History of Microcomputer
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The Origins of Word Processing and Office Automation
Remembering the Office of the Future: The Origins of Word Processing and Office Automation Thomas Haigh University of Wisconsin Word processing entered the American office in 1970 as an idea about reorganizing typists, but its meaning soon shifted to describe computerized text editing. The designers of word processing systems combined existing technologies to exploit the falling costs of interactive computing, creating a new business quite separate from the emerging world of the personal computer. Most people first experienced word processing using a word processor, we think of a software as an application of the personal computer. package, such as Microsoft Word. However, in During the 1980s, word processing rivaled and the early 1970s, when the idea of word process- eventually overtook spreadsheet creation as the ing first gained prominence, it referred to a new most widespread business application for per- way of organizing work: an ideal of centralizing sonal computers.1 By the end of that decade, the typing and transcription in the hands of spe- typewriter had been banished to the corner of cialists equipped with technologies such as auto- most offices, used only to fill out forms and matic typewriters. The word processing concept address envelopes. By the early 1990s, high-qual- was promoted by IBM to present its typewriter ity printers and powerful personal computers and dictating machine division as a comple- were a fixture in middle-class American house- ment to its “data processing” business. Within holds. Email, which emerged as another key the word processing center, automatic typewriters application for personal computers with the and dictating machines were rechristened word spread of the Internet in the mid-1990s, essen- processing machines, to be operated by word tially extended word processing technology to processing operators rather than secretaries or electronic message transmission. -
ALTAIR 8800 CLONE COMPUTER OPERATOR's MANUAL Version
ALTAIR 8800 CLONE COMPUTER OPERATOR’S MANUAL Version 2.3, April 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................... 1 PART 1 – ALTAIR 8800 CLONE HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS ......................... 2 PART 2 – CONFIGURATION MONITOR ............................................. 4 A. Floppy Disk Menu ....................................................... 4 B. PROM Menu .............................................................. 6 C. Serial Port Menu ....................................................... 7 D. Load .BIN or .HEX File ................................................. 9 E. Administration Menu .................................................... 9 PART 3 – TERMINAL EMULATOR ................................................ 14 A. Overview .............................................................. 14 B. TeraTerm Terminal Emulator ............................................ 14 C. Installing TeraTerm ................................................... 14 D. Configuring TeraTerm .................................................. 14 E. Using TeraTerm ........................................................ 15 PART 4 – ALTAIR 8800 DEMONSTRATIONS ....................................... 16 A. Kill-the-Bit Front Panel Game ......................................... 16 B. Loading and Using 4K BASIC from Paper Tape ............................ 18 C. Loading and Using 8K BASIC from Cassette .............................. 21 D. Loading and Using Disk BASIC from Floppy Disk ........................ -
MITS Altair 8800 Computer Systems Brochure
MITS ALTAI 800 A Computer Concept Becomes an ex •ting reality. •••••••••• Contents ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• Introduction •....•.•.•.•••••••••••• 3 Altair Systems .........•........•.. 5 The Ultimate System .......•....•.•. 7 The Possibilities .......•....•....• S User Applications ......•.......•.. 10 Altair Options ..........•..•...•.• ll Processor Description ........••.•. 14 Processor Instructions ............ l5 Questions &Answers ......••....•.• 17 1....................................................... .1 Warranty: 90 days on parts and labor fOf assembled units. 90 days on parts fOf kits. Prices, spec'ifications and delivery subject to change without notice. 6328 LINN, N.E .., P.O. BOX 8636, ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. 87108 505/265-7553 © MITS, Inc. 1974 PRINTED IN U.S:A. .. PIPE DREAM? Not too long ago, the thought of an honest, full-blown, high-quality computer that sells for less than $500 would have been considered a mere pipe dream. Everyone knows that computers are monstrous, box-shaped machines that sell for 10's and 100's of thousands of dollars. Pipe dream or not, MITS, the quality engineering company that pioneered the calcu lator market, has made the Altair 8800 a reality. It is the realization of that day when computers arc accessible to almost anyone who wants one. I The heart (and the secret) of the M ITS Altair 8800 is the Intel 8080 processor chip. Thanks to rapid advances in integrated circuit technology, this one IC chip can now do 3 what once took thousands of electronic components (including 100's of IC's) and miles of wire. Make no mistake about it. The M ITS Altair 8800 is a lot of brain power. Its parallel, 8-bit processor uses a 16-bit address. It has 78 basic machine instructions with variances up to 200 instructions. -
M.Nlo Hrk, CA
vee P.t). b{)x JI() pa... k.~ca.~4-02~ N-.Proflt a... U.I.I"OSTAGE PAID ",""h No. 427 M.nlo hrk, CA Celiverto+ ~• jli • ~• N n z- 0 of m,. 3 m 0 'a m 0 c:: 0 _.M• I :::II -'U UI m 'U c» of 0 m 3: DI 3 m .... D ..lI D ~ ~ 111 u::: Not too long ago it became pouible for large scale chips to be made. Intel rolled the ball with the 800e. then rolled it some more with the 8(110. This year's real winner looks like being the PACE chip, from National Semiconductor. These things are oot easy to make. The difficulty of making them is lIflormoosly increased as they get bigger ••nd a 16 bit CPu is awful big. The $lory starts with a few enthusia$ls. a blackboard and a whole crew who doubted it could be made at all. Moby chip, as it was known, was oot a project for the faint hearted. The crooked tines on the blackboard soon became straight and well defined. Very. This is the beginning of the marks which OPtically define the position of every tiny facet of the chip to be. The precision of the whole process starts here, and hera also is the place where chips can be designed not to work - tNery line is checked and rechecked and ... Sometimes a particular person can make things when others can't. There Is the tale of the big manufacturer Now the magic begins. It starts with. sinlJle Cl'VSUI which was licensing a company in another country to of pure silicon. -
The Database Language 95030
Tbe Database Language GEM Carlo Zaniolo Bell Laboratories Holmdel, New Jersey 07733 ABSTRACT GEM (bn acronym for General Entity Manipulator) is a general-purpose query and update language for the DSIS data model, which is a semantic data model of the Entity-Relationship type. GEM is designed as -an easy-to-use extension of the relational language QUEL. providing supporr for. the notions of entities with surrogates, aggregation, generalization, null values, and set-valued attributes. 1. INTRODUCTION generalization. The possibility of extending the relational model to capture more meaning - as A main thrust of computer technology is towards opposed to introducing a new model - was simplicity and ease of use. Database management investigated in [CoddZl, where, surrogates and null systems have come a long way in this respect, values were found necessaryfor the task. particularly after the introduction of the relational approach [Ullml, which provides users with a simple ,-‘Most previous work with semantic data models has tabular view of data and powerful and convenient concentrated on the problem of modeling reality and query languages for interrogating and manipulating on schema design; also the problem of integrating the database. These features were shown to be the the database into a programming environment key to reducing the cost of database-intensive supporting abstract data types has received application programming Ecddll and to providing considerable attention [Brad, KMCI. However, the a sound environment for back-end support and -
Reviews Computer Applications Programs
REVIEWS COMPUTER APPLICATIONS PROGRAMS INTRODUCTION TO SOFTWARE REVIEWS By Glen McAninch, University of Kentucky "You've come a long way baby!!!" Archivists have come a long way from the development of SPINDEX in the early 1970s. Back then, it seemed that archiv- ists needed software written for mainframe computers in order to have the flex- ibility (i. e. variable length fields and user designated tags) and storage capacity necessary to store and retrieve information on archival material. While SPIN- DEX has not been completely superceded for certain applications (i. e., print- ing lists for large institutions with a high volume of data), archivists in the 1980s have found that micro- and minicomputers can provide a relatively low cost alternative which can offer new features such as on-line searching and the generation of statistics. It was in the early 1980s that I first heard of archivists using commercially available software on microcomputers. They were using word processors and file managers like PFS, Data Factory, and DB Master on Apple computers with limited memory. Later, archivists stepped up to IBM PCs and look-alikes with two or three times the internal memory of the Apples. This enabled them to use more sophisticated relational database managers such as dBase II and later SAVVY, which require programming through the use of a command language. Archivists also began mixing powerful computers and mass storage (fixed disk) with simple file managers, some of which are reviewed in this issue of The Mid- western Archivist. Another software package that took advantage of the added power of the IBM PC was MARCON, a'database manager written especially for archivists by AIRS, a software developer group-with an archival background. -
A Programming Paradigm for Autonomic Systems
0 Context-Oriented Programming: A Programming Paradigm for Autonomic Systems GUIDO SALVANESCHI and CARLO GHEZZI and MATTEO PRADELLA, Politecnico di Milano Dynamic software adaptability is one of the central features leveraged by autonomic computing. However, developing software that changes its behavior at run time adapting to the operational conditions is a challenging task. Several approaches have been proposed in the literature to attack this problem at different and complementary abstraction levels: software architecture, middleware, and programming level. We focus on the support that ad-hoc programming language constructs may provide to support dynamically adaptive behaviors. We introduce context-oriented programming languages and we present a framework that positions the supported paradigm in the MAPE-K autonomic loop. We discuss the advantages of using context-oriented programming languages instead of other mainstream approaches based on dynamic aspect-oriented programming languages. We present a preliminary case study that shows how the proposed programming style naturally fits dynamic adaptation requirements and we extensively evaluate the use of COP in this scenario. Finally, we discuss some known problems and outline a number of open research challenges. Categories and Subject Descriptors: D.1 ,Software]: Programming .echniques—Object-oriented Programming0 D.3.3 ,Pro- gramming Languages]: Language Constructs and Features General .erms: Languages, Design Additional $ey Words and Phrases: Context, Self-adaptative software, Context-oriented programming, Autonomic comput- ing. 1. INTRODUCTION In the course of years, software systems complexity has been growing, increasing the required effort and the cost of management and maintenance. Autonomic computing 5"'6 ,$ephart and Chess 7881- aims at designing and building systems that can manage themselves with reduced human intervention pursuing high-level administrator’s goals. -
Dr. Dobb's Journal of $1.So COMPUTER Calisthenics & Orthodontia Running Light Without Overbyte June/July, 1976 Box 310, Menlo Park CA 94025 Volume 1, Number 6
dr. dobb's journal of $1.so COMPUTER Calisthenics & Orthodontia Running Light Without Overbyte June/July, 1976 Box 310, Menlo Park CA 94025 Volume 1, Number 6 A REFERENCE JOURNAL FOR USERS OF HOME COMPUTERS .CONSUMER COMMENTS ·fraUie for Pittman's 6800 Tiny BASIC [letter & reply] 4 Denver's Digital Group Kit Draws Praise [letter] 5 Good Reports & Plaudits for MOS Technology[letter/note] 5 Accentuate the Software; Eliminate the Games [letter/reply] 6 Short on Length, hut Long on Quality [letter] 6 A Novice Constructs an IMSAL S. A. Cochran, Jr. 7 Don't Underestimate BASIC fletter] 40 an attorney builds his first computer BASIC Complaint & Macro Message [letter & reply] 40 FCC Petition on ANSCII Transmission by Hams 42 Dennis Allison reply points out BASIC limitations SOFTWARE A Bootstrap for the 8080, Lichen Wang 8 Byte-Saving Programming Tricks for the 8080, Tom Pittman 9 An Exercise for Novice Translator Implementors, Bill Thompson 11 A Classy 8080 Text Editor, similar to a PDP-9 Editor, F. J. Greeb 13 includes general comments, user documentation & extensively annotated source code Tiny Trek for Mueller's MINOL, Erik Mueller 37 Button, Button Game in 8080 Machine Code, Ron Santore 38 CORRECTIONS & IMPROVEMENTS Errors in & Improvements for Texas Tiny BASIC (TBX), Charles Skeldon 3'4 Errata & Additions to Wang's Palo Alto Tiny BAS1C, Lichen Wang 35 MinErrata for MINOL, plus Tiny Trek, Erik Mueller 36 VIDEO OUTPUT 48 Lines of 64 Characters on a TV for $499. 95, Video· Terminal Technology 27 512-Character Video RAM from Canada, Matrox Electronic Systems 27 Variable Character Spacing in Video Displays, Jim Day 28 TVT-11 Mods to Get 64 Characters per Line, David Valliere . -
Rocket Universe Guide to Retrieve
Rocket UniVerse Guide to RetrieVe Version 11.2 November 2013 UNV-112-RETR-1 Notices Edition Publication date: November 2013 Book number: UNV-112-RETR-1 Product version: Rocket UniVerse V11.2 Copyright © Rocket Software, Inc. or its affiliates 1985-2014. All Rights Reserved. Trademarks Rocket is a registered trademark of Rocket Software, Inc. For a list of Rocket registered trademarks go to: www.rocketsoftware.com/about/legal. All other products or services mentioned in this document may be covered by the trademarks, service marks, or product names of their respective owners. Examples This information might contain examples of data and reports. The examples include the names of individuals, companies, brands, and products. All of these names are fictitious and any similarity to the names and addresses used by an actual business enterprise is entirely coincidental. License agreement This software and the associated documentation are proprietary and confidential to Rocket Software, Inc., are furnished under license, and may be used and copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. Note: This product may contain encryption technology. Many countries prohibit or restrict the use, import, or export of encryption technologies, and current use, import, and export regulations should be followed when exporting this product. Contact information Website: www.rocketsoftware.com Rocket Software, Inc. Headquarters 77 4th Avenue, Suite 100 Waltham, MA 02451-1468 USA Tel: +1 781 577 4321 Fax: +1 617 630 7100 2 Contacting Global Technical Support If you have current support and maintenance agreements with Rocket Software, you can access the Rocket Customer Portal to report and track a problem, to submit an enhancement request or question, or to find answers in the U2 Knowledgebase. -
Build the Altair 8800 Mini Computer, Part 1
HOW TO "READ" FM TUNER SPECIFICATIONS 7t ioiiIc $ WORLDS LARGEST-SELLING ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE JANUARY 1975/75¢ PROJECT BREAKTHROUGH! 1Mild's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models... ALTAIR 88U0" SAVE OVER $1000 { A LTA 1R 8800 PAX: 1. let F In au an {0 l O, OS T- f a, ci tt n Os S i Q 11 . `/ MOO J t '4, _ , - . r . _ !w tn. LIS All tl U at = Al {{ U /11. At at {O O 6 G .. t O u 11 tt 1! 11 uMu ' AlOS tnr uuw aMut . sr MOW .a a.Ma4ai ' . in 9 - t- 4 ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: An Under -$90 Scientific Calculator Project o,ae . CCD's-TV Camera Tube Successor? . r'`?99` Thyristor-Controlled Photoflashers ;- TEST REPORTS: lSt Technics 200 Speaker System le Q 0'© Pioneer RT-1011 Open -Reel Recorder Tram Diamond í,6. 3:cr Nvs .aa,© - é f g COGN311 Aw 551 Edmund Scientw sr .1121abEi 1 i4 Hewlett-Packar , t 9teat C6451CC479 kxG' 96IC4£ 18101 AmericanRadioHistory.Com Popular Electronics PC 1117/ JANUARY, 1975 TESTED EXCLUSIVE! ALTAIR 8800 The most powerful minicomputer project ever presente -caM be built for under $400 á: . ;' --¢-^-. ., - .-r= ALTAIR 8800 ui1 PIOr MM. °,ei r i1 Our eUI ,;11.101.- 30 IR' It ° 05 04 U n- 11 00 5, n t [ ,'r` q [1. Q.,' Q.-.. ó ' ri '11 43 ' gout 3301-I@ IM R] !It III MO 7, M 03 tl,ai' II II°. 'lb II. C' , 0 O . U,.G t! , , U, l ° ' 1 , , . ' ' - ' .1 IS ...se . I 1 1- 1 S 1^ I 0 - r 10 /1 p r5 e-, .INAull, _ y 1 "-----11 4% 4% ":-....:174111.UAfíS N 331 IrOi . -
The Computer History Simulation Project
The Computer History Simulation Project The Computer History Simulation Project The Computer History Simulation Project is a loose Internet-based collective of people interested in restoring historically significant computer hardware and software systems by simulation. The goal of the project is to create highly portable system simulators and to publish them as freeware on the Internet, with freely available copies of significant or representative software. Simulators SIMH is a highly portable, multi-system simulator. ● Download the latest sources for SIMH (V3.5-1 updated 15-Oct-2005 - see change log). ● Download a zip file containing Windows executables for all the SIMH simulators. The VAX and PDP-11 are compiled without Ethernet support. Versions with Ethernet support are available here. If you download the executables, you should download the source archive as well, as it contains the documentation and other supporting files. ● If your host system is Alpha/VMS, and you want Ethernet support, you need to download the VMS Pcap library and execlet here. SIMH implements simulators for: ● Data General Nova, Eclipse ● Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1, PDP-4, PDP-7, PDP-8, PDP-9, PDP-10, PDP-11, PDP- 15, VAX ● GRI Corporation GRI-909 ● IBM 1401, 1620, 1130, System 3 ● Interdata (Perkin-Elmer) 16b and 32b systems ● Hewlett-Packard 2116, 2100, 21MX ● Honeywell H316/H516 ● MITS Altair 8800, with both 8080 and Z80 ● Royal-Mcbee LGP-30, LGP-21 ● Scientific Data Systems SDS 940 Also available is a collection of tools for manipulating simulator file formats and for cross- assembling code for the PDP-1, PDP-7, PDP-8, and PDP-11. -
Dbase Plus 1 Table Designer Behavior
User’s Guide VERSION 7.5 release 2.5 for Windows® 95, 98, 2000 NT, ME and XP dataBased Intelligence, Inc. Vestal, NY http://www.dbase.com news://news.dbase.com dataBased Intelligence, Inc. or Borland International may have patents and/or pending patent applications covering subject matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents. COPYRIGHT © 2002 dataBased Intelligence, Inc. All rights reserved. All dBASE product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of dataBased Intelligence, Inc. All Borland product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Borland International, Inc. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Printed in the U.S.A. Contents Chapter 1 Source Editor behavior . .11 Introduction to dBASE Plus 1 Table Designer behavior . .11 Optimized ReportViewer . .11 Welcome to dBASE Plus !. 1 Overview of dBASE Plus version 2.50 . .11 What is dBASE Plus? . 1 Mouse events . .11 dBASE Newsgroups . 2 Grid Class . .11 The dBASE Plus Knowledgebase: . 2 Project Explorer . .12 Changes from earlier versions . 2 TreeView. .12 Visual dBase 5.x through Visual dBase 7.0 . 2 Array Class . .12 Report objects and the integrated Report designer . 3 Report . .12 Project Explorer . 3 Inspector . .12 Data objects. 3 _app Object . .12 Visual designers . 3 _app.frameWin . .12 ActiveX integration. 4 Procedure files . .13 The Inspector . 4 Report Designer . .13 Full-featured Source editor . 4 Error Handling. .13 SQL designer . 4 CHOOSEPRINTER( ) and choosePrinter( ) . .13 BDE Administrator and database support . 4 dBASE Plus documentation . .13 DBF7 file format features .