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86-DOS

86-DOS

QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System," (not to be confused with Sinclair's QDOS for the Sinclair QL computer, which shared the same name) was a simple 16-bit operating system originally written in just four months by Tim Paterson in 1980 for an Intel 8086-based computer kit sold by Seattle Computer Products (SCP), which became famous as a part of one of the greatest legends in computer folklore. QDOS was mostly a 16-bit clone of the Digital Research's CP/M operating system, the most popular 8-bit operating system of the 1970s and early 1980s. The FAT file system was the main innovation of QDOS over CP/M.

Reasons for QDOS

QDOS was created because sales of SCP's 8086 computer kit, demonstrated in June 1979 and shipping in November, were languishing due to the absence of an operating system. The only software which SCP could propose with the board was the stand-alone Microsoft BASIC-86. Its development had been facilitated by the fact that SCP previously lent Microsoft a pre-release version of their 8086 board; Microsoft was very eager to get their software working on the new processor. They also participated in the June demo. On the contrary, Digital Research was delaying the delivery of CP/M-86, a version of CP/M that would run on that processor. SCP did not lend a board to Digital. It is uncertain whether Digital was not interested in another board or SCP considered that it would not help Digital to progress much. SCP only had two working prototypes in house anyway. QDOS was developed quickly, but it lacked many features of CP/M. It was marketed as 86-DOS.

IBM needs a microcomputer OS: the lost deal

In late 1980, IBM was developing what would become the original IBM Personal Computer. CP/M was by far the most popular operating system in use at the time, and IBM felt it needed CP/M in order to compete. There are at least two rumors about why IBM ended up licensing QDOS instead of CP/M. One story is that Gary Kildall, of Digital Research and creator of CP/M (and subsequently DR-DOS) simply refused to answer the door when representatives from IBM rang his doorbell. However, the most prevalent story, and the one relayed by Bill Gates, is that when IBM approached Kildall for a license, Kildall kept the IBM executives waiting for hours while he went flying in his airplane. He missed one of the great opportunities of the century when IBM then turned to Microsoft to provide an operating system. Neither story is generally accepted as true. By many accounts and notably according to Paterson, Kildall did not handle business negotiations and left that to his former wife, Dorothy McEwen, an attorney. Neither was willing to sign IBM's non-disclosure agreement. In addition, they refused to modify CP/M-86, and insisted on a higher royalty than IBM proposed.

IBM goes to Microsoft

As a result, IBM turned to Microsoft, since Microsoft was a CP/M subcontractor, sold a plug-in Z80 board that made the Apple II capable of running CP/M and, having ported their BASIC to SCP's bare 8086 hardware, already had experience with writing OS-level code for this processor and in general. Notably, for QDOS Paterson preferred to clone BASIC's FAT filesystem rather than the original CP/M filesystem, which he perceived as inferior. IBM asked if they could subcontract CP/M for the IBM PC. Microsoft's contract would not permit it. Instead, Microsoft purchased a nonexclusive license for QDOS—by then being marketed under the name 86-DOS—from Seattle Computer Products in December 1980 for $25,000. In May 1981, Microsoft hired Tim Paterson to port QDOS to the IBM-PC, which used the slower and less expensive Intel 8088 processor and had its own specific galaxy of peripherals around. IBM was watching the developments daily, submitted over 300 bug reports before accepting the product and wrote the user manual for it. They also allegedly requested that everything related to the project, and notably their beta IBM PC hardware remained sealed in a single room at Microsoft. In July 1981, a month before the PC's release, Microsoft purchased all rights to 86-DOS from SCP for 50,000 USD.

A success story

QDOS met IBM's main criteria: It looked like CP/M, and it was easy to adapt existing 8-bit CP/M programs to run under it, notably thanks to QDOS's TRANS command which would translate source files from 8080 to 8086 machine instructions. Microsoft licensed QDOS to IBM, and it became PC-DOS 1.0. This license also permitted Microsoft to sell DOS to other companies, which it did. Spectacularly successful, this deal was later challenged in court by SCP on the grounds that Microsoft had concealed its relationship with IBM in order to purchase the operating system cheaply; subsequently, there was a (1 million dollar) settlement, but no admission of duplicity or guilt.

CP/M-86 becomes irrelevant

When IBM released DOS, it sold for $60 USD, and was much more attractively priced than the $240 CP/M. Digital Research considered suing Microsoft, since DOS replicated nearly all of the CP/M system calls, program structure, and user interface (not the filesystem), but decided against it. Digital Research realized that they would have to also sue IBM, and decided that they did not have the resources to sue a company of that size, and would not likely win. By 1982, when IBM asked Microsoft to release a version of DOS that was compatible with a hard disk, Microsoft rewrote DOS to such an extent that Digital Research had lost their opportunity to sue. PC-DOS 2.0 was an almost complete rewrite of DOS, so by March 1983, very little of QDOS remained [does not seem relevant, DOS remained backwards compatible and the claim was not on implementation]. The most enduring element of QDOS was its primitive line editor, EDLIN, which remained the only editor supplied with Microsoft versions of DOS until the June 1991 release of MS-DOS 5.0, which included a graphical editor based on QBasic.

QDOS versions


- QDOS v0.1, August 1980
- 86-DOS v0.3, December 1980
- 86-DOS v1.0, April 1981
- PC-DOS v1.0, August 1981
- PC-DOS v1.10, June 1982
- MS-DOS v1.24, June 1982
- MS-DOS v1.25, July 1982 Category:DOS on IBM PC compatibles

Quick-and-dirty

Quick-and-dirty is a term used in reference to anything that is an easy way to implement kludge. Its usage is popular among hackers, who use it to describe a crude solution or programming implementation that is imperfect, inelegant, or otherwise inadequate, but which solves or masks the problem at hand, and is generally faster and easier to put in place than a proper solution would be. Quick-and-dirty solutions often attend to a specific instance of a problem rather than fixing the cause of the more general problem. As such, they are sometimes used to keep an item of software or hardware working temporarily until a proper fix can be made. The phrase is also frequently used in describing any document or tutorial that gives a brief overview about how to do something, without going into too much detail about why or how it works. Microsoft's first operating system, MS-DOS, was originally called Quick and Dirty Operating System (QDOS), prior to its purchase from Seattle Computer Systems.

See also


- Worse is better
- Hack
- Hack value
- Hacker culture Category:Computer hacking

Sinclair QDOS

QDOS (sometimes written as Qdos in official literature; the name is not regarded as an acronym) was the multitasking operating system found on the Sinclair QL personal computer and its clones. It was designed by Tony Tebby whilst working at Sinclair Research. QDOS was implemented in Motorola 68000 assembly language, and on the QL, resided in 48 kB of ROM. This ROM also held the SuperBASIC interpreter, an advanced variant of BASIC with structured programming additions. This also acted as the QDOS command interpreter. Rewritten, enhanced versions exist in the form of Minerva, SMS2 and SMSQ/E. The latter is the most modern variant and is still being improved.

Versions

The following version of QDOS were released:
- 0.08: the last pre-release version.
- 1.00: corresponded to the FB version QL ROMs, released in April 1984.
- 1.01: corresponded to the PM version ROMs. This was faster and had improved Microdrive support.
- 1.02: corresponded to the AH ROM version released in June 1984. This fixed many bugs and was the first ROM version to be produced in quantity.
- 1.03: ROM versions JM and TB; a minor bug-fix release issued in late 1984.
- 1.10: corresponded to the JS and JSU (US export version) ROMs, released in early 1985. This was the last version used in QLs manufactured for the UK market.
- 1.13: corresponding to the MGx series of ROM versions for European export markets. Included a significant number of bug fixes. The export market versions of QDOS were identified by the "." in the version number being replaced by the ROM version suffix letter used to identify the country, eg. the MGE (Spanish) ROM contained QDOS version 1E13.

External links


- [http://www.dunbar.cwc.net/qdos/qdos.html Sinclair QDOS Internals]
- [http://www.scp-paulet-lenerz.com/smsqe/ SMSQ/E Source Code]
- [http://homepages.tesco.net/dilwyn.jones/index.html Dilwyn Jones's QL and QDOS pages] ---- The QDOS name was also used briefly for an early version of MS-DOS. Category:Operating systems

16 bit

Prominent 16-bit processors include the Intel 8086, Motorola M68000, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. A 16-bit integer can store 2^ (or 65536) unique values. In an unsigned representation, these values are the integers between 0 and 65535; using two's complement, possible values range from -32768 to 32767. 16-bit processors have been almost entirely supplanted in the personal computer industry, but remain in use in a wide variety of embedded applications. 116-bit

Tim Paterson

Tim Paterson (born 1956) is an American computer programmer, best known as the original author of the popular MS-DOS operating system. Educated at the University of Washington, Paterson worked as a repair technician for a computer store in Seattle, Washington. After he graduated Magna Cum Laude in June 1978, he went to work for Seattle Computer Products as a designer and engineer. A month later, Intel released the 8086 CPU, and Paterson went to work designing an S-100 8086 board, which went to market in November 1979. The only commercial software that existed for the board was a standalone version of Microsoft BASIC, and without a true operating system, sales were slow. Paterson began work on QDOS in April 1980 to fill that void. QDOS stands for Quick and Dirty Operating System. QDOS was approximately 4,000 lines of 8086 assembly code and highly compatible with the APIs of the popular CP/M operating system, and version 0.10 was complete by July 1980. In December 1980 Microsoft bought a QDOS license. Paterson left SCP in April 1981 and worked for Microsoft from May 1981 to April 1982. After a brief second stint with SCP, Paterson started his own company, Falcon Technology, which was bought by Microsoft in 1986. Paterson did a second stint with Microsoft from 1986-1988 and a third stint from 1990-1998. During his third stint at Microsoft, he worked on Visual Basic. After leaving Microsoft a third time, Paterson founded another software development company, Paterson Technology, and also made several appearances on the Comedy Central television program Battlebots, where radio-controlled robots fight to the death. Paterson also races rally cars in the SCCA Pro Rally series.

External links


- http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/ Paterson, Tim Paterson, Tim Paterson, Tim Paterson, Tim

1980

1980 (MCMLXXX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday. It is equivalent to 2733 a.U.c., and to 1359 AH.

Events

January-February


- January 1–April 1 - National steel strike in the United Kingdom.
- January 1 - Changes to the Swedish Act of Succession creates Victoria of Sweden, Crown Princess over her younger brother.
- January 4 - American president Jimmy Carter proclaims a grain embargo against the USSR with the support of the European Commission.
- January 5 - Hewlett-Packard announces release of its first personal computer.
- January 7 - President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out Chrysler Corporation.
- January 9 - In Saudi Arabia, sixty three Muslim fanatics are beheaded for their part in the siege of the Great Mosque in Mecca in November, 1979.
- January 11 - Nigel Short, fourteen years old, is the youngest chess player to be awarded the degree of International Master.
- January 22 - Andrei Sakharov, a Russian scientist and human right activist, is arrested in Moscow.
- January 26 - Israel and Egypt establish diplomatic relations.
- February 2 - Abscam: Reports surface that FBI personnel were targeting members of the U.S. Congress in a sting operation.
- February 4 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini names Abolhassan Banisadr as president of Iran.
- February 15 - In Vanuatu, followers of John Frum's cargo cult on the island of Tanna declare secession as the nation of Tafea.
- February 23 - Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran's parliament would decide the fate of the American embassy hostages.
- February 25 - Coup in Surinam ousts government of Henck Arron. Leaders Desi Bouterse and Rou Horb replace it with National Military Council.
- February 27 - M-19 guerrillas begin the Dominican embassy siege in Colombia, holding sixty people hostage, including fourteen ambassadors.

March


- March 1 - Voyager 1 probe confirms the existence of Janus, a moon of Saturn.
- March 3 - Pierre Trudeau returns to office as Prime Minister of Canada.
- March 4 - Robert Mugabe is elected Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.
- March 10 - Jean Harris shoots doctor Herman Tarnower, the inventor of the Scarsdale diet.
- March 14 - In Poland, a plane crashes during an emergency landing near Warsaw, killing a 14-man American boxing team and 73 others.
- March 18 - Fifty people are killed at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia when a Vostok-2M rocket explodes on its launch pad during a fueling operation.
- March 20 - The pirate radio station Radio Caroline sinks.
- March 21 - President Jimmy Carter announces that the United States will boycott the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
- March 21 - Mafioso Angelo Bruno assassinated in Atlantic City.
- March 24 - Australia Olympic Committee announces it will send an Olympic delegation to Moscow, despite objections by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser.
- March 24 - Archbishop Óscar Romero is killed by gunmen while celebrating Mass in San Salvador.
- March 26 - A mine lift cage at the Vaal Reef gold mine in South Africa falls 1.2 miles, killing twenty-three.
- March 27 - The Norwegian oil platform Alexander Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.

April


- April 1 - The Mariel boatlift begins.
- April 7 - The United States severs diplomatic relations with Iran and imposes economic sanctions following the taking of American hostages on Sunday, November 4, 1979.
- April 10 - Spain and United Kingdom agree to reopen the border between Gibraltar and Spain, closed since 1969.
- April 18 - Zimbabwe's formal independence from the United Kingdom. Robert Mugabe takes his post as a Prime Minister.
- April 21 - Rosie Ruiz wins the Boston Marathon, but is later exposed as a fraud and stripped of her award.
- April 24–April 25 - Operation Eagle Claw, a commando mission in Iran to rescue American embassy hostages, is aborted after mechanical problems ground the rescue helicopters. Eight United States troops are killed in a mid-air collision during the failed operation.
- April 27 - The Dominican embassy siege ends with all hostages released and the guerrillas flying to Cuba.
- April 30
  - Iranian Embassy Siege - Six Iranian-born terrorists take over Iranian embassy in London, UK. SAS retakes the Embassy on May 5 — one terrorist survives.
  - Luis Muñoz Marín, first democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico, dies at the age of 82.
  - Queen Juliana of the Netherlands abdicates, and her daughter Beatrix ascends to the throne.

May


- May 7 - Paul Geidel, convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, is released from prison in Beacon, New York, after 68 years and 245 days - the longest-ever time served by an inmate
- May 9 - In Florida, a Liberian freighter named the Summit Venture hits the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay sending 35 people (most of whom were in a bus) to a watery death as a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed
- May 17 - Florida court acquits 4 police officers of killing Arthur McDuffie. Three days of race riots follow
- May 18 - Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington killing 57 and causing US$3 billion in damage
- May 18 - Gwangju Massacre: Students in Gwangju, South Korea begin demonstrations, calling for democratic reforms.
- May 20 - Referendum in Quebec where the population rejects by a vote of 60% the proposal from its government to move towards independence from Canada.
- May 24 - The International Court of Justice calls for the release of U.S. embassy hostages in Tehran.
- May 26 - John Frum supporters in Vanuatu storm government offices in the island of Tanna. Vanuatu government troops land the next day and drive them away
- May 26 - In South Korea, military government forces and pro-democracy protesters clash - 2000 protesters die

June


- June 1 - Comedian Richard Pryor is badly burned trying to freebase cocaine.
- June 3 - A series of deadly tornadoes strikes Grand Island, Nebraska, causing over $300m in damage, killing five people and injuring over 250.
- June 10 - Apartheid: The African National Congress in South Africa publishes a statement by their imprisoned leader Nelson Mandela which says in part 'UNITE! MOBILISE! FIGHT ON! BETWEEN THE ANVIL OF UNITED MASS ACTION AND THE HAMMER OF THE ARMED STRUGGLE WE SHALL CRUSH APARTHEID!'[http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/64-90/anvil.html]
- June 10 - Unabomber bomb injures Percy Wood, president of the United Airlines in Lake Forest, Illinois
- June 19 - Iraqi security forces shoot dead three gunmen who attacked the British embassy in Baghdad. The unknown attackers were killed in the embassy gardens by Iraqi security men, sent at the urgent request of the British ambassador, Alex Stirling.
- June 22 - West Germany beat Belgium 2-1 to win Euro 80
- June 23 - Sanjay Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi, dies in an air crash
- June 23–September 6 - Heat Wave of 1980
- June 25 - Muslim Brotherhood assassination attempt against Syrian president Hafez al-Assad fails. Assad retaliates by sending the army against them
- June 26 - A DC-9 belonging to the Italian Airline Itavia crashes into the sea near Naples after an explosion occurs in the air - 81 people dead - a bomb or a missile is suspected to be the cause of the accident but no culprits will ever be found
- June 29 - Vigdis Finnbogadottir becomes the president of Iceland

July-August


- July 9 - Pope John Paul II visits Brazil. Seven people crush to death in a crowd meeting him
- July 15 - A severe and destructive thunderstorm strikes four counties in western Wisconsin, including the city of Eau Claire. It caused over $250m in damage, and one person was killed.
- July 19 - Former Turkish Prime Minister Nihat Erim is killed by two gunmen in Istanbul, Turkey.
- July 19–August 3 - Summer Olympic Games in Moscow, USSR.
- July 30 - Vanuatu gains independence
- August 2 - A terrorist bombing at the railway station in Bologna, Italy kills 85 people and wounds more than 200.
- August 2 - Hurricane Allen hits landfall on Haiti and Jamaica in a Category 5, it reached Category 3 on Southern Texas on August 9 causing $2.6 billion on damage.
- August 14 - Lech Wałęsa leads the first of many strikes at the Gdańsk shipyard
- August 17 - In Australia, baby Azaria Chamberlain disappears from a campsite at Ayers Rock (Uluru), reportedly taken by a dingo

September-October


- September 5 - The St. Gothard Tunnel opens in Switzerland as the world's longest highway tunnel at 10.14 miles (16.32 km) stretching from Goschenen to Airolo.
- September 12 - Military coup in Turkey lead by Kenan Evren. It stopped political violence among gangs, but was the beginning of stronger state violence which lead to the execution of many young activists.
- September 17 - After weeks of strikes at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland nationwide independent trade union Solidarity is established.
- September 17 - Former Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza Debayle is killed in Asuncion, Paraguay
- September 22 - The command council of Iraq ordered its army to "deliver its fatal blow on Iranian military targets," initiating the Iran-Iraq War.
- September 26 - The Mariel Boatlift officially ends.
- September 29 - Washington Post publishes Janet Cooke's story of Jimmy, an 8-year-old heroin addict (later proven to be fabricated)
- September 30 - Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel and Xerox introduce the DIX standard for Ethernet, which was the first implementation outside of Xerox, and the first to support 10 Mbit/s speeds.
- October 14 - The Staggers Rail Act is enacted, deregulating American railroads.
- October 18 - Fraser Government re-elected for a third consecutive term in Australia
- October 27 - Six IRA prisoners in Maze prison refuse food and demand status as political prisoners - hunger strike lasts until December
- October 30 - El Salvador and Honduras sign a peace treaty to put the border dispute fought over in 1969's Football War before the International Court of Justice.
- October 31 - Polish government recognizes Solidarity.
- October 31 - Mohammad Reza Shah, eldest son of the late shah of Iran, proclaimed himself the rightful successor to the Peacock Throne.

November-December


- November 4 - U.S. presidential election, 1980: Republican challenger Ronald Reagan defeats incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter by a wide margin.
- November 12 - Voyager program: The NASA space probe Voyager I makes its closest approach to Saturn when it flies within 77,000 miles of the planet's cloud-tops and sends the first high resolution images of the world back to scientists on Earth
- November 20 - The trial of the Gang of Four begins in China.
- November 21 - A fire at the MGM Grand Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada kills 87 people.
- November 21 - Millions of viewers tune into the TV soap opera Dallas to learn who shot lead character J.R. Ewing. The event is an international obsession.
- November 23 - A series of earthquakes in southern Italy kills approximately 4,800 people.
- December 8 - John Lennon is shot outside his New York apartment, by Mark Chapman.
- December 16 - During a summit on the island of Bali, the OPEC decides to raise the price of petroleum by 10%.
- December 26 - Richard Chase, the "Vampire of Sacramento", kills himself by overdose on San Quentin prison death row

Unknown dates


- Lawrence Klein is awarded the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.
- Hassan Fathy and Plenty International / Stephen Gaskin are awarded the Right Livelihood Award.
- Victoria, Australia, decriminilises homosexual acts between consenting adults.

Births

January-February


- January 1 - Elin Nordegren, Swedish model
- January 2 - Rebekah Teasdale, British model and journalist
- January 7 - Gabriela Bazan, Peruvian activist
- January 8 - Rachel Nichols, American actress
- January 9 - Sergio García, Spanish golfer
- January 11 - Mike Williams, American football player
- January 14 - Cory Gibbs, American soccer player
- January 16 - Albert Pujols, Dominican Major League Baseball player
- January 16 - Michelle Wild, Hungarian actress
- January 22 - Christopher Masterson, American actor
- January 25 - Christian Olsson, Swedish athlete
- January 25 - Michelle McCool-Alexander, American professional wrestler
- January 27 - Marat Safin, Russian tennis player
- January 30 - Wilmer Valderrama, Venezuelan/Colombian-American comedian
- February 10 - César Izturis, Venezuelan Major League Baseball player
- February 11 - Natasha Bobo, American actress
- February 11 - Matthew Lawrence, American actor
- February 12 - Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spanish tennis player
- February 12 - Christina Ricci, American actress
- February 16 - Ashley Lelie, American football player
- February 20 - Imanol Harinordoquy, French rugby player

March-June


- March 13 - Molly Stanton, American actress
- March 16 - Todd Heap, American football player
- March 18 - Alexei Yagudin, Russian figure skater
- March 21 - Ronaldinho, Brazilian football player
- March 21 - Marit Bjørgen, Norwegian cross-country skier
- March 31 - Chien-Ming Wang, Taiwanese Major League Baseball player
- April 1 - Randy Orton, American professional wrestler
- April 1 - Takeuchi Yuko, Japanese actress
- April 17 - Brenda Villa, American water polo player
- April 20 - Jasmin Wagner, German singer
- April 20 - Channing Tatum, American actor and model
- April 21 - Vincent Lecavalier, Canadian hockey player
- May 7 - Johan Kenkhuis, Dutch swimmer
- May 9 - Grant Hackett, Australian swimmer
- May 18 - Matt Long, American actor
- May 24 - Cecilia Cheung, Hong Kong actress
- May 30- Steven Gerrard, English footballer
- June 1 - Oliver James, British actor
- June 13 - Sarah Connor, German singer
- June 16 - Joey Yung, Hong Kong singer
- June 17 - Venus Williams, American tennis player
- June 19 - Jason White, American football player
- June 22 - Jade Marcela, American actress
- June 23 - Ramnaresh Sarwan, West Indian cricketer
- June 26 - Jason Schwartzman, American actor
- June 26 - Michael Vick, American football player
- June 29 - Katherine Jenkins, Welsh soprano

July-August


- July 3 - Roland Mark Schoeman, South African swimmer
- July 6 - Pau Gasol, Catalan basketball player
- July 7 - Michelle Kwan, American figure skater
- July 8 - Robbie Keane, Irish footballer
- July 10 - Adam Petty, American race car driver (d. 2000)
- July 10 - Jessica Simpson, American singer
- July 18 - Kristen Bell, American actress
- July 22 - Kate Ryan, Belgian singer
- July 24 - Gauge, American actress
- August 11 - Lee Suggs, American football player
- August 16 - Vanessa Carlton, American singer
- August 26 - Macaulay Culkin, American actor
- August 28 - Debra Lafave, American teacher
- August 29 - Nicholas Tse, Hong Kong singer

September-October


- September 3 - Jennie Finch, American softball player
- September 7 - Mark Prior, baseball player
- September 10 - Mikey Way, American bassist (My Chemical Romance)
- September 12 - Sean Burroughs, baseball player
- September 12 - Yao Ming, Chinese basketball player
- September 21 - Kareena Kapoor, Indian actress
- September 30 - Martina Hingis, Swiss tennis player
- October 4 - Me'Lisa Barber, American athlete
- October 13 - Ashanti, American musician
- October 14 - Terrence McGee, American football player
- October 16 - Sue Bird, American basketball player
- October 17 - Ekaterina Gamova, Russian volleyball player
- October 28 - Alan Smith, English footballer
- October 28 - Christy Hemme, American Professional Wrestler

November-December


- November 12 - Ryan Gosling, Canadian actor
- November 16 - Kayte Christensen, American Basketball Player
- November 17 - Isaac Hanson, American musician
- November 21 - Hank Blalock, baseball player
- December 6 - Steve Lovell, English footballer
- December 7 - John Terry, English footballer
- December 10 - Sarah Chang, American violinist
- December 10 - Alexa Rae, American (pornographic film) actress
- December 18 - Christina Aguilera, American singer
- December 19 - Jake Gyllenhaal, American actor
- December 19 - Marla Sokoloff, American actress
- December 30 - Eliza Dushku, American actress

Deaths

January-April


- January 3 - Joy Adamson, Austrian-born conservationist and author (murdered) (b. 1910)
- January 8 - John Mauchly, American physicist and inventor (b. 1907)
- January 10 - George Meany, American labor leader (b. 1894)
- January 18 - Sir Cecil Beaton, English photographer (b. 1904)
- January 29 - Jimmy Durante, American actor, singer, and comedian (b. 1893)
- January 30 - Professor Longhair, American musician (b. 1918)
- February 2 - William Howard Stein, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1911)
- February 7 - Secondo Campini, Italian jet pioneer (b. 1904)
- February 13 - David Janssen, American actor (b. 1931)
- February 19 - Bon Scott, Scottish-born singer (AC/DC) (b. 1946)
- February 20 - J.B. Rhine, parapsychologist (b. 1895)
- March 5 - Jay Silverheels, American actor (b. 1912)
- March 16 - Tamara de Lempicka, Polish-born painter (b. 1898)
- March 25 - Walter Susskind, Czech conductor (b. 1913)
- March 29 - Mantovani, Italian-born conductor and arranger (b. 1905)
- March 31 - Vladimír Holan, Czech poet (b. 1905)
- March 31 - Jesse Owens, American athlete (b. 1913)
- April 12 - Clark McConachy, New Zealand snooker and billiards player (b. 1895)
- April 15 - Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and writer, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
- April 24 - Alejo Carpentier, Cuban writer (b. 1904)
- April 29 - Alfred Hitchcock, British film director (b. 1899)

May-September


- May 4 - Josip Broz Tito, President of Yugoslavia (b. 1892)
- May 18 - Ian Curtis, British musician and singer (Joy Division) (b. 1956)
- May 28 - Rolf Nevanlinna, Finnish mathematician (b. 1895)
- June 7 - Henry Miller, American writer (b. 1891)
- June 12 - Milburn Stone, American actor (b. 1904)
- June 13 - Walter Rodney, Guyanese historian and political figure (b. 1942)
- June 21 - Bert Kaempfert, German orchestra leader and songwriter (b. 1923)
- June 23 - Clyfford Still, American painter (b. 1904)
- July - Robert Brackman, American painter (b. 1898)
- July 7 - Dore Schary, American film writer, director, and producer (b. 1905)
- July 17 - Boris Delaunay, Russian mathematician (b. 1890)
- July 24 - Peter Sellers, English actor (b. 1925)
- July 26 - Kenneth Tynan, English theatre critic (b. 1927)
- July 27 - Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran (b. 1919)
- August 7 - Jackie Cochran, American pilot (b. 1906)
- August 10 - Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan (b. 1917)
- August 14 - Dorothy Stratten, Canadian model (murdered) (b. 1960)
- August 24 - Yootha Joyce, British actress (b. 1927)
- September 8 - Willard Libby, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1908)
- September 16 - Jean Piaget, Swiss psychologist (b. 1896)
- September 25 - John Bonham, British drummer (Led Zeppelin) (b. 1948)

October-December


- October 25 - Virgil Fox, American organist (b. 1912)
- October 25 - Victor Galindez, Argentine boxer (race car accident) (b. 1948)
- October 27 - John Hasbrouck van Vleck, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1899)
- November 4 - Elsie MacGill, Canadian aeronautical engineer (b. 1904)
- November 7 - Steve McQueen, American actor (b. 1930)
- November 20 - John McEwen, eighteenth Prime Minister of Australia (b. 1900)
- November 22 - Mae West, American actress (b. 1893)
- December 2 - Romain Gary, Lithuanian-born writer (b. 1914)
- December 4 - Francisco Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal (b. 1934)
- December 4 - Stanislawa Walasiewicz, Polish-born runner (b. 1911)
- December 7 - Darby Crash, American songwriter, singer for The Germs (heroin overdose) (b. 1958)
- December 8 - John Lennon, British singer, songwriter, and guitarist (The Beatles) (murdered) (b. 1940)
- December 16 - Harland Sanders, American fast food entrepreneur (b. 1890)
- December 16 - Hellmuth Walter, German engineer and inventor (b. 1900)
- December 24 - Karl Dönitz, President of Germany (b. 1891)
- December 29 - Tim Hardin, American musician (b. 1941)
- December 31 - Marshall McLuhan, Canadian author and professor (b. 1911)

Unknown dates


- Clement Martyn Doke, South African linguist

Nobel Prizes


- Physics - James Watson Cronin, Val Logsdon Fitch
- Chemistry - Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert, Frederick Sanger
- Medicine - Baruj Benacerraf, Jean Dausset, George D. Snell
- Literature - Czeslaw Milosz
- Peace - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel

Templeton Prize


- Prof. Ralph Burhoe Category:1980 als:1980 ko:1980년 ja:1980年 simple:1980 th:พ.ศ. 2523

Seattle Computer Products

Seattle Computer Products (SCP) was a Seattle, Washington computer hardware company. Twenty-two year old Tim Paterson was hired in June 1978 by SCP's owner Rod Brock. In 1980 Patterson wrote the QDOS operating system, later known as 86-DOS, over a four month period. Microsoft purchased a license for the system in December 1980 for $25,000, which it in turn provided to IBM as the first PC operating system, MS-DOS, which IBM adapted as PC-DOS. Subsequently, in July 1981, Microsoft purchased full rights to QDOS for an additional $50,000. However, Microsoft did not disclose it was reselling the system to IBM. As a result, SCP sued Microsoft, and settled for $1 million in 1986. SCP is no longer in business.

Reference

[http://www.patersontech.com/Dos/Micronews/paterson04_10_98.htm Account of Tim Paterson's role]

Digital Research

Digital Research, Inc. (aka DR or DRI; originally Intergalactic Digital Research) was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world. Digital Research should not be confused with Digital Equipment Corporation; the two were not affiliated. It was based in Pacific Grove, California. The company's operating systems, starting with CP/M for 8080/Z80-based microcomputers, were the de facto standard of their era, as MS-DOS and MS Windows became later. Digital Research was purchased by Novell in 1991, primarily for Novell to gain access to the OS line. DR's product suite included the original CP/M and its various offshoots; DR-DOS which was a MS-DOS compatible version of CP/M, and MP/M, the multi-user CP/M. DR produced a selection of programming language compilers and interpreters for their OS-supported platforms, including C, Pascal, COBOL, Forth, PL/I, and BASIC. They also produced a microcomputer version of the GKS graphics standard (related to NAPLPS) called GSX, and later used this as the basis of their GEM GUI. Less known are their application programs, limited largely to the GSX-based DR-DRAW and a small suite of GUI programs for GEM. Digital Research made the Multiuser DOS utility, which allowed multiple users to run DOS programs concurrently on the same computer. For a time after December 1974, the date of first use of CP/M, Control Program/Monitor was what CP/M stood for. This ended some time prior to 15 November 1976, the date of first use of the mark CP/M in commerce. By the time that CP/M was a mark in commercial use, CP/M stood for Control Program for Microcomputers. These dates are recorded in trademark registration number 1112646 at the United States Patent Office as filed by Intergalactic Digital Research, Inc. doing business as Digital Research Corporation on 25 November 1977 by an attorney acting on behalf of Gary Kildall himself. This renaming of CP/M was part of a larger effort by Kildall and his business-partner wife to convert Kildall's personal project of CP/M and the Intel-contracted PL/M compiler into an ever-more-serious commercial enterprise, where "micro", as in microcomputer, was a consistent branding, including not only Control Program for Microcomputers and Programming Language for Microcomputers but also a few years later Digital Research's Microport Unix that competed against Microsoft's Xenix. The Kildalls astutely intended to establish the Digital Research brand and its product lines as synonymous with "microcomputer" in the consumer's mind, similar to what IBM and Microsoft together later successfully accomplished in making "personal computer" synonymous with IBM and Microsoft product offerings. As further evidence that this was part of a larger effort of keeping the CP/M and Digital Research Corporation brands stable in the public's mind while evolving the underlying business behind the scenes, the Kildalls effectively publicly renamed Intergalactic Digital Research, Inc. for use in commercial activities, via only a doing-business-as filing, to Digital Research Corporation. Intergalactic Digital Research, Inc. was later renamed via a corporation change-of-name filing to Digital Research, Inc., which itself continued to do business publicly as Digital Research Corporation for a time into the 1980s, after which Digital Research, Inc. did business under its own name.

External links


- [http://www.joewein.de/dri.html Joe Wein's page on Digital Research] Category:Defunct computer companies of the United States ja:デジタル・リサーチ

1970s

The 1970s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1970 and 1979. The decade is remembered by many as the 1960s rapidly running out of steam, and the gloom of recession replacing the optimism of the 1960s Flower Power era. The United States, which had become an influential global power, experienced much of the transition. While the sixties saw social activism, society became more self-absorbed in the seventies. Analyst and writer Tom Wolfe epitomized this feeling in 1976, calling the seventies the "Me Decade." Music became at once more introspective with the singer-songwriter movement and more carefree with the rise of disco music. As the decade continued on, the American world view became apprehensive, with continuing inner-city poverty and rising urban crime rates, the Watergate hearings broadcast on television, and the Vietnam War still fresh in the national memory. Network, arguably one of the decade's most representative films, dealt with narcissism and paranoia as violence escalated in the Middle East and America was crippled by the Oil Shock of 1973. As the economy slipped, the use of recreational drugs increased and many began to fear purported cults such as the Children of God. By the end of the decade the feminist movement had helped improve women's working conditions and environmentalism had become a major cause in the United States and Europe. While the United States experienced recession, the economy of Japan rose to claim the top spot on the world stage. The economies of many third world countries continued to bloom in the early 1970s through the green revolution. They might have thrived and become stable in the way that Europe recovered after the war through the Marshall Plan; however, the economic growth was stunted by the oil crisis. In 1973, foreign peacekeepers fled Vietnam, and the war that had lasted for nearly a decade ended with the Paris Peace Accords and communism continuing to spread. In neighboring Cambodia, several million citizens were executed by communist leader Pol Pot. Meanwhile, black South Africans still remained under apartheid following the death of activist Steve Biko.

Worldwide trends in the Seventies

The ethos of the 1970s emerged from a transition of the global social structure. It reflected the transition from the decline of colonial imperialism since the end of World War II to globalization and the rise of a new middle class in the developing world. Globally, the 1970s had several features that were similar and definitive across economic levels and regions. These aspects and essence that make up global essence of the 1970s are the defining points of the 1970s: the Bretton Woods system and its subsequent failure, the impact of the contraceptive pill on social-interactional dynamics, and the oil shock of 1973. The developing nations experienced economic growth that came in the wake of political independence. However, several African economies declined and political states became dictatorial regimes. Many Middle Eastern democracies crumbled into chaotic regimes with pseudo democratic governments. The 1970s ethos in much of the developing world was characterized by:
- the incessant need to redefine social norms to newer socioeconomic systems,
- the sheer pace at which they need to adapt to new social influences along with the need to integrate it to their native cultural context, and
- the constant aspiration for a more egalitarian society in cultures that were long colonised and have an even longer history of hierarchical social structure. The green revolution of the late 1960s brought about self sufficiency in many developing economies. At the same time an increasing number of people began to seek urban prosperity over agrarian life. This consequently saw the duality of transition of diverse interaction across social communities amid increasing information blockade across social class. Other common global ethos of the seventies world include: increasingly flexible and varied gender roles for women. Women could now enter the work force and not just be housewives. However the gender role of men remained as that of a bread-winner. The period also saw unprecedented socioeconomic impact of an ever-increasing number of women entering the non-agrarian economic workforce, and the sweeping cultural-religious impact of the Iranian revolution toward the end of the 1970s. The global experience of the cultural transition of the 1970s and an experience of a global zeitgeist revealed the interdependence of economies since World War II, and showed the huge impact of American economic policies on the world.

Economy of the Seventies

The developed economies of the world, the 1970s adversely distinguished itself from the prosperous postwar period between 1945 and 1969. Then, the world economy was buoyed by the Marshall Plan and the robust American economy. However, the high standing enjoyed by the American economy gradually became discomposed by loose domestic and war spending, particularly the Vietnam war. The oil shock of 1973 added to the existing ailments and conjured high inflation throughout much of the world for the rest of the decade. World leaders, such as James Callaghan of the United Kingdom, and Jimmy Carter of the United States, could not control it, causing their support to dwindle. Although there was no economic depression, the period is known for "stagflation", in which inflation and unemployment steadily increased, therefore leading to lower economic growth rates than previous decades. In Eastern Europe, Soviet-style command economies began showing signs of stagnation, in which successes were persistently dogged by setbacks. The oil shock increased East European, particularly Soviet, exports, but agriculture became a growing annoyance to such economies.

Oil crisis

Jimmy Carter, were common throughout the Western world. Also common were long lines to receive rationed petrol products.]] Economically, the seventies were marked by the energy crisis which peaked in 1973 and 1979 (see 1973 oil crisis and 1979 oil crisis). After the first oil shock in 1973, gasoline was rationed in many countries. Europe particularly depended on the Middle East for oil; the US was also affected even though it had its own oil reserves. Many European countries introduced car-free days. In the US, customers with a license plate ending in an odd number were only allowed to buy gasoline on odd-numbered days, while even-numbered plate-holders could only purchase gasoline on even-numbered days. The experience that oil reserves were not endless and technological development was not sustainable without harming the environment ended the age of modernism. As a result, ecological awareness rose.

Social movements

Environmentalism

The seventies touched off a mainstream affirmation of the environmental issues early activists from the '60s, such as Rachel Carson, warned about. The moon landing that had occurred at the end of the previous decade transmitted back concrete images of the earth as an integrated, life-supporting system and shaped a public willingness to preserve nature. On April 22, 1970, the United States celebrated its first Earth Day in which over two thousand colleges and universities and roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools participated. Over the course of the decade, in the US a series of environmentally friendly legislation would be passed. Notable actions included the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, the passage of Clean Water Act in 1972, and the enactment of the Endangered Species Act the next year. The takeoff of environmental thought rose parallel to the increased usage of nuclear power over fossil fuels. However, with the increasing expenses of nuclear power the opposition likewise grew. [http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/180] Opposition to nuclear power became widespread in reaction to the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant on March 28, 1979.

Feminism

Feminism in the United States got its start in the 1960s, but began to take flight starting in 1970, with the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (which legalized female suffrage). With the anthology Sisterhood is Powerful and other works being published at the start of the decade, feminism started to reach a larger audience.

Gay rights

The Stonewall riots, which occurred in New York City in June 1969, are generally considered to have ignited the modern gay rights movement, especially in North America (the U.K. had already decriminalised homosexuality in 1967). In the 1970s, in western countries and especially so in major urban centers, gay and lesbian people came out of the closet as never before (even as many others remained closeted) and a vocal and visible gay-rights movement coalesced in an unprecedented way. Considering the profound stigma attached to homosexuality at the dawn of the 1970s, the movement, although still nascent, saw tremendous gains over the course of the decade. The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of psychiatric disorders in 1973. Gay-rights ordinances were passed by several cities (beginning with Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1972), and, for the first time, a few openly gay people were elected to political office in the United States. In 1977 Harvey Milk, a politically active gay man in the emerging gay neighborhood The Castro, was elected to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. Milk and liberal San Francisco mayor George Moscone were assassinated the following year; in 1979 their assassin, Dan White, received a sentence of voluntary manslaughter. The anger the gay community felt about the murders and about White's light sentence further galvanized the movement. The increasing visibility of gay people also generated a backlash during the seventies. In perhaps the most discussed anti-gay rights campaign of the decade, singer Anita Bryant led a successful drive in 1977 to repeal a gay-rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida. The new openness about homosexuality proved disconcerting to some heterosexuals who had been accustomed to gay and lesbian people remaining closeted and politically silent. "The love that dare not speak its name," Canadian author Robertson Davies wrote during the decade, referencing the famous Lord Alfred Douglas quote, "has become the love that won't shut up." On October 14, 1979, approximately 100,000 people marched in Washington, D.C., in the largest pro-gay rights demonstration up to that time.

Culture during the Seventies

Emerging social perspectives in the Seventies

In the wake of the 1960s many of the social dimenisions and perspectives towards issues were increasingly seen in liberal perspectives. Universities became more friendly and less authoritative towards students. This was reflected in the corporate culture of the 1970s, where the hierarchy between supervisor and subordinates became increasingly flat. This had influence in social interaction and family relationship as well. The nuclear family rose to prominence in the third world and the role of women in nuclear families took radical shift from those of earlier generations. With the rise of nuclear family and liberal attitudes towards social structure came new perspectives to child rearing and education. The 70s saw a decline in attendance to boarding schools and a rise of local day schools. The role of the nuclear family and the parent was increasingly noticed and given new impetus. Social norms and laws were increasingly framed in favour of women.

The Seventies in music

The seventies were a time when a new generation of young people were exposed to new media and hence newer ideas in almost every field. Elvis was probably the biggest entertainer in the world in the 70´s and in 1973 he held the historic Hawaain concert which was televised worldwide to almost 1.5 billion people from over 40 countries. TV and motion picture brought to varied audiences images, lifestyles and music from diverse regions and peoples. This led to the emergence of a new vocabulary and experimentation in music. After the war the second generation of German musicians began experimenting with music, these included experimental classical music and the tradition of Krautrock or Kraut music, rooted in the experimental classical music. This later influenced both art rock and progressive rock. The main exponents of this genre include Genesis, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and space rock giants Pink Floyd. The experimental nature of progressive rock is exemplified in songs such as Pink Floyd's Echoes. The seventies is also when many legendary rock bands started, or hit their peak, including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC,Queen (Band),Black Sabbath]], KISS, The Who, and Van Halen. Another experimentation in European classical music was brought about by composer Philip Glass and Michael Nyman, with what was to be called Minimalist music. This was a break from the intellectual serial music of the tradition of Schoenberg which lasted from the early 1900s to 1960s. Minimalist music sought to appreciate simple music with systematic patterns repeated in complex variations. These experimentations were also used in several movies made in the early 1970s. In world music the musical collaboration of violinists Yehudi Menuhin and L. Subramaniam was appreciated by a large audience. The commercial cinemas around the world tended to imitate nuances of disco beats in their movies to present their movies as western and upbeat. These included the increasingly popular Kung-fu movies in far East Asia and Bollywood movies from India. One of the most successful European groups of the decade was the quartet ABBA. The Swedish group, who are still the most successful group from their country, first found fame when they won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest. They became one of the most widely known European groups ever, and were the decade's biggest sellers. "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen" are two of ABBA's most popular songs. To many people, the Seventies will be most remembered for the rise in disco music. First creeping into dance clubs in the mid-seventies (with such hits as "The Hustle" by Van McCoy), songstresses like Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Dalida and Anita Ward popularized the genre and were described in subsequent decades as the "disco divas." The Village People scored a Top Ten hit with "Y.M.C.A." and the Bee Gees had a string of #1s following their collaboration on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. As quickly as disco's popularity came, however, it fell out of favor with the new decade, and effectively died in 1981, with the popularity of New Wave bands such as Blondie and Devo, who both formed their respective bands in the seventies. Many of the aforementioned singers who became popular during the disco era found themselves out of tune with the 1980s, and were out of work for many years, until a renewed interest in disco brought many of them back to the forefront. Many songs from the disco era are still very popular dance hits and receive continuous airplay in nightclubs throughout the world. The mid-seventies saw the rise of punk music from its protopunk/garage band roots in the 1960s and early 1970s. The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, and The Clash were some of the earliest acts to make it big in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Groups like the Clash were noted for the experimentation of style, especially that of having strong reggae influences in their music. Punk music has also been heavily associated with a certain punk fashion and absurdist humor which exemplified a genuine suspicion of mainstream culture and values.

The Seventies in cinema

World cinema

In cinema all over the world, the seventies brought about vigour in adventurous and realistic complex narratives with rich cinematography and elaborate scores. The cultural interaction between aided with TV and visual media and the rise in motion picture technology ushered in a new period of motion picture making. In European cinema, the failure of the Prague Spring brought about nostalgic motion pictures reminiscent of the ones that celebrate the 1970s itself. These movies expressed a yearning and as a premonition to the decade and its dreams. The Hungarian director István Szabó made the motion picture Szerelmesfilm (1970), which is a nostalgic portrayal and a premonition of the fading of the young 1970s ethos of change and a friendlier social structure. The Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci made the motion picture The Conformist (1970). German movies after the war aksed existential questions especially the works of Rainer Fassbinder. The movies of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman reached a new level of expression in motion pictures like Cries and Whispers (1973). Young German directors made movies that came to be called as the German new wave. It was the voice of a new generation that had grown up after the second world war. These included directors like Wim Wenders, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg and Werner Herzog. Wim wenders made movies that explored psychological states of humans in situations intimate and significant to the characters. He made Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty Kick) in 1972. It was based on a novella by Peter Handke. He further explored this realm in the motion picture Alice in den Städten (Alice in the Cities), 1974. Hans-Jürgen Syberberg created a sensation in 1977 with the motion picture Hitler: ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler a film from Germany). It was a seven hour movie which attempted to investigate hitler under the shadows of wagner art and Nazi nationalism. This was followed by the expressionist movie Woyzeck (1979) by Werner Herzog. Asian cinema of the 1970s catered to the rising middle class fantasies and struggles. In the Bollywood cinema of India this was epitomised by the movies of Bollywood superhero Amitabh Bachchan. These movies portrayed adventurous plots with car chase trying to imitate hollywood movies like The French Connection, presented music with Disco beats and also presented the young middle class man as an "angry young man". The women on the other hand were shown as ones who have adopted western values and outfits especially by heroines like Parveen Babi (who was featured on the cover of TIME for a story on Bollywood's success) and Zeenat Aman. However towards the very end of the 1970s, especially after the steep rise in land prices in urban areas and the decline in employment security, the heroines were seen more often as saree-women striving to have a prosperous middle class family especially heroines like Jayaprada and Hema Malini. In this way the cinema of asian region becomes a sociological statement of the social-economic times of the region and its people. Other movie industry of the region produced fine masterpieces like in Malayalam cinema. Adoor Gopalakrishnan made Swayamvaram in 1972, which got wide critical acclaim. This was followed by the movie Nirmalyam by M.T. Vasudevan Nair in 1973.

Hollywood

The decade opened with Hollywood facing a financial slump, reflecting the monetary woes of the nation as a whole during the first half of the decade. Despite this, the seventies proved to be a benchmark decade in the development of cinema, both as an art form and a business. With young filmmakers taking greater risks and restrictions regarding language and sexuality lifting, Hollywood produced some its most critically acclaimed and financially successful films since its supposed "golden era." Hollywood for his role in the 1972 hit The Godfather. He boycotted the ceremony and sent Native American Sacheen Littlefeather to reject the award on his behalf. Also pictured are Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann.]] In the years previous to 1970, Hollywood had began to cater to the younger generation with films such as The Graduate and Topless Nurses. This proved a folly when anti-war films like R.P.M. and The Strawberry Statement became major box-office flops. Even solid films with bankable stars, like the Pearl Harbor epic Tora! Tora! Tora!, flopped, leaving studios in dire straights financially. Unable to repay financiers, studios began selling off land, furniture, clothing, and sets acquired over years of production. Nostalgic fans bid on merchandise and collectables ranging from Judy Garland's sparkling red shoes to MGM's own back lots. More of the successful films were those based in the harsh truths of war, rather than the excesses of the '60s. Films like Patton, about the World War II general, and M
- A
- S
- H, about a Korean War field hospital, were major box-office draws in 1970. Honest, old-fashioned films like Five Easy Pieces, Summer of '42, and the Erich Segal adaptation, Love Story, were commercial and critical hits. (Love Story and "Summer" remain, as of 2005, two of the most successful films in Hollywood history. "Summer," costing $1,000,000 USD, brought in $25,000,000 at the box office, while "Love Story," with a budget of $2,200,000, earned $106,400,000). One of the most insightful films of the decade came from the mind of a Hollywood outsider, Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman, whose Taking Off became a bold reflection of life at the beginning of the seventies. The 1971 satirized the American middle class, following a young girl who runs away from home, leaving her parents free to explore life for the first time in years. While the film was never given a wide release in America, it became a major critical achievement both in America and around the world (garnering the film high honors at the Cannes Film Festival and several BAFTA Award nominations). An adaptation of an Arthur Hailey novel would prove to be one of the most notable films of 1970, and would set the stage for a major trend in seventies cinema. The film, Airport, featured a complex plot, characters, and an all-star cast of Hollywood A-listers and legends. Airport followed an airport manager trying to keep a fictional Chicago airport operational during a blizzard, as well as a bomb plot to blow up an airplane. The film was a major critical and financial success, helping pull Universal Studios into the black for the year. The film earned senior actress Helen Hayes an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and garnered many other nominations in both technical and talent categories. The success of the film launched a slew of disaster-related films, many of which following the same blueprint of major stars, a melodramatic script, and great suspense. disaster Three Airport sequels followed in 1974, 1977, and 1979, each successor making less money than the last. 1972 brought The Poseidon Adventure, which starred a young Gene Hackman leading an all-star cast to safety in a capsized luxury liner. The film earned an Academy Award for visual effects (and Best Original Song for "The Morning After," as well as numerous nominations, including one for its notable supporting star, Shelley Winters. The Towering Inferno teamed Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against a fire in a New York skyscraper. The film cost a whopping $14 million to produce (expensive for its time), and won Academy Awards for Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Song. The same year, the epic Earthquake featured questionable effects (camera shake and models) to achieve a destructive 9.9 earthquake in Los Angeles. Despite this, the film was one of the most successful of its time, earning $80 million at box office. By the late seventies, the novelty had worn off and the disasters had become less exciting. 1977 brought a terrorist targeting a Rollercoaster, a 1978 Swarm of bees, and a less-than-threatening Meteor in 1979. 1971 brought a rebirth of the action film, three years after the influential Bullitt. The French Connection, starring Gene Hackman, brought suspense to new heights with an adrenaline-broiling car chase through the streets of New York City, while Get Carter featured gratuitous nudity and A Clockwork Orange featured much blood and gore to complement its complex story. African American filmmakers also found success in the seventies with such hits as Shaft and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, and more questionable films, such as Blacula and Blackenstein. Like other sequels in the seventies, Shaft went on to have two more adventures, each less successful than the last. An adaptation of a Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather, became one of the best-loved and most respected works of cinema upon its release in 1972. The three-hour epic followed a Mafia boss, played by Marlon Brando, through his life of crime. Beyond the violence and drama were themes of love, pride, and greed. The Godfather went on to earn $134 million at American box office, and $245 million throughout the world. It won Aca