Casio FX-502P series

The FX-501P and FX-502P were programmable calculators, manufactured by Casio from 1978/1979. They were the predecessors of the "FX-601P" and "FX-602P".
It is likely that the FX-501P/502P were the first LCD programmable Calculators to be produced as up until 1979 (and the introduction of the HP-41C) no manufacturer had introduced such a device.
Arithmetic.
The "FX-502P" series use the algebraic logic as was state of the art at the time.
Display.
The "FX-501P" and "FX-502P" featured a single line 7-segment liquid crystal display with 10 digits as main display. An additional 3 digits 7-segment display used to display exponents and program steps when entering or debugging programs and 10 status indicators. The display was covered with a yellow filter,
Programming.
The programming model employed was key stroke programming by which each key pressed was recorded and later played back. On record multiple key presses were merged into a single programming step. All operations fitted into one program step.
The "FX-501P" could store 128 steps, with 11 memory registers. The "FX-502P" had twice that capacity with 256 steps and 22 memory registers.
Conditional and unconditional jumps as well as subroutines were supported. The "FX-502P" series supported 10 labels for programs and subroutines called P0 .. P9. Each program or subroutine could have up to 10 local labels called LBL0 .. LBL9 for jumps and branches.
The "FX-501P" and "FX-502P" supported indirect addressing both for memory access and jumps and therefore the programming model could be considered Turing complete.
Since the "FX-501P" and "FX-502P" only employed a seven-segment display each program step was represented by a special 2-digit codes made up of the digits 0 .. 9 and the character C, E, F and P. The calculator came with a special overlay so the user did not need to memorize the mapping between code and actual command.
What differentiated the "FX-501" / "FX-502P" from its competitors was that programming was retained in a battery-buffered memory when the calculator was turned off.
Programming example.
Here is a sample program that computes the factorial of an integer number from 2 to 69. For 5!, the user would type codice_1 codice_2 and get the result 120. The whole program is only 9 bytes long.
Interface.
The "FX-501P" and "FX-502P" used the "FA-1" to store program and data to Compact Cassette using the Kansas City standard. The "FA-1" also enabled the calculators to generate musical notes.
The FX-501P was used on the 1981 song "Pocket Calculator" by electronic music group Kraftwerk.


Ifconfig

ifconfig (short for "interface config") is a system administration utility in Unix-like operating systems for network interface configuration.
The utility is a command-line interface tool and is also used in the system startup scripts of many operating systems. It has features for configuring, controlling, and querying TCP/IP network interface parameters. Ifconfig originally appeared in 4.2BSD as part of the BSD TCP/IP suite.
Usage.
Common uses for ifconfig include setting the IP address and netmask of a network interface and disabling or enabling an interface. At boot time, many Unix-like operating systems initialize their network interfaces with shell scripts that call ifconfig. As an interactive tool, system administrators routinely use the utility to display and analyze network interface parameters. The following two examples show the output of the tool when querying the state of a single active interface each on a Linux-based host (interface eth0) and the ural0 interface on an OpenBSD installation.
Medium access control functions.
ifconfig is also commonly used to change the medium access control (MAC) address of an interface. In this process, the network interface is first disabled (set "down") with the ifconfig command, followed by a MAC change command:
 ifconfig wlan0 down
 ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 13:11:20:33:49:66
 ifconfig wlan0 up
Release status.
The Berkeley Software Distribution UNIX operating systems (e.g., NetBSD, OpenBSD, and FreeBSD) continue active development of ifconfig and extension of its functionality to cover the configuration of wireless networking interfaces, VLAN trunking, controlling hardware features such as TSO or hardware checksumming or setting up bridge and tunnel interfaces. Solaris has historically used ifconfig for all network interface configuration, but as of Solaris 10 introduced dladm to perform data-link (OSI model layer 2) configuration, reducing ifconfig's purview to IP configuration.
In older Linux distributions, ifconfig, in conjunction with the utility route, was used to connect a computer to a network, and to define routes between networks. ifconfig for Linux is part of the package "net-tools", released as the latest version 2.10 on 7 January 2021.
Many Linux distributions have deprecated the use of ifconfig and route in favor of the software suite iproute2, such as ArchLinux or RHEL since version 7, which has been available since 1999 for Linux 2.2. iproute2 includes support for all common functions of ifconfig(8), route(8), arp(8) and netstat(1). It also includes multicast configuration support, tunnel and virtual link management, traffic control, and low-level IPsec configuration, among other features.
Related tools.
Another higher-level Linux command line tool is ifup (including ifdown and ifquery). In addition to controlling the interfaces, it also provides control of other aspects of the network such as specifying the DNS servers to use. The command is configured using the file "/etc/network/interfaces", which contains "stanzas" for each interface.
Network Manager is a Linux daemon that automatically reconfigures the network in dynamic environments, such as moving between WiFi hotspots. It is usually used in conjunction with a graphical front-end such as GNOME Shell.
Versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 95 to Windows Me used winipcfg to give a graphical display of current IP information. ipconfig, a command similar to ifconfig, comes with Microsoft operating-systems based on the Windows NT kernel. ipconfig also controls the Windows DHCP client.
In macOS, the ifconfig command functions as a wrapper to the IPConfiguration agent, and can control the BootP and DHCP clients from the command-line. Use of ifconfig to modify network settings in Mac OS X is discouraged, because ifconfig operates below the level of the system frameworks which help manage network configuration.
iwconfig, a component of Wireless tools for Linux, which took its name from ifconfig, manages wireless network interfaces outside the original scope of Linux's ifconfig. iwconfig sets such specialized settings as a wireless network's SSID and WEP keys, and functions in tandem with iwlist. Linux also features iwspy, to read the signal, noise and quality of a wireless connection.
Other related tools for configuring Ethernet adapters are: ethtool, mii-tool, and mii-diag in Linux and the command "dladm show-link" in Solaris.


Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX77

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX77 is a digital camera by Panasonic Lumix. The highest-resolution pictures it records is 14.1 megapixels, through its 24mm Ultra Wide-Angle Leica DC VARIO-SUMMICRON.


Remix 3D

Remix 3D is a discontinued website created by Microsoft for users to browse, distribute, and download 3D objects. The website features a free library containing thousands of 3D objects for use in virtual reality and augmented reality applications. Remix 3D was released first to Windows Insiders and then as part of the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, alongside Paint 3D. The service also directly integrated with and/or supported 3D Viewer, as well as Paint 3D, SketchUp, Minecraft, and PowerPoint.
In July 2019, Microsoft announced that it would be shutting down the Remix3D site on 10 January 2020. According to "ZDNet", two months prior to the announcement, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Kudo Tsunoda, the person in charge of Microsoft's 3D efforts, left his job. Users are encouraged to store their creations to their Outlook.com account, instead.


Loom (video game)

Loom is a 1990 fantasy-themed graphic adventure game by Lucasfilm Games. The project was led by Brian Moriarty, a former Infocom employee and author of classic text adventures "Wishbringer" (1985), "Trinity" (1986), and "Beyond Zork" (1987). It was the fourth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine, and the first of those to avoid the verb–object interface introduced in "Maniac Mansion".
Gameplay.
A departure from other Lucasfilm adventure games in many senses, "Loom" is based on a serious and complex fantasy story. With its experimental interface, it eschewed the traditional paradigm of graphical adventures, where puzzles usually involve interactions between the game character, the environment, and items the character has in their possession.
"Loom" gameplay centers instead around magical four-note tunes known as "drafts" that the protagonist, Bobbin Threadbare, can play on his distaff. Each draft is a spell that has an effect of a certain type, such as "Opening" or "Night Vision." Some drafts can be reversed by playing their notes backwards, so the "Dye" draft played backwards becomes "Bleach," while others, such as the "Terror" draft, are palindromes (e.g. C–E–E–C) and so cannot be reversed in this manner.
Bobbin can learn drafts by observing an object that possesses the qualities of the desired draft; for example, by examining a blade while it is being sharpened, Bobbin can learn the "Sharpening" draft. When the game begins, Bobbin is only able to play drafts using the notes C, D and E, limiting his ability to reproduce more powerful drafts. As the game progresses and additional notes become available, so his ability to play new drafts increases.
The game can be played at three difficulty levels, each differing in how clearly the notes being played are labeled. For example, the "Standard" level indicates the notes on a scale below the distaff, while the "Expert" level shows no notes and must be played by ear. In the original release, expert players are rewarded with a cutscene that does not appear for the other two difficulties. The later CD-ROM release, however, shows an abridged version of this scene to all players.
Story.
Prologue.
The events of the game are preceded by a 30-minute audio drama. It is established that the Age of the Great Guilds arose when humans once again tried to establish dominion over nature. The world of "Loom" is not defined in relation to ours, but many hold that it happens on Earth in a greatly distant future, since the game takes place in the year 8021.
People banded together to form city-states of a common trade "devoted to the absolute control of knowledge, held together by stern traditions of pride, and of fear." The humble guild of Weavers established themselves as masters of woven fabric, though they eventually transcended the limits of cloth and began to weave "subtle patterns of influence into the very fabric of reality." They were persecuted for these acts of "witchcraft," and purchased an island far off the mainland coast, which they called Loom, after the great loom that was the symbol of their guild.
Lady Cygna Threadbare is introduced as a bereaved mother who begs the Elders of the Guild of Weavers to use the power of the Loom to end the suffering of the Weavers. Their numbers are failing and their seed is barren. The Elders Atropos, Clothos, and Lachesis, who are named after Greek mythology's three Fates, reprimand Cygna, telling her that it is not their place to play gods.
Cygna, despite their warnings, secretly assumes control of the Loom and plants one gray thread. She inadvertently draws an (unforeseen) infant out of the Loom, incurring the wrath of the Elders. She surrenders the child to Dame Hetchel, the old serving woman, and accepts her fate. The Elders cast the "Transcendence" draft on her, transforming her into a swan and banishing her from the pattern (the name "Cygna" is the feminine form of "swan" in Latin). Hetchel names the child Bobbin, and cares for him as her own.
Bobbin grows up ostracized from the rest of the Guild. The Elders note that the presence of his gray thread has thrown the pattern into chaos, and the Loom foresees the very unraveling of the pattern. For these reasons, the Elders ban him from learning the ways of the Guild until a decision can be made on Bobbin's seventeenth birthday ("until his coming of age seventeen years hence," as it is described in the game's audio drama). Hetchel, however, defies the Elders and secretly teaches him a few basics of weaving. This is where the game begins.
Plot.
On his birthday, Bobbin is summoned by the Elders in order to determine his fate. He arrives at the Sanctuary in time to witness the Elders punish Hetchel with the "Transcendence" draft for educating Bobbin, but Hetchel reverts to a swan's egg, which puzzles and frightens the Elders. As they contemplate this turn of events a swan comes down from the sky and crashes through a window in the Sanctuary. She casts the "Transcendence" draft on the Elders, as well as the rest of the villagers, transforming all the Weavers except Bobbin into swans who leave through a rift in the sky. Bobbin, who is left all alone, finds Elder Atropos' distaff, and uses it to free Hetchel from her egg.
Hetchel, who is now a cygnet, tells Bobbin that the swan who visits him every year on his birthday came to save the Weavers from the Third Shadow that is about to cover the world. Bobbin then moves on to find the flock. On his way, he meets other guilds and has several adventures. Eventually, he encounters a Cleric, Bishop Mandible, who is after the Scrying Sphere of the Glassmakers, the swords of the Blacksmiths, and the products of the Shepherds. Mandible claims the Weaver's distaff to rule the world with an army of the undead, thus fulfilling the prophecies. By playing the draft of "Opening" on a nearby graveyard, he tears the fabric of the universe apart and allows an entity called "Chaos" to enter. Chaos kills Mandible and summons an army of undead to destroy the earth. Bobbin reclaims the distaff from the dead Bishop and heals many of the tears in the pattern, along the way helping many of his previous acquaintances, who were hurt or killed by Chaos's army. Finally, he battles Chaos, who is striving to take control of the great Loom on his native island. The battle ends as Chaos kills his stepmother using the draft of "Unmaking." It is hinted, however, that it is still possible to save Hetchel, as "one feather still remained intact."
Bobbin then destroys the great Loom using the same draft. He is joined by his mother and the other Weavers and is told that one half of the world will be ruled by Chaos while the Weavers will stay in the other half, and that with time, they may gain enough power to challenge Chaos again. Bobbin casts "Transcendence" upon himself, and with the aid of his mother and the other villagers in their swan forms, he flies away, carrying the ripple across the world. His friends watch the flock of the swans fly away; it remains unclear whether Bobbin has left them in Chaos' realm or has saved them.
Development.
Music.
The in-game music consists of excerpts from the "Swan Lake" ballet by Tchaikovsky, arranged for MIDI by George "The Fat Man" Sanger. While supporting basic PC speaker sound and AdLib, the EGA version originally lacked built-in Roland MT-32 support. A form included in the package could be mailed to Lucasfilm Games as an order for an extra game disk providing MT-32 support which was later also released as a downloadable patch. This disk also came with an additional overture which was played prior to the opening cutscene.
Package contents.
The original package offered an audio tape with a 30-minute audio drama that explained the nature and history of the world of "Loom", and the circumstances of Bobbin's birth. The game is a direct continuation of the story. The drama was enriched by original music composed by Jerry Gerber. Side A of the tape was encoded for standard Dolby-B playback; side B was labelled "game music" and had a composition of the game's soundtrack. In other releases of the game, side B had the identical program with side A encoded for Dolby-S. It was the first commercial cassette to employ Dolby-S noise reduction.
The package also offered an illustrated notebook, "The Book of Patterns", supposedly belonging to apprentice weavers in the game world. Its purpose was to optionally note there the drafts that could be learned, as well as describing some that were not seen in the game, with interesting tales related to each draft. Each description also included a staff and four spaces in which to record the four respective notes of the draft. The book contained a warning saying that wise spellweavers write in pencil; this is because many of the spells in the game have randomized threads (musical notes). In the original disk versions, it also acted as a form of copy protection; the game would ask players for the notes of a particular draft in the book at start-up. If the player doesn't enter the correct notes, the game would exit back to the operating system (in the PC version, it would enter demo mode).
Orson Scott Card.
A common misconception about "Loom" is that author Orson Scott Card contributed to its original development, based on his name appearing in the credits. Card mentions in a review for "Loom" that this is untrue, and that Moriarty included his name in the credits due to some very minor feedback he had provided prior to the game's release. Card's association with Lucasfilm continued, however, leading to more significant contributions to "The Secret of Monkey Island", "Loom" 1992 "talkie" release, and "The Dig" (1995).
Release history.
"Loom" was originally published for DOS on floppy disk with 16-color EGA graphics in May 1990. This version was soon after released on the Amiga, the Atari ST, and Macintosh.
FM Towns.
"Loom" was redeveloped for the Japanese FM Towns computer and released on CD-ROM in 1991 with enhanced 256-color VGA graphics and a new digital soundtrack. The dialogue and story elements remained largely unchanged from the original version, though at least one scene was partially censored of blood, and some elements of the visual design were lost. A similar version was released for the TurboGrafx-CD in 1992, but featured a mix of visuals from the 16- and 256-color versions, adapted to that system's color palette.
Talkie.
The final version of "Loom" was released for DOS on CD in 1992. It featured an entirely re-recorded digital soundtrack, a separate CD for the audio drama, and fully voiced dialogue, with many of the actors reprising their roles from the audio drama. However, due to the technical constraints on how much uncompressed audio could fit on a CD, much of the original dialogue had to be revised or abridged. Orson Scott Card assisted with the dialogue revision.
The graphics were a continuation of those used in the FM Towns version but with some minor enhancements and additional censorship. Some features were also cut from the FM Towns version, such as multiple solutions to puzzles, many conversation close-ups, and parts of cutscenes. Brian Moriarty has stated that he believes the FM Towns version to be the best 256-color version of "Loom".
Availability.
Due to a licensing agreement with (now defunct) Mindscape, the DOS CD-ROM version became commercially unavailable, and until 2006, the DOS floppy-disk version was the only one purchasable from LucasArts. All of these versions of "Loom" can now be played on a variety of different platforms using the ScummVM virtual machine.
The PC CD-ROM version of "Loom" was released through the Steam digital distribution platform for Windows on July 8, 2009, with Mac support following on May 12, 2010.
Reception.
According to "", "Loom" was a critical success, but "failed to sell in sufficient numbers to warrant sequels".
Orson Scott Card praised "Loom", writing in "Compute!" that it was "like nothing you've ever seen (or done) before ... a work of storytelling art," and cited the game's flexibility in adapting to playstyles, whether using action or puzzles. "Dragon" gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. Scorpia of "Computer Gaming World" approved of the game's graphics and gameplay, but said that "as an adventure game, it is just too lightweight." She stated that the game was impossible to fail, with very easy puzzles, but that the linear gameplay resulted in no freedom of movement. While praising the story, Scorpia wished that Lucasfilm would have given it an "epic treatment" instead of "Loom"s simplicity. In April 1994 the magazine described the CD version as "Brian Moriarty's beautifully spun tale ... Though a few years old, "Loom"s unique music-oriented interface, strong story-telling, and incredible graphics still stand up to more current adventure games". Although "too short", the magazine recommended "Loom" to "the new computer gamer".
"Strategy Plus"s Theo Clark wrote that "Loom"s "story is absorbing and exciting, and there is plenty of pleasure to be gained from encounters and from discovering the effects of the various spells." He noted that players might consider it a "fatal flaw" that Bobbin cannot die, and that "any puzzle can be resolved by clicking on all of the available items and running through all of the known drafts". However, he argued that the game is "a rare treat" for players who see it as "a long, interactive video" rather than an adventure game.
"Computer Gaming World" gave "Loom" a Special Award for Artistic Achievement as part of the magazine's Game of the Year Awards, stating that its colors, "mesmerizing special effects", soundtrack, and user interface combined to make "Loom" "a work of art." It also was nominated for the magazine's "Adventure Game of the Year" prize, which ultimately went to "". The editors called "Loom" "an intense entertainment experience ... true to an original philosophical vision of its author in both story and presentation".
In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" declared "Loom" the 81st-best computer game ever released. In 2011, Adventure Gamers named "Loom" the 61st-best adventure game ever released.
Legacy.
Sequels.
According to "Rogue Leaders", "Loom" was not designed to be the first game in a series, but "Brian Moriarty considered additional directions for the story" after development of the first entry had concluded. The two sequels planned were titled "Forge" and "The Fold", starring Bobbin's friends Rusty Nailbender and Fleece Firmflanks. Moriarty gave an account of potential sequels in a 2006 interview:
Appearance in other media.
As was typical for LucasArts, several other games referenced the "Loom" characters and storyline. A likeness of Bishop Mandible's assistant Cob can be found inside the Scumm Bar in "The Secret of Monkey Island" (1990), dressed as a pirate with a badge on his shirt that says "Ask me about "Loom"," and will happily divulge marketing information when so asked.
"Monkey Island" protagonist, Guybrush Threepwood, can say "I'm Bobbin. Are you my mother?" on a number of occasions throughout the series, and in "The Curse of Monkey Island" (1997) can quip about Bobbin's relative obscurity. "Monkey Island", "" (1991), and "Day of the Tentacle" (1993) all include a credit for their respective seagulls as "Seagull appears courtesy of LOOM™".
The player can kill the Loom seagull in the 1995 LucasArts game "Full Throttle" as well as its PlayStation 4 remake.
In the 256-color remake of "", a landscape painting in the vault of Brunwald Castle features a scene from "Loom". The NES version of "Maniac Mansion", released in September 1990, features a broken record titled "The Soundtrack of Loom".
"Space Quest IV", a game released the following year by Sierra On-Line, makes light of "Loom" criticisms by featuring a description of a video game named "BOOM" in the game's Radio Shock store: "The latest bomb from master storyteller Morrie Brianarty, "BOOM" is a post-holocaust adventure set in post-holocaust America after the holocaust. Neutron bombs have eradicated all life, leaving only YOU to wander through the wreckage. No other characters, no conflict, no puzzles, no chance of dying, and no interface make this the easiest-to-finish game yet! Just boot it up and watch it explode!"


Viatron

Viatron Computer Systems, or simply Viatron was an American computer company headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, and later Burlington, Massachusetts. Viatron coined the term "microprocessor" although it was not used in the sense in which the word microprocessor is used today.
Viatron was founded in 1967 by engineers from Mitre Corporation led by Dr. Edward M. Bennett and Dr. Joseph Spiegel. In 1968 the company announced its "System 21" small computer system together with its intention to lease the systems starting at a revolutionary price of $40 per month. The basic system included a microprocessor with 512 characters of read/write RAM memory, a keyboard, a CRT display and two cartridge tape drives.
The system specifications, advanced for 1968 – five years before the advent of the first commercial personal computers – caused a lot of excitement in the computer industry. The System 21 was aimed, among others, at applications such as mathematical and statistical analysis, business data processing, data entry and media conversion, and educational/classroom use.
The expectation was that the use of new large scale integrated circuit technology (LSI) and volume would enable Viatron to be successful at lower margins, however the prototype did not incorporate LSI technology. In 1968 Bennett claimed that by 1972 Viatron would have delivered more "digital machines" than had "previously been installed by all computer makers." He declared "We want to turn out computers like GM turns out Chevvies,"
The semiconductor industry was unable to produce circuits in the volumes required, forcing Viatron to sell fewer than the planned 5,000–6,000 systems per month. This raised the production costs per unit and prevented the company from ever achieving profitability.
Bennet and Spiegel were fired in 1970, and the company declared Chapter XI bankruptcy in 1971.
System 21 components.
As announced the System 21 line consisted of the following:
CPU.
The Viatron CPUs differed in memory size and interrupt levels – 2 on the 2140 and 4 on the 2150. They had the ability to operate on 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, or 48-bit data. Three index registers were provided.
The CPUs included two independent arithmetic units with different capabilities.
The system had two instruction formats: "Standard", 16-bit instructions, and "Extended", 32-bit instructions. Standard instructions had a 6-bit operation code, a two-bit index register identifier, and an 8-bit PC-relative address. Extended instructions had a 6-bit operation code, a two-bit index register identifier, an 8-bit operation code modifier, and a 16-bit memory address. Indirect addressing was allowed.
There were 85 instructions, some of which had both standard and extended forms:


2M (DOS)

2M is a DOS program by the Spanish programmer Ciriaco García de Celis. It enables higher than normal capacity formatting of floppy disks. It saw active development from 1993 to 1995. The last version, v3.0, was released on March 6, 1995. It was written in C and assembler and compiled using Borland C++ 3.1.
The program consisted of two major components: 2M and 2MGUI (from "2M Guinness"). Of these, 2M was the main program enabling the formatting, reading and writing of high density 3.5" disks formatted to a capacity of either 1804 KiB or 1886 KB, and 2MGUI was a proof-of-concept program that demonstrated the ability to format any normal high density 3.5" disk to a capacity of over two million bytes (1972 KiB) on any disk drive. Both programs implemented disk I/O speedups in the form of "Sector Sliding" and "DiskBoost", which work on the principle of ordering the physical sectors on the disk to facilitate pauseless reading over track changes. 2MGUI utilized bit banging and tricked the floppy controller into some kind of "pass-through" mode allowing direct manipulation of the low-level bitstream. A similar technique was also used by Vincent Joguin's Disk2FDI for Amiga floppies.


North Atlantic Convoy Raider

North Atlantic Convoy Raider is a wargame published by Microcomputer Games for TRS-80, Commodore PET, and Apple II in 1980. An Atari 8-bit family version was released in 1981.
Contents.
"North Atlantic Convoy Raider" is a game where the player controls the "Bismarck" on its historic breakout into the North Atlantic.
Reception.
David Boyle reviewed "North Atlantic Convoy Raider" in "The Space Gamer" No. 35. Boyle commented that "The game overall is worthwhile for anyone who enjoys putting his wits against the computer, and doesn't mind a little luck playing a part."


PC Ace

PC Ace was a partwork magazine published by Eaglemoss Publications, between 1999 and 2001. It was aimed at those aged between 10 and 14, providing information on how to operate a personal computer. Readers of the magazine were assisted in part by a cartoon mouse named Ace, who featured throughout the magazine's pages.
The series consisted of 100 parts, and was previously available for sale in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, among others.
Structure.
"PC Ace" was released on a weekly basis, with a CD-ROM accompanying the magazine every second issue (with the exception of part 1, which included two CD-ROM discs). These CD-ROM discs contained programs such as computer games and edutainment titles.
Issues that included a CD-ROM did not include the "Wordpower" section.
Sections.
"PC Ace" was divided into 9 sections, detailed below.


MSI Wind PC

MSI Wind PC is a nettop counterpart to the MSI Wind Netbook. The MSI Wind PC is sold in Europe, Asia, and in the United States, barebones kits were available until Summer 2009, when desktop units also became available.
On January 15, 2009, MSI announced a new model of the Wind, the NetTop D130, with a dual-core processor.
There are 3 MSI wind PC models listed on the MSI website: Wind PC, Wind PC (Linux), and the Wind PC 100. In addition, there are 8 products using the "Nettop" name and 6 that use alphanumeric codes, i.e. 6676-003BUS or 6667BB-004US.


Monroe Epic

The Monroe EPIC was a programmable calculator that came on the market in the 1960s. It consisted of a large desktop unit which attached to a floor-standing logic tower and was capable of being programmed to perform many computer-like functions. However, the only form of a branching instruction available was a hard-coded unconditional branch (GOTO) that always executed at program completion (the end of the operation stack) to return to the starting instruction of the program (looped back to the beginning of operation stack). This made the creation of conditional branching logic, such as IF-THEN-ELSE, impossible.


Ashes of Empire

Ashes of Empire was a 1992 strategy video game produced by Mirage, released for the Amiga and IBM-PC systems. It was a follow-on, although not a sequel, to the earlier games "Midwinter" and "Flames of Freedom".
Description.
Game-play involved working as a member of a fictional UN/NATO-type organisation (CSR) to recruit followers across various CIS-inspired republics being threatened by a powerful neighbor. The mechanics of the game were very similar to the earlier "Midwinter" game, although the player was now able to use a selection of land and air vehicles to travel around. Combat was handled in real-time, with the player maneuvering to engage the enemy vehicle(s). The overall aim of the game is to pacify each of the CSR's five Republics - Ossia, Ruzakhstan, Belokraine, Moldenia and Servonia.
A part of the preface by Mike Singleton; "In Ashes of Empire, you well find echoes of the real world and, I hope, echoes of how delicate a task it is to bring peace and prosperity to lands where there is, at the moment, only hardship, bloodletting and misery".
The game was reasonably well-received but not commercially successful, mainly due to the dry nature of the subject matter and the level of detail included in the game.
Reception.
"Computer Gaming World" in 1993 stated that "Ashes of Empire" was a logistical game that "truly breaks new ground" but "reveals major weaknesses", with game-play that was "plodding and devoid of any intense challenge". The magazine approved of, however, the "truly fresh gaming experience" and "interactive education and thought puzzle which is highly topical in today's changing world", and concluded that "this type of game needs several generations of development [as a viable genre] ... It's about time, though, that a games like "Ashes of Empire" took the first, important step".


Macintosh SE

The Macintosh SE is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer, from March 1987 to October 1990. It marked a significant improvement on the Macintosh Plus design and was introduced by Apple at the same time as the Macintosh II.
The SE retains the same Compact Macintosh form factor as the original Macintosh computer introduced three years earlier and uses the same design language used by the Macintosh II. An enhanced model, the SE/30, was introduced in January 1989; sales of the original SE continued. The Macintosh SE was updated in August 1989 to include a SuperDrive, with this updated version being called the "Macintosh SE FDHD" and later the "Macintosh SE SuperDrive". The Macintosh SE was replaced with the Macintosh Classic, a very similar model which retained the same central processing unit and form factor, but at a lower price point.
Overview.
The Macintosh SE was introduced at the AppleWorld conference in Los Angeles on March 2, 1987. The "SE" is an acronym for "System Expansion". Its notable new features, compared to its similar predecessor, the Macintosh Plus, were:
The SE and Macintosh II were the first Apple computers since the Apple I to be sold without a keyboard. Instead the customer was offered the choice of the new ADB Apple Keyboard or the Apple Extended Keyboard.
Apple produced ten SEs with transparent cases as prototypes for promotional shots and employees. They are extremely rare and command a premium price for collectors.
Operating system.
The Macintosh SE shipped with System 4.0 and Finder 5.4; this version is specific to this computer. (The Macintosh II, which was announced at the same time but shipped a month later, includes System 4.1 and Finder 5.5.) The README file included with the installation disks for the SE and II is the first place Apple ever used the term "Macintosh System Software", and after 1998 these two versions were retroactively given the name "Macintosh System Software 2.0.1".
Hardware.
Processor: Motorola 68000, 8 MHz, with an 8 MHz system bus and a 16-bit data path
RAM: The SE came with 1 MB of RAM as standard, and is expandable to 4 MB. The logic board has four 30-pin SIMM slots; memory must be installed in pairs and must be 150 ns or faster.
Video: The built-in 512 × 342 monochrome screen uses 21,888 bytes of main memory as video memory.
Storage: The SE can accommodate either one or two floppy drives, or a floppy drive and a hard drive. After-market brackets were designed to allow the SE to accommodate two floppy drives as well as a hard drive, however it was not a configuration supported by Apple. In addition an external floppy disk drive may also be connected, making the SE the only Macintosh besides the Macintosh Portable which could support three floppy drives, though its increased storage, RAM capacity and optional internal hard drive rendered the external drives less of a necessity than for its predecessors. Single-floppy SE models also featured a drive-access light in the spot where the second floppy drive would be. Hard-drive equipped models came with a 20 MB SCSI hard disk.
Battery: Soldered into the logic board is a 3.6 V 1/2AA lithium battery, which must be present in order for basic settings to persist between power cycles. Macintosh SE machines which have sat for a long time have experienced battery corrosion and leakage, resulting in a damaged case and logic board.
Expansion: A Processor Direct Slot on the logic board allows for expansion cards, such as accelerators, to be installed. The SE can be upgraded to 50 MHz and more than 5 MB with the MicroMac accelerators. In the past other accelerators were also available such as the Sonnet Allegro. Since installing a card required opening the computer's case and exposing the user to high voltages from the internal CRT, Apple recommended that only authorized Apple dealers install the cards; the case was sealed with then-uncommon Torx screws.
Upgrades: After Apple introduced the Macintosh SE/30 in January, 1989, a logic board upgrade was sold by Apple dealers for US$1,699 as a high-cost upgrade for the SE, consisting of a new SE/30 motherboard, case front and internal chassis to accommodate the upgrade components.
ROM/Easter egg: The SE ROM size increased from 64 KB in the original Mac (and 128 KB in the Mac Plus) to 256 KB, which allowed the development team to include an Easter Egg hidden in the ROMs. By jumping to address 0x41D89A (or reading from the ROM chips), it is possible to display four images of the engineering team.
Models.
Introduced March 2, 1987:
Introduced August 1, 1988:
Introduced August 1, 1989:


Apple II serial cards

Apple II serial cards primarily used the serial RS-232 protocol. They most often were used for communicating with printers, Modems, and less often for computer to computer data transfer. They could be programmed to interface with any number of external devices which were RS-232 compatible. Most serial cards had speed ranges starting from 110 bit/s up to 19,200 bit/s, however some could be modified to go much faster. The most popular and widely used of these cards was Apple Computer's Super Serial Card, a solid design that was often copied for maximum software compatibility of the end product.
Apple II Communications Card –.
The Apple II Communications Card is the original serial card from Apple Computer. Released in 1978 for $225, it was designed to work with modems utilizing acoustic couplers. It offered speeds of 110 and 300 bit/s but with a simple hardware modification (described in the manual accompanying the card) one could change this to 300 and 1200 bit/s, or 1200 and 4800 bit/s.
Apple II Serial Interface Card –.
The Apple II Serial Interface Card was released by Apple Computer shortly after the Communications Card, in August 1978. Designed for printing, this card had ROM revisions, P8 and P8A. The P8A ROM supported handshaking while the earlier P8 rom didn't. Unfortunately the P8A ROM revision was not compatible with some printers that worked under the original P8 ROM.
Serial Pro –.
The Serial Pro serial interface card from Applied Engineering was compatible with the Apple Super Serial Card. Unlike the Apple SSC, which used a jumper block to select printer mode or modem mode, the Serial Pro board had two connectors to which the card's ribbon cable could be connected, one for use with a printer and one for use with a modem.
The Serial Pro was a multifunction card which included a ProDOS and DOS 3.3 compatible clock/calendar, freeing up an extra slot for those with highly populated machines. This card was unique in the sense that it did not use "Phantom Slots" to achieve this functionality. Previous multifunction cards required that a secondary function be "mapped" to a different slot in the computer's memory, rendering that slot unusable.
If used with a dot-matrix printer, the Serial Pro offered several screen-print variations. It could print either HiRes page (or both in a single dump) normally, or print page one rotated or inverted.
The Serial Pro utilized the MOS Technology 6551 ACIA chip and offered serial baud rates from 50 bit/s to 19,200 bit/s. The lifespan of the card's battery (which retained configuration information and powered the clock chip when the computer was powered off) was touted as 20 years. The card retailed for $139 during the late 1980s.
"For more on the Serial Pro's clock capabilities, see its entry in Apple II system clocks."
Super Serial Card –.
Apple Computer's Super Serial Card, sometimes abbreviated as "SSC", is the most well known communication card made for the Apple II. Apple called it "Super" because it was able to function as both of Apple's previous cards, the Apple II Communications Card for modem use and the Apple II Serial Interface Card for printer use. A jumper block was used to configure the card for each of the two modes. The card has a maximum speed of 19,200 bit/s and is compatible with both ROM revisions of the Apple II Serial Interface Card. Reliable communications at 9600 bit/s and higher required disabling of interrupts. The card can actually run at 115,200 bit/s as well, using undocumented register settings; but speeds "between" 19,200 and 115,200 are not possible using this technique. The Super Serial Card was released in 1981 and utilizes the MOS Technology 6551 ACIA serial communications chip.
Other serial cards.
"Use this article for: Apple II multi I/O cards


TK82C

TK82C was a Sinclair ZX81 clone made by Microdigital Eletrônica Ltda., a computer company located in Brazil.
General information.
The TK82C had the ZILOG Z80A processor running at 3.25 MHz, 2 KB SRAM and 8 KB of EPROM with the BASIC interpreter. The keyboard was made of layers of conductive (membrane) material and followed the Sinclair pattern. The video output was sent via a RF modulator to a TV set tuned at VHF channel 3, and it featured black characters on a white background. The maximum resolution was 64 x 44 pixels black and white, for graphic plotting. There were some special characters (shade patterns) useful for games and basic images.
The TK82C included the SLOW function which permitted the video be shown during the processing (the prior version, TK82, a Sinclair ZX80 clone, ran only in fast mode, so the image was not shown during its processing). In reality, the SLOW function was done by an add-on board that was factory-mounted over the main board.
Although being a ZX81 clone, the TK82C did not have the ULA chip from Ferranti, used in the former. Instead it was manufactured with a dozen of TTL integrated circuits, which resulted in a somewhat large power consumption. This could be noted as the computer's case used to become quite hot after some minutes of operation.
Data Storage.
Data storage was done in audio cassette tapes at 300 bits per second, and large programs could take up to 6 minutes to load.
Audio cables were supplied with the computer for connection with a regular tape recorder.
As the data encoding was entirely done by software, some hacks were made available to allow much faster transfers. Hi-fi recorders were required in order to use the greater speeds with a minimum of reliability.
Compatibility and Legal Issues.
All software designed to the ZX81 could run in the TK82C with no problems, and vice versa. So it was not uncommon to find software distributed in Brazil, that were nothing more than illegitimate copies of products for the ZX81. However, given the TK82's popularity, a great deal of original software was developed in Brazil as well.
In 1983, Sinclair Research sued Microdigital over copyright violation because of the unauthorized cloning of its product. Due to political trends from that time, the Brazilian court in charge of the case sided with Microdigital.
Later Products.
The TK82C (the C letter stands for "Científico", or Scientific in English) was replaced by the TK83 (it used a ULA similar chip, as the original ZX81) and by the TK85 (a 16 KB RAM version with a case similar to ZX-Spectrum), more robust and with a better design.
Microdigital later produced the TK90X and TK95, which were clones of the ZX Spectrum.
Trivia.
TK82C is also a designation for a copier from Kyocera.


TK90X

The TK90X was the first Brazilian ZX Spectrum clone made in 1985 by Microdigital Electrônica, a company located in São Paulo, Brazil, that had manufactured some ZX81 clones (TK82C, TK83 and TK85) and ZX80 clones (TK80, TK82) before.
Technical details.
The case was a little taller than the original Spectrum and the keyboard placement was equal to the original keyboard, except for some additional commands that did not exist in the Spectrums (for characters defined by the user — UDG — in the place of the 'Pound' symbol, and the 'Trace' function in BASIC), and included specific Portuguese and Spanish characters such as ç and ñ, as well as accented vowels.
The two versions were the 16 KB and 48 KB of RAM. They contained the same processor (Z80A), running at 3.58 MHz and a ROM chip, some RAM chips (old dynamic RAMs 4116 and 4416). Microdigital reverse engineered a CMOS integrated circuit (IC) with similar functionality to the original Bipolar IC ULA from Sinclair/Ferranti. The modulator was tuned to VHF channel 3 and the TV system was hardware selectable to PAL-M (60 Hz) as used in Brazil, PAL-N (50 Hz) as used in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay and NTSC (60 Hz) as used in USA and many other countries.
An improvement over the original ZX Spectrum was the sound output via modulated RF direct to the TV set instead of the beeper.
Most software written for the Spectrum ran on the TK90X, with some minor incompatibilities. Only three peripherals were released by Microdigital — a Joystick, a light pen interface and a parallel printer interface.
A Beta disc (48) interface was made by third party companies, called 'C.A.S. disk drive interface' (a near-clone from the original Beta disc interface), 'C.B.I. disk drive interface' (with a printer interface included) and 'IDS91' (with a printer interface included made by Synchron) or 'IDS2001ne' (these exclusively compatible only with the TK90X or TK95 {no ZX Spectrum use possible}, also from Synchron, and also with a printer interface included).
TK95.
The TK90X was replaced by the TK95, which had a different keyboard (professional) and case (identical to the Commodore Plus4) and exactly the same circuit board and schematics. The motherboard was marked as TK90X. The unit had a few difference in the ROM that made the TK95 more compatible with the original ZX Spectrum. It used the same ULA chip, with only digital logic ports and the analogue part outside the ULA chip, exactly as in the TK90X. It was reported that the TK95 provided more compatibility with the original ZX Spectrum (e.g., the game Mikie runs only on the TK95, not on the TK90X), e.g., the D1 diode was disconnected and some changes to the ROM were made. Curiously, some games became incompatible due to this modification. TK90X users in Brazil used to make a switch to choose the original TK90X (or TK95) ROM or the ZX Spectrum ROM internally, so they could use almost all of the Spectrum's software.
Export model.
During that period, Brazilians were not allowed to import computers and therefore the TK90X became the first affordable color computer for Brazilians. It was successful in other Latin America countries, such as Uruguay and Argentina, but the export model used a different circuit board and schematics, and an original Ferrati ULA from the ZX Spectrum.
Because of its affordability, many commercial software programs were locally developed for the first time for use of small businesses in Latin America to run on the TK90X and millions of users had their first computer experience with it.


Breaking Tweets

Breaking Tweets was an international journalism news Web site that tracks world news through the use of Twitter and distributes its content via the Internet. It considered its content to be "hyperlocal gone global," personalizing major news events through relevant tweets from around the world.
After launching on January 31, 2009, the site launched three spin-off sites, Breaking Tweets Sports, Breaking Tweets Entertainment, and Breaking Tweets Chicago. The main site, the world version, received visits from 194 countries and more than 100 news organizations in its first six months.
Notable stories.
The site has been known to provide tweets sent from the scene of breaking news events. It posted tweets from the scene of an apparent attack on the Dutch Royal Family in the Netherlands on April 30, 2009.
The site was recognized by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies for its coverage of the Iranian Presidential Election, 2009, particularly its ability to provide information from Iran through a network of trusted sources. One day after the Poynter article was published, the site's founder claimed that Breaking Tweets was blocked in Iran.
It also posted tweets from the scene of the 2009 Jakarta bombings on July 17.
Reviews.
The site has been noted for its innovation in the journalism community. In addition to recognition for its coverage of the Iran Election, The Poynter Institute for Media Studies also reviewed the site in April 2009, stating its usefulness "organizing the scattershot universe of all Tweets into comprehensible topics about specific places, times, and reaction to news events." Journalism.co.uk highlighted the site's ability to personalize the news in its review.
Other reviews on the site have been posted by blogs around the world. The biggest criticism of the site is that it is operated in English only.
A blog in Russia mentioned the language barrier but also said the site was "very creative."
A French blog called Breaking Tweets "a mashup of a hot news with tweets directly linked to this news", stating that tweets are manually selected by journalists and "arranged so that they fit in a natural way in an article to tell the story authentically."
The site has also been reviewed by blogs in Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and Greece.
The class.
Students at DePaul University contributed to Breaking Tweets in the fall of 2009 as part of the class "Digital Editing: From Breaking News to Tweets", which DePaul says is "believed to be the first college-level journalism course focused solely on Twitter and its applications".
Breaking Tweets was specifically mentioned in articles about the class by the "Los Angeles Times", "Wall Street Journal", Gawker, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.


Pentax MZ-D

The Pentax MZ-D, also known by its internal code name of MR-52, was a prototype digital single-lens reflex camera from Pentax of Japan. It was announced at photokina in September 2000 and was demonstrated to the press at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show in January 2001. In October 2001, Pentax cancelled the camera, stating "The cost of manufacturing the prototype SLR 6-megapixel digital camera meant it was not a viable product for our target market"
The MZ-D was derived from the top-of-the-line Pentax film camera of the time, the MZ-S. To give space for the extra circuitry and battery power required for a digital camera, the MZ-D shape incorporated the size and shape of the MZ-S' optional battery booster and vertical grip. It also shared the Pentax KAF2 lens mount.
The MZ-D was to use the same 6 megapixel (3072×2048) full 135 film frame sized (24×36 mm) CCD (model FTF3020-C) from Philips that was used by the Contax N Digital. The lack of success of that camera and the image quality problems it displayed suggest to some that Pentax may have had other reasons than cost to cancel the MZ-D project. <br>
Michael Reichmann of "The Luminous Landscape" stated, "For whatever their reasons Pentax decided that they couldn't build a camera with this chip, while Contax decided to forge ahead. To save face? Possibly. We'll likely never know for sure"
In 2003, Pentax released a different design 6 MP APS-C sensor size DSLR, the Pentax *istD.


Micral

Micral is a series of microcomputers produced by the French company Réalisation d'Études Électroniques (), beginning with the Micral N in early 1973. The Micral N was the first commercially available microprocessor-based computer.
In 1986, three judges at The Computer Museum, Boston – Apple II designer and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Wozniak, early MITS employee and "PC World" publisher David Bunnell, and the museum's associate director and curator Oliver Strimpel – awarded the title of "first personal computer using a microprocessor" to the 1973 Micral. The Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor (in this case, the Intel 8008).
The Computer History Museum currently says that the Micral is one of the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computers. The 1971 Kenbak-1, invented before the first microprocessor, is considered to be the world's first "personal computer". That machine did not have a one-chip CPU but instead was based purely on small-scale integration TTL chips.
Micral N.
R2E founder André Truong Trong Thi (EFREI degree, Paris), a French immigrant from Vietnam, asked Frenchman François Gernelle to develop the Micral N computer for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), starting in June 1972. Alain Perrier of INRA was looking for a computer for process control in his crop evapotranspiration measurements. The software was developed by Benchetrit. Beckmann designed the I/O boards and controllers for peripheral magnetic storage. Lacombe was responsible for the memory system, I/O high speed channel, power supply and front panel. Gernelle invented the Micral N, which was much smaller than existing minicomputers. The January 1974 Users Manual called it "the first of a new generation of mini-computer whose principal feature is its very low cost," and said, "MICRAL's principal use is in process control. It does not aim to be an universal mini-computer."
The computer was to be delivered in December 1972, and Gernelle, Lacombe, Benchetrit and Beckmann had to work in a cellar in Châtenay-Malabry for 18 hours a day in order to deliver the computer in time. The software, the ROM-based MIC 01 monitor and the ASMIC 01 assembler, was written on an Intertechnique Multi-8 minicomputer using a cross assembler. The computer was based on an Intel 8008 microprocessor clocked at 500 kHz. It had a backplane bus, called the "Pluribus" with 74-pin connector. 14 boards could be plugged in a Pluribus. With two Pluribus, the Micral N could support up to 24 boards. The computer used MOS memory instead of core memory. The Micral N could support parallel and serial input/output. It had 8 levels of interrupt and a stack. The computer was programmed with punched tape, and used a teleprinter or modem for I/O. The front panel console was optional, offering customers the option of designing their own console to match a particular application. It was delivered to the INRA in January 1973, and commercialized in February 1973 for FF 8,500 (about $1,750) making it a cost-effective replacement for minicomputers which augured the era of the PC.
France had produced the first microcomputer. A year would pass before the first North American microcomputer, SCELBI, was advertised in the March 1974 issue of "QST", an amateur radio magazine.
Indeed, INRA was originally planning to use PDP-8 computers for process control, but the Micral N could do the same for a fifth of the cost. An 8-inch floppy disk reader was added to the Micral in December 1973, following a command of the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique. This was made possible by the pile-canal, a buffer that could accept one megabyte per second. In 1974, a keyboard and screen were fitted to the Micral computers. A hard disk (first made by CAELUS then by Diablo) became available in 1975. In 1979, the Micral 8031 D was equipped with a 5" 1/4 inches hard disk of 5 Megabytes made by Shugart.
Later models.
Following the April 1974 introduction of the Intel 8080, R2E introduced the second and third Micral models, 8080-based at 1 MHz, the Micral G and Micral S.
In November 1975, R2E signed Warner & Swasey Company as the exclusive manufacturer and marketer of the Micral line in the United States and Canada. Warner & Swasey marketed its Micral-based system for industrial data processing applications such as engineering data analysis, accounting and inventory control. R2E and Warner & Swasey displayed the Micral M multiple microcomputer system at the June 1976 National Computer Conference. The Micral M consists of up to eight Micral S microcomputers, each with its own local memory and sharing the common memory so the local and common memory look like one monolithic memory for each processor. The system has a distributed multiprocessor operating system R2E said was based on sharing common resources and real-time task management.
Some time after the July 1976 introduction of the Zilog Z80, came the Z80-based Micral CZ. The 8080-based Micral C, an intelligent CRT terminal designed for word processing and automatic typesetting, was introduced in July 1977. It has two Shugart SA400 minifloppy drives and a panel of system control and sense switches below the minifloppy drives. Business application language (BAL) and FORTRAN are supported. By October, R2E had set up an American subsidiary, R2E of America, in Minneapolis. The Micral V Portable (1978) could run FORTRAN and assembler under the Sysmic operating system, or BAL. The original Sysmic operating system was renamed Prologue in 1978. Prologue was able to perform real-time multitasking, and was a multi-user system. R2E offered CP/M for the Micral C in 1979.
The R2E Micral CCMC portable Portal microcomputer made its official appearance in September 1980 at the SICOB show in Paris. It was designed and marketed by the studies and developments department of François Gernelle of the french firm R2E Micral at the request of the company CCMC specializing in payroll and accounting. The Portal was based on an Intel 8085 processor, 8-bit, clocked at 2 MHz. It weighed 12Kg and its dimensions were 45cm x 45cm x 15cm, It provided total mobility. Its operating system was Prologue.
Later Micrals used the Intel 8088. The last Micral designed by François Gernelle was the 9020. In 1981, R2E was bought by Groupe Bull. Starting with the Bull Micral 30, which could use both Prologue and MS-DOS, Groupe Bull transformed the Micral computers into a line of PC compatibles. François Gernelle left Bull in 1983.
Legacy.
Truong's R2E sold about 90,000 units of the Micral that were mostly used in vertical applications such as highway toll booths and process control.
Litigation followed after Truong started claiming that he alone invented the first personal computer. The courts did not judge in favor of Truong, who was declared "the businessman, but not the inventor", giving in 1998 the sole claim as inventor of the first personal computer to Gernelle and the R2E engineering team.
In the mid-1970s, Philippe Kahn was a programmer for the Micral. Kahn later headed Borland which released Turbo Pascal and Sidekick in 1983.
Paul G. Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates, bought a Micral N by the auctioneer Rouillac at the Artigny Castle in France, on June 11, 2017 for his Seattle museum .


Relay computer


MacroMind

MacroMind was an Apple Macintosh software company founded in Chicago in 1984 by Marc Canter, Jamie Fenton and Mark Stephen Pierce. The company's first product was SoundVision, a combined music and graphics editor. Before the release, the graphics editor was removed, and SoundVision became MusicWorks. Along with other early programs, MusicWorks was originally distributed by Hayden Software.
In 1988 the company moved to San Francisco, and in 1991 MacroMind merged with Paracomp to become MacroMind-Paracomp, then in 1992 merged with Authorware, Inc forming Macromedia.


TRS-80 Model 4

The TRS-80 Model 4 is the last Z80-based home computer family by Radio Shack, sold from April 1983 through late 1991.
Model 4.
Tandy Corporation introduced the TRS-80 Model 4 in April 1983 as the successor to the TRS-80 Model III. The Model 4 has a faster Z80A 4 MHz CPU, larger video display of 80 columns by 24 rows, bigger keyboard, and can be upgraded to 128KB of RAM. It is compatible with Model III software and CP/M application software. The Model 4 was announced in the same April 1983 press release as was the TRS-80 Model 100 laptop. The two computers were often marketed by Tandy/Radio Shack as a complementary pair.
A diskless Model 4 with 16KB RAM cost $999; with 64KB RAM and one single-sided 180K disk drive it cost $1699; with 64KB RAM and two drives it cost $1999. An upgrade for Model III owners cost $799 and provided a new motherboard and keyboard.
The Model 4's first appearance in the Radio Shack catalog stated: "Yes, it looks like a Model III, but it's much much more. Compare the price and features of our amazing new Model 4 to any other computer in its class. You'll find that for power, versatility, and convenience it is a true breakthrough. To add the same features to other computers, you'd have to pay a whole lot more." Commenting on its unexpected longevity as a Radio Shack product and object of aftermarket support by third-party companies, in May 1987 "80 Micro" magazine remarked, "Even when it was introduced in 1983, the Model 4 was seen as a last gasp for the TRS-80 line."
Overview.
The computer has the same all-in-one cabinet as the Model III, adopting a more contemporary-looking beige color scheme instead of the black and gray used on the Models I/III. The Model 4 uses WD1770/1773 floppy controllers instead of the WD1791, which allows for a larger gap between the index hole and first sector; later releases of TRSDOS and LDOS were modified for compatibility with the controller.
The Model 4 shipped with TRSDOS 6, identical to Logical Systems's LDOS 6.00 third-party operating system (itself an enhancement to older versions of TRSDOS). When the Model 4 boots into TRSDOS 6, the video display switches into 80×24 mode and the entire 64KB address space is mapped as RAM.
Misosys Inc. sold a Model 4 Hardware Interface Kit which enables the extra keys on the Model 4 keyboard, and in a 128 KB Model 4, the banked memory. Intellitech sold a program called Supermod4 that allows Model III programs running on a Model 4 to activate the 4 megahertz CPU clock, larger video display, the speaker and the function keys. In August 1985 "80 Micro" magazine published a DoubleDuty-like task switching program that activates the external RAM banks on a 128 KB Model 4 from within Model III mode.
The Model 4 can run CP/M without modification, unlike the Model I and III. Digital Research produced a version of CP/M 3.0 for the Model 4. Montezuma Micro sold a version of CP/M 2.2 that was customized for the Model 4's hardware: banked RAM, reverse video and assignable codes for the function keys. It has a utility for reading and writing CP/M disk formats of many other brands of computer. Montezuma sold a terminate-stay-resident program they called Monte's Window, which provides functionality similar to Borland Sidekick. Its code resided entirely in the banked RAM of a 128K Model 4; no user memory was occupied.
DoubleDuty was made only for the Model 4, marketed by Radio Shack. This is one of the first task-switching programs available for a microcomputer. It uses the upper 64KB of a 128KB machine to keep resident a second TRSDOS application, which can be switched instantly with another application loaded into the main 64KB. A third partition is available for TRSDOS library commands, such as DIR. DoubleDuty first appeared in Radio Shack's 1985 Computer Catalog (RSC-12), the same year that IBM's Topview, Apple's Switcher, and Quarterdeck's DESQview first became available. DoubleDuty was written by Randy Cook, the author of the first version of TRSDOS for the original Model I.
Early versions of the Model 4 mainboard were designed to accept a Zilog Z800 16 bit CPU upgrade board to replace the Z80 8 bit CPU but this option was never released. In 1987 H.I. Tech produced an enhanced CPU board, the XLR8er, using the Hitachi HD64180 Z80-compatible processor.
Reception.
Tandy sold 71,000 Model 4 computers in 1984. "BYTE" in October 1983 noted the lack of native software, but praised the Model 4's backwards compatibility and TRSDOS 6's new features. The magazine concluded that the Model 4 "provides a lot of flexible computing power ... Radio Shack has a guaranteed winner". "Creative Computing" chose the Model 4 as the best desktop computer under $2000 for 1984, stating that the $1299 price for a system with two disk drives was "a real bargain".
Gate Array Model 4.
The original version of the Model 4 (Radio Shack catalog number 26-1069) does not use gate array logic chips on its CPU board, but rather Programmable Array Logic chips (PALs). Starting from late 1984, a revised version was produced which came to be known as the Gate Array Model 4 (catalog number 26-1069A). This change greatly reduced the chip count and allows the circuitry for the Floppy Disk Controller and the RS-232 serial port to be included on the CPU board (making this new Model 4 a single-board computer, unlike the original 26-1069).
Model 4P.
The Model 4P (September 1983, Radio Shack catalog number 26-1080), is a self-contained luggable unit. It has all the features of the desktop Model 4 except for the ability to add two outboard floppy disk drives and the interface for cassette tape storage (audio sent to the cassette port in Model III mode goes to the internal speaker). It was sold with the two internal single-sided 180KB drives. It was later made with the Gate Array technology (catalog number 26-1080A). "80 Micro" published an article describing a simple motherboard modification to enable the installation of two external floppy drives.
The 4P's video monitor is 9" in size compared to the Model 4's 12". The smaller size, and sharper dots, produce better video output. The computer is compatible with popular internal Model 4 peripherals, and has a slot for an internal modem board. The Radio Shack modem uses its own proprietary command set and only supports communications at 300 baud. Teletrends produced a 1200 baud that uses the Hayes command set.
Tandy discontinued the 4P by early 1985, stating that "even though you won't find a more enthusiastic and devoted group of owners than our Model 4P folks, transportables just weren't moving well for any company that also sold a desktop version".
Reception.
"InfoWorld" in 1983 predicted that the 4P would be a "smashing success" as a "substantial improvement" on the Model 4's video and keyboard. The magazine said that it was "truly a transportable computer" and approved of the "carefully thought-out mechanical design", not too large or small. Although criticizing the computer's lack of advanced documentation or double-sided drives, "InfoWorld" concluded that the 4P "is an outstanding product at an excellent price".
Model 4D.
The final version of the Model 4 is the Model 4D (Radio Shack catalog number 26-1070), first sold in 1985. It is a Gate Array desktop machine featuring dual TEC FB-503 disk drives with a capacity of 360KB each (double density sectors, 40 track, double-sided). Rather than using a lever-style latch as had previous Model 4 drives, these drives use a twist-style latch that provides for more reliable clamping. They are half-height drives mounted with full-height faceplates.
The DeskMate productivity suite is bundled with the 4D. It supplies simple applications including a word processor, filer, spreadsheet, calendar, and mail manager.
Later Misosys, Inc. updated LS-DOS 6.3 to support dates through December 31, 2011 (as well as a few other enhancements). The Model III LDOS 5.1.4 was also updated to version 5.3, supporting the same feature set as LS-DOS 6.3.
The Model 4D is the last computer descended from Radio Shack's original Model I from 1977 but it is not branded as a Radio Shack product. The badge mounted on its front cover brands it as the "Tandy TRS-80 Model 4D". This change in marketing resulted from Tandy corporation's desire to enhance its stature in the marketplace, because it was perceived by some in the computer press that the old "Radio Shack" moniker connoted an image of inferior quality. The Model 4D is the last computer to bear the "TRS-80" name. It retailed for $1199 at its introduction in 1985. During 1987–1988 the retail stores removed the Model 4Ds from display but they were kept in the yearly computer catalog and were available by special order through 1991, when they were closed out for $599. Parts and repair service remained available for several years longer.


Chimera (video game)

Chimera is an action-adventure video game written by Shahid Ahmad and published by Firebird in 1985.
Plot.
A huge spaceship threatens to destroy Earth. One person must board the vessel and activate its self-destruct mechanism to make it explode, saving Earth.
Gameplay.
In "Chimera", the player moves through an isometric maze of 8 x 8 screens. The player must gain access to hidden or blocked areas of the spaceship, often by finding items in order to circumvent various obstacles. Once the obstacles are disabled, the player may use items to create a warhead and carry it to one of the "blue" rooms of the ship. Upon activation of all four warheads, the player must reach the green room in order to complete the quest.
The player must also avoid running out of food or water, which are consumed more quickly while carrying something or when in a hot room. Both water and food can be found in the maze occasionally. If the player runs out of food or water, or tries to disable an obstacle with an incorrect item, the player dies and loses the game.
Upon completion of the game, the player receives a key combination granting access to a bonus game in which the player has to shoot at a row of items (similar to "Space Invaders"). It has been said that the bonus game on the Atari 800 crashed due to a programming error. However, the game's author claimed that the Atari 800 bonus game, "A Different Kettle of Fish", was working when the software was shipped to the publisher, Firebird Software.
Reception.
"Chimera is definitely graphically and sonically superior [...] but the gameplay is unfortunately [...] weak."<br>
Gary Penn in "Zzap!" issue jan. 1986
Legacy.
Twenty-five years after the release of "Chimera", original game designer Shahid Ahmad announced he was working on the 25th Anniversary Edition of the game, entitled "Chimera 2010", which was never completed. On 3 September 2017, Ahmad announced a VR spinoff "Chimera Zero" saying, "The only things "Chimera Zero" has in common with the 1985 original are the name, robots and an unashamedly sci-fi setting."


LIRC

LIRC (Linux Infrared remote control) is an open source package that allows users to receive and send infrared signals with a Linux-based computer system.
There is a Microsoft Windows equivalent of LIRC called WinLIRC.
With LIRC and an IR receiver the user can control their computer with almost any infrared remote control (e.g. a TV remote control). The user may for instance control DVD or music playback with their remote control.
One GUI frontend is KDELirc, built on the KDE libraries.


NetPresenz

NetPresenz, written by Peter N. Lewis for Stairways Software Pty Ltd, is a World Wide Web and FTP server developed for use on the classic Mac OS. It is an update of an older product called simply FTPd, at the time the most significant FTP daemon available for the Macintosh platform, with added Web and Gopher functionality.
Originally a shareware package, NetPresenz was rendered obsolete by increasing functionality in the Mac OS and has been made freeware. It does not work on macOS.


System suitcase

The System suitcase is one of two principal files comprising the classic Mac OS from the original release to OS 9.2.2, the other being the Macintosh Finder. The suitcase is located in the System Folder along with the Finder file and contains keyboard layouts, FKEY resources, sounds, and in System 6, bitmap fonts, and Desk Accessories. In versions released up to and including System 6, the Font/DA Mover has to be used to move these into or out of the System suitcase.
During the development System 7 and subsequent releases, many of the user-serviceable items stored in the System suitcase were moved into separate folders. For System 7, individual file types can contain these resources, allowing sounds, fonts, and desk accessories to be moved into separate files, and the Finder can open and modify the contents of such files. Opening a sound file causes the Finder to play the sound, opening a font shows a preview of the font being used, and the operating system treats Desk Accessories as if they were applications. Along with the Control Panels folder, Desk Accessories are located in the Apple Menu Items folder. System 7.1 includes the Fonts folder, which loads all resources (including fonts) contained in font files or font suitcases found within the Fonts folder as if they were part of the System suitcase.
Easter eggs.
In System 6, the string "Help! Help! We're being held prisoner in a system software factory!" appears in the data fork of the System file. During System 7 development, it was updated to "Help! Help! We're still being held prisoner in a system software factory!". Later versions of System 7 contain other variations of the message. A list of credits also follows in each case.


Autonetics Recomp II

The Autonetics RECOMP II was a computer first introduced in 1958. It was made by the Autonetics division of North American Aviation.
It was attached to a desk that housed the input/output devices. Its desk integration made it a hands-on small system intended for the scientific and engineering computing market. The computer weighed about , including input-output.
Architecture.
It had a 40-bit word size, 20-bit instruction size. Memory and registers were on a fixed head disk that operated like a drum memory—4080 words on standard tracks, 16 words on fast loop tracks, registers A, B, R, X each on their own high-speed loop track, and one prerecorded read only clock track.
It had a complete set of built-in floating point operations, including square root. Floating-point values used two words, one for the exponent and one for the fraction for a total of 80 bits.
Whereas the full 40-bit word was used for data, instructions were only 20 bits long and were stored two per word. Since indexing was commonly done by modifying the address part of an instruction (say, by adding one to access the next data item in a list), such instructions always had to be in the second half-word, and the first half-word was padded with a NOP instruction. Programmers also used these NOP instructions to provide space for future inserted instructions, since the assembler did not allow for use of symbolic addresses, and the insertion of a single instruction could otherwise require rewriting a lot of code.
The machine had a bit-serial architecture.
Punched paper tape was the external storage medium. The desk also had an electronic typewriter for printed output and a keyboard integrated with the system console to allow typed input and system control. Programs written in machine code could be input to the system from the console.


Motorola Xoom

The Motorola Xoom is an Android-based tablet computer by Motorola, introduced at CES 2011 on January 5, 2011. It was the first tablet to be sold with Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The Verizon branded Xoom was the first tablet to run Android 3.1. The Motorola Xoom went through the FCC on February 10, 2011 only 14 days before release. The 3G version was released on February 24, 2011, and the Wi-Fi version was released March 27, 2011. It was announced concurrently with three other products: the Motorola Atrix, the Motorola Droid Bionic, and the Motorola Cliq 2. CNET named it the "Best of the CES" 2011.
Its successor, the Motorola Xyboard, Xoom 2 in the UK, was announced in October 2011, and released in November.
Features.
The Xoom supports up to 720p video playback. It features a 2 MP front-facing camera for video chatting over Wi-Fi or cellular Internet and a rear-facing 5 MP camera that records 720p video. The Xoom has a 1280×800 pixels widescreen, 10.1-inch display and 3D graphics acceleration, as well as HDMI-out. It features the Gorilla Glass resistant coating.
It includes a variety of sensors, including a gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, and a barometer. The Xoom uses an Nvidia Tegra 2 SoC T20 chip.
The Xoom reportedly has trouble trying to communicate with the Windows XP operating system via USB cable unless Windows Media Player is updated past version 10. This issue is not present in
Windows 7.
Media.
The Motorola Xoom supports the following formats:
Software.
The Motorola Xoom was the first device to run Google's tablet specific OS, Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
Both the Wi-Fi and Verizon branded Xoom ran Google's Android 3.2 Honeycomb, which introduced new features including a redesigned, tablet-optimized user interface, a 3D desktop purportedly taken from BumpTop (which Google acquired in April 2010), improved task-switching, a newly redesigned notification system, Google Maps 5 in 3D and browser enhancements including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill and bookmark syncing.
The Canadian Wi-Fi Xoom currently has the 4.0.3 update (and will not get any future updates) and the UK Wi-Fi Xoom had the 3.2 update as of July 2012.
On February 23, Motorola Mobility announced that the Motorola Xoom would break its policy of locking down its devices by providing the gadget with an "unlockable/relockable bootloader that will enable developers to access hardware for development."
After Google released the source code to Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich", Motorola announced that a number of its formerly released mobile devices would get the update, including the Xoom. The Android 4.0.3 update for the Wi-Fi Xoom was released in the US on January 18, 2012. The corresponding update to the Verizon-branded Xoom was released on June 4, 2012.
On June 27, 2012 at the Google I/O conference, it was announced that the Xoom would be one of the first devices to receive an upgrade to Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean", along with the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus, beginning by the middle of July 2012. The corresponding update to the Verizon Wireless-branded Xoom 4G was in August 2013.
Google will not officially release Jelly Bean 4.2 to the Xoom, however there are unofficial CyanogenMod releases with Android 4.4.2.
Accessories.
The Motorola Xoom supports docking stations for charging and as a stand for viewing video. It also features Bluetooth keyboard support.
Available accessories include: Motorola Xoom portfolio case, dock, HD stereo dock, wireless keyboard.
It was announced that microSD Card Slot is enabled with Android 3.2 Update. Motorola Xoom tablet did not support Flash on Day 1 of its release in US on February 22, 2011. Before release, no official statement has indicated whether the microSD slot will support SDHC or SDXC card families. Early on Motorola also touted the ability to upgrade to 4G as a major selling point versus other tablets. However, it was revealed through a leaked internal memo in late July 2011, that the upgrade would not be available until at least September 2011. Many early adopters to the Xoom tablet were upset that the upgrade will not be available more than 6 months after Xoom's debut.
On September 29, 2011 Verizon Wireless began the 4G upgrade process. This upgrade takes approximately six days. Starting October 11, 2011, Verizon began selling the Xoom with 4G pre-installed.
Super Bowl commercial.
Motorola aired a television spot during Super Bowl XLV in 2011 that was designed as a satire of Apple's landmark Super Bowl ad "1984". Titled "Empower the People", it depicted a dystopia in which all of humanity wears white hoodies and are plugged into iPods, a jab at how Apple products had achieved cult-like status and practically ubiquitous market penetration.
The following week, a minor controversy erupted when Los Angeles filmmaker Mike Sarrow claimed that he had, in fact, originated the commercial's idea first. In 2009, he shot a short film portraying a dystopian world where everyone is plugged into iPods to the point that all human conversation has ceased. The controversy was reported on numerous tech news websites, including CNET and Engadget, though no concrete evidence of intellectual property was presented, merely some suspicious similarities, including a nearly identical ending shot. The filmmaker chose not to pursue Motorola legally, using the similarity only as publicity for his work.
Reception.
The device's hardware received praise from reviewers; "Engadget", "PC World" and CNET all said that the Xoom's performance was as good as, or superior to, competing products. The user experience with the installed software was mixed. Android 3.0 was praised for "coming together in a far more cohesive manner than any previous iteration of the software," according to "Engadget", and being "the most polished Google software effort to date," according to PC World, as many other Android tablets used Android 2.3 which was designed for smartphones while Android 3.0 was intended for tablets. CNET said that in some areas the software seemed overly complex, and "Engadget" said that "a lot of the new software feels like it isn't quite out of beta."
The Xoom's initial pricing attracted criticism since it was more expensive than its equivalent iPad 2 model. Both "Engadget" and "PC World" cited the price as a drawback, and CNET said that with the launch pricing, "the Xoom's appeal will be limited to early adopters and Android loyalists."
Sales.
Xoom was estimated by Deutsche Bank analysts to have sold about 100,000 units during the first 6 weeks of availability. On April 28, 2011, Motorola announced during Q1 2011 earnings conference calls that over 250,000 units of Xoom were shipped to retail channels during the quarter.
In July 2011, Motorola lowered the price tag for Xoom Wi-Fi from $600 to $500 and then Xoom 3G from $800 to $600.
Motorola revealed through its Q2 2011 earnings report that it shipped 440,000 Xoom units during the prior 3 months. Unit shipment subsequently dropped to 100,000 units in Q3 2011 and rebounded slightly to 200,000 units in Q4 2011. According to a financial statement released on May 1, 2012, Motorola shipped approximately 100,000 units in Q1 2012.


ICL 2905


Vector Graphic

Vector Graphic was an early microcomputer company founded in 1976, the same year as Apple Computer, during the pre-IBM PC era, along with the NorthStar Horizon, IMSAI, and MITS Altair.
History.
The first product was a memory card for the S-100 bus. A full microcomputer using the Z80 microprocessor, the Vector 1, was introduced in 1977. There were several Vector Graphic models produced. The Vector 1+ had a floppy disk drive. The Vector Graphic 3 had a fixed keyboard housed anchoring a combined screen terminal and CPU case. The Vector Graphic 4 was a transitional 8-bit and 16-bit hybrid model.
Although primarily used with the CP/M operating system, the Vector 3 ran several others including OASIS, Micropolis Disk Operating System (MDOS), and Micropolis Z80 Operating System (MZOS).
Early Vector Graphic models used the Micropolis floppy disk controller and Micropolis floppy disk drives. Later models were designed with the integrated floppy drive-hard drive controller and used Tandon floppy drives. Almost all used unusual 100-track per inch 5 ¼-inch floppy drives and 16-sector hard sector media. Some models included 8-inch floppy drives and hard disk drives.
Vector Graphic sales peaked in 1982, by which time the company was publicly traded, at $36 million. It faltered soon after due to several factors. The introduction of the IBM PC in August 1981 shifted the market and smaller players lost momentum. The Vector 4 was accidentally pre-announced in April 1982, the same month that founder and chief hardware designer Robert Harp left the company after a dispute with co-founder (and wife) Lore Harp over control of the company. The early announcement of the Vector 4, which had a separate keyboard tethered to the computer (as opposed to a combined keyboard and terminal) resulted in a sharp decrease in sales of the Vector 3 as customers delayed purchases up to six months until the new product was available. In addition, the company had decided to use the CP/M operating system in the Vector 4, which they considered a superior operating system than MDOS; management recognized the nature of their gamble, as IBM would move the market in a different direction if it elected to use the DOS operating system for their competing product, the IBM 8080. The gamble did not pay off, and by the end of 1984 Lore Harp was gone and venture capital investors took over. By summer 1985 only three dozen employees remained, down from a peak of 425 workers in 1982. Ultimately, the Vector Graphic headquarters and assembly factory, across from a 17-person company (Amgen) and next to the 101 freeway, was converted into a Home Depot store. Chapter 11 bankruptcy followed in December 1985. A sought-for merger partner was not found and chapter 7 liquidation of remaining assets resulted in October 1987.
Vector Graphic computers had many innovations, such as the Flashwriter integrated video and keyboard controller. Vector Graphic was known for their Memorite word processing application. When combined with the Flashwriter, the Vector Graphic Memorite software gave low-cost word processing capability, which had previously only been available with dedicated word processors.
As of 2007, Vector Graphic still had a small but active user community.


Design Master Senshi Mangajukuu

The (Simply called as "Denshi Manga Juku") is a touchscreen handheld game console developed by Bandai and released in Japan on 1995 during the fifth generation of video game consoles.
Overview.
On March 3rd, 1995 Bandai released a new portable gaming console geared towards children. It was called the Bandai Design Master Denshi Mangajuku (電子 漫画 塾), the first touch screen console ever created.
Nine cartridges were made for the system, although only eight were released to retail and that four of them are considered as games, with the rest being made in the design/manga carts which contained various licensed characters you can use representations of in the actual games by piggy-backing the design carts onto a game cart. The games themselves are mostly basic and were either basic RPG battle games, or simple drawing programs.
On August 4, 2020, the video game preservation group "Gaming Alexandria" announced that they made dumps and scans of the system and all of its nine available cartridges before then in a period of November 2019 to February 2020.


Lazer Maze

Lazer Maze is a 1982 puzzle video game written by James D. Spain and published by Avant-Garde Creations.
Gameplay.
"Lazer Maze" is a game in which the player engages in futuristic one-to-one combat between two warriors of opposing parties.
Reception.
Stanley Greenlaw reviewed the game for "Computer Gaming World", and stated that "LM is a different kind of game and for that reason alone is worth looking at. It is a worthy addition to the arcade game field."


Big Trouble in Little China (video game)

Big Trouble in Little China is a side-scrolling beat 'em up designed by Mevlut Dinc and published by Electric Dreams Software in 1986 for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum. It is a tie-in licence for the film of the same name.
Gameplay.
The player controls one of the three main protagonists and may switch between them during play. The characters progresses from right to left – an unusual orientation in this genre of game – fighting oncoming enemies. Initially, the three characters fight unarmed, but each has a weapon of choice that can be collected. Jack Burton can use a gun with limited ammunition, and Wang Chi can wield swords which eventually break. The third character, Egg Shen, initially fires weak magic bolts which improve with range and strength when he finds a magic potion.
Reception.
"Big Trouble in Little China" received diverse critical reception. "Your Sinclair" awarded 8 out of 10, highlighting smooth scrolling and good sprite animation, only criticising the unbalanced difficulty with some enemies. In a later retrospective on tie-in licences, "Your Sinclair" found the animation to be poor, with little variety in enemy types, and amended their score to 52%. Conversely, "Sinclair User" gave only 1 star out of 5, describing the characters as poorly depicted, with no atmosphere or sound effects.


FRED (disk magazine)

FRED was a disk-based magazine for the SAM Coupé brand of computer. It was owned and run by Colin Macdonald during the 1990s and lasted for 82 issues.


SiSU

SiSU (SiSU information structuring universe or Structured information, serialized units), is a Unix command line-oriented framework for document structuring, publishing and search.
Usage.
Using markup applied to a document, or a collection of documents, SiSU can produce plain text, HTML, XHTML, EPUB, XML, OpenDocument, LaTeX or PDF files, and populate an SQL database.
Document structuring
SiSU offers its user a way to structure plain text and to add graphics, hyperlinks, endnotes, footnotes etc. with simple text editing programs such as Notepad (Windows), TextEdit (Mac) or Gedit (GNU/Linux). The lightweight markup language is mnemonic and human readable.
To process the marked up document(s) with SiSU, the user issues a command via the command-line of the computer terminal. The output can be generated in multiple formats (html, pdf, epub, and others) with one single command.
Publishing and self-publishing
A document, or a collection of documents, which has been processed by SiSU is technically ready to be published on the web, or printed on paper. Canadian author Cory Doctorow, for instance, has used SiSU as a publishing tool and blogged about it. In a newspaper article, Doctorow called SiSU an "automated ebook workflow tool".
Earlier examples of webpublishing with SiSU are "Projet de traité instituant l'Union Européenne / Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union" and the novel Tainaron by Finnish author Leena Krohn.
Search
SiSU can populate an SQL database with "objects" (equating generally to paragraph-sized chunks) so searches may be performed and matches returned with that degree of granularity (e.g. your search criteria are met by these documents and at these locations within each document). Document output formats share a common object numbering system for locating content. This is particularly suitable for "published" works (finalized texts as opposed to works that are frequently changed or updated) for which it provides a fixed means of reference of content.
History.
SiSU has been under development since 1997, and written in Ruby since 2000. It was released under the GPL in January 2005. SiSU developed out of work done on a project started earlier on documents related to (primarily private) international commercial law and international trade law started in 1993 on a site known then as Ananse, and more recently as LexMercatoria
SiSU first open source was on January 5, 2005, and to Debian was in July 2005. SiSU version 1 was released December 2009. SiSU version 2 was released March 2010. Version 2 features a new processing engine. Markup remains substantially identical between versions, apart from changes to the markup for document headers (which contain document metadata and processing instructions). Both version 1 and 2 text processing engines are available in the version 2 tarball. Development takes place on the version 2 branch. Version 1 is available to guarantee compatibility with older prepared texts (prior to the updating of document headers), and as an earlier reference implementation.


Sharp Willcom D4

Introduction.
The Sharp Willcom D4 is an Ultra-Mobile PC, or UMPC made by Sharp Corporation and sold only in Japan.
It is capable of running Windows 8 with the touch-friendly Metro-UI. All of the components are supported in Win8. Due to the default partitioning the device will run out of disk space on the system partition if the users installs all recommended Windows Vista and Microsoft Office updates - even if no other software was ever installed. Sharp support advised users to change the partitioning by removing or at least reducing the size of the second visible (data) partition. The recovery partition is recommended to be kept for disaster recovery - although such recovery will result in the original problem - the system partition being too small. The case is rubberized with a chemical process - which originally gave it a nice haptic feel and good grip. However - now that more than a decade has passed the rubberized coat has decayed into a sticky mass which makes it unpleasant to touch the device. The sticky chemical residue can be removed with gasoline and loads of rubbing. Extreme care should be taken with the rubber seals that protect the USB and display ports - since these also dissolve in gasoline.


Novastorm

Novastorm is a rail shooter developed by Psygnosis in 1994. A version for the FM-Towns/Marty systems had previously been released under the name "Scavenger 4".
Plot.
The game takes place some time in the distant future. Humans have left earth in several huge arks containing Earth's ecosystem, in search of a new paradise. They have become complacent: everything is controlled by artificial intelligence, while the human race sleeps and dreams of its new home. The computer systems evolve, however, and prophetize of a conquest of silicon against flesh.
The player takes control of the Scavenger 4 squadron, which has a mission to destroy the deadly Scarab-X forces, in the last hope for the human race.
Gameplay.
The gameplay is similar to many other FMV based games of the time. The player takes control of the Scavenger 4 spacecraft over 4 different environments. Each level ends with a boss fight, which the player must complete to proceed.
During the course of each level, the player gets attacked by groups (of about 2-5) of a particular enemy. Taking out every enemy in a particular group produces a token of bronze, silver or gold. These tokens are used like credits to obtain power-ups; upon picking one up, the power-up bar at the bottom of the screen moves along by differing amounts depending on the colour of the token. The power-ups are of increasing value to the player as the bar progresses. Pressing the select button gives the player the currently available power-up, and returns the bar to the bottom.
Sega CD.
The version released for the Sega CD has the addition of some 2D sprite mid-level enemies.
PlayStation.
The only version of the game with full-screen FMV, it features a redesigned, minimalistic HUD.
DOS.
The DOS version released in 1994 (US) features the original version of the soundtrack by Rik Ede with additional enhancements to the sound effects and voices. The rendering and level layouts were also significantly different from the console versions. Although only on one disc and the FMV was not full-screen, the video encoding and quality are comparable to the 2-disc PlayStation version. A secret level is also accessible by typing TOMATOES at the start of the game. Standard player fire turns to tomatoes and the player is warped to the final stage after the bonus level.
Reception.
Scary Larry of "GamePro" gave the Sega CD version a mixed review, saying that the graphics are impressive despite the low resolution and lack of full color, but that the gameplay is overly easy and lacking in intensity, and that the game can easily be finished in a standard two-day rental. He reviewed that the 3DO version suffers the same problem. "Electronic Gaming Monthly" commented that the FMV is attractive but the gameplay is shallow and unenjoyable. They also criticized the game as being overly similar to "Microcosm". A reviewer for "Next Generation" also found it far too similar to "Microcosm", and added that ""Microcosm" was bad enough, but "Novastorm" doesn't even have the advantage of a knockout intro ..."
Reviewing the PlayStation version in "GamePro", Air Hendrix shared Scary Larry's conclusion that the game has stunning graphics but crude and dull gameplay, though he found it too difficult rather than too easy. He summarized, "Despite the eye-catching fireworks, this game plays like a stale B grade shooter."


Computing Today

Computing Today was a computer magazine published by Argus Specialist Publications, it was printed in the UK from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. It began life as a supplement to "Electronics Today International" for four issues and became an independent publication in March 1979. Some time after 1982 it bought out rival computing magazine "Microcomputer Printout" (formerly "Printout") and the two magazines merged into one. The magazine ceased publication in September 1985.
It gave computer hardware and software reviews, programming tutorials and program listings for many of the popular home computers of the time. UK subscription cost 10 pounds 50 pence including postage circa 1981.


Crystal Kingdom Dizzy

Crystal Kingdom Dizzy is an adventure video game featuring the character Dizzy released in December 1992 by Codemasters. The Oliver Twins—who were heavily involved in the design and programming of previous "Dizzy" games—had less involvement with this one.
The game was the last title to in the core "Dizzy" series until the release of "Wonderful Dizzy" in 2020.
At £9.99, this was the first full-price "Dizzy" game released for home computers; previous games had been released at budget prices (£2-3). This elicited some criticism, as despite the much higher tag, the game was no bigger or more complex than its much lower-priced predecessors.
The Spectrum version of the game knocked "Rainbow Islands" from the top of the UK sales chart, and prevented "Street Fighter II" from being number one. This version was voted number 70 in the "Your Sinclair" Readers Top 100 Games of All Time.
The Commodore 64 version was the only core game in the series to be entirely coded for that platform as opposed to porting over the graphic designs from the Spectrum versions as previously.