1.
Graphics display resolution
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The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimensions of an electronic visual display device, such as a computer monitor, in pixels. Certain combinations of width and height are standardized and typically given a name, a higher display resolution in a display of the same size means that displayed content appears sharper. The favored aspect ratio of mass market display industry products has changed gradually from 4,3, then to 16,10, and then to 16,9, the 4,3 aspect ratio generally reflects older products, especially the era of the cathode ray tube. The 16,10 aspect ratio had its largest use in the 1995–2010 period, and the 16,9 aspect ratio tends to reflect post-2010 mass market computer monitor, laptop, and entertainment products displays. The 4,3 aspect ratio was common in older cathode ray tube displays. The 16,10 ratio allowed some compromise between showing older 4,3 aspect ratio broadcast TV shows, but also allowing better viewing of widescreen movies. However, around the year 2005, entertainment industry displays gradually moved from 16,10 to the 16,9 aspect ratio, by about 2007, virtually all mass market entertainment displays were 16,9. In 2011, 1920×1080 was the resolution in the most heavily marketed entertainment market displays. The next standard, 3840×2160 emerged on the market in 2013, also in 2013, displays with 2560×1080 appeared, which closely approximate the common CinemaScope movie standard aspect ratio of 2. 35–2.40. In 2014,21,9 screens with pixel dimensions of 3440×1440 became available as well, in this time frame, with the notable exception of Apple, almost all desktop, laptop, and display manufacturers gradually moved to promoting only 16,9 aspect ratio displays. By 2011, the 16,10 aspect ratio had virtually disappeared from the Windows laptop display market, one consequence of this transition was that the highest available resolutions moved generally downward. NHD is a resolution of 640×360 pixels, which is exactly one ninth of a Full HD frame. Pixel doubling nHD frames will form one 720p frame and pixel tripling nHD frames will form one 1080p frame, one drawback of this resolution is that the vertical resolution is not an even multiple of 16, which is a common macroblock size for video codecs. Video frames encoded with 16×16 pixel macroblocks would be padded to 640×368, H.264 codecs have this padding and cropping ability built-in as standard. The same is true for qHD and 1080p but the amount of padding is more for lower resolutions such as nHD. To avoid storing the eight lines of padded pixels, some prefer to encode video at 624×352. When such video streams are encoded from HD frames or played back on HD displays in full screen mode they are scaled by non-integer scale factors. True nHD frames on the hand has integer scale factors
2.
Aspect ratio
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The aspect ratio of a geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side – the ratio of width to height. The aspect ratio is expressed as two separated by a colon. The values x and y do not represent actual widths and heights but, rather, as an example,8,5,16,10 and 1.6,1 are three ways of representing the same aspect ratio. In objects of more than two dimensions, such as hyperrectangles, the ratio can still be defined as the ratio of the longest side to the shortest side. The term is most commonly used reference to, Graphic / image Image aspect ratio Display aspect ratio. A square has the smallest possible ratio of 1,1. An ellipse with a ratio of 1,1 is a circle. A circle has the minimal DWAR which is 1, a square has a DWAR of sqrt. The Cube-Volume Aspect Ratio of a set is the d-th root of the ratio of the d-volume of the smallest enclosing axes-parallel d-cube. A square has the minimal CVAR which is 1, a circle has a CVAR of sqrt. An axis-parallel rectangle of width W and height H, where W>H, has a CVAR of sqrt = sqrt, if the dimension d is fixed, then all reasonable definitions of aspect ratio are equivalent to within constant factors. Aspect ratios are mathematically expressed as x, y, in digital images there is a subtle distinction between the Display Aspect Ratio and the Storage Aspect Ratio, see Distinctions. Ratio Equidimensional ratios in 3D List of film formats Squeeze mapping Vertical orientation
3.
Display size
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On 2D displays, such as computer monitors and TVs, the display size is the physical size of the area where pictures and videos are displayed. The size of a screen is described by the length of its diagonal. It is also called the physical image size to distinguish it from the logical image size. The TV image is composed of lines of pixels. Ideally, the TV watcher sits far enough away from the screen that the individual lines merge into one solid image, the watcher may sit even farther away and still see a good picture, but it will be a smaller portion of their visual field. The resolution of the eye is about one minute of arc. For full HDTV resolution, this one minute of arc implies that the TV watcher should sit 4 times the height of the screen away, do not be surprised if the observer can see the pixels at this viewing distance as most normal people see far better than 6/6. If the user is replacing a standard definition TV with an HDTV this implies that the best visual experience will be with a set that is twice as tall as the definition set. Cost and budget also limit screen size, knowing the actual height and width of a screen is useful when deciding which one to purchase. Common dimensions are listed in the table below, if the display is not listed, then the following equations can be used. Note that D is the diagonal, W is the width, being circular, the external diameter of the bulb was used to describe their size. In the US, when virtually all TV tubes were 4,3, in virtually all other markets, the size of the outer diameter of the tube was given. What was a 27V in the US could be a 28 elsewhere, however the V terminology was frequently dropped in US advertising referring to a 27V as a 27. This was not misleading for the consumer as the seller had to give the screen size by law. Flat panel displays by contrast use the actual diagonal of their visible display size and this means that a similarly specified size of display will be larger as a flat panel display compared with a cathode ray tube display. When the common aspect ratio went from 4,3 to 16,9, a screen that is approximately the same height as a 27V would be a 32W. Vizio and other US TV manufacturers have introduced even wider screens with a 21,9 aspect ratio in order to match aspect ratios used in cinemas, in order to gauge the relative sizes of these new screens, the screen aspect must be considered. In a commercial market where multiple aspect ratios are being sold, set sizes are frequently given as a class as screens from different manufacturers will have slight differences in size
4.
Display resolution
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The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It is usually quoted as width × height, with the units in pixels, for example,1024 ×768 means the width is 1024 pixels and this example would normally be spoken as ten twenty-four by seven sixty-eight or ten twenty-four by seven six eight. A consequence of having a display is that, for multi-format video inputs. Note that for broadcast television standards the use of the word here is a misnomer. In digital measurement, the resolution would be given in pixels per inch. In analog measurement, if the screen is 10 inches high, in the case of television inputs, many manufacturers will take the input and zoom it out to overscan the display by as much as 5% so input resolution is not necessarily display resolution. The eyes perception of display resolution can be affected by a number of factors – see image resolution, one factor is the display screens rectangular shape, which is expressed as the ratio of the physical picture width to the physical picture height. This is known as the aspect ratio, a screens physical aspect ratio and the individual pixels aspect ratio may not necessarily be the same. An array of 1280 ×720 on a 16,9 display has square pixels, an example of pixel shape affecting resolution or perceived sharpness, displaying more information in a smaller area using a higher resolution makes the image much clearer or sharper. Most television display manufacturers overscan the pictures on their displays, so that the effective on-screen picture may be reduced from 720 ×576 to 680 ×550, the size of the invisible area somewhat depends on the display device. HD televisions do this as well, to a similar extent, Computer displays including projectors generally do not overscan although many models allow it. CRT displays tend to be underscanned in stock configurations, to compensate for the distortions at the corners. As of July 2002,1024 ×768 eXtended Graphics Array was the most common display resolution, many web sites and multimedia products were re-designed from the previous 800 ×600 format to the layouts optimized for 1024 ×768. The availability of inexpensive LCD monitors has made the 5,4 aspect ratio resolution of 1280 ×1024 more popular for desktop usage during the first decade of the 21st century. Many computer users including CAD users, graphic artists and video game players ran their computers at 1600 ×1200 resolution or higher such as 2048 ×1536 QXGA if they had the necessary equipment. A new more-than-HD resolution of 2560 ×1600 WQXGA was released in 30-inch LCD monitors in 2007, as of March 2012,1366 ×768 was the most common display resolution. In 2010, 27-inch LCD monitors with the 2560 × 1440-pixel resolution were released by manufacturers including Apple. Panels for professional environments, such as use and air traffic control
5.
Color depth
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For consumer video standards, such as High Efficiency Video Coding, the bit depth specifies the number of bits used for each color component. When referring to a pixel the concept can be defined as bits per pixel, which specifies the number of bits used. When referring to a component the concept can be defined as bits per component, bits per channel, bits per color. Color depth is one aspect of color representation, expressing how finely levels of color can be expressed. The definition of both color precision and gamut is accomplished with a color encoding specification which assigns a code value to a location in a color space. Comparison, same image on five different color depths, different looks, but also different file sizes. With the relatively low color depth, the value is typically a number representing the index into a color map or palette. The colors available in the palette itself may be fixed by the hardware or modifiable within the limits of the hardware, modifiable palettes are sometimes referred to as pseudocolor palettes. 1-bit color, monochrome, often black and white, compact Macintoshes, 2-bit color, CGA, gray-scale early NeXTstation, color Macintoshes, Atari ST. 12-bit color, some Silicon Graphics systems, Color NeXTstation systems, for example, in the ZX Spectrum, the picture is stored in a two-color format, but these two colors can be separately defined for each rectangular block of 8x8 pixels. A very limited but true direct color system, there are 3 bits for each of the R and G components, the normal human eye is less sensitive to the blue component than to the red or green, so it is assigned one bit less than the others. Used, amongst others, in the MSX2 system series of computers in the early to mid 1990s, do not confuse with an indexed color depth of 8bpp. High color supports 15/16-bit for three RGB colors, in 16-bit direct color, there can be 4 bits for each of the R, G, and B components, plus optionally 4 bits for alpha, enabling 4,096 different colors with 16 levels of transparency. Or in some systems there can be 5 bits per color component and 1 bit of alpha, or there can be 5 bits for red,6 bits for green and these color depths are sometimes used in small devices with a color display, such as mobile telephones. Variants with 5 or more bits per component are sometimes called high color. More expensive LCDs can display 24-bit or greater color depth, true color supports 24-bit for three RGB colors. Usually, true color is defined to mean 256 shades of red, green, the human eye can discriminate up to ten million colors. Color processing in the eye occurs through retinal cone cells which are of three types, although not corresponding to red, green and blue hues, true color can also refer to an RGB display-mode that does not need a color look-up table
6.
Refresh rate
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The refresh rate is the number of times in a second that a display hardware updates its buffer. For example, most movie projectors advance from one frame to the next one 24 times each second, but each frame is illuminated two or three times before the next frame is projected using a shutter in front of its lamp. As a result, the movie runs at 24 frames per second. On cathode ray tube displays, increasing the rate decreases flickering. However, if a refresh rate is specified that is beyond what is recommended for the display, for computer programs or telemetry, the term is also applied to how frequently a datum is updated with a new external value from another source. It is limited by the maximum horizontal scan rate and the resolution. The refresh rate can be calculated from the scan rate by dividing the scanning frequency by the number of horizontal lines multiplied by 1.05. For instance, a monitor with a horizontal scanning frequency of 96 kHz at a resolution of 1280 ×1024 results in a rate of 96,000 ÷ ≈89 Hz. CRT refresh rates have historically been an important factor in game programming. Traditionally, one of the principles of game programming is to avoid altering the computers video buffer except during the vertical retrace. This is necessary to prevent flickering graphics or screen tearing, some video game consoles such as the Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System did not allow any graphics changes except during the retrace. Contrary to popular belief, liquid-crystal displays do suffer from flickering problems and it is still necessary to avoid modifying graphics data except during the retrace phase to prevent tearing from an image that is rendered faster than the display operates. CRTs have the ability to use light guns and pens. These are devices with a photosensor that detects the electron beam and this can be used to determine if a specific graphics object is on the screen. The light gun is a variant used in arcade games. Unlike light pens, they are held at a distance from the screen, light pens and guns cannot be used on fixed-pixel displays because they have no electron beam to detect. Pen tablets and touchscreen LCDs are used as a substitute for them, the Nintendo DS is an example of a video game system that has a touchscreen LCD. Refresh rate or the resolution of an LCD is the number of times per second in which the display draws the data it is being given
7.
Expansion card
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An expansion bus is a computer bus which moves information between the internal hardware of a computer system and peripheral devices. It is a collection of wires and protocols that allows for the expansion of a computer, even vacuum-tube based computers had modular construction, but individual functions for peripheral devices filled a cabinet, not just a printed circuit board. Processor, memory and I/O cards became feasible with the development of integrated circuits, minicomputers, starting with the PDP-8, were made of multiple cards, all powered by and communicating through a passive backplane. The first commercial microcomputer to feature expansion slots was the Micral N, proprietary bus implementations for systems such as the Apple II co-existed with multi-manufacturer standards. IBM introduced what would retroactively be called the Industry Standard Architecture bus with the IBM PC in 1981, the IBM XT, introduced in 1983, used the same bus. The 8-bit PC and XT bus was extended with the introduction of the IBM AT and this used a second connector for extending the address and data bus over the XT, but was backward compatible, 8-bit cards were still usable in the AT 16-bit slots. Industry Standard Architecture became the designation for the IBM AT bus after other types were developed. IBMs MCA bus, developed for the PS/2 in 1987, was a competitor to ISA, also their design, but fell out of favor due to the ISAs industry-wide acceptance and IBMs licensing of MCA. EISA, the 32-bit extended version of ISA championed by Compaq, was used on some PC motherboards until 1997, proprietary local buses and then the VESA Local Bus Standard, were late 1980s expansion buses that were tied but not exclusive to the 80386 and 80486 CPU bus. The PC/104 bus is a bus that copies the ISA bus. Intel launched their PCI bus chipsets along with the P5-based Pentium CPUs in 1993, the PCI bus was introduced in 1991 as replacement for ISA. The standard is found on PC motherboards to this day, the PCI standard supports bus bridging, as many as ten daisy chained PCI buses have been tested. Cardbus, using the PCMCIA connector, is a PCI format that attaches peripherals to the Host PCI Bus via PCI to PCI Bridge, cardbus is being supplanted by ExpressCard format. Intel introduced the AGP bus in 1997 as a video acceleration solution. AGP devices are attached to the PCI bus over a PCI-to-PCI bridge. Though termed a bus, AGP usually supports only a card at a time. From 2005 PCI-Express has been replacing both PCI and AGP and this standard, approved in 2004, implements the logical PCI protocol over a serial communication interface. PC/104 or Mini PCI are often added for expansion on small form factor boards such as Mini-ITX, for their 1000 EX and 1000 HX models, Tandy Computer designed the PLUS expansion interface, an adaptation of the XT-bus supporting cards of a smaller form factor
8.
Audio and video interfaces and connectors
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Audio connectors and video connectors are electrical connectors - plugs and sockets - for carrying audio signal and video signal. Audio interfaces and video interfaces define physical parameters and interpretation of signals, for digital audio and digital video, this can be thought of as defining the physical layer, data link layer, and most or all of the application layer. For analog audio and analog video these functions are all represented in a single signal specification like NTSC or the direct speaker-driving signal of analog audio. Physical characteristics of the electrical or optical equipment includes the types and numbers of wires required, voltages, frequencies, optical intensity, any data link layer details define how application data is encapsulated. In some cases, the layer is left open, for example. This means that in cases not all components with physically compatible connectors will actually work together. Analog A/V connectors often use shielded cables to inhibit radio frequency interference, for efficiency and simplicity, the same codec or signal convention is used by the storage medium. For example, VHS tapes can store a magnetic representation of an NTSC signal, and the specification for Bluray discs incorporates PCM, MPEG-2, and DTS. Some playback devices can re-encode audio or video so that the used for storage does not have to be the same as the format transmitted over the A/V interface. Some connectors can carry both audio and video simultaneously, HDMI combines DVI-compliant uncompressed video data with compressed or uncompressed audio. Note that there are no differences in the signals transmitted over optical or coaxial S/PDIF connectors—both carry exactly the same information, selection of one over the other rests mainly on the availability of appropriate connectors on the chosen equipment and the preference and convenience of the user. Connections longer than 6 meters or so, or those requiring tight bends, should use coaxial cable, high-Definition Multimedia Interface is a compact audio/video standard for transmitting uncompressed digital data. There are three HDMI connector types, Type A and Type B were defined by the HDMI1.0 specification. Type C was defined by the HDMI1.3 specification, Type A is electrically compatible with single link DVI-D. Type B is electrically compatible with dual link DVI-D but has not yet used in any products. IEEE1394 FireWire is a data transfer protocol commonly used for digital cameras. In the United States, cable TV converter set top boxes by law also have the connection for transferring content directly to a TV or computer for viewing,1394 can also use coaxial cable as a medium for longer runs. Unlike Point-to-Point connections listed above, IEEE1394 is able to host several signals on the wire, with the data delivered
9.
Computer monitor
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A computer monitor or a computer display is an electronic visual display for computers. A monitor usually comprises the display device, circuitry, casing, the display device in modern monitors is typically a thin film transistor liquid crystal display or a flat panel LED display, while older monitors used a cathode ray tubes. It can be connected to the computer via VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort, Thunderbolt, LVDS or other proprietary connectors, originally, computer monitors were used for data processing while television receivers were used for entertainment. From the 1980s onwards, computers have used for both data processing and entertainment, while televisions have implemented some computer functionality. The common aspect ratio of televisions, and computer monitors, has changed from 4,3 to 16,10, to 16,9. Early electronic computers were fitted with a panel of light bulbs where the state of each particular bulb would indicate the state of a particular register bit inside the computer. This allowed the operating the computer to monitor the internal state of the machine. As early monitors were only capable of displaying a limited amount of information. Instead, a printer was the primary output device, while the monitor was limited to keeping track of the programs operation. Multiple technologies have used for computer monitors. Until the 21st century most used cathode ray tubes but they have largely superseded by LCD monitors. The first computer monitors used cathode ray tubes, high-resolution CRT displays were developed for specialized military, industrial and scientific applications but they were far too costly for general use. Either computer could be connected to the terminals of an ordinary color TV set or used with a purpose-made CRT color monitor for optimum resolution. In 1984 IBM introduced the Enhanced Graphics Adapter which was capable of producing 16 colors and had a resolution of 640 x 350, by the end of the 1980s color CRT monitors that could clearly display 1024 x 768 pixels were widely available and increasingly affordable. During the following decade maximum display resolutions gradually increased and prices continued to fall, CRT technology remained dominant in the PC monitor market into the new millennium partly because it was cheaper to produce and offered viewing angles close to 180 degrees. CRTs still offer some image quality advantages over LCDs but improvements to the latter have made much less obvious. There are multiple technologies that have used to implement liquid crystal displays. Commonly, the laptop would be offered with an assortment of display options at increasing price points, monochrome
10.
Personal computer
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A personal computer is a multi-purpose electronic computer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. PCs are intended to be operated directly by a end-user, rather than by an expert or technician. In the 2010s, PCs are typically connected to the Internet, allowing access to the World Wide Web, personal computers may be connected to a local area network, either by a cable or a wireless connection. In the 2010s, a PC may be, a multi-component desktop computer, designed for use in a location a laptop computer, designed for easy portability or a tablet computer. In the 2010s, PCs run using a system, such as Microsoft Windows, Linux. The very earliest microcomputers, equipped with a front panel, required hand-loading of a program to load programs from external storage. Before long, automatic booting from permanent read-only memory became universal, in the 2010s, users have access to a wide range of commercial software, free software and free and open-source software, which are provided in ready-to-run or ready-to-compile form. Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware have dominated much of the computer market, first with MS-DOS. Alternatives to Microsofts Windows operating systems occupy a minority share of the industry and these include Apples OS X and free open-source Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution. Advanced Micro Devices provides the alternative to Intels processors. PC is an initialism for personal computer, some PCs, including the OLPC XOs, are equipped with x86 or x64 processors but not designed to run Microsoft Windows. PC is used in contrast with Mac, an Apple Macintosh computer and this sense of the word is used in the Get a Mac advertisement campaign that ran between 2006 and 2009, as well as its rival, Im a PC campaign, that appeared in 2008. Since Apples transition to Intel processors starting 2005, all Macintosh computers are now PCs, the “brain” may one day come down to our level and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far, in the history of computing there were many examples of computers designed to be used by one person, as opposed to terminals connected to mainframe computers. Using the narrow definition of operated by one person, the first personal computer was the ENIAC which became operational in 1946 and it did not meet further definitions of affordable or easy to use. An example of an early single-user computer was the LGP-30, created in 1956 by Stan Frankel and used for science and it came with a retail price of $47, 000—equivalent to about $414,000 today. Introduced at the 1965 New York Worlds Fair, the Programma 101 was a programmable calculator described in advertisements as a desktop computer. It was manufactured by the Italian company Olivetti and invented by the Italian engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto, the Soviet MIR series of computers was developed from 1965 to 1969 in a group headed by Victor Glushkov
11.
Pixel
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The address of a pixel corresponds to its physical coordinates. LCD pixels are manufactured in a grid, and are often represented using dots or squares. Each pixel is a sample of an image, more samples typically provide more accurate representations of the original. The intensity of each pixel is variable, in color imaging systems, a color is typically represented by three or four component intensities such as red, green, and blue, or cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The word pixel is based on a contraction of pix and el, the word pixel was first published in 1965 by Frederic C. Billingsley of JPL, to describe the elements of video images from space probes to the Moon. Billingsley had learned the word from Keith E. McFarland, at the Link Division of General Precision in Palo Alto, McFarland said simply it was in use at the time. The word is a combination of pix, for picture, the word pix appeared in Variety magazine headlines in 1932, as an abbreviation for the word pictures, in reference to movies. By 1938, pix was being used in reference to pictures by photojournalists. The concept of a picture element dates to the earliest days of television, some authors explain pixel as picture cell, as early as 1972. In graphics and in image and video processing, pel is often used instead of pixel, for example, IBM used it in their Technical Reference for the original PC. A pixel is generally thought of as the smallest single component of a digital image, however, the definition is highly context-sensitive. For example, there can be printed pixels in a page, or pixels carried by electronic signals, or represented by digital values, or pixels on a display device, or pixels in a digital camera. This list is not exhaustive and, depending on context, synonyms include pel, sample, byte, bit, dot, Pixels can be used as a unit of measure such as,2400 pixels per inch,640 pixels per line, or spaced 10 pixels apart. For example, a high-quality photographic image may be printed with 600 ppi on a 1200 dpi inkjet printer, even higher dpi numbers, such as the 4800 dpi quoted by printer manufacturers since 2002, do not mean much in terms of achievable resolution. The more pixels used to represent an image, the closer the result can resemble the original, the number of pixels in an image is sometimes called the resolution, though resolution has a more specific definition.3 megapixels. The pixels, or color samples, that form an image may or may not be in one-to-one correspondence with screen pixels. In computing, a composed of pixels is known as a bitmapped image or a raster image
12.
Hertz
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The hertz is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units and is defined as one cycle per second. It is named for Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, the first person to provide proof of the existence of electromagnetic waves. Hertz are commonly expressed in SI multiples kilohertz, megahertz, gigahertz, kilo means thousand, mega meaning million, giga meaning billion and tera for trillion. Some of the units most common uses are in the description of waves and musical tones, particularly those used in radio-. It is also used to describe the speeds at which computers, the hertz is equivalent to cycles per second, i. e. 1/second or s −1. In English, hertz is also used as the plural form, as an SI unit, Hz can be prefixed, commonly used multiples are kHz, MHz, GHz and THz. One hertz simply means one cycle per second,100 Hz means one hundred cycles per second, and so on. The unit may be applied to any periodic event—for example, a clock might be said to tick at 1 Hz, the rate of aperiodic or stochastic events occur is expressed in reciprocal second or inverse second in general or, the specific case of radioactive decay, becquerels. Whereas 1 Hz is 1 cycle per second,1 Bq is 1 aperiodic radionuclide event per second, the conversion between a frequency f measured in hertz and an angular velocity ω measured in radians per second is ω =2 π f and f = ω2 π. This SI unit is named after Heinrich Hertz, as with every International System of Units unit named for a person, the first letter of its symbol is upper case. Note that degree Celsius conforms to this rule because the d is lowercase. — Based on The International System of Units, the hertz is named after the German physicist Heinrich Hertz, who made important scientific contributions to the study of electromagnetism. The name was established by the International Electrotechnical Commission in 1930, the term cycles per second was largely replaced by hertz by the 1970s. One hobby magazine, Electronics Illustrated, declared their intention to stick with the traditional kc. Mc. etc. units, sound is a traveling longitudinal wave which is an oscillation of pressure. Humans perceive frequency of waves as pitch. Each musical note corresponds to a frequency which can be measured in hertz. An infants ear is able to perceive frequencies ranging from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz, the range of ultrasound, infrasound and other physical vibrations such as molecular and atomic vibrations extends from a few femtoHz into the terahertz range and beyond. Electromagnetic radiation is described by its frequency—the number of oscillations of the perpendicular electric and magnetic fields per second—expressed in hertz. Radio frequency radiation is measured in kilohertz, megahertz, or gigahertz
13.
Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees
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The affiliated trade unions gather in total about 1.3 million employees. Excluding students and pensioners the TCO unions made up 36% of all Swedish trade union members in 2015, the largest TCO affiliate is Unionen. This makes the organization the second biggest of Swedens three major trade union confederations, the biggest, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation, mainly organize blue collar workers, and has links to the Swedish Social Democratic Party. By contrast, the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees has no connections to any party in Sweden. The current president is Eva Nordmark, who took office in May 2011 and she is a former president of the Swedish Union of Local Government Officers. The Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees traces its origins back to the Confederation of Employees founded in 1931, an organization for public sector employees called the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees was founded in 1937. The two organizations merged into one in 1944, taking the name of the latter, after World War II membership in the affiliated unions rose rapidly, from 100000 in 1944 to more than half a million in the mid sixties. Swedish unions have traditionally had a high organisation rate, today about 74% of white collar workers are members of a trade union, setting Sweden apart from most European countries, where blue collar workers have been the main target for unionization. TCO Development, a company owned by TCO, maintains an international environmental labeling system, the label addresses safety issues such as emissions, ergonomics, ecology, and energy for computers, monitors and printers, as well as cell phones and furniture. TCO claims that 50% of displays worldwide are labeled with the TCO label, tCOs Eva Nordmark, Unions must be relevant to our time
14.
IBM Personal Computer
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The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12,1981 and it was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida. IBM compatible became an important criterion for sales growth, only the Apple Macintosh family kept significant market share without compatibility with the IBM personal computer, International Business Machines, one of the worlds largest companies, had a 62% share of the mainframe computer market in 1981. Its share of the computer market, however, had declined from 60% in 1970 to 32% in 1980. In 1979 BusinessWeek asked, Is IBM just another stodgy, mature company, by 1981 its stock price had declined by 22%. IBMs earnings for the first half the year grew by 5. 3%—one third of the inflation rate—while those of minicomputer maker Digital Equipment Corporation grew by more than 35%. B. M, No longer dominates the computer business. IBM wished to avoid the outcome with the new personal computer industry, dominated by the Commodore PET, Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, Tandy Corporations TRS-80. With $150 million in sales by 1979 and projected growth of more than 40% in the early 1980s. The Japanese project, codenamed Go, ended before the 1981 release of the American-designed IBM PC codenamed Chess, whether IBM had waited too long to enter an industry in which Apple and others were already successful was unclear. An observer stated that IBM bringing out a computer would be like teaching an elephant to tap dance. Successful microcomputer company Vector Graphics fiscal 1980 revenue was $12 million, the company only sold through its internal sales force, had no experience with resellers or retail stores, and did not introduce the first product designed to work with non-IBM equipment until 1980. Another observer claimed that IBM made decisions so slowly that, when tested, as with other large computer companies, its new products typically required about four to five years for development. IBM had to learn how to develop, mass-produce. The potential importance to microcomputers of a company so prestigious, that a saying in American companies stated No one ever got fired for buying IBM, was nonetheless clear. InfoWorld, which described itself as The Newsweekly for Microcomputer Users, stated that for my grandmother, is far and away the media star, not because of its features, but because it exists at all. When the number eight company in the Fortune 500 enters the field, the influence of a personal computer made by a company whose name has literally come to mean computer to most of the world is hard to contemplate. The editorial acknowledged that some factions in our industry have looked upon IBM as the enemy, desktop sized programmable calculators by Hewlett Packard had evolved into the HP9830 BASIC language computer by 1972. In 1972–1973 a team led by Dr. SCAMP emulated an IBM1130 minicomputer to run APL\1130, in 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP9800 offered only BASIC
15.
Aspect ratio (image)
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The aspect ratio of an image describes the proportional relationship between its width and its height. It is commonly expressed as two separated by a colon, as in 16,9.5 yards high. The most common ratios used today in the presentation of films in cinemas are 1.85,1 and 2.39,1. Two common videographic aspect ratios are 4,3, the video format of the 20th century. Other cinema and video aspect ratios exist, but are used infrequently, in still camera photography, the most common aspect ratios are 4,3,3,2, and more recently being found in consumer cameras 16,9. Other aspect ratios, such as 5,3,5,4, in motion picture formats, the physical size of the film area between the sprocket perforations determines the images size. The universal standard is a frame that is four perforations high, the film itself is 35 mm wide, but the area between the perforations is 24.89 mm×18.67 mm, leaving the de facto ratio of 4,3, or 1.33,1. A4,3 ratio mimics human eyesight visual angle of 155°h x 120°v, the motion picture industry convention assigns a value of 1.0 to the image’s height, an anamorphic frame is often incorrectly described as 2.40,1 or 2.40. After 1952, a number of aspect ratios were experimented with for anamorphic productions, a SMPTE specification for anamorphic projection from 1957 finally standardized the aperture to 2.35,1. An update in 1970 changed the ratio to 2.39,1 in order to make splices less noticeable. This aspect ratio of 2.39,1 was confirmed by the most recent revision from August 1993, in American cinemas, the common projection ratios are 1.85,1 and 2.39,1. Some European countries have 1.66,1 as the wide screen standard, the Academy ratio of 1.375,1 was used for all cinema films in the sound era until 1953. During that time, television, which had a aspect ratio of 1.33,1. Hollywood responded by creating a number of wide-screen formats, CinemaScope, Todd-AO. The flat 1.85,1 aspect ratio was introduced in May 1953, and became one of the most common cinema projection standards in the U. S. and elsewhere. The goal of these lenses and aspect ratios was to capture as much of the frame as possible, onto as large an area of the film as possible. In either case the image was squeezed horizontally to fit the frame size. Development of various film camera systems must ultimately cater to the placement of the frame in relation to the constraints of the perforations
16.
Webcam
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A webcam is a video camera that feeds or streams its image in real time to or through a computer to a computer network. When captured by the computer, the stream may be saved, viewed or sent on to other networks via systems such as the internet. When sent to a location, the video stream may be saved, viewed or on sent there. Unlike an IP camera, a webcam is generally connected by a USB cable, or similar cable, or built into computer hardware, some of them, for example, those used as online traffic cameras, are expensive, rugged professional video cameras. Webcams are known for their low manufacturing cost and their high flexibility and they have also become a source of security and privacy issues, as some built-in webcams can be remotely activated by spyware. The most popular use of webcams is the establishment of video links, other popular uses include security surveillance, computer vision, video broadcasting, and for recording social videos. Researchers claim that this method is accurate to ±5 bpm, Webcams may be installed at places such as childcare centres, offices, shops and private areas to monitor security and general activity. Webcams have been used for augmented reality experiences online, one such function has the webcam act as a magic mirror to allow an online shopper to view a virtual item on themselves. The Webcam Social Shopper is one example of software that utilizes the webcam in this manner, improved video quality has helped webcams encroach on traditional video conferencing systems. Webcam features and performance can vary by program, computer operating system, video calling support has also been added to several popular instant messaging programs. Webcams can be used as security cameras, software is available to allow PC-connected cameras to watch for movement and sound, recording both when they are detected. These recordings can then be saved to the computer, e-mailed, unauthorized access of webcams can present significant privacy issues. In December 2011, Russia announced that 290,000 Webcams would be installed in 90,000 polling stations to monitor the Russian presidential election,2012, Webcams can be used to take video clips and still pictures. Various software tools in use can be employed for this, such as PicMaster, Photo Booth. For a more complete list see Comparison of webcam software, special software can use the video stream from a webcam to assist or enhance a users control of applications and games. Video features, including faces, shapes, models and colors can be observed and tracked to produce a form of control. This can be applied to games, providing additional control, improved interactivity, by removing the IR filter of the webcam, IR LEDs can be used, which has the advantage of being invisible to the naked eye, removing a distraction from the user. TrackIR is a version of this technology
17.
Computer display standard
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Computer display standards are a combination of aspect ratio, display size, display resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. They are associated with expansion cards, video connectors and monitors. Various computer display standards or display modes have been used in the history of the personal computer and they are often a combination of aspect ratio, display resolution, color depth, and refresh rate. Associated with the resolution and refresh rate is a display adapter. Earlier display adapters were simple frame-buffers, but later display standards also specified a more set of display functions. Beyond display modes, the VESA industry organization has defined several standards related to management and device identification. A number of common resolutions have been used with computers descended from the original IBM PC, some of these are now supported by other families of personal computers. Video standards associated with IBM-PC-descended personal computers are shown in the diagram and table below, alongside those of early Macintosh, although the common standard prefixes super and ultra do not indicate specific modifiers to base standard resolutions, several others do, Quarter A quarter of the base resolution. QVGA, a term for a 320x240 resolution, half the width and height of VGA, the Q prefix usually indicates Quad in higher resolutions, and sometimes q is used instead of Q to specify quarter, but this usage is not consistent. Quad Four times as many compared to the base resolution. Hex Sixteen times as many compared to the base resolution. Given the use of X in XGA, it is not often used as an additional modifier unless its meaning would be unambiguous, display resolution, this also lists the display resolutions of standard and HD televisions, which are sometimes used as computer monitors.3 or later. Large image of graphic card history tree
18.
PlayStation Portable
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The PlayStation Portable is a handheld game console developed by Sony. Development of the handheld was announced during E32003, and it was unveiled on May 11,2004, the system was released in Japan on December 12,2004, in North America on March 24,2005, and in the PAL region on September 1,2005. It primarily competed with the Nintendo DS, as part of the generation of video games. The PlayStation Portable became the most powerful system when launched. It was the first real competitor to Nintendos handheld domination, where many challengers, such as SNKs Neo Geo Pocket and Nokias N-Gage and it also features connectivity with the PlayStation 3, other PSPs and the Internet. It is the handheld console to use an optical disc format, Universal Media Disc. The original PSP model was replaced by a model with design changes in 2007. Another remodeling followed in 2008, PSP-3000, which included a new screen, a complete redesign, PSP Go, came in 2009, followed by a budget model, PSP-E1000, in 2011. The PSP line was succeeded by the PlayStation Vita, released in December 2011 in Japan, the PlayStation Vita features backward compatibility with many PlayStation Portable games digitally released on the PlayStation Network, via PlayStation Store. Shipments of the PlayStation Portable ended throughout 2014 worldwide, having sold 80 million units in its 10-year lifetime, Sony first announced development of the PlayStation Portable at a press conference before E32004. Although mock-ups of the system were not present at the conference or E3. Then-CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Jose Villeta called the device the Walkman of the 21st Century in a reference to the multimedia capabilities. Several gaming websites were impressed by the handhelds computing capabilities and looked forward to the potential as a gaming platform. Nintendo had been dominating the market since launching its Game Boy in 1989, with the only close competitor being Segas Game Gear. Later offerings from both SNK and Nokia also failed to cut into Nintendos share, the PSP was called the first legitimate competitor to Nintendo’s dominance in the handheld market by an IDC analyst in 2004. The first concept images of the PSP appeared in November 2002 at the Sony Corporate Strategy Meeting and showed a PSP with flat buttons and no analog stick. Although some expressed concern over the lack of an analog joystick, in addition to announcing more details about the system and its accessories, Sony also released a list of 99 developer companies that had pledged support for the new handheld. Several PSP game demos, such as Konamis Metal Gear Acid and SCE Studio Liverpools Wipeout Pure were also shown at the conference
19.
Apple Inc.
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Apple is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and online services. Apples consumer software includes the macOS and iOS operating systems, the media player, the Safari web browser. Its online services include the iTunes Store, the iOS App Store and Mac App Store, Apple Music, Apple was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne in April 1976 to develop and sell personal computers. It was incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. in January 1977, Apple joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in March 2015. In November 2014, Apple became the first U. S. company to be valued at over US$700 billion in addition to being the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by market capitalization. The company employs 115,000 full-time employees as of July 2015 and it operates the online Apple Store and iTunes Store, the latter of which is the worlds largest music retailer. Consumers use more than one billion Apple products worldwide as of March 2016, Apples worldwide annual revenue totaled $233 billion for the fiscal year ending in September 2015. This revenue accounts for approximately 1. 25% of the total United States GDP.1 billion, the corporation receives significant criticism regarding the labor practices of its contractors and its environmental and business practices, including the origins of source materials. Apple was founded on April 1,1976, by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, the Apple I kits were computers single-handedly designed and hand-built by Wozniak and first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard, which was less than what is now considered a personal computer. The Apple I went on sale in July 1976 and was market-priced at $666.66, Apple was incorporated January 3,1977, without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak for $800. Multimillionaire Mike Markkula provided essential business expertise and funding of $250,000 during the incorporation of Apple, during the first five years of operations revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every four months. Between September 1977 and September 1980 yearly sales grew from $775,000 to $118m, the Apple II, also invented by Wozniak, was introduced on April 16,1977, at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because of its character cell-based color graphics. While early Apple II models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, they were superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface called the Disk II. The Apple II was chosen to be the platform for the first killer app of the business world, VisiCalc. VisiCalc created a market for the Apple II and gave home users an additional reason to buy an Apple II. Before VisiCalc, Apple had been a distant third place competitor to Commodore, by the end of the 1970s, Apple had a staff of computer designers and a production line
20.
Atari
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Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972, currently by Atari Interactive, a subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA. The original Atari, Inc. founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney was a pioneer in arcade games, home game consoles. The companys products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, in 1984, the original Atari Inc. was split due to its role in the video game crash of 1983, and the arcade division was turned into Atari Games Inc. Atari Games received the rights to use the logo and brand name with appended text Games on arcade games, the Atari Consumer Electronics Division properties were in turn sold to Jack Tramiels Tramel Technology Ltd. which then renamed itself to Atari Corporation. In 1996, Atari Corporation reverse-merged with disk-drive manufacturer JT Storage, in 1998,6 November Hasbro Interactive acquired all Atari Corporation related properties from JTS, creating a new subsidiary, Atari Interactive. After IESAs acquisition of Hasbro Interactive, Infogrames, Inc. intermittently published Atari branded titles for Infogrames Interactive, on October 11,2008, Infogrames completed its acquisition of Atari, Inc. making it a wholly owned subsidiary. In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded a firm, Syzygy Engineering, that designed and built Computer Space. On June 27,1972 Atari, Inc. was incorporated, Bushnell asked Alcorn produce an arcade version of the Magnavox Odysseys Tennis game, which would be named Pong. While Bushnell incorporated Atari in June 1972, Syzygy Company was never formally incorporated, Atari was incorporated in the state of California on June 27,1972. Joe Keenans management of the led to him being promoted president of Atari that same year. In 1976, Bushnell, through Grass Valley, CA firm Cyan Engineering, the result was the Atari Video Computer System, or VCS. The introductory price of $199 included a console, two joysticks, a pair of paddles, and the Combat game cartridge, Bushnell knew he had another potential hit on his hands but bringing the machine to market would be extremely expensive. Looking for outside investors, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976 for an estimated $28–32 million, Nolan continued to have disagreements with Warner Management over the direction of the company, the discontinuation of the pinball division, and most important, the notion of discontinuing the 2600. In 1978, Kee Games was disbanded, in December of that year, Nolan Bushnell was fired following an argument with Manny Gerard. E started fighting like cats and dogs, and then the wheels came off that fall. Warner claimed they fired me, recalled Bushnell, development of a successor to the 2600 started as soon as it shipped. The original team estimated the 2600 had a lifespan of three years, it then set forth to build the most powerful machine possible within that time frame. Mid-way into their effort the home computer revolution took off, leading to the addition of a keyboard and features to produce the Atari 800 and its smaller sibling, the new machines had some success when they finally became available in quantity in 1980
21.
Commodore International
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Commodore International was a North American home computer and electronics manufacturer. Commodore International, along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines, participated in the development of the computer industry in the 1970s and 1980s. The company developed and marketed one of the worlds best-selling desktop computers, the company that would become Commodore Business Machines, Inc. was founded in 1954 in Toronto as the Commodore Portable Typewriter Company by Polish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor Jack Tramiel. He moved to Toronto to start production, by the late 1950s a wave of Japanese machines forced most North American typewriter companies to cease business, but Tramiel instead turned to adding machines. In 1955, the company was incorporated as Commodore Business Machines. In 1962, Commodore went public on the New York Stock Exchange, in the late 1960s, history repeated itself when Japanese firms started producing and exporting adding machines. The companys main investor and chairman, Irving Gould, suggested that Tramiel travel to Japan to understand how to compete, instead, he returned with the new idea to produce electronic calculators, which were just coming on the market. Commodore soon had a profitable calculator line and was one of the popular brands in the early 1970s. However, in 1975, Texas Instruments, the supplier of calculator parts, entered the market directly. Commodore obtained an infusion of cash from Gould, which Tramiel used beginning in 1976 to purchase several second-source chip suppliers, including MOS Technology, Inc. in order to assure his supply. He agreed to buy MOS, which was having troubles of its own, through the 1970s, Commodore also produced numerous peripherals and consumer electronic products such as the Chessmate, a chess computer based around a MOS6504 chip, released in 1978. In December 2007 when Tramiel was visiting the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, for the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 and he said, I wanted to call my company General, but theres so many Generals in the U. S. Then I went to Admiral, but that was taken, so I wind up in Berlin, Germany, with my wife, and we were in a cab, and the cab made a short stop, and in front of us was an Opel Commodore. Tramiel gave this account in interviews, but Opels Commodore didnt debut until 1967. Once Chuck Peddle had taken over engineering at Commodore, he convinced Jack Tramiel that calculators were already a dead end, from PETs 1977 debut, Commodore would be a computer company. The operational headquarters, where research and development of new products occurred, retained the name Commodore Business Machines, in 1980 Commodore launched production for the European market in Braunschweig. By 1980 Commodore was one of the three largest microcomputer companies, and the largest in the Common Market and this was addressed with the introduction of the VIC-20 in 1981, which was introduced at a cost of US$299 and sold in retail stores. Commodore took out ads featuring William Shatner asking consumers Why buy just a video game
22.
Sinclair Research
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Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. In 1980, Clive Sinclair entered the computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95. In 1982 the ZX Spectrum was released, becoming the UKs best selling computer, Sinclair Research Ltd still exists as a one-man company, continuing to market Clive Sinclairs inventions. On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded his first company, the company developed hi-fi products, radios, calculators and scientific instruments. When it became clear that Radionics was failing, Sinclair took steps to ensure that he would be able to continue to pursue his commercial goals, in February 1975, he changed the name of Ablesdeal Ltd to Westminster Mail Order Ltd. The name was changed to Sinclair Instrument Ltd in August 1975, the companys first product was a watch-like Wrist Calculator. In July 1977, Sinclair Instrument Ltd was renamed Science of Cambridge Ltd, around the same time, Ian Williamson showed Chris Curry a prototype microcomputer based on a National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor and parts from a Sinclair calculator. Curry was impressed and encouraged Sinclair to adopt it as a product, in June 1978, Science of Cambridge launched its MK14 microcomputer in kit form. In May 1979, Jim Westwood, Sinclairs chief engineer, designed a new microcomputer based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor, Sinclair Instrument Ltd introduced the computer as the ZX80 in February 1980, as both a kit and ready-built. In November 1979, Science of Cambridge Ltd was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd, in March 1981, Sinclair Computers was renamed Sinclair Research Ltd and the Sinclair ZX81 was launched. In February 1982, Timex Corporation obtained a license to manufacture, in April the ZX Spectrum was launched. In July Timex launched the TS1000 in the United States, in March 1982 Sinclair Research Ltd made an £8. 55m profit on turnover of £27. 17m, including a £383,000 government grant to develop a flat screen. In 1982 Clive Sinclair converted the Barker & Wadsworth mineral water bottling factory at 25 Willis Road, Cambridge, in January 1983 the ZX Spectrum personal computer was presented at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show. In September the Sinclair TV80 pocket television was launched, but was a commercial failure, in 1983 the company bought Milton Hall in the village of Milton, Cambridgeshire, for £2m, establishing its MetaLab research and development facility there. In late 1983 Timex decided to out of the Timex Sinclair venture which. However, Timex computers continued to be produced for years in other countries. Timex Portugal launched improved versions, the TS2048 and 2068, that also developed and launched the FDD3000. The Sinclair QL was announced on 12 January 1984, shortly before the Apple Macintosh went on sale, the QL was nowhere near as successful as Sinclairs earlier computers
23.
Acorn Computers
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Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were popular in the UK, including the Acorn Electron. Acorns BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and it is more known for its BBC Micro model B computer than for its other products. Though the company was broken up several independent operations in 1998. One of its systems, RISC OS, continues to be developed by RISC OS Open. Some of Acorns former subsidiaries lived on, ARM Holdings technology is dominant in the mobile phone, Acorn is sometimes referred to as the British Apple and has been compared to Fairchild Semiconductor for being a catalyst for start-ups. In 2010, the company was listed by David Meyer in ZDNet as number nine in a feature of top ten fallen Dead IT giants, many British IT professionals gained their early experiences on Acorns, which were often more technically advanced than commercially successful US hardware. On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop, the failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and the calculator markets move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached government body the National Enterprise Board for help. After losing control of the company to the NEB, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry to leave Radionics and get Science of Cambridge up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a kit, the Mk 14, that Curry wanted to develop further. During the development of the Mk 14, Hermann Hauser, a friend of Currys, had been visiting SoCs offices and had interested in the product. Curry and Hauser decided to pursue their joint interest in microcomputers and, on 5 December 1978, CPU soon obtained a consultancy contract to develop a microprocessor-based controller for a fruit machine for Ace Coin Equipment of Wales. The ACE project was started at office space obtained at 4a Market Hill in Cambridge, initially, the ACE controller was based on a National Semiconductor SC/MP microprocessor, but soon the switch to a MOS Technology 6502 was made. CPU had financed the development of a SC/MP based microcomputer system using the income from its design-and-build consultancy. This system was launched in January 1979 as the first product of Acorn Computer Ltd. a trading name used by CPU to keep the risks of the two different lines of business separate, the microcomputer kit was named as Acorn System 75. Acorn was chosen because the system was to be expandable. It also had the attraction of appearing before Apple Computer in a telephone directory, around this time, CPU and Andy Hopper set up Orbis Ltd. CPU purchased Orbis, and Hoppers Orbis shares were exchanged for shares in CPU Ltd, CPUs role gradually changed as its Acorn brand grew, and soon CPU was simply the holding company and Acorn was responsible for development work
24.
Tandy Radio Shack
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General Wireless Operations Inc. was an American chain of wireless and electronics stores, founded in 1921 and since 2015 owned by the Standard General affiliate General Wireless. It is partnered with Sprint, and most stores are co-branded as Sprint at RadioShack though also selling RadioShack brand items, at its peak in 1999 it operated stores in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. On February 5,2015, the company filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy law after 11 consecutive quarterly losses, by then it was operating only in the United States and Mexico. The company was started as Radio Shack in 1921 by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann, who wanted to provide equipment for the then-nascent field of amateur, the brothers opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston at 46 Brattle Street. They chose the name Radio Shack, which was the term for a small, the Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as hams. The term was already in use — and is to this day — by hams when referring to the location of their stations, the company issued its first catalog in 1939 as it entered the high fidelity music market. In 1954, Radio Shack began selling its own products under the brand name Realist. After expanding to nine stores plus an extensive business, the company fell on hard times in the 1960s. Radio Shack was essentially bankrupt, but Charles D, Tandy saw the potential of Radio Shack and retail consumer electronics and bought the company for $300,000. The Tandy Corporation, a leather goods corporation, was looking for other hobbyist-related businesses into which it could expand, Tandy closed Radio Shacks unprofitable mail-order business, ended credit purchases and eliminated many top management positions, keeping the salespeople, merchandisers and advertisers. Private-label brands from lower-cost manufacturers displaced name brands to raise Radio Shack profit margins, customer data from the former Radio Shack mail-order business determined where Tandy would locate new stores. As an incentive for them to long hours and remain profitable. In markets too small to support a company-owned Radio Shack store, Charles D. Tandy, who had guided the firm through a period of growth in the 1960s and 1970s, died of a heart attack at age 60 in November 1978. In 1992, Tandy attempted to launch big-box electronics retailer Incredible Universe and its six profitable stores were sold to Frys Electronics in 1996, the others were closed. Tandy closed the McDuff stores and abandoned Incredible Universe in 1996, Len Roberts, president of the Radio Shack division since 1993, estimated that the new repair business could generate $500 million per year by 1999. Americas technology store was abandoned for the youve got questions, weve got answers slogan in 1994, in early summer 1995, the company launched a new logo, Radio Shack was spelled in CamelCase as RadioShack. In 1996, RadioShack successfully petitioned the US Federal Communications Commission to allocate frequencies for the Family Radio Service, from the 1960s until the early 1990s, Radio Shack promoted a battery of the month club, a free wallet-sized cardboard card offered one free Enercell a month in-store. Like the free tube testing offered in-store in the early 1970s, the cards also served as generic business cards for the salespeople
25.
Home computer
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Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, however, a home computer often had better graphics and sound than contemporaneous business computers. Their most common uses were playing games, but they were also regularly used for word processing, doing homework. Home computers were usually not electronic kits, home computers were already manufactured in stylish metal or plastic enclosures. There were, however, commercial kits like the Sinclair ZX80 which were home and home-built computers since the purchaser could assemble the unit from a kit. For example, using a typical 1980s home computer as a home automation appliance would require the computer to be powered on at all times. Personal finance and database use required tedious data entry, by contrast, advertisements in the specialty computer press often simply listed specifications. Since most systems shipped with the BASIC programming language included on the system ROM, many users found programming to be a fun and rewarding experience, and an excellent introduction to the world of digital technology. Often the only difference may be the outlet through which they are purchased. Another change from the computer era is that the once-common endeavour of writing ones own software programs has almost vanished from home computer use. As early as 1965, some projects such as Jim Sutherlands ECHO IV explored the possible utility of a computer in the home. In 1969, the Honeywell Kitchen Computer was marketed as a gift item, and would have inaugurated the era of home computing. Computers became affordable for the public in the 1970s due to the mass production of the microprocessor starting in 1971. Early microcomputers such as the Altair 8800 had front-mounted switches and diagnostic lights to control and indicate internal system status, while two early home computers could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. The keyboard - a feature lacking on the Altair - was usually built into the case as the motherboard. Ports for plug-in peripheral devices such as a display, cassette tape recorders, joysticks. Usually the manufacturer would sell peripheral devices designed to be compatible with their computers as extra cost accessories, peripherals were not often interchangeable between different brands of home computer, or even between successive models of the same brand. To save the cost of a monitor, the home computer would often connect through an RF modulator to the family TV set
26.
Atari ST
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The Atari ST is a line of home computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial ST model, the 520ST, saw limited release in April-June 1985 and was available in July. The Atari ST is the first personal computer to come with a bitmapped color GUI, the 1040ST, released in 1986, is the first personal computer to ship with a megabyte of RAM in the base configuration and also the first with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than US$1. The Atari ST is part of a generation of home computers that have 16 or 32-bit processors,256 KiB or more of RAM. It includes the Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, Apple IIGS, and, in certain markets, ST officially stands for Sixteen/Thirty-two, which refers to the Motorola 68000s 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals. The ST was sold with either Ataris color or monochrome monitor, the systems color graphics modes were only available on the color monitor, while the highest resolution mode needed the monochrome monitor. In some markets, particularly Germany, the machine gained a foothold as a small business machine for CAD. Thanks to its built-in MIDI ports, the ST enjoyed success for running music-sequencer software, the ST was superseded by the Atari STE, Atari TT, Atari MEGA STE, and Falcon computers. The Atari ST was born from the rivalry between home-computer makers Atari, Inc. and Commodore International, when his idea was rejected, Miner left Atari to form a small think tank called Hi-Toro in 1982 and began designing the new Lorraine chipset. The company, which was later renamed Amiga Corporation, was pretending to sell video game controllers to deceive competition while it developed a Lorraine-based computer, Amiga ran out of capital to complete Lorraines development, and Atari, owned by Warner Communications, paid Amiga to continue development work. In return Atari received exclusive use of the Lorraine design for one year as a game console. After one year Atari would have the right to add a keyboard and market the complete computer, as Atari was heavily involved with Disney at the time, it was later code-named Mickey, and the 256K memory expansion board was codenamed Minnie. After leaving Commodore International in January 1984, Jack Tramiel formed Tramel Technology with his sons and other employees and, in April. The company initially considered the National Semiconductor NS320xx microprocessor but was disappointed with its performance and this started the move to the 68000. Tramiel learned that Warner wanted to sell Atari which, in mid-1984, was losing about a million dollars per day, interested in Ataris overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for his new computer, Tramiel negotiated with Warner in May and June 1984. He secured funding and bought Ataris Consumer Division in July, as executives and engineers left Commodore to join Tramiels new Atari Corporation, Commodore responded by filing lawsuits against four former engineers for theft of trade secrets. This company was originally called TTL, later renamed to Atari Corp, at the time of the purchase of Atari Incs assets, there were roughly 900 employees remaining from a high point of 10,000. After the interviews, approximately 100 employees were hired to work at Atari Corp, Amiga Corp. had sought more monetary support from investors in spring 1984
27.
NTSC
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The first NTSC standard was developed in 1941 and had no provision for color. In 1953 a second NTSC standard was adopted, which allowed for television broadcasting which was compatible with the existing stock of black-and-white receivers. NTSC was the first widely adopted broadcast color system and remained dominant until 1997, North America, parts of Central America, and South Korea are adopting or have adopted the ATSC standards, while other countries are adopting or have adopted other standards instead of ATSC. After nearly 70 years, the majority of over-the-air NTSC transmissions in the United States ceased on January 1,2010, the majority of NTSC transmissions ended in Japan on July 24,2011, with the Japanese prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima ending the next year. In March 1941, the committee issued a standard for black-and-white television that built upon a 1936 recommendation made by the Radio Manufacturers Association. Technical advancements of the side band technique allowed for the opportunity to increase the image resolution. The NTSC selected 525 scan lines as a compromise between RCAs 441-scan line standard and Philcos and DuMonts desire to increase the number of lines to between 605 and 800. The standard recommended a frame rate of 30 frames per second, other standards in the final recommendation were an aspect ratio of 4,3, and frequency modulation for the sound signal. In January 1950, the committee was reconstituted to standardize color television, in December 1953, it unanimously approved what is now called the NTSC color television standard. The compatible color standard retained full backward compatibility with existing black-and-white television sets, Color information was added to the black-and-white image by introducing a color subcarrier of precisely 315/88 MHz. These changes amounted to 0.1 percent and were tolerated by existing television receivers. The FCC had briefly approved a different color standard, starting in October 1950. However, this standard was incompatible with black-and-white broadcasts and it used a rotating color wheel, reduced the number of scan lines from 525 to 405, and increased the field rate from 60 to 144, but had an effective frame rate of only 24 frames per second. CBS rescinded its system in March 1953, and the FCC replaced it on December 17,1953, with the NTSC color standard, later that year, the improved TK-41 became the standard camera used throughout much of the 1960s. The NTSC standard has been adopted by countries, including most of the Americas. With the advent of television, analog broadcasts are being phased out. Most US NTSC broadcasters were required by the FCC to shut down their analog transmitters in 2009, low-power stations, Class A stations and translators were required to shut down by 2015. NTSC color encoding is used with the System M television signal, each frame is composed of two fields, each consisting of 262.5 scan lines, for a total of 525 scan lines
28.
PAL
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Phase Alternating Line is a colour encoding system for analogue television used in broadcast television systems in most countries broadcasting at 625-line /50 field per second. Other common colour encoding systems are NTSC and SECAM, all the countries using PAL are currently in process of conversion or have already converted standards to DVB, ISDB or DTMB. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system, the articles on broadcast television systems and analogue television further describe frame rates, image resolution and audio modulation. To overcome NTSCs shortcomings, alternative standards were devised, resulting in the development of the PAL, the goal was to provide a colour TV standard for the European picture frequency of 50 fields per second, and finding a way to eliminate the problems with NTSC. PAL was developed by Walter Bruch at Telefunken in Hannover, Germany, with important input from Dr. Kruse, the format was patented by Telefunken in 1962, citing Bruch as inventor, and unveiled to members of the European Broadcasting Union on 3 January 1963. When asked, why the system was named PAL and not Bruch the inventor answered that a Bruch system would not have sold very well. The first broadcasts began in the United Kingdom in June 1967, the one BBC channel initially using the broadcast standard was BBC2, which had been the first UK TV service to introduce 625-lines in 1964. Telefunken PALcolor 708T was the first PAL commercial TV set and it was followed by Loewe-Farbfernseher S920 & F900. Telefunken was later bought by the French electronics manufacturer Thomson, Thomson also bought the Compagnie Générale de Télévision where Henri de France developed SECAM, the first European Standard for colour television. The term PAL was often used informally and somewhat imprecisely to refer to the 625-line/50 Hz television system in general, accordingly, DVDs were labelled as PAL or NTSC even though technically the discs do not carry either PAL or NTSC composite signal. CCIR 625/50 and EIA 525/60 are the names for these standards, PAL. Both the PAL and the NTSC system use a quadrature amplitude modulated subcarrier carrying the chrominance information added to the video signal to form a composite video baseband signal. The frequency of this subcarrier is 4.43361875 MHz for PAL and NTSC4.43, the SECAM system, on the other hand, uses a frequency modulation scheme on its two line alternate colour subcarriers 4.25000 and 4.40625 MHz. Early PAL receivers relied on the eye to do that cancelling, however. The effect is that phase errors result in changes, which are less objectionable than the equivalent hue changes of NTSC. In any case, NTSC, PAL, and SECAM all have chrominance bandwidth reduced greatly compared to the luminance signal. The 4.43361875 MHz frequency of the carrier is a result of 283.75 colour clock cycles per line plus a 25 Hz offset to avoid interferences. Since the line frequency is 15625 Hz, the carrier frequency calculates as follows,4.43361875 MHz =283.75 ×15625 Hz +25 Hz
29.
Atari TT030
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The Atari TT030 is a member of the Atari ST family, released in 1990. In 1992 the TT was replaced by the Atari Falcon, a low cost consumer oriented machine with improved graphics and sound capability. The Falcon possessed only a fraction of the TTs raw CPU performance, though well priced for a workstation machine, the TTs high cost kept it mostly out of reach of the existing Atari ST market until after the TT was discontinued and sold at discount. The nascent open source movement eventually filled the void, by 1995 NetBSD had also been ported to the Atari TT. At that time, the highest performance member was the 68020 and it was the first true thirty-two bit bus/thirty-two bit instruction chip from Motorola. Unlike the 68000 used in the original STs, the 68020 was capable of fetching a 32-bit value in one cycle, while the older STs took two. The TT was initially designed around the 68020 CPU, however as the project progressed, the 68020 still lacked certain important features offered by the next successor in the 68000 line, the new 68030. When the decision was made to switch from a 68020 to a 68030 CPU, the original specifications for the TTs clock speed was 16 MHz, which was selected to maintain backward compatibility. The existing ST chips used in the TT could not handle anything over 16 MHz, some software also had problems running at faster speeds. To make the work with a 32 MHz 68030, Atari Corp. had to scale back their plans somewhat. As a result, the runs at 32 MHz, while the system bus runs at 16 MHz. This is similar to the tactic employed by Apple with the ill-fated Macintosh IIvx, TOS3.01 was the operating system that came with the Atari TT. It was a 512 kB ROM specifically designed for the TT, however, it did not feature pre-emptive multitasking. Another variant, known as TT/X, used Unix System V R4, the TT030 was first introduced at CeBIT in Hannover, Germany and launched in 1990. It retailed for $2995 with 2 MB RAM and a 50 MB hard drive, the US release came the following year. In 1993, Atari Corp. s exit from the computer business marked the end of the TT, a number of TT machines were built as developer systems for Jaguar. The TT featured a number of devices that had previously been unavailable for Atari Corp. systems, for example, an Appletalk network port, VME expansion bus, new VGA video graphics modes, and a true SCSI port. Existing ST features such as MIDI ports, a port
30.
Commodore Amiga
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The Amiga is a family of personal computers sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from earlier 8-bit home computers, the Amiga 1000 was officially released in July 1985, but a series of production problems meant it did not become widely available until early 1986. The best selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became one of the home computers of the late 1980s. The A3000, introduced in 1990, started the second generation of Amiga systems, followed by the A500+, finally, as the third generation, the A1200 and the A4000 were released in late 1992. The platform became particularly popular for gaming and programming demos and it also found a prominent role in the desktop video, video production, and show control business, leading to video editing systems such as the Video Toaster. The Amigas native ability to play back multiple digital sound samples made it a popular platform for early tracker music software. It was also an expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh. Initially, the Amiga was developed alongside various Commodore PC clones, Commodore ultimately went bankrupt in April 1994 after the Amiga CD32 model failed in the marketplace. Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line, including Genesi, Eyetech, ACube Systems Srl, likewise, AmigaOS has influenced replacements, clones and compatible systems such as MorphOS, AmigaOS4 and AROS. The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody—including Commodores marketing department—could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, its obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound. Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like 1985 Amigas, Jay Miner joined Atari in the 1970s to develop custom integrated circuits, and led development of the Atari 2600s TIA. Almost as soon as its development was complete, the team developing a much more sophisticated set of chips, CTIA, ANTIC and POKEY. With the 8-bit lines launch in 1979, Miner again started looking at a next generation chipset, Miner wanted to start work with the new Motorola 68000, but management was only interested in another MOS6502 based system. Miner left the company, and the industry, shortly thereafter, in 1982, Larry Kaplan was approached by a number of investors who wanted to develop a new game platform. Kaplan hired Miner to run the side of the newly formed company. The system was code-named Lorraine in keeping with Miners policy of giving systems female names, in case the company presidents wife. When Kaplan left the late in 1982 to rejoin Atari, Miner was promoted to head engineer
31.
Acorn Archimedes
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The first Archimedes was launched in 1987. ARMs RISC design – 32-bit CPU, running at 8 MHz, was stated as running at 4. 5+ MIPS, claims of being the fastest micro in the world and running at 18 MIPS were also made during tests. While the computers are no longer sold, computers such as the Raspberry Pi can still run its operating system, RISC OS, the Acorn Archimedes was the first RISC-based home computer. The first models were released in June 1987, as the 300 and 400 series, the 400 series included four expansion slots and an ST506 controller for an internal hard drive. All models featured eight channel 8-bit stereo sound and were capable of displaying 256 colours on screen, four models were initially released with different amounts of memory, the A305, A310, A410 and A440. The 540 was unveiled in September 1990, and included higher speed SCSI, the 300 and 400 were followed by a number of machines with minor changes and upgrades, Work began on a successor to the Arthur operating system. Initially named Arthur 2, it was renamed to RISC OS2, new computers were shipped with it pre-installed. A number of new machines were introduced along with RISC OS2 and in May 1989, earlier models which shipped with Arthur could be upgraded to RISC OS2 by replacing the ROM chips containing the operating system. The A3000 used an 8 MHz ARM2 and was supplied with 1 MB of RAM, unlike the previous models, the A3000 came in a single-part case similar to the BBC Micro, Amiga 500 and Atari ST computers, with the keyboard integrated in the base unit. This kind of housing consumes a lot of space, a problem that Acorn tried to overcome by offering a monitor stand that attached to the base unit. The new model sported only an internal expansion slot, which was physically different from that of the earlier models. An external connector could interface to existing cards, although they really needed to be housed in an external case joined to the main unit. This meant that in screen modes with sixteen colours or fewer, however, in 256 colour modes,4 bits of the colour data were hardware derived and could not be adjusted. The net result was 256 colours, but only 16 of them could be assigned as desired, covering a range of the 4096 available colours. It also had no Horizontal sync interrupt, meaning that it was difficult to display additional colours by changing the palette for each scan line, in 1991, the A5000 was launched. It featured the new 25 MHz ARM3 processor,2 or 4 MB of RAM, either a 40 MB or an 80 MB hard drive and its enhanced video capabilities allowed the A5000 to comfortably display VGA resolutions of up to 800×600 pixels. It was the first Archimedes to feature a High Density capable floppy disc drive as standard and this natively supported various formats including DOS and Atari discs. A later version of the A5000 featured a 33 MHz ARM3,4 or 8 MB of RAM, an 80 or 120 MB hard drive
32.
Atari Falcon
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The Atari Falcon030 Computer System is a personal computer released by Atari Corporation in 1992. The machine is based on a Motorola 68030 main CPU, and had a Motorola 56000 digital signal processor, the Falcon was Ataris final computer product. The Falcon sold in small numbers, chiefly to hobbyists. Atari Corp. created a number of prototypes of the Falcon040, the microbox case resembled the later Sony PlayStation 2, right down to the ability to run it vertically or horizontally. It is even referenced in the PS2 patent applications, shortly after release, Atari Corp. bundled the MultiTOS operating system in addition to TOS. TOS remained in ROM, and MultiTOS was supplied on floppy disk, in 1995, the music company C-Lab bought the rights to the Falcon hardware design and began producing their own versions. The Falcon Mk I was a continuation of Atari Corp. s Falcon030 with TOS4.04. The Falcon Mk X was mounted in a 19 1U rack case, with external keyboard, today, the Falcon is one of Atari Corp. s most popular machines for hardware modding. Due to its capabilities, several accelerators have been produced. Some of them overclock the CPU and/or the bus, while others upgrade the CPU to a Motorola 68060, processor, Motorola 68030 at 16 MHz with MMU and 256 byte instruction and data caches. FPU, optional Motorola 68881 or Motorola 68882, PLCC socket DSP, graphics, VIDEL fully programmable video controller. In order to achieve the potential of the Videl one has to use one of the numerous existing alternative utilities, such as Videlity, Videl Inside. BLiTTER graphics co-processor at 16 MHz Backwards compatible with all ST resolutions, character set, Atari ST character set, based on codepage 437. Audio, 16-bit audio input and output up to 50 kHz -8 stereo channels SDMA sound/DMA Co-processor Yamaha Y3439-F3 Channel PSG Memory,1,4, or 14 MB of RAM with 512 kB ROM. Bus Speed,16 MHz, Bus width,16 bit Drives and it runs at about 5.76 MIPS while displaying video modes with the fewest colors. Despite its 32-bit CPU, the Falcon does not have 32-bit architecture throughout its design, as it has a 16-bit data bus and this reduces the 68030s performance when not operating inside its tiny cache and limits the maximum system memory to ~14 MB. The microprocessor is supported by a Motorola 56001 DSP clocked at 32 MHz, although it is oriented to sound processing, it is also capable of graphics processing. It can even, jointly with the 68030, play MP3 files in real time, another innovation is the VIDEL video controller
33.
Macintosh
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The Macintosh (/ˈmækᵻntɒʃ/ MAK-in-tosh, is a series of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Steve Jobs introduced the original Macintosh computer on January 24,1984 and this was the companys first mass-market personal computer featuring an integral graphical user interface and mouse. This first model was renamed to Macintosh 128k for uniqueness amongst a populous family of subsequently updated models which are also based on Apples same proprietary architecture. Since 1998, Apple has largely phased out the Macintosh name in favor of Mac, Macintosh systems still found success in education and desktop publishing and kept Apple as the second-largest PC manufacturer for the next decade. In the 1990s, improvements in the rival Wintel platform, notably with the introduction of Windows 3.0, then Windows 95, gradually took market share from the more expensive Macintosh systems. The performance advantage of 68000-based Macintosh systems was eroded by Intels Pentium, even after a transition to the superior PowerPC-based Power Macintosh line in 1994, the falling prices of commodity PC components and the release of Windows 95 saw the Macintosh user base decline. In 1998, after the return of Steve Jobs, Apple consolidated its multiple consumer-level desktop models into the all-in-one iMac G3, since their transition to Intel processors in 2006, the complete lineup is entirely based on said processors and associated systems. Its current lineup comprises three desktops, and three laptops and its Xserve server was discontinued in 2011 in favor of the Mac Mini and Mac Pro. Apple also develops the operating system for the Mac, currently macOS version 10.12 Sierra, Macs are currently capable of running non-Apple operating systems such as Linux, OpenBSD, and Microsoft Windows with the aid of Boot Camp or third-party software. Apple does not license macOS for use on computers, though it did license previous versions of the classic Mac OS through their Macintosh clone program from 1995 to 1997. The Macintosh project was begun in 1979 by Jef Raskin, an Apple employee who envisioned an easy-to-use, in 1978 Apple began to organize the Apple Lisa project, aiming to build a next-generation machine similar to an advanced Apple III or the yet-to-be-introduced IBM PC. In 1979, Steve Jobs learned of the work on graphical user interfaces taking place at Xerox PARC. He arranged a deal in which Xerox received Apple stock options in return for which Apple would license their designs, the basic layout of the Lisa was largely complete by 1982, at which point Jobs continual suggestions for improvements led to him being kicked off the project. At the same time that the Lisa was becoming a GUI machine in 1979, the design at that time was for a low-cost, easy-to-use machine for the average consumer. Raskin was authorized to start hiring for the project in September 1979 and his initial team would eventually consist of himself, Howard, Joanna Hoffman, Burrell Smith, and Bud Tribble. Smiths design used fewer RAM chips than the Lisa, which production of the board significantly more cost-efficient. Though there were no memory slots, its RAM was expandable to 512 kB by means of soldering sixteen IC sockets to accept 256 kb RAM chips in place of the factory-installed chips. The final products screen was a 9-inch, 512x342 pixel monochrome display, burrels innovative design, combining the low production cost of an Apple II with the computing power of Lisas Motorola 68000 CPU, began to receive Jobs attentions
34.
Apple Lisa
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Apple Lisa was a desktop computer developed by Apple, released on January 19,1983. It was one of the first personal computers to offer a user interface in a machine aimed at individual business users. Development of the Lisa began in 1978, and it underwent many changes during the development period before shipping at the high price of US$9,995 with a 5 MB hard drive. The high price, relatively low performance and unreliable Twiggy floppy disks led to poor sales, in 1982, after Steve Jobs was forced out of the Lisa project, he joined the Macintosh project, at that time developing a much more limited machine with a task-switching interface. Jobs redirected the Macintosh team to build a cheaper and better Lisa, releasing it in January 1984, newer versions of the Lisa were introduced that addressed its faults and lowered its price considerably, but it never really picked up sales compared to the much less expensive Mac. The final revision of the Lisa, the Lisa 2/10, was modified, generally considered a failure, the Lisa nevertheless introduced a number of advanced features that would not re-appear on the Macintosh for a number of years. Among these was a system which featured protected memory and preemptive multitasking. The hardware itself was much more advanced than the Macintosh, with a hard drive and support for up to 2 megabytes of RAM, expansion slots. The main exception being that while the Macintosh also used the 68000 processor, the complexity of the Lisa operating system and its associated programs overtaxed the slower processor enough that users perceived it to be sluggish, particularly when scrolling in documents. While the documentation shipped with the original Lisa only ever referred to it as The Lisa, officially, decades later, Jobs would tell his biographer Walter Isaacson, Obviously it was named for my daughter. The project began in 1978 as an effort to create a modern version of the then-conventional design epitomized by the Apple II. Initial team leader Ken Rothmuller was soon replaced by John Couch, trip Hawkins, who was then on the marketing team for the nascent Lisa project, and Jef Raskin contributed to the change in design. Several years prior to this, research had been going on at Xeroxs Palo Alto Research Center to create a new way to organize everything on the screen, Steve Jobs visited Xerox PARC in 1979. He was excited by the revolutionary mouse-driven GUI of the Xerox Alto and was keen to use these ideas back at Apple, a great deal of work was put into making the graphical interface into a mainstream commercial product by the Lisa team. By May 1982 InfoWorld reported that Apples yet-to-be-announced Lisa 68000 network work station is widely rumored to have a mouse. The Lisa was a project at the company, which reportedly spent more than $50 million on its development. More than 90 people participated on the design, plus more on the sales, bruce Daniels was in charge of applications development, and Larry Tesler was in charge of system software. After a six-month period in which the interface was designed, the hardware, operating system
35.
PowerBook
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The PowerBook was a line of Macintosh laptop computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through major revisions and redesigns. In 1999, the line was supplemented by the consumer iBook range, the PowerBook and iBook lines were discontinued and replaced by the MacBook Pro and MacBook families respectively by 2006. In September 1989, Apple Inc. released the Macintosh Portable, however, its price, size, and weight made actual portability difficult. Because of this, the demand for a true portable Macintosh was not met, in October 1991 Apple released the first three PowerBooks, the low-end PowerBook 100, the more powerful PowerBook 140, and the high end PowerBook 170, the only one with an active matrix display. In the early days of Microsoft Windows, many notebooks came with a clip on trackball that fit on the edge of the keyboard molding, as usage of DOS gave way to the graphical user interface, the PowerBooks arrangement became the standard layout all future notebook computers would follow. The PowerBook 140 and 170 were the original PowerBook designs, while the PowerBook 100 was the result of Apple having sent the schematics of the Mac Portable to Sony, the PowerBook 100, however, did not sell well until Apple dropped the price substantially. The 100 series PowerBooks were intended to tie into the rest of the Apple desktop products utilizing the corporate Snow White design language incorporated into all product designs since 1986. In addition to adopting the darker colour scheme which co-ordinated with the official corporate look. The innovative look not only unified their entire line. These early series would be the last to utilize the aging Snow White look, the first series of PowerBooks were hugely successful, capturing 40% of all laptop sales. Despite this, the team left to work at Compaq. Apple was unable to ship a 68040-equipped PowerBook until the PowerBook 500 series in 1994, the original PowerBook 100,140, and 170 were replaced by the 145,160, and 180 in 1992. The 160 and 180 having video output allowing them to drive an external monitor, in addition, the PowerBook 180 had a superb-for-the-time active-matrix grayscale display, making it popular with the Mac press. In 1993, the PowerBook 165c was the first PowerBook with a color screen, in 1994, the last true member of the 100-series form factor introduced was the PowerBook 150, targeted at value-minded consumers and students. The PowerBook 190, released in 1995, bears no resemblance to the rest of the PowerBook 100 series, however, like the 190, the 150 also used the 5300 IDE-based logic-board architecture. From the 100s 68000 processor, to the 190s 68LC040 processor, in 1992 Apple released a hybrid portable/desktop computer, the PowerBook Duo, continuing to streamline the subnotebook features introduced with the PowerBook 100. 1994 saw the introduction of the Motorola 68LC040-based PowerBook 500 series and these models of PowerBooks were much sleeker and faster than the 100 series, which they replaced as the mid and high-end models
36.
IBM Monochrome Display Adapter
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The Monochrome Display Adapter is IBMs standard video display card and computer display standard for the PC introduced in 1981. The MDA did not have any pixel-addressable graphics modes and it had only a single monochrome text mode, which could display 80 columns by 25 lines of high resolution text characters or symbols useful for drawing forms. Based on the IBM Datamasters display system, the standard IBM MDA card was equipped with four kilobytes of video memory. The MDAs high character resolution was a feature meant to facilitate business and wordprocessing use, Each character was rendered in a box of 9×14 pixels, some characters, such as the lowercase m, were rendered eight pixels across. The theoretical total screen display resolution of the MDA was 720×350 pixels and this number is arrived at through calculating character width by columns of text and character height by rows of text. However, the MDA again could not address individual pixels, it could work in text mode. The character patterns were stored in ROM on the card and the set could not be changed from the hardware code page 437. The only way to simulate graphical screen content was through ASCII art, because of the lack of pixel-addressable graphics, MDA owners could not play most graphics-based games. At least one game, IBMs One Hundred And One Monochrome Mazes, code page 437 included the standard 127 ASCII characters but also another 127 characters like the aforementioned characters for drawing forms. Some of these shapes would later show up in Unicode as box-drawing characters, the characters were also used in early PC games such as early BBS door games, or games like Castle Adventure by Kevin Bales. IBMs original MDA included a printer port, thus avoiding the need for a separate parallel interface on computers fitted with an MDA. The registers also allow the monochrome mode to be set on, yet there was no software to actually control that feature. Other boards offered MDA compatibility, although with differences on how attributes are displayed or the font used, PC Magazine reported in June 1983 that while the IBM monochrome display is absolutely beautiful for text and wonderfully easy on the eyes, but is limited to simple character graphics. Text quality on displays connected to the color/graphics adapter. is at best of medium quality and is conducive to eyestrain over the long haul, introduced in 1982, the non-IBM Hercules Graphics Card offered both an MDA compatible high resolution text mode and a monochrome graphics mode. It could address individual pixels and display a black and white picture of 720×348 pixels and this resolution was better than even the highest monochrome resolution CGA cards could offer. Thus, even without a color capability of any kind, the Hercules adapters offer of monochrome graphics without sacrificing MDA-equivalent text quality made it a desirable choice for many. Adapters exist to convert MDA into VGA for upgrading to LCD, using a GBS-8219 with the video signal and the horizontal sync and vertical sync, set to a RGB, and Sync Separate
37.
IBM Personal Computer XT
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The IBM Personal Computer XT, often shortened to the IBM XT, PC XT, or simply XT, is a version of the IBM PC with a built-in hard drive. It was released as IBM Machine Type number 5160 on March 8,1983, apart from the hard drive, it was essentially the same as the original PC, with only minor improvements. The XT was mainly intended as an enhanced IBM PC for business users, later floppy-only models would effectively replace the original model 5150 PC. A corresponding 3270 PC featuring 3270 terminal emulation was released later in October 1983, the motherboard had an Intel 8088 microprocessor running at 4.77 MHz, with a socket for an optional 8087 math coprocessor. IBM recognized soon after the IBM PCs release in 1981 that its five 8-bit I/O channel expansion slots were insufficient. An internal IBM publication stated in October 1981 about the number that In my opinion, it could be a problem, a BYTE Magazine article commented that DOS2.0 is more revolutionary and advanced than the computer itself. Unlike many hard disk systems on microcomputers at the time, the XT was able to boot directly off the drive, aside from the hard disk, a serial port card was also standard equipment on the XT, all other cards being optional. By the end of 1983, the XT was neck-and-neck with the original PC for sales, two were behind the floppy drive and shorter than PCs slots. The other six fit into the space as the PCs five slots. Most PC cards would not fit into the two slots, and some would not fit into the six standard-length, but narrower, slots. The floppy and hard drive adapters, the serial port card, the basic specification was soon upgraded to have 256 KB of RAM as standard. Expansion slots could be used for I/O devices or for memory expansion, available Video cards were initially the Monochrome Display Adapter and Color Graphics Adapter, with Enhanced Graphics Adapter and Professional Graphics Controller becoming available in 1984. The XT had a case similar to that of the IBM PC. It weighed 32 pounds and was approximately 19.5 inches wide by 16 inches deep by 5.5 inches high, the power supply of the original XT sold in the US was configured for 120 V AC only and could not be used with 240 V mains supplies. XTs with 240V-compatible power supplies were sold in international markets. Both were rated at 130 Watts, the operating system usually sold with the XT was PC DOS2.0 or, by the time the XT was discontinued in early 1987, DOS3.2. Like the original PC, the XT came with IBM BASIC in its ROM, the XT BIOS also displayed a memory count during the POST, unlike the PC. The XT was discontinued in the spring of 1987, replaced by the PS/2 Model 30, XT motherboards came in two different versions
38.
Video RAM (dual-ported DRAM)
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Video RAM, or VRAM, is a dual-ported variant of dynamic RAM, which was once commonly used to store the framebuffer in some graphics adapters. It was invented by F. Dill, D. Ling and R. Matick at IBM Research in 1980, the first commercial use of VRAM was in a high-resolution graphics adapter introduced in 1986 by IBM for the PC/RT system, which set a new standard for graphics displays. Prior to the development of VRAM, dual-ported memory was quite expensive, VRAM improved the overall framebuffer throughput, allowing low cost, high-resolution, high-speed, color graphics. Modern GUI-based operating systems benefitted from this and thus it provided a key ingredient for proliferation of graphic user interfaces throughout the world at that time, VRAM has two sets of data output pins, and thus two ports that can be used simultaneously. The first port, the DRAM port, is accessed by the host computer in a very similar to traditional DRAM. The second port, the port, is typically read-only and is dedicated to providing a high throughput. Typical DRAM arrays normally access a full row of bits at up to 1,024 bits at one time, but only use one or a few of these for actual data, since DRAM cells are destructively read, each row accessed must be sensed, and re-written. Thus,1,024 sense amplifiers are typically used, VRAM operates by not discarding the excess bits which must be accessed, but making full use of them in a simple way. This will leave access to the DRAM array free to be accessed for many cycles, a complete DRAM read cycle is only required to fill the row buffer, leaving most DRAM cycles available for normal accesses. Such operation is described in the paper All points addressable raster display memory by R. Matick, D. Ling, S. Gupta, and F. Dill, IBM Journal of R&D, Vol 28, No. To use the port, the controller first uses the DRAM port to select the row of the memory array that is to be displayed. The VRAM then copies that entire row to an internal row-buffer which is a shift register, the controller can then continue to use the DRAM port for drawing objects on the display. Meanwhile, the controller feeds a clock called the clock to the VRAMs video port. Each SCLK pulse causes the VRAM to deliver the data bit, in strict address order. For simplicity, the adapter is usually designed so that the contents of a row. Through the 1990s, many graphic subsystems used VRAM, with the number of megabits touted as a selling point. In the late 1990s, synchronous DRAM technologies gradually became affordable, dense, nevertheless, many of the VRAM concepts of internal, on-chip buffering and organization have been used and improved in modern graphics adapters
39.
IBM
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International Business Machines Corporation is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States, with operations in over 170 countries. The company originated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and was renamed International Business Machines in 1924, IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware, middleware and software, and offers hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is also a research organization, holding the record for most patents generated by a business for 24 consecutive years. IBM has continually shifted its business mix by exiting commoditizing markets and focusing on higher-value, also in 2014, IBM announced that it would go fabless, continuing to design semiconductors, but offloading manufacturing to GlobalFoundries. Nicknamed Big Blue, IBM is one of 30 companies included in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and one of the worlds largest employers, with nearly 380,000 employees. Known as IBMers, IBM employees have been awarded five Nobel Prizes, six Turing Awards, ten National Medals of Technology, in the 1880s, technologies emerged that would ultimately form the core of what would become International Business Machines. On June 16,1911, their four companies were amalgamated in New York State by Charles Ranlett Flint forming a fifth company, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company based in Endicott, New York. The five companies had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York, Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Washington, D. C. and Toronto. They manufactured machinery for sale and lease, ranging from commercial scales and industrial time recorders, meat and cheese slicers, to tabulators and punched cards. Thomas J. Watson, Sr. fired from the National Cash Register Company by John Henry Patterson, called on Flint and, Watson joined CTR as General Manager then,11 months later, was made President when court cases relating to his time at NCR were resolved. Having learned Pattersons pioneering business practices, Watson proceeded to put the stamp of NCR onto CTRs companies and his favorite slogan, THINK, became a mantra for each companys employees. During Watsons first four years, revenues more than doubled to $9 million, Watson had never liked the clumsy hyphenated title of the CTR and in 1924 chose to replace it with the more expansive title International Business Machines. By 1933 most of the subsidiaries had been merged into one company, in 1937, IBMs tabulating equipment enabled organizations to process unprecedented amounts of data, its clients including the U. S. During the Second World War the company produced small arms for the American war effort, in 1949, Thomas Watson, Sr. created IBM World Trade Corporation, a subsidiary of IBM focused on foreign operations. In 1952, he stepped down after almost 40 years at the company helm, in 1957, the FORTRAN scientific programming language was developed. In 1961, IBM developed the SABRE reservation system for American Airlines, in 1963, IBM employees and computers helped NASA track the orbital flight of the Mercury astronauts. A year later it moved its headquarters from New York City to Armonk. The latter half of the 1960s saw IBM continue its support of space exploration, on April 7,1964, IBM announced the first computer system family, the IBM System/360
40.
Text mode
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Text mode is a computer display mode in which content is internally represented on a computer screen in terms of characters rather than individual pixels. Typically, the screen consists of a rectangular grid of character cells. Text mode is contrasted to all points addressable mode or other kinds of computer graphics modes, text mode applications communicate with the user with command-line interfaces and text user interfaces. A typical example is the IBM code page 437 character set and this was an analogy of early mechanical printers which had fixed pitch. This way, the output seen on the screen could be sent directly to the printer maintaining exactly the same format, depending on the environment, the screen buffer can be directly addressable. Programs that display output on remote video terminals must issue special control sequences to manipulate the screen buffer, the most popular standards for such control sequences are ANSI and VT100. Text mode video rendering came to prominence in the early 1970s, the advantages of text modes as compared to graphics modes include lower memory consumption and faster screen manipulation. Early framebuffers were standalone devices which cost thousands of dollars, in addition to the expense of the advanced high-resolution displays to which they were connected. For applications that required simple line graphics but for which the expense of a framebuffer could not be justified, but there were many computer applications for which all that was required was the ability to render ordinary text in a quick and cost-effective fashion to a cathode ray tube. Text mode avoids the problem of memory by having dedicated display hardware re-render each line of text from characters into pixels with each scan of the screen by the cathode ray. In turn, the hardware needs only enough memory to store the pixels equivalent to one line of text at a time. For example, a screen buffer sufficient to hold a standard grid of 80 by 25 characters requires at least 2,000 bytes. S. dollars, another advantage of text mode is that it has relatively low bandwidth requirements in remote terminal use. Text mode rendering with user-defined characters has also been useful for 2D computer, a video controller implementing a text mode usually uses two distinct areas of memory. Character memory or a table contains a raster font in use. Display matrix tracks which character is in each cell, in the simple case the display matrix can be just a matrix of code points, but it usually stores for each character position not only a code, but also attributes. The video controller has two registers, scan line counter and dot counter, serving as coordinates in the dot matrix. Each of them must be divided by corresponding glyph size to obtain an index in the display matrix, the character memory resides in a read-only memory in some systems. Other systems allow the use of RAM for this purpose, making it possible to redefine the typeface, in some historical graphics chips, including the TMS9918, the MOS Technology VIC, and the Game Boy graphics hardware, this was actually the canonical way of doing pixel graphics
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Color Graphics Adapter
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For this reason, it also became that computers first color computer display standard. Built around the Motorola MC6845 display controller, the CGA card featured several graphics, the highest display resolution of any mode was 640×200, and the highest color depth supported was 4-bit. CGA supports, 320×200 in 4 colors from a 16 color hardware palette, the 40×25 text and 320×200 graphics modes are usable with a television, and the 80×25 text and 640×200 graphics modes are intended for a monitor. Despite varying bit depths among the CGA graphics modes, CGA processes colors in its palette in four bits, in graphics modes, colors are set per-pixel, in text modes, colors are set per-character, with an independent foreground and background color for each character. These four bits are passed on unmodified to the DE-9 connector at the back of the card, leaving all color processing to the RGBI monitor connected to it. With respect to the RGBI color model described above, the monitor would use approximately the following formula to process the digital four-bit color number to analog voltages ranging from 0.0 to 1. For the composite output, these four-bit color numbers are encoded by the CGAs onboard hardware into an NTSC-compatible signal fed to the cards RCA output jack. For cost reasons, this is not done using an RGB-to-YIQ converter as called for by the NTSC standard, consequently, the hues seen are lacking in purity, notably, both cyan and yellow have a greenish tint, and color 6 again looks dark yellow instead of brown. When the CGA was introduced in 1981, IBM did not offer an RGBI monitor, instead, customers were supposed to use the RCA output with an RF modulator to connect the CGA to their television set. The IBM5153 Personal Computer Color Display would not be introduced until March 1983 and this is relevant insofar as if an application or game programmer used either one of these configurations, they will have expected color 6 to look dark yellow instead of brown. CGA offers four BIOS text modes, 40×25 characters in up to 16 colors, each character is a pattern of 8×8 dots. The effective screen resolution in this mode is 320×200 pixels, though individual pixels cannot be addressed independently, the choice of patterns for any location is thus limited to one of the 256 available characters, the patterns for which are stored in a ROM chip on the card itself. The display font in text mode is fixed and cannot be changed. The card has sufficient video RAM for eight different text pages in this mode, BIOS Modes 0 &1 select 40 column text modes. The difference between two modes can only be seen on a composite monitor, mode 0 disables the color burst. Mode 1 enables the color burst, allowing for color, Mode 0 and Mode 1 are functionally identical on RGB monitors and on later adapters that emulate CGA without supporting composite color output. 80×25 characters in up to 16 colors, each character is again an 8×8 dot pattern, in a pixel aspect ratio of 1,2.4. The effective screen resolution of this mode is 640×200 pixels, again, the pixels cannot be individually addressed
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Hercules Graphics Card
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The Hercules Graphics Card is a computer graphics controller made by Hercules Computer Technology, Inc. that combines IBMs text-only MDA display standard with a bitmapped graphics mode. This allows the HGC to offer high quality text and graphics from a single card. The HGC was very popular, and became a widely supported de facto standard on IBM PC compatibles connected to a monochrome monitor. The HGC standard was used long after more technically capable systems had entered the market, the IBM Personal Computer was launched in 1981 with the Color Graphics Adapter expansion card, and the Monochrome Display And Printer Adapter. The CGA offered two basic operating modes, 320×200 pixel low resolution or a 640x200 pixels high resolution mode, while the low-resolution mode was very comparable to 8-bit home computers of the era, the higher-resolution mode offered a fair advance, used with a suitable monitor. Since CGA was connectable to cheap composite monitors, and even to home TVs, due to a lack of color dot mask and a dedicated connection without ability to run lower resolution displays, monochrome monitors were sharper than color. The MDP also included a Centronics compatible parallel port for printers, many imitations were available, but many of them did not include the parallel port, so the video standard became known as MDA, for Monochrome Display Adapter, since MDP was not applicable. The two graphics standards were partially incompatible, most games only supported CGA, while a few extremely rare business applications only supported MDA. Since business software at the time was based, it could run on either. Most software that used any specific capabilities of either would simply check the settings for monitor type, or check the current video mode. The Hercules card was developed in 1982 by Van Suwannukul, founder of Hercules Computer Technology, the system was created by Suwannukul initially so that he could work on his doctoral thesis on an IBM PC using the Thai alphabet. It was essentially an MDA-compatible monochrome card, but through the use of third-party drivers it could also run most programs written for the CGA cards standard graphics modes. Very large numbers of imitations appeared, including generic clones at very low prices, usually without the printer port, Hercules briefly ran ads implying that use of generic clones of the Hercules card could damage the computer. Programming for the Hercules cards native graphics mode was somewhat hindered by a lack of BIOS support and standardization from IBM—after all, popular IBM PC programs at the time came with their own drivers to allow use of the Hercules graphics mode. Long after its prime, the Hercules card continued to be popular for dual-monitor setups alongside another graphics adapter, some software debuggers could take advantage of an HGC to run the main program on the color monitor and the debugger on the HGC. Later on, the multi-monitor trick became obsolete with OS-related improvements such as the introduction of GUIs for debug commands as an analogy for debug command modules. Horizontal frequency 18.425 ±0.500 kHz, Vertical frequency 50 Hz, like the IBM Monochrome Display Adapter it improved on, the Hercules Graphics Card had both a parallel printer port and a video output port. Its text mode could display 80×25 text characters and was MDA-compatible, as such, it rendered characters in a box of 9×14 pixels, of which 7×11 made out the character itself
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Lotus 1-2-3
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Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software. It was the IBM PCs first killer application, was popular in the 1980s. The first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, had helped launch the Apple II as one of the earliest personal computers in business use, 1-2-3 quickly overtook VisiCalc, as well as Multiplan and SuperCalc, two VisiCalc competitors. With the acceptance of Windows 3.0, the market for desktop software grew even more, Lotus was passed by Microsoft in the early 1990s and never recovered. IBM purchased Lotus and continued to sell Lotus offerings, only officially ending sales in 2013, VisiCalc was launched in 1979 on the Apple II and immediately became a best-seller. Compared to earlier programs, VisiCalc allowed one to easily construct free-form calculation systems for any purpose. The application was so compelling that there were stories of people buying Apple II machines to run the program. VisiCalcs runaway success on the Apple led to direct bug compatible ports to other platforms, including the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore PET and many others. This included the IBM PC when it launched in 1981, where it became another best-seller. There were well known problems with VisiCalc, and several competitors appeared to some of these issues. In spite of these, and others, VisiCalc continued to outsell them all, the Lotus Development Corporation was founded by Mitchell Kapor, a friend of the developers of VisiCalc. 1-2-3 was originally written by Jonathan Sachs, who had written two spreadsheet programs previously while working at Concentric Data Systems, Inc, to aid its growth, in the UK, and possibly elsewhere, Lotus 1-2-3 was the very first computer software to use television consumer advertising. Lotus 1-2-3 was released on 26 January 1983, and immediately overtook Visicalc in sales, unlike Microsoft Multiplan, it stayed very close to the model of VisiCalc, including the A1 letter and number cell notation, and slash-menu structure. Among other novelties that Lotus introduced was a graph maker that could display several forms of graphs, at this early stage, the only video boards available for the PC were IBMs Color/Graphics Adapter and Monochrome Display and Printer Adapter while the latter did not support any graphics. The initial release of 1-2-3 supported only three video setups, CGA, MDA or dual monitor mode, however, a few months later support was added for Hercules Computer Technologys Hercules Graphics Adapter which was a clone of the MDA that allowed bitmap mode. The ability to have text and graphics capabilities proved extremely popular. Subsequent releases of Lotus 1-2-3 supported more video standards as time went on, including EGA, AT&T/Olivetti, significantly, support for the PCjr/Tandy modes was never added and users of those machines were limited to CGA graphics. The early versions of 1-2-3 also had a key disk copy protection, while the program was hard disk installable, the user had to insert the original floppy disk when starting 1-2-3 up
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Killer application
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In other words, consumers would buy the hardware just to run that application. A killer app can substantially increase sales of the platform on which it runs, One of the first recognized examples of a killer application is generally agreed to be the VisiCalc spreadsheet for the Apple II series. Because it was not available on computers for 12 months, people spent $100 for the software first. Others also chose to develop software, such as EasyWriter, for the Apple II first because of its sales, helping Apple defeat rivals Commodore International. Lotus 1-2-3 similarly benefited sales of the IBM PC and compatibles, noting that computer purchasers did not want PC compatibility as much as compatibility with certain PC software, InfoWorld suggested lets tell it like it is. Lets not say PC compatible, or even MS-DOS compatible, another killer app is WordStar, the most popular word processor during much of the 1980s. The UNIX Operating System served as an application for the DEC PDP-11 minicomputer. Many of the PDP-11 and VAX-11 processors never ran DECs operating systems, but instead, they ran UNIX, to get a virtual-memory UNIX you had to purchase a VAX-11 computer. Many universities wanted a general-purpose timesharing system that would meet the needs of students, from its inception UNIX could drive high-quality typesetting equipment and later Postscript printers using the nroff/troff typesetting language, and this was also unprecedented for its time. The first recorded use of the term in print was 1987, everybody has only one killer application. The secretary has a word processor, the definition of killer app came up during Bill Gatess questioning in the United States v. Microsoft Corp. antitrust case. Bill Gates had written an email in which he described Internet Explorer as a killer app, such a game is also known in gaming parlance as a system seller. Star Raiders, released in 1979, was considered to be the killer app for the Atari 400/800 computers, the port of Donkey Kong was the killer app for the ColecoVision console in 1982. Melee for the GameCube, and Wii Sports for the Nintendo Wii, john Madden Footballs popularity in 1990 helped the Genesis gain market share against the Super Nintendo. Sonic the Hedgehog, released in 1991, was hailed as a killer app as it revived sales of the three-year-old Genesis, street Fighter II, originally released for arcades in 1991, became a system-seller for the Super Nintendo when it was ported to the platform in 1992. Myst and The 7th Guest, both released in 1993, drove adoption of CD-ROM drives for personal computers. Pokémon Red and Blue could be classified a killer app for the seven-year-old Game Boy as a craze evolved around the series in the late 1990s, quake could be considered the killer app for 3dfxs Voodoo Graphics 3D accelerator card for home computers. Halo is considered to be the killer app for the Xbox console, bloodborne was known as the first killer app for the PlayStation 4 console
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Orchid Graphics Adapter
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The Orchid Graphics Adapter is a graphics board for IBM PC compatible computers, released in 1982 by Orchid Technology. It was intended to provide high resolution monochrome graphic abilities to computers limited to text displays and it was aimed at the business market and one of the three first third party graphic boards for PCs. It offered a monochrome 720x350 pixel resolution and required an existing MDA board to function, no software, other than GSX-86 and that supplied with board, offered support for this board. 720×350 monochrome graphics, pixel aspect ratio of 1,1.55, plantronics Colorplus Hercules Graphics Card IBM Monochrome Display Adapter
