Invasion Orion

Invasion Orion is a 1979 science fiction strategy game written and published by Automated Simulations (which would become Epyx in 1983). It is one or two player sequel to the original two-player "Starfleet Orion" which was published in late 1978. The game was written in BASIC for the Commodore PET and TRS-80 and ported to the Atari 8-bit family and Apple II.
History.
After "Starfleet Orion" had been completed, the authors, Jon Freeman and Jim Connelly, decided that the original placed too many demands on the players. In the case of the cassette versions, for instance, the player would first have to type in a series of complex inputs to the codice_1 program and save them to a separate cassette, then load up the game and use it to load in the scenario that had been saved to the other cassette. Additionally, the game demanded two players who had to take turns typing in their commands on the keyboard, hopefully not peeking to see what the other user was entering. Finding two players willing to play a longish strategy game was always difficult – the final pre-rolled mission had a suggested playing time of six hours.
Both Freeman and Connelly were interested in a new game with what they called "solo play", a single player against a computer opponent. Given the limited resources of the Commodore PET the game was written on, any sort of strategy on the computer's part would have to be simple. In order to make up for this and have some sort of challenge, they made the scenarios somewhat one sided, allowing the computer AI to simply charge in and attack with some hope of winning.
Gameplay.
The gamefield was a thirty-two high by sixty-four wide grid of possible locations (the game manual contains a typo, stating these are 34 × 62). The map could contain ships, stacked on the same grid space if needed, as well as planets and other objects. The game was turn based, and in two-player games the players took turns at the keyboard to enter their commands, which were then carried out simultaneously. Each player controlled one or more ships, and the game continued until one or both were destroyed, or escaped by flying off the playfield.
Ships were powered by a single energy source whose power had to be divided up among the many parts of the ship, including drives, shields and weapons. Each ship was armed with a beam weapon whose chance to hit a target depending on the target's size and the "beam quality" of the firing ship. The amount of damage caused by a hit was reduced with distance, making it primarily a short-range weapon. In addition, ships were also armed with missiles or torpedoes for long-range fire. Missiles would fly to a location in space relative to the ship "after" movement and then explode regardless if there was a target in that location. Torpedoes were fired in a particular direction (the eight cardinals) and would explode if they passed within two grid spaces of any other material object (everything except torpedoes). Some ships also included fighters equipped with missiles or torpedoes, which allowed spoiling attacks. Generally the Klaatu ships were better armed and shielded, but lacked armor.
Additionally, ships were equipped with a tractor beam that allowed them to push or pull on material objects, allowing complicated strategies of pushing or pulling on opposing ships to throw off their aim. For instance, a torpedo aimed at a ship that was expected to be "due left" after the movement phase could be avoided by the target by pushing the opposing ship a few locations down. The distance a ship could be pushed or pulled was a relative measure of the strength of the beam and the mass of the target. For instance, it was a useful strategy to use the tractor beam to push fighters quickly into range of their targets, at "speeds" their own engines could not achieve. One change between "Invasion" and "Starfleet" is that the tractor beam could no longer be used on opposing missiles.
The mission setups were provided in the manual. For the cassette versions they had to be typed in using the codice_1 program and saved to a second cassette (not supplied) so they could be loaded in again after loading the game. The diskette version had all of the ten pre-rolled missions on the disk, allowing them to be easily loaded up. The user could still create their own missions using codice_1, as well. One new addition was the in-game "codice_4" command, which would write out a copy of the current game state in a codice_1-file format, allowing it to be re-loaded later.
Unlike "Starfleet", "Invasion"'s game manual does not include the source code.
Reception.
Todd Zervas reviewed "Invasion Orion" in "The Space Gamer" No. 32. Zervas commented that ""Invasion Orion" is great for the solo games. If you have live opponents available, then leave this one on the shelf and buy "Starfleet Orion" instead."
Although he reported that the computer opponent in "Invasion Orion" played slowly, sometimes requiring several minutes per move, Jerry Pournelle praised the "Orion" games' realism: "Classical principles of fleet warfare work, and strategy and tactics are more important than luck". In March 1983 "Invasion Orion" won tenth place in "Softline"s Dog of the Year awards "for badness in computer games", Atari division, based on reader submissions.


E (theorem prover)

E is a high performance theorem prover for full first-order logic with equality. It is based on the equational superposition calculus and uses a purely equational paradigm. It has been integrated into other theorem provers and it has been among the best-placed systems in several theorem proving competitions. E is developed by Stephan Schulz, originally in the "Automated Reasoning Group" at TU Munich, now at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University Stuttgart.
System.
The system is based on the equational superposition calculus. In contrast to most other current provers, the implementation actually uses a purely equational paradigm, and simulates non-equational inferences via appropriate equality inferences. Significant innovations include shared term rewriting (where many possible equational simplifications are carried out in a single operation), several efficient term indexing data structures for speeding up inferences, advanced inference literal selection strategies, and various uses of machine learning techniques to improve the search behaviour. Since version 2.0, E supports many-sorted logic.
E is implemented in C and portable to most UNIX variants and the Cygwin environment. It is available under the GNU GPL.
Competitions.
The prover has consistently performed well in the CADE ATP System Competition, winning the CNF/MIX category in 2000 and finishing among the top systems ever since. In 2008 it came in second place. In 2009 it won second place in the FOF (full first order logic) and UEQ (unit equational logic) categories and third place (after two versions of Vampire) in CNF (clausal logic). It repeated the performance in FOF and CNF in 2010, and won a special award as "overall best" system. In the 2011 CASC-23 E won the CNF division and achieved second places in UEQ and LTB.
Applications.
E has been integrated into several other theorem provers. It is, with Vampire, SPASS, CVC4, and Z3, at the core of Isabelle's "Sledgehammer" strategy. E also is the reasoning engine in SInE and LEO-II and used as the clausification system for iProver.
Applications of E include reasoning on large ontologies, software verification, and software certification.


Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp.

Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp., 714 F.2d 1240 (3d Cir. 1983), was the first time an appellate level court in the United States held that a computer's BIOS could be protected by copyright. As second impact, this ruling clarified that binary code, the machine readable form of software and firmware, was copyrightable too and not only the human-readable source code form of software.
Franklin Computer Corporation introduced the Franklin Ace 1000, a clone of Apple Computer's Apple II, in 1982. Apple quickly determined that substantial portions of the Franklin ROM and operating system had been copied directly from Apple's versions, and on May 12, 1982, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. It cited the presence of some of the same embedded strings, such as the name "James Huston" (an Apple programmer), and "Applesoft," on both the Apple and Franklin system disks.
Franklin admitted that it had copied Apple's software but argued that it would have been impractical to independently write its own versions of the software and maintain compatibility, although it said it had written its own version of Apple's copy utility and was working on its own versions of other software. Franklin argued that because Apple's software existed only in machine-readable form, and not in printed form, and because some of the software did not contain copyright notices, it could be freely copied. The Apple II firmware was likened to a machine part whose form was dictated entirely by the requirements of compatibility (that is, an exact copy of Apple's ROM was the only part that would "fit" in an Apple-compatible computer and enable its intended function), and was therefore not copyrightable.
The district court found in favor of Franklin. However, Apple appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which, in a separate case decided three days after Franklin won at the lower level, had determined that both a program existing only in a written form unreadable to humans (e.g. object code) and one embedded on a ROM were protected by copyright. (See "Williams Elec., Inc., v. Artic Int'l, Inc.", 685 F.2d 870 (1982)). The Court of Appeals overturned the district court's ruling in "Franklin" by applying its holdings in "Williams" and going further to hold that operating systems were also copyrightable. The Court remanded the case to the District Court for a determination regarding whether Apple's operating system was one of a very limited number of ways to achieve its function. If it was, then Franklin would not be liable for copyright infringement. The parties settled.
Apple was able to force Franklin to withdraw its clones by 1988. The company later brought non-infringing clones to market, but as these models were only partially compatible with the Apple II, and as the Apple II architecture was by this time outdated in any case, they enjoyed little success in the marketplace.
IBM believed that some IBM PC clone makers such as Eagle Computer and Corona Data Systems similarly infringed on its copyright, and after "Apple v. Franklin" successfully forced them to stop using the BIOS. The Phoenix BIOS in 1984, however, and similar products such as AMI BIOS, permitted computer makers to legally build essentially 100% PC-compatible clones without having to reverse engineer the PC BIOS themselves.
Another impact of the decision was the rise of the shrink-wrap proprietary software commercial business model, where before a source code driven software distribution schema dominated.


Elidon

Elidon is a 1985 action game developed and published by Orpheus for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and MSX computers.
Reception.
"Elidon" was well received by press, including review scores of 78% from "Amtix", 15/20 from "Computer Gamer", and 83% from "Zzap!64".


Amiga, Inc. (South Dakota)

Amiga, Inc. of South Dakota was a personal computer company, originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Gateway 2000, Inc, predating the Amiga, Inc. of Washington. It was based upon the intellectual property of the German company Escom AG, and had descended from the original Commodore Amiga personal computer series from the 1980s and 1990s.
History.
This instance of Amiga, Inc. was incorporated in South Dakota in 1997, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Gateway 2000, Inc. (later renamed Gateway, Inc.) After acquiring from the German company Escom AG certain Amiga-related intellectual property assets in 1997, Gateway decided to keep the patents, and try to run Amiga, Inc. as a separate unit. It was originally intended to develop two new operating systems, announced as "AmigaOS 4" and "AmigaOS 5". Amiga, Inc. was initially led by Jeff Schindler, then by Jim Collas, and later by Tom Schmidt. Other employees included Darreck Lisle (event coordinator), Marylin Flint (operations manager), Joe Torre (senior engineer) and Kelli Newby, née Macomber, (executive administrative assistant). Independent subcontractors who also briefly worked (without being hired) for Amiga, Inc. included William "Bill" McEwen and Barrie Jon "Fleecy" Moss.
In 1999, when Gateway closed Amiga, Inc., Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss obtained from Gateway the amiga.com Internet domain and a license to incorporate a new independent company, also named "Amiga, Inc.", but incorporated in the state of Washington.


MILO (boot loader)

MILO, or the Alpha Linux Mini Loader, is a firmware replacement for early Alpha AXP hardware that allows the system to boot the Alpha version of the Linux operating system. It is capable of running Linux device drivers and reads available filesystems rather than looking for boot blocks. Newer Alpha hardware uses aboot.


ExoPC

The EXOPC is a Tablet PC, in slate form, that uses Windows 7 Home Premium as its operating system, and is designed by the company of the same name, based in Quebec, Canada. The EXOPC Slate is manufactured by Pegatron. The first EXOPC slate was launched in October 2010 directly from EXOPC Corp. on their website, and in Canada through the company Hypertechnologie Ciara. Hypertechnologie Ciara markets the slate under the name Ciara Vibe. Probitas markets the EXOPC as Mobi-One in Southern Europe and North Africa. RM Education markets the EXOPC in the UK as the RM Slate. Leader Computers markets the EXOPC in Australia. The EXOPC Slate is also currently available in the United States via the Microsoft Store, both online and in stores. Mustek markets it as the Mecer Lucid Slate in South Africa.
Hardware.
The architecture is based on an Intel Atom-M Pineview N450 CPU that is clocked at 1.66 GHz, and includes 2 GB of DDR2 SDRAM and 32 GB of solid-state drive (SSD) storage in its basic version, with an alternative model having a larger 64 GB SSD.
The EXOPC is also equipped with an accelerometer, which lets the display change from a portrait mode to a landscape mode by turning the slate in either direction. Internally it has four mini-PCIe slots of which three provide space for full-length cards and one half length. Three of these slots are in use and the fourth is available, but intended for a WWAN card. The unit also provides a SIM card slot.
Display.
The EXOPC has an 11.6-inch diagonal, capacitive multi-touch screen. The screen has a resolution of 1366 × 768 pixels (WXGA), a ratio, and has 135 pixels per inch.
The screen's firmware currently allows detection of two points of simultaneous touch, but is technically capable of up to 10 points of touch.
A light sensor built into the front of the tablet automatically adjusts the display brightness to ambient condition.
It is also possible to use a capacitive stylus for precision work, such as hand-drawn art and graphic works.
Connectivity.
The EXOPC offers connectivity equivalent to that of a standard laptop:
External power supply.
Recharging the battery is done through a standard external power supply:
Software features.
Operating system.
The EXOPC uses Microsoft Windows 7 as its operating system. The company has developed a GUI interface around the standard Windows 7 GUI, nicknamed by the EXOPC community as the "Connect Four Interface" due to its full screen of interactive circles arranged in a grid pattern. A dedicated button on the touch-screen interface will minimize the EXOPC layer and reveal the Windows 7 desktop, allowing the user to have the EXOPC Slate act as a standard Windows computer when needed.
Applications.
Pre-installed applications.
The EXOPC comes with the following pre-installed applications:
Store-specific applications.
An application library, similar to the Apple App Store or the Android Market is available for the device, accessible through the EXOPC UI.
Feedback.
The tablet captured the attention of several blogs and websites in the summer of 2010, being heralded as a possible alternative to the iPad. However, early reviews criticized the weight and battery life of the final product, as well as many missing features, the interface itself, sluggishness of the Internet browser, and difficulties to use the on-screen keyboard.


I3 (window manager)

i3 is a tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii and written in C. It supports tiling, stacking, and tabbing layouts, which it handles dynamically. Configuration is achieved via plain text file and extending i3 is possible using its Unix domain socket and JSON based IPC interface from many programming languages.
Like wmii, i3 uses a control system very similar to that of vi. By default, window focus is controlled by the 'Mod1' (Alt key/Win key) plus the right-hand home row keys (Mod1+J,K,L,;), while window movement is controlled by the addition of the Shift key (Mod1+Shift+J,K,L,;).
Floating pop-up windows.
Even though i3 is a tiling window manager, specific windows, such as password pop-ups, are not displayed as new tiles by default; they are always stacked in front of tiled windows, unless in full screen mode. These floating windows can be moved and resized freely, just as they can in popular desktop environments like GNOME or KDE Plasma.
The authors of i3 intend floating windows to be used for pop-up windows only.


PSOS (real-time operating system)

pSOS ("Portable Software On Silicon") is a real-time operating system (RTOS), created in about 1982 by Alfred Chao, and developed/marketed for the first part of its life by his company Software Components Group (SCG). In the 1980s pSOS rapidly became the RTOS of choice for all embedded systems based on the Motorola 68000 family architecture, because it was written in 68000 assembler and was highly optimised from the start. It was also modularised, with early support for OS-aware debugging, plug-in device drivers, TCP/IP stacks, language libraries and disk subsystems. Later came source-level debugging, multi-processor support and further networking extensions.
In about 1991, Software Components Group was acquired by Integrated Systems Inc. (ISI) who further developed pSOS - now restyled as pSOS+ - for other microprocessor families, by rewriting the greater part of it in C. Attention was also paid to supporting successively more integrated development environments, culminating in pRISM+.
In July 1994, Integrated Systems acquired Digital Research's modular real-time multi-tasking operating system FlexOS from Novell.
In 1995, Integrated Systems offered a pSOSystem/NEST package for Novell's Embedded Systems Technology (NEST).
In February 2000 Integrated Systems Inc. was acquired by Wind River Systems, the originators of rival RTOS VxWorks. Despite initial reports that pSOS support would continue, development was halted. Wind River announced plans for a 'convergence' version of VxWorks which will support pSOS system calls, and that no further releases of pSOS itself will be made.
NXP Semiconductors acquired pSOS for TriMedia from Wind River and continued to support this OS for the TriMedia VLIW core.
Migration away from pSOS.
In March 2000, rival company Express Logic released their Evaluation Kit for pSOS+ users, designed to provide a migration path to its ThreadX RTOS.
During August 2000, MapuSoft Technologies Inc. came up with the pSOS OS Changer porting kit which can smoothly move the software to multiple OS such as Linux, VxWorks and more. It includes an IDE and API optimization along with a profiling tool to measure API timing on target boards (www.mapusoft.com).
In August 2007, RoweBots, a former partner of SCG and ISI, open sourced their pSOS+ compatible version called Reliant. It is available to all that wish to upgrade without applications changes.
The Xenomai project supports pSOS+ APIs (and others traditional RTOS APIs) over a Linux-based real-time framework to allow existing industrial applications to migrate easily to a Linux-based environment while keeping stringent real-time guarantees.
Another open sourced alternative is RTEMS, which has support for various APIs, including the "Classic API" (compatible to pSOS) and the POSIX API. Compared to Linux, RTEMS is a closer match to pSOS applications due to its lower memory footprint and its strict realtime behaviour.
Popular SSL/TLS libraries such as wolfSSL still support pSOS.


Planet PC

Planet PC was a British PC gaming magazine aimed at pre-teens, first published in December 1999. It was issued monthly by Future plc in Bath, Somerset, and was backed by a marketing budget of . Similar magazines published by Future included "PC Format", for which "Planet PC" was hoped to be a feeder. "Planet PC" cost £2.95 per issue, with its target market being eight-to-twelve-year-old male PC users. During the year 2000, the magazine had a circulation of 20,181. Its editor was David Bradley, its associate editor was Chris James, and its publisher was James Binns. In October 1999, two months before the release of the first issue, Binns explained that "Planet PC" would fill a gap seen as "too old and ... too expensive for [the] younger market".
Every issue of "Planet PC" came with a free CD that featured several game demos. Often, reviews of the games that were featured on the CD were included within the magazine. Each issue would also include gaming news, tips, readers' letters, readers' game reviews, comics, competitions, and full-size posters. The first three editions of "Planet PC" contained an exclusive Top Trumps trading card game. Issue nine was released with four different covers, each depicting a different character from the television series "Pokémon": Charizard, Ash Ketchum & Pikachu, Squirtle or Team Rocket.


Hive UI

Hive (stylized as HIVE) is a custom ROM developed by Xolo and is built on the Android operating system v 4.4.4 (Kitkat). Hive is exclusive to Xolo devices and is not licensed to third-parties.
Hive was designed by Xolo's software design team at Bangalore. Users can interact with the development team and share ideas for new features. The Hive Development Team aims to release over-the-air updates with new features or bug fixes every fortnight.
The first Xolo device (8X-1000) with Hive was launched in August 2014.


Sony Tablet S

The Tablet S (formerly named S1) is the first modern tablet computer released by Sony. Featuring a "unique asymmetric design", the Tablet S runs Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 operating system and features a multitouch display, 1 GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual core processor, Wi-Fi ability, front- and rear-facing cameras, Bluetooth, and an infrared sensor. It is also configured with access to the Sony Entertainment Network and is PlayStation Certified and Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) compatible. Tablet S was first released in September 2011. It was succeeded by the Xperia Tablet S, which would be created by Sony's new subsidiary Sony Mobile.
Design.
The main distinguishing feature of the Tablet S is its "unique asymmetric design" in which the thickness of the device tapers from . This "wrap" effect is intended to evoke an "open paperback stuffed into the back pocket, or a magazine folded backward upon itself such that only a single page is visible to read," and reduces the amount of torque while being held. Sony claims that this "off-center of gravity design realizes stability and ease of grip as well as a sense of stability and lightness, offering comfortable use for hours."
Hardware.
The Tablet S features a , 1280×800 pixel resolution, TFT LCD using Sony's proprietary TruBlack Display—the same technology as that used in the company's Bravia range of televisions.
It uses the Nvidia Tegra T20 system on a chip (SoC), which consists of a 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 dual core processor and a ULP GeForce graphics processing unit (GPU), with 1 GB RAM and either 16 or 32 GB internal storage and support for SD memory cards up to 32 GB.
Other onboard features include an accelerometer, 3-axis gyroscope, magnetometer (digital compass), GPS receiver, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR, infrared, Micro USB, microphone, 3.5 mm headphone jack and 0.3 MP front-facing and 5 MP rear-facing cameras.
Like other Android devices, the Tablet S has no hardware navigation buttons, which are all implemented via persistent on-screen buttons. The only physical buttons present on the device are the power button and volume rocker located in the recessed area on one side.
The tablet uses a proprietary power connector.
Software.
The Tablet S1 was initially launched with Android 3.1 Honeycomb, but a 3.2 update was made available soon after its release. Also, it received an upgrade to Android 4.0.3 at the end of April (in Japan and the US). It uses a customized version of the operating system. Features and applications unique to the Sony device include:
Although Sony Tablet S is a PlayStation Certified device, an update to the PlayStation Store disabled all such devices from being able to purchase PS one classics. Instead, only original content will be available for purchase by Tablet S owners.
In September 2012, Sony Tablet S received a major update to Android 4.0.3 Release 5a, which brought the following notable changes:
The Sony Tablet S was confirmed for an update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, which would have arrived in February 2013. However, the Jelly Bean 4.1 update was unofficially cancelled when Sony posted (and later removed) in their community message board stating "we do not have a roadmap to release the Jelly Bean update for the 1st Generation Tablet (Sony Tablet S)."
Reception.
Reviewers have largely been positive towards the Sony Tablet S, praising its unique ("thoroughly renovated") design. "The Wall Street Journal" said that "the Tablet S will appeal to buyers who would like a distinctive tablet from a trusted company that doesn't look like an iPad wannabe" while "PC World" said "[Sony] has not lost its design mojo over the years, as this model brings Sony's originality and flair to a tablet market that desperately needs both." Asher Moses from the "Sydney Morning Herald" called it "best Android tablet yet."
Negative comments are directed at the device's high price and poor build quality. Tech blog Gizmodo called it "plasticky" and pointed out that Sony's use of inferior materials to save on weight led to their unit getting "seriously scratched during a totally routine photo shoot" and commented that it would "smash into a million pieces" if dropped. Time observed that the Tablet S falls short of Sony's aspirations to compete with the iPad, with reviewer Jared Newman quoting Sony CEO Howard Stringer's comments, and saying "if the Tablet S is what Stringer has in mind, I weep for Sony’s future." The ExpertReviews wrote that the absence of video output was an annoying drawback. Some reviewers criticize the tablet for Low-res screen and ageing software.
Recognition.
The Tablet S was an honoree in the Consumer Electronics Association's CES Innovation Design and Engineering Awards 2012, in the "Tablets, E-Readers and Netbooks" category.


Apple HD SC Setup

Apple HD SC Setup is a small software utility that was bundled with various versions of the classic Mac OS and A/UX operating systems made by Apple Computer. Introduced with Apple's first SCSI hard drive, the Hard Disk 20SC in September 1986, Apple HD SC Setup can update drivers and partition and initialize hard disks. It was often used when reinstalling the operating system of an Apple Macintosh computer, or to repair corrupt partition information on a SCSI hard disk. Prior to its introduction, the formatting of disks was handled exclusively by the Mac's Finder application, or by third-party formatting utility software customized for a specific disk drive.
The version of Apple HD SC Setup that shipped with the classic Mac OS was only able to manipulate hard disks that featured Apple ROMs. Versions of the program that were bundled with A/UX, however, could be used with any SCSI disk. A third-party patch was released enabling standard editions of Apple HD SC Setup to work on any SCSI disk.
In the mid-1990s, when Apple began shipping computers using ATA hard drives, Apple HD SC Setup was joined by Internal HD Format, which could only format IDE drives. Eventually, both Internal HD Format and Apple HD SC Setup were superseded with Drive Setup in 1995, which combined SCSI and IDE formatting abilities, and ultimately by Disk Utility in macOS.


Network Browser

Network Browser was an application that shipped with Mac OS 9 to allow users to connect to other computers and printers on a network, and access FTP servers, intended to replace the Chooser that shipped with previous versions.


Loadlin

loadlin is a Linux boot loader that runs under DOS or Microsoft Windows (95, 98 or Me only). It allows the Linux system to load and replace the running DOS/Windows without altering existing DOS/Windows system files.
loadlin and the Linux kernel are both files on a file system accessible to DOS/Windows. It loads the Linux kernel into memory from a file. It also places various configuration parameters into memory, and transfers control to the kernel. The kernel reads these parameters, initializes and runs, replacing DOS/Windows completely.
Optionally, it can be configured to supply the kernel with an initial RAM disk, loaded into memory before transferring control to the Linux kernel. It passes to the kernel information about the RAM disk and its location. Furthermore, parameters can be passed to the Linux kernel that make it use that RAM disk as its root file system. The startup programs in that file system often cause Linux to mount another file system (perhaps on a fixed disk) and switch to using that as its root file system.
loadlin operates as a separate program and does not modify the master boot record, which can be useful for situations where there are concerns about modifying the MBR (which could lead to an unbootable system if done incorrectly). Due to its structure, loadlin only works on DOS-based operating systems, and will not work on NT-based versions of Windows.


City Connection

 is a 1985 platform arcade game developed and published by Jaleco. It was released in North America by Kitkorp as "Cruisin"'. The player controls Clarice in her Honda City hatchback and must drive over elevating roads to paint them. Clarice is constantly under pursuit by police cars, which she can take out by launching oil cans at them, temporarily stunning them, and then ramming into them with her car. Jaleco was inspired by maze chase action titles like "Pac-Man" (1980) and "Crush Roller" (1981) while designing the game.
"City Connection" was ported to several platforms, including the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In Japan, the game has maintained a loyal following, with the NES version being seen as a classic for the platform. It has since been re-released through several Jaleco game collections and services such as the Wii Virtual Console. These versions attracted more mixed responses in North America, with critics disliking its simplicity, lack of replay value, and poor controls. Some felt it possessed a cute aesthetic and unique concept, and was entertaining to play. Jaleco produced a sequel named "City Connection Rocket" for Japanese mobile phones in 2004. The game is credited for having one of the first female protagonists in a console game.
Gameplay.
In "City Connection", the player controls Clarice, a blue-haired teen driving an orange Honda City hatchback, as she travels around the world in the quest of finding herself the perfect man. Clarice traverses through twelve side-scrolling stages that take place within famous locations around the world, including New York, London, and Japan. To clear these levels, the player must drive over each of the elevated highways to change their color from white to green. The car can jump over large gaps to reach higher sections of the stage.
Clarice is constantly being pursued by police cars that follow her around the stage, and must also avoid flag-waving cats that block her from moving past them. Clarice can collect and launch oil cans at police cars and traffic vehicles to temporarily stun them; ramming into them while stunned will knock them off the stage. Cats are invulnerable to oil cans, and cannot be killed by any means. If the player remains on the same stage for an extended period of time, spikes extrude from the ground and instantly kills them. On occasion, a red-colored balloon may appear in the stage, and collecting three of these warps the player to a new area and grants them bonus points.
Development and release.
"City Connection" was developed by Jaleco and released in Japanese arcades in July 1985. In North America, the game was licensed to Kitkorp and published as "Cruisin". The song used when Clarice hits one of the flag-waving cats is "Flohwalzer", known in Japan as "Neko Funjatta" (lit. "I Stepped on the Cat"), while another stage features a remix of the song "Highway Star" by Deep Purple. "City Connection" is credited as being one of the first to use new music tracks for each stage as opposed to recycling one song. The car the player controls throughout the game is a Honda City hatchback, which is believed to be the source for the game's title. Jaleco based the game's concept on Namco's "Pac-Man" (1980) and Alpha Denshi's "Crush Roller" (1981).
"City Connection" was ported to several consoles, including the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The NES version, which was Jaleco's first release for the system in North America, replaces Clarice with an unnamed male protagonist, alongside other minor differences. The Japanese Family Computer (Famicom) version is included in the compilations "Jaleco Collection Vol. 1" (2003) for PlayStation and "JaJaMaru Jr. Denshoki Jaleco Memorial" (2004) for Game Boy Advance. Both the NES and Famicom versions were digitally re-released for the Wii Virtual Console in 2008, and the 3DS and Wii U Virtual Console in 2013. A version for Japanese cellular phones was published in 2002 through i-Mode devices. Mediakite produced a port of the arcade game for Windows in 2003, while Jaleco produced a remake titled "City Connection DX" for mobile phones in Japan. Hamster Corporation released a digital version of the game under their "Arcade Archives" series for the PlayStation 4 in 2014, and for the Nintendo Switch in 2018. The NES version is also available through the Nintendo Switch Online service.
Reception.
"City Connection" has maintained a loyal following in Japan, where it became one of Jaleco's most successful and beloved games. The NES version, in particular, is viewed as a classic title on the system for its accurate portrayal of the arcade original. In 2003, "Yuge" listed it as being among the console's greatest games, through its unique gameplay, colorful visuals, and memorable soundtrack. The magazine staff described it as being "a game that fulfills the dreams of children who want to play arcade games".
The NES version and its digital re-releases received mixed reviews in North America, by comparison. Critics focused largely on its overall simplicity and poor controls. A reviewer for "Computer Entertainment US" felt that the game was hindered by its lack of replay value for older players. "IGN" and "Nintendo Life" reviewers Lucas M. Thomas and Marcel van Duyn respectively both believed the game didn't age well and was too simplistic; Duyn described it as being "still well below par" compared to other NES ports of classic arcade games. Agreeing with them was "Nintendo Life"s Steve Bowling, who claimed the Wii U version was a shallow conversion of an arcade game he considered "already lost to the ages", specifically for its ill-conceived controls.
Critics felt "City Connection", in light of its flaws, possessed a cute aesthetic and unique gameplay. "Computer Entertainer US" believed its cute visual style would appeal to younger players and its challenge to older ones, and said what little the game had to offer was enjoyable. Christopher Michael of "AllGame" likened its gameplay to "Pac-Man" and similar maze-chase arcade games from the era, writing that its graphics and gameplay made it a must-play for the platform. Reviewing for "Eurogamer", Dan Whitehead compared its gameplay to "Q*Bert" and its horizontal-scrolling to "Defender", and made for an addictive game that justified its price tag. Thomas and Duyn agreed that "City Connection"s gameplay was simplistic and enjoyable, though constrained by its controls and high difficulty.
Legacy.
Clarice is credited as being among the first female protagonists in a console game. She appears as a playable character in the PlayStation game "GUNbare! Game Tengoku" (1998), misspelled as "Claris" and bearing little resemblance to her original design, and in the high-definition remaster "The Game Paradise Crusin' Mix" (2018) as downloadable content.
In 2004, Jaleco released a sequel named "City Connection Rocket" for Japanese mobile phones through i-Mode. The game places Clarice in the role of a spy working for a secret organization to capture criminal leaders from around the world. Rather than painting sections of road, Clarice must now collect briefcases placed in specific areas in each stage while avoiding police cars and other types of enemies. "Rocket" was bundled with "City Connection DX" for a 2015 re-release on the PlayStation Vita under Hamster's "Appli-Archives" series, available through the PlayStation Mobile service. PlayStation Mobile closed in September 2015, delisting the game from the PlayStation Store and other supported devices.


Baltica (computer)


SILO (boot loader)

The SPARC Improved bootLOader (SILO) is the bootloader used by the SPARC port of the Linux operating system; it can also be used for Solaris as a replacement for the standard Solaris boot loader.
SILO generally looks similar to the basic version of LILO, giving a "boot:" prompt, at which the user can press the Tab key to see the available images to boot. The configuration file format is reasonably similar to LILO's, as well as some of the command-line options. However, SILO differs significantly from LILO because it reads and parses the configuration file at boot time, so it is not necessary to re-run it after every change to the file or to the installed kernel images. SILO is able to access ext2, ext3, ext4, UFS, romfs and ISO 9660 file systems, enabling it to boot arbitrary kernels from them (more similar to GRUB).
SILO also has support for transparent decompression of gzipped vmlinux images, making the bzImage format unnecessary on SPARC Linux.
SILO is loaded from the SPARC PROM.
Licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).


Digit (magazine)

Digit is an Indian technology media publisher magazine and a website owned by 9.9 Media. According to the last Indian Readership Survey results that mentioned it (IRS 2011 Q1) it has a readership of about 230,000. The IRS surveys have always shown Digit to be the most read technology magazine in India, higher than even the combined readership of its peers. It is circulated in India officially, but also reaches Nepal, Sri Lanka, Oman, Dubai and some other countries through unofficial channels. It was started in 2001 by Jasubhai Digital Media Pvt. Ltd, a company that was later acquired by 9.9 Media in 2007.
Each issue of Digit includes a magazine, one or two dual-layer DVDs called "alpha" and "omega", a mini-book called Fast Track, a gaming supplement called SKOAR! and a poster. Fast Track is an in-depth reference guide on any given sub-topic of information technology, such as web publishing and open source software, or a product, such as Photoshop. The Fast Track series are aimed as an introductory guides to a topic.
There are three special issues every year: Anniversary Special (June), Diwali Shopping Special (October) and Collector's Edition (December). Each of these issues hosts additional content, contests and digital media besides the regular contents of the magazine package.
"Digit" has recently launched Digit TV. One of the DVDs in the October 2009 issue of "Digit" was dedicated to Digit TV, and it featured a Video Buying Guide. Digit TV has since been shifted to Digit's YouTube Channel
In 2013, "Digit" introduced a supplement to the magazine named "DGT". It focuses on lifestyle technology rather than mainstream technology. This has now been moved into the main Digit magazine as a section and replaced with a SKOAR! supplement.
On May 30, 2014, Digit's website www.thinkdigit.com got a new address - www.digit.in. On the occasion of the magazine's 13th anniversary, Digit sported a brand new avatar and boasted of responsive design for its website with some added features in the form of ""Digit Rewards"."
The Digit Community.
"Digit" magazine is complemented by the website www.digit.in, where the latest technology news, reviews and features are published and discussed by the community.
"Digit" organizes technology events to reach technology enthusiasts, channel members and technology decision makers. The events can be in the form of consumer expositions, conferences, roadshows and channel events.
"Digit" used to conduct webinars occasionally on technology topics such as careers in technology, how to choose your PC components, and interviews with industry leaders.
"Digit Squad".
"Digit Squad" is an exclusive group of premier technology enthusiasts in India, who discuss technology related topics.
"Digit" awards.
Every year, "Digit" gives out awards to best technology brands and products in India.
The Icons of Trust Award is given out every year to the most trusted brand in various technology categories. Icons of Trust 2009 was awarded in nine categories:
Zero 1 Awards are announced every December for the best technology products released during the year.


Wall (Unix)

 (an abbreviation of write to all) is a Unix command-line utility that displays the contents of a computer file or standard input to all logged-in users. It is typically used by root to send out shutting down message to all users just before poweroff.
Invocation.
 reads the message from standard input by default when the filename is omitted. This is done by piping the output of the command:
alice@sleipnir:~$ # `tty` to show the current terminal name
alice@sleipnir:~$ tty
/dev/pts/7
alice@sleipnir:~$ echo Remember to brush your teeth! | wall
The message may also be typed in much the same way is used: invoking by typing and pressing followed by a message, pressing and +:
alice@sleipnir:~$ wall
Remember to brush your teeth!
^D
Using a here-string:
alice@sleipnir:~$ wall «< 'Remember to brush your teeth!'
Reading from a file is also supported:
alice@sleipnir:~$ cat .important_announcement
Remember to brush your teeth!
alice@sleipnir:~$ wall .important_announcement # same as `wall !$`
All the commands above should display the following output on terminals that users allow write access to (see codice_1):
Broadcast Message from alice@sleipnir
 (/dev/pts/7) at 16:15 ...
Remember to brush your teeth!


Application Enhancer

Application Enhancer (APE) is a software program released by Unsanity for Apple's Mac OS X operating system. Application Enhancer provides a framework that allows third-party developers to write "haxies" for Mac OS X. It also provides a daemon to load haxies when certain applications are launched. These haxies, or plugins, are known as application enhancer modules, or APEs. Once the APE is loaded by the daemon, the module modifies the behavior of an existing application. Examples include allowing the classic Mac OS WindowShade behavior, or adding/removing Mac OS X's brushed aluminum theme to/from all applications.
Application Enhancer is freeware, but modules may be distributed as freeware, shareware, or commercial software. A license for the Application Enhancer SDK (required by developers to deploy haxies) is $100 for shareware products and $1000 for commercial products.
Leopard compatibility issues.
With the release of Mac OS X v10.5, users running an outdated copy of APE (2.0.1 or earlier) began to report problems with their upgraded Leopard systems. The problems occurred when using the "Upgrade" option rather than the "Erase and Install" or "Archive and Install" option. Symptoms included hour-long "blue screens" (known as the 'Blue Screen of Death') on restart and systems hung inoperable for hours at a time. Users gradually discovered the error and were able to fix it by updating their installation of APE. On 27 October 2007 Unsanity alerted mailing list subscribers of the issue and advised them to have the latest version of the Application Enhancer framework installed prior to installing or upgrading to Leopard.


Surface Pro 4

The Surface Pro 4 is the fourth-generation Surface-series 2-in-1 detachable, designed, developed, marketed, and produced by Microsoft. The Surface Pro 4 was announced on October 6, 2015 alongside the Surface Book. In the U.S. and Canada, the Surface Pro 4 was released on October 26, 2015.
The Surface Pro 4 is an update over its predecessor, featuring Skylake CPUs, more RAM and SSD options and a 12.3-inch display with a greater resolution. At the same time, the device is compatible with most of its predecessor's accessories.
The device's successor, the 2017 Surface Pro, was announced in May 2017, ahead of a release the following month.
History.
The Surface Pro 4 was announced on October 6, 2015 alongside the Surface Book. Both devices were available for pre-order the following day and available for customers beginning on October 26, 2015.
The device initially exhibited failure to sleep properly, which drained the battery very quickly. Microsoft subsequently developed a fix that was made available on February 17, 2016.
Features.
Hardware.
The Surface Pro 4 is the same size as the Surface Pro 3, but has a thinner screen bezel which allows for a display of a slightly greater size of . The screen resolution is also greater than the Surface Pro 3's, at 2736x1824 at 267 PPI, with the same aspect ratio of 3:2 and 10-point multi-touch. The chassis is thinner and lighter than the Surface Pro 3.
The cooling system of the 2-in-1 has been redesigned and dubbed "hybrid liquid cooling system". It includes heat pipes with a flowing liquid, which is meant to avoid the use of the internal fan when the device is used for less demanding tasks such as web browsing.
All Surface Pro 4 models feature 6th-generation Skylake Intel Core processors—m3, i5 or i7—which are more powerful and run cooler over its Intel Core Haswell predecessors found in the Surface Pro 3 and 2. The maximum clock rate of the most powerful CPU option (i7-6650U) is also greater at 2.2 GHz, with up to 3.4 GHz in the Turbo Boost mode. The m3-powered model is completely fanless.
RAM and SSD options available are 4, 8, 16 GB and 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB respectively; the top options are twice as capacious compared to top options of the Surface Pro 4's two recent predecessors.
The common traits, inherited from the previous-generation Surface Pro 3, are a continuous "kickstand", magnesium casing with a silver-colored back side, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi radio, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy, full-size USB 3.0 port, microSD card reader, headset jack, Mini DisplayPort, Cover Port, and a renamed "SurfaceConnect", a port on the side to connect a wall charger, Docking Station or Surface Dock accessories.
Software.
All Surface Pro 4 models come with a 64-bit version of Windows 10 Pro and a Microsoft Office 30-day trial. Windows 10 comes pre-installed with Mail, Calendar, People, Xbox (app), Photos, Movies and TV, Groove, and Microsoft Edge. With Windows 10, a "Tablet mode" is available when the Type Cover is detached from the device. In this mode, all windows are opened full-screen and the interface becomes more touch-centric.
The device also has a Windows Hello-compatible camera. It combines the use of a regular and infrared cameras to authenticate the user.
Accessories.
The Surface Pro 4 is backward compatible with all accessories of its predecessor. At the Windows 10 Devices Event on October 6, 2015, alongside new Surface 2-in-1s, new accessories were announced.
The "Surface Dock" is a redesigned docking accessory in a brick form factor. It is compatible with all past and future Surface models with a "SurfaceConnect" side port, previously used to connect a wall charger or "Docking Station" accessory: Surface Pro 3, 4 and Surface Book. The Surface Dock will have 2 Mini DisplayPorts, 1 Gigabit Ethernet, 4 USB 3.0, and 1 audio out ports.
Although Surface Pro 4 is backward compatible with "Type Cover" accessory of Surface Pro 3, an attachable keyboard which doubles as a screen protector, the "Surface Pro 4 Type Cover" has been announced with and without a fingerprint ID sensor. The new Type Cover is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, has improved magnetic stability for lap use, a mechanical keyboard with improved key spacing, as well as a larger touchpad.
An updated version of "Surface Pen" is included with the Surface Pro 4, which has 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity and is heavier with a rubberized tip. However, the new pen has only one button on the side rather than the previous pen's two. There is an eraser on the end that doubles as a button, which may perform different tasks, like opening the OneNote app or activating Cortana, and can be customized using the Surface App.
Issues.
The Surface Pro 4 is known to have wide spread flicker issues with the display named as Flickergate after the independent website flickergate.com which was set up by the affected users after getting no fix from Microsoft.
Microsoft's spokesperson acknowledged the issue stating:
"We are aware that some customers have experienced a screen flicker on Surface Pro 4 and are monitoring the situation closely. Customers impacted by this should contact Microsoft support."
Microsoft has stated that bad batteries, pens and Type Covers may be repaired under warranty.
The Type Cover also has connectivity issues that afflict many, often due to a Windows update. This seems to be a common issue across the Surface series, with a sudden death to the Type Cover.
Reception.
The Surface Pro 4 received generally positive reviews from technology critics. Most praise a sharper and larger display compared to the one found in the predecessor, redesigned cooling system, improved technical specifications, and an improved Type Cover. The common disadvantages found by reviewers were that the Type Cover is still a separate purchase, the relatively modest performance of the Intel Core m3 chip, and modest battery life.


PSI Comp 80

In 1979, the British magazine Wireless World published the technical details for a "Scientific Computer". Shortly afterward the British firm Powertran used this design for their implementation, which they called the PSI Comp 80. It was sold in the form of a kit of parts for a cased single-board home computer system.
The system was based on a Z80 Microprocessor addressing a mixture of 8 KB of system RAM and EPROM, plus 2 KB of Video RAM.
It used a National Semiconductor MM57109N as a mathematical co-processor to speed up calculations.
The monochrome Video Display Controller could simultaneously display combinations of 32 lines of 64 characters, and 128 x 64 resolution graphics by either displaying a normal character or a "pseudo graphics" character, with pixel blocks in a 2x2 matrix. A technique similar to the one used in the TRS-80 - It could later be expanded to a higher resolution, although never to colour.
Ahead of its time, it incorporated a number crunching coprocessor and a novel language embedded in EPROM called Basic Using Reverse Polish - BURP.
Add-ons were developed for the system, including memory expansions, floppy and hard disk interfaces, various software packages and a disk operating system, SCIDOS, which was CP/M-compatible but also included features - structured (pathed) disk folders, etc. - now very familiar to modern-day PC users.
During the mid-1980s, the designer of this system, John Adams M.SC., published a new version of the Scientific Computer - the SC84 (Scientific Computer of 1984). It was based upon a backplane and plug-in cards and modules and featuring a Hitachi HD64180 processor, up to 512 kbytes of RAM and a high resolution colour graphics system.
References.
PSI 2020


Scramble Formation

 is a vertically scrolling shooter released in by Taito in Japanese arcades in 1986. It was published by Romstar in North America as Tokio.
Gameplay.
In the game, the player controls a red propeller-driven airplane, flying over the city of Tokyo. They are able to shoot and capture other red, smaller planes, which then will follow the player in formation. The player can choose between 3 formations: the first is able to shoot both air-to-air and air-to-ground projectiles, the second only air-to-air (but on a larger area), the third only air-to-ground (but on a larger area as well). During gameplay, the player should react accordingly to the threats and quickly decide which one of the 3 formation types is more adequate at one given moment.
The game is divided in areas, depicting key places in Tokyo, such as Shinjuku, Akasaka, and Ginza. There are no clearly defined "levels", but at some points the player is faced by a giant mothership, which can be shot down by hitting its engines.
Ports.
A port was released for the MSX2 home computer in 1987.
Reception.
In Japan, "Game Machine" listed "Tokio" on their May 15, 1986 issue as being the most-successful table arcade unit of the month.


Mosh (software)

In computing, Mosh (mobile shell) is a tool used to connect from a client computer to a server over the Internet, to run a remote terminal. Mosh is similar to SSH, with additional features meant to improve usability for mobile users. The major features are:
The main drawbacks of mosh are additional prerequisites to the server, that it lacks some special features of SSH (such as connection forwarding) and the lack of a native Windows client.
Design.
Mosh works at a different layer from SSH. Whereas SSH transmits a stream of bytes in each direction (from server to client or client to server) using TCP, Mosh runs a terminal emulator at the server to figure out what should be on the screen. The server then transmits this screen to the client at a varying frame rate, depending on the speed of the network. This allows Mosh to save on network traffic on slow or intermittent connections.
Supported platforms.
Mosh is available for most Linux distributions, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, Android, Solaris, Cygwin, and as a Chrome App. The iOS program Termius includes an independent implementation of the Mosh protocol.
Performance.
Roaming.
Mosh is built on the State-Synchronization Protocol (SSP), which supports single-packet roaming. After the client has switched to a new IP address, a single packet that successfully reaches the server is enough to "roam" the connection. The client does not need to know it has roamed. (The client may be using NAT and the NAT roamed instead.)
Packet loss.
In the Mosh research paper, the creators tested SSP on a link with 29% packet loss, and found that SSP reduced the average response time by a factor of 50 (from 16.8 seconds to 0.33 seconds) compared with SSH, which uses TCP. A different study, by students at Stanford University, found that SSP reduced the average response time by a factor of 30 (from 5.9 seconds to 0.19 seconds).
Local echo.
According to Mosh's developers, the program was found to be able to predict and immediately display 70% of user keystrokes, reducing the median response time to a keystroke to less than 5 milliseconds (masking the latency of the network). A different study, by students at Stanford University, found that Mosh was able to quickly echo 55% of user keystrokes.
Drawbacks.
Compared to the more popular SSH, mosh has the following drawbacks:
Prerequisites on the server.
The major drawback of mosh is that it requires the server to fulfill additional prerequisites which are not needed by ssh itself. Due to its design, mosh needs the server to allow direct connections via UDP. Servers not fulfilling these prerequisites cannot be used by mosh. Examples of such systems include servers behind firewalls which restrict connections to the ssh-port via TCP. Also problematic are servers which are only indirectly reachable. The latter is usually accommodated by ssh via the 'ProxyCommand' option, but this is not supported by mosh.
One port per connection.
By default, the server tries to allocate the first free UDP port in the range 60001–61000, per connection. This dynamic port allocation is considered an extra burden and risk for firewall maintenance. A significant part of the firewall-filtering happens through connection tracking, so called stateful filtering, this is based on the SYN/ACK flags in TCP segments, UDP packets don't have such flags.Mitigation:
Output drops and lack of terminal scrollback.
Scrollback is not supported in the current release of mosh, and when using it in a terminal emulator with scrollbars they disappear, but is planned for the 1.3 release. This functionality is trade-off for garbage cleaning, as binary output is wiped away. One way to mitigate this currently is by using mosh in combination with a terminal multiplexer like screen or tmux.
Lack of ssh-agent forwarding.
SSH-agent forwarding is not currently supported.
Lack of X11 forwarding.
X11 Forwarding is not yet supported.


ComPAN 8

ComPAN 8 is an 8-bit Polish microcomputer produced in the 1980s at the MERA-ELZAB factory in Zabrze, Poland. ComPAN 8 was designed at the Institute of Industry Automation Systems PAN in Gliwice.


Olympus PEN E-PM2

The Olympus PEN E-PM2 is a digital rangefinder-style mirrorless interchangeable lens camera in the Micro Four Thirds system. It was announced by Olympus Corporation on September 17, 2012. It succeeds the Olympus PEN E-PM1.


Madness and the Minotaur

Madness and the Minotaur is a text adventure, published in 1981 for the TRS-80 Color Computer by Radio Shack in North America and by Microdeal in the United Kingdom. It was developed by Spectral Associates founder, Thomas Rosenbaum.
A Dragon 32 version was published in 1982 by Dragon Data.
Gameplay.
The goal of the game is to retrieve a number of treasures. In the course of doing this, the player will encounter other objects that may or may not be useful. Often, the player needs one object to act as a "key" for another. There is no rhyme or reason to this. The player doesn't "use" the key object to obtain the other; he just needs to be carrying it. For example, the player may see a shield. Perhaps the player needs to be carrying the dagger to get the shield. If the player has the dagger, the shield is reachable; if he does not, it is not. With the exception of a randomly appearing "oracle", the game gives no indication of what objects are needed to reach a treasure. There are various magic spells that can be learned throughout the game that have various effects.


FM-8

The FM-8 (Fujitsu Micro 8) is a personal computer developed and manufactured by Fujitsu in May 1981. It was Fujitsu's second microcomputer released to the public after the LKIT-8 kit computer, and the first in the "FM" series. The FM-8 would later be replaced by two new models in November 1982 – the FM-11, aimed at businesses and the FM-7 aimed at the mass market.
Emulator.
The computer is emulated by MESS.


Sorcerer of Siva

Sorcerer of Siva is a 1981 video game published by Automated Simulations for the Apple II and TRS-80. The last standalone "Dunjonquest" game, "Sorcerer of Siva" is not as large as the major releases in the series, but also not as small as the "MicroQuests".
Gameplay.
The player takes the role of a wizard, who is thrown into a labyrinth of mines by his rival. While the dungeon layout is still fixed, the players starting point within is determined at random. The combat system is different from the other titles in the series, as it is based on a set of spells instead of weapons. Fatigue is replaced with a magic aura, which determines the remaining strength to cast spells. During the game, the evil sorcerer sometimes appears to cause the player character to forget spells, which can be remembered again by finding "touchstones" within the mines.
Reception.
Bruce Webster reviewed "Sorcerer of Siva" in "The Space Gamer" No. 54. Webster commented that "If you've never played any of Epyx's adventure games, then I can easily recommend "Sorcerer" to you. If you've played some of the, then I can recommend this one if the theme appeals to you. If you've played most of them, you won't find anything all that new or exciting here."


TI-Nspire series

The TI-Nspire is a graphing calculator made by Texas Instruments which was released in July 2007. The original TI-Nspire was developed out of the TI PLT SHH1 prototype calculator (which itself was derived from the Casio ClassPad 300), the TI-92 series of calculators released in 1995, and the TI-89 series of calculators released in 1998. The TI-Nspire features a non-QWERTY keyboard and a different key-by-key layout compared to its predecessors. The TI-Nspire allows users to swap out the existing removable keypad with a functional copy of the TI-84 Plus series keypad. The TI-Nspire series I/O has a connector for the TI-Nspire Lab Cradle, another that serves as a connector for TI's wireless network adapter, and a Mini-USB connector for transferring data. The TI-Nspire series is available with and without a computer algebra system.
In 2011, Texas Instruments released the CX line of their TI-Nspire calculators which effectively replaced the previous generation. The updates included improvements to the original's keyboard layout, an addition of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery, 3D graphing capabilities and reduced form factor. TI got rid of the removable keypad with this generation and therefore, the TI-84 compatibility mode.
In 2019, the TI-Nspire CX II was added, with a boost in clock speed and changes to the existing operating system.
Versions.
The TI-Nspire series uses a different operating system compared to Texas Instruments' other calculators. The TI-Nspire includes a file manager that lets users create and edit documents. As a result of being developed from PDA-esque devices, the TI-Nspire retains many of the same functional similarities to a computer.
TI-Nspire.
The standard "TI-Nspire" calculator is comparable to the TI-84 Plus in features and functionality. It features a TI-84 mode by way of a replaceable snap-in keypad and contains a TI-84 Plus emulator. The likely target of this is secondary schools that make use of the TI-84 Plus currently or have textbooks that cover the TI-83 (Plus) and TI-84 Plus lines, and to allow them to transition to the TI-Nspire line more easily.
The TI-Nspire started development in 2004. It uses a proprietary SoC of the ARM9 variant for its CPU. The TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire CAS (Computer algebra system) calculators have 32 MB of NAND Flash, 32 MB of SDRAM, and 512 KB of NOR Flash. However, only 20 MB and 16 MB are user-accessible respectively
The TI-Nspire released in two models; a numeric and CAS version. The numeric is similar in features to the TI-84, except with a bigger and higher resolution screen and a full keyboard. The feature that the numeric lacks is the ability to solve algebraic equations such as indefinite integrals and derivatives. To fill in the gap of needing an algebraic calculator, Texas Instruments introduced the second model with the name TI-Nspire CAS. The CAS is designed for college and university students, giving them the feature of calculating many algebraic equations like the Voyage 200 and TI-89 (which the TI-Nspire was intended to replace). However, the TI-Nspire does lack part of the ability of programming and installing additional apps that the previous models had, although a limited version of TI-BASIC is supported, along with Lua in later versions. C and assembly are only possible by Ndless.
Because the TI-Nspire lacks a QWERTY keyboard, it is acceptable for use on the PSAT, SAT, SAT II, ACT, AP, and IB Exams.
TI-Nspire CAS.
The "TI-Nspire CAS" calculator is capable of displaying and evaluating values symbolically, not just as floating-point numbers. It includes algebraic functions such as a symbolic differential equation solver: deSolve(...), the complex eigenvectors of a matrix: eigVc(...), as well as calculus based functions, including limits, derivatives, and integrals. For this reason, the TI-Nspire CAS is more comparable to the TI-89 Titanium and Voyage 200 than to other calculators. Unlike the TI-Nspire, it is not compatible with the snap-in TI-84 Plus keypad. It is accepted in the SAT and AP exams (without a QWERTY keyboard) but not in the ACT, IB or British GCSE and A level. The body color is grey.
TI-Nspire Touchpad.
On 8 March 2010, Texas Instruments announced new models of the TI-Nspire Touchpad and TI-Nspire CAS Touchpad graphing calculators. In the United States the new calculator was listed on the TI website as a complement to the TI-Nspire with Clickpad, though it was introduced as a successor to the previous model in other countries. The calculators were released alongside the OS 2.0 update, which featured a number of updates to the user interface and new functions.
The keyboards on the touchpad keypads featured a different and less crowded key layout along with the touchpad, which is used for navigation. The touchpad keypads are also compatible with older calculators that are running OS 2.0 or newer. The new calculators that were shipped with touchpad keypads supported an optional rechargeable battery. The second generation is also available in two models, the TI-Nspire Touchpad and TI-Nspire CAS Touchpad, and each model has maintained the color of itself, with the normal one being white and black while the CAS is black and gray. To reduce theft of school-owned TI-Nspire calculators, Texas Instruments also introduced the EZ-Spot Teacher Packs with a bright, easy-to-spot, "school bus yellow" frame and slide case. The hardware of both versions are the same, with the only differences being cosmetic. The TI-Nspire calculators that were released after the touchpad TI-Nspires also have EZ-Spot versions.
TI-Nspire CX and TI-Nspire CX CAS.
In 2011, the TI-Nspire CX and CX CAS were announced as updates to TI-Nspire series. They have a thinner design with a thickness of 1.57 cm (almost half of the TI-89), a 1200 mAh (1060mAh before 2013) rechargeable battery (wall adapter is included in the American retail package), a 320 by 240 pixel full color backlit display (3.2" diagonal), and OS 3.0 which includes features such as 3D graphing.
The CX series were released in the same time frame as the Casio Prizm (fx-CG10/20), Casio's color screen graphing calculator with similar features.
The TI-Nspire CX series differ from all previous TI graphing calculator models in that the CX series are the first to use a rechargeable 1060 mAh Lithium-Ion battery (upgraded to 1200 mAh in 2013 rev.). The device is charged via a USB cable. TI claims that the battery requires four hours to charge, that a full charge powers the device for up to two weeks under normal daily use, and that the battery should last up to 3 years before it requires replacement. The battery is user-replaceable.
With the exception of interchangeable TI-84 keypads, the CX series retain all features of the previous TI-Nspire models. The colors of the calculator are still the same as those of the TI-Nspire models; the CX is white and dark blue, while the CX CAS is gray and black. The external connectors have changed slightly. The mini-USB port, located at the center on the top of the TI-Nspire series, has moved to the right on the top on the CX series. On the CX series, TI added a second port immediately left of the mini-USB port, for a new wireless module. The new wireless TI-Nspire Navigator adapter, which allows teachers to monitor students and send files, is not compatible with the previous TI-Nspire models. The third port, located at the bottom of the handheld, is for the TI Charging Dock and Lab Cradle. The keypad layout is very similar to that of the TI-Nspire Touchpad.
Both models have 100 MB of user memory and 64 MB of RAM. The retail package comes in a plastic blister case and doesn't have the full manual, while the teachers edition comes in a box with a TI-Nspire CX poster for classrooms and the full manual (in English and French in the US). Both devices ship with the student/teacher software for Windows/Mac OS X. According to Texas Instruments, The CX is accepted in SAT, IB, AP, ACT and British GCSE and A level exams. The CX CAS is only accepted on SAT and AP.
Chinese market.
Four models aimed for the Chinese market were launched, with specialized features. All four models have Chinese labeled keyboards. The CX-C and CX-C CAS models are similar to CX and CX CAS, but included a concise Chinese-English dictionary. The CM-C and CM-C CAS are cheaper, featured a more stream-lined design, but have only 32MB of RAM and no port for the wireless module.
The systems of the Chinese versions are not interchangeable with those of the international models.
TI-Nspire CX II and TI-Nspire CX II CAS.
In 2019, Texas Instruments introduced the TI-Nspire CX II and TI-Nspire CX II CAS. They feature a slightly different operating system with several enhancements and slightly improved hardware, including python integration.
European market.
Like China, the continent of Europe also has models aimed for its market. These calculators include a "-T" after the CX. The CX II-T and CX II-T CAS both have different body color designs than their North American counterparts. One of the main feature differences in the European versions is the inclusion of an exact math engine in the non-CAS version. European models also omit the WiFi adapter port from the top of the calculator.
Software.
Texas Instruments offers several different versions of software for their calculators. They offer CAS and non-CAS versions of their student and teacher software. This software allows users to share results with classmates and teachers and gives the user an emulated version of the TI-Nspire. TI also offers a computer link software for connecting their handheld to their computer to transfer documents. The software allows for the syncing of documents to and from the calculator and/or computer. This software requires a license in order to be used.
Programming languages.
Beside the TI Basic functionality the Nspire calculators provides functionality to run scripts written in two additional programming languages with the standard TI firmware.
With the release of OS 3.0, the Lua scripting language is supported, allowing 3rd party programs to be run without the need of exploits. There are currently more than 100 third-party programs and functions for the Nspire that introduce new functionality, like Laplace transforms, Fourier transforms, and 3rd and 4th degree differential equations, that are not included by default. The actual LUA Version is 5.1 in OS Version 5.2 (September 2020).
Since firmware version 5.2 it is possible to program and run Python (Version 3.4.0 in September 2020) scripts in an interpreter shell or from the main calculator command line.
Lab Cradle.
The TI-Nspire Lab Cradle is a Calculator-Based Laboratory system introduced in 1994. It is a portable data collection device for the life sciences. The CBL system was replaced in 1999 by the CBL 2. The TI-Nspire Lab Cradle has three analog and two digital inputs with a sampling rate of up to 100,000 readings per second. The cradle also has 32 MB of storage space to store sensor data. The Lab Cradle allows the TI-Nspire series to communicate with older Calculator-Based Laboratory systems that previous TI calculators used (TI-73 series, TI-82, TI-83 series, TI-85, and TI-86).
The TI-Nspire Lab Cradle used the rechargeable battery of the TI-Nspire and support three different charging options: wall adapter, USB cable to computer and TI-Nspire Cradle Charging Bay. The TI-Nspire Lab Cradle is marketed by Texas Instruments and developed as part of an ongoing business venture between TI and Vernier Software & Technology of Portland, Oregon.
Navigator system.
The navigator system allows teachers to connect multiple TI-Nspire calculators to a computer through the TI-Nspire Access Point and TI-Nspire Navigator Wireless Cradles. The system includes the TI-Nspire cradle charging bay and the main system which looks like a wireless router. The Navigator system was first available when the first generation Nspires were launched, but when the TI-Nspire CX and CX CAS were released, a new wireless adapter was announced that is smaller but not compatible with the TI-Nspire and TI-Nspire Touchpad.
Press-to-Test.
Press-to-Test is a feature that restricts access to the user's documents and certain features of the calculator for a limited time. Its intended purpose is to prevent cheating on tests and exams. Press-to-Test is enabled by pressing a certain button combination when turning on the calculator. The features that are blocked (for example 3D graphs and drag & drop for graphs) can be selectively enabled, but access to existing documents is always prohibited. When the handheld is running in Press-to-Test mode, an LED on top of it blinks to indicate that Press-to-Test hasn't been disabled. Press-to-Test can only be disabled by connecting to another calculator or a computer with TI-Nspire compatible software installed. Removing the batteries or pressing the reset button will not disable it.
Ndless.
Ndless (alternatively stylized Ndl3ss) is a third-party jailbreak for the TI-Nspire calculators that allows native programs, such as C, C++, and ARM assembly programs, to run. Ndless was developed initially by Olivier Armand and Geoffrey Anneheim and released in February 2010 for the Clickpad handheld. Organizations such as Omnimaga and TI-Planet promoted Ndless and built a community around Ndless and Ndless programs. With Ndless, low-level operations can be accomplished, for example overclocking, allowing the handheld devices to run faster. Downgrade prevention can be defeated as well. In addition, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo Entertainment System emulators exist for the handhelds with Ndless. Major Ndless-powered programs also include a port of the game "Doom". Unlike Lua scripts, which are supported by Texas Instruments, Ndless is actively counteracted by TI. Each subsequent OS attempts to block Ndless from operating.
Technical Specifications.
Texas Instruments developed their own proprietary System-On-Chip from the ARM9 32-bit processors. The first generation of the TI-Nspire is based on LSI Corporation's (now Broadcom Inc.) "Zevio" design while the CX and CX II generation is built with Toshiba's Application-Specific Integrated Circuit design.
Most Texas Instruments calculators contain only a non-volatile read-only memory called NAND Flash and a volatile random-access memory called Synchronous dynamic random-access memory or SDRAM. The NAND Flash is not executable but contains parts of the operating system. However, the TI-Nspire also uses NOR ROM to store boot instructions for the operating system. Texas Instruments most likely did this to free up the NAND Flash, and SDRAM in the calculator to be used by the user and operating system. The NAND Flash and SDRAM are used to store user and operating system documents.
Previous Texas Instruments calculators had a backup button cell battery used to maintain user information, system information and time and date, between battery changes. This allows a user to keep their information when a battery is removed. Because the TI-Nspire lacks this backup battery, the SDRAM content is deleted whenever the user has to swap the battery out. This necessitates that the calculator load the operating system and file structure from the NAND Flash to the SDRAM, causing a longer loading time.
Despite the overall performance increase between versions of the TI-Nspire, performance differences do exist. The TI-Nspire CX II version lacks 10+ MB of storage space compared to its predecessor. The TI-Nspire CM-C and CM-C CAS (the Chinese versions of the CX and CX CAS) are cheaper and have an updated design, but have only 32MB of RAM and no port for the wireless module.
Operating System versions.
The TI-Nspire CX/CX CAS calculators are now running the operating system (OS) version 4.5.4.48, released in March 2021. The TI-Nspire CX II/CX II CAS are running version 5.3.0.564, released in March 2021. The operating system has been updated frequently since 2007 (partly due to bugs and missing functions, and also to patch jailbreak exploits), one year after its release in 2006. Version 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0 were major upgrades.
Added features in OS 2.0.
Starting with OS 2.0, additional features were added to increase usability and usefulness of the TI-Nspire. Below are major changes that were made. These features have stayed with the Nspire series to date.
Added features in OS 3.0.
Images can be included in TI-Nspire documents using the computer software. They can then be displayed on the Nspire calculators and in full color on the Nspire CX calculators. Graphs can be drawn on top of the images. A data collection application is included with the OS, for use with the Lab Cradle. 3D graphing is supported, as well as differential equations. Other features were also added, including improvements to functions that are related to statistics. OS 3.0 also adds the ability to run programs that are written in Lua. OS 3.0.1 introduced a number of bugs, but most of these have been fixed as of 3.0.2. In OS 3.2, conic equations in standard formats can be graphed and a new chemistry feature, Chem Box, allows users to write chemical notations. OS 3.2 also saw the inclusion of the Chipmunk physics engine for use in Lua programs. In OS 3.9, the area between curves can now be calculated on the graph bar.
Added features in OS 4.0.
An indicator now displays the angle mode (Degrees, Radians or Gradians) in effect for the current application. In window settings on graphs, exact inputs such as 7/3 or 2*π can now be used for input of custom window settings.
Added features in OS 5.0.
OS 5.0 is currently exclusive to the CX II/CX II CAS and their -T counterparts. These features were added in this release:
Added features in OS 5.2.
OS 5.2 is currently exclusive to the CX II/CX II CAS and their -T counterparts. These features were added in this release:
Added features in OS 5.3.
OS 5.3 is currently exclusive to the CX II/CX II CAS and their -T counterparts. These features were added in this release:


Minolta DSLR


SMIL (computer)

SMIL (, "The Number Machine in Lund") was a first-generation computer built at Lund University in Lund, Sweden. SMIL was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann.
 belonged to the group of five young Swedish scientists 1947–48 that IVA sent to the U.S. to gather information about the early computer development, and then came to strongly influence the development in Sweden. Fröberg visited with Erik Stemme the Institute for Advanced Study, and John von Neumann's research group. Back in Lund, he played a leading role in the creation of SMIL, which was the first computer developed in Lund and among the first in Sweden. SMIL was introduced in 1956 and then was in operation until 1970.
In February 1962 SMIL was fitted with a compiler for ALGOL 60. The compiler was constructed by Torgil Ekman and Leif Robertson.
Carl-Erik Fröberg was also behind the early emergence of numerical analysis as a separate university subject. In this context, he wrote himself and collaborated with others on several textbooks in computer education, for example, "Textbook on Numerical Analysis" (1962) and "Textbook of Algol" (1964). These books were widely distributed and translated into several languages.
Parts of SMIL are exhibited at Malmö Technical Museum.
On January 4, 2006, an emulator of SMIL named SMILemu was released with a Java and version.
Trivia.
"Smil" is Swedish word for "grin".


List of iPad accessories

The iPad is an iPadOS-based (previously iOS) line of tablet computers designed and developed by Apple Inc.; it has a wide variety of accessories made by Apple available for it, including a screen cover specifically for the respective models of iPad called Smart Cover, as well as a number of accessories to allow the iPad to connect to other devices, some of which enable non-touchscreen input.


Nikon D50

The D50 is a 6.1-megapixel entry-level digital single-lens reflex camera, sold from June 2005 until November 2006 by Nikon. It was Nikon's first DSLR aimed at the consumer market, and sold for US$899. It uses the Nikon F mount. The D50 is similar to the slightly older D70 using the same CCD sensor, with a slower maximum shutter speed and slightly smaller size; however, it continued to offer the internal focus motor of prior autofocus film and digital SLRs. Future entry-level Nikon DSLRs (D40, D60, D3000, D5000) would eliminate the internal focus motor and require these motors to be in the lenses. Lack of a focus-motor in the camera eliminated the ability to autofocus with late film-era Nikkor AF and AF-D lenses, though these lenses work well on the D50.
Features.
It has a 23.7 mm by 15.6 mm DX format image sensor with 6.1 million effective pixels. It also has a 2.0" (50 mm) polysilicon TFT LCD with 130,000 pixels. The camera uses a through-the-lens full-aperture exposure metering system. It can simultaneously record NEF and JPEG data to a Secure Digital storage device. Like its newer, higher-end sibling (the D80), the D50 uses Secure Digital instead of CompactFlash cards found on previous Nikon digital SLRs. The camera is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery which is claimed to be able to take up to 2,000 shots on a single charge. The camera is compatible with PictBridge printers and can shoot 2.5 frames per second in continuous mode. The camera's dimensions are 133 mm in width, 102 mm in height, and 76 mm in depth.
The D50 is the only entry-level Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor ('screw drive') built into the camera body, making the camera backwards-compatible with mechanical-drive autofocus lenses (Nikkor AF/AF-D series) dating back to 1989. This feature has been eliminated on later entry-level models and is currently only available on mid-range and advanced models. This makes the D50 the lightest Nikon DSLR to have the autofocus motor.
This camera has many settings that can only be accessed by selecting a detailed menu view. One such feature is the ability to make a series of differently-exposed images for processing into HDRI photographs. The camera menu refers to this setting as BKT (Bracketed Set).
Market.
The D50 was announced on April 20, 2005 and went on sale in June 2005. When introduced, the camera carried a suggested retail price of US$799 for the body only or $899 with a new 18-55 mm F3.5-5.6 G AF-S DX lens. Another variant of the D50 kit containing both the 18–55 mm and a 55–200 mm F4-5.6 G AF-S DX lens was available. Competitors of the D50 included the Canon EOS 350D, the Pentax *ist DS, the Konica Minolta Dynax 5D, and the Olympus E-300.
The website Digital Photography Review rated the D50 highly and noted its improved noise performance over the D70s it was largely derived from, although it had fewer hobbyist features (making the D50 the first de-specified entry-level DSLR camera thus lowering the MSRP) and a lower price than the D70s. In depth testing by the Images Resources website and the October 2005 "Hoshi Nabi" (Star Navigator) Magazine, indicated that the D50 achieved its low noise through exceptionally good performance at the sensor level. Testing by Roger Clark confirmed that the D50 had higher gain and lower noise than the D70. Tests of the D50 at all ISO levels indicated that it did offer low noise without loss of contrast or detail.


Pecom 32

Pecom 32 is an educational and/or home computer developed by Elektronska Industrija Niš of Serbia in 1985.


Fujifilm FinePix S200EXR

The Fujifilm FinePix S200EXR (also known as S205EXR) is a digital bridge camera from Fujifilm introduced in July 2009.
It features a 12 Megapixel, 1/1.6" EXR sensor, Fujifilm's 9th generation of Super CCD, first seen in F200EXR, and uses same body and lens as FinePix S100fs.
The main features of the EXR sensor is the new color filter, different from largely used Bayer filter, and pixel binning capability, which it uses to produce higher dynamic range and better sensitivity. Due to the nature of EXR technology, high sensitivity (SN) and high dynamic range (DR) modes produce 6 Megapixel resolution images.
The S200EXR has the shape and size to a small DSLR, but with a fixed lens. However, unlike a DSLR, the S200EXR features an 0.2",200,000 dot FLCD color electronic viewfinder. Framerate of the viewfinder can be adjust in the menu system from 30fps to 50fps (half pressed shutter only). The rear LCD screen of the S200EXR is a conventional non-rotating, non-articulating 2.7" 230,000 dot panel.
The S200EXR's controls are very similar to that of an actual DSLR with buttons for exposure compensation, ISO, focus and metering modes, and knobs for exposure modes and a thumb wheel. The S200EXR lost the PC sync socket of the S100FS, but keeps the hot shoe.
The lens used on the Fujifilm S200EXR is a variable aperture zoom. Its widest focal length is 30.5mm and zooms up to 436mm (135 format). It is the same lens that was on the Fujifilm S100FS. However, because of the smaller sensor size of the S200EXR (1/1.6" vs 2/3"), it's focal length has changed. Its widest aperture is F2.8 and closes down to F5.3 at its longest focal length. Unlike other bridge cameras at the time, the S200EXR featured a manual twist zoom lens similar to that of an actual DSLR. The lens also features Optical Image Stabilization (estimated 2-stop effectiveness). The lens features a fly-by-wire focus ring which is situated closest to the camera's body. It can be used in Manual focus mode with the assist of an focus scale in the viewfinder. The lens can focus as close as 1 cm in Super Macro Mode.
The S200EXR is powered by a proprietary lithium ion battery which is supplied with the camera as well as a neck strap and lens cap. Optional accessories were a bayonet type lens hood with an opening for turning polarized filters, an Ac power adapter, and remote release.
Movie mode.
The S200EXR can record video at an maximum resolution of 640x480 at 30fps with mono sound in .avi format. Focus and zoom can be adjusted whilst recording. The camera can record as long as there is memory available and battery power.
Quirks.
The owners manual states that the camera can be awakened from sleep by pressing the "play" button for about a second. This is false. Annoyingly, the camera must be turned off and then on again.
The EXR sensor in the S200EXR, as well as other EXR sensor cameras exhibit strange artifacts in 12MP High Resolution Priority mode. This is due to having two of the same color filters next to each other.
CCD-RAW files that were shot in EXR-DR Priority and EXR-SN Priority modes are extremely large for a 6 megapixel output. Some file sizes exceed 20MB. This is due to having two separate images recorded onto a single file. An example would be a highlight image and the shadow image recoded onto the same raw file that was shot in EXR-DR mode. Other reasons may be due to the Super CCD structure and interpolation needed to make the honeycomb layout into an normal square layout.


HP-42S

The HP-42S RPN Scientific is a programmable RPN Scientific hand held calculator introduced by Hewlett Packard in 1988. It has advanced functions suitable for applications in mathematics, linear algebra, statistical analysis, computer science and others.
Overview.
Perhaps the HP-42S was to be released as a replacement for the aging HP-41 series as it is designed to be compatible with all programs written for the HP-41. Since it lacked expandability, and lacked any real I/O ability, both key features of the HP-41 series, it was marketed as an HP-15C replacement.
The 42S, however, has a much smaller form factor than the 41, and features many more built-in functions, such as a matrix editor, complex number support, an equation solver, user-defined menus, and basic graphing capabilities (the 42S can draw graphs only by programs). Additionally, it features a two-line dot matrix display, which made stack manipulation easier to understand.
Production of the 42S ended in 1995. As this calculator is regarded amongst the best ever made in terms of quality, key stroke feel, ease of programming, and daily usability for engineers, in the HP calculator community the 42S has become famous for its high prices in online auctions, up to several times its introduction price, which has created a scarcity for utility end users.
Programming.
The HP-42S is keystroke-programmable, meaning that it can remember and later execute sequences of keystrokes to solve particular problems of interest to the user. The HP-42S uses a superset of the HP-41CX FOCAL language.
The HP-42S supports indirect addressing with which it is possible to implement a Universal Turing machine and therefore the programming model of the HP-42S can be considered Turing-complete.
Sample program.
This is a sample program which computes the factorial of an input integer number (ignoring the calculator's built-in factorial function). The program consumes 18 bytes. No memory registers are used.
Legacy.
In May 2017, SwissMicros released pre-production samples of an RPN calculator closely resembling the HP-42S, the "DM42". The final product was released on the 9 December 2017. Even though slightly smaller (144×77×13 mm, 170 g) than the original HP-42S (148×80×15 mm, 170 g), the calculator comes with an additional top row of keys for soft menus, a keyboard layout supporting direct alpha character input, a much larger high-contrast display (Sharp low power transflective memory LCD with a resolution of 400×240, protected by Gorilla Glass) showing all four stack levels at once (configurable), ca. 75 KB usable RAM, a beeper, a callable real-time clock as well as an infrared port for HP 82240A/HP 82240B printer support and a USB interface (with Micro-B connector) emulating a FAT16-formatted USB mass storage device for easy program transfer and state backup / transfer as well as for firmware updates. The calculator, which comes in a stainless steel case with matte black physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating, supports keyboard overlays and is based on a modified version of Thomas Okken's GPLed Free42 simulator with Intel's decimal floating-point math library for higher precision (decimal128) running on an STM32L476RG processor (ARM Cortex-M4 core, 128 KB RAM, 1 MB internal flash) with another 8 MB of external QSPI flash (of which ca. 6 MB are available to users). It is powered by a CR2032 coin cell or via USB and clocked dynamically at 24-80 MHz. The "DM42" is also the hardware basis for the community-developed WP 43S calculator, a successor to the WP 34S.


Konica Minolta DSLR


HP xb3000

the HP xb3000 Notebook Expansion Base is a laptop docking station manufactured by Hewlett-Packard Company. Its notable features an inclining tray, a PCI expansion port 3 cable interface (with adapter for other PCI expansion port interface), and an integrated 16-bit AT hard drive bay. The device is shipped with a USB wireless receiver, wireless keyboard and mouse.
Specifications.
Hosted ports.
3.5 mm stereo TRS connector, 3.5 mm mono microphone TRS connector, 6 USB 2.0, DC power input, composite video out, S-video out, YPbPr component video out, SPDIF digital audio out, VGA, 10/100 Ethernet, separate DC power input cutout for integrated hard disk drive bay, proprietary 16-bit AT hard drive interface.
Compatible notebook PCs.
Undocumented but compatible:


Elonex ONE

The Elonex ONE (also known as ONE) was a netbook computer marketed to the education sector by Elonex. The ONE's operating system was called Linos, based on Linux kernel 2.6.21, and the device had Wi-Fi connectivity, Ethernet networking, a solid-state hard drive, two USB ports and weighed less than 1 kg.
The ONE was described by Elonex at the time as the cheapest laptop in the UK at a retail price of £99 in the UK. Its official unveiling took place on 28 February 2008 at "The Education Show" at the NEC in Birmingham and a shipping date of June 2008 was announced. Customer deliveries started in August 2008.
In February 2008, Elonex stated their vision was for "every pupil to have their own laptop" to "improve computer literacy across the nation". Elonex aligned the cost of the ONE with the aims of the DCSF closing the achievement gap between those from low-income and disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers. To support this initiative Elonex committed to "donate 1 ONE to underprivileged children from disadvantaged areas for every hundred sold".
Hardware.
The hardware specifications were published on 28 February 2008. The "LNX Code 8" is also the CPU used in the Elonex One+, One T, and One T+ ultra-low-cost notebook computers. While Elonex declined to release information on the designer and manufacturer of the processor, Engadget reported that the One could be a rebranded Fontastic A-View laptop, which would make the processor an x86-compatible 300 MHz Aday5F.
Similar devices.
The ONE is similar to the A-View or AW-300 A-BOOK products from Aware. They use an Aday 5F-300 MHz X86 processor. An earlier "Aware" product the AW-150 is sold in the US for $199 as the MiTYBOOK.
Elonex revealed further notebook models at Computex in June 2008. Elonex introduced the One successor at IFA 2009. It's a smartbook based on ARM 11 CPA and Windows CE OS.


Ultra 24

The Ultra 24 is a family of computer workstations by Sun Microsystems based on the Intel Core 2 processor.
The Sun Ultra 24 launched in 2007, and ships with Solaris 10 pre-installed. Other than Solaris, it is officially compatible with various flavours of Linux as well as Microsoft's Windows XP and Windows Vista.


Ringo R470

Ringo R470 was a Brazilian clone of the Sinclair ZX81 by Ritas do Brasil. It has a Z80A at 3.25 MHz, 8K ROM and 16 KB RAM. It wasn't 100% compatible with the ZX81.


LZX

LZX is an LZ77 family compression algorithm. It is also the name of a file archiver with the same name. Both were invented by Jonathan Forbes and Tomi Poutanen in 1990s.
Instances of use of the LZX algorithm.
Amiga LZX.
LZX was publicly released as an Amiga file archiver in 1995, while the authors were studying at the University of Waterloo in Canada. The software was shareware, which was common for compression software at the time. The registered version contained fixes and improvements not available in the evaluation version. In 1997, the authors gave away a free keyfile, which allowed anyone to use the registered version, as they had stopped work on the archiver and stopped accepting registrations.
Microsoft Cabinet files.
In 1996, Forbes went to work for Microsoft, and Microsoft's cabinet archiver was enhanced to include the LZX compression method. Improvements included a variable search window size; Amiga LZX was fixed to 64 KB, Microsoft LZX could range on powers of two between 32 and 2048 kilobytes (32,768 to 2,097,152 bytes). A special preprocessor was added to detect Intel 80x86 "CALL" instructions, converting their operands from relative addressing to absolute addressing, thus calls to the same location resulted in repeated strings that the compressor could match, improving compression of 80x86 binary code. (This technique is later generalized as Branch-Call-Jump [BCJ] filtering.)
Microsoft Compressed HTML Help (CHM) files.
When Microsoft introduced Microsoft Compressed HTML Help, the replacement to their classic Help file format, they chose to compress all of the HTML data with the LZX algorithm. However, in order to improve random access speed, the compressor was altered to reset itself after every 64 kilobyte (65,536 bytes) interval and re-align to a 16-bit boundary after every 32 kilobyte interval. Thus, the HTMLHelp software could immediately seek to the nearest 64 kilobyte interval and start decoding from there, rather than decoding from the beginning of the compressed datastream at all times.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) files.
Microsoft LIT files for Microsoft Reader are simply an extension of the CHM file format, and thus also use LZX compression.
Windows Imaging Format (WIM) files.
Windows Imaging Format, the installation/drive image file format of Windows Vista and Windows 7, uses LZX as one of the compression methods.
Xbox Live Avatars.
Microsoft uses LZX compression on Xbox Live Avatars to reduce their disk and bandwidth requirements.
Decompressing LZX files.
The unlzx program and XAD can unpack Amiga LZX archives. The cabextract program can unpack Microsoft cabinet files using the LZX method. There are a multitude of cross-platform tools for decompiling or viewing CHM files, as stated in the CHM article. LIT files can be unpacked using the Convert LIT software.


David Pierce (CEO)

David Pierce was the CEO of Atari, Inc.