https://gitpi.us/ Recent content on GitPius Hugo en-us Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:52:31 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/hyperbola-update/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:52:31 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/hyperbola-update/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/hyperbolabsd-logo.jpg" alt="" title="HyperbolaBSD logo"></p> <p>Back in 2019, the dev team behind the <a href="https://www.hyperbola.info/">Hyperbola GNU/Linux</a> announced that they would be moving away from the Linux kernel. They decided to fork the <a href="https://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</a> kernel. Not only that, they planned to rewrite and replace all code that is not GPL v3 compliant. Back in January of 2020, I interviewed the HyperbolaBSD team for <a href="https://itsfoss.com/hyperbola-linux-bsd/">ItsFoss.com</a>. I decided to reach out to them again to see how the project has progressed. I also included some questions from fellow nerds. Enjoy the interview.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/writing-apps-for-hello/ Thu, 16 Feb 2023 07:25:41 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/writing-apps-for-hello/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/hello_variation.svg" alt="" title="helloSystem logo"></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve been wanting to learn how to program for a while. In the past couple of years, I tried many times. Different languages and different tutorials. But I always got distracted, either by another project or another language. I think one of the reasons I didn&rsquo;t have much luck was that I really didn&rsquo;t have an end goal, something to work towards. Now, I do.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/install-ldpl-fedora/ Sun, 14 Feb 2021 11:16:57 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/install-ldpl-fedora/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/ldpl-logo.png" alt="" title="Mascot for LPL lang"></p> <p>Recently, I stumbled across an interesting little language named the <a href="https://www.ldpl-lang.org/">LDPL programming language</a>. It&rsquo;s inspired by COBOL and has several neat features. However, LDPL is not as popular or well known as other languages.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/drew-devault-interview/ Tue, 27 Aug 2019 06:22:40 -0400 https://gitpi.us/post/drew-devault-interview/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/drew-devault.jpg" alt="" title="Drew DeVault's avatar"></p> <p><a href="https://drewdevault.com/">Drew DeVault</a> is not your usual software developer. He has a wide range of projects under his belt, including a <a href="https://meta.sr.ht/">groundbreaking git hosting service</a>, an <a href="https://knightos.org/">operating system for calculators</a>, a <a href="https://swaywm.org/">tiling window manager</a>, and more. He was nice enough to agree to an interview. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. Enjoy!</p> <p>(Drew originally answered these question back in April, but I wanted to finish rebooting the site before I posted it.)</p> https://gitpi.us/post/website-reboot/ Mon, 26 Aug 2019 20:27:02 -0400 https://gitpi.us/post/website-reboot/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/ribbon-cutting.jpg" alt=""></p> <p>First, I&rsquo;d like to welcome you all to the relaunch of my tech blog. This site was created in July 2016 under the name St. Isidore&rsquo;s Keyboard. (In case you&rsquo;re wondering, St. Isidore of Seville is the patron saint of computers, computer users, computer programmers, and the Internet.) The site was built with <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a> and hosted on GitLab. I had big plans for it but got very busy and was not able to act on those plans.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/apple-chip-business/ Tue, 03 Apr 2018 23:21:15 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/apple-chip-business/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/macbook.jpg" alt="" title="Macbook"></p> <p>Recently, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-said-to-plan-move-from-intel-to-own-mac-chips-from-2020">Bloomberg</a> broke the news that Apple is planning to drop Intel and to start manufacturing and using their own chips. According to this report, the end goal of this move is to unify Apple&rsquo;s mobile and desktop platforms. This is an interesting idea that just might work in this post-PC world.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/publii-open-source-website-builder/ Sat, 18 Nov 2017 22:02:40 -0400 https://gitpi.us/post/publii-open-source-website-builder/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/publii.png" alt="" title="Publii — Open Source Website Builder"></p> <p>In this day and age, everyone either has a website or wants one. For those who want a website, there are many tools to choose from. Unfortunately, most of these options are not beginner-friendly. Here comes Publii to the rescue.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/why-windows-needs-a-package-manager/ Wed, 11 Jan 2017 20:13:45 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/why-windows-needs-a-package-manager/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/manjaro-package-manager.png" alt="" title="Pamac package manager"></p> <p>A couple of days ago, I was building a blog using <a href="https://hexo.io/">Hexo</a> (a static site generator built on Nodejs). I created a couple pages and installed a couple plugins. When I entered the command to build a local copy of the site, I got a nice long error message. It looked like one of the plugins was causing the problem, so I filed an issue on GitHub. It turned out that I was getting the error because my version of Nodejs was old, as in two major releases behind the most recent release.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/next-step-in-arm-computing/ Wed, 07 Dec 2016 00:38:09 -0500 https://gitpi.us/post/next-step-in-arm-computing/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/panther-mpc.png" alt="" title="The Panther Alpha ARM PC"></p> <p>[<strong>Please note:</strong> The Panther Alpha failed to reach its original Kickstarter goal. They are planning to resubmit the Kickstart campaign in Q4 2018. - 1805 update]</p> <p>In the history of computing, there have been a number of major milestones. These milestones helped to direct the future direction of computing for years to come. The Panther MPC is shaping up to be one of those milestones.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/microsoft-open-sources-live-writer/ Thu, 14 Jul 2016 23:35:22 -0400 https://gitpi.us/post/microsoft-open-sources-live-writer/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/wlw-olw.png" alt="" title="Windows Live Writer has become Open Live Writer"></p> <p>Yes, you read that correctly. I used &ldquo;Microsoft&rdquo; and &ldquo;open-source&rdquo; in the same sentence, and it&rsquo;s not a joke. Microsoft under new CEO Satya Nadella has embraced a pro-open-source (and even a pro-Linux) stance that would have been impossible under previous leadership. As part of this new initiative, they created the <a href="http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/">.NET Foundation</a> to support open-source projects. One of these projects is a fork of the successful but discontinued blogging software Windows Live Writer.</p> https://gitpi.us/post/welcome/ Thu, 14 Jul 2016 22:15:34 -0400 https://gitpi.us/post/welcome/ <p><img src="https://gitpi.us/img/curtain.jpg" alt="" title="Welcome to the Show"></p> <p>Hi, everyone, and welcome to my new blog about computers and technology. I will be your host, John Paul Wohlscheid.</p> https://gitpi.us/article-archive/80386-promises-a-new-age-for-ai/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/80386-promises-a-new-age-for-ai/ By Susan J. Shepard from the July 1987 issue of Computer Language The Intel 80386 microprocessor is here—at last. It is proving to be all that we expected, and the last obstacle to 386 supermicrocomputers is an operating system that can avail the developer and user of its power. It will provide a powerful and affordable platform for expert systems and other AI applications that are truly useful. AI has been been waiting for this chip; many AI applications developers whispering, “When the 386 is available&hellip;” and hinting of powerful systems for the desktop and a rich development environment for the programmer working and learning in the real world. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-berkeley-odyssey/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-berkeley-odyssey/ by Marshall Kirk McKusick from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie presented the first UNIX paper at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles at Purdue University in November, 1973. Professor Bob Fabry was in attendance and immediately became interested in obtaining a copy of the system to experiment with at Berkeley. At the time, Berkeley had only large mainframe computer systems doing batch processing, so the first order of business was to get a PDP-11/45 suitable for running the then current Version 4 of UNIX. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-good-buy-on-unix/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-good-buy-on-unix/ A Good Buy on UNIX Special Report by Dean Hannotte from the June 12, 1984 issue of PC Magazine The Mark Williams Company&rsquo;s COHERENT operating system is a rewritten version of the seventh edition of UNIX, with some extensions and enhancements. Regrettably, it has incoherencies. The Mark Williams Company’s COHERENT operating system is a State-of-the-art microcomputer implementation of AT&amp;T’s UNIX, without the state-of-the-art AT&amp;T licensing fees. It is a completely rewritten version of the seventh edition of UNIX and includes some of its multi-user and multitasking abilities. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-short-story-of-the-keyboard/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-short-story-of-the-keyboard/ from the November 1982 issue of Byte magazine by Phil Lemmons Keyboards are meant to let our fingers do the talking, but more often they make us swear aloud. Every manufacturer seems to want its keyboard to be unmistakably different from any other. The only keys that seem to be sacred and immovable are badly placed: the familiar QWERTYUIOP and its companion rows of the alphabet. The Shift and Return keys occasionally stray, and the control keys and function keys wander from one end of the keyboard to the other. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-unix-like-operating-system-for-6809-microprocessors-p2/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-unix-like-operating-system-for-6809-microprocessors-p2/ by Stephen L. Childress from the July 1983 issue of Micro magazine (Note: The figures are not available for this article because they are impossible to read on my source.) The modularization of the I/O system allows OS-9 to enhance the standard I/O at run time, not assembly or patch time. Device names and addresses are not fixed by the operating system but, rather, the program may attempt I/O to any device name. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-unix-like-operating-system-for-6809-microprocessors/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/a-unix-like-operating-system-for-6809-microprocessors/ by Stephen L. Childress from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine Unless you&rsquo;ve been on sabbatical to Siberia of late you will have noticed the swell of interest in the Unix operating system software. Most new and all the old popular 16-bit computers are supporting Unix or one of the numerous look-alikes. Why all the furor? It seems at last we&rsquo;ve begun to rethink computer programming and usage. Recognizing that software development is expensive and timeconsuming, we must exploit the falling cost of today&rsquo;s hardware. https://gitpi.us/page/about/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/page/about/ Hi! My named is John Paul Wohlscheid. I&rsquo;m a big fan of technology. I remember using Windows 3.1.1 when I was younger (pre-teens), which should date me. I wish I could write programs and become fabulously wealthy, but he can barely write basic HTML. In the meantime, I can read and write about technology. I have published several ebooks. You can check out my books on my website. I mainly focus on detective fiction, for now. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/ai-emerges-from-the-shadows/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/ai-emerges-from-the-shadows/ By Stephen J . Shaw from the November 1983 issue of Mini-Micro Systems magazine Slowly but earnestly, companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) field are bringing out the tools to build the heralded Fifth Generation computer systems. It&rsquo;s likely to take several years for any AI-based products to have a major impact in the commercial market. But 1983 could be the year AI emerges from its R&amp;D cocoon. Many significant product developments are coming from recently formed companies devoted exclusively to AI. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-eliminates-the-top-clone-vendor/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-eliminates-the-top-clone-vendor/ by Stephen Beale from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine Apple Computer drove spike through the heart of its Mac OS-Iicensing program when it announced on September 2 that it will acquire the core assets of Power Computing, the company that built the largest Mac-clone business. Apple will exchange $ 100 million in common stock for Power Computing&rsquo;s Mac OS license and 200,000-name mailing list, and also has the right to retain Power Computing executives involved in direct marketing, distribution, and engineering. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-ii-operating-systems/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-ii-operating-systems/ by Phil Daley from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine The operating systems that I have seen available for the Apple use essentially the same read/write routines, but they have been modified or changed. All the disks created by any one system can be read by any other system if you know the procedure. Modifying disks to make them copyprotected (unreadable) is a different technique and a different topic. The Operating Systems covered in this article all use standard DOS 3. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-starts-to-fill-in-the-blanks/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-starts-to-fill-in-the-blanks/ by Steven Noble from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Apple computer has bought NeXT Software, and is going to use that company&rsquo;s high-perfor­mance operating system (OS) NeXTstep as the basis of the next major revision of the Mac OS - code-named Rhapsody. This is good news, because NeXTstep has many of the fea­tures that bring speed, stability and strength to next-generation operating systems, including protected memory, preemptive multitasking, and a modern vir­tual memory system. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-weighs-risc-technology/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/apple-weighs-risc-technology/ from the June 1, 1987 issue of MacWEEK by John Markoff Apple Computer Inc.’s next generation of computers may be based on a radically new microprocessor architecture that could improve performance dramatically over today’s Macintosh designs. Such computers would be built around microprocessors combining elements of both Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) and multiprocessor design onto a single silicon chip. Apple’s advanced development team is now at work using its Cray XMP supercomputer to simulate the design of the new chips. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/arcnet-the-sleeping-giant/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/arcnet-the-sleeping-giant/ from the May/June 1984 issue of Two/Sisteen magazine by Bro. Gary Eck, S.M. Since its introduction, very little has been published to describe the use of ARCNET in concrete situations. This article describes the experiences of one ARCNET installation. A giant of a computer system lies hidden in the Radio Shack product line. Based on the Model II and Model 12 workhorse computers, the ARCNET system allows for the linkingof many computers into a powerful, effective local area network system. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/be-bops-on-with-new-software/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/be-bops-on-with-new-software/ by Howard Baldwin RUNS BEOS ON INTEL AS NEW APPS ARE UNVEILED from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine As Apple celebrates strong sales of Mac OS 8, Be (650/462-4100, www.be.com), developer of one of the oter operating systems for PowerPC CPUs, continues to bop along with new releases of its software. In July, the company shipped its BeOS Preview Release for PowerPC, followed by an update that adds AppleTalk printing and improves video drivers and IDE support. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/beyond-c/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/beyond-c/ from the July 1985 issue of Unix World magazine by David Spencer Current third-generation languages such as C and FORTRAN will have to move aside at some point for a new family of fourth-generation languages. At 30 years old, FORTRAN is graying at the temples; third-generation programming languages are in their heyday. So you are probably wondering how we will speak to computers during the next decade. If current projections hold true, computers will seem (and talk) more like us fairly soon. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/actor-overview/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/actor-overview/ by Judy Getts from the June 1987 issue of Computer Language Chuck Duff is the kind of man you’d expect to run into early in the morning in a university coffee shop, styrofoam cup in hand, talking Hegel with a student. You’d expect to see him in an art gallery rambling between the neoclassicists and linear chromatists, keen-eyed and at home, or even face-to-face in a folk-jazz cafe if you motioned the waitress aside and asked who is the James Beard behind the watercress crepes. https://gitpi.us/page/magazine-archive/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/page/magazine-archive/ I consider myself a computer historian. This is a list of articles from old computer magazines that I found interesting and wanted to archive. Enjoy. Australian MacUser Apple Starts to Fill in the Blanks (1997) Halo Hardware to Top Mac Line (1997) Iomega to Shrink Disks for Portable (1997) Next Mac OS to Be Based on NeXTstep (1997) Plan Be (1997) Rhapsody in Blue (1997) Australian Micro Computerworld Franklin Goes Chapter 11 (1984) Australian Personal Computer RISCy Business (1985) Wayne Wilson: the Australian Who Invented Concurrency (1984) Byte magazine A Short Story of the Keyboard (1982) How to Choose a Microprocessor (1978) Unix at 25 (1994) Victor Victorious: The Victor 9000 Computer (1982) Computer Gaming World So You Want to Write a Computer Game (1982) Computer Language 80386 Promises a New Age for AI (1987) Charles Duff, ACTOR&rsquo;s Shakespeare (1987) Inside OS/2 (1987) PJ Plauger Reflects on the History of C (1985) Will the Real AI Language Please Stand Up? https://gitpi.us/page/contact/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/page/contact/ If you would like to contact me, use the form below. If the form is not working, you can email me at gitpius AT protonmail.com https://gitpi.us/article-archive/creating-software-for-the-farm/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/creating-software-for-the-farm/ by Dixon P. Otto from the April 1983 issue of TODAY magazine &ldquo;I had no intention of doing anything with computers again,&rdquo; says Neale Bartter of Wooster, Ohio, reflecting on the time in 1974 when he gave up a computer career for farming. &ldquo;Now I spend most of my time in here with the computer,&rdquo; he says from the office of his turn-of-the-century home. He nodded towards the micro sitting on the desk next to him. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/dec-pc-alumnus-beefs-up-franklin-for-possible-ibm-compatible-portable/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/dec-pc-alumnus-beefs-up-franklin-for-possible-ibm-compatible-portable/ by David A. Bright from the July 1983 issue of Mini-Micro Systems magazine Franklin Computer Corp., once considered just another Apple Computer Inc. clone, is being closely monitored by the personal computer industry as it begins to move away from Apple&rsquo;s shadow. With the hiring last spring of several key research and development personnel, Franklin has indicated that it intends to become a major independent personal computer supplier. Franklin&rsquo;s first big move was hiring Avram Miller, former manager of Digital Equipment Corp. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/fear-and-loathing-on-the-unix-trail-76/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/fear-and-loathing-on-the-unix-trail-76/ Notes from the underground by Doug Merritt with Ken Arnold and Bob Toxen from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine It was 2 am and I was lying face down on the floor in Cory Hall, the EECS building on the UC Berkeley campus, waiting for Bob to finish installing our bootleg copy of the UNIX kernel. If successful, new and improved terminal drivers we had written would soon be up and running. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/fictional-computers-and-their-themes/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/fictional-computers-and-their-themes/ from the December 1962 issue of Computers and Automation A thoughtful and interesting look into the role of computers in the literature of fantasy and science fiction. Marcia Ascher Asst. Prof. of Math. and Physics Ithaca College Ithaca, N. Y. An editorial in a local newspaper (1) stated: &ldquo;We are just at the beginning of the computer age. Who (but a science fiction writer) would venture to predict what lies ahead? https://gitpi.us/article-archive/franklin-goes-chapter-11/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/franklin-goes-chapter-11/ from the August 1984 issue of Australian Micro Computerworld magazine Franklin Computer, maker of Apple-compatible computers, has filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the US Federal Bankruptcy Code. In a prepared statement, Franklin president, Morton David said the company was experiencing falling sales and a “strain in financial resources’. To date, the company has about $US33.9 million in assets and $US22.8 million in liabilities, a spokesperson said. The company owes significant sums to at least 20 unsecured creditors. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/freeware/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/freeware/ An Optimistic Approach to Software Piracy By Charles Bowen and J. Stewart Schneider from the January/February 1983 issue of TODAY magazine Fellow man. It&rsquo;s the kind of faith that, if contagious, could spawn a whole new kind of marketing in the microcomputer community. At a time when major software houses are spending tens of thousands of dollars in what some say is a futile effort to protect their programs against pirates, a man named Andrew Fluegelman gives his programs away. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-a-paper-boy-to-a-billion-dollars/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-a-paper-boy-to-a-billion-dollars/ Charles David Tandy: 1918-1978 from the June 1979 issue of Electronics Australia Charles David Tandy, founder of the huge Radio Shack and Tandy chain of electronic stores, died recently at the age of 60. Just before his death, he had seen his Company’s annual turnover nudge the billion dollar mark — no mean accomplishment for someone who, as a child, had experienced the rigours of the great depression. by NEVILLE WILLIAMS https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-the-fountainhead-april77/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-the-fountainhead-april77/ from the April 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine by Adam Osborne The first small signs of a long predicted shake out are beginning to appear among microprocessor manufacturers. The first two casualties are the Elecronic Arrays EA9002 and possibly the Rockwell PPS-8. The EA9002 simply took too long to develop. The smallest EA9002 system has three chips: The EA9002 CPU with read/write memory, external read only memory and I/O ports. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-the-fountainhead-may77/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/from-the-fountainhead-may77/ from the May 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine by Adam Osborne Now that the Intel 8085 and 8048 are here, IMSAI is going for these two products; IMSAI is not planning to offer a Z-80 CPU card. I wonder why the Z-80 and the Intel products have to be mutually exclusive? I have had a chance to examine the 8085 and the 8048— and I believe some intriguing user patterns are likely to emerge. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/grand-opening/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/grand-opening/ Sun and NeXT throw open the doors to industry-standard object-oriented computing from the February 1994 issue of NeXTWorld magazine by Lee Sherman NEXTSTEP running on millions of desktops with scalable performance that makes it the environment of choice for everything from low-end workstations to high-performance servers. It once seemed impossible. But the stunning announcement in November that found longtime competitors NeXT and Sun agreeing to combine forces in an attempt to push NEXTSTEP as the standard operating and development environment for object-oriented client-server systems has dramatically increased NEXTSTEP&rsquo;S chances of becoming entrenched in the enterprise, long before Taligent or Microsoft can even field a product. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/halo-hardware-to-top-mac-line/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/halo-hardware-to-top-mac-line/ by David Morgenstern from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Apple this year hopes to put an extra shine on its Macintosh product lines with Halo, a strategy that will aim models at specific market segments. Sources said the company will offer several high-performance configurations with limited availability. The Halo systems will reportedly offer the highest-­speed single or multiple processors available and will provide unique features via bundled PCI cards. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/happy-returns/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/happy-returns/ from the July 15, 1985 issue of ComputerWorld magazine by Mitch Betts The Internal Revenue Service is taking steps to ensure that this year’s computer fiascoes, which delayed the processing of tax returns for several weeks, will not happen again next year. According to IRS Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, the IRS plans to acquire additional computer capacity at IRS service centers, provide additional training for programmers and conduct a complete review of computer operations. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/how-to-choose-a-microprocessor/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/how-to-choose-a-microprocessor/ from the July 1978 issue of Byte magazine by Lou Frenzel - Heath Company - Benton Harbor Ml 49022 All personal and hobby computers are microprocessor based. That is, they use a single processor integrated circuit chip. One of the most important decisions you will ever make in purchasing a personal computer is choosing the type of microprocessor. The semiconductor manufacturers have provided computer designers with a wide range of microprocessing units having varying degrees of power and sophistication. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/how-will-the-giants-react-to-the-micro/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/how-will-the-giants-react-to-the-micro/ from the May 1982 issue of Practical Computing magazine The mainframe manufacturers are finding that microcomputers - so recently derided as mere toys - are making inroads into their hitherto safe preserves. Clare Gooding examines their contrasting styles, and ponders on how the giant mainframe builders will fare among the quick-witted bandits of the micro world. Time was when anyone working with computers had a hard time at social gatherings. If you were foolish enough to admit it, the reaction was either &ldquo;Oh that&rsquo;s all too technical for me, don&rsquo;t know anything about it&rdquo;, or worse, an inundation of stories about payroll computer errors and gas bills for £0. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/inside-os2/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/inside-os2/ by Vaughn Vernon from the December 1987 issue of Computer Language OS/2, Microsoft’s latest addition to its operating system line, could well become the operating system of the next decade for Intel 80286/80386 microcomputers. Its multitasking capabilities, full-featured application programming interface (API), and extendability to future hardware almost guarantee its success. Microsoft sees microcomputing as a platform for office automation hardware and software: The office of the future (regardless of a company’s structure and line of business) is envisioned as a place of personal and group productivity. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/iomega-to-shrink-disks-for-portable/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/iomega-to-shrink-disks-for-portable/ by John Poultney from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Iomega is spinning a new scheme for portable storage: 20MB floppy disks roughly half the size of business cards. The company has shown prototypes at Comdex/Fall in Las Vegas. The new N*hand disks will measure 48mm square and will incorporate floating read-write heads, much like Iomega&rsquo;s Zip drives. Positioning the products as OEM devices for portable electronics, Iomega said it envisions N*hand competing with flash­-memory PC cards, such as those used in digital cameras. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/irs-brings-up-6000-terminal-multiuser-unix-system/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/irs-brings-up-6000-terminal-multiuser-unix-system/ from the April 15, 1985 issue of ComputerWorld magazine by Bryan Wilkins It has taken four years to implement, but an AT&amp;T Unix-based distributed processing system is now being used by a branch of the Internal Revenue Service in its 10 offices. The project began in 1981 — before distributed processing in a multiuser environment was a popular concept — when IRS planners opted to implement such a system in 10 IRS branch offices. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/keeping-unix-in-its-place/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/keeping-unix-in-its-place/ An interview with Bob Marsh from the December 1984 issue of Unix Review magazine Many factors have contributed to the birth of a personal UNIX market but none has been more important than Onyx System&rsquo;s decision to introduce a UNIX-based micro in 1980. Bob Marsh, now chairman of Plexus Computers, made that decision. Chances are another company would have done the job sooner or later. But Marsh&rsquo;s timing was critical. The success of the Onyx product showed not only that a UNIX micro port was technically feasible but commercially viable. https://gitpi.us/page/link/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/page/link/ My Other Sites My author homepage My religion blog Games that I created Historical Tidbits newsletter Computer Ads from the Past newsletter My Github profile My Gitlab profile Tech Websites that I Write For It&rsquo;s FOSS It&rsquo;s FOSS News FOSSMint Klara Systems History of FreeBSD - Part 2: BSDi and USL Lawsuits History of FreeBSD - Part 3: Early Days of FreeBSD History of FreeBSD - Part 4: BSD and TCP/IP – How a Game Winning Team Was Formed FreeBSD Jails – Deep Dive into the Beginning of FreeBSD Containers Tracing the History of ARM and FreeBSD History of FreeBSD - Part 5: Net/1 and Net/2 – A Path to Freedom RISC-V: The New Architecture on the Block History of ZFS - Part 1: The Birth of ZFS and How it All Started History of ZFS - Part 2: Exploding in Popularity History of ZFS - Part 3: Heading Into the Future UNIX Wars – The Battle for Standards The Birth of UNIX If you found this article interesting, please share it on social media. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/making-sense-of-microsoft/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/making-sense-of-microsoft/ from the May 1, 1995 issue of MicroTimes magazine by Paul Hoffman It’s never any fun writing about the same subject two months in a row. However, the Microsoft stories have taken on a life of their own. Not as much of an unreal life as, say, the O.J. Simpson trial, but a life nonetheless. Last month’s news stories (about a federal judge overturning the consent decree between Microsoft and the Department of Justice, and Microsoft being sued by Apple) caused such a flurry of media coverage that Microsoft is now a story unto itself. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/may-the-forth-be-with-you/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/may-the-forth-be-with-you/ By Dan Azulay from the January 1984 issue of Electronic Fun with Comouters and Games magazine How this powerful language stacks up Those of you who have been driven to desperate acts because you&rsquo;ve mastered BASIC and feel there is nothing left in life, take heart There&rsquo;s always FORTH, a very fast, very efficient computer language that is rapidly becoming the language of professional programmers and game designers. If you&rsquo;re planning to go to computer camp this summer you may be surprised to learn that in addition to honing your BASIC skills to a fine edge you might be presented with a language you&rsquo;ve scarcely heard of—FORTH. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/next-mac-os-to-be-based-on-nextstep/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/next-mac-os-to-be-based-on-nextstep/ by Clifford Colby with Stephen Howard &amp; Kelly Ryer from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine On 20 December 1996 Apple announced it was buying NeXT Software for $US400 million and would use NeXTstep - NeXT&rsquo;s Unix-based operating system - as the underpinnings of its future operating system. The announcement ends all speculation that Apple might acquire Be for the same purpose. According to Ellen Hancock, Apple&rsquo;s chief technical officer, the company is commit­ted to releasing a beta version of the next-generation OS to select user sites and developers by the end of 1997. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/os-9-a-structured-operating-system/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/os-9-a-structured-operating-system/ by Mark G. Boyd from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine When something new comes along most of us tend to be conservative about giving up the familiar. A good example of this behavior is the use of structured programming languages on microcomputers. Languages like Pascal have been available to us for a couple of years; they are easier to program in and more efficient than BASIC. However, only a relative minority of microcomputer users have switched to a structured language, and none of the major manufacturers offer anything other than BASIC as standard equipment. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/pizza-parlor-computing/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/pizza-parlor-computing/ by Francine Sevel from the July 1983 issue of TODAY magazine Just the right touch of entertainment is often as much a part of a restaurant&rsquo;s charm as that secret recipe handed down from generation to generation. And, as time and technology have revolutionized every aspect of society, restaurants have had to keep pace. Even pizza parlors have not escaped the wheels of motion. Today&rsquo;s number one pizza chain not only has a full array of pizza selections: double cheese, thick vs. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/plauger-on-c/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/plauger-on-c/ from the June 1985 issue of Computer Language magazine By Craig LaGrow He calls himself a programmer at heart. But as an accomplished science fiction writer, president of a successful software company, technical book author, musician, and runner, P.J. Plauger is certainly a man of many talents. His friends and work associates know him as Bill — a name he was affectionately given by his older sister three days after his birth. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/plan-be/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/plan-be/ by Henry Bortman and Jeff Pittelkau from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine The Mac commnunity has been electrified by the announce1nent that Apple&rsquo;s next OS will be based on NeXTstep technologies. But, if this hybrid OS does not meet our expectations, Power Mac users will soon be able to use a third-party alternative: a strategy we dub &lsquo;Plan Be .&rsquo; Apple has its work cut out for itself. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/porting-to-os2/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/porting-to-os2/ from the November 1987 issue of PC Tech Journal magazine An inside look reveals how one company rapidly converted a complex data manager from DOS to the OS/2 environment. by Steven Armbrust When Microrim, Inc., became a beta site for IBM’s new Operating System/2 (OS/2) in late 1986, Microrim chairman and founder Wayne Erickson knew immediately what he and his staff had to do. Not only did they have to convert R:BASE System V, Microrim’s largest and most complex database manager, to run under OS/2, but the job had to be done in time to demonstrate a working product when IBM officially announced OS/2. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/prepare-to-enter-hypertext/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/prepare-to-enter-hypertext/ from the June 1, 1987 issue of MacWEEK by Michael Goodwin Why is Alan Boyd’s office like a hypertext document? Because it is hard to know where to look first. There is a high-powered Mac II work-alike (a Levco Prodigy with 4 Mbytes of RAM) driving a big, high-resolution screen displaying a complicated menu of a tour of the National Art Gallery. Next to that, a color TV monitor (displaying the Annunciation) is hooked to a videodisc player. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/rhapsody-in-blue/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/rhapsody-in-blue/ by Richard Foxworthy, Editor from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine By now, most readers will have heard the news - Gil Amelio and the crew at Apple Computer spent their Christmas break writing large cheques - totalling $US400 million - to acquire NeXT Software, the company launched by original Apple co-founder Steve Jobs after losing a 1985 power struggle with then Apple CEO John Sculley. In a twist that will delight many and horrify some, Steve Jobs himself - the single person most responsible for the Macintosh - is part of the deal. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/riscy-business/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/riscy-business/ from the December 1985 issue of Australian Personal Computer The Reduced Instruction Set Processor (RISC) era has begun, albeit quietly, and working examples are now appearing on the market. Dick Pountain examines three such processors. What exactly is a RISC, and why is it a good thing? A reduced instruction set processor, as the name suggests, is one which can execute only a small number of different instructions, compared to the prevailing standards of the day. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/so-you-want-to-write-a-computer-game/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/so-you-want-to-write-a-computer-game/ from the March/April 1982 issue of Computer Gaming World magazine by Chris Crawford You&rsquo;ve had your computer for some time now. You&rsquo;ve used it to teach yourself how to program and to handle a few household problems. You&rsquo;ve also used it to play games. You have noticed that many of the games available for your computer are less than perfect. Soon you begin finding the technical flaws in them, and modifying some of them. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/software-developers-stear-clear-of-ibm-at/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/software-developers-stear-clear-of-ibm-at/ from the July 15, 1985 issue of ComputerWorld magazine by Edward Warner Although the IBM Personal Computer AT was greeted by the cheers of corporate users craving speed for their spreadsheets, the machine holds other potential, particularly the ability to run programs in up to 16M bytes of random-access memory (RAM). That potential remains largely untapped, and the situation may not change anytime soon because many important software firms have held off on developing packages specifically for the AT. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/sol-the-inside-story/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/sol-the-inside-story/ from the July 1977 issue of ROM Magazine by Lee Felsenstein &ldquo;I designed the Sol!&rdquo; These words are made to be spoken from a pinnacle of technical authority, preferably by a gimlet-eyed Herr Doktor who pursues exact solutions to the nineteenth decimal place and who reigns over a limitless sea of subordinates slaving away over rows of drafting boards. Or they could come from a furry little gopherlike creature with a piece of string for a belt who sleeps all day and occasionally surfaces to deposit a few dog-eared pages of scrawled diagrams with his custodians. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-business-evolution-of-the-unix-system/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-business-evolution-of-the-unix-system/ by Otis Wilson from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine Thanks to the developers of the UNIX operating system, and to the research method at AT&amp;T Bell Laboratories, the technical evolution of the UNIX System has been well documented and its history largely understood. From a technical perspective, there just isn’t much argument about who did what when and why things were done the way they were. On the other hand, the &ldquo;business” history of the UNIX system is largely an oral one, rich in folklore and popularized by the modem press in hopes of finding some explanation for the phenomenon that is the UNIX system. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-evolution-of-c/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-evolution-of-c/ by Bill Tuthill from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine C is descended from B, which was descended from BCPL. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) was developed in 1967 by Martin Richards. B was an interpretive language written in 1970 by Ken Thompson (1) after he abandoned a Fortran implementation for the PDP-7. BCPL and B were typeless languages, which may account for the type permissiveness of C. They restricted their scope to machine words and were rather low level. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-genesis-story/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-genesis-story/ By August Mohr from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine This is, so to speak, a history of how UNIX evolved as a product; not the &ldquo;official&rdquo; history of who was responsible for what features, and what year which milestones were crossed, but the &ldquo;political&rdquo; history of how decision were made and what motivated the people involved. Most of the readers of this mazagine are familiar with the system itself, so I don&rsquo;t want to go into great detail about how the system got to be what it is internally, but rather how it how it got to be at all. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-history-of-cpm/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/the-history-of-cpm/ by Gary A. Kildall from the January 1980 issue of Dr. Dobb&rsquo;s Journal 1973&hellip; I was sitting quietly at my desk when Masatoshi Shima hurried into my office at Intel and asked me to follow him to his laboratory down the hall. In the middle of his work bench, among the typical snaggle of jumpers, oscilloscopes and multimeters, sat a binocular microscope with spider-leg probes, all of which were subjecting a minute piece of silicon to help­less investigation. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/unix-at-25/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/unix-at-25/ from the October 1994 issue of Byte magazine by PETER H. SALUS New Jersey, in the muggy summer of 1969, was the birthplace of Unix. It was born out of the frustration that resulted when AT&amp;T&rsquo;s BTL (Bell Telephone Labs) withdrew from the Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) project, a joint attempt by BTL, General Electric, and MIT to create an operating system for a large computer accommodating up to a thousand simultaneous users. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/victor-victorious/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/victor-victorious/ from the November 1982 issue of Byte magazine by Phil Lemmons Microcomputers are proliferating because they can do so many tasks so well. Each time microcomputers take over another task, they threaten some old technology. As word processors, for example, microcomputers threaten the typewriter. As number crunchers, microcomputers threaten the calculator. Each company whose main product is threatened faces a hard choice: perish or become a computer company. What&rsquo;s more, such a company must make the right computer on the first try because the fierce competition in the microcomputer market gives few entrants a second chance. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/wayne-wilson-the-australian-who-invented-concurrency/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/wayne-wilson-the-australian-who-invented-concurrency/ from the September 1984 issue of Australian Personal Computer magazine Wayne Wilson, of Blacktown ts a little-known Australian hi-tech hero. He invented the concurrency concept that Australians now buy back from Microsoft and Digital Research. “We also had multi-user before Digital Research, and were the first to offer CP/M windowing&quot; claims Wilson, and his partner, Roger Jones, who were also first to offer 8 and 16 bit running together. You&rsquo;d think the world would beat a path to the door of AED (Acoustic Electronic Developments) unfashionably-located Blacktown Sydney factory door. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/welcome-to-basic/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/welcome-to-basic/ from the April 1986 issue of PCM By Richard A. White An important question these days is what is BASIC&rsquo;s place in the world of microcomputing? Over the past few years the IBM PC and its compatibles have arrived, followed by a vast outpouring of software of every description. Each machine comes with a BASIC language interpreter on its DOS disk. It is likely that only a small percentage of these interpreters have been loaded for the purpose of doing programming. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/why-apple-pulled-the-plug/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/why-apple-pulled-the-plug/ by Galen Gruman from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine How quickly the dream died. In December 1994, Apple ended its Macintosh monopoly, giving Power Computing and Radius licenses to make their own Macs. With Wtndows 95 on the horizon and the success of an Intel/Microsoft duopoly clear, Apple&rsquo;s leaders and the industry saw a chance for the Mac market to gain a new level of competitiveness, flexibility, and innovation. https://gitpi.us/article-archive/will-the-real-ai-language-please-stand-up/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://gitpi.us/article-archive/will-the-real-ai-language-please-stand-up/ by Harvey Newquist III from the July 1987 issue of Computer Language Artificial intelligence is perhaps the most overused—and abused—buzzword in the current age of computer science. The AI arena has been divided into several factions, all of which help distort its real benefits and potentials. On the one hand we have the popular business media, which has billed AI as everything from the greatest creation since sliced bread to a worthless endeavor perpetuated by computer hucksters.