Monday, September 7, 2009
History of Computers
Q1 CORPORATION SYSTEM
COMMODORE VIC-1001
ORDISOR PCC 2000
MCM COMPUTERS
TERTA TAP-34 COMPUTER
RADIONIC MODEL R1001
Original Computer Mouse Patent
History of the Personal Computer
Intel later developed another microprocessor for the Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC). This one was called the 8008. In this case CTC could purchase the product from Intel but Intel retained the right to market the 8008 to other customers. Intel began to create support for this programmable chip, the 8008. An employee of Intel, Adam Osborne, was given the assignment of writing manuals for the programming language for the 8008. Osborne later became important in the development of the personal computer for bringing about creation of the first portable computer; there is more about this below.
Gary Kildall, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, worked at Intel to develop a language and programs for their microprocessors. Kildall also played another important role in the development of the personal computer in that he wrote the first operating system for a microprocessor. It was called CP/M. Without an operating system a personal computer is a very awkward device to use.
By the early 1970s there was a vast number of people who had had some experience with mainframe computers and would love to have a computer of their own. In Albuquerque, New Mexico there was a man named Ed Roberts who ran a business selling kits for assembling electronic devices. The company's name was MITS for Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems. The company was not doing too well and Ed Roberts was looking for some new products to increase sales. The calculator business was becoming saturated, especially when the chip manufacturers such as Texas Instruments began to market calculators themselves. After a disasterous attempt to sell kits for programmable calculators Ed Roberts was desperate for a new product. He decided to try to do what no one else had attempted, to create a kit for assembling a home computer. He decided to base it upon a new chip Intel had developed, the 8080. Roberts negotiated a contract with Intel that gave him a low price on the 8080 chips if he could buy in large volume. About that time a magazine Popular Electronics, edited by Les Solomon, was looking for workable designs for desktop computers. Roberts promised Solomon a working model if Solomon would promote it through Popular Electronics. Ed Roberts decided to call his computer the Altair after the name of a planet in a StarTrek episode Les Solomon's daughter was watching. Roberts and the MITS people worked feverishly on building a prototype of the Altair to send to Popular Electronics but when the deadline for publication arrived the model was not quite ready. Nevertheless Popular Electronics published a picture of the empty case of the Altair on its front cover. The computer case with its lights and switches did look impressive. An article in the magazine revealed that the kits for the Altair were available for $397 from MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
To everyone surprise computer buffs from all over the country sent in their $397 to buy an Altair kit. In fact, MITS was flooded with money. It went from a state of near bankruptcy owing $365,000 to a situation in which it had hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. MITS bank was a bit concerned that MITS had started engaging in something lucrative but illegal.
The Altair had a very limited capability. It had no keyboard, no video display and only 256 bytes of memory. Data input had to done by flipping toggle switches and the only output was the flashing lights in the computer. Nevertheless there was great enthusiasm for the Altair.
Two programmers in the Boston area (students at Harvard actually) decided to develop software for the Altair. Their names were Bill Gates and Paul Allen. They called Ed Roberts and told him they had the programs to run the programming language BASIC on the Altair. Roberts said he would buy it if he could see it running on the Altair. Gates and Allen didn't actually have the programs written but they immediately set out to write them. It took about six weeks. It was an amazing accomplishment that they got it to work. They developed the programs for the Altair by programming a Harvard computer to emulate the limited capabilities of the Altair. They were successful in the development and Paul Allen flew to Albuquerque to demonstrate the result. Given the multitude of things that could have gone wrong it was a miracle that the program worked. It worked however on a more sophisticated lab version of the Altair at MITS rather than the version sold to the general public. Gates and Allen's company Microsoft was founded in Albuquerque and only later moved to the Seattle area.
The members of the general public that sent in their $397 were finding a long, long wait before they received their Altair kit. MITS was just not prepared to handle the volume of business that came in. But MITS showed the demand was there and the market started to work.
Gary Kildall joined forces with a professor from U.C. Berkeley, John Torode, to produce a small computer also based upon the 8080 chip. Torode built computers under the name Digital Systems and Kildall wrote the software under the name Intergalactic Digital Research.
Altair's most effective early competitor was created by IMSAI Manufacturing of San Leandro, California. IMSAI was established by Bill Millard who had no particular interest in computers but knew a hot marketing opportunity when he saw one.
About this time Lee Felsenstein entered the picture. Lee Felsenstein was an interesting individual who played a number of important roles in the development of the personal computer. He had a quite interesting background. He grew up in Philadelphia and became an engineering student. One summer he got a job in the Los Angleles area working as an engineer for an operation that required a security clearance. He loved being an engineer and had no plans for doing anything else. Then one day the security officer where he worked called him into his office to inform him that he would not be given the necessary security clearance. When Lee had filled out the application forms for the job he had stated that he did not know any members of the Communist Party, which he reaffirmed under questioning by the security officer. The security officer then informed Lee that his parents were members of the Communist Party. As Steven Levy reports in his book Hackers, based upon an interview with Lee:
Lee had not been told. He had assumed that "Communist" was just a term, red-baiting, that people flung at activist liberals like his parents. His brother [Joe] had known-- his brother had been named after Stalin!--but Lee had not been told.
The security officer told him that he could not give him a security clearance at that time but if he kept out of political involvements he could reapply in a year or so and probably would get a security clearance then. Lee left the organization and after a while moved to Berkeley in 1963 where the countercultural revolution was in just beginning. Lee went to work on a weekly newspaper called the Berkeley Barb as a technician and journalist. The Barb was a radical newspaper run by Max Scheer. The Barb did not make much money and the staff received no pay other than when Max took them home for his wife Jane to feed them. Later Max started selling advertisement space in the Barb to massage parlors and started making a lot of money. But he still did not pay the staff any salary. This upset many on the staff in a two ways. First they were perplexed at their newspaper calling for social revolution but selling ads to massage parlors and second they were not getting any of that money. A group of the Barb staff, including Lee Felsenstein, left and started another newspaper the Berkeley Tribe. The Tribe was committed to ideological anarchism. Lee managed the Tribe for a while and then entered UC Berkeley and finished his engineering degree. After graduation he joined a communal organization called Resource One and later an offshoot Community Memory which sought to bring computers to the people by installing remote terminals in places of business.
About the time the Altair was announced a group of San Francisco Bay Area computer buffs organized the Homebrew Computer Club. After the club was operating for sometime Lee Felsenstein became the facilitor for the Club, an informal master of ceremonies to direct the meetings and discussions. As many as 750 attended the meetings and they became a major locus of information exchange on computers in the Bay Area. Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak attended these meetings. Adam Osborne sold his book An Introduction to Microcomputers at these meetings.
Lee Felsenstein did occasional engineering design work including a computer which was named the Sol after the editor of Popular Electronics, Les Solomon. The Sol would sell for about $1000 but include a lot more capabilities than the Altair. Felsenstein and others were also creating enhancements, such as memory boards, for the Altair. Lee Felsenstein also designed the Osborne Computer, the first portable computer. It was not portable in the sense of a laptop computer that can be used while traveling. It was portable in the sense that it could be conveniently carried from one place to another and there plugged in and used. The size was limited to the dimensions that could fit under a jetliner seat.
What was needed for these microcomputers was a disk drive. Disk drives had long been used with mainframe computers but they were too expensive for the low cost home computers the industry was trying to develop. Ed Shugart, the founder of the first major disk drive manufacturer, did announce the availability of a 5-1/4 inch drive. Gary Kildall while developing the first microcomputer operating system, CP/M (Computer Processor/Monitor), acquired a Shugart disk drive. The story of operating systems for computers is told elsewhere.
A Brief History of Computers and Networks,
As early as the 1640's mechanical calculators are manufactured for sale. Records exist of earlier machines, but Blaise Pascal invents the first commercial calculator, a hand powered adding machine. Although attempts to multiply mechanically were made by Gottfried Liebnitz in the 1670s the first true multiplying calculator appears in Germany shortly before the American Revolution.
In 1801 a Frenchman, Joseph-Marie Jacquard builds a loom that weaves by reading punched holes stored on small sheets of hardwood. These plates are then inserted into the loom which reads (retrieves) the pattern and creates(process) the weave. Powered by water, this "machine" came 140 years before the development of the modern computer.
What is an Abacus?
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Go and get your U560 UMPC!
This flip-up UMPC features a full Side-kick, such as QWERTY which is installed under the closed screen. Other key features include a 1.3-megpaixel camera, 3600mAh battery. It also runs Windows Vista. In accordance with version, processor varies. For Instance, it has both the Intel 600MHz and 800Mhz processor.
So, what are you waiting for? Just go ahead and buy it! This amazing UMPC would surely make your gadget’s collection worthwhile!
Fujitsu FMV-U8240
Fortunate for Akihabara News because they have passed their three days with the Fujitsu FMV-U8240 and fell in love with the majority of the characteristics on this ultra portable PC. They claimed to have made out that the Fujitsu FMV-U8240 in actual fact stood out with the CPU, performance, weight and LED keyboard however the screen rotation and touch screen instead of making, mar the device.
Though they preferred the FMV-U8240 on the whole they also kept on saying that it did not pile up the same as the Sony Vaio UX series portable PC. Battery life is a somewhat below par 2.5 to 3.5 hours of real world usage.
Besides the reviewer had tribulations with the swivel screen and the touchscreen: it is expected that these are pre-production tribulations. And at $1,190-$1,360, a piece, which is hinging on configuration, would be hoped so either. If still you are not satisfied with the writ-up above, below is the link that will land you to the full review of the Fujitsu FMV-U8240 and nice High definition videos of the device
Toshiba’s Satellite TXW Dynabook
Toshiba has announced to introduce another notebook known as TXW in its Dynabook collection. This Toshiba’s Satellite TXW Dynabook notebook sports 15.4-inch display with 1,280×800 resolution, 2.16GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 processor, Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card, 256MB memory, max 2GB RAM, 120GB hard drive, dual layer DVD super multi drive and a Vista Home Premium. Four USB ports with 802.11b/g wireless, IEEE, Ethernet and stereo speakers are also included.
The corporation has also introduced moderately cheap version of this laptop that comes equipped with 1.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 / 1.86GHz Intel Celeron M 440 processor, 120GB hard drive, 1GB memory and for this you only have to shell somewhere around $1,115 to $1,384 whereas to get superior model like TXW you have to shell from $1,839 to $2,049.Via: Pclaunches
That is why, I love Engadget, and obviously it deserves our love as it has all the latest and greatest news, views and blogs. Today also it has come first with the details of the new successor from the Raon Digital Vega, the Everun, which has just been rolled out, once again with a unique approach to design, which is a out of the ordinary keyboard that makes it look as if some sort of fancy medical or military device.
Anyway the rumor is fully rife and I too have confirmed its existence on the Internet, so don’t get confused. With a name like that, the Everun is making a battery life claim: 7 hours, in actual fact, which is almost double several of its rivals. And I think this has been made possible, conceivably, by picking of a slow and low-power Geode 600MHz CPU.
Apart from all that it features hard-drive and flash-based options and is consisted with a 4.8″ 800×480 screen, WiFi, Bluetooth and built-in HSDPA cellular networking. It weighs 1.1 lbs (500g). No word on its pricing but is most likely to be delivered in middle of July.
Now let’s take a look at some of its great specs:
XPS m1330
Other on-board specs include a slot-loading DVD burner, an integrated 2MP webcam, HDMI and VGA connectors, a 128MB GeForce Go 8400M GS card and a biometric scanner. The machine will weigh 4 pounds. That’s a bit bulky to sport the word ‘ultraportable.’
VIA NanoBook UMD based Everex’s CE260 ultra-mobile device
The clamshell designed CE620 is based on VIA’s NanoBook ultra-mobile device reference design and sports a 7-inch 840-by-480 resolution screen with touch panel. It is powered by VIA C7-M processor and weighs less than 1.87 lbs.
Its battery life is up to five hours but no info about price and availability
Intel's latest UMPC Erath exhibited at Computex
As far as concerned about its battery life it is reported as prolonged with the help of Intel’s new low power architecture silicon inside.
It also comes with a QWERTY keyboard, the only information I have about it right now but I think it is for sure that this compact device will carry touch sensitive display to navigate through Windows but no info about price and accessibility; we will surely keep you posted.
Panasonic R6 Jet Black ultraportable with waterproof keyboard
Samwell intros semi-rugged UMPC Ruggedbook 657
Some other specs of this compact device includes WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity, CMOS webcam, an optional fingerprint sensor and DVB-H TV tuner or GPS module. It also comes equipped with SD slot that also sports SD-IO and MMC cards.
However, the company has not made any comments on the price and the availability of this amazing device.
NC Digitech announces new notebook MEGABOOK L745X-206K
Notebook looks really stylish in terms of design, especially a 17 inches WXGA monitor (1440×900). According to report, it is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo T2350 processor, 1GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7600 graphics with 256MB VRAM and a 120GB hard drive. In addition, this latest offering from NC Digitech also has a DVD-Multi burner, a 1.3 Megapixel webcam and a 4-in-1 card reader. Though, company has not given any information on price as yet but feature wise this notebook looks ok to me.
Computing System
The 5110 featured a desktop unit, which housed a central processing unit, a keyboard and a 1,024-character display screen. Main memory held 16K, 32K, 48K or 64K bytes of data, depending on the unit. Offering either magnetic tape or diskette storage, the Model 1 could store as much as 204,000 bytes of information per tape cartridge or 1.2 million bytes on a single diskette; the Model 2 allowed only diskette storage. Up to two IBM 5114 diskette units, each housing a minimum of two diskette drives, could be attached to the 5110 for a total online diskette capacity of 4.8 million bytes.
Shown in the view above (from left) are the IBM 5103 printer, the 5114 diskette unit (the large box on the bottom), the 5106 auxiliary tape unit (the small box on the top) and the processing unit.
Within a week of its January 10 announcement, several hundred orders had already been received for the 5110. The first 5110 was shipped from the GSD's Rochester, Minn., plant on February 2, 1978, to Punxsutawney Electric Repair Company, a small electrical products distributor in Pennsylvania. The customer used the 5110 for billing, inventory control, accounts receivable and sales analysis. Citing the easy use of his new system, Jeff Grube, vice president of Punxsutawney Electric Repair, said: "If you can type and use a hand-held calculator, you have all the skills necessary to operate a 5110."
IBM System/23 Datamaster
With a viewing screen, keyboard and diskette drives packaged in a single desktop console, the Datamaster was designed to be taken out of the carton, set up, checked out and operated by first-time users. It offered a choice of two printers, up to 4.4 megabytes of diskette storage, along with Business Management Accounting and Word Processing programming.
The IBM System/23 Datamaster could include two computer workstations (as shown above), which permitted two people to use the system simultaneously. Datamaster could be used for a wide variety of commercial applications in both small businesses and larger companies with standalone data processing needs within departments.
A full-function data processing installation, with a single computer workstation and an 80 character-per-second printer, cost $9,830, making Datamaster IBM's lowest-priced small business system. The cost of the word processing option, with associated hardware and software, ranged from $1,100 to $2,200.
IBM 5100 Portable Computer
If the size and weight of the 5100 seems huge by today's standards, then the Portable Computer was very slender compared to a late-1960's IBM computer with the equivalent capability. Such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton.
IBM Personal Computer
In the beginning, there was the IBM Personal Computer
Well, not really.
Although IBM's launch of the Personal Computer (IBM 5150) in 1981 set the industry standard for personal computing, IBM had introduced a variety of small computers for individual users several years before that. So while now is certainly an appropriate moment to salute the legendary IBM PC on its 20th birthday, it's also a good time to take a brief look back at some of the pioneering IBM products that immediately preceded it.
One of the earliest IBM attempts to move computing into the hands of single users was the "SCAMP" project in 1973. This six-month development effort by the company's General Systems Division (GSD) produced a prototype device dubbed "Special Computer, APL Machine Portable" (SCAMP) that PC Magazine in 1983 called a "revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer." To build the prototype in the short half-year allowed, its creators acquired off-the-shelf materials for major components. SCAMP could be used as a desktop calculator, an interactive APL programming device and as a "dispenser" of canned applications. The successful demonstration of the prototype in 1973 led to the launch of the IBM 5100 Portable Computer two years later.
Studio XPS
Studio
Inspiron
Lighten Up
Easily travels by your side, weighing approximately 3 lbs.1 and measuring only 1" thin.
Experience true mobility with Intel’s ultra-low-voltage processors.
Store your memories as soon as they unfold with a 250GB2 hard drive.
Internal optical drive not included; external optical drive optional.