design.
The Hudl 2 was available in eight colours. It has a soft coating on its back and a large front bezel. When held in landscape it is much wider and slightly slimmer than the original Hudl, though it is the same height. At 420 grams it is heavier than its predecessor and competitors; the original Hudl weighs 370g whilst the Nexus 7 (2013) weighs only 290g.
Screen and input.
The Hudl 2 has an 8.3" IPS panel, LCD display with a resolution of HD 1920×1200 and a pixel density of 273 ppi. This is a significant improvement over the older model, which had a 7-in 1400×900 LCD display with a pixel density of 242 ppi. The screen is less bright than the older model. The screen features a multi-touch capacitive panel, and contained within the device is a gyroscopic sensor, 3-axis accelerometer and an ambient light sensor. It is possible to connect the Hudl to an external display through use of the onboard HDMI port.
Audio and output.
The hudl2 has speakers on the back of the device, in the format of speaker holes in two rows at each side of the tablet. There is also a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack.
Battery.
Tesco claimed that the battery could last up to 8 hours (depending on use), an hour more than the original Hudl.
Storage.
The Hudl 2 comes with 16GB of internal storage of which approximately 9GB is available to the user. The total storage capacity of the Hudl 2 is expandable through the microSD card slot up to 32GB. With the 5.1 Lollipop update, the Hudl 2 officially supports 128GB cards (formatted FAT32).
Accessories.
There was a wide range of accessories available for the Hudl 2. Tesco offers:
Software and applications.
The tablet runs on Google’s Android operating system, giving it some advanced features such as voice search. It has access to Google’s collection of apps including Chrome and Google Maps. It also has some of the same software as the first hudl such as BlinkBox, allowing the user to purchase or rent films. The Hudl 2 comes with new e-reader software for viewing e-books. As it is Tesco’s product, there is an emphasis on encouraging the users to continue or start shopping in Tesco by having services such as Tesco Direct and Tesco Bank in folders available from the homescreen. The 'My Tesco' launcher is present as it was for the first hudl, allowing the users to access shopping interests such as their Clubcard account or to find their nearest Tesco store.
Child use.
Tesco promote the Hudl 2 as a family tablet. Their dedicated child safety app comes bundled in an attempt to achieve this goal. This app lets a user create a separate account for each user and limits accessible web content based on the user's age range. Other features of the child safety app include being able to control the amount of time users are allowed to use the device each day and the ability to block entire apps from users.
Reception.
With its low price of £129, most expected the hudl2 to be similar to its predecessor, an accessory to laptops. Instead reviewers were impressed by the specifications of the tablet for its price point. Chris Finnamore of ExpertReviews rated it 5/5, calling it a "vast improvement" over the Hudl 1. CNET wrote "it has more than enough to satisfy most families and its wealth of parental control information will help you arm your kids with the knowledge they need to stay safe online". The parental control options were lauded by other reviewers as well; AndroidCentral describes how "owners are asked if they wish to configure the hudl2 to block sensitive content, restrict the amount of time a child can use the product, and more". A shared point of praise among reviews was that of the hudl2’s strong push towards family and less savvy customer usage. "The Independent" were particularly impressed with the Get Started app. They said "Get Started offers comprehensive and clear tips on how to use the tablet for everything from shopping to gaming, as well as showing some basic security measures and ways to share the Hudl safely amongst family members".
Despite the many successes of the hudl2, reviewers were displeased with some of the more fundamental specifications. The five megapixel camera was described as "shoddy" by "The Independent", and many reviewers were unimpressed with the battery life. As with many tablets, the hudl2 comes with several preinstalled apps of varying usefulness which cannot be removed but can be disabled. The "My Tesco" launcher is preinstalled as the default launcher, though has been described as "sluggish" by TechRadar.
Discontinuation.
On 23 October 2015, Tesco announced that it would no longer be stocking the Hudl 2 although it would continue offering technical support to existing owners. While it did not explain the reason behind the decision, the company had been pursuing a strategy to focus on its core bricks-and-mortar grocery business which had already seen it sell off or close its video streaming and e-book operations. The announcement came one week after Tesco had announced that it had no plans for a Hudl 3 and "nothing planned at the moment" in the sector. According to "Marketing Magazine", a number of key people who had worked on the Hudl project, including its lead Android engineer and product managers, were no longer with Tesco.


Surface 2

Surface 2 is a Surface-series Windows RT hybrid tablet computer created by Microsoft. It was unveiled on September 23, 2013, and released on October 22, 2013 and is the successor to the original Surface. As of January 2015, Microsoft no longer manufactures Surface 2, but will provide security updates for the device until 2023. Microsoft's next attempt at a Windows-on-ARM tablet would be the Surface Pro X, released in 2019, six years after the Surface 2.
History.
Pre-orders for the Surface 2 were opened on September 24, 2013, and the device was released on October 22, 2013. As value-added services, the Surface 2 includes 200 GB of additional OneDrive storage for 2 years, 1 year of free Skype calls to landlines, and access to Skype WiFi hotspots.
In January 2015, after its stock sold out on Microsoft Store online, Microsoft confirmed that it had discontinued further production of Surface 2. After Surface 2, the Nokia Lumia 2520 was the only remaining Windows RT device on the market, before that being discontinued as well just a week later.
Features.
Hardware.
Made of magnesium alloy and toughened glass, the outer shell of Surface 2 maintains a similar design to its predecessor, but in a "bare metal" silver color scheme with a black bezel. Surface 2 is also slightly thinner and lighter than the previous model. Surface 2 uses a 1.7 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 4 chipset with 2 GB of RAM; Microsoft claimed that the new chipset and other improvements to its internal hardware made the Surface 2 three to four times faster than the original Surface, and that it had 10 hours of battery life playing videos. Unlike the original Surface (which used a 1366 x 768 display), the Surface 2 uses a 1080p display, the same as in Surface Pro 2. This display is claimed to have almost 50% better color than the previous version, as well as the lowest reflectivity among competing tablets.
The device also includes a full-size USB 3.0 port, 32 or 64 GB of internal storage, and a MicroSD slot. The Surface 2 ships with Windows RT 8.1.
The 4G LTE model of Surface 2 was launched on March 18, 2014, and comes as a 64 GB model only. AT&T is the Microsoft cellular partner and Surface 2 4G LTE comes with AT&T "All Access" app pre-installed but the device actually ships unlocked. The 4G models also come with GPS, Assisted GPS, and GLONASS. The Surface 2 includes what Microsoft calls a silver-magnesium color that is more scratch resistant compared to the original Surface.
Software.
The Surface 2 ships with Windows RT 8.1 and Office 2013 RT, unlike the original Surface which launched with Office 2013 RT Beta (but which later received the final release version). Other bundled apps include Mail, Calendar, People (contacts), Bing apps including Food and Drink, Health and Fitness, Weather, Travel, Stocks, and Sports. These apps were later renamed to be MSN apps. Just like its predecessor, desktop apps other than those already bundled with the OS are forbidden to run on the Surface 2, so the device, unlike its successor, Surface 3, cannot be classified as a 2-in-1 PC.
A notable change from the Surface to the Surface 2 is the hiding of the desktop tile from the Start Screen.
Accessories.
Updated versions of the Surface's cover accessories are available for the Surface 2; the Touch Cover 2 and Type Cover 2 are slightly thinner than the previous versions and now include a "dynamic" backlight system. The Touch Cover 2 has over 1,092 sensors on it compared to just 80 on the original Touch Cover. The keyswitch length of the Type Cover 2 have been reduced from 2.5 mm to 1.5 mm. A new Power Cover accessory was also available to add 30 Wh additional battery capacity to the device. Accompanying the Touch Cover 2 and Type Cover 2 was a wireless adapter that allows them to be connected up to 30 feet away via Bluetooth. An updated kickstand can now be tilted at a 55-degree angle alongside the original 22-degree angle. During its unveiling, Microsoft also showcased the Music Cover; a variation of the Touch Cover that serves as a DJ mixer with playback controls, a 16-button sampler, and three sliders. While mainstream public release has been announced, it will be distributed to musicians through the "Surface Remix Project" campaign.
Reception.
Initial reviews of the Surface 2 have been mixed. Reviewers have generally been positive about the device's hardware and improvements when compared to the original Surface. However, the Surface 2 was often criticized for a lack of support for traditional Windows desktop programs and the low number of high quality apps available from the Windows Store.
In a financial report from Microsoft in second quarter 2014, revenue more than doubled from $400 million in the first quarter, to $893 million. However, Microsoft still lost $39 million since the development costs had equaled to around $932 million. But skeptics acknowledged that the growth was there despite still losing money on the Surface brand.
Overheating issue.
The Surface 2 has been reported to have some overheating issues. Microsoft delivered an update to try to fix the issue.


Samsung NX30

The Samsung NX30 is a DSLR-style mirrorless camera, part of Samsung's NX series announced by Samsung on January 2, 2014. It is the successor of the Samsung NX20.
The NX30 is visually similar to its predecessor, the Samsung NX20, but is more advanced and has a fast hybrid autofocus which Samsung claims can detect an object in only 80ms.Another significant changes are a much more powerful processor which makes the camera far more responsible and faster, a much larger body with very good ergonomics, better video quality and capability (Full HD 60 fps, and a better codec), enhanced wifi connectivity, touch sensitive flexible display, and a large fast viewfinder with unique tilt construction.
Although nearly the same sensor was used, the NX30 has improved ISO range, the older sensor lacks a bit against modern competitors on high sensitivity but is capable of delivering very detailed images with Samsung lenses. This model was a much needed improvement after the somehow sluggish NX20, with only minor negatives, and the price was dramatically lowered after some time.


Mirrorless camera


Syllabic octal


Surface Mini

Surface Mini is a unreleased tablet computer that Microsoft designed as the planned successor to the Surface 2 in the Microsoft Surface family. The device has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and a touchscreen display that defaults to portrait mode. Like its predecessor, the Surface Mini runs Windows RT 8.1, a mobile operating system that was designed for the ARM architecture and has limitations including an inability to install Win32 applications; programs can only be installed from the Windows Store.
Rumors of the development of a seven-inch tablet computer were reported in April 2013 when Microsoft was preparing to develop a device in response to competitors' tablet computers with a similar form factor, including Apple's iPad Mini and Google's Nexus 7. The Surface Mini's released date was postponed from 2013 to 2014, and was canceled several weeks before the Surface event in 2014. The existence of the cancelled device was later revealed by Panos Panay during an October 2015 interview with "Wired Magazine". Despite its cancellation, "Windows Central" obtained the unreleased device and published its specifications and images of the tablet.
History.
In April 2013, "Wall Street Journal" reported rumors of the development of tablet computer by Microsoft, which was preparing a new lineup of Surface tablet computers that included the unnamed seven-inch tablet, in response to competitor's products in this form factor including Apple's iPad Mini and Google's Nexus 7. The upcoming Surface RT mini-tablet computer was to be equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, which replaced the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor that was used in first generation of Surface RT tablets. The inclusion of Snapdragon 800 processor added LTE connectivity, which allows the device to be equipped with mobile broadband, which Mike Angiulo, Microsoft's chief of ecosystem and planning, hinted at as a possibility of future connected devices in early 2013.
During the Build developer conference in 2013, Microsoft revealed the tools that allow development of applications designed for devices with displays, which suggested Microsoft was expecting original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to offer devices with these screen sizes. Despite it not being shown during Microsoft's Surface event in 2013, rumors of the Surface Mini tablet persist into September; according to these rumors, its display screen-size had increased to seven and a half inches, a screen size that PC manufacturers did not widely adopt. The rumored device's screen aspect ratio was also switched from to for easier to use in portrait mode.
According to Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet, Microsoft postponed the release of the Surface Mini to 2014 because it was focusing on development of the Windows 8.1 Update, which was released on April 8, 2014. When "The Verge" asked Microsoft's chief product officer Panos Panay about the possibility of a mini tablet computer for its Surface line, he refused to answer but hinted at the possibility of multiple form factors and screen sizes in its future Surface line.
Cancellation.
While several media including "The Verge" and "Engadget" anticipated the device would be announced at the 2014 Surface event, according to "Bloomberg", Microsoft had canceled the product a few weeks before the event. The Surface Mini tablet was not revealed during the 2014 Surface event; the Surface Pro 3 was shown instead.
Several signs of the Surface Mini's existence include mentions of the device in the Surface Pro 3 user manual and Microsoft's earnings reports in 2014.
On October 26, 2015, during an interview with Panos Panay in "Wired Magazine", Panos showed off the Surface Book and the canceled Surface Mini, saying he loved the tablet his team built but never shipped officially. He also stated the device's design felt like that of a Moleskine notebook.
Despite the cancellation of Surface Mini, "Windows Central" obtained the unreleased device and published several images of it in June 2017. "Windows Central" published its review of the Surface Mini in October 2019, and gave a favorable review, awarding it four stars out of five and saying it would be better if the Surface Mini was updated with better specs and equipped with Windows 10. "Windows Central" said the Surface Mini was canceled because devices running Windows RT were excluded from upgrading to Windows 10 and because Windows 10 for ARM was unavailable at that time.
Features.
Software.
The Surface Mini shipped with Windows RT 8.1, a mobile operating system that unlike Windows 8.1, on which it is based, has several limitations. Windows RT 8.1 includes Microsoft Office 2013 RT, a desktop application that is optimized for ARM systems. Windows Store apps are the only third-party applications that can be installed on Windows RT 8.1. Despite providing the traditional Windows desktop environment, users cannot install Win32 applications or applications optimized for ARM. Windows RT 8.1 excludes Windows Media Player in favor of multimedia apps found on the Windows Store; devices are pre-loaded with the in-house Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps.
There is no upgrade path for Surface Mini to run Windows 10, hence the device remains running Windows RT until the end of support on January 10, 2023.
Hardware.
The exterior of the Surface Mini is a combination of metal, glass and polyurethane materials. The outer shell is made from polyurethane materials, which are scratch resistant. It would have been supplied with a kickstand that was limited to three positions and was also released with the Surface 3. There is a build-in pen loop would have allowed users to attach the Surface Pen stylus into the device when not in use, and could also be used to open the kickstand. Metal was used for the volume button, power button, headphone jack, Micro USB port and microSD card slot. The weight of the Surface Mini is , and it measured 8x5.5x0.35 in (215.9×139.7×8.89 mm).
The Surface Mini has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor and 1 GB of random access memory. There are three physical switches; a power button, a volume control, and a Start Menu button. The Surface Mini's touchscreen display is a 1,440 by 1,080 pixel, and 4:3 aspect ratio display that has a pixel density of 240 ppi. The default orientation for the device is portrait; the Start Menu button is placed at the bottom of the screen, although the device supports screen rotation in all four orientations. The device is equipped with 32 GB of solid-state storage for programs and data, which can be increased using a . The device supports Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, and has a front-facing 2.1 MP camera and a rear-facing 5 MP camera.


Black Tiger (video game)

Black Tiger, known in Japan as , is a 1987 platform game released for arcade by Capcom.
Plot.
The land is under the cruel control of three evil demonic dragons, who descended on a kingdom to bring darkness and destruction. From the ruins emerged a barbarian hero, who seeks to slay the dragons and restore the kingdom to its former glory.
Gameplay.
The player controls the barbarian hero to navigate through eight levels infested with enemies and destroying the levels bosses. The player can find a number of "wise men" who give rewards when rescued. Though the wise man rewards often consist of self-evident "advice", most come in the form of "Zenny coins", currency that allows the player to buy various items, such as an upgrade to their weapons and armour, keys for treasure chests, and anti-poisoning potions. Hidden special items that reveal coins, grant upgraded armour, full vitality, extra lives, extra time, or simply bonus points may be found by attacking certain walls. The player's vitality bar will also increase up to four times as a reward for reaching score benchmarks. The player can also find hidden dungeons in the level for extra points and items.
The Japanese version has a few changes that makes it more challenging than its American counterpart:
Development.
"Black Tiger" was planned for released around October 1986, but programming placement difficulties delayed it. During conversion, the game was one of ten games included in a $2,000,000 deal between U.S. Gold and some Japanese coin-op specialists.
Reception.
"Black Tiger" received a number of positive reviews. In Japan, "Game Machine" listed the game on their October 15, 1987 issue as being the sixth most-successful table arcade unit of the year. Computer and Video Games put the Atari ST, Amiga and Commodore 64 ports as among the top 20 games of the respective computers of 1990.


Front panel

A front panel was used on early electronic computers to display and allow the alteration of the state of the machine's internal registers and memory. The front panel usually consisted of arrays of indicator lamps, digit and symbol displays, toggle switches, dials, and push buttons mounted on a sheet metal face plate. In early machines, CRTs might also be present (as an oscilloscope, or, for example, to mirror the contents of Williams-Kilburn tube memory). Prior to the development of CRT system consoles,
many computers such as the IBM 1620 had console typewriters.
Usually the contents of one or more hardware registers would be represented by a row of lights, allowing the contents to be read directly when the machine was stopped. The switches allowed direct entry of data and address values into registers or memory.
Details.
On some machines, certain lights and switches were reserved for use under program control. These were often referred to as "sense lights" and "sense switches". For example, the original Fortran compiler for the IBM 704 contained specific statements for testing and manipulation of the 704's sense lights and switches. These switches were often used by the program to control optional behavior, for example information might be printed only if a particular sense switch was set.
Operating systems made for computers with "blinkenlights", for example, RSTS/E and RSX-11, would frequently have an idle task blink the panel lights in some recognizable fashion. System programmers often became very familiar with these light patterns and could tell from them how busy the system was and, sometimes, exactly what it was doing at the moment. The Master Control Program for the Burroughs Corporation B6700 mainframe would display a large block-letter "B" when the system was idle.
Switches and lights required little additional logic circuitry and usually no software support, important when logic hardware components were costly and software often limited.
This baroque style of front panels began to die out in 1964 when Seymour Cray designed his CDC 6600 supercomputer with a very simple and elegant display console containing only 2 CRT displays and a keyboard, replacing all the hundreds of switches, buttons, and blinking lights. The 6600 had support from ten supporting "peripheral processors" whose duties included reading the keyboard and driving the graphics displays.
Early microcomputers such as the 1975 Altair 8800 also relied on front panels, but since the introduction of the Apple II, TRS-80, and Commodore PET during the home computer boom of 1977, the vast majority of microcomputers came with keyboards and connections for TV screens or other monitors.
Common usage.
An operator would use the front panel to bootstrap the computer, to debug running programs, and to find hardware faults.
Storage alteration and display.
Many computers had controls, e.g., buttons, dials, keyboards, toggle switches, for entering addresses, controls for displaying the data at an address and controls for altering storage contents. These were typically used for booting and debugging.
Booting.
Typically, the operator would have a written procedure containing a short series of bootstrap instructions to be hand-entered using, e.g., dials, keyboard, toggle switches. First, the operator would, e.g., press the address switch and enter the address. For easier entry and readout, on some computers (such as the DEC PDP-8 or MITS Altair 8800) binary digits were grouped into threes or fours on the front panel, with each group of lights or switches representing a single octal (between 0 and 7) or hexadecimal (between 0 and F) digit. Some decimal computers, e.g., IBM 1620, used binary-coded decimal for memory addresses.
Next the operator would enter the value intended for that address. After entering several of these instructions (some computers had a deposit next button, which would deposit subsequent values in subsequent addresses, relieving the operator of needing to enter subsequent addresses), the operator would then set the starting address of the bootstrap program and press the run switch to begin the execution of the program. The bootstrap program usually read a somewhat longer program from punched paper-tape, punched cards, magnetic tape, drum or disk which in turn would load the operating system from disk.
Some machines accelerated the bootstrap process by allowing the operator to set the controls to contain one or two machine language instructions and then directly executing those instructions. Other machines allowed I/O devices to be explicitly commanded from the front panel (for example, "Read-In Preset" on the PDP-10 or the accessing of memory-mapped I/O devices on a PDP-11). Some machines also contained various bootstrap programs in ROM and all that was required to "boot" the system was to start it executing at the address of the correct ROM program.
Debugging.
Front panels were often used to debug programs when operating support was limited and most programs were run in stand-alone mode. Typically a front-panel switch could cause the computer to "single-step", that is run a single instruction and stop until the programmer pressed a button to execute the next instruction. An "address stop" could be set to stop a running program when it attempted to execute an instruction or access data at a specified address. The contents of registers and memory would be displayed in the front-panel lights. The programmer could read and alter register contents, change program instructions or data in memory or force a branch to another section of code.
When multiprogramming became the norm it was no longer acceptable to tie up an entire machine for debugging, except for special situations. Programs called "debuggers" were written which provided the programmer with the equivalent of the front-panel functions without requiring the entire machine.
Entertainment.
For fun, bored programmers would create programs to display animated light shows. Front panels in the late 1960s and early 1970s were quite brightly colored. When bootstrap ROMs enabled computers to start themselves without operator intervention in the late 1970s and early 1980s, most computers were built without a front switch panel. High-powered calculators, such as the HP 9830 based on ROM, were among the first computers to do away with front panels, and operators.
Huge banks of "blinkenlights" and "blowenfuzen" were featured on TV and movies as the popular image of the "computer" during the 1950s to 1970. (A Burroughs B205 was used as a Hollywood prop for many of these shows.)
Example.
The following procedure would bootstrap a PDP-8 system from an RK05 moving-head magnetic disk:
This process works by depositing a simple, two-instruction program in memory and executing it. The first instruction commands the disk controller to begin reading the disk from the current disk address into the current memory address. The second instruction is a JMP instruction that jumps to itself endlessly. When "Clear" is pressed, the disk controller's current disk address is set to sector 0 and its current memory address is set to memory location 0000. When the read is commanded, the program stored in disk sector 0 overlays the bootstrap program and, once the JMP instruction is overlaid, the disk program takes control of the machine.


GNOME System Tools

GNOME System Tools (GST), previously known as "Ximian Setup Tools" and "Helix Setup Tools", is a set of configuration programs for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. It consists of a set of 'backends' (scripts written in Perl) which manipulate the system's configuration files, and generate XML descriptions of the current state, and frontends, generally written in C, which are GUIs for the GNOME desktop environment.
GST has been included in the GNOME 2.8 desktop, released in September 2004. GST is free software released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
History.
The tools were first developed by Hans Petter Jansson at Helix Code. Later, several other employees were involved, most notably José-María Celorio, Arturo Espinosa and Tambet Ingo.
When Helix Code changed its name to Ximian, the name of the project was changed to "Ximian Setup Tools". Later, Ximian withdrew resources from the project, and it was moved to the GNOME CVS server, where Carlos Garnacho Parro eventually took up maintainership.
Included applets.
The GNOME System Tools currently contains frontend tools for these configurations:


Samsung Galaxy Camera 2

The Samsung Galaxy Camera 2 is a point-and-shoot camera which is an Android based mobile device. Announced at the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Galaxy Camera 2 features Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, 1.6 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor and 2GB RAM. The Galaxy Camera 2 is the successor to the Samsung Galaxy Camera. Unlike its predecessor, it has a GPS receiver.


Canon EOS 350D

The Canon EOS 350D (Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT in North America and the Canon EOS Kiss Digital N in Japan) is an 8.0-megapixel entry-level digital single-lens reflex camera manufactured by Canon. The model was initially announced in February 2005. Part of the EOS range, it is the successor to the EOS 300D and the predecessor to the EOS 400D (or Digital Rebel XTi), which was released in August 2006.
Details.
Since early 2008, the 350D has been remaindered (production ceased in 2005).
The 350D is an upgraded version of the Canon EOS 300D, which was the first sub-US$1000 digital SLR, introduced in 2003. There are some differences between the 350D and the 300D. Many of the features 'locked out' by Canon in the 300D were unlocked in this camera, so it has been subject to less unofficial 'hacking' to release the locked features. In addition to these unlocked features, a number of other improvements have been made. Some of the most significant upgrades include:
The Canon EOS 350D comes with Digital Photo Professional to be able to create JPEG or TIFF files from raw files. This was only available on Canon's professional cameras.
Issues.
Canon had compatibility problems with the Lexar Professional 80x-speed Compact Flash (CF) cards which resulted in either total image loss, or the camera freezing up. In the cases of the camera freezing, the images may still be retrieved using an external CF card reader.
The camera will interpret the presence of a hot shoe protector as the presence of an auxiliary flash attachment thereby disabling the built-in pop-up flash. Removing the hot shoe protector will re-enable the built-in flash. A micro-switch in the hot-shoe senses the presence of the flash.
When using third party lenses, most notably older Sigma lenses, there may be a compatibility issue. Reports exist of people receiving "Err99" errors when using such lenses. The problem is more pronounced when using older lens that do not feature an HSM focus drive. Using the problematic lens with its largest aperture is sometimes possible. Another cause of Err99 messages involve EF-S 18–55 lenses (kit lens for the 350D and 20D) that are defective; purchasing used EF-S 18–55 lenses is a risk factor, especially from eBay auctions. Some auction listings state that the lens was never used – especially those claiming that the lens was originally part of an EOS 400D kit; the best way is to verify the serial numbers indicating the manufacture date.
Firmware updates.
The latest firmware released by Canon for the EOS 350D is version 1.0.3 (released 27 October 2005). It fixes problems relating to remote release cables, as well as a problem while reviewing saved images.