Jack Tramiel

Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was a Polish American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home computers produced while he was running the company. Tramiel later formed Atari Corporation after he purchased the remnants of the original Atari, Inc. from its parent company.
Early years.
Tramiel was born as Idek Trzmiel (some sources also list Juda Trzmiel, Jacek Trzmiel, or Idek Tramielski) into a Jewish family, the son of Abram Josef Trzmiel and Rifka Bentkowska.
After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 his family was transported by German occupiers to the Jewish ghetto in Łódź, where he worked in a garment factory. When the ghettos were liquidated, his family was sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was examined by Josef Mengele and selected for a work party, after which he and his father were sent to the labor camp Ahlem near Hanover, while his mother remained at Auschwitz. Like many other inmates, his father was reported to have died of typhus in the work camp; however, Tramiel believed he was killed by an injection of gasoline. Tramiel was rescued from the labor camp in April 1945 by the 84th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army.
On November 10, 1947, Tramiel immigrated to the United States. He soon joined the U.S. Army, where he learned how to repair office equipment, including typewriters.
Commodore.
Typewriters and calculators.
In 1953, while working as a taxi driver, Tramiel bought a shop in the Bronx to repair office machinery, securing a $25,000 loan for the business from a U.S. Army entitlement. He named it Commodore Portable Typewriter. Tramiel wanted a military-style name for his company, but names such as Admiral and General were already taken, so he settled on the Commodore name.
In 1956, Tramiel signed a deal with a Czechoslovak typewriter manufacturer Zbrojovka Brno NP to assemble and sell their typewriters in North America. However, as Czechoslovakia was part of the Warsaw Pact, they could not be imported directly into the U.S., so Tramiel used parts from Zbrojovka's Consul typewriters and set up Commodore Business Machines in Toronto, Canada. After Zbrojovka began developing their own hardware Commodore signed an agreement in 1962 with Rheinmetall-Borsig AG and began to sell Commodore portable typewriters made from the parts of older Rheinmetall-Borsig typewriters. In 1962, Commodore went public, but the arrival of Japanese typewriters in the U.S. market made the selling of Czechoslovakian typewriters unprofitable. Struggling for cash, the company sold 17% of its stock to Canadian businessman Irving Gould, taking in $400,000 and using the money to re-launch the company in the adding machine business, which was profitable for a time before the Japanese entered that field as well. Stung twice by the same source, Gould suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to learn why they were able to outcompete North Americans in their own local markets. It was during this trip that Tramiel saw the first digital calculators, and decided that the mechanical adding machine was a dead end.
When Commodore released its first calculators, combining an LED display from Bowmar and an integrated circuit from Texas Instruments (TI), it found a ready market. However, after slowly realizing the size of the market, TI decided to cut Commodore out of the middle, and released their own calculators at a price point below Commodore's cost of just the chips. Gould once again rescued the company, injecting another $3 million, which allowed Commodore to purchase MOS Technology, Inc. an IC design and semiconductor manufacturer, a company which had also supplied Commodore with calculator ICs. When their lead designer, Chuck Peddle, told Tramiel that calculators were a dead end and computers were the future, Tramiel told him to build one to prove the point.
Home computers.
Peddle responded with the Commodore PET, based on his company's MOS Technology 6502 processor. It was first shown, privately, at the Chicago Consumer Electronics Show in 1977, and soon the company was receiving 50 calls a day from dealers wanting to sell the computer. The PET became a success—especially in the education field, where its all-in-one design was a major advantage. Much of their success with the PET came from the business decision to sell directly to large customers, instead of selling to them through a dealer network. The first PET computers were sold primarily in Europe, where Commodore had also introduced the first wave of digital handheld calculators.
As prices dropped and the market matured, the monochrome (green text on black screen) PET was at a disadvantage in the market when compared to machines like the Apple II and Atari 800, which offered color graphics and could be hooked to a television as an inexpensive display. Commodore responded with the VIC-20, and then the Commodore 64, which became the best-selling home computer of all time. The Commodore VIC-20 was the first computer to sell one million units. The Commodore 64 sold several million units. It was during this time that Tramiel coined the phrase, "We need to build computers for the masses, not the classes." An industry executive attributed to Tramiel the discontinuation of the TI-99/4A home computer in 1983, after the company had lost hundreds of millions of dollars, stating that "TI got suckered by Jack".
Departure.
Gould had controlled the company since 1966. He and Tramiel often argued, but Gould usually let Tramiel run Commodore by himself. Tramiel was considered by many to be a micromanager who did not believe in budgets; he wanted to approve every expense greater than $1,000, which meant that operations stopped when Tramiel went on vacation. Adam Osborne wrote in 1981:
Tramiel angrily left a January 13, 1984 meeting of Commodore's board of directors led by chairman Gould, and never returned to the company. What happened at the meeting remains unclear. Neil Harris, editor of "Commodore Magazine" at the time, recalled:
Tramiel later said that he had resigned from Commodore because he disagreed with Gould "on the basic principles – how to run the company". Their disagreement was so bitter that, after Tramiel's departure, "Commodore Magazine" was forbidden to quote Tramiel or mention his name. "Ahoy!" wrote after his departure that although Tramiel's "obsession with controlling the cost of every phase of the manufacturing process" had led to record profits during the home computer price war, his "inflexible one-man rule" had resulted in poor dealer relations and "a steady turnover of top executives at Commodore". The magazine concluded "it has become increasingly clear that the company is just too big for one man, however talented, to run".
During a question and answer session at CommVEx v11 (July 18, 2015), Jack's son, Leonard Tramiel, stated that now that both Irving Gould and his dad Jack were both deceased, he could finally reveal to the crowd, what really transpired between Jack and Irving Gould during the 1984 Consumer Electronics Show resulting in Tramiel leaving Commodore: On January 13, 1984 during a meeting with Irving, Jack told Irving that treating the assets of the company as his own and using them for personal use was wrong. He said to Irving, "you can't do that while I'm still president" to which Irving responded by saying "Goodbye". Three days after the show, Jack announced to the public that he was resigning from the company.
Whilst acknowledging this description of events, David Pleasance (the eventual managing director of Commodore UK) also states that Irving Gould told him the falling out was due to Jack's insistence on his three sons joining the board.
In an interview with Fortune magazine on April 13, 1998 Tramiel said "Business is war, I don't believe in compromising, I believe in winning."
Atari.
After a short break from the computer industry, he formed a new company named Tramel Technology, Ltd., in order to design and sell a next-generation home computer. The company was named "Tramel" to help ensure that it would be pronounced correctly (i.e., "tra – mel" instead of "tra – meal").
In July 1984, Tramel Technology bought the Consumer Division of Atari Inc. from Warner Communications. The division had fallen on hard times due to the video game crash of 1983. TTL was then renamed Atari Corporation, and went on to produce the 16-bit Atari ST computer line based on Motorola's MC68000 CPU, directly competing with Apple's Macintosh, which also used the same CPU. Under Tramiel's direction, the Atari ST was a considerable success in Europe, and globally in the professional music market.
Despite successfully shipping the ST, Tramiel's poor personal reputation hurt Atari. One retailer said in 1985 about the ST that because of its prior experience with Tramiel "Our interest in Atari is zero, zilch". A software company executive said "Dealing with Commodore was like dealing with Attila the Hun. I don't know if Tramiel will be following his old habits ... I don't see a lot of people rushing to get software on the machine." (One ex-Commodore employee said that to Tramiel "software wasn't tangible—you couldn't hold it, feel it, or touch it—so it wasn't worth spending money for".) Steve Arnold of LucasArts said after meeting with Tramiel that he reminded him of Jabba the Hutt, while within Atari Darth Vader was often the comparison. Another executive was more positive, stating "Jack Tramiel is a winner. I wouldn't bet against him." In 1988 Stewart Alsop II called Tramiel and Alan Sugar "the world's two leading business-as-war entrepreneurs".
In the late 1980s, Tramiel decided to step away from day-to-day operations at Atari, naming his son, Sam, President and CEO. In 1995, Sam suffered a heart attack, and his father returned to oversee operations. In 1996, Tramiel sold Atari to disk-drive manufacturer Jugi Tandon Storage in a reverse merger deal. The newly merged company was named JTS Corporation, and Tramiel joined the JTS board.
Later years.
Tramiel was a co-founder of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which was opened in 1993. He was among many other survivors of the Ahlem labor camp who tracked down U.S. Army veteran Vernon Tott, who was among the 84th Division which rescued survivors from the camp and had taken and stored photographs of at least 16 of the survivors. Tott, who died of cancer in 2003, was personally commemorated by Tramiel with an inscription on one of the Holocaust Museum's walls saying "To Vernon W. Tott, My Liberator and Hero".
Tramiel retired in 1996 and moved to Monte Sereno, California. He died of heart failure on April 8, 2012, aged 83.


Superboard


TRS-80 character set

The TRS-80 computer manufacturered by Tandy / Radio Shack contains an 8-bit character set. It is partially derived from ASCII, and shares the code points from 32 - 95 on the standard model. Code points 96 - 127 are supported on models that have been fitted with a lower-case upgrade.
The character set consists of letters, various numeric and special characters as well as 64 semigraphics called "squots" (square dots) from a 2×3 matrix. These were located at code points 128 to 191 with bits 5-0 following their binary representation, similar to alpha-mosaic characters in World System Teletext. These characters were used for graphics in games, such as "Android Nim".
Character set.
The following table shows the TRS-80 model I character set. Each character is shown with a potential Unicode equivalent. Space and control characters are represented by the abbreviations for their names.
References.
Citations
Sources


Samsung NX mini 2


Mera-Elzab Meritum

Mera–Elzab Meritum – a family of Polish personal computers based on TRS-80 Model I with BASIC Level II. Manufactured in the 1980s by "Mera–Elzab" in cooperation with "ITM" company.
History.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was no small microcomputer available for the general public in Poland. The Polish computer industry was manufacturing only mainframe systems but not small computers for personal use.
In the 1980s, Mera–Elzab was in the group of 500 largest Polish industrial enterprises and 100 largest exporters. It produced terminals, monitors, and computers, but did not manufacture products for the mass consumer market.
ITM was a small foreign company operating in Poland selling measuring systems. In Poland under the rule of the communists, all companies (including Mera–Elzab) were state-owned. One exception was the companies owned by foreigners, often Polish emigrants.
Design of the Meritum began in 1982. It was a time of major economic crisis and martial law in Poland. Mera–Elzab analyzed existing western small computer systems and the following aspects were taken into account for a new product:
Based on the above assumptions, TRS Model I with BASIC Level II was selected. It was a computer using a Zilog Z80 processor that could be replaced by the U880 made in East Germany. Peripheral chips produced in Poland by CEMI factory for the MCY7880 processor (Intel 8080 clone) could be used for both the Z80 and U880. Memory chips were available in the Soviet Union.
The company expected that due to the price the computer would not be available for individual users. Small businesses were the primary target market, followed by research and education institutions. They expected the computer would be also used as an industrial controller.
The fathers of the computer were Zygmunt Korga, later technical director of Mera–Elzab and Paweł Podsiadło, an employee of ITM company. They were friends from the time of study at the Silesian University of Technology.
The computer was presented to the public for the first time at the Poznań International Fair in the autumn of 1983. Production began in the summer of 1984. Preparation for production cost 10 million PLZ which was relatively cheap.
From 1984 to 1986 Mera–Elzab produced 2,500 units. The maximum production capacity of the plant was 4000 units per year. The computer was assembled in one room, where 5 people worked. Production of one computer consumed 20 man–hours. The computer accounted for 1% of the production value and at the best moment no more than 3%.
In 1986 Mera–Elzab sold the licence to Elwro company and terminated production. In 1987 Elwro finished production of Meritum as it started manufacturing its personal computer for schools Elwro 800 Junior.
The reception of the computer was initially positive, it was seen as the first polish personal computer. Later opinions tend to be critical. The press pointed out technical specification is not impressive, especially lack of graphic mode. Besides, TRS-80 was an unknown computer in Poland. There was no software or technical documentation on the market.
The computer never became popular, mostly because of a low number of units produced, the price and technical specification were not competitive to other products, and lack of software and documentation.
Comparison with other computers.
Free market prices in 1986. The average salary in that year was 24,095 PLZ.
Meritum I.
Based on U880 processor at 2.5 MHz. 17 KiB of RAM (16 KiB of dynamic memory and 1 KiB static memory); 16 KiB version was also available.
14 KiB of ROM consisted of 12 KiB BASIC. It was slightly modified TRS-80 Model I BASIC Level II. In additional 2 KiB, monitor program was stored. Content of ROM was provided by ITM company.
Display circuit was similar to TRS-80, it supported 64×16 or 32×16 monochrome text mode only; low resolution 128×48 graphic mode simulated by semigraphics. Character generator resided in separate ROM memory, there was also separate 1 KiB of video memory. Similar to TRS-80 there were no lower case characters. No polish specific characters (ĄĘĆŚÓŃŁŻŹ) on the keyboard and character table.
Composite video signal available on standard DIN socket. Due to the lack of a built-in TV modulator, it was not possible to connect directly to the TV. An external TV adapter working in channels 1–6 was available.
The computer was equipped with parallel and serial port not compatible with TRS-80 Expansion Interface.
Parallel port was based on MCY7855 universal I/O chip which was Polish clone of Intel 8255. It could be used to control industrial processes or other pheripherials. Although Centronics printer may be connected, there was no software support for that option in ROM.
Serial port used MCY7851 (clone of Intel 8251); transmission rates from 95 to 9600 bauds were possible.
In addition, hardware counter chip 8253 was available. Thanks to this chip the computer could generate sound (1 channel), initially using built-in speaker later using an amplifier in a monitor.
As mass storage, only cassette recorder can be used. Transmission speed was 500 baud.
At the end of the first year of production, the computer was slightly modified by adding support for Polish characters on the screen, a keyboard with Polish characters and the memory was expanded.
Meritum II.
Meritum II consists of the Meritum I model 2 computer and an external floppy disk unit with two 5¼″ drives.
Meritum I model 2.
The memory has been expanded to 32 KiB or 48 KiB. In the latter case, 64 KiB were mounted but addresses colliding with ROM were not available. There were some changes in ROM adding support for disk drive, parallel printer and second timer chip as sound generator (which was never installed in production units).
A second universal I/O chip 8255 (MCY7855) has been added for communication with the floppy disk unit.
Version with ROM memory to reduced to 8 KiB existed. It stored procedures to load the program automatically from disk at startup. The computer could work under the control of CP/M 2.2 or MER-DOS (compatible with TRSDOS 2.3). BASIC was provided on a floppy disk.
Floppy disk unit.
Placed in a large 360×192×315 mm housing with a weight of 12.5 kg (with power supply for both devices).
It was a separate specialized computer based on the Z80 processor @ 2MHz with 2 KiB EPROM and 1 KiB RAM.
As the disk controller, the 8272 chip was used, which was able to handle single and double density disks.
It was equipped with two 5¼″ drives typically K5600 made in East Germany (users complained about the quality of these drives) with a capacity of about 100 KiB. But other manufacturers' drives could also be used, eg Bulgarian IZOT 5255E. Supported disk capacities are 100 KiB (single density) or 180 KiB double density.
The computer was supplied with a diskette with the Disk-BASIC which was an extension of the standard BASIC.
The 8255 chip was used for communication with the Meritum computer. Data transmission was 250 kbit/s for double density disks or 125 kbit/s for single density. The computer and the disk unit were connected by a 25–wire cable.
Meritum III.
Not mass-produced, only preproduction units were made.
The graphic mode was added: monochrome 512×192 or 256×192 (4 colors).
Additional RGB signal on separate DIN socket was available.
The second serial port and one joystick DB9 ports were added. The keyboard layout was changed.
It could work with Meritum II floppy drive unit.
Network version.
In 1985, Mera–Elzab submitted to the Ministry of Education a proposal to create a network version of a computer for Polish schools. In this configuration, the Meritum II computer with a connected disk drive would act as a server, student computers were based on Meritum I.
The network project was developed by scientists from the Computing Center of the Silesian University of Technology.
Finally, the Ministry rejected the offer. Elwro 800 Junior was later selected for schools. The Meritum network variant was not produced, only experimental units were made.


BIZMAC

The RCA BIZMAC was a vacuum tube computer manufactured by RCA from 1956 to 1962. Although RCA was noted for their pioneering work in transistors, RCA decided to build a vacuum tube computer instead of a transistorized computer. It was the largest vacuum tube computer of its time in 1956, occupying of floor space with up to 30,000 tubes, 70,000 diodes, and 35,000 magnetic cores. It weighed about .
History.
In 1949, the Mutual Assistance Program (MAP)—later known as the Military Assistance Program—was started by the United States to provide military assistance and supplies to foreign countries needing to rebuild their military defenses after World War II.
In 1951, RCA was awarded a $4.5 million military contract to build a data processing machine to support the logistics necessary for the MAP. The result was the BIZMAC computer system.
The first BIZMAC machine was installed at the Ordnance Tank-Automotive Command (OTAC) in Detroit, Michigan in 1956. Eventually, BIZMAC computer systems were also installed at Higbee Department Stores, Travelers Insurance Company, and New York Life Insurance Company.
The huge BIZMAC system was very quickly made obsolete by faster and more reliable computer systems, including IBM's 705 computer as well as RCA's own transistorized 501 computer. The BIZMAC was taken offline from the OTAC in 1962. Only about six BIZMAC computers were actually made.
Features.
A unique feature of the BIZMAC was the use of hundreds of permanently mounted tape drives. This meant that tape data could be accessed immediately without constant mounting and dismounting individual tapes.
Engineers.
One of the original engineers of the BIZMAC was Arnold Spielberg, the father of film director and producer Steven Spielberg. Spielberg designed and patented an electronic library system used for searching data stored on magnetic tapes.


Which (command)

In computing, codice_1 is a command for various operating systems used to identify the location of executables. The command is available in Unix and Unix-like systems, the AROS shell, for FreeDOS and for Microsoft Windows. The functionality of the "which" command is similar to some implementations of the type command. POSIX specifies a command named command that also covers this functionality.
Implementations.
Unix, Unix-like.
The command takes one or more arguments; for each of these arguments, it prints the full path of the executable to stdout that would have been executed if this argument had been entered into the shell. It does this by searching for an executable or script in the directories listed in the environment variable PATH. The "which" command is part of most Unix-like computers. It is also part of the C Shell.
Carlo Wood developed the GNU implementation used in most Linux-based operating systems.
A which command first appeared in 3BSD.
On FreeBSD, the which utility was originally written in Perl by Wolfram Schneider. The current version of which was rewritten by Daniel Papasian using the C programming language.
Microsoft Windows, MS-DOS, FreeDOS.
The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the GnuWin32 project and the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities. Windows also includes the similar codice_2 command.
The same functionality is available in MS-DOS, but not Windows, as the built-in TRUENAME command.
In PowerShell, the functionality is provided by the Get-Command Cmdlet.
The FreeDOS version was developed by Trane Francks.
AmigaOS compatible.
The command is used to find and print the location of a specific program.
Inputs:


Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975.
Ed Roberts and Forrest Mims founded MITS in December 1969 to produce miniaturized telemetry modules for model rockets such as a roll rate sensor. In 1971, Roberts redirected the company into the electronic calculator market and the MITS 816 desktop calculator kit was featured on the November 1971 cover of "Popular Electronics". The calculators were very successful and sales topped one million dollars in 1973. A brutal calculator price war left the company deeply in debt by 1974.
Roberts then developed the first commercially successful microcomputer, the Altair 8800, which was featured on the January 1975 cover of "Popular Electronics". Hobbyists flooded MITS with orders for the $397 computer kit. Paul Allen and Bill Gates saw the magazine and began writing software for the Altair, later called Altair BASIC. They moved to Albuquerque to work for MITS and in July 1975 started Microsoft.
MITS's annual sales had reached $6 million by 1977 when they were acquired by Pertec Computer. The operations were soon merged into the larger company and the MITS brand disappeared. Roberts retired to Georgia where he studied medicine and became a small town medical doctor.
Origin.
Founders.
Henry Edward Roberts studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Miami before enlisting in the U.S. Air Force in 1962. He soon became an electronics instructor at the Cryptographic Equipment Maintenance School at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. To augment his meager enlisted man's pay, Roberts worked on several off-duty projects and even set up a one-man company, Reliance Engineering. The most notable job was to create the electronics that animated the Christmas characters in the window display of Joske's department store in San Antonio. In 1965, he was selected for an Air Force program to complete his college degree, and became a commissioned officer. Roberts earned an Electrical Engineering degree from Oklahoma State University in 1968 and was assigned to the Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Forrest Mims was interested in science and electronics as a youth and even built an analog computer while in high school. Mims graduated from Texas A&M University in 1966 (major in government with minors in English and history) then became a commissioned officer in the U.S. Air Force. While serving in Vietnam as an intelligence officer, Mims continued his model rocket hobby. At Texas A&M, Mims developed an infrared obstacle-sensing device and he experimented with it at the Saigon School for Blind Boys and Girls. Launching model rockets in an area accustomed to rocket attacks and working with blind children resulted in a story in the military newspaper, "Stars and Stripes". This caught the attention of an Air Force Colonel, who arranged for Mims to be assigned to the Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland AFB even though Mims lacked an engineering degree.
Roberts and Mims were both assigned to the Lab's Laser Group in 1968. Roberts had reactivated Reliance Engineering and built an infrared intrusion alarm for his uncle's fish farm in Florida. Later, Roberts and Stan Cagle, a civilian worker who also went to Oklahoma State, started building a power supply they hoped to sell. Mims became an advisor to the Albuquerque Model Rocket Club and met the publisher of "Model Rocketry" magazine in July 1969. Mims told him about a transistorized tracking light that he had used on night launches of rockets in Vietnam. This led to an article in the September 1969 issue of "Model Rocketry"; "Transistorized Tracking Light for Night Launched Model Rockets" by Captain Forrest Mims. Mims became a regular contributor to "Model Rocketry".
Model rocket kits.
Manned space flight and the race to the moon in the 1960s made model rocketry a popular hobby. Roberts, Mims, Cagle and another Air Force officer from the Lab, Bob Zaller, decided they could design and sell electronics kits to model rocket hobbyists. Roberts wanted to call the new company Reliance Engineering, Mims wanted to form an acronym similar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's MIT. Cagle came up with Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, MITS. The December 1969 issue of "Model Rocketry" (circulation 15,000) carried a press release that began:
Reliance Engineering in Albuquerque, New Mexico has announced the formation of a subsidiary company for the manufacture of miniaturized electronic and telemetry systems designed for model rockets. The company is called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS). Reliance Engineering president Henry Roberts announced that "MITS is presently conducting an intensive research program involving high quality miniature telemetry systems."
 The first commercially available model rocket telemetry transmitter is among the first items to be offered by MITS. Accessory modules including a tone beacon, temperature sensor, and a roll rate sensor, as well as tracking lights, ground systems for data reduction, and light weight, water activated batteries will soon be available.
They designed and built the telemetry modules in their homes and garages but they were only able to sell a few hundred units. Mims had sold a feature article about the new solid-state device, light-emitting diodes, to "Popular Electronics" (circulation 400,000) that May. With the hope of selling kits to the larger readership; Roberts and Mims designed a device that would transmit voice over a beam of light, the Opticom. The editors accepted the project story and both articles were featured on the cover of the November 1970 issue. The payment for the articles was $400 but meeting Les Solomon, "Popular Electronics" technical editor, proved to be significant to both Mims and Roberts future success.
In August 1970, Les Solomon, his wife and daughter were on vacation in the southwest and arranged to visit Mims, Roberts and their families. At that time, Dan Meyer and Don Lancaster were among the most prolific authors in "Popular Electronics". Meyer had built a million dollar a year business that sold kits of parts to build the project that he and Lancaster wrote about. Mims and Roberts wanted to do the same and quizzed Solomon on the kit business. Solomon gave them some statistics but said there was no way of knowing how many kits an article would sell, maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand.
MITS had purchased components to build 200 Opticoms but only sold around 100 units. Roberts wanted to design a new electronic calculator kit but his partners wanted out. Bob Zaller had already left MITS and Forrest Mims was out of the Air Force and wanted to become a full-time writer. Roberts bought his 3 partners out for $600 in cash and $350 in equipment. (Roberts' four-year commitment to the Air Force ended in mid-1972.) Mims and Roberts remained friends and collaborated on books, magazines and instruction manuals.
Calculators.
Ed Roberts' interest in computers began in high school when he built a simple digital computer from relays. His first real experience with computers came while at Oklahoma State University where engineering students had free access to an IBM 1620 computer. Roberts' office at Weapons Laboratory had the state of the art Hewlett-Packard 9100A programmable calculator in 1968. In July 1970, a semiconductor company, Electronic Arrays, announced a set of six LSI ICs that would make a four-function calculator. Roberts was determined to design a calculator kit.
To fund the new project, Roberts sold 15% of MITS to fellow Air Force officer, Lieutenant William Yates. He also got an investment from another Weapons Laboratory officer, Major Ed Laughlin. Several other officers and scientist at the lab were interested in this state of the art calculator kit and helped with the design. Forrest Mims wrote the assembly manual in return for a calculator kit.
The MITS 816 was known as a "four-function" calculator; it could add, subtract, multiply and divide. The display was only 8-digits but the calculations were done to 16-digits of accuracy. The custom molded case gave the kit a professional appearance; the kit was $179 and an assembled unit was $275. The MITS 816 was featured on the November 1971 cover of "Popular Electronics". Thousands of calculator orders came in each month, in contrast to poor results for previous kits that MITS had offered.
The steady flow of calculator sales allowed MITS to run full page advertisements in "Radio-Electronics", "Popular Electronics" and "Scientific American". In the June 1972 "Radio-Electronics", MITS announced a 14 digit calculator (Model 1440) with memory and square root function for $199.95 kit and $249.95 assembled. The original 816 kit was reduced from $179 to $149.95. Both calculators could be controlled by upcoming programming unit.
The monthly sales reached $100,000 in March 1973 and MITS moved to larger building with 10,000 square feet (930 square meters) of space. To meet the demand for assembled calculators, an automated wave solder machine was installed. In 1973 MITS was selling every calculator they could make, 110 employees worked in two shifts assembling calculators.
The functionality of calculator ICs increased at a rapid pace and Roberts was designing and producing new models. The MITS 7400 scientific and engineering calculator was introduced in December 1972. It featured trigonometric functions, polar to rectangular conversion, two memories, and up to a seven-level stack. A kit with a three-level stack was $299.95 and an assembled unit with a seven-level stack was $419.95. The next month the Series 1200 four-function pocket calculators were announced. The six-digit model was $59.95 and the twelve-digit model was $99.95.
The Programmer accessory had been mentioned in the earliest advertisement but it was not featured until March 1974. This was the same size as a desktop calculator and could hold 256 programming steps. (It could be expanded to 512 steps.) It was limited to emulating calculator key presses and simple sequence branching. The programming was done by entering hexadecimal key codes. The combination of the MITS 7440 calculator and the programmer was not nearly as sophisticated as the HP 9830 calculator but $400 for both kits was a fraction of the HP price.
MITS calculators.
The feature and price information is from advertisements in "Radio-Electronics" magazine (issue date shown). The 816 price is from the original article in "Popular Electronics".
Price wars.
Bowmar Instrument Corporation introduced the "Bowmar Brain", a four-function pocket calculator, in September 1971 and the $179 calculator sold over 500,000 copies in the first year. Bowmar then developed the "901B" calculator that was priced at $120. In September 1972, Texas Instruments (TI) introduced the TI-2500 portable four-function calculator that also sold for $120. The 901B and the TI-2500 both used the TI TMS0100 family of "calculator-on-a-chip" integrated circuit. TI was now directly competing with their IC customers. Other semiconductor companies such as National Semiconductor and Rockwell began selling calculators. Commodore Business Machines and other office equipment companies also got into the market. A frenzied price war started. By early 1974, Ed Roberts found he could purchase a calculator in a retail store for less than his cost of materials. The larger companies could sell below cost to win market share. Bowmar lost $20 million in 1974 and filed for bankruptcy. Commodore acquired their IC supplier, MOS Technology. Texas Instruments won the price war but their calculator division lost $16 million in 1975.
To compete in this market, Roberts needed more capital. He took MITS public in November 1973 with a stock offering of 500,000 shares at $1 each. The 1973 oil crisis caused a stock market downturn and MITS was only able to sell 250,000 shares. This allowed MITS to pay off the existing debt, but did not allow for any expansion. Roberts had developed several test equipment products such as a Waveform Generator and a Digital Voltmeter so he attempted to appeal to kit builders again by featuring the test equipment and digital clocks in the advertisements, instead of calculators. MITS was losing money, and by July 1974, the full page prominent ads were replaced with quarter-page ads in the back of the magazine.
MITS was now $300,000 in debt and Roberts was looking for a new hit product. He decided to return to the kit market with a low cost computer. The target customer would think that "some assembly required" was a desirable feature. Roberts had looked at the Intel 4004 for calculators and thought the Intel 8008 was limited and difficult to work with, so he chose the most recent 8080 as the basis for his machine. The target price of this complete computer kit had to be under $400. To meet this price, Roberts agreed to order 1000 microprocessors from Intel for $75 each. Roberts and his head engineer, Bill Yates, began designing the computer. The company was down to 20 employees and a bank loan for $60,000 financed the design and initial production of the new computer.
"Popular Electronics" and "Radio-Electronics".
In January 1972, "Popular Electronics" changed its editorial focus in an attempt to attract more advertising revenues. Reviews of stereo equipment and citizens band radio were featured; experimenter and constructions projects were gone. Dan Meyer, Don Lancaster, Forrest Mims, John Simonton and many other authors immediately started contributing to the competing "Radio-Electronics" magazine. The June 1972 cover story was "Experimenting with a $32 Solid State Laser" by Forrest Mims. Another article in that issue was "Experiments with Op-Amps" by B.R. Rogen; this was a pseudonym of "Popular Electronics" technical editor, Les Solomon. Solomon wrote articles for "Radio-Electronics" while working for "Popular Electronics". Lou Garner, the longtime solid-state editor, moved to "Radio-Electronics" for a year. Several MITS kit projects were featured in "Radio-Electronics" including the ITC 1800 Integrated Circuit Tester (May 1972), the Model 1700 Function Generator (July 1973), the Model 1440 Calculator (July 1973) and the 88 VLCT Computer Terminal (November 1974).
"Radio-Electronics" had a smaller circulation than "Popular Electronics" but led the way with innovative construction projects between 1972 and 1975. John Simonton's first modular electronic music synthesizer was featured on the cover of the May 1973 issue. It sold for a fraction of commercial synthesizers and his PAiA Electronics produced them for decades. Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter in September 1973 and Jon Titus's Mark-8 computer in July 1974 were the catalyst of the home computer revolution.
Art Salsberg became the editor of "Popular Electronics" in 1974 with a goal of reclaiming the lead in projects. He wanted to publish a computer project that was more functional and elegant than the Mark-8. Les Solomon knew MITS was working on an Intel 8080 based computer project and thought Roberts could provide the project for the always popular January issue.
Ed Roberts and Bill Yates finished the first prototype in October 1974 and shipped it to "Popular Electronics" in New York via the Railway Express Agency. However, it never arrived due to a strike by the shipping company. Solomon already had a number of pictures of the machine and the article was based on them. Roberts got to work on building a replacement. The computer on the magazine cover is an empty box with just switches and LEDs on the front panel. The finished Altair computer had a completely different circuit board layout than the prototype shown in the magazine.
Altair computer.
Products.
The Altair 8800 was modeled after early 1970s minicomputers such as the Data General Nova. These machines contained a CPU board, memory boards, and I/O boards; the data storage and display terminal were external devices. The Teletype Model 33 ASR was a popular terminal because it provided printed output and data storage on punched paper tape. More advanced systems would have 8-inch floppy disks and a video terminal that would display 24 lines of 80 characters such as the ADM-3A. (No graphics were available and lower-case letters were a $75 option.) Most of these computers had a front panel with toggle switches for entering data and lights for displaying it. These were normally used to boot the computer and to diagnose problems.
The Altair 8800 kit came with a front panel, a CPU board with the Intel 8080 microprocessor, 256 bytes of RAM, a 4-slot backplane and an 8-amp power supply for $439. A 1k byte memory board was $176 and the 4k byte was $264. The serial interface board was $124 and the parallel interface was $119. The Teletype Model 33 ASR was $1500. There was a special price for an 8k byte system with Altair BASIC (Microsoft first ever product) for $995. Bill Gates, and Paul Allen wrote Altair BASIC with Monte Davidoff contributing the Floating-point arithmetic routines. Altair BASIC initial developed from February 1975 to May 1975 and announced by MITS in July 1975, the 4k version on paper tape for $150, the 8k version with cassette support for $200 and the Extended 16k version with disk support (December 1975) for $350. To encourage selling more boards, Altair BASIC was discounted to $60, $75, $150 respectively, when bundled with 4k, 8k and I/O boards
When the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" reached readers in mid December 1974, MITS was flooded with orders. They had to hire extra people just to answer the phones. In February, MITS received 1,000 orders for the Altair 8800. The quoted delivery time was 60 days but it was many more months before the machines were shipped. By August 1975, they had shipped over 5,000 computers.
The Altair 8800 computer was a break-even sale for MITS. They needed to sell additional memory boards, I/O boards and other options to make a profit. The April 1975 issue of the MITS newsletter, "Computer Notes", had a page-long price list that offered over 15 optional boards. The delivery time given was 60 or 90 days, but many items were never produced and dropped from future price lists. Initially, Roberts decided to concentrate on production of the computers. Prompt delivery of optional boards did not occur until October 1975.
The Intel 8080 did not have dedicated circuitry to support dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) because in 1975, this type of memory was still a new technology. MITS wanted to use DRAM because it consumed less power than static RAM. However, they had several design and component problems that led to a high failure rate with their 4K Dynamic RAM board. By July, new companies such as Processor Technology were selling 4K Static RAM boards with the promise of reliable operation. MITS released its own 4K Static RAM board in January 1976.
The only floppy disk drives that were readily available in 1975 were IBM compatible 8-inch drives. MITS selected the Pertec FD400 disk drive which could store over 300,000 bytes of data. The Altair disk controller occupied two boards and had over 60 ICs. The initial units were to be available in August, but were delayed until the end of 1975. The production version of Extended Disk BASIC was released in April 1976. The controller with one disk drive sold for $1,480 (kit) and $1,980 (assembled).
Marketing.
The first full page advertisements for the Altair computer appeared in the February issues of "Popular Electronics" and "Radio-Electronics" magazines. Soon MITS was advertising in technical journals such as the IEEE "Computer", and general interest magazines such as "Scientific American". MITS was also the most prominent advertiser in the new hobbyist computer magazines such as "Creative Computing" and "Byte".
David Bunnell joined MITS as a technical writer in the calculator heyday. In April 1975 he created a newsletter so the MITS staff could easily communicate with the customers. The newsletter, "Computer Notes", was available to customers and other interested readers. It was a large format newsletter; 11.25 by 15.5 inches (286 by 394 mm), and each issue had 8 to 24 pages. In January 1977, it switched to a smaller magazine format and the last issue was produced in January 1978. Bunnell started "Personal Computer" magazine in October 1976 and went on to a successful career as a magazine publisher.
"Computer Notes" featured a wide variety of authors. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were regular contributors to the early issues. They wrote about Altair Basic and general software topics. Ed Roberts wrote a monthly "Letter from the President" column where he would answer customer questions and even review competing products. MITS engineers, such as Tom Durston and Steve Pollini, would give technical descriptions of new products. Altair owners would contribute software and hardware suggestions and occasionally a complete article.
MITS purchased a camper van in April 1975 and outfitted it with an Altair system complete with floppy disk, a Teletype Model 33 and every accessory MITS produced. The "MITS-MOBILE" was literally a showroom on wheels that would travel from city to city showcasing the MITS product line. They would hold seminars at hotel conference rooms that would draw crowds of over 200 people. The most notable seminar was at Rickey's Hyatt House in Palo Alto, California in early June 1975, where a member of the Homebrew Computer Club left with an unreleased copy of Altair BASIC. After retail computer stores were established in most cities, the "MITS-MOBILE" was retired.
The first (and only) World Altair Computer Convention was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico in March 1976. The convention, organized by David Bunnell, was an overwhelming success; with 700 people from 46 states and seven countries attending. Many of the attendees would go on to become leaders of the personal computer revolution.
Clones.
Owners of mainframe systems and minicomputers could purchase additional memory, interface boards and peripherals from third party suppliers; so it was predictable that owners of the Altair 8800 computer would do the same. MITS's delays in delivery of systems and accessories accelerated the formation of Altair compatible suppliers. The first ones started appearing in mid-1975 and by July 1976 complete computers systems were readily available. The technical manuals for the Altair 8800 provided electrical schematics of the 100 pin computer bus allowing others to design compatible boards. There was not a proper technical standard at the time and some "compatible" boards did not work with other "compatible" boards. Later, the industry developed the S-100 bus standard.
Bill Godbout Electronics in Oakland, CA was the parts supplier to many of the hobbyists and students from Berkeley. George Morrow approached Godbout with several Altair compatible designs that Godbout agreed to produce and sell. The October 1975 Byte magazine carried an advertisement headlining "Get your MITTS on a Godbout RAM kit." The 4K byte Altair compatible board was $131.07.
Godbout also sold components to Processor Technology for their 4K Static RAM board and serial / parallel interface board. Lee Felsenstein designed an Altair compatible video board that provided 16 lines of 64 upper and lower case characters on a black and white television. This $160 board became very popular and led to the Processor Technology Sol-20 Computer in 1976.
The IMSAI 8080, the first "clone" of the Altair computer, was released in December 1975. It corrected many shortcomings of the original Altair 8800 by providing a larger power supply, a 22 slot motherboard, and easier wiring of the front panel. Ed Roberts reviewed the IMSAI in his April 1976 column in "Computer Notes", and agreed that the IMSAI was in some ways better than the original Altair. Roberts also pointed out that the new Altair 8800B was superior to the IMSAI 8080 and the upgraded Altair 8800A fixed the same issues that the IMSAI did.
Altair computers were only available from the 20 or so authorized Altair computer dealers, but the IMSAI 8080, Processor Technology Sol and many other clones were sold by hundreds of newly opening computer stores.
The S-100 bus was used throughout the 1980s until it was overtaken by the IBM PC ISA bus. Seattle Computer Products (SCP) was a manufacturer of S-100 memory boards. The company's engineer, Tim Paterson, designed an Intel 8086 CPU system on two S-100 boards in 1979. Microsoft, then in nearby Bellevue, Washington, used the prototype machine to test their 8086 version of BASIC. Digital Research had promised to deliver an 8086 version of their CP/M operating system by December 1979 but missed that date. SCP needed a disk operating system to sell its 8086 products so Patterson wrote QDOS, a "Quick and Dirty Operating System" in three months. Microsoft would later purchase QDOS from SCP for $50,000 and use it as the basis for the IBM PC DOS.
Altair BASIC.
In December 1974 Bill Gates was a student at Harvard University and Paul Allen worked for Honeywell in Boston. They saw the Altair 8800 computer in the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics" and knew it was powerful enough to support a BASIC interpreter. They wanted to be the first to offer BASIC for the Altair computer, and the software development tools they had previously created for their Intel 8008 microprocessor based Traf-O-Data computer would give them a head start. While their friend, Paul Gilbert, was building the computer, Allen wrote a program that ran on a DEC PDP-10 time-sharing computer that simulated the 8008 system. He also modified DEC's macro assembler to produce the machine code for the 8008 microprocessor. The Traf-O-Data software could be written and debugged before the computer hardware was complete.
Harvard had a DEC PDP-10 that was available for student use. They would use it to develop BASIC. While Allen modified their development software for the new 8080 microprocessor, Gates began writing 8080 assembly language by hand on yellow legal pads. They enlisted another Harvard student, Monte Davidoff, to write the math routines.
By early February the program coding switched from legal pads to the PDP-10 and a preliminary version was completed by March 1975. Gates and Allen had been in contact with Roberts and MITS and the older looking Paul Allen would travel to Albuquerque in March. MITS needed more time to get a computer with 7k bytes of memory working, and they needed more time to get the software finished. When Allen arrived at MITS it took a day to get the software running; Allen remembers this being caused by computer memory problems while Roberts remembers the delay was due to software problems.
The April 1975 issue of the Altair Newsletter, Computer Notes, had a banner headline "Altair BASIC - Up and Running". The software was to begin shipping on June 23, 1975. The software price was $500, but discounted to $75 with the purchase of an Altair computer with 8k bytes of memory and a serial I/O card.
On July 22, 1975 MITS signed a contract for the Altair BASIC with Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They received $3000 at signing and a royalty for each copy of BASIC sold; $30 for the 4K version, $35 for the 8K version and $60 for the expanded version. The contract had a cap of $180,000. MITS received an exclusive worldwide license to the program for 10 years. They also had exclusive rights to sub-license the program to other companies and agreed to use its "best efforts" to license, promote and commercialize the program. MITS would supply the computer time necessary for development; a PDP-10 owned by the Albuquerque school district. Paul Allen left his job at Honeywell and became the Vice President and Director of Software at MITS with a salary of $30,000 per year. Bill Gates was still a student at Harvard and just a contractor with MITS. The October 1975 company newsletter gives his title as "Software Specialist".
The price of Altair BASIC to customers who purchased additional memory and I/O boards from MITS was $75. Users may have gone along with that if the memory board were reliable. Customers bought the computer from MITS, and working memory from companies like Processor Technology. Rather than pay $500 for BASIC, they would acquire bootleg copies of the software. Only about ten percent of the early customers actually purchased BASIC. With a royalty due of $30 per copy, Gates felt that the computer hobbyist were stealing money from him. In February 1976 Bill Gates, "General Partner, Micro-Soft", wrote an "Open Letter to Hobbyists" that was sent to every computer publication insinuating that the hobbyists were thieves.
MITS had announced a new computer based on the Motorola 6800 microprocessor in November 1975, the Altair 680. The machines were supposed to ship in January 1976, but hardware design problems delayed shipment until May. Paul Allen rewrote their 8080 simulator to support the 6800 microprocessor. Ric Weiland, a high school friend of Gates and Allen, converted the Altair BASIC's 8080 assembly language to 6800 assembly language. To eliminate the per copy royalty loss issue, the 6800 BASIC was licensed to MITS on a non-exclusive basis for a flat fee of $31,200. Weiland and Marc McDonald were impressed with the new MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor that was a derivative of the 6800. They modified the 6800 development system to support the 6502 and "cranked out" a 6502 edition of BASIC. This version was later sold to Commodore and Apple.
The January 1976 issue of MITS's newsletter, Computer Notes, carried an ad for 8080 BASIC. The last paragraph stated: "Licenses for source listing and rights to distribute the binaries are also available to OEM buyers. Write or call Mr. Paul Allen at the MITS plant in Albuquerque for more detailed information." Microsoft found several corporate customers for BASIC and proceeds were evenly split with MITS. Pertec acquired MITS in December 1976 and refused to allow any more OEM deals, even though the agreement required MITS to use their "best efforts" to license the software. The contract required MITS and Microsoft to use binding arbitration to settle disputes. In September 1977, the arbitrator ruled in favor of Microsoft, MITS could continue to use BASIC on their machines but lost the exclusive license. Microsoft could license the software to anyone and keep all of the royalties.
There was no longer a business requirement to remain in Albuquerque so Microsoft wanted to relocate to a larger city that would be more attractive to new employees. The San Francisco bay area was considered but Allen and Gates decided to return home to Seattle. Microsoft moved to Bellevue, Washington in January 1979.
Sale to Pertec.
In 1976, MITS had 230 employees and sales of $6 million. Roberts was tiring of his management responsibilities and was looking for a larger partner. MITS had always used Pertec Computer Corporation disk drives and on December 3, 1976, Pertec signed a letter of intent to acquire MITS for $6 million in stock. The deal was completed in May 1977 just before the National Computer Conference in Dallas, Texas. Roberts got $2 million and the other 500 MITS shareholders (including the Altair co-designer, William Yates) split the rest.
Pertec was eager to increase sales to small businesses through the 26 Altair Computer stores across the United States. The marketing toward hobby/home user was curtailed. The November 1977 issue of the MITS newsletter, Computer Notes, was the last produced by the Albuquerque staff. There was one more issue produced by the Pertec staff in Chatsworth, California. The back cover of the leading home computer magazine, Byte, always carried a full page Altair advertisement. This ended with the September 1977 issue. Roberts and Yates stayed on and worked on special projects.
In August 1979, Pertec agreed to sell a 45% stake to North American Philips for $37 million. Before the deal was complete, Pertec agreed to be acquired by the West German computer company, Triumph-Adler, for $120 million. In 1978, Pertec had sales of $150 million and Triumph-Adler had sales of $466 million.
The Altair products were merged into the Pertec line and the MITS facility was used to produce the PCC-2000 small-business computer. The Albuquerque plant was closed in December 1980 and the production was moved to Pertec plants in Irvine, California.
By the end of 1977 Roberts left MITS and returned to Georgia to be a gentleman farmer. He studied medicine at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia and graduated with a M.D. in 1986. Roberts practiced medicine in Cochran, Georgia, population 4500, until his death in 2010.
Further reading.
Magazine articles from the 1970s that show the general public's enthusiasm for science and new technology.


Mamiya 645

The Mamiya 645 camera systems are a series of medium format film and digital cameras and lenses manufactured by Mamiya and its successors. They are called "645" because they use the nominal 6 cm x 4.5 cm film size from 120 roll film. They came in three major generations: first-generation manual-focus film cameras, second-generation manual-focus film cameras, and autofocus film/digital cameras.
Mamiya 645 Manual Focus System.
Mamiya 645 manual focus cameras.
All seven of the manual-focus Mamiya 645 cameras can use the same lenses and film inserts (film spools). The two generations use different viewfinders, grips, and other accessories that are not always cross-compatible.
Mamiya 645 Manual-Focus Lenses.
The Mamiya 645 Manual-Focus lenses will work on all manual-focus bodies. They will also work on autofocus bodies such as the Mamiya 645AF, Mamiya 645DF and Phase One 645DF, but manual-focus lenses will require light metering after the lens has been stopped down, unlike native autofocus lenses. Third-party adapters exist to use these manual-focus lenses on Nikon F mount, Canon EF mount, and other cameras. These lenses will not work on the Phase One XF unless modified. All Mamiya 645 lenses are multi-coated. Nearly all have curved aperture blades, rendering smooth backgrounds at wider aperture settings.
The internal shutter in the first-generation 645 bodies only supported flash synchronization at 1/60th of a second. This made outdoors fill flash difficult, and so some lenses were equipped with a built-in leaf shutter which supported flash synchronization at all speeds up to 1/500th of a second. Leaf shutter lenses had a separate PC socket. In order to take advantage of the faster speeds the internal shutter had to be fired at 1/30th of a second or slower.
Mamiya 645 Autofocus System.
The Mamiya 645 Autofocus (AF) system was launched in 1999 with the 645AF. It was a departure from the previous manual system, in that the finders and grips were no longer detachable and interchangeable. It still used the same lens mount, but the new autofocus lenses did not have an aperture ring; rather, the lens aperture was controlled by dials on the camera. Manual-focus lenses could still be used on the autofocus cameras, but not vice versa. If manual focus lenses are used, the lens aperture must be set before metering the scene (known as "stop-down metering") which made the manual-focus lenses of limited usefulness compared to the newer autofocus lenses.
Mamiya 645 Autofocus Lenses.
Lens abbreviations.
Some Mamiya 645 AF lenses are also sold as Phase One lenses. Phase One also sells Schneider-Kreuznach lenses, which are also branded as Mamiya. See the history of Mamiya for more information.


The Tower of Cabin

The Tower of Cabin is an unusual spinoff of the fantasy role-playing video game series called ' by the Japanese developer MicroCabin. "The Tower of Cabin" was released just before MicroCabin decided to discontinue the development of ' for MSX. "The Tower of Cabin" was also ported to the NEC PC9801. In this game, the player plays as a new MicroCabin employee as they wander the MicroCabin headquarters building in Japan with a goal to work with the various lead programmers and developers in making the company more successful. This is very similar to the Japanese game known as "Segagaga" (Dreamcast) in which the player runs the entire Sega company as the president of Sega Corporation. This game featured many characters from the "Xak" series such as Latok, Fray and Pixie. There were two unlockable mini-games in "The Tower of Cabin": a short fighting game between Pixie and Fray and a text adventure called "Crusader" that took place within the "Xak" universe.
Setting and story.
The game's setting takes place at the MicroCabin office building in Japan. The player descends and ascends to various floors throughout the building while carrying out various business related tasks.
Characters.
Besides the main character, the player, there are several miscellaneous NPC's that the player can talk with in order to proceed through the game. In addition there are a few characters from other MicroCabin games that make a cameo appearance:
Gameplay.
Most of the game is played by traveling the office building to various departments and relaying information between the employees and completing various business related tasks in order to ensure the success of the MicroCabin company.


Elwro 800 Jr


COM Interop

COM Interop is a technology included in the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR) that enables Component Object Model (COM) objects to interact with .NET objects, and "vice versa".
COM Interop aims to provide access to the existing COM components without requiring that the original component be modified. It tries to make the .NET types equivalent to the COM types. In addition, COM Interop allows COM developers to access managed objects as easily as they access other COM objects.
Interop tools.
Tools to support a COM component using a .NET assembly.
The .NET Framework creates a type library and special registry entries when a component is registered. It provides a specialized utility (codice_1, usually located in codice_2) that exports the managed types into a type library and registers the managed component as a traditional COM component. When the type is instantiated through COM, the .NET CLR is the actual COM object that executes, and it merely marshals any method calls or property access to the type implementation.
Registration-free COM can be used to avoid DLL hell.
Tools to support a .NET assembly using a COM component.
A COM Interop for an existing COM component can be created through the use of the codice_3 tool supplied with the .NET Framework SDK. This tool will create a set of proxy classes implemented in CIL which is encapsulated in an assembly.
Details.
COM interop automatically provides the following services to simplify COM usage from .NET:


Amiga Action

Amiga Action was a monthly magazine about Amiga video games. It was published in the United Kingdom by Europress (later IDG Media) and ran for 89 full issues, from October 1989 to December 1996, making it the longest running UK Amiga games magazine. After its closure, it was merged into sister publication "Amiga Computing", replacing its games section. This ran for 10 issues until September 1997 when that magazine also folded.


De Re Atari

De Re Atari ("All About Atari"), subtitled "A Guide to Effective Programming," is a book written by Atari, Inc. employees in 1981 and published by the Atari Program Exchange in 1982 as an unbound, shrink-wrapped set of three-holed punched pages. Targeted at developers, it documents the advanced features of the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and includes ideas for how to use them in applications. The information in the book was not available in a single, collected source at the time of publication.
The information in "De Re Atari" was serialized in "Byte" beginning in 1981, prior to the book's publication. The release of Atari 8-bit technical details through the magazine and book quickly resulted in other sources being published, such as "COMPUTE!'s First Book of Atari Graphics" (1982).
Atari released official documentation for the hardware and a source listing of the operating system the same year, 1982, but they were not as easily obtainable as "De Re Atari" and tutorials in magazines such as "COMPUTE!". By 1985, "De Re Atari" was out of print.
Background.
Atari at first did not disclose technical information on its computers, except to software developers who agreed to keep it secret. "De Re Atari" ("All About Atari") was sold through the Atari Program Exchange mail-order catalog, which described the book as "everything you want to know about the Atari ... but were afraid to ask" and a resource for "professional programmers" and "advanced hobbyists who understand Atari BASIC and assembly language".
"De Re Atari", and its 1981-82 serialization in "BYTE", were the first public, official publication of Atari 8-bit technical information. It was based on Atari's documentation written in 1979-80 for third-party developers under non-disclosure agreements. Individual chapters are devoted to making use of the features of the platform: ANTIC and display lists, color registers, redefined character sets, player/missile graphics, the vertical blank interrupt and display list interrupts (a.k.a. raster interrupts), fine scrolling, and sound. Additional chapters cover the operating system, Atari DOS, Atari BASIC, and designing intuitive human interfaces.
Lead author Chris Crawford used many of these features in the seminal wargame "Eastern Front (1941)" released in 1981. Another of the book's authors, Jim Dunion, used custom display lists in the DDT 6502 debugger to produce a partitioned, IDE-like display. DDT was later incorporated into the MAC/65 assembler.
Serialization.
An article on Player/Missile Graphics by "De Re Atari" coauthor Chris Crawford appeared in "Compute!" in 1981:
Another article by Crawford and Lane Winner appeared in the same month in "BYTE":
"De Re Atari" was serialized in "BYTE" in 1981 and 1982 in ten articles:
Reception.
"De Re Atari" was very successful; the manager of APX later said that it and "Eastern Front" "paid the bills, i.e. were our biggest sellers". "Mapping the Atari" described "De Re Atari" as "an arcane, but indispensable reference to the Atari's operations and some of its most impressive aspects". "The Addison-Wesley Book of Atari Software 1984" stated that the book had "a wealth of information, but tends to be obscure and includes numerous errors".


Process substitution

In computing, process substitution is a form of inter-process communication that allows the input or output of a command to appear as a file. The command is substituted in-line, where a file name would normally occur, by the command shell. This allows programs that normally only accept files to directly read from or write to another program.
History.
Process substitution was available as a compile-time option for codice_1, the 1988 version of the KornShell from Bell Labs. The rc shell provides the feature as "pipeline branching" in Version 10 Unix, released in 1990. The Bash shell provided process substitution no later than version 1.14, released in 1994.
Example.
The following examples use KornShell syntax.
The Unix diff command normally accepts the names of two files to compare, or one file name and standard input. Process substitution allows one to compare the output of two programs directly:
$ diff <(sort file1) <(sort file2)
The codice_2 expression tells the command interpreter to run "command" and make its output appear as a file. The "command" can be any arbitrarily complex shell command.
Without process substitution, the alternatives are:
Both alternatives are more cumbersome.
Process substitution can also be used to capture output that would normally go to a file, and redirect it to the input of a process. The Bash syntax for writing to a process is codice_3. Here is an example using the codice_4, codice_5 and codice_6 commands that counts the lines in a file with codice_7 and compresses it with codice_6 in one pass:
$ tee >(wc -l >&2) < bigfile | gzip > bigfile.gz
Advantages.
The main advantages of process substitution over its alternatives are:
Mechanism.
Under the hood, process substitution has two implementations. On systems which support codice_9 (most Unix-like systems) it works by calling the codice_10 system call, which returns a file descriptor codice_11 for a new anonymous pipe, then creating the string codice_12, and substitutes that on the command line. On systems without codice_9 support, it calls codice_14 with a new temporary filename to create a named pipe, and substitutes this filename on the command line. To illustrate the steps involved, consider the following simple command substitution on a system with codice_9 support:
$ diff file1 <(sort file2)
The steps the shell performs are:
For named pipes, the execution differs solely in the creation and deletion of the pipe; they are created with codice_14 (which is given a new temporary file name) and removed with codice_21. All other aspects remain the same.
Limitations.
The "files" created are not seekable, which means the process reading or writing to the file cannot perform random access; it must read or write once from start to finish. Programs that explicitly check the type of a file before opening it may refuse to work with process substitution, because the "file" resulting from process substitution is not a regular file.
Additionally, up to Bash 4.4 (released September 2016), it was not possible to obtain the exit code of a process substitution command from the shell that created the process substitution.


Designer Castles

Designer Castles was a software title for the BBC Micro and later Acorn Archimedes (RISC OS based) range of computers.
The software produced by Data Design in Barnsley, England, UK allowed its users to design a medieval style- castle by means of a WIMP based design environment. In the design environment a number of pre-defined components, (For example, towers, walls and keeps) could be linked and manipulated to form a castle design. The components of the castle could then be printed (along with wall elevations and plans) so that a card model of the designed castle could be assembled.
The paper, glue and model making tools required for assembly were not supplied with any version of the package, although assembly instructions for components were provided in the extensive manual.
BBC Micro version.
Designer Castles was first released in 1988 for BBC B/Master 128. The WIMP environment supported keyboard input and also allowed use of the mouse (such as AMX Mouse). The package consisted of a software disc together with a ring bound manual and ROM cartridge containing WIMP and dot-matrix printer support routines. Data Design targeted with the application educational market. Review in BBC Acorn User magazine praised features of Designer Castles, but criticized its high price.
The support ROM was named the "PRINTWARE Support ROM". The term "PRINTWARE" was created by Peter Downs as a trade mark to cover the concept of software that was developed to enable designs to be sent to printers as 'nets' that could be cut out and folded to construct models.
Acorn Archimedes (RISC OS) version.
A version of Designer Castles was released in 1991 for the Acorn Archimedes systems using RISC OS. Unlike the BBC Micro version, the program utilizes the existing RISC OS Wimp environment and printer routines without need for a separate support module. Archimedes release also introduced several enhancements of the user interface (colourful environment instead of black and white), on the other hand it was no longer possible to print small simplified view of the castle like in the BBC Micro version.
Additional spin-off titles.
As well as Castles, the design environment was later adapted in a separate software title "Medieval Villages" to allow construction of medieval villages. Castle designs could be added to designs produced by this program.
A second additional title "Designer Environment" utilized the design environment for modern buildings, although it was not possible to add Castle designs to "villages" created with this software.
Data Design also released "Designer Logic" for drawing of logic gates.
The people behind Designer Castles.
The Designer Castles idea was the brainchild of Peter Downs and the late Keith Swift . The original idea was to develop a "design, print, cut-out and assemble gymkhana". since both Peter and Keith had daughters it seemed a great idea, when they presented the idea to a commercial software company they were told that girls didn't use computers nearly as much as boys and, if they were to develop a similar product for boys, then the firm would be interested in discussing it further. So they set to work, and designed the first (never released) version of Designer Castles, when they presented this, the commercial company was highly critical. Peter and Keith set up Data Design, brought on board R Fry as programmer and Vic Wright (primarily to write the content of the exceptional manual) which Peter then produced. The business recruited Carol Duffy who was massively responsible for working with the key publications and writers (such as Chris Drage and Nick Evans), to create a tremendous amount of publicity leading to the software becoming one of the best selling educational software products in its time.
Current situation.
As of 2006 there have been no attempts to revive the program for modern PC systems, despite the porting of other programs originally Acorn based, such as BBC Basic and Tabs.


MicroAce

The MicroAce was a personal computer designed and manufactured by CompShop and distributed in the USA by MicroAce of Santa Ana, California.
It was also sold in Australia and was distributed by Dick Smith Electronics.
Description.
Advertised as "a microcomputer for everyone at a micro price ... a complete computer for $149.00 for 1K [RAM] kit" with optional 2K RAM, it was an unlicensed clone of the Sinclair ZX80 and had an identical, yet obfuscated copy of the ROM by means of a byteswap. Some time later, between 1980 and 1981, MicroAce settled with Sinclair and licensed the ROM of the ZX81.
Reception.
"BYTE" stated that the assembly instructions were insufficient for those inexperienced in kit assembly, and suggested that beginners learn how to solder first. It found some fit and finish issues with the completed computer, and criticized MicroAce for being nonresponsive to questions. The review stated that "if you recognize the limitations of the machine and don't expect too much, then I think you can buy the MicroAce kit with confidence", albeit strongly recommending the 2K RAM option.


RTVideo

RTVideo is Microsoft's default video codec for Office Communications Server 2007 and the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client.
It is a Microsoft proprietary implementation of the VC-1 codec for real-time transmission purposes.
Microsoft extensions to VC-1 are based on cached frame and SP-frame.
Also it includes system-level enhancements for recovery of packet loss on IP networks - forward error correction and error concealment.
Licensing.
RTVideo is a proprietary codec. Like RTAudio this protocol can also be licensed from Microsoft.


Apple Specialist

Apple Specialist was an independent Apple Inc. reseller based in the United States or Canada which offered its line of hardware and software, service, and support for branded products, and was designated as Specialist by the manufacturer. In 2016, Apple introduced a Premier Partner designation and began phasing out the Specialist designation.
History.
An Apple Reseller befriended Dr. Gil Amelio, then CEO of Apple, and recommended that they form a reseller channel designation. Dr. Amelio assigned Paddy Wong and Loretta Flores of Apple the task of designing the program, with input from a few resellers. The original scope was fairly small, but only included resellers who mainly sold Apple products and not competitors.
Apple rolled out the Apple Specialist Program in December 1996. It continued under that name through 2016. Apple has since disbanded the Specialist Program and moved onto Premier Partners. This program involves meeting higher quality standards. If you are unable to meet these standards you are dropped to an Value-added resellers.
Before the introduction of Apple retail stores, the Specialist resellers, typically locally owned small businesses, were primary contributors to retail sales channel and user support for the computer manufacturer among other Apple-authorized resellers and Value-added resellers.
Apple Specialists qualify as Apple-authorized resellers and service providers and, additionally, maintain a higher minimum of Apple product sales while limiting sales of competing products. They are owned and managed independently, choosing their own business focus from among retail, business-to-business, professional and vertical markets.
In 2004, members of Apple's Reseller Advisory Board formed the Apple Specialist Marketing Coop (ASMC). Since that time ASMC has grown to include more than 160 members.


Ricoh GXR

The Ricoh GXR is a compact digital camera first announced by Ricoh Company, Ltd, Tokyo on November 10, 2009. Unlike conventional cameras which either have a fixed lens and sensor or interchangeable lens and a fixed sensor, the GXR takes interchangeable units, each housing a lens, sensor and image processing engine. This allows each unit to have these features optimised to one another and a specific task, whereas with conventional interchangeable lens cameras, each different lens must use the same sensor and engine. The sealed units also prevent dust from reaching the sensor, which can be a problem with other cameras where the sensor is exposed whilst a lens is being changed. A significant disadvantage of this system is the extra cost involved in having to buy a whole new sensor with every new lens.
The body holds a built-in pop-up flash as well as a hot shoe on top for an external flash unit. Alternatively, Ricoh's 'VF-2', an external electronic viewfinder, can be attached to the hot shoe which, offers 920,000 pixels and 100% field of view. The separate units slide onto the body via a stainless steel rail and lock into place. They can then be released by a lever on the camera's body. Both the body and lens unit use magnesium alloy exterior. Each lens unit has its own unique specifications relating to its sensor and optics, meaning that different lens units will change the features, behavior and performance of the camera body to varying degrees when attached.


Gpart

gpart is a software utility which scans a storage device, examining the data in order to detect partitions which may exist but are absent from the disk's partition tables. Gpart was written by Michail Brzitwa of Germany. The release on the author's website is now older than the releases some distributions are using. It appears that Michail Brzitwa does not actively maintain the code, instead the various distributions (I.E. Fedora or Debian) appear to maintain their own versions.
gpart tries to guess partitions from any device that can be partitioned, even a file. If the primary partition table has been lost, overwritten or destroyed the partitions still exist on the media but the operating system cannot access them.
gpart ignores the primary partition table and scans the disk (or disk image file) sector after sector for several filesystem/partition types. It does so by "asking" filesystem recognition modules if they think a given sequence of sectors resembles the beginning of a filesystem or partition type.
Michail Brzitwa,: man page "gpart(8) - Linux man page", January 2001
A list of these modules are listed below. Also modules can be written for future filesystems and used in the detection process.
If recovering partitions is needed that are damaged on the only bootable disk in a machine, a live CD can be used such as knoppix to start the machine and use the utilities from the disk.
It is also good at finding and listing the types, locations, and sizes of inadvertently-deleted partitions, both primary and logical. It gives you the information you need to manually re-create them (using fdisk, cfdisk, sfdisk, etc.). The guessed partition table can also be written to a file or (if you firmly believe the guessed table is entirely correct) directly to a disk device.
With some badly damaged devices it is a good idea to use a utility such as ddrescue to make a backup. Then when you have a copy of the device, use gpart to guess the partitions on the copy. If it is successful, you can try writing them back to the device. You may find that when using ddrescue you get read errors because the device is damaged but if you can get the partitions readable with your copy then you can try using Mount (Unix) and retrieve the data from the copy.
 $ mount -t <part type> /path/to/imagefile -o loop,offset=<part offset> /mnt/loop
This will mount the partition at offset <part offset> on /mnt/loop so you can recover your data from the file.
To get the partition offset you can use either fdisk -ul /path/to/imagefile or use the output from gpart.
Look at the sample output at the size line, the last pair of round brackets has the start (16) and then end (3906559).
When specifying the offset, always specify the start.
Sample output.
This is sample output from a scan of an 8GB flash memory stick with two partitions, one FAT16B 2GB partition and one xfs 6GB partition.
 Begin scan...
 Possible partition (DOS FAT), size (1907mb), offset (0mb)
 Possible partition (SGI XFS filesystem), size (5730mb), offset (1907mb)
 End scan.
 Checking partitions...
 Partition (DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT, LBA): primary
 Partition (Linux ext2 filesystem): primary
 Ok.
 Guessed primary partition table:
 Primary partition(1)
 type: 012 (0x0C) (DOS or Windows 95 with 32 bit FAT, LBA)
 size: 1907mb #s(3906544) s(16-3906559)
 chs: (0/1/1)-(1023/19/16)d (0/1/1)-(12207/19/16)r
 Primary partition(2)
 type: 131 (0x83)(Linux ext2 filesystem)
 size: 5730mb #s(11736000) s(3906560-15642559)
 chs: (1023/19/16)-(1023/19/16)d (12208/0/1)-(48882/19/16)r
 Primary partition(3)
 type: 000 (0x00)(unused)
 size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
 chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
 Primary partition(4)
 type: 000 (0x00)(unused)
 size: 0mb #s(0) s(0-0)
 chs: (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)d (0/0/0)-(0/0/0)r
Partition types.
Supported (guessable) filesystem or partition types:


Olympus PEN E-PL2

The Olympus PEN E-PL2, was announced in early January 2011 at the CES. This is Olympus Corporation's fourth camera that uses the Micro Four Thirds mount after the Olympus PEN E-P1, Olympus PEN E-P2 and Olympus PEN E-PL1. At the time it was announced, it had a US dollar MSRP of $599.99. As with earlier PEN models, the E-PL2 is aimed in between the point-and-shoot (compact camera) and D-SLR markets.
Noteworthy changes from the Olympus PEN E-PL1 model include:


Olympus PEN E-P3

The Olympus PEN E-P3 announced on 30 June 2011 is Olympus Corporation's seventh camera that adheres to the Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system design standard. The E-P3 succeeds the Olympus PEN E-P2, and was announced in concert with two other models, the Olympus PEN E-PL3 (Lite version of E-P3), and the Olympus PEN E-PM1 (a new "Mini" version of the PEN camera line with similar features to the E-PL3).
The EP-3 addresses some of the concerns that critics had about previous PEN models, notably, slow handling, due to slow autofocus speed and difficulty seeing the LCD panel under certain (e.g., bright, sunny) conditions.
The E-P3 increases autofocus speed through use of a 120 Hz refresh rate for its sensor, similar to the technology used in the recently released Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2 and G3 cameras. Olympus claims, based on in-house testing, that the E-P3 has the world's fastest autofocus speed of any camera as of the product announcement date. The benefits of the 120 Hz refresh rate also provides the ability for continuous autofocus tracking during bursts of exposures, a faster shutter response (less lag) and less blackout time between exposures.
The E-P3 now uses a capacitive touchscreen for creative camera control, and a new OLED type display that is supposed to vastly improve performance in sunny conditions, and off-angle viewing. The EP-3 continues with the proprietary Accessory Port, a power and communication port, which allows the use of various accessories, such as an external stereo microphone for HD video recording, LED macro lights, and a bluetooth communications adapter. The accessory port continues to be compatible with the high resolution, optional hotshoe mounted VF-2 electronic viewfinder (EVF). The VF-2 had a flip angle eyepiece, allowing viewing from 0–90 degrees. The VF-2 had been criticized for being very expensive and for not having a locking device, with some users reporting easy dislodgement of the VF-2 from the hotshoe. To address these criticisms, in July 2011, Olympus announced the introduction of an optional VF-3 EVF, which has a lower resolution, a locking device, and probably most importantly a US$100 lower MSRP.
In the United States the E-P3 MSRP with new 14–42 mm kit zoom lens or 17 mm f/2.8 pancake lens was US$899. The accessory VF-3 EVF was also available separately for US$180.00. Available body colors were black and silver.
Micro Four Thirds System.
The Micro Four Thirds (MFT) system design standard was jointly announced in 2008 by Olympus and Panasonic, as a further evolution of the similarly named predecessor Four Thirds System pioneered by Olympus. The Micro Four-Thirds system standard uses the same sized sensor (nominal 4000 pixels by 3000 pixels) as the original Four Thirds system. One potential advantage of the smaller MFT system sensor (when compared to market leaders Canon and Nikon APS-C and full frame sized) are smaller and lighter lenses. The smaller MFT sensor allows for a reduced image circle, which allows the development of smaller and lighter native lenses. The MFT sensor has a crop factor of 2.0 when compared to 35mm film equivalent full frame sensors. By comparison, the more popular consumer (as opposed to professional) DSLRs such as those made by Canon, Nikon and Sony have 1.5 to 1.6 crop factor APS-C sensors, which means larger and heavier lens designs. For example, a typical Olympus MFT M.Zuiko 14-42mm f/3.5–5.6 kit lens weighs , is in diameter and in length. The equivalent Canon APS-C DSLR EF-S 18-55mm f3.5–5.6 kit lens weighs 190g, and is 69mm in diameter and 80mm in length
While the older Four Thirds system design standard allowed the incorporation of a single lens reflex (SLR) camera design including a mirror box and pentaprism based optical viewfinder system, the MFT system design standard sought to pursue a technically different camera, and specifically slimmed down the key physical specifications which eliminated the ability to include the traditional complex optical path and the bulky mirror box needed for a SLR optical viewfinder. Instead, MFT uses either a built-in (Panasonic) or optional (Olympus/Panasonic) compact electronic viewfinder (EVF) and/or LCD back panel displaying a Live view from the main image sensor. Use of an EVF/back panel LCD and smaller four thirds image sensor format and allows for smaller and lighter camera bodies and lenses. The MFT system standard also specifically includes seamless switching between still photography and HD video recording as a design criterion.
MFT cameras are physically slimmer than most interchangeable lens cameras because the standard specifies a much reduced lens mount flange to imaging sensor plane distance of just . Typically this so-called flange focal distance is over on most interchangeable lens cameras. The MFT system design flange focal length distance allows for, through use of an adapter, the possibility to mount virtually any manufacturer's existing and legacy still camera interchangeable lens (as well as some video and cine lenses) to an MFT body, albeit using manual focus and manual aperture control. For example, many theoretically obsolete 35mm film camera lenses, as well as existing current lenses for APS-C and full frame DSLR's are now usable on MFT cameras. As an example, an older (i.e., used, obsolete and low priced), but still high quality, 50mm f/1.8 "standard" lens from a 35mm film camera can be used on a MFT camera body. With MFT sensors having a crop factor of 2.0, the old 50mm f/1.8 "standard" lens becomes a high-speed (although manual) 100mm f/1.8 telephoto portrait lens. So the MFT system allows the re-use of expensive lenses that may have outlived their 35mm film format camera, and can be used on a modern digital camera body capable of both still and HD video recording. Similarly, the MFT system design allows current DSLR lenses to be used as well, although only with manual focus and aperture control.


MSN WiFi Hotspots

MSN WiFi Hotspots, previously "Windows Live WiFi Hotspot Locator", was a website that helped users to locate wireless Internet hotspots worldwide and view their positions on a map using Live Search Maps.
This service has been discontinued as of June 10, 2008.
Windows Live WiFi Center.
Windows Live WiFi Center was part of Microsoft's Windows Live services that helped users to find and connect to wireless networks around the world. It allowed users to search for wireless networks that are available and displayed information about them such as security configuration and signal strength. In addition, users could also add wireless networks as favorites, track connection history, and manage network preferences. It used VPN technology to secure a wireless Internet connection on unsecured networks.
The service allowed users to search for free and fee-based wireless networks, showing information such as address, description, available amenities, service providers and location using Live Search Maps.
Windows Live Wifi Center was discontinued after the rebranding of Windows Live WiFi Hotspot Locator to MSN WiFi Hotspots.
Requirements.
Windows Live WiFi Center requires the following software to be installed prior to installation:


Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H400

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H400 is a DSLR-like ultrazoom bridge camera announced by Sony on February 13, 2014. At the time of its release, it was the compact camera with the longest reach, with a maximum equivalent focal length of 1550mm. In March 2015, the Nikon Coolpix P900 was released with 2000mm equivalent maximum focal length.


ICL DRS 3000


MK-DOS

MK-DOS was one of the most widespread operating systems for Elektronika BK personal computers, developed by Mikhail Korolev and Dmitriy Butyrskiy from 1in Like ANDOS, the system provided full compatibility for all models, emulating the BK-0010 environments on the more modern BK-0011 and BK-0011M machines. All program requests to a magnetic tape (if they were made through proper ROM functions) were redirected to the disk.
The system supported up to 4 physical disk drives (the actual number was limited by the disk ROM installed) and as many hard disk partitions as the number of letters in the Latin alphabet, which could be used as separate logical drives, each with a volume of up to 32 MB ("See also: drive letter assignment"). Starting from version 3.0 the system also supported mounting disk images as logical drives. When booted on a BK-0011 or BK-0011M the system automatically created a RAM disk in the computer's memory.
The most widespread file system along MK-DOS users was MicroDOS. It did not support file fragmentation (like the file system used with RT-11) and required frequent spatial reallocation to maintain optimum contiguous free space (RT-11 users would use the 'SQUEEZE' command, which worked the same way as the *COMPACT command on Acorn's DFS for the BBC Micro). Although MK-DOS was incompatible with the RT-11's file system, both shared many principles. MicroDOS' file system had read-only support in ANDOS. The filename length was limited by 14 symbols (the filename extension was not recognized separately and was considered as part of the filename).
A minimal installation of the system took as little as 8 KB of the computer's memory. It had a functional Norton Commander-like file manager called "MCommander". It also shipped with a number of utilities including drivers for the RT-11, FAT12 and CSI-DOS file systems as add-ons for the file manager.


COMPASS

COMPASS, "COMP"rehensive "ASS"embler, is any of a family of macro assembly languages on Control Data Corporation's 3000 series, and on the 60-bit CDC 6000 series, 7600 and Cyber 70 and 170 series mainframe computers. While the architectures are very different, the macro and conditional assembly facilities are similar.
COMPASS for 60-bit machines.
There are two "flavors" of COMPASS on the 60-bit machines:
COMPASS is a classical two-pass assembler with macro and conditional assembly features, and generates a full listing showing both the source assembly code and the generated machine code (in octal). CDC's operating systems were written almost entirely in COMPASS assembly language.
Central processor (CP or CPU) hardware maintains 24 operational registers, named A0 to A7, X0 to X7 and B0 to B7. Registers X0 to X7 are 60 bits long and are used to hold data, while registers B0 to B7 are 18 bits long and their major purpose is to hold either addresses or be used as indexing registers, except that B0 is always zero. As a programming convention, B1 (or B7) often contains positive 1.
A or address registers are also 18 bits long. Each A register pairs with the corresponding X register. Whenever an address is set into any of A1 to A5 registers, the data at that memory location (address) is loaded into the corresponding X register. Likewise, setting an address into one of A6 or A7 registers stores the data held in the corresponding X6 or X7 register to that memory location. However, A0 can be used to hold any address without affecting the contents of register X0.
CP instructions are written in a particularly user-friendly form: "SA1 A0+B1" denotes "set address register A1 to the sum of address register A0 and index register B1". The hardware then initiates a memory load from the computed address into register X1.
Peripheral processor (PP or PPU) instructions are completely different from CPU instructions. Peripheral processor hardware is simpler; it has an 18-bit A (accumulator register, a 12-bit Program Address register, a 12-bit Q register (not programmer-visible), and a 22-bit R register (used to accomplish address relocation during central memory read and write instructions on Cyber 180 systems). No special job validation was required to assemble peripheral processor programs, but to be executed, such programs were required to installed into the operating system via special system editing commands.
Example code.
This COMPASS sample code displays the calendar of the year given as a parameter on the terminal. If no parameter is given, then the calendar of the current year is displayed.


Digital Personal Workstation

The Digital Personal Workstation, code named "sports car", is a family of entry-level to mid-range workstation computers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). These workstations are based on the DEC Alpha and Intel Pentium Pro or Pentium II microprocessors. Members of this family can run the Digital UNIX, OpenVMS and Microsoft Windows NT operating systems.
The i-Series, based on Pentium Pro, was introduced first, on 23 September 1996.
i-Series.
The Digital Personal Workstation i-Series is based on the Intel Pentium Pro or Pentium II microprocessor and runs Windows NT.
Models include the:
These workstations support either one or two microprocessors and use standard Intel chipsets: Pentium Pro models use the Intel 440FX, Pentium II models suffixed with "i" use the Intel 440BX whereas ones suffixed with "i+" use the Intel 440LX. A superscript "2" suffix indicates a dual processor configuration.
The i-Series has four DIMM slots on its main logic board and supports standard unbuffered or registered 100 MHz ECC SDRAM DIMMs. Using unbuffered memory, the i-Series can support 32 to 512 MB of memory, with registered memory, 64 MB to 1 GB is supported. Unbuffered and registered DIMMs cannot be mixed in the same system. Unbuffered DIMMs have capacities of 32, 64 and 128 MB, whereas registered DIMMs have capacities of 64, 128 and 256 MB.
a-Series.
The Digital Personal Workstation a-Series, code named "Miata", uses the Alpha 21164A microprocessor. Models suffixed with "a" run Windows NT (with AlphaBIOS) as shipped, whereas models suffixed with "au" run Digital UNIX or OpenVMS (with SRM). Both models can be switched between AlphaBIOS and SRM via the system firmware. At COMDEX 1997, the Digital Personal Workstation 500a was a finalist in "Byte" magazine's Best of Show award for the best workstation category.
Models included the:
The Alpha microprocessor is socketed in a zero insertion force (ZIF) socket and can be upgraded. These workstations use Digital's 21174 chipset, also known as the "Pyxis" chipset. To increase flexibility and to reduce cost, the L3 cache is optional in these models. If the L3 cache is required, a cache module that contained the SRAMs which implemented the cache can be installed into a cache slot. The cache module has two capacities: 2 or 4 MB.
Two revisions of the "Miata" motherboard were produced, known as "MX5" and "MiataGL" respectively. The later MiataGL motherboard has a revised Pyxis chipset (which fixes a PCI DMA bug), a different ATA controller, an on-board QLogic 1040 SCSI host adapter, and a USB interface.
The a-Series has a 144-bit memory bus, with 128 bits used for data and 16 bits for ECC. There are three memory banks, each consisting of two DIMM slots, for a total of six DIMM slots, which supports 32 MB to 1.5 GB of memory. These machines accept standard unbuffered only PC100 ECC SDRAM DIMMs with a maximum capacity of 256 MB per DIMM, which must be installed in identical pairs in order to match the width of the memory bus.


Micro Adventure

Micro Adventure is the title of a series of books for young adult readers, published by Scholastic, Inc. during the 1980s. Created by Eileen Buckholtz and Ruth Glick, the YA series combined adventure stories with computer activities.
 The books are noted for the inclusion of short BASIC type-in programs related to the plot of the story that the reader could type into their computers, and also for the use of second-person narration (rather like the Choose Your Own Adventure series, though unlike those, Micro Adventure storylines could not be influenced by the decisions of the reader). The combination of these two elements made the Micro Adventure books something of an immersion experience.
Through the second-person narration, the reader took the part of Orion, a computer expert and agent for the Adventure Connection Team, and followed the action in the continuing struggle against ACT’s nemesis, BRUTE (Bureau of Random Unlawful Terror and Evil).
The plots generally resembled those typically found in other works of the secret agent/adventure genre, ranging from sabotage aboard a space station to android doubles of the President of the United States, but stand out for their clever twists and lack of "dumbing down" often found in similar juvenile literature.
The programs themselves were actually quite impressive, some even being simple “shoot-em-up” games, yet were all designed to be small (none were over 2K in file size, a must given the limitations of some personal computers available at the time, such as the TI-99/4A) and easily typed in by even the most novice programmer. Instructions were included on how to "tweak" the programs to make them run on almost any popular home computer of the time.
As a bonus, an appendix to each book gave step-by-step analyses of each of the programs in that particular book as a method of teaching simple programming theory and construction.
In 2017, Auri Rahimzadeh created a website to read the books and enter their programs in an on-page emulator.
List of titles.
Micro Adventure series
Magic Micro series