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Osborne Computer Corporation

Osborne Computer Corporation

The Osborne Computer Corporation (OCC) was founded by Adam Osborne in 1980 based on a product of not just personal computers but portable computers. Adam Osborne asked Lee Felsenstein to develop his portable computer with the result being the Osborne 1. The Osborne 1 featured a 5 inch (127 mm) 52-column display, two floppy-disk drives, a Z80 microprocessor, 64k of RAM, and could fit under an airplane seat. It could survive being accidentally dropped and included a bundled software package that included the CP/M operating system, the BASIC programming language, the WordStar word processing package, and the SuperCalc spreadsheet program. The package included $2000 worth of retail software alone, but the Osborne 1 personal computer with everything included shipped for a mere $1795 in 1981. It was the $1795 price tag that set market expections for bundled hardware and software packages for several years to come. The peak sales per month for Osborne 1 personal computers over the course of the product lifetime was 10,000 units, despite the initial business plan for the computer predicting a total of only 10,000 units sold over the entire product lifecycle. Osborne had difficulty meeting demand, and as production increased, quality control became more and more of an issue. Despite early success, Osborne struggled under heavy competition. Kaypro Computer offered portables that, like the Osborne 1, ran CP/M and included a software bundle, but Kaypro offered larger 9 inch (229 mm) screens. Apple Computer's offerings had a large software library of their own and with aftermarket cards, could run CP/M as well. IBM's 16-bit IBM PC was faster, more advanced, and offered a rapidly growing software library, and Compaq offered a portable computer that was almost 100% compatible with IBM's offering. Osborne's efforts to raise $20 million in capital to rush an IBM-compatible computer to market were unsuccessful. According to proponents of the Osborne Effect, the final blow occurred in 1983 when Adam Osborne boasted about an upcoming product months before it could be released, killing demand for the company's existing products. It is unclear whether this boast was about the Osborne Executive, which was released in May 1983 for $2,495 and featured a 7 inch (178 mm) screen and did not sell as well as its predecessor, or, more likely, the Osborne Vixen, a smaller portable that promised to offer compatibility not only with earlier Osborne models but also with MS-DOS, allowing it to run software designed for IBM and Compaq computers. Dealers rapidly started cancelling orders for the Osborne 1. Unsold inventory piled up and in spite of dramatic price cuts--the Osborne 1 was selling for $1295 in July 1983 and $995 by August--sales did not recover. Losses, already higher than expected, continued to mount, and OCC declared bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This marketing blunder came to be known as "Osborneing" and the phrase circulated in Silicon Valley for the next decade. Osborne repairman Charles Eicher has refuted this version of events, claiming that the machine boasted of by Adam Osborne shipped and put the company back into a healthy profit until a single executive built up serious debt trying to complete the assembly of older stock. See the The Osborne Myth for further details. On arriving at work on the final day of operation Osborne employees were greeted with security guards who instructed them to leave. No entitlements were paid, and the guards attempted to stop them from stealing company property. Some employees were still able to reap a small recompense as security guards failed to prevent them from walking away with units of the famous portable machines. Nine days later on September 22, a group of 24 investors filed suit against OCC and several individuals, seeking $8.5 million in damages for masking the company's true financial situation and accusing several directors of the company of insider trading. Osborne emerged from bankruptcy in the mid 1980s and finally released the Osborne Vixen, a compact portable running CP/M, in 1985. However, the company never regained its early prominence.

References


- Freiberger, Paul; Swaine, Michael (1984). Fire in the valley. McGraw Hill. ISBN 0-07-135895-1.
- Osborne, Adam; Dvorak, J. C. (1984). Hypergrowth : the rise and fall of Osborne Computer Corporation. Idthekkethan Publ. Co. ISBN 0-9183-47-00-9.
- Ahl, David H. (1984). [http://www.atarimagazines.com/creative/v10n3/24_Osborne_Comptuer_Corporat.php Osborne Computer Corporation]. Creative Computing, March 1984, page 24. Category:Defunct computer companies of the United States

Adam Osborne

Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939–March 18, 2003) was a British author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. Born in Thailand to British parents, Osborne spent much of his childhood in India. He graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1961 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Delaware. He started his career as a chemical engineer with the Shell Oil Company in the United States, but he left Shell in the early 1970s to pursue his interest in computers and technical writing.

Computers

Osborne was known to frequent the famous Homebrew Computer Club's meetings around 1975. He was best known for creating the first portable computer, the Osborne 1, released in April 1981. It weighed 23.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795—just over half the cost of a computer from other manufacturers with comparable features—and ran the popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 units of "Osborne 1" per month. For a time, it was a huge success. It is said that in 1983, Adam Osborne bragged about two advanced new computers his company was developing. These statements destroyed consumer demand for the Osborne 1, and the resulting inventory glut forced Osborne Computer to file for bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This phenomenon, a preannouncement of a new product causing a catastrophic collapse in demand for older ones, became known as the Osborne effect, but according to some new sources real reason for Osborne Computer bankruptcy were management errors. ((Please see http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050616.html for further "information" on the downfall of Osborne Computer.)) After Osborne Computer's collapse, Adam Osborne wrote a best-selling memoir of his experience, Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of the Osborne Computer Corporation with John C. Dvorak, which was published in 1985.

Publishing

Osborne was also a pioneer in the computer book field, founding a company in 1972 that specialized in easy-to-read computer manuals. By 1977, Osborne Books had 40 titles in its catalog. In 1979, it was bought by McGraw-Hill. In 1984, Osborne founded Paperback Software International Ltd., a company that specialized in inexpensive computer software. Its advertisements featured Osborne himself, arguing that if telephone companies applied the same logic to their pricing as software companies, a telephone would cost $600. One of its products was an inexpensive clone of Lotus 1-2-3, which led to legal action. In 1987, Lotus sued Paperback Software. As a result of the lawsuit, consumer confidence waned for Paperback Software, and its revenues dropped 80% by 1989, preventing the firm from getting venture capital for expansion. In February 1990, the case went to court and on June 28, the court ruled that Paperback Software's product, by copying Lotus 1-2-3's look and menu interface, violated Lotus's copyright. Osborne stepped down from Paperback Software the same year.

Later life

In 1992, Osborne returned to India in declining health, suffering from a brain disorder that triggered frequent minor strokes. He died in obscurity 11 years later, in Kodaikanal in India, aged 64. Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam ja:アダム・オズボーン



Adam Osborne

Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939–March 18, 2003) was a British author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. Born in Thailand to British parents, Osborne spent much of his childhood in India. He graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1961 and completed his Ph.D. at the University of Delaware. He started his career as a chemical engineer with the Shell Oil Company in the United States, but he left Shell in the early 1970s to pursue his interest in computers and technical writing.

Computers

Osborne was known to frequent the famous Homebrew Computer Club's meetings around 1975. He was best known for creating the first portable computer, the Osborne 1, released in April 1981. It weighed 23.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795—just over half the cost of a computer from other manufacturers with comparable features—and ran the popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 units of "Osborne 1" per month. For a time, it was a huge success. It is said that in 1983, Adam Osborne bragged about two advanced new computers his company was developing. These statements destroyed consumer demand for the Osborne 1, and the resulting inventory glut forced Osborne Computer to file for bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This phenomenon, a preannouncement of a new product causing a catastrophic collapse in demand for older ones, became known as the Osborne effect, but according to some new sources real reason for Osborne Computer bankruptcy were management errors. ((Please see http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050616.html for further "information" on the downfall of Osborne Computer.)) After Osborne Computer's collapse, Adam Osborne wrote a best-selling memoir of his experience, Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of the Osborne Computer Corporation with John C. Dvorak, which was published in 1985.

Publishing

Osborne was also a pioneer in the computer book field, founding a company in 1972 that specialized in easy-to-read computer manuals. By 1977, Osborne Books had 40 titles in its catalog. In 1979, it was bought by McGraw-Hill. In 1984, Osborne founded Paperback Software International Ltd., a company that specialized in inexpensive computer software. Its advertisements featured Osborne himself, arguing that if telephone companies applied the same logic to their pricing as software companies, a telephone would cost $600. One of its products was an inexpensive clone of Lotus 1-2-3, which led to legal action. In 1987, Lotus sued Paperback Software. As a result of the lawsuit, consumer confidence waned for Paperback Software, and its revenues dropped 80% by 1989, preventing the firm from getting venture capital for expansion. In February 1990, the case went to court and on June 28, the court ruled that Paperback Software's product, by copying Lotus 1-2-3's look and menu interface, violated Lotus's copyright. Osborne stepped down from Paperback Software the same year.

Later life

In 1992, Osborne returned to India in declining health, suffering from a brain disorder that triggered frequent minor strokes. He died in obscurity 11 years later, in Kodaikanal in India, aged 64. Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam Osborne, Adam ja:アダム・オズボーン

Osborne 1

The Osborne 1 was the first portable "all-in-one" microcomputer, released in April, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighed 23.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795, and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. Its principal deficiencies were a tiny 5 inch (13 cm) display screen and single sided, single density floppy disks that could not contain sufficient data for practical business applications. Besides being the first portable computer, the Osborne 1 was also the first computer that "bundled" software; the included WordStar wordprocessor, SuperCalc spreadsheet, dBase II database program, and CBASIC + MBASIC had a retail value of more than $2,000. The machine's hardware features included dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives, a 4 MHz Z80 CPU, a fold down keyboard which doubled as the computer case's lid, and the 5 inch, 52 character × 24 line monochrome CRT display. At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 Osborne 1 units per month. The computer was widely imitated as several other computer companies started offering low-priced portable computers with bundled software. Compared to smaller and lighter laptop portable computers manufactured later, the luggage size Osborne 1 may be more accurately described as a luggable or transportable computer. The Osborne's popularity was superseded by the similar Kaypro II which had a much more practical 9 inch (23 cm) CRT that could display the standard 80 characters on 24 lines as well as double density floppies that could store twice as much data. Osborne Computer Corporation was unable to effectively respond to the Kaypro challenge until after the market window had closed and the day of the 8-bit, CP/M-based computer had ended. Later Compaq broke through with a portable computer (the Compaq Portable) with a 9 inch CRT, that was software compatible with the IBM PC (the Compaq was the first PC clone).

External link


- [http://oldcomputers.net/osborne.html Osborne 1 at oldcomputers.net] Category:Portable computers Category:Personal computers ja:Osborne 1

Z80

The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Zilog from 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for defense purposes, and is one of the most popular CPUs of all time. CPUs Although Zilog made several attempts to move off the Z80 onto more powerful 16-bit (Zilog Z800, Zilog Z8000, Zilog Z180, Zilog Z280) and 32-bit (Zilog Z80000, Zilog Z380) platforms, other companies were offering CPUs in this performance range years earlier, and the Zilog chips never caught on. Zilog’s most recent CPU is the Zilog eZ80, a faster Z80 with a 16 MB addressing range.

History and description

The Z80 came about when Federico Faggin left Intel after working on the 8080, and by July 1976 Zilog had the Z80 on the market. It was designed to be binary compatible with the Intel 8080 so that most 8080 code could run unmodified on it, notably the CP/M operating system. The Z80 offered eight real improvements over the 8080:
- An enhanced instruction set including new IX and IY index registers and instructions for them
- Two separate register files, which could be quickly switched, to speed up response to interrupts
- Block move, block I/O, and byte search instructions
- Bit manipulation instructions
- A built-in DRAM refresh address counter that would otherwise have to be provided by external circuitry
- Single 5 Volt power supply
- Fewer outboard support chips required for clock generation and interface to memory and I/O
- A much lower price The Z80 quickly took over from the 8080 in the market, and became one of the most popular 8-bit CPUs. Later versions increased in speed from the early models' 2.5 MHz up to as much as 20 MHz. Perhaps a key to the success of the Z80 was the built-in DRAM refresh, which allowed systems to be built with fewer support chips.

Second sources, clones, emulation

Mostek and SGS were second-sources for the Z80. Sharp and NEC developed Z80 clones. National Semiconductor developed a CMOS clone, the NSC800, which was not pin compatible. Hitachi developed an enhanced CMOS version which later was second-sourced by Zilog. In East Germany, an unlicenced clone of the Z80, known as the U880, was manufactured. It was very popular and was used in Robotron's and VEB Mikroelektronik Mühlhausen's computer systems (e.g. the KC85-series) and also in many self-made computer systems (ex. COMP JU+TER). KC85 Also, several fully compatible analogues of Z80 were created in the Soviet Union, a notable one being the T34. Another Soviet clone, the KP580BM80, was an analogue of the Z80's predecessor, the Intel 8080. Today, a functionally equivalent CPU core (T80 & TV80) is available for free under a BSD style license as VHDL [http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/t80/overview] and Verilog [http://www.opencores.org/projects.cgi/web/tv80/overview] source. The VHDL version, once synthesized, can be clocked up to 35 MHz on a Xilinx Spartan II FPGA. Software emulation of the Z80 instruction set on modern PCs runs faster than the original Z80 CPU ran and is used today with the MAME video game emulator's execution of 1980's vintage video games.

Notable uses

By the early 1980s it was used in a host of home computer designs including the MSX, Radio-Shack TRS-80, Sinclair ZX80 & ZX81 and ZX Spectrum. It was also featured in the Osborne 1, the Kaypro, and a great number of fairly anonymous business-oriented CP/M machines that dominated the market of the time in the way that Windows based machines do today. In the mid-1980s the Z80 was used in Tatung's Einstein and the Amstrad CPC and PCW home/office computer ranges as well as forming the CPU basis for the MSX computer standard. The Z80 was also used in the Norwegian Tiki 100 computers, which were the computers of choice for Norwegian schools during the late 1980s. In Romania, several Z80 implementations were manufactured: HC85, HC90, HC91, HC2000 (by the Felix Computers Factory, based in Bucharest) and TimS (by the Timisoara Technical University). The HC85 and TimS models were the most popular models. Such was the popularity of the Z80 and CP/M that the Commodore 128 featured a Z80 processor alongside its MOS Technology 8502 processor for compatibility. Other 6502 based computers already on the market such as the BBC Micro, Apple II and the 6510 based Commodore 64 can make use of the Z80 with an external unit or a plug-in card or cartridge. The Multitech Microprofessor I, introduced in 1981, is a simple and inexpensive training system for the Z80 microprocessor. As of early 2005, it is still on market. Notable later uses of the processor include several Texas Instruments (TI) graphing calculators (like the TI-83 series, TI-84 series, and TI-85), and Sega's Master System and Game Gear video game consoles. Both the SNK Neo-Geo and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis consoles use it as an audio coprocessor. Nintendo's Game Boy and Game Boy Color handheld game systems used a Z80 clone manufactured by Sharp Corporation, which had a slightly different instruction set. The Sharp Z80 in the Game Boy Color is notable for its ability to selectively double its clock speed when running Game Boy Color software. The Zilog Z80 has also become a popular embedded microprocessor and microcontroller core, where it remains in widespread use today. Many classic coin-op arcade games used the Z80 as a main CPU or sound coprocessor. An extreme example of the Z80's miniaturization is demonstrated by the Sega Dreamcast: Its Visual Memory Unit memory card was also a miniature video game with a Z80 processor! See also: List of home computers by category

Notes

# The Sinclair ZX80 and -81 were equipped with the NEC μPD780C Z80 clone.

External links


- [http://www.zilog.com/ ZiLOG official website]
- [http://www.z80.info/ Z80-Family Official Support Page] – Created by Thomas Scherrer, maintained by Gaby Chaudry
- [http://www.zophar.net/z80.html Z80 software emulators] – Listed at the website Zophar's Domain Category:Microprocessors ko:자일로그 Z80 ja:Z80

Random access memory

:RAM redirects here. For other meanings of the word ram see Ram (disambiguation). For the Hindu God see Rama. Random access memory (sometimes random-access memory), commonly known by its acronym RAM, is a type of computer storage (in practice only computer chips) whose contents can be accessed in any (i.e., random) order. This is in contrast to sequential memory devices such as magnetic tapes, discs and drums, in which the mechanical movement of the storage medium forces the computer to access data in a fixed order. magnetic tapes are located in the rectangular areas to the left and right.]] RAM is typically used for primary storage (main memory) in computers to hold actively used and actively changing information, although some devices use certain types of RAM to provide long-term secondary storage. Because RAM chips can be both written to and read from, the term RAM is often used to mean read-write memory, and thus taken to be the opposite of read-only memory (ROM). However, RAM refers to the way memory is accessed in a chip so ROM in the form of a chip is also RAM. Also, DVD-RAM is a misnomer because a disk like a DVD (or CD or hard disk) is physically unfit for random access.

Overview

Computers use RAM to hold the program code and data during execution. One defining characteristic of RAM is that its accesses to different memory locations are almost always completed at about the same speed, in contrast to some other technologies that required a certain delay time for a bit or byte to “come around”. Early vacuum tube-based systems behaved much like modern RAM, even though the devices failed much more frequently. Core memory, which used wires attached to small ferrite electromagnetic cores, also had roughly equal access time (the term “core” is still used by some programmers to describe the RAM at the heart of a computer). The basic ideas behind tube and core memory are still used in modern RAM implemented with integrated circuits. Alternative primary storage mechanisms usually involved a non-uniform delay for memory access. Delay line memory used a sequence of sound wave pulses in mercury-filled tubes to hold a series of bits. Drum memory acted much like the modern hard disk, storing data magnetically in continuous circular bands. (See primary storage for a greater discussion of these alternatives and others.) Many types of RAM are volatile, which means that unlike some other forms of computer storage such as disk storage and tape storage, they lose their data when the computer is powered down. Modern RAM generally stores a bit of data as either a charge in a capacitor, as in dynamic RAM, or the state of a flip-flop, as in static RAM. Currently, there are several types of non-volatile RAM under development, which will preserve data while powered down. Technologies that are being used include carbon nanotube technology and magnetic tunnel effect. In the summer of 2003, a 128KB Magnetic RAM chip was introduced, which was manufactured with 0.18µm technology. The core technology of MRAM is based on the magnetic tunnel effect. In June of 2004, Infineon Technologies unveiled a 16MB prototype based on 0.18µm technology once again. As for carbon nanotube memory, a high-tech startup [http://www.nantero.com/ Nantero] has built a functioning prototype 10GB array in 2004. In computers, RAM can sometimes be allocated as a partition, allowing it to effectively act as a hard drive, only much faster. This is usually referred to as a RAM disk. Some types of RAM can detect or correct random unintentional changes to RAM contents, known as memory errors. See RAM parity.

The memory wall

In today's computers, memory access is becoming very slow when compared to CPU cycles since most computers use cheap, but comparatively slow, DRAM for the main memory. It is slow due to the fact that it has only one 64 bit (8 byte) data transfer while other chips have double that. Hence, the memory access, like hard disk access, might become the term that bounds computation speed. This is another important boundary for fast computations.

Shadow RAM

Shadow RAM is the part of RAM with its contents copied from ROMs from where it will run much faster [http://hardwarehell.com/articles/shadowram.htm]. (ROM is in general slower than RAM.) The original ROM is disabled and the new location on the RAM is write protected. This process is called shadowing.

Types of RAM

Common


- Static RAM (SRAM)
- Non-Volatile RAM (NV-RAM)
- Dynamic RAM (DRAM)
  - Fast Page Mode DRAM
  - EDO RAM or Extended Data Out DRAM
  - XDR DRAM
  - SDRAM or Synchronous DRAM
    - DDR SDRAM or Double Data Rate Synchronous DRAM; now being replaced by DDR2
    - RDRAM or Rambus DRAM

Uncommon


- Dual-ported RAM
- Video RAM, a dual-port memory with one random access port and one sequential access port. This is becoming more popular as people need more and more video memory. See description under Dynamic RAM.
- WRAM
- MRAM
- feRAM
- ZRAM and TTRAM

RAM packaging

Semiconductor RAM is produced as integrated circuits (ICs). RAM ICs are often assembled into plug-in modules. Some standard module types are: integrated circuit
- Single in-line Pin Package (SIP)
- Dual in-line Package (DIP)
- Single in-line memory module (SIMM)
- Dual in-line memory module (DIMM)
- Rambus modules are actually DIMMs, but are often referred to (by Rambus themselves and others) as RIMMs due to their proprietary slot.
- Small outline DIMM (SO-DIMM). Smaller version of the DIMM, used in laptops. Comes in versions with 72 (32 bit), 144 (64 bit), 200 (72 bit) pins
- Small outline RIMM (SO-RIMM)

RAM manufacturers

Major manufacturers of semiconductor RAM as of 2005:

External links


- [http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,,sid40_gci214255,00.html A definition of RAM] – From searchMobileComputing.com
- [http://webopedia.com/TERM/R/RAM.html What is RAM?] – From Webopedia
- [http://home.pacbell.net/dbk4297/memory_what_kind.html What kind of RAM do I have?] – From Darrell's Computer Help and Information
- [http://www.howstuffworks.com/ram.htm "How RAM Works"] – Article by Jeff Tyson and Dave Coustan
- [http://mxt.sourceforge.net/ Memory eXpansion Technology] – At SourceForge
- [http://www.corsairmemory.com/memory_basics/153707/index.html Memory Basics] (Flash) – From RAM manufacturer Corsair Category:Digital electronics Category:Computer memory ko:램 ja:Random Access Memory simple:Random access memory th:แรม

CP/M

CP/M is an operating system created for Intel 8080/85 and Zilog Z80 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. CP/M was commonly understood in the latter half of the 1970s to represent Control Program for Microcomputers but originally the antecedent was Control Program/Monitor. Note that in Control Program for Microcomputers the / means for, as was common in the prevailing technical parlance of that era, as in Kildall's/Intel's PL/M, Programming Language for Microcomputers, and in Prime Computer's PL/P, Programming Language for Prime. Gary Kildall himself renamed CP/M in word form as part of the maturation of CP/M from personal project in 1974 to commercial enterprise in 1976. The combination of CP/M and S-100 bus computers patterned on the MITS Altair was an early "industry standard" for microcomputers, and was widely used through the late 1970s and into the mid-80s. By greatly reducing the amount of programming required to install an application on a new manufacturer's computer, CP/M increased the market size for both hardware and software.

Description: CCP, BDOS, BIOS

CP/M's command line interface, implemented in the CCP (Command Control Processor), was patterned after the operating systems from Digital Equipment, such as RSTS/E for the PDP-11. Commands generally took the form of a keyword followed by a list of parameters separated by spaces or special characters. If the command was not one of the internal commands built into the CCP, the currently-logged disk directory would be searched for a program file with the same name, and, if found, the program would be loaded and the rest of the command line passed to it. The commands themselves would sometimes be somewhat obscure; for instance, the command to duplicate files was named PIP (Peripheral-Interchange-Program), the name of the old DEC utility used for that purpose. One key innovation in CP/M was the use of an abstraction layer that separated the operating system into two main parts. The CCP translated user commands into a series of high-level instructions. These instructions were then fed into the BDOS (Basic Disk Operating System), which provided functionality like "open file". Application programs would likewise talk to the BDOS. The BDOS then translated these commands into a new series of lower-level instructions. These were then fed into the BIOS (Basic I/O System), which contained the hardware-specific code that carried out the instructions from BDOS. To illustrate the flow of commands, consider the PIP command mentioned earlier. When a PIP command was entered into the CCP it was broken down into a series of instructions for the BDOS, which would be similar to "locate the file named foo.txt, open it, create a new file named bar.txt...". The BDOS commands in turn were sent to the BIOS as a string of even simpler instructions, like "move the disk head to this sector, read raw data from sector..." etc. The BIOS would then do the actual controlling of the hardware, such as sending pulses to the stepper motor of the drive. The vast majority of the complexity in CP/M was isolated in the BDOS, and to a lesser extent, the CCP. This meant that by porting the limited number of simple commands in the BIOS to a particular hardware platform, the entire OS would work. This significantly reduced the development time needed to support new machines, and was one of the main reasons for CP/M's widespread use. Today this sort of abstraction is common to most OSs, but at the time of CP/M's birth, OSs were typically intended to run on only one machine platform, and multilayer designs were considered unnecessary.

History

The beginning and CP/M's heyday

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 serial number 73149955 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 the renaming of CP/M in word form 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. CP/M was originally distributed on 8 inch floppy disks, and ran on the Intel 8080 CPU (as well as the compatible and very popular Zilog Z80). Eventually, the industry moved to the 5¼ inch disk format, and CP/M followed -- however many companies developed their own, incompatible 5¼ inch disk formats, which made the exchange of disks between different CP/M-systems difficult in practice. Popular CP/M systems sometimes supported at least one other disk format than their own native format. Translation programs existed to allow interchange of files between disk formats. IBM never used CP/M in any of their computers, nor was there any other company with the domination of the market that IBM was to have in the early 1980s. This is the reason that there was such diversity of 5" disk formats under CP/M. A software manufacturer had to prepare a separate version of the program for each brand of hardware on which it was to run. With some manufacturers (Kaypro is an example), there was not even standardization across the company's different models. Because of this situation, disk format translation programs which allowed a machine to read many different formats became popular and reduced the confusion. With MS/DOS having a standard 5" disk format, a publisher could prepare one version of the program with the confidence that machines from different manufacturers could use it, at least with basic character mode video, because custom video graphics were still the norm until the introduction of IBM's EGA graphics with the model AT. CP/M was described as a "software bus", allowing multiple programs to interact with different hardware in a standardized way. Programs written for CP/M were typically portable between different machines, usually only requiring specification of the escape sequence for control of the screen and printer. This portability made CP/M popular, and much more software was written for CP/M than for operating systems that only ran on one brand of hardware. One restriction on portability was that certain programs used the extended instruction set of the Z80 processor and would not operate on an 8080 or 8085 processor. Hundreds of different brands of machines ran CP/M, some notable examples being the above-mentioned Altair, the IMSAI 8080, the Osborne 1 and Kaypro portables, and even the Apple II when an extra Z80-card was installed. The best selling CP/M capable system of all time was probably the Commodore 128, although few people actually used its CP/M abilities. In the UK, CP/M was also available for the BBC Micro— which could also be equipped with a Z80 co-processor. Furthermore, it powered the popular Amstrad PCW word-processing system. WordStar, one of the first widely used word processors, and dBASE, the first widely-popular database program for small computers, were originally written for CP/M.

The 16-bit world

Versions of CP/M were later completed for some 16-bit CPUs as well, although they required the application programs to be re-compiled for the new CPUs -- or, if they were written in assembly language, to be largely rewritten from scratch. One of the first was CP/M-86 for the Intel 8086, which was soon followed by CP/M-68k for the Motorola 68000. At this point the original 8-bit CP/M became known as CP/M-80 to avoid confusion. CP/M-68k was widely used only in one application: it formed the basis of the Atari ST computer. CP/M-86 had the potential of becoming the standard operating system of the new IBM PCs, but minor legal issues made IBM turn to Microsoft instead (although it was still offered on the original IBM PC). Microsoft purchased a CP/M clone known as QDOS, and used it to create PC-DOS/MS-DOS which went on to become the "official" PC operating system. CP/M-86 never became popular.

MS-DOS takes over

Many of the basic concepts and internal mechanisms of early versions of MS-DOS were patterned after those of CP/M. Internals like file-handling data structures were identical, and both referred to disk drives with a letter (A:, B:, etc.). The main innovation was MS-DOS's FAT file system. This intentional similarity made it easier to port popular CP/M software like WordStar and dBase. However, CP/M's concept of separate user areas for files on the same disk was never ported to MS-DOS. Since MS DOS had access to more memory, more commands were built-in, most usefully the file COPY command. This made the command-line user interface of MS-DOS somewhat easier to use. CP/M rapidly lost market share as the microcomputing world moved to the PC platform, and it never regained its former popularity. Byte Magazine, at the time one of the leading industry magazines for microcomputers, essentially ceased coverage of CP/M products within a couple of years of the introduction of the IBM PC. For example, in 1983 there were still a few advertisements for S100 boards and articles on CP/M software, but by 1987 these were no longer found in the magazine. Later versions of CP/M-86 made significant strides in terms of performance and usability however, and for some time in the 1980s was considered to be a better x86 OS than MS-DOS. To reflect this compatibility the name was changed, and CP/M-86 became DOS Plus, which in turn became DR-DOS.

See also


- List of machines running CP/M
- MP/M
- Multiuser DOS

References


- Zaks, Rodnay (1980). The CP/M Handbook With MP/M. SYBEX Inc. ISBN 089588-048-2.

External links


- [http://science.kennesaw.edu/~khoganso/CS8422/4-23-03-Wednesday.ppt History/Development and Demise of CP/M] – A PowerPoint (PPT) presentation
- [http://www.khet.net/gmc/docs/museum/en_cpmName.html The origin of CP/M's name]
- [http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Operating_Systems/CPM/ Category at ODP]
- [http://www.retromadness.com/ Computer History Museum] - Museum of home computing and gaming.
- [http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/Cpm/ CP/M Main Page] - Information site on CP/M.
- CP/M Category:DOS Cp/m Category:Operating systems ja:CP/M

BASIC programming language

BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of high-level programming languages. Originally invented in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth College, it was designed to allow students not in science fields to use computers. At the time all computer use required writing custom software, which was something only scientists and mathematicians tended to do. It became widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s, and remains popular to this day in a handful of heavily evolved dialects. dialect

History

Background

Prior to the mid-1960s, computers were highly expensive tools used only for special-purpose tasks. In a simple form of batch processing, these machines ran only a single "job" at a time. During the 1960s, however, computer prices started to drop to where even small companies could afford them, and their speed increased to the point where they often sat idle without jobs to run. Programming languages of the era tended to be designed, like the machines on which they ran, for specific purposes (such as scientific formula processing or text editing). Since single-job machines were expensive, the tendency was to consider execution speed the most important feature of a language. In general, these specialized languages were difficult to use and used widely disparate syntax. It was at this time that the time-sharing system concept started to become popular. In such a system the processing time of the main computer is "sliced up" and each user is given a small amount in alternation. The machines were fast enough for most users to feel they had a single machine all to themselves. In theory, timesharing reduced the cost of computing tremendously, as a single machine could be shared among hundreds of users.

Early years

The original BASIC language was invented in 1963 by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz and implemented by a team of Dartmouth students under their direction. In the following years, as other dialects of BASIC appeared, Kemeny and Kurtz' original BASIC dialect became known as Dartmouth BASIC. BASIC was designed to allow students to write programs for the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. BASIC was intended to address the complexity issues of older languages with a new language designed specifically for the new class of users the time-sharing systems allowed — that is, a "simpler" user who was not as interested in speed as in simply being able to use the machine. The eight design principles of BASIC were: # Be easy for beginners to use # Be a general-purpose programming language # Allow advanced features to be added for experts (while keeping the language simple for beginners) # Be interactive # Provide clear and friendly error messages # Respond fast for small programs # Not require an understanding of computer hardware # Shield the user from the operating system The language was based partly on FORTRAN II and partly on ALGOL 60, with additions to make it suitable for timesharing and, later, text processing and matrix arithmetic. BASIC was first implemented on the GE-265 mainframe which supported multiple terminals. Contrary to popular belief, it was a compiled language at the time of its introduction. Several years after its release, highly-respected computer professionals, notably Edsger W. Dijkstra, expressed their opinions that the use of GOTO statements, which existed in many languages including BASIC, promoted poor programming practices. Some also derided BASIC as too slow or too simple. The designers of the language decided that it should remain in the public domain so that the language would become widespread. They also made it available to high schools in the Dartmouth area and spent a considerable amount of effort in promoting the language. As a result, knowledge of BASIC became relatively widespread for a computer language and BASIC was implemented by a number of manufacturers, and became fairly popular on newer minicomputers like the DEC PDP series and the Data General Nova. In these instances the language tended to be implemented as an interpreter, instead of (or in addition to) a compiler.

Explosive growth

compiler Notwithstanding the language's use on several minicomputers, it was the introduction of the Altair 8800 microcomputer in 1975 that truly spread BASIC. Most programming languages were too large to fit in the small memory most users could afford on these machines, and with the slow storage on paper tape (or later audio cassette tape: disks of any kind were not available at any price for some years) and the lack of suitable text editors, a small language like BASIC was a good fit. BASIC also had the advantage that it was fairly well known to the young designers who took an interest in microcomputers at the time as a result of Kemeny and Kurtz's earlier proselytizing. One of the first to appear for this machine was Tiny BASIC, a simple BASIC implementation originally written by Dr. Li-Chen Wang, and then ported onto the Altair by Dennis Allison at the request of Bob Albrecht (who later founded Dr. Dobb's Journal). The Tiny BASIC design and the full source code were published in 1976 in DDJ. Dr. Dobb's Journal In 1975, Micro-Soft (then only two people — Bill Gates and Paul Allen) released Altair BASIC. The version written for the Altair was co-authored by Gates, Allen and Monte Davidoff. Versions of Microsoft BASIC then started appearing on other platforms under license, and millions of copies and variants were soon in use; it became one of the standard languages on the Apple II. By 1979, Microsoft was talking with several microcomputer vendors, including IBM, about licensing a BASIC interpreter for their computers. A version was included in the IBM PC ROM chips and PCs without floppy disks automatically booted into BASIC. Newer companies attempted to follow the successes of MITS, IMSAI, North Star and Apple, thus creating the home computer revolution; meanwhile, BASIC became a standard feature of all but a very few home computers. Most came with a BASIC interpreter in ROM. Soon there were many millions of machines running BASIC around the world, likely a far greater number than all the users of all other languages put together.

Maturity

home computer home computer home computer Many newer BASIC versions were created during this period. Microsoft sold several versions of BASIC for MS-DOS/PC-DOS including BASICA, GW-BASIC (a BASICA-compatible version that did not need IBM's ROM) and Quick BASIC. Turbo Pascal-publisher Borland published Turbo BASIC 1.0 in 1985 (successor versions are still being sold by another company under the name PowerBASIC). Various extensions of home computer BASIC appeared, typically with graphics, sound and DOS commands, as well as facilities for structured programming. The BBC published BBC BASIC, developed for them by Acorn Computers Ltd, incorporating many extra structuring keywords, as well as comprehensive and versatile direct access to the operating system. It also featured a fully integrated assembler. Other languages used the widely-known BASIC syntax as the basis for otherwise completely different systems, GRASS being one example. However, by the latter half of the 1980s newer computers were far more complex. At the same time, computers had progressed from a hobbyist interest to tools used primarily for applications written by others, and programming as a whole became less important for the growing majority of users. BASIC started to fade, though numerous versions remained available. BASIC's fortune reversed once again with the introduction of Visual Basic from Microsoft. Though it is somewhat difficult to consider this language to be BASIC, because of the significant shift in paradigm towards an object-oriented and event-driven language. While this could be considered an evolution of the language, few of the features of Dartmouth BASIC, such as line numbers and the INPUT keyword, remain. Many other BASIC variants and adaptations have also sprung up in the last few years, authored by hobbyists, equipment developers, and others.

The language

Syntax

Basic statements are terminated by line endings unless there is a line continuation character. A very minimal BASIC syntax only needs the LET, PRINT, IF and GOTO commands. Line numbers were a very distinctive aspect of classic home computer BASIC. Some BASIC interpreters later appeared with a built-in RENUMBER command. Some (but not all) modern BASIC dialects have abandoned line numbers, and support most (or all) of the structured control and data declaration constructs known in other languages like C and Pascal (note also that some advanced versions of line number-based home computer BASICs incorporated such constructs as these to good effect):
- do - loop - while - until - exit
- on x goto / gosub (switch & case) Recent variants such as Visual Basic have introduced object-oriented features, such as the For Each...Loop construct for looping through collections and arrays in VBA and Visual Basic 4 and later, and even inheritance in the latest version. Memory management is easier than in many other procedural programming languages because of the commonly included garbage collector (presumably for which, however, one pays a run-time performance penalty). This wealth of variants shows that the language is an "organic" one and that it may be seen as a subculture dealing with computer programming rather than as a fixed set of syntactic rules. This applies as well to other "old" computer languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, although the BASIC movement is by far the largest; this may be explained by the large number of IT professionals who learned to program in BASIC during the home computer era in the 1980s.

Procedures and flow control

BASIC does not have a standard external library like other languages such as C. Instead, the interpreter (or compiler) contains an extensive built-in library of intrinsic procedures. These procedures include most of the tools a programmer needs to learn programming and write simple applications, including functions for math, strings, console input/output, graphics and file manipulation. Some BASIC dialects do not allow programmers to write their own procedures. Programmers must instead write their programs with large numbers of GOTO statements for branching. This can result in very confusing source, commonly referred to as spaghetti code. GOSUB statements branch to simple kinds of subroutines without (sometimes with) parameters or local variables. Most modern versions of BASIC such as Microsoft QuickBASIC have added support for full subroutines and functions. This is another area where BASIC differs from many other programming languages. BASIC, like Pascal, makes a distinction between a procedure which does not return a value (called a subroutine) and a procedure which does (called a function). Many other languages (notably C) make no distinction and consider everything a function (with some returning a "void" value). While functions in the larger sense of subroutines returning values were a latecomer to BASIC dialects, many early systems supported the definition of one-line mathematical functions by DEF FN ("DEFine FunctioN"). The original Dartmouth BASIC also supported Algol-like functions and subroutines from an early date.

Data types

BASIC is well known for good string manipulation functions. Early dialects already had a set of fundamental functions (LEFT$, MID$, RIGHT$) to deal with strings easily. Because strings are often used in everyday applications this was a considerable advantage over other languages at the time of its introduction. The original Dartmouth BASIC supported only numeric and string data types. There was no integer type. All numeric variables were floating point. Strings were dynamic in length. Arrays of both numbers and strings were supported, as well as matrices (two dimensional arrays). Every modern BASIC dialect at least has the integer and string data types. Data types are usually distinguished by a suffixed character; string identifiers end in $, whereas integers classically ended with a '%'. In some dialects, variables must be declared (with DIM) on their first usage; other dialects do not require it, but can optionally enforce it—typically using a directive such as Option Explicit (in VB.NET it is on by default but can be turned off using Option Explicit Off). Many dialects also support such additional types as 16- and 32-bit integers and floating-point numbers. Some have "polynomial", "complex", "list", and specialized types for the intended use of the implementation. Additionally, some allow user-defined types similar to Pascal "records" or C "structs". Most BASIC dialects beyond the most primitive also support arrays of integers or other types. In some, arrays must be pre-allocated (with the DIM statement) before they can be used. Support for two- and higher-dimensional arrays, as well as arrays of non-integer types, is common. Visual Basic .NET DIM myIntArray (100) AS INTEGER DIM myStringArray (50) AS STRING Depending on the dialect of BASIC, the resulting available elements in the array can vary. In some, commands similar to the first in the example will define a 101-element array of integers with elements from 0-100, others may define a 100-element array of integers with elements 1-100 or, rarely, 0-99. It may also be possible to set a default beginning element number other than 0 or 1 with an additional command such as Option Base. The Visual Basic .NET example will create an array from 0-100. When working with strings, commands similar to the second may allocate a 50-element array of variable-length strings, or may allocate a single string of 50 characters. Note that they are also subject to the numerical differences mentioned above. These non-standard and, to some, less than intuitive dimensioning can often trip up the novice (and even the advanced) programmer. Newer dialects offer specific dimensioning, such as DIM myIntArray (10 TO 20) AS INTEGER which would be a 10-element array from 10-20.

Relational, logical operators

= equal <= less than or equal NOT logical negation <> not equal >= greater than or equal AND logical conjunction < less than OR logical disjunction > greater than Note that there is no lexical distinction between the assignment operator and the equality operator in BASIC; a single equal sign is used for both. There is, however, a method available to the programmer if a visible difference between the two is wanted: the optional LET keyword allows for assignments to be clearly and unambiguously distinguished from the use of the equality operator. Example: IF X=7 THEN LET Y=3.

Examples

Hello, world!

10 PRINT "Hello, world!" 20 END

Classic BASIC

Classic BASIC. Note that this example is actually well structured, demonstrating that use of the GOTO statement does not necessarily lead to an unstructured program. 10 INPUT "What is your name: "; U$ 20 PRINT "Hello "; U$ 25 REM 30 INPUT "How many stars do you want: "; N 35 S$ = "" 40 FOR I = 1 TO N 50 S$ = S$ + "
- " 55 NEXT I 60 PRINT S$ 65 REM 70 INPUT "Do you want more stars? "; A$ 80 IF LEN(A$) = 0 THEN GOTO 70 90 A$ = LEFT$(A$, 1) 100 IF (A$ = "Y") OR (A$ = "y") THEN GOTO 30 110 PRINT "Goodbye "; 120 FOR I = 1 TO 200 130 PRINT U$; " "; 140 NEXT I 150 PRINT

Modern BASIC

"Modern" structured BASIC (for example, QuickBASIC and PowerBASIC), replacing GOTO statements by more modern keywords. INPUT "What is your name"; UserName$ PRINT "Hello "; UserName$ DO INPUT "How many stars do you want"; NumStars Stars$ = "" Stars$ = REPEAT$("
- ", NumStars) ' <- ANSI BASIC --or-- Stars$ = STRING$(NumStars, "
- ") ' <- MS BASIC PRINT Stars$ DO INPUT "Do you want more stars"; Answer$ LOOP UNTIL Answer$ <> "" Answer$ = LEFT$(Answer$, 1) LOOP WHILE UCASE$(Answer$) = "Y" PRINT "Goodbye "; FOR I = 1 TO 200 PRINT UserName$; " "; NEXT I PRINT

BASIC dialects

:See also the more comprehensive List of BASIC dialects and List of BASIC dialects by platform. There are more dialects of BASIC than there are of any other programming language. All but a very few home computers of the 1980s had a ROM-resident BASIC interpreter. One interpreted free version, compliant with standards and highly cross-platform, is Bywater BASIC (bwBASIC). The interpreter is written in C and comes under a GNU license. It is meant for text console programs, and as such does not include a builder for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The best known compiled versions are Microsoft's QuickBASIC and QBasic (a version which does not generate standalone programs). Some versions of Visual Basic are also compiled. Also, FreeBASIC can now be used as an alternative, the syntax is the closest possible to QB and the console and graphic statements are also supported. Other versions include (PowerBASIC's) PowerBASIC programming language, as well as (True BASIC's) True BASIC, which is compliant with the latest official BASIC standards. (True BASIC, Inc. was founded by the original creators of Dartmouth BASIC.) REALbasic, for Windows, Linux and Apple Macintosh, is a modern, object-oriented variant that generates executables for Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux. REALbasic creates compiled code and generates native applications. REALbasic is very similar to Visual Basic so VB programs can be ported easily. "Business Basic" is the name given collectively to the variants of BASIC which were specialised for business use on mini-computers in the 1970s. Business Basics added indexed file access methods to the normal set of BASIC commands, and were optimised for other input/output access. The two major families of Business Basic were MAI BasicFour, and Data General Business Basic. In the 1980s, Business Basics were ported from their original proprietary environments to many Unix platforms, and to DOS.

Notes

# The acronym is tied to the name of an unpublished paper by Thomas Kurtz. # In a 1968 article, Dutch computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra considered programming languages using GOTO statements for program structuring purposes harmful for the productivity of the programmer as well as the quality of the resulting code ([http://www.acm.org/classics/oct95/ "Go To Statement Considered Harmful"], Communications of the ACM Volume 11, 147-148. 1968). This article does not mention any particular programming language; instead it states that the overuse of GOTO is a bad thing and gives the technical reasons why this should be so.
In a 1975 tongue-in-cheek article, [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html "How do We Tell Truths that Might Hurt"], Sigplan Notices Volume 17 No. 5, Dijkstra gives a list of uncomfortable "truths", including his opinion of several programming languages of the time, such as BASIC. It appears that many people confuse the two articles and conclude that he particularly hated BASIC as a result of its GOTO statement. However, BASIC receives no worse treatment than PL/I, COBOL or APL in his articles.

References


- Dartmouth College Computation Center (1964). [http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64.pdf A Manual for BASIC, the elementary algebraic language designed for use with the Dartmouth Time Sharing System]. The original Dartmouth BASIC manual.
- Lien, David A. (1986). The Basic Handbook: Encyclopedia of the BASIC Computer Language (3rd ed.). Compusoft Publishing. ISBN 0932760333. Documents dialect variations for over 250 versions of BASIC.
- Kemeny, John G.; Kurtz, Thomas E. (1985). Back To BASIC: The History, Corruption, and Future of the Language. Addison-Wesley. 141 pp. ISBN 0-201-13433-0.
- ANSI/ISO/IEC Standard for Minimal BASIC:
  - ANSI X3.60-1978 "FOR MINIMAL BASIC"
  - ISO/IEC 6373:1984 "DATA PROCESSING - PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES - MINIMAL BASIC"
- ANSI/ISO/IEC Standard for Full BASIC:
  - ANSI X3.113-1987 "PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES FULL BASIC"
  - ISO/IEC 10279:1991 "INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY - PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES - FULL BASIC"
- ANSI/ISO/IEC Addendum Defining Modules:
  - ANSI X3.113 INTERPRETATIONS-1992 "BASIC TECHNICAL INFORMATION BULLETIN # 1 INTERPRETATIONS OF ANSI 03.113-1987"
  - ISO/IEC 10279:1991/ Amd 1:1994 "MODULES AND SINGLE CHARACTER INPUT ENHANCEMENT"

External links


- [http://www.computer-books.us/basic.php Computer-Books.us] Online BASIC books
- [http://www.qwerty.com/basic.htm Really really basic BASIC] – Ainsworth Computer Seminar, Ainsworth & Partners, Inc.; a BASIC tutorial for absolute beginners
- [http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Programming/Languages/BASIC/ Google BASIC directory] Category:Programming languages Category:Imperative programming languages Category:ISO standards Category:ANSI standards
- ko:베이직 ms:BASIC ja:BASIC th:ภาษาเบสิก

SuperCalc

SuperCalc was a spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980, and originally bundled (along with WordStar) as part of the CP/M software package included with the Osborne 1 portable computer. An improvement over VisiCalc, SuperCalc was notable for being one of the first spreadsheet programs capable of iteratively solving circular references (cells that depend on each other's results). It would be over 10 years after the introduction of SuperCalc before this feature was implemented in Excel. Versions of SuperCalc were later released for the Apple II family, for PCs running DOS, and, after Sorcim was bought by Computer Associates (CA) in the mid-1980s, for MS Windows (under the name CA-SuperCalc). Category:Spreadsheets Category:Microcomputer software Category:CP/M software Category:DOS software Category:Windows software ja:SuperCalc

Apple Computer

Apple Computer, Inc. is a Silicon Valley company based in Cupertino, California, whose core business is computer technologies. Apple helped commence the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II microcomputer and has since further shaped it with the Macintosh. Apple is known for its innovative, well-designed hardware, such as the iPod and iMac, as well as software offerings exemplified through iTunes as part of the iLife suite and Mac OS X, its flagship operating system. Apple Computer was founded in Los Gatos, California on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne, to sell the Apple I personal computer kit at $666.66. They were hand-built in Jobs' parents' garage, and it was first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. Fifty units were sold to The Byte Shop at $500 each. In 1977 Apple released the Apple II; it was presented to the public at the first West Coast Computer Faire on April 16 and 17, 1977. By the 1980s, Apple faced emerging competition in the personal computing business due to IBM's open hardware standard created with the IBM PC, which bundled Microsoft's MS-DOS (MicroSoft - Disk Operating System). As a result Apple released the Apple III, a large failure for the company, and in 1983 released their second attempt at a business-oriented computer, the Apple Lisa. The Apple Macintosh was launched in 1984 with a now famous Super Bowl advertisement based on George Orwell's novel 1984, declaring, "On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like '1984'" — the implication being that the Mac's new, "user friendly" graphical user interface would revolutionize and liberate computing and information from the elite of large corporations and technocrats. Macintosh also spawned the concept of Mac evangelism which was pioneered by Apple employee, and later Apple Fellow, Guy Kawasaki. Apple almost went bankrupt in the mid-1990s amidst cash flow difficulties, poor quality products and high prices. The Apple CEO at the time, Gil Amelio, purchased NeXT Computer and Steve Jobs became Apple interim CEO in 1998 with the introduction of the iMac computer to resurrect the company. In 2001, Apple entered the digital media player device market with the iPod, which has sold more than 30 million units as of 2005 and has also helped Macintosh sales recently, known as the "Halo Effect".

History

1976—80: The founding of Apple

2005 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak ("the two Steves") had been friends prior to founding Apple, since having met in 1971. Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a personal computer and selling it. Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, who ordered fifty units and paid $500 for each on delivery. Jobs then ordered components from Cramer Electronics, a national electronic parts distributor, to assemble the Apple I computer. Joined by another friend, Ronald Wayne, the three started to build the machines. Using a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends and family and selling various items including a Volkswagen Type 2 bus), Jobs managed to secure the parts needed while Wozniak and Wayne assembled them. They were delivered in June, and paid for on delivery. Eventually 200 Apple I's were built. The Apple II, an improved version of the original Apple I, was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It became popular with home users, as well as occasionally being sold to business users, particularly after the release of the first ever spreadsheet on any computer, VisiCalc. See the computing timeline for dates of Apple II family model releases – the 1977 Apple II and its younger siblings, the II Plus, IIe, IIc and IIGS. It was succeeded by the Apple III in May, 1980 as Apple struggled to compete against IBM and Microsoft in the business and corporate computing market. The designers of the Apple III were forced to comply with Jobs' request for the omission of a cooling fan, and this ultimately resulted in thousands of recalled units due to overheating. An updated version was introduced in 1983 but was also a failure due to bad press and discouraged buyers.

1981—89: Lisa and Macintosh

Microsoft After the Apple III, Apple was still facing serious competition in the personal computing business from IBM and Microsoft. In 1983, Apple introduced the first personal computer to be sold to the public with a graphical user interface, named the Lisa at $9,995. It was a large commercial failure as a result of its high price tag, and limited software titles. In December, 1979 Jobs and several other Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC to see the Alto computer. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for selling them one million dollars in pre-IPO Apple stock (approximately $18mil. net). After the Lisa, Apple began work on a similar but less expensive computer called the Macintosh. It was launched in 1984 with the now famous Super Bowl advertisement based on George Orwell's novel 1984. In anticipation of the Macintosh launch, Bill Gates, co-founder, chairman of Microsoft was given several Macintosh prototypes in 1983 for software development for the new computer. In 1985, Microsoft launched Microsoft Windows, its own GUI for IBM PCs using many of the elements of the Macintosh OS. This led to a long legal battle between Apple Computer and Microsoft, ending with an out-of-court settlement. In this settlement it was stated that Microsoft would be granted access to, and allowed unlimited use of, the Macintosh GUI. After an internal power struggle with new CEO John Sculley in 1985, Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was asked to resign. Jobs then founded NeXT Inc., a computer company that built machines with futuristic designs and ran the UNIX-derived NeXTstep operating system. Although powerful, NeXT computers never caught on due in part to their high prices.

1990—97: PowerBook and decline

In 1991 Apple introduced its second attempt at a portable Macintosh. Having learned several painful lessons after the failed Macintosh Portable in 1989, they turned to Sony, which at the time had a strong reputation for their ability to design small, durable and functional electronics. Sony took the specs of the Mac Portable, put in a smaller 2-hour battery, a much (physically) smaller 20 MB hard drive and a smaller 9-inch passive matrix screen. Called the PowerBook, this landmark product established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer and solidified Apple's reputation as a quality maker, both of desktop and now portable machines. The success of the PowerBook and several other Apple products led to increasing revenues during this period. In short, this was a good time for Apple. MacAddict magazine named the 1989 to 1991 period the "first golden age" of the Macintosh. In 1994, Apple surprised its loyalists by allying with its long-time competitor IBM in the AIM alliance. This was a high-profile bid to create a revolutionary new computing platform, known as PReP, which would use IBM and Motorola hardware and Apple software. PReP's (projected) outstanding performance and software would leave the PC far behind, and would upset Microsoft, which Apple had identified as its real enemy. As the first step toward the PReP platform, Apple started the Power Macintosh line in 1994, using IBM's PowerPC processor. These processors utilized a RISC architecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 680X0 series that were used by all previous Macs. Parts of Apple's operating system software were rewritten so that most software written for older Macs could run in emulation on the PowerPC series. In 1993, Apple released the Newton, an early PDA. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched the category and was a forerunner and inspiration of devices such as Palm Pilot and its descendants-PocketPCs. On February 4 1997, Apple purchased NeXT and its NeXTstep operating system, bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple's management. On July 9 1997, Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple by the board of directors after overseeing a 12 year record low stock price and crippling financial losses. Jobs stepped in as the interim CEO and began a critical restructuring of the company's product line.

1998—present: New beginnings

Gil Amelio computer in 1998.]] In 1998, a year after Steve Jobs had returned to the company, Apple introduced a new all-in-one Macintosh similar to the original Macintosh 128K: the iMac, a new design that did away with most Apple standard connections like SCSI and ADB in favor of two USB ports. While technically not very impressive, it featured an innovative new design - its translucent plastic case, originally Bondi blue and white, and later many other colors, is considered an industrial design hallmark of the late-90s. The iMac proved to be phenomenally successful, with 800,000 units sold in 1998, making the company an annual profit of $309 million - Apple's first profitable year since Michael Spindler took the position of CEO of the company in 1995. The Power Macintosh was redesigned along similar lines, and continues to evolve to this day. In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, an operating system based on NeXT's NeXTstep. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, OS X married the stability, reliability and security of Unix with the ease of a completely overhauled user interface. To aid users in transitioning their applications from OS 9, the new operating system did allow the use of Mac OS 9 applications through OS X's Classic Environment. Apple's Carbon API also allowed developers to adapt their OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features. In May 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of a line of Apple retail stores, to be located throughout the major U.S. computer buying markets. The stores were designed for two primary purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market, as well as a response to poor marketing of Apple products at third-party retail outlets. In late 2001, Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player. On April 29, 2005, Apple released Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" to the general public. In a keynote address on June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html officially announced] that Apple will begin producing Intel-based Macintosh computers beginning in 2006. Jobs confirmed rumors that the company had secretly been producing versions of its current operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors over the past 5 years, and that the transition to Intel processor systems will last until the end of 2007. Mac OS X is based on OPENSTEP, an operating system that was available for many platforms. In fact, Apple's own Darwin, the open source underpinnings of OS X, is also compiled for Intel's x86 architecture. [http://news.com.com/Apple+shakes+hands+with+Intel/2009-1006_3-5733319.html] [http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1112] [http://nytimes.com/2005/06/06/technology/06apple.html]

Corporate affairs

Logo

open source The original Apple logo was designed by Steve Jobs and Ron Wayne and depicts Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree. However this design was soon to be replaced by the now famous rainbow apple with a "bite" taken out of it. It was one of a set of designs Rob Janoff presented Jobs in 1976 [http://wired-vig.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,60597,00.html]. In 1998, the logo became single-colored, though no specific color is prescribed; for example, it is grey on the Power Mac G5, blue (by default) in Mac OS X, chrome on the 'About this Mac' panel and the boot screen in OS X 10.3 and 10.4, and white on the iBook and PowerBook G4. The logo's shape is one of the most recognized brand symbols in the world, and is featured quite prominently on all Apple products and retail stores.

Criticism

PowerBook G4)]] Apple was criticized for its vertically integrated business model, which runs against the grain of some of the "perceived wisdom" of economists, particularly for the computer industry. However, the company is profitable. Other criticisms included that it was personality driven, especially in the two different eras of Steve Jobs' tenure, and some critics even regarded it as a cult or at least having cult-like features. Jobs' infamous reality distortion field is often cited as a criticism. From a technical standpoint, Apple was also criticised for having a closed and proprietary architecture with the original Macintosh, and a "not invented here" attitude against adopting open standards. The iTunes Music Store continues this trend, utilizing an exclusive Advanced_Audio_Coding DRM which can not be played on any digital music player other than the iPod family. That trend was largely reversed with Mac OS X, and the company now has an official policy of adopting relevant open industry standards. Apple has used industry standard hardware technologies for many years, which helped lower prices significantly. Many Apple technologies have become industry standards where no former standard existed, e.g. ZeroConf network configuration, FireWire, etc. Some non-Apple technologies only gained wide industry acceptance after Apple adopted them, including 3-1/2 inch floppy disks, SCSI, USB, Wi-Fi and, of course, graphical user interfaces. Mac OS X is based on a free software / open source software kernel and core operating system called Darwin. Apple also uses an open source framework called WebKit in its Safari web browser. Many Open source software advocates are often critical of Apple's attempt to appeal to their particular movement. Such advocates claim that such a marketing scheme is not taken seriously enough by Apple because of the fact that Mac OS X has many proprietary technologies in specifically essential areas. Other Open Source advocates usually make a counter-argument relative to the idea that Apple has done much more for open source software than many other major commercial software developers by releasing large portions of source code to the public through the APSL. Some third-party developers are also critical of the competing factions within Apple themselves, illustrated by the perception of an ongoing rivalry between the developers of Cocoa, which came from NeXT, and those of Carbon, which came from Apple. This rivalry is seen as counterproductive and unnecessary by many developers. Apple's retail initiative has had a mixed reception despite being successful in raising awareness of the Apple brand. Retailers have suggested that Apple-owned retail stores receive preferential treatment when receiving Apple hardware, and therefore receive limited stock product earlier, and at lower prices - an accusation that has been officially denied by Apple.

Notable litigation

From the 1980s to the present Apple has been plaintiff or defendant in notable civil actions in the United States and elsewhere. Several of these actions have determined significant case law for the technology industry, while others simply captured the attention of the public and media.

Trademark dispute with Apple Corps

In 1978 Apple Corps (The Beatles-founded record label and holding company) filed suit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps. This amount had been estimated to $50–$200 million, but was later revealed to be $80,000. As a condition of the settlement, Apple Computer agreed to stay out of the music business. In 1986 Apple added MIDI and audio-recording capabilities to its computers, and in 1989 Apple Corps sued again, claiming violation of the 1981 settlement agreement. In 1991 another settlement of around $26.5 million was reached. At this time, an Apple employee named Jim Reekes added a sampled system sound called xylophone to the Macintosh operating system, but Apple's legal department objected citing the agreement with Apple Corps. Reekes renamed the sound to sosumi, which he asserted was Japanese and meant nothing musical, but in fact can be read phonetically as "So, sue me". The 1991 settlement outlines the rights each company has to the Apple trademark. While Apple Corps was given the right to use the name on any "creative works whose principal content is music", Apple Computer was given the right to use the name on "goods or services...used to reproduce, run, play or otherwise deliver such content," but not on content distributed on physical media. [http://news.com.com/Apple+vs.+Apple+Perfect+harmony/2100-1027_3-5378401.html] In other words, Apple Computer agreed that it would not package, sell or distribute physical music materials. In September 2003 Apple Computer was sued by Apple Corps again, this time for introducing iTunes and the iPod which Apple Corps believed was a violation of the previous agreement by Apple not to distribute music. Some observers believe the wording of the previous settlement favors Apple Computer in this case. [http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2004/tc20040930_9317_tc056.htm] Other observers speculate that Apple Computer may be forced to offer a much larger settlement this time which may even result in Apple Corps becoming a major shareholder in Apple Computer or, perhaps may result in Apple Computer splitting the iPod and related business into a separate firm. [http://www.legalzoom.com/articles/article_content/article11325.html] The date for this trial has been set for March 27, 2006 in the UK.

Apple v. Franklin

In 1982 Apple filed a lawsuit against Franklin Computer Corp., alleging that Franklin's ACE 100 personal computer used illegal copies of Apple's operating system and ROM. Decided in Franklin's favor but reversed by the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Apple v. Franklin established the fundamental basis of copyright of computer software. As a result, Apple began embedding an encrypted image in ROM. This icon displays "Stolen from Apple Computer". There is also a code to display this icon. Obviously, if the Apple employees could walk up to illegal clones and display this icon, it would be an open and shut case of illegal copyright violation.

Apple v. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard

In 1988, after the introduction of Microsoft Windows 1.0, Apple filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard alleging that Windows and HP's NewWave violated Apple's copyrights in the Macintosh user interface. Apple v. Microsoft was one of the significant look and feel copyright lawsuits of the 1980s. After several years in court, Apple's claims against Microsoft were dismissed, primarily due to a preexisting license to Microsoft from Apple. The decision was upheld on appeal in 1994.

Trademark dispute with Abdul Traya

In July 1998 Abdul Traya and Stan Berg registered the domain name www.appleimac.com, two months after Apple announced the iMac, in an attempt to draw attention to the web-hosting business they were running out of their parents' basement. A note on their site stated that their plan was to "generate traffic to our servers and try to put the domain to sale. [sic]" [http://news.com.com/2100-1023-221921.html] After a legal dispute that lasted until April 1999, Traya and Apple settled out of court with Apple paying legal fees and giving Traya a "token payment" in exchange for the domain name. [http://www.macobserver.com/news/99/april/990427/applevsteen.html]

Defamation dispute with Carl Sagan

In 1994 Apple was sued by Carl Sagan for using his name as the internal code-name for the Power Macintosh 7100. Sagan lost the suit twice. See the Carl Sagan article for details.

Trademark dispute with Benjamin Cohen

In November 2000, Benjamin Cohen of [http://www.cyberbritain.co.uk CyberBritain] registered the domain name "itunes.co.uk" for an MP3 search engine; his first choice, "tunes.co.uk", was taken. However, he never actually used the domain name for this purpose or ran any company using this name; in fact, the domain name was inoperative for a long time. Apple was granted a UK restricted (non music) trademark for ITUNES on March 23, 2001, and launched its popular iTunes music store service in the UK in 2004. Once they had done this, Cohen reactivated the domain name, which was then for a while redirected to iTunes biggest rival, Napster. The domain name then forwarded to CyberBritain's cash back/rewards website. In 2005, Apple took the matter to the Dispute Resolution Service operated by .uk domain name registry Nominet UK, stating that they had rights in the name "iTunes" and that the use of the domain name by Cohen's company was abusive (these being the