1.
Software developer
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A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process, including the research, design, programming, and testing of computer software. Other job titles which are used with similar meanings are programmer, software analyst. According to developer Eric Sink, the differences between system design, software development, and programming are more apparent, even more so that developers become systems architects, those who design the multi-leveled architecture or component interactions of a large software system. In a large company, there may be employees whose sole responsibility consists of one of the phases above. In smaller development environments, a few people or even an individual might handle the complete process. The word software was coined as a prank as early as 1953, before this time, computers were programmed either by customers, or the few commercial computer vendors of the time, such as UNIVAC and IBM. The first company founded to provide products and services was Computer Usage Company in 1955. The software industry expanded in the early 1960s, almost immediately after computers were first sold in mass-produced quantities, universities, government, and business customers created a demand for software. Many of these programs were written in-house by full-time staff programmers, some were distributed freely between users of a particular machine for no charge. Others were done on a basis, and other firms such as Computer Sciences Corporation started to grow. The computer/hardware makers started bundling operating systems, systems software and programming environments with their machines, new software was built for microcomputers, so other manufacturers including IBM, followed DECs example quickly, resulting in the IBM AS/400 amongst others. The industry expanded greatly with the rise of the computer in the mid-1970s. In the following years, it created a growing market for games, applications. DOS, Microsofts first operating system product, was the dominant operating system at the time, by 2014 the role of cloud developer had been defined, in this context, one definition of a developer in general was published, Developers make software for the world to use. The job of a developer is to crank out code -- fresh code for new products, code fixes for maintenance, code for business logic, bus factor Software Developer description from the US Department of Labor
2.
Anders Hejlsberg
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Anders Hejlsberg is a prominent Danish software engineer who co-designed several popular and commercially successful programming languages and development tools. He was the author of Turbo Pascal and the chief architect of Delphi. He currently works for Microsoft as the architect of C#. Hejlsberg was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and studied engineering at the Technical University of Denmark, while at the university in 1980, he began writing programs for the Nascom microcomputer, including a Pascal compiler which was initially marketed as the Blue Label Software Pascal for the Nascom-2. However, he rewrote it for CP/M and DOS, marketing it first as Compas Pascal. Later the product was licensed to Borland, and integrated into an IDE to become the Turbo Pascal system. The compiler itself was inspired by the Tiny Pascal compiler in Niklaus Wirths Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs. Hejlsberg and his partners ran a store in Copenhagen and marketed accounting systems. Their company, PolyData, was the distributor for Microsoft products in Denmark which put them at odds with Borland, philippe Kahn and Hejlsberg first met in 1986. For all those years, Niels Jensen, one of Borlands founders, in Borlands hands, Turbo Pascal became one of the most commercially successful Pascal compilers. Hejlsberg remained with PolyData until the company came under stress, at which time, in 1989 he moved to California. During this time he developed Turbo Pascal further, and eventually became the architect for the team which produced the replacement for Turbo Pascal. In 1996, Hejlsberg left Borland and joined Microsoft, one of his first achievements was the J++ programming language and the Windows Foundation Classes, he also became a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and Technical Fellow. Since 2000, he has been the architect of the team developing the language C#. In 2012 Hejlsberg announced his new project TypeScript—a superset of JavaScript and he received the 2001 Dr. Dobbs Excellence in Programming Award for his work on Turbo Pascal, Delphi, C# and the Microsoft. NET Framework. A video about this is available at Microsoft Channel 9, Microsoft doubled the bonus to US$1,000,000 after Borland made a counter-offer. Hejlsberg left Borland in October 1996, Software engineering radio Episode 97, Interview Anders Hejlsberg Interview from. NET Developers Journal, Vol 3 issue 2. Anders Hejlsberg - Programming data in C#3.0 Anders Hejlsberg - What brought about the birth of the CLR Anders Hejlsberg - The. NET Show, The. NET Framework Anders Hejlsberg - The
3.
Borland
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Borland Software Corporation is a software company that facilitates software deployment projects. Borland was first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, then in Cupertino, California and it is now a Micro Focus International subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad, however, response to the companys products at the CP/M-82 show in San Francisco showed that a U. S. company would be needed to reach the American market. They met Philippe Kahn, who had just moved to Silicon Valley, the three Danes had embarked, at first successfully, on marketing software first from Denmark, and later from Ireland, before running into some challenges at the time when they met Philippe Kahn. Kahn was chairman, president, and CEO of Borland Inc. from its inception in 1983 until 1995, main shareholders at the incorporation of Borland were Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad, and Kahn. Borland developed a series of well-regarded software development tools and its first product was Turbo Pascal in 1983, developed by Anders Hejlsberg and before Borland acquired the product sold in Scandinavia under the name of Compas Pascal. 1984 saw the launch of Borland Sidekick, an organization, notebook. After Turbo Pascal and Sidekick the company launched other applications such as SuperKey and Lightning. While the Danes remained majority shareholders, board members included Kahn, Tim Berry, John Nash, with the assistance of John Nash and David Heller, both British members of the Borland Board, the company was taken public on Londons Unlisted Securities Market in 1986. Schroders was the investment banker. A first US IPO followed in 1989 after Ben Rosen joined the Borland board with Goldman Sachs as the lead banker, all offerings were very successful and over-subscribed. In 1985 Borland acquired Analytica and its Reflex database product, the engineering team of Analytica, managed by Brad Silverberg and including Reflex co-founder Adam Bosworth, became the core of Borlands engineering team in the USA. Brad Silverberg was VP of engineering until he left in early 1990 to head up the Personal Systems division at Microsoft, Adam Bosworth initiated and headed up the Quattro project until moving to Microsoft later in 1990 to take over the project which eventually became Access. In 1987 Borland purchased Wizard Systems and incorporated portions of the Wizard C technology into Turbo C. Bob Jervis, Turbo C was released on May 18,1987, and an estimated 100,000 copies were shipped in the first month of its release. This apparently drove a wedge between Borland and Niels Jensen and the members of his team who had been working on a brand new series of compilers at their London development centre. An agreement was reached and they spun off a company called Jensen & Partners International, the TopSpeed compiler technology exists today as the underlying technology of the Clarion 4GL programming language, a Windows development tool. In September 1987 Borland purchased Ansa-Software, including their Paradox database management tool, richard Schwartz, a cofounder of Ansa, became Borlands CTO and Ben Rosen joined the Borland board. The Quattro Pro spreadsheet was launched in 1989 with, at the time, Lotus Development, under the leadership of Jim Manzi sued Borland for copyright infringement
4.
Operating system
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An operating system is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs. All computer programs, excluding firmware, require a system to function. Operating systems are found on many devices that contain a computer – from cellular phones, the dominant desktop operating system is Microsoft Windows with a market share of around 83. 3%. MacOS by Apple Inc. is in place, and the varieties of Linux is in third position. Linux distributions are dominant in the server and supercomputing sectors, other specialized classes of operating systems, such as embedded and real-time systems, exist for many applications. A single-tasking system can run one program at a time. Multi-tasking may be characterized in preemptive and co-operative types, in preemptive multitasking, the operating system slices the CPU time and dedicates a slot to each of the programs. Unix-like operating systems, e. g. Solaris, Linux, cooperative multitasking is achieved by relying on each process to provide time to the other processes in a defined manner. 16-bit versions of Microsoft Windows used cooperative multi-tasking, 32-bit versions of both Windows NT and Win9x, used preemptive multi-tasking. Single-user operating systems have no facilities to distinguish users, but may allow multiple programs to run in tandem, a distributed operating system manages a group of distinct computers and makes them appear to be a single computer. The development of networked computers that could be linked and communicate with each other gave rise to distributed computing, distributed computations are carried out on more than one machine. When computers in a work in cooperation, they form a distributed system. The technique is used both in virtualization and cloud computing management, and is common in large server warehouses, embedded operating systems are designed to be used in embedded computer systems. They are designed to operate on small machines like PDAs with less autonomy and they are able to operate with a limited number of resources. They are very compact and extremely efficient by design, Windows CE and Minix 3 are some examples of embedded operating systems. A real-time operating system is a system that guarantees to process events or data by a specific moment in time. A real-time operating system may be single- or multi-tasking, but when multitasking, early computers were built to perform a series of single tasks, like a calculator. Basic operating system features were developed in the 1950s, such as resident monitor functions that could run different programs in succession to speed up processing
5.
CP/M
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Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors. The combination of CP/M and S-100 bus computers was loosely patterned on the MITS Altair and this computer platform was widely used in business through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. CP/M increased the size for both hardware and software by greatly reducing the amount of programming required to install an application on a new manufacturers computer. An important driver of innovation was the advent of low-cost microcomputers running CP/M, as independent programmers and hackers bought them. CP/M was displaced by MS-DOS soon after the 1981 introduction of the IBM PC, manufacturers of CP/M-compatible systems customized portions of the operating system for their own combination of installed memory, disk drives, and console devices. CP/M would also run on based on the Zilog Z80 processor since the Z80 was compatible with 8080 code. CP/M used the 7-bit ASCII set, the other 128 characters made possible by the 8-bit byte were not standardized. For example, one Kaypro used them for Greek characters, WordStar used the 8th bit as an end-of-word marker. The BIOS and BDOS were memory-resident, while the CCP was memory-resident unless overwritten by an application, a number of transient commands for standard utilities were also provided. The transient commands resided in files with the extension. COM on disk, the BIOS directly controlled hardware components other than the CPU and main memory. It contained functions such as input and output and the reading and writing of disk sectors. The BDOS implemented the CP/M file system and some input/output abstractions on top of the BIOS, the CCP took user commands and either executed them directly or loaded and started an executable file of the given name. Third-party applications for CP/M were also essentially transient commands, the BDOS, CCP and standard transient commands were the same in all installations of a particular revision of CP/M, but the BIOS portion was always adapted to the particular hardware. Adding memory to a computer, for example, meant that the CP/M system had to be reinstalled with an updated BIOS capable of addressing the additional memory, a utility was provided to patch the supplied BIOS, BDOS and CCP to allow them to be run from higher memory. Once installed, the system was stored in reserved areas at the beginning of any disk which would be used to boot the system. On start-up, the bootloader would load the system from the disk in drive A. By modern standards CP/M was primitive, owing to the constraints on program size. With version 1.0 there was no provision for detecting a changed disk, if a user changed disks without manually rereading the disk directory the system would write on the new disk using the old disks directory information, ruining the data stored on the disk
6.
MS-DOS
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MS-DOS is a discontinued operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. MS-DOS resulted from a request in 1981 by IBM for a system to use in its IBM PC range of personal computers. Microsoft quickly bought the rights to 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, IBM licensed and released it in August 1981 as PC DOS1.0 for use in their PCs. During its life, several competing products were released for the x86 platform and it was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. It is a operating system, and consumes negligible installation space. MS-DOS was a form of 86-DOS – owned by Seattle Computer Products. This first version was shipped in August 1980, Microsoft, which needed an operating system for the IBM Personal Computer hired Tim Paterson in May 1981 and bought 86-DOS1.10 for $75,000 in July of the same year. Microsoft kept the number, but renamed it MS-DOS. They also licensed MS-DOS1. 10/1.14 to IBM, within a year Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to over 70 other companies. It was designed to be an OS that could run on any 8086-family computer, thus, there were many different versions of MS-DOS for different hardware, and there is a major distinction between an IBM-compatible machine and an MS-DOS machine. This design would have worked well for compatibility, if application programs had only used MS-DOS services to perform device I/O, Microsoft omitted multi-user support from MS-DOS because Microsofts Unix-based operating system, Xenix, was fully multi-user. After the breakup of the Bell System, however, AT&T Computer Systems started selling UNIX System V, believing that it could not compete with AT&T in the Unix market, Microsoft abandoned Xenix, and in 1987 transferred ownership of Xenix to the Santa Cruz Operation. On 25 March 2014, Microsoft made the code to SCP MS-DOS1.25, as an April Fools joke in 2015, Microsoft Mobile launched a Windows Phone application called MS-DOS Mobile which was presented as a new mobile operating system and worked similar to MS-DOS. Version 3.1 – Support for Microsoft Networks Version 3.2 – First version to support 3.5 inch,720 kB floppy drives and diskettes. Version 3.21 Version 3.22 – Version 3.25 Version 3.3 – First version to support 3.5 inch,1.44 MB floppy drives and diskettes, Version 3. 3a Version 3.31 – supports FAT16B and larger drives. MS-DOS4.0 and MS-DOS4.1 – A separate branch of development with additional multitasking features and it is unrelated to any later versions, including versions 4.00 and 4.01 listed below MS-DOS4. x – includes a graphical/mouse interface. It had many bugs and compatibility issues. Version 4.00 – First version to support a hard disk partition that is greater than 32 MiB. Version 4.01 – Microsoft rewritten Version 4.00 released under MS-DOS label, First version to introduce volume serial number when formatting hard disks and floppy disks
7.
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
8.
Computing platform
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Computing platform means in general sense, where any piece of software is executed. It may be the hardware or the system, even a web browser or other application. The term computing platform can refer to different abstraction levels, including a hardware architecture, an operating system. In total it can be said to be the stage on which programs can run. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware, platforms may also include, Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS, this is referred to as running on bare metal, a browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser. An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in a scripting language. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform, software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality. Cloud computing and Platform as a Service, the social networking sites Twitter and facebook are also considered development platforms. A virtual machine such as the Java virtual machine, applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM. A virtualized version of a system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac, some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform to the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it, however, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS
9.
Intel 8080
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The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, a slightly faster variant 8080A-1 became available later with clock frequency limit up to 3.125 MHz. The 8080 was successful enough that compatibility at the language level became a design requirement for the 8086 when design for it was started in 1976. This also means that the 8080 indirectly influenced the ubiquitous 32-bit and 64-bit x86 architectures of today, the Intel 8080 was the successor to the 8008. It used the basic instruction set and register model as the 8008. Every instruction in the 8008 has an equivalent instruction in the 8080, the 8080 also added a few 16-bit operations to its instruction set as well. Whereas the 8008 required the use of the HL register pair to indirectly access its 14-bit memory space, in addition, the internal 7-level push-down call stack of the 8008 was replaced by a dedicated 16-bit stack pointer register. The 8080s large 40-pin DIP packaging permitted it to provide a 16-bit address bus and it also has a 16-bit stack pointer to memory, and a 16-bit program counter. The processor maintains internal flag bits which indicates the results of arithmetic, conditional branch instructions test the various flag status bits. The flags can be copied as a group to the accumulator, the A accumulator and the flags together are called the PSW register or program status word. As with many other 8-bit processors, all instructions are encoded in a single byte, some of them are followed by one or two bytes of data, which can be an immediate operand, a memory address, or a port number. Like larger processors, it has automatic CALL and RET instructions for multi-level procedure calls and returns, there are also eight one-byte call instructions for subroutines located at the fixed addresses 00h, 08h, 10h. and 38h. These were intended to be supplied by external hardware in order to invoke a corresponding interrupt-service routine, the most sophisticated command is XTHL, which is used for exchanging the register pair HL with the value stored at the address indicated by the stack pointer. Most 8-bit operations can only be performed on the 8-bit accumulator, for 8-bit operations with two operands, the other operand can be either an immediate value, another 8-bit register, or a memory byte addressed by the 16-bit register pair HL. Direct copying is supported between any two 8-bit registers and between any 8-bit register and an HL-addressed memory byte, due to the regular encoding of the MOV instruction, there are redundant codes to copy a register into itself, which were of little use, except for delays. However, what would have been a copy from the HL-addressed cell into itself is used to encode the halt instruction. The XCHG instruction exchanges the values of the HL and DE register pairs, by adding HL to itself, it is possible to achieve the same result as a 16-bit arithmetical left shift with one instruction. The 8080 supported up to 256 input/output ports, accessed via dedicated I/O instructions—taking port addresses as operands and this I/O mapping scheme was regarded as an advantage, as it freed up the processors limited address space
10.
Zilog Z80
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The Z80 CPU is an 8-bit based microprocessor. It was introduced by Zilog in 1976 as the companys first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his employees at Zilog from early 1975 until March 1976. With the revenue from the Z80, the company built its own chip factories, the Zilog Z80 was a software compatible extension and enhancement of the Intel 8080 and, like it, was mainly aimed at embedded systems. In the early 1980s, the Z80 was the most commonly used CPU of all time, Zilog licensed the Z80 to the US-based Synertek and Mostek, that had helped them with initial production, as well as to a European second source manufacturer, SGS. The design was copied also by several Japanese, East European and Russian manufacturers and this enabled the Z80 to gain acceptance in the world market since large companies like NEC, Toshiba, Sharp, and Hitachi, started to manufacture the device. The Z80 came about when physicist Federico Faggin left Intel at the end of 1974 to found Zilog with Ralph Ungermann, at Fairchild Semiconductor, and later at Intel, Faggin had been working on fundamental transistor and semiconductor manufacturing technology. He also developed the design methodology used for memories and microprocessors at Intel and led the work on the Intel 4004. Masatoshi Shima, the logic and transistor level-designer of the 4004. By March 1976, Zilog had developed the Z80 as well as an accompanying assembler based development system for its customers, and by July 1976, early Z80s were manufactured by Synertek and Mostek, before Zilog had its own manufacturing factory ready, in late 1976. Masatoshi Shima designed most of the microarchitecture as well as the gate and transistor levels of the Z80 CPU, assisted by a number of engineers. CEO Federico Faggin was actually involved in the chip layout work. Faggin worked 80 hours a week in order to meet the tight schedule given by the financial investors, a non maskable interrupt which can be used to respond to power down situations and/or other high priority events. Two separate register files, which could be switched, to speed up response to interrupts such as fast asynchronous event handlers or a multitasking dispatcher. Although they were not intended as extra registers for general code, less hardware required for power supply, clock generation and interface to memory and I/O Single 5-volt power supply. A built-in DRAM refresh mechanism that would otherwise have to be provided by external circuitry, a special reset function which clears only the program counter so that a single Z80 CPU could be used in a development system such as an in-circuit emulator. The Z80 took over from the 8080 and its offspring, the 8085, in the processor market, perhaps a key to the initial success of the Z80 was the built-in DRAM refresh, and other features which allowed systems to be built with fewer support chips. For the original NMOS design, the specified upper frequency limit increased successively from the introductory 2.5 MHz, via the well known 4 MHz
11.
Intel 8085
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The Intel 8085 is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Intel and introduced in 1976. It is a compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 with only two minor instructions added to support its added interrupt and serial input/output features. However, it requires less support circuitry, allowing simpler and less expensive microcomputer systems to be built and this capability matched that of the competing Z80, a popular 8080-derived CPU introduced the year before. These processors could be used in running the CP/M operating system. The 8085 is supplied in a 40-pin DIP package, to maximise the functions on the available pins, the 8085 uses a multiplexed address/data bus. However, an 8085 circuit requires an 8-bit address latch, so Intel manufactured several support chips with a latch built in. These include the 8755, with a latch,2 KB of EPROM and 16 I/O pins, and the 8155 with 256 bytes of RAM,22 I/O pins. The multiplexed address/data bus reduced the number of PCB tracks between the 8085 and such memory and I/O chips. The 8085 had a life as a controller, no doubt thanks to its built-in serial I/O and 5 prioritized interrupts. Once designed into such products as the DECtape controller and the VT102 video terminal in the late 1970s and this was typically longer than the product life of desktop computers. The 8085 is a conventional von Neumann design based on the Intel 8080. Unlike the 8080 it does not multiplex state signals onto the data bus, state signals are provided by dedicated bus control signal pins and two dedicated bus state ID pins named S0 and S1. Pin 40 is used for the supply and pin 20 for ground. Pin 39 is used as the Hold pin, the processor was designed using nMOS circuitry, and the later H versions were implemented in Intels enhanced nMOS process called HMOS, originally developed for fast static RAM products. Only a single 5 volt power supply is needed, like competing processors, the 8085 uses approximately 6,500 transistors. The 8085 incorporates the functions of the 8224 and the 8228 on chip, the 8085 has extensions to support new interrupts, with three maskable vectored interrupts, one non-maskable interrupt, and one externally serviced interrupt. Each of these five interrupts has a pin on the processor. The RST7.5 interrupt is triggered, while RST5.5 and 6.5 are level-sensitive
12.
X86
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X86 is a family of backward-compatible instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU and its Intel 8088 variant. The term x86 came into being because the names of several successors to Intels 8086 processor end in 86, many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the years, almost consistently with full backward compatibility. The architecture has been implemented in processors from Intel, Cyrix, AMD, VIA and many companies, there are also open implementations. In the 1980s and early 1990s, when the 8088 and 80286 were still in common use, today, however, x86 usually implies a binary compatibility also with the 32-bit instruction set of the 80386. An 8086 system, including such as 8087 and 8089. There were also terms iRMX, iSBC, and iSBX – all together under the heading Microsystem 80, however, this naming scheme was quite temporary, lasting for a few years during the early 1980s. Today, x86 is ubiquitous in both stationary and portable computers, and is also used in midrange computers, workstations, servers. A large amount of software, including operating systems such as DOS, Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris and macOS, functions with x86-based hardware. There have been attempts, including by Intel itself, to end the market dominance of the inelegant x86 architecture designed directly from the first simple 8-bit microprocessors. Examples of this are the iAPX432, the Intel 960, Intel 860, however, the continuous refinement of x86 microarchitectures, circuitry and semiconductor manufacturing would make it hard to replace x86 in many segments. The table below lists processor models and model series implementing variations of the x86 instruction set, each line item is characterized by significantly improved or commercially successful processor microarchitecture designs. Such x86 implementations are seldom simple copies but often employ different internal microarchitectures as well as different solutions at the electronic, quite naturally, early compatible microprocessors were 16-bit, while 32-bit designs were developed much later. For the personal computer market, real quantities started to appear around 1990 with i386 and i486 compatible processors, other companies, which designed or manufactured x86 or x87 processors, include ITT Corporation, National Semiconductor, ULSI System Technology, and Weitek. Some early versions of these microprocessors had heat dissipation problems, AMD later managed to establish itself as a serious contender with the K6 set of processors, which gave way to the very successful Athlon and Opteron. There were also other contenders, such as Centaur Technology, Rise Technology, VIA Technologies energy efficient C3 and C7 processors, which were designed by the Centaur company, have been sold for many years. Centaurs newest design, the VIA Nano, is their first processor with superscalar and it was, perhaps interestingly, introduced at about the same time as Intels first in-order processor since the P5 Pentium, the Intel Atom. The instruction set architecture has twice been extended to a word size. In 1999-2003, AMD extended this 32-bit architecture to 64 bits and referred to it as x86-64 in early documents, Intel soon adopted AMDs architectural extensions under the name IA-32e, later using the name EM64T and finally using Intel 64
13.
Integrated development environment
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An integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of a code editor, build automation tools. Most modern IDEs have intelligent code completion, some IDEs, such as NetBeans and Eclipse, contain a compiler, interpreter, or both, others, such as SharpDevelop and Lazarus, do not. The boundary between an integrated development environment and other parts of the software development environment is not well-defined. Sometimes a version control system, or various tools to simplify the construction of a Graphical User Interface, are integrated, many modern IDEs also have a class browser, an object browser, and a class hierarchy diagram, for use in object-oriented software development. Integrated development environments are designed to maximize programmer productivity by providing tight-knit components with similar user interfaces, IDEs present a single program in which all development is done. This program typically provides many features for authoring, modifying, compiling, deploying and debugging software and this contrasts with software development using unrelated tools, such as vi, GCC or make. One aim of the IDE is to reduce the necessary to piece together multiple development utilities. Reducing that setup time can increase productivity, in cases where learning to use the IDE is faster than manually integrating all of the individual tools. Tighter integration of all development tasks has the potential to improve overall productivity beyond just helping with setup tasks, for example, code can be continuously parsed while it is being edited, providing instant feedback when syntax errors are introduced. That can speed learning a new programming language and its associated libraries, some IDEs are dedicated to a specific programming language, allowing a feature set that most closely matches the programming paradigms of the language. However, there are many multiple-language IDEs, while most modern IDEs are graphical, text-based IDEs such as Turbo Pascal were in popular use before the widespread availability of windowing systems like Microsoft Windows and the X Window System. They commonly use function keys or hotkeys to execute frequently used commands or macros, IDEs initially became possible when developing via a console or terminal. Early systems could not support one, since programs were prepared using flowcharts, dartmouth BASIC was the first language to be created with an IDE. Its IDE was command-based, and therefore did not look much like the menu-driven, however it integrated editing, file management, compilation, debugging and execution in a manner consistent with a modern IDE. Maestro I is a product from Softlab Munich and was the worlds first integrated development environment for software, Maestro I was installed for 22,000 programmers worldwide. Until 1989,6,000 installations existed in the Federal Republic of Germany, Maestro was arguably the world leader in this field during the 1970s and 1980s. Today one of the last Maestro I can be found in the Museum of Information Technology at Arlington, one of the first IDEs with a plug-in concept was Softbench
14.
Compiler
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A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language, with the latter often having a binary form known as object code. The most common reason for converting source code is to create an executable program, the name compiler is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a lower level language. If the compiled program can run on a computer whose CPU or operating system is different from the one on which the compiler runs, more generally, compilers are a specific type of translator. While all programs that take a set of programming specifications and translate them, a program that translates from a low-level language to a higher level one is a decompiler. A program that translates between high-level languages is called a source-to-source compiler or transpiler. A language rewriter is usually a program that translates the form of expressions without a change of language, the term compiler-compiler is sometimes used to refer to a parser generator, a tool often used to help create the lexer and parser. A compiler is likely to many or all of the following operations, lexical analysis, preprocessing, parsing, semantic analysis, code generation. Program faults caused by incorrect compiler behavior can be difficult to track down and work around, therefore. Software for early computers was written in assembly language. The notion of a high level programming language dates back to 1943, no actual implementation occurred until the 1970s, however. The first actual compilers date from the 1950s, identifying the very first is hard, because there is subjectivity in deciding when programs become advanced enough to count as the full concept rather than a precursor. 1952 saw two important advances. Grace Hopper wrote the compiler for the A-0 programming language, though the A-0 functioned more as a loader or linker than the notion of a full compiler. Also in 1952, the first autocode compiler was developed by Alick Glennie for the Mark 1 computer at the University of Manchester and this is considered by some to be the first compiled programming language. The FORTRAN team led by John Backus at IBM is generally credited as having introduced the first unambiguously complete compiler, COBOL was an early language to be compiled on multiple architectures, in 1960. In many application domains the idea of using a higher level language quickly caught on, because of the expanding functionality supported by newer programming languages and the increasing complexity of computer architectures, compilers have become more complex. Early compilers were written in assembly language, the first self-hosting compiler – capable of compiling its own source code in a high-level language – was created in 1962 for the Lisp programming language by Tim Hart and Mike Levin at MIT. Since the 1970s, it has become practice to implement a compiler in the language it compiles
15.
Pascal (programming language)
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A derivative known as Object Pascal designed for object-oriented programming was developed in 1985. Pascal, named in honor of the French mathematician, philosopher, before his work on Pascal, Wirth had developed Euler and ALGOL W and later went on to develop the Pascal-like languages Modula-2 and Oberon. Initially, Pascal was largely, but not exclusively, intended to teach structured programming. A generation of students used Pascal as a language in undergraduate courses. Variants of Pascal have also frequently used for everything from research projects to PC games. Newer Pascal compilers exist which are widely used, Pascal was the primary high-level language used for development in the Apple Lisa, and in the early years of the Macintosh. Parts of the original Macintosh operating system were hand-translated into Motorola 68000 assembly language from the Pascal sources, apollo Computer used Pascal as the systems programming language for its operating systems beginning in 1980. Object Pascal is still used for developing Windows applications but also has the ability to compile the same code to Mac, iOS. Another cross-platform version called Free Pascal, with the Lazarus IDE, is popular with Linux users since it also offers write once, codeTyphon is a Lazarus distribution with more preinstalled packages and cross compilers. Wirths intention was to create an efficient language based on structured programming, important features included for this were records, enumerations, subranges, dynamically allocated variables with associated pointers, and sets. To make this possible and meaningful, Pascal has a strong typing on all objects, similar mechanisms are standard in many programming languages today. This enables a very simple and coherent syntax where a program is syntactically nearly identical to a single procedure or function. The first Pascal compiler was designed in Zürich for the CDC6000 series mainframe computer family, Niklaus Wirth reports that a first attempt to implement it in Fortran in 1969 was unsuccessful due to Fortrans inadequacy to express complex data structures. The second attempt was implemented in a C-like language and then translated by hand to Pascal itself for boot-strapping, the GNU Pascal compiler is one notable exception, being written in C. The first successful port of the CDC Pascal compiler to another mainframe was completed by Welsh, the target was the ICL1900 series. This compiler, in turn, was the parent of the Pascal compiler for the Information Computer Systems Multum minicomputer and it is thought that Multum Pascal, which was completed in the summer of 1973, may have been the first 16-bit implementation. A completely new compiler was completed by Welsh et al. at QUB in 1977 and it offered a source-language diagnostic feature that was implemented by Findlay and Watt at Glasgow University. This implementation was ported in 1980 to the ICL2900 series by a team based at Southampton University, the first Pascal compiler written in North America was constructed at the University of Illinois under Donald B
16.
Programming language
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A programming language is a formal computer language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to programs to control the behavior of a machine or to express algorithms. From the early 1800s, programs were used to direct the behavior of such as Jacquard looms. Thousands of different programming languages have created, mainly in the computer field. Many programming languages require computation to be specified in an imperative form while other languages use forms of program specification such as the declarative form. The description of a language is usually split into the two components of syntax and semantics. Some languages are defined by a document while other languages have a dominant implementation that is treated as a reference. Some languages have both, with the language defined by a standard and extensions taken from the dominant implementation being common. A programming language is a notation for writing programs, which are specifications of a computation or algorithm, some, but not all, authors restrict the term programming language to those languages that can express all possible algorithms. For example, PostScript programs are created by another program to control a computer printer or display. More generally, a language may describe computation on some, possibly abstract. It is generally accepted that a specification for a programming language includes a description, possibly idealized. In most practical contexts, a programming language involves a computer, consequently, abstractions Programming languages usually contain abstractions for defining and manipulating data structures or controlling the flow of execution. Expressive power The theory of computation classifies languages by the computations they are capable of expressing, all Turing complete languages can implement the same set of algorithms. ANSI/ISO SQL-92 and Charity are examples of languages that are not Turing complete, markup languages like XML, HTML, or troff, which define structured data, are not usually considered programming languages. Programming languages may, however, share the syntax with markup languages if a computational semantics is defined, XSLT, for example, is a Turing complete XML dialect. Moreover, LaTeX, which is used for structuring documents. The term computer language is used interchangeably with programming language
17.
Philippe Kahn
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Philippe Kahn is a mathematician, technology innovator, entrepreneur and founder of four technology companies, Fullpower Technologies, LightSurf Technologies, Starfish Software and Borland. Kahn grew up in Paris, France and he was born to Jewish immigrants of modest means. His mother was an Auschwitz survivor, violinist and lieutenant in the French resistance and his father was a self-educated mechanical engineer with a socialist bent. Kahn was educated in mathematics at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, on a scholarship and University of Nice Sophia Antipolis. He received a masters in mathematics and he also received a masters in musicology composition and classical flute performance at the Zurich Music Conservatory in Switzerland. As a student, Kahn developed software for the MICRAL, which is credited by the Computer History Museum as the first ever microprocessor-based personal computer. Kahn has founded four companies, Fullpower Technologies, founded in 2003, LightSurf Technologies, founded in 1998, Starfish Software, founded in 1994. Kahn was CEO of Borland from 1982 to 1994, when Borland was a competitor of Microsoft and its first product, Turbo Pascal, sold for $49.95 at a time when programming tools cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. Kahn was President, CEO, and Chairman of Borland and, without venture capital, Kahn and the Borland board came to a disagreement on how to focus the company and in January 1995, Kahn was forced by the board to resign from his position as CEO. Starfish Software was founded in 1994 by Philippe Kahn as a spin-off from the Simplify business unit from Borland, trueSync was the first Over-The-Air synchronization system. Starfish was successfully acquired by Motorola for US$325 million in 1998, Kahn founded LightSurf in 1998 shortly after he had created the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks in 1997. The impetus for this invention was the birth of Kahns daughter, he jerry-rigged a mobile phone with a digital camera, in 2016 Time Magazine included Kahns first camera phone photo in their list of the 100 most influential photos of all time. In 2005, LightSurf was acquired by Verisign for US$300 million, syniverse Technologies acquired Lightsurf from Verisign in 2009. Fullpower, founded in 2003, provides an ecosystem for wearable. The inspiration behind some of the key Fullpower technology stems from Kahns passion for sailing, Kahn created prototype sleep trackers using biosensors that optimized 26-minute power naps to maximize sleep benefits and sail time. Under Kahns direction, Borland became the first software company to offer domestic partners full benefits, Kahn was a key speaker at the pivotal gay rights conference on the Apple campus on October 19,1993. Kahns focus on the environment and the outdoors led him to the sport of sailing, Kahns sailing team, Pegasus Racing, competes in many world championships each year around the world. An offshore sailor with over 10 trans-Pacific crossings, Kahn holds the Transpac double handed record from San Francisco to Oahu, Kahn is married to Sonia Lee, who co-founded Fullpower Technologies, LightSurf and Starfish Software, and with whom he has a daughter
18.
Source code
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In computing, source code is any collection of computer instructions, possibly with comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as ordinary text. The source code of a program is designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers. The source code is often transformed by an assembler or compiler into binary machine code understood by the computer, the machine code might then be stored for execution at a later time. Alternatively, source code may be interpreted and thus immediately executed, most application software is distributed in a form that includes only executable files. If the source code were included it would be useful to a user, programmer or a system administrator, the Linux Information Project defines source code as, Source code is the version of software as it is originally written by a human in plain text. The notion of source code may also be more broadly, to include machine code and notations in graphical languages. It is therefore so construed as to include code, very high level languages. Often there are several steps of program translation or minification between the source code typed by a human and an executable program. The earliest programs for stored-program computers were entered in binary through the front panel switches of the computer and this first-generation programming language had no distinction between source code and machine code. When IBM first offered software to work with its machine, the code was provided at no additional charge. At that time, the cost of developing and supporting software was included in the price of the hardware, for decades, IBM distributed source code with its software product licenses, until 1983. Most early computer magazines published source code as type-in programs, Source code can also be stored in a database or elsewhere. The source code for a piece of software may be contained in a single file or many files. Though the practice is uncommon, a source code can be written in different programming languages. For example, a program written primarily in the C programming language, in some languages, such as Java, this can be done at run time. The code base of a programming project is the larger collection of all the source code of all the computer programs which make up the project. It has become practice to maintain code bases in version control systems. Moderately complex software customarily requires the compilation or assembly of several, sometimes dozens or even hundreds, in these cases, instructions for compilations, such as a Makefile, are included with the source code
19.
Text editor
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A text editor is a type of program used for editing plain text files. Such programs are known as notepad software, following the Microsoft Notepad. Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, there are important differences between plain text files created by a text editor and document files created by word processors such as Microsoft Word or WordPerfect. A plain text file uses a character encoding such as UTF-8 or ASCII to represent numbers, letters, the only non-printing characters in the file that can be used to format the text are newline, tab, and formfeed. Plain text files are displayed using a monospace font so horizontal alignment. Although they are viewed with formatting, documents using markup languages are stored in plain text files that contain a combination of human-readable text. For example, web pages are plain text with HTML tags to achieve formatting when rendered by a web browser, many web pages also contain embedded JavaScript that is interpreted by the browser. When both formats are available, the user must select with care, saving a plain text file in a word-processor format adds formatting information that can make the text unreadable by a program that expects plain text. Conversely, saving a document as plain text removes any formatting information. Before text editors existed, computer text was punched into cards with keypunch machines, physical boxes of these thin cardboard cards were then inserted into a card-reader. Magnetic tape and disk card-image files created from such card decks often had no characters at all. An alternative to cards was punched paper tape and it could be created by some teleprinters, which used special characters to indicate ends of records. The first text editors were line editors oriented to teleprinter- or typewriter-style terminals without displays, commands effected edits to a file at an imaginary insertion point called the cursor. Edits were verified by typing a command to print a small section of the file, in some line editors, the cursor could be moved by commands that specified the line number in the file, text strings for which to search, and eventually regular expressions. Line editors were major improvements over keypunching, some line editors could be used by keypunch, editing commands could be taken from a deck of cards and applied to a specified file. Some common line editors supported a mode in which change commands displayed the altered lines. When computer terminals with video screens became available, screen-based text editors became common, one of the earliest full-screen editors was O26, which was written for the operator console of the CDC6000 series computers in 1967. Another early full-screen editor was vi, written in the 1970s, it is still a standard editor on Unix and Linux operating systems
20.
Linker (computing)
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A simpler version that writes its output directly to memory is called the loader, though loading is typically considered a separate process. Computer programs typically comprise several parts or modules, these parts/modules need not all be contained within an object file. For most compilers, each file is the result of compiling one input source code file. When a program comprises multiple object files, the linker combines these files into an executable program. Linkers can take objects from a collection called a library, some linkers do not include the whole library in the output, they only include its symbols that are referenced from other object files or libraries. Libraries exist for diverse purposes, and one or more system libraries are linked in by default. The linker also takes care of arranging the objects in an address space. This may involve relocating code that assumes a base address to another base. Since a compiler seldom knows where an object will reside, it assumes a fixed base location. Relocating machine code may involve re-targeting of absolute jumps, loads, the executable output by the linker may need another relocation pass when it is finally loaded into memory. This pass is usually omitted on hardware offering virtual memory, every program is put into its own address space and this pass may also be omitted if the executable is a position independent executable. On some Unix variants, such as SINTRAN III, the performed by a linker was called loading. Additionally, in operating systems the same program handles both the jobs of linking and loading a program. Many operating system environments allow dynamic linking, that is the postponing of the resolving of some undefined symbols until a program is run and that means that the executable code still contains undefined symbols, plus a list of objects or libraries that will provide definitions for these. Loading the program will load these objects/libraries as well, and perform a final linking and this approach offers two advantages, Often-used libraries need to be stored in only one location, not duplicated in every single binary. If a bug in a function is corrected by replacing the library. Programs that included this function by static linking would have to be re-linked first, a program, together with the libraries it uses, might be certified as a package, but not if components can be replaced. Static linking is the result of the linker copying all library routines used in the program into the executable image
21.
Microsoft Pascal
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Microsoft Pascal version 1.0 was released in 1980. Unlike the ISO compliant Microsoft Pascal product, QuickPascal went after the ultimate compatibility with Turbo Pascal and this included not only source-level compatibility, but rather complete binary compatibility with widely available unit libraries for the competitors compiler. To achieve this level of compatibility, QuickPascal moved away from the file format. Borlands Turbo Pascal V4 had a few quirks, the most notable of which was that it would occasionally ignore one or more lines of code when said code was compiled. QuickPascal had exactly the same quirks and ignored exactly the same lines
22.
Profiling (computer programming)
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Most commonly, profiling information serves to aid program optimization. Profiling is achieved by instrumenting either the source code or its binary executable form using a tool called a profiler. Profilers may use a number of different techniques, such as event-based, statistical, instrumented, profilers use a wide variety of techniques to collect data, including hardware interrupts, code instrumentation, instruction set simulation, operating system hooks, and performance counters. Profilers are used in the engineering process. The size of a trace is linear to the programs instruction path length, a trace may therefore be initiated at one point in a program and terminated at another point to limit the output. An ongoing interaction with the hypervisor This provides the opportunity to switch a trace on or off at any desired point during execution in addition to viewing on-going metrics about the program. It also provides the opportunity to suspend asynchronous processes at critical points to examine interactions with other processes in more detail. This was an example of sampling. In early 1974 instruction-set simulators permitted full trace and other performance-monitoring features, profiler-driven program analysis on Unix dates back to at least 1979, when Unix systems included a basic tool, prof, which listed each function and how much of program execution time it used. In 1982 gprof extended the concept to a call graph analysis. In 1994, Amitabh Srivastava and Alan Eustace of Digital Equipment Corporation published a paper describing ATOM, the ATOM platform converts a program into its own profiler, at compile time, it inserts code into the program to be analyzed. That inserted code outputs analysis data and this technique - modifying a program to analyze itself - is known as instrumentation. In 2004 both the gprof and ATOM papers appeared on the list of the 50 most influential PLDI papers for the 20-year period ending in 1999. Flat profilers compute the average times, from the calls. Call graph profilers show the times, and frequencies of the functions. In some tools full context is not preserved, input-sensitive profilers add a further dimension to flat or call-graph profilers by relating performance measures to features of the input workloads, such as input size or input values. They generate charts that characterize how an applications performance scales as a function of its input, profilers, which are also programs themselves, analyze target programs by collecting information on their execution. Based on their data granularity, on how profilers collect information, like Java, the runtime then provides various callbacks into the agent, for trapping events like method JIT / enter / leave, object creation, etc
23.
Copy protection
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Various methods have been devised to prevent reproduction so that companies will gain benefit from each person who obtains an authorized copy of their product. Unauthorized copying and distribution accounted for $2, making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights is still an ongoing problem with media publication. Copy prevention and copy control may be more neutral terms, the term is also often related to, and confused with, the concept of digital rights management. Digital rights management is a general term because it includes all sorts of management of works. Copy protection may include measures that are not digital, a more appropriate term may be technological protection measures, which is often defined as the use of technological tools in order to restrict the use or access to a work. Copy protection is most commonly found on videotapes, DVDs, computer software discs, video discs and cartridges, audio CDs. Many media formats are easy to copy using a machine, allowing consumers to distribute copies to their friends, a practice known as casual copying. Opponents of copy protection argue that people who obtain free copies only use what they can get for free, and would not purchase their own copy if they were unable to obtain a free copy. Some even argue that free copies increase profit, people who receive a copy of a music CD may then go and buy more of that bands music. Some publishers have avoided copy-protecting their products, on the theory that the resulting inconvenience to their users outweighs any benefit of frustrating casual copying, from the perspective of the end user, copy protection is always a cost. DRM and license managers sometimes fail, are inconvenient to use, the term copy protection refers to the technology used to attempt to frustrate copying, and not to the legal remedies available to publishers or authors whose copyrights are violated. Software usage models range from node locking to floating licenses, grid computing, the term license management refers to broad platforms which enable the specification, enforcement and tracking of software licenses. To safeguard copy protection and license management technologies themselves against tampering and hacking, floating licenses are also being referred to as Indirect Licenses, and are licenses that at the time they are issued, there is no actually user who will use them. That has some influence over some of their characteristics. Direct Licenses are issued after a user requires it. As an example, an activated Microsoft product, contains a Direct License which is locked to the PC where the product is installed. The basic technical fact is all types of media require a player — a CD player, DVD player. The player has to be able to read the media in order to display it to a human
24.
Jerry Pournelle
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Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist, and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte. Pournelle served as President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 1973, Pournelle was born in Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish in northwestern Louisiana, and educated in Capleville, Tennessee. He served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War. Afterwards, he studied at the University of Washington and received a BSc in psychology on June 11,1955, an M. S. in psychology on March 21,1958, and a PhD in political science in March 1964. The thesis for his M. S. is titled Behavioural observations of the effects of personality needs and leadership in small discussion groups, Pournelle served as campaign research director for the mayoral campaign of 1969 for Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty, working under campaign director Henry Salvatori. The election took place on May 27,1969, Pournelle was later named Executive Assistant to the Mayor in charge of research in September 1969, but resigned from the position after two weeks. After leaving Yortys office, in 1970 he was a consultant to the Professional Educators of Los Angeles, Pournelle was an intellectual protégé of Russell Kirk and Stefan T. Possony. Pournelle wrote numerous publications with Possony, including The Strategy of Technology, the Strategy has been used as a textbook at the United States Military Academy, the United States Air Force Academy, the Air War College, and the National War College. Pournelles work in the industry includes time he worked at Boeing in the late-1950s. While there, he worked on Project Thor, conceiving of hypervelocity rod bundles and he edited Project 75, a 1964 study of 1975 defense requirements. He worked in research at The Aerospace Corporation, and North American Rockwell Space Division. In 1989, Pournelle, Max Hunter, and retired Army Lieutenant General Daniel O. Graham made a presentation to then Vice President Dan Quayle promoting development of the DC-X rocket. During the 1970s and 1980s, he published articles on military tactics. He had previously won first prize in a late 1960s essay contest run by the magazine on how to end the Vietnam war and that led him into correspondences with some of the early figures in Dungeons and Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games. In 1985, Footfall, in which Robert A. Heinlein was a thinly veiled minor character, another bestseller, Lucifers Hammer, reached number two. Both novels were written with Larry Niven, in 1994, Pournelles friendly relationship with Newt Gingrich led to Gingrich securing a government job for Pournelles son, Richard. At the time, Pournelle and Gingrich were reported to be collaborating on a science fiction political thriller, Pournelles relationship with Gingrich was long established even then, as Pournelle had written the preface to Gingrichs book, Window of Opportunity. In 2008, Pournelle battled a brain tumor, which appeared to respond favorably to radiation treatment, an August 28,2008 report on his weblog claimed he was now cancer-free
25.
Byte (magazine)
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Byte magazine was an American microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Coverage was in-depth with much detail, rather than user-oriented. Print publication ceased in 1998 and online publication in 2013, Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Byte was published monthly, with a yearly subscription price of $10. In 1975 Wayne Green was the editor and publisher of 73 and his ex-wife, on May 25th we made a deal with the publisher of a small computer hobby magazine to take over as editor of a new publication which would start in August. Carl Helmers published a series of six articles in 1974 that detailed the design and construction of his Experimenters Computer System, in January 1975 this became the monthly ECS magazine with 400 subscribers. The last issue was published on May 12,1975 and in June the subscribers were mailed a notice announcing Byte magazine, carl wrote to another hobbyist newsletter, Micro-8 Computer User Group Newsletter, and described his new job as editor of Byte magazine. I got a note in the mail about two weeks ago from Wayne Green, publisher of 73 Magazine essentially saying hello and why dont you come up, the net result of a follow up is the decision to create BYTE magazine using the facilities of Green Publishing Inc. I will end up with the focus for the magazine. Virginia Londner Green had returned to 73 in the December 1974 issue, the first five issues of Byte were published by Green Publishing and the name was changed to Byte Publications starting with the February 1976 issue. Carl Helmers was a co-owner of Byte Publications, the first four issues were produced in the offices of 73 and Wayne Green was listed as the publisher. One day in November 1975 Wayne came to work and found that the Byte magazine staff had moved out, the February 1976 issue of Byte has a short story about the move. After a start which reads like a light opera with an episode or two reminiscent of the Keystone Cops, Byte magazine finally has moved into separate offices of its own. Wayne Green was not happy about losing Byte magazine so he was going to start a new one called Kilobyte, Byte quickly trademarked KILOBYTE as a cartoon series in Byte magazine. The new magazine was called Kilobaud, there was competition and animosity between Byte Publications and 73 Inc. but both remained in the small town of Peterborough, New Hampshire. Byte was able to attract advertising and articles from many well-knowns, soon-to-be-well-knowns, articles in the first issue included Which Microprocessor For You. by Hal Chamberlin, Write Your Own Assembler by Dan Fylstra and Serial Interface by Don Lancaster. Advertisements from Godbout, MITS, Processor Technology, SCELBI, and Sphere appear, early articles in Byte were do-it-yourself electronic or software projects to improve small computers. A continuing feature was Ciarcias Circuit Cellar, a column in which electronic engineer Steve Ciarcia described small projects to modify or attach to a computer, Byte ran Microsofts first advertisement, as Micro-Soft, to sell a BASIC interpreter for 8080-based computers
26.
IBM PCjr
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The IBM PCjr was IBMs first attempt to enter the home computer market. It was manufactured for IBM in Lewisburg, Tennessee by Teledyne, the PCjr is also the first PC compatible machine that supports page flipping for graphics operation. The fully programmable 16-color palette logic in the PCjr allows any set of colors from among the 16-color RGBI color set—the same set of colors available in CGA text modes—in each mode. That is, in graphics mode, each pixel color value can be independently mapped to any one of the 16 real RGBI colors. When the BIOS is used to set a video mode, it sets up the PCjr palette table to emulate the CGA color palette for that mode. Programs specifically written to use PCjr graphics can subsequently reprogram the palette table to use any colors desired, palette changes must be made during horizontal or vertical blanking periods of a video frame in order to avoid corrupting the display. However, the provision of a vertical retrace interrupt simplifies this, the video hardware of the PCjr is the first to offer a vertical retrace interrupt, or any raster interrupt. In general, the PCjr video hardware can do anything that a CGA can, but the design of hardware-control registers, the functions of the CGA Mode Register and Color Select Register are implemented in the VGA using different registers. The Status Register has been moved into the VGA and has significant differences. Those are the registers, the light pen registers. Alteration of other CRTC registers cannot be assumed to produce the results from the PCjr video system as from the CGA. The 6845 CRTC and the VGA together are responsible for refreshing the internal DRAM of the PCjr. Additional external DRAM, in sidecar expansion modules, is refreshed separately, not by the CRTC, the PCjrs sound is provided by a Texas Instruments SN76489 which can produce three square waves of varying amplitude and frequency along with a noise channel powered by a shift register. Only one sound source can be selected at a time, the sources cannot be mixed, IBM claimed that an average of two wait states are added, but the designers of the Tandy 1000 claimed that six was a more accurate figure. Therefore, under some circumstances the 8088 in the PCjr actually can run at the rated 4.77 MHz, for infrared wireless operation, it was powered by common AA cells. With a built-in RF modulator, the PCjr can send video and audio to a TV, the PCjr Color Display sold by IBM included an internal amplified speaker, being the only IBM monitor in the PC line to do so. Cartridge BASIC enhances the standard IBM BASIC with commands to support the new video, further reinforcing the home-friendly goal, the PCjr also introduced two ROM cartridge slots on the front of the unit, meant to load software quickly and easily. The cartridge are plugged in from the front, prompting the computer to automatically reboot, loading and saving data from cartridge software is possible via the floppy drive
27.
BASIC (programming language)
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BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use. In 1964, John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz designed the original BASIC language at Dartmouth College in the U. S. state of New Hampshire and they wanted to enable students in fields other than science and mathematics to use computers. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, versions of BASIC became widespread on microcomputers in the mid-1970s and 1980s. Microcomputers usually shipped with BASIC, often in the machines firmware, having an easy-to-learn language on these early personal computers allowed small business owners, professionals, hobbyists, and consultants to develop custom software on computers they could afford. In the 2010s, BASIC remains popular in many computing dialects and in new languages influenced by BASIC, before the mid-1960s, the only computers were huge mainframe computers. Users submitted jobs on punched cards or similar media to specialist computer operators, the computer stored these, then used a batch processing system to run this queue of jobs one after another, allowing very high levels of utilization of these expensive machines. As the performance of computing hardware rose through the 1960s, multi-processing was developed and this allowed a mix of batch jobs to be run together, but the real revolution was the development of time-sharing. The original BASIC language was released on May 1,1964 by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz, the acronym BASIC comes from the name of an unpublished paper by Thomas Kurtz. BASIC was designed to allow students to write computer programs for the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. It was intended specifically for technical users who did not have or want the mathematical background previously expected. Being able to use a computer to support teaching and research was quite novel at the time, the language was based on FORTRAN II, with some influences from ALGOL60 and with additions to make it suitable for timesharing. Wanting use of the language to become widespread, its designers made the available free of charge. They also made it available to schools in the Hanover area. In the following years, as dialects of BASIC appeared, Kemeny. A version was a part of the Pick operating system from 1973 onward. During this period a number of computer games were written in BASIC. A number of these were collected by DEC employee David H. Ahl and he later collected a number of these into book form,101 BASIC Computer Games, published in 1973. During the same period, Ahl was involved in the creation of a computer for education use
28.
PC clone
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IBM PC compatible computers are those similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT, able to run the same software and support the same expansion cards as those. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones, Columbia Data Products built the first clone of the IBM personal computer by a clean room implementation of its BIOS. Early IBM PC compatibles used the computer bus as the original PC. The IBM AT compatible bus was named the Industry Standard Architecture bus by manufacturers of compatible computers. The term IBM PC compatible is now a historical description only, only the Apple Macintosh classic Mac OS and macOS kept significant market share without compatibility with the IBM personal computer, so consumers are typically identified as being a PC or Mac user. IBM decided in 1980 to market a low-cost single-user computer as quickly as possible in response to Apple Computers success in the microcomputer market. On 12 August 1981, the first IBM PC went on sale, there were three operating systems available for it. The least expensive and most popular was PC DOS made by Microsoft, in a crucial concession, IBMs agreement allowed Microsoft to sell its own version, MS-DOS, for non-IBM computers. The only component of the original PC architecture exclusive to IBM was the BIOS and this software would run on any machine using MS-DOS or PC-DOS. Software that directly addressed the hardware instead of making standard calls was faster, however, software addressing IBM PC hardware in this way would not run on MS-DOS machines with different hardware. The 808x computer marketplace rapidly excluded all machines which were not hardware-, the 640 KB barrier on conventional system memory available to MS-DOS is a legacy of that period, other non-clone machines, while subject to a limit, could exceed 640 kB. Rumors of lookalike, compatible computers, created without IBMs approval, by June 1983 PC Magazine defined PC clone as a computer accommodate the user who takes a disk home from an IBM PC, walks across the room, and plugs it into the foreign machine. Because of a shortage of IBM PCs that year, many customers purchased clones instead, Columbia Data Products produced the first computer more or less compatible to the IBM PC standard during June 1982, soon followed by Eagle Computer. Compaq announced its first IBM PC compatible in November 1982, the Compaq Portable, the Compaq was the first sewing machine-sized portable computer that was essentially 100% PC-compatible. The company could not copy the BIOS directly as a result of the decision in Apple v. Franklin. Each computer would have its own Original Equipment Manufacturer version of MS-DOS, any software written for MS-DOS would operate on any MS-DOS computer, despite variations in hardware design. This expectation seemed reasonable in the marketplace of the time. Until then Microsoft was based primarily on computer languages such as BASIC, the established small system operating software was CP/M from Digital Research which was in use both at the hobbyist level and by the more professional of those using microcomputers
29.
Bruce Webster
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Bruce Webster is an expert on information technology, as well as a software engineer, an entrepreneur and a former game programmer. Webster is a 1978 graduate of Brigham Young University with a degree in computer science. He also did work in computer science at the University of Houston–Clear Lake in southeast Houston. Webster performed the co-design and programming of the original Apple II version of the computer game SunDog, the game was somewhat of a success and is still recognized today as one of the landmark games for early home computers. After finishing version 2.0 of SunDog, Webster quit FTL due to burn-out and his disenchantment with programming was so severe that he did not take another programming job for four years. Instead Webster went on to write for BYTE and Macworld and taught science at his alma mater of Brigham Young University. He later went on to found another software startup, where he served as Chief Technical Officer. Webster is the author of books regarding programming and the programming process,150 articles on computer industry analysis. Hes been a speaker at several international IT conferences and is an experienced expert witness in IT matters. In addition, he has given presentations at conferences of the World Bank, the US intelligence community. He has testified about information technology issues three times before Congress and has provided analysis and documents to Senate and House committees. Webster is the founder of Bruce F, one of Websters current projects is the SunDog Resurrection project, an open-source rewrite of his early game. His original plan was to implement it in Java, but it has since started in Python without his involvement. Webster and his wife, Sandra, made their home in Parker, Colorado before moving to Provo, Utah in 2014
30.
JRT (programming language)
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JRT is an implementation of the Pascal programming language. It was available in the early 1980s on the CP/M operating system, at the end of the 1970s, the most popular Pascal implementation for microcomputers was UCSD Pascal, which many people considered overpriced at hundreds of dollars. The original basis for UCSD Pascal was the compiler from ETH Zurich. JRT was a Pascal interpreter by Jim Russell Tyson that compiled to its own separate from UCSD Pascal p-code. In the early 1980s various organizations developed compilers for UCSD Pascal on microcomputers, uCSDs developers announced that they were working on a native compiler that would essentially would convert UCSD from an interpreter to a compiled, native system in one step. JRT was able to get attention for several months by being a much cheaper alternative to UCSD Pascal. This lasted less than a year, as Borland began selling Turbo Pascal, however, JRT was very important in that it established a low price precedent for a Pascal implementation. JRT advertisements promised a complete CP/M Pascal for only $29.95, stating that this is the same system we sold for $295. The product eventually continued through a version 4 priced at $69.95, Turbo Pascal was a true compiler with an IDE as well as a business model that allowed it to meet customer demand. JRT was said to have later sold under the name Nevada Pascal by Ellis Computing. BYTE editors in April 1983 and January 1984 reported receiving many complaints from readers on slow delivery of JRT Pascal, pournelle, who had disliked JRT Pascal 2, in January 1984 called version 3.0 a bargain at $29.95. Qualifications, its bargain in comparison to a lot of stuff on the market, and its value depends in good part on what you intend to do with it. He reported that 3.0 has fixed most—not all, but most—of the bugs that plagued the earlier versions, and that its cheap for the compiler alone, and you get a bunch of useful utilities with it. Pournelle warned, however, of its features and that based on Smiths experience and lots of letters from readers who ordered JRT Pascal. For months, you must then be prepared to wait for delivery, because of JRT, Borland at first had difficulty in persuading customers that it was shipping Turbo Pascal. Bruce F. Webster in August 1985 described JRT Pascal in the magazine as a fiasco, jeff Duntemann stated in PC Magazine in 1984 that JRT Pascal was a terrible compiler. Besides doing great harm to the Pascal language definition, it was a bug farm, not surprisingly, JRT Systems went bankrupt late last year. JRT Pascal users Manual JRT Pascal System for CP/M
31.
PC Magazine
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PC Magazine is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009, publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues to this day. In an early review of the new IBM PC, Byte reported the announcement of a new magazine called PC and it is published by David Bunnell, of Software Communications, Inc. It should be of great interest to owners of the IBM Personal Computer, the first issue of PC, dated February–March 1982, appeared early that year. PC Magazine was created by Bunnell and Cheryl Woodard, who also helped David found the subsequent PC World and Macworld magazines, eddie Currie and Tony Gold, a co-founder of Lifeboat Associates who financed the magazine, were early investors in PC Magazine. The magazine grew beyond the required to publish it, and to solve this problem, Gold sold the magazine to Ziff-Davis who moved it to New York City. Bunnell and his left to form PC World magazine. By its third issue PC was square-bound because it was too thick for saddle-stitch, at first the magazine published new issues every two months, but became monthly as of the August 1982 issue, its fourth. In March 1983 a reader urged the magazine to consider switching to a biweekly schedule because of its thickness, although the magazine replied to the readers proposal with Please say youre kidding about the bi-weekly schedue. After the December 1983 issue reached 800 pages in size, in 1984 PC began publishing new issues every two weeks, with each about 400 pages in size, in January 2008 the magazine dropped back to monthly issues. Print circulation peaked at 1.2 million in the late 1990s, in November 2008 it was announced that the print edition would be discontinued as of the January 2009 issue, but the online version at pcmag. com would continue. By this time print circulation had declined to about 600,000, dan Costa is the current editor-in-chief of PCMag. com, the website of the now-folded magazine. Prior to this position, Costa was executive editor under the previous editor-in-chief, Ulanoff held the position of editor-in-chief from July 2007 to July 2011, the last print edition of the magazine appeared in January 2009, although Ulanoff continued on with the website PCMag. com. Jim Louderback had held this position of editor-in-chief before Ulanoff, from 2005, and left when he accepted the position of executive officer of Revision3. Editor Bill Machrone wrote in 1985 that weve distilled the contents of PC Magazine down to the point where it can be expressed as a formula, EP stands for evaluating products and enhancing productivity. If an article doesnt do one or the other, chances are it doesnt belong in PC Magazine, PC Magazine provides reviews and previews of the latest hardware and software for the information technology professional. Articles are written by leading experts including John C, dvorak, whose regular column and Inside Track feature are among the magazines most popular attractions. The magazine has evolved significantly over the years and this is also the primary reason for the November 2008 decision to discontinue the print version
32.
Anacreon: Reconstruction 4021
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Anacreon, Reconstruction 4021 is a DOS computer game originally written by George Moromisato, and published by TMA in 1987. The games theme was galactic conquest, with the setting strongly inspired by Isaac Asimovs Foundation series of novels and it was one of the first computer strategy games, and is an example of a 4X game. A Windows remake, titled Anacreon, Imperial Conquest in the Far Future, was released by George Moromisato in 2004, beta-testing for Anacreon 3, a new web-based version, started in late 2012. Anacreon is a game in which human and computer players explore the galaxy, conquering worlds. Written in Turbo Pascal, it resembles Stellar Conquest and Hamurabi, the gameplay focuses on optimizing resource management on a network of conquered worlds in order to fuel further conquest. These captured worlds and vulnerable transport fleets must be protected against incursions from competing players, success in Anacreon requires a good grasp of micromanagement strategy. Combat, both fleet versus fleet and planetary invasions, is handled in a tactical display, with the defenders ships and/or planetary defenses arranged in distinct orbits. Only the attacker has any control over the course of combat, the defender may send an empire-wide allocation of ships into various orbits, but defending forces are handled automatically by the computer. Unlike many games in similar genres, combat is almost entirely a matter of numbers, though movement between orbits and the kind of ships targeted are left up to the attacker, combat is resolved automatically with very little chance involved. The player with the powerful fleet will almost certainly win, though if the odds are close enough. Many features now commonplace in science-fiction 4X games—Master of Orion, Pax Imperia, Galactic Civilizations—can be found, the game includes four different kinds of planetary defense, each with different ranges and potencies, five kinds of warship, two transport classes, and two grades of ground troops. Ships range in speed from slow warp drives to fast jump drives, basic resources consist of chemicals, metals, supplies, and trillum, the latter of which serves as fuel for the games interstellar ships. Chemicals, metals, and supplies may be produced ad infinitum, for this reason, the control and distribution of trillum resources becomes of essential importance, especially late in the game. The game also includes a resource called ambrosia, a drug used to both boost planetary production and produce higher quality soldiers. Anacreon is perhaps most noteworthy for the variety of space megastructures that can be built, ranging from minefields and simple space stations to star gates. Winning Anacreon requires constant attention to patterns of flow, as mentioned above. A key principle in Anacreon is that of specialization, a world optimized to produce spacecraft working in tandem with a world optimized to produce raw materials will produce more ships than the same two worlds configured to be self-sufficient. In 2004, George Moromisato released an update to the making it run natively in a Windows 9x environment
33.
Nascom (computer kit)
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At this time, including a full keyboard and video display interface was uncommon, as most microcomputer kits were then delivered with only a hexadecimal keypad and seven-segment display. To minimize cost, the buyer had to assemble a Nascom by hand-soldering about 3,000 joints on the circuit board. The original Nascom 1 was designed by Chris Shelton, shelton’s design work was outlined in a series of articles published in 1977 and 1978 by Wireless World magazine. British Cellophane used several to continuously monitor thickness gauges attached to plastic sheet production lines, an 80-bus compatible network card enabled both Nascoms and Geminis to be used in office environments. Dedicated user group Nascom homepage, with software and documentation Nascom Nostalgia Nascom / Gemini /80 Bus, large archive of material Working Nascoms in the UK
34.
Embarcadero Delphi
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Embarcadero Delphi is a programming language and software development kit for desktop, mobile, web, and console applications. Delphis compilers use their own Object Pascal dialect of Pascal and generate code for several platforms, Windows, OS X, iOS. It is not unusual for a Delphi project of a million lines to compile in a few seconds – one benchmark gave 170,000 lines per second and it is under active development, with releases every six months, with new platforms being added approximately every second release. Delphi was originally developed by Borland as an application development tool for Windows as the successor of Turbo Pascal. In 2007, the products were released jointly as RAD Studio, RAD Studio is a shared host for Delphi and C++Builder, and can be purchased with either or both. In 2006, Borland’s developer tools section were transferred from Borland to a wholly owned subsidiary known as CodeGear, in 2015, Embarcadero was purchased by Idera, but the Embarcadero mark was retained for the developer tools division. Among the features supporting RAD are application framework and visual window layout designer, Delphi uses the Pascal-based programming language called Object Pascal introduced by Borland, and compiles Delphi source code into native x86 code. It includes VCL, support for COM independent interfaces with reference counted class implementations, interface implementations can be delegated to fields or properties of classes. Message handlers are implemented by tagging a method of a class with the constant of the message to handle. Database connectivity is supported, and Delphi supplies several database components, VCL includes many database-aware and database access components. Later versions have included upgraded and enhanced runtime library routines provided by the community group FastCode, Delphi is a strongly typed high-level programming language, intended to be easy to use and originally based on the earlier Object Pascal language. Turbo Pascal and its descendants, including Delphi, support access to hardware and low-level programming, with the facility to incorporate code written in assembly language, Delphis object orientation features only class- and interface-based polymorphism. There are dedicated reference-counted string types, and also null-terminated strings, strings can be concatenated by using the + operator, rather than using functions. For dedicated string types Delphi handles memory management without programmer intervention, since Borland Developer Studio 2006 there are functions to locate memory leaks. The Delphi products all ship with a Visual Component Library, including most of its source code, third-party components and tools to enhance the IDE or for other Delphi related development tasks are available, some free of charge. The IDE includes a GUI for localization and translation of created programs that may be deployed to a translator, the VCL framework maintains a high level of source compatibility between versions, which simplifies updating existing source code to a newer Delphi version. Third-party libraries may need updates from the vendor but, if code is supplied. The VCL was an early adopter of dependency injection or inversion of control, it uses a-re-usable component model, with class helpers new functionality can be introduced to core RTL and VCL classes without changing the original source code of the RTL or VCL
35.
Apple II
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The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak. It was introduced in 1977 at the West Coast Computer Faire by Jobs and was the first consumer product sold by Apple Computer and it is the first model in a series of computers which were produced until Apple IIe production ceased in November 1993. The Apple II marks Apples first launch of a computer aimed at a consumer market – branded towards American households rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists. Along with the PET2001 and the TRS-80, Byte magazine referred to these as the 1977 Trinity of personal computing. The Apple II had the feature of being able to display color graphics. By 1976, Steve Jobs had convinced the product designer Jerry Manock to create the shell for the Apple II – a smooth case inspired by kitchen appliances that would conceal the internal mechanics. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas, printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland, the original retail price of the computer was $1,298 and $2,638. To reflect the color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing has rainbow stripes. Perhaps most significantly, the Apple II was a catalyst for personal computers across many industries, the Apple II used a multiplicity of idiosyncratic engineering shortcuts to save hardware and reduce costs. This arrangement simultaneously eliminated the need for a separate circuit for the DRAM chips. Similarly, in the graphics mode, color is determined by pixel position and can thus be implemented in software. This also allows for subpixel font rendering since orange and blue pixels appear half a pixel-width farther to the right on the screen than green, the Apple II at first used data cassette storage like most other microcomputers of the time. In 1978 the company introduced an external 5 1⁄4-inch floppy disk drive, the Disk II interface, created by Wozniak, is regarded as an engineering masterpiece for its economy of electronic components. The approach taken in the Disk II controller is typical of Wozniaks designs, with a few small-scale logic chips and a cheap PROM, he created a functional floppy-disk interface at a fraction of the component cost of standard circuit configurations. The cost of such terminals could easily exceed the price of the computer itself, the Apple IIs PCB underwent several revisions as Steve Wozniak made modifications to it. The earliest version was known as Revision 0, and the first 6000 units shipped used it, later revisions added a color killer circuit to prevent color fringing when the computer was in text mode, as well as modifications to improve the reliability of cassette I/O. Revision 0 Apple IIs powered up in a mode and had garbage on screen. This was eliminated on the later board revisions, Revision 0 Apple IIs could display only four colors, but Wozniak was later able to generate 16 in low-res mode
36.
MOS Technology 6502
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The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by a small team led by Chuck Peddle for MOS Technology. When it was introduced in 1975, the 6502 was, by a considerable margin and it initially sold for less than one-sixth the cost of competing designs from larger companies, such as Motorola and Intel, and caused rapid decreases in pricing across the entire processor market. Along with the Zilog Z80, it sparked a series of projects that resulted in the computer revolution of the early 1980s. Popular home video consoles and computers, such as Atari, Apple II, Nintendo Entertainment System, Commodore PET and others. Soon after the 6502s introduction, MOS Technology was purchased outright by Commodore International, in the early days of the 6502, it was second-sourced by Rockwell and Synertek, and later licensed to other companies. The 6502 was designed by many of the engineers that had designed the Motorola 6800 microprocessor family. Motorola started the 6800 microprocessor project in 1971 with Tom Bennett as the main architect, the chip layout began in late 1972, the first 6800 chips were fabricated in February 1974 and the full family was officially released in November 1974. John Buchanan was the designer of the 6800 chip and Rod Orgill, Bill Mensch joined Motorola in June 1971 after graduating from the University of Arizona. His first assignment was helping define the peripheral ICs for the 6800 family, Motorolas engineers could run analog and digital simulations on an IBM 370-165 mainframe computer. Bennett hired Chuck Peddle in 1973 to do architectural work on the 6800 family products already in progress. He contributed in areas, including the design of the 6850 ACIA. Motorolas target customers were established electronics companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Tektronix, TRW, in May 1972, Motorolas engineers began visiting select customers and sharing the details of their proposed 8-bit microprocessor system with ROM, RAM, parallel and serial interfaces. In early 1974, they provided engineering samples of the chips so that customers could prototype their designs, Motorolas total product family strategy did not focus on the price of the microprocessor, but on reducing the customers total design cost. They offered development software on a computer, the EXORciser system debugging system, onsite training. Both Intel and Motorola had initially announced a price for a single microprocessor. The actual price for production quantities was much less, Motorola offered a design kit containing the 6800 with six support chips for $300. Peddle, who would accompany the people on customer visits. To lower the price, the IC chip size would have to shrink so that more chips could be produced on each silicon wafer and this could be done by removing inessential features in the 6800 and using a newer fabrication technology, depletion-mode MOS transistors
37.
Rainbow 100
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The Rainbow 100 was a microcomputer introduced by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1982. This desktop unit had a similar to the VT220 in a dual-CPU box with both 4 MHz Zilog Z80 and 4.81 MHz Intel 8088 CPUs. The Rainbow 100 was a machine, VT100 mode, 8-bit CP/M mode. The Rainbow came in three models, the 100A, 100B and 100+, the A model was the first released, followed later by the B model. The most noticeable differences between the two models were the firmware and slight hardware changes, the systems were referred to with model numbers PC-100A and PC-100B respectively, later B models were also designated PC-100B2. The A model was the first produced by Digital, the distinguishing characteristic of the A model from an end-user perspective was that the earlier firmware did not support booting from a hard disk. Other distinguishing hardware features included the three 2764 ROM chips holding the system firmware and the case fan/power supply combinations, versions of the 100A shipped outside the USA included a user-changeable ROM chip in a special casing. The user changed the built-in ROM for this one to support their keyboard layout, the B model followed the A model, and introduced a number of changes. The B model featured the ability to boot from a hard disk via the menu due to updated firmware. The hardware changes included bigger firmware stored on two 27128 ROMs and an improved case fan/power supply, the firmware allowed selection of the boot screen language and keyboard layout, eliminating the need to switch ROM. The 100+ model was actually a marketing designation signifying that the system shipped with a hard drive installed, when a hard-disk option was installed on the Rainbow, the kit included the 100+ emblem for the computers case. The Rainbow contained two separate data buses controlled by the Zilog Z80 and the Intel 8088 respectively, the buses exchanged information via a shared 62 kB memory. When not executing 8-bit code, the Zilog Z80 was used for disk access. The 8088 bus was used for control of all subsystems, including graphics, hard disk access. While it may have been possible to load Z80 binary code into the Rainbow to execute alongside 8088 code. The 100A model shipped with 64 kB memory on the motherboard, daughterboards were available from Digital Equipment Corporation that could increase system memory with up to an additional 768 kB. The floppy disk drives, known as the RX50, accepted proprietary 400 kB single-sided, initial versions of the operating systems on the Rainbow did not allow for low-level formatting, requiring users to purchase RX50 media from Digital Equipment Corporation. The high cost of media led to accusations of vendor lock-in against Digital, however, later versions of MS-DOS and CP/M allowed formatting of diskettes
38.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
39.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
40.
Turbocharger
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Turbochargers were originally known as turbosuperchargers when all forced induction devices were classified as superchargers. Nowadays the term supercharger is usually applied only to mechanically driven forced induction devices, compared to a mechanically driven supercharger, turbochargers tend to be more efficient, but less responsive. Twincharger refers to an engine with both a supercharger and a turbocharger, turbochargers are commonly used on truck, car, train, aircraft, and construction equipment engines. They are most often used with Otto cycle and Diesel cycle internal combustion engines and they have also been found useful in automotive fuel cells. Forced induction dates from the late 19th century, when Gottlieb Daimler patented the technique of using a pump to force air into an internal combustion engine in 1885. During World War I French engineer Auguste Rateau fitted turbochargers to Renault engines powering various French fighters with some success, in 1918, General Electric engineer Sanford Alexander Moss attached a turbocharger to a V12 Liberty aircraft engine. Turbochargers were first used in aircraft engines such as the Napier Lioness in the 1920s. Ships and locomotives equipped with turbocharged diesel engines began appearing in the 1920s, turbochargers were also used in aviation, most widely used by the United States. During World War II, notable examples of U. S. aircraft with turbochargers include the B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, P-38 Lightning, and P-47 Thunderbolt. Turbochargers are widely used in car and commercial vehicles because they allow smaller-capacity engines to have improved fuel economy, reduced emissions, higher power, in contrast to turbochargers, superchargers are mechanically driven by the engine. Belts, chains, shafts, and gears are common methods of powering a supercharger, for example, on the single-stage single-speed supercharged Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the supercharger uses about 150 horsepower. Yet the benefits outweigh the costs, for the 150 hp to drive the supercharger the engine generates an additional 400-horsepower, a net gain of 250 hp. This is where the principal disadvantage of a supercharger becomes apparent, another disadvantage of some superchargers is lower adiabatic efficiency as compared to turbochargers. Adiabatic efficiency is a measure of an ability to compress air without adding excess heat to that air. Even under ideal conditions, the compression process always results in elevated temperature, however. Roots superchargers impart significantly more heat to the air than turbochargers, thus, for a given volume and pressure of air, the turbocharged air is cooler, and as a result denser, containing more oxygen molecules, and therefore more potential power than the supercharged air. In practical application the disparity between the two can be dramatic, with turbochargers often producing 15% to 30% more power based solely on the differences in adiabatic efficiency. By comparison, a turbocharger does not place a direct mechanical load on the engine, although turbochargers place exhaust back pressure on engines, in contrast to supercharging, the primary disadvantage of turbocharging is what is referred to as lag or spool time
41.
Assembly language
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Each assembly language is specific to a particular computer architecture. In contrast, most high-level programming languages are generally portable across multiple architectures, Assembly language may also be called symbolic machine code. Assembly language is converted into machine code by a utility program referred to as an assembler. The conversion process is referred to as assembly, or assembling the source code, Assembly time is the computational step where an assembler is run. Assembly language uses a mnemonic to represent each low-level machine instruction or opcode, typically also each architectural register, flag, depending on the architecture, these elements may also be combined for specific instructions or addressing modes using offsets or other data as well as fixed addresses. Many assemblers offer additional mechanisms to facilitate development, to control the assembly process. A macro assembler includes a facility so that assembly language text can be represented by a name. A cross assembler is an assembler that is run on a computer or operating system of a different type from the system on which the code is to run. Cross-assembling facilitates the development of programs for systems that do not have the resources to support software development, a microassembler is a program that helps prepare a microprogram, called firmware, to control the low level operation of a computer. A meta-assembler is a used in some circles for a program that accepts the syntactic and semantic description of an assembly language. An assembler program creates object code by translating combinations of mnemonics and syntax for operations and this representation typically includes an operation code as well as other control bits and data. The assembler also calculates constant expressions and resolves symbolic names for memory locations, the use of symbolic references is a key feature of assemblers, saving tedious calculations and manual address updates after program modifications. Most assemblers also include facilities for performing textual substitution – e. g. to generate common short sequences of instructions as inline. Some assemblers may also be able to some simple types of instruction set-specific optimizations. One concrete example of this may be the ubiquitous x86 assemblers from various vendors, most of them are able to perform jump-instruction replacements in any number of passes, on request. Like early programming languages such as Fortran, Algol, Cobol and Lisp, assemblers have been available since the 1950s, however, assemblers came first as they are far simpler to write than compilers for high-level languages. There may be several assemblers with different syntax for a particular CPU or instruction set architecture, despite different appearances, different syntactic forms generally generate the same numeric machine code, see further below. A single assembler may also have different modes in order to support variations in syntactic forms as well as their exact semantic interpretations, there are two types of assemblers based on how many passes through the source are needed to produce the executable program
