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April 15Th May Have Been Shipped, but Loan from Atari in Return for Fewer Than 500 Were Sold Giving Them Access to the Lorraine Designs

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April 15Th May Have Been Shipped, but Loan from Atari in Return for Fewer Than 500 Were Sold Giving Them Access to the Lorraine Designs market for a few weeks. By one mortgage on his house, and the estimate, as many as 2,560 dolls company obtained a $500,000 April 15th may have been shipped, but loan from Atari in return for fewer than 500 were sold giving them access to the Lorraine designs. Edison’s Doll The issue of which company April 15, 1890 First Round-the- owned the Lorraine chipsets quickly became a legal matter Thomas Edison’s [Feb 11] World Telephone between Atari and Amiga. It was "Phonograph Doll" was a actually mostly a proxy war children’s toy standing 22’ Call between ex-Commodore inches tall, weighing a founder Jack Tramiel [Jan 16] substantial four pounds, because April 15 (or 25), 1935 who had just bought Atari's of its porcelain head, jointed The first round-the-world Consumer Division [July 1], and wooden limbs, and most telephone call was made when Commodore who had recently importantly, a miniaturized Walter S. Gifford, president of acquired Amiga. phonograph embedded in its tin AT&T called T.G. Miller, a mere body. Its musical repertoire vice president. In fact both men included nursery rhymes, such were only around 50 feet apart, as “Jack and Jill” and “Mary Had in adjacent rooms at the Long LISP Unveiled a Little Lamb.” Lines Building in NYC, but their April 15, 1959 The doll had been developed conversation travelled across The LISP programming language back in 1877, but only went on some 23,000 miles. One of the was originally created by John sale today as part of Lenox phones was later preserved at McCarthy [Sept 4] as a Lyceum's electrical exhibition in the Smithsonian Institute. mathematical notation for NYC in its “Dolls’ Theatorium”. Other firsts for Gifford included describing programs, and first the first user of the transatlantic described in the MIT report, phone service [Jan 7], and a “Recursive Functions of participant in American's first Symbolic Expressions and Their long distance TV demonstration Computation by Machine” [April 7]. However, the first released on this day. It was round-the-world telegram heavily influenced by Alonzo message was sent by President Church’s [June 14] lambda Theodore Roosevelt on [July 4] calculus (also announced on this 1903. day, but in 1936) . A LISP system was first implemented on an IBM 704 David Shannon [May 7] by Steve Russell, who had realized (to McCarthy’s An Edison Phonograph doll, Morse surprise) that LISP’s centrally 1890. The mechanism housed in important eval function could be the body has been removed and Born: April 15, 1943; implemented in machine code. is displayed alongside. Photo by Lexington, MA Mabalu. CC BY-SA 4.0. Died: Nov. 2, 2007 LISP quickly became the favored language for AI research, Jay Miner [May 31], along with because of useful features such The delay had been due partly to several other Atari staffers, had as tree data structures, the difficulty of designing small, resigned from the company after automatic storage management, relatively lightweight become increasingly fed up with dynamic typing, higher-order mechanisms that were also its management, and Miner and functions, recursion, and a read- sturdy enough to withstand Morse set up "Hi Toro" Inc. in eval-print loop. children. Even so, the wax Sept. 1982, which later changed records wore out quickly, and its name to Amiga. The name LISP derives from were prone to warping and “LISt Processor”, although many cracking. Miner's first project was the students who have suffered development of a 68000-based before its elegantly simple This doll marked the first games console codenamed syntax have argued that the attempt to reproduce sound for Lorraine (named after Morse’s name stands for “Lots of commercial and entertainment wife), which ultimately became Irritating Single Parentheses.” purposes. It was also the first the Amiga 1000 [July 23]. time people were employed as Lorraine was first demoed at The first LISP compiler written recording artists – in this case CES [June 24] in June 1984. in LISP, was implemented in nearly 20 women to recite the 1962 by Tim Hart and Mike rhymes. It was, however, a sales By this time debts were piling up Levin, which helped persuade failure, and only lasted on the and Morse took out a second may die-hard coders that LISP 1 was a real language. It was The Nova’s instruction set was that time produced about 17 quickly followed by the also an inspiration to Charles P. pages per minute. influential LISP 1.5 Thacker [Feb 26] and others at The 3800 was also very large – Programmer’s Manual [Aug 17]. Xerox PARC during their about 5 feet high and perhaps 12 construction of the Xerox Alto A quote from Philip Greenspun: feet wide along the front, and [March 1]. “SQL, LISP, and Haskell are the was also one of the first only programming languages The later battle between Data products to use a that I’ve seen where one spends General and DEC over the 32-bit microprocessor rather than a more time thinking than typing.” minicomputer market formed hard-wired controller. the background of Tracy He also coined "Greenspun's However, the invention of the Kidder’s book, “The Soul of a tenth rule of programming: “Any laser printer was due to Xerox New Machine” [July 00]. sufficiently complicated C or researcher Gary Starkweather Fortran program contains an ad- [Jan 21] back in 1969, based on hoc, informally-specified, bug- his modifications to a Xerox ridden, slow implementation of Canon Pocketronic 7000 copier. half of Common LISP” [Dec 8]. April 15, 1970 This of course means that Xerox could have been the first to Canon Business Machines of market with a laser printer but Data General Goes Japan announced the first hand- management was afraid that held pocket calculator, the four- such a product would negatively Nova function Canon Pocketronic. The impact their copier business. So, miniaturization was achieved by the innovation sat in limbo until April 15, 1968 the use of four Texas the announcement of the 3800. Data General was founded by Instruments (TI) chips, as part Soon after, Starkweather’s work Edson de Castro [Sept 14], of a joint venture. TI had became the Xerox 9700, which Henry Burkhardt III, and developed the underlying shipped in 1977. Richard Sogge of DEC [Aug 23], technologies in their and Herbert Richman of Cal-Tech Project [Sept Fairchild Semiconductor [Oct 1]. 29]. The three former DEC engineers The Pocketronic had left over its management’s didn’t have an LED reluctance to support their 16- display since they bit computer project. So it was were too expensive at hardly surprising that the first the time, and cheaper machine released by Data Nixie tubes would General was the 16-bit Nova in have made the 1969. calculator too big, and too power hungry. The Nova’s circuit boards were Instead the calculator similar in size to those in DEC’s printed its results on PDP-8 [March 22] (15 by 15 thermal paper tape, inches) but were connected which still made it An IBM 3800. (c) together using a backplane with rather larger than a typical www.retromobe.com. minimal manual wiring, which “pocket” – 8.3" x 3.9" x 1.9". greatly reduced their construction costs and was more One distinction between the two reliable. The computer was also products was that the 9700 was rack-mounted in a similar way IBM 3800 Laser a cut sheet printer while the to the PDP-8, but smaller and 3800 used continuous form considerably faster. Printer paper. Announced as “the best small April 15, 1975 computer in the world”, the The IBM 3800 model 001, Nova quickly gained a following, announced on this day, was the First West Coast especially in scientific and first commercial laser printer, educational markets. For and was the first to start Computer Faire example, Steve Wozniak [Aug shipping in July 1976. 11] (in high school at the time) April 15-17, 1977 was said to be so enchanted with It printed at a speed of about Computer enthusiasts gathered the Nova’s architecture that he 180 pages per minute, which at the first Annual West Coast had photos of its internals taped was blazingly fast. As a Computer Faire, held over three to his bedroom wall. comparison, the fastest IBM mechanical chain printers at days at the Brooks Civic Auditorium in San Francisco. 2 Every exhibit spaces had been Over the three days, they presence at MOS that persuaded rented out, including the received about 300 orders for Commodore to buy the company balcony of the auditorium, and the Apple II, which was over a in 1976. the hallway leading to the hundred more than the total The demand for the PET was so restrooms. The event had been number of Apple I's ever sold. huge that the waiting period organized by Jim Warren [July The Apple II was also their first stretched up to 5 months even 20] and Bob Reiling. product to carry the rainbow- though people had to pay $795 Only around 20,000 - 30,000 striped apple logo (six colors, in upfront. It became very popular American homes had computers the wrong order for a rainbow). in schools, and turned at the time, but the event Rob Janoff designed it earlier in Commodore into a major player attracted an amazing 12,750 1977, and added the bite mark in the PC market. attendees, and they saw some to give people a cue about its Peddle later said that the owner amazing stuff – the debut of the size, so they wouldn’t mistake of Commodore, Jack Tramiel Commodore PET [two entries the fruit for a cherry.
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