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John A. Postley
John Appel Postley (November 29, 1924, Scarsdale, New York – August 1, 2004, Los Angeles, California) was an American entrepreneur. He is recognized as one of the founders of the computer software industry and creator of the first computer software products, Mark IV. Mark IV pioneered the concept and business model of software as a product and became the earliest successful example of that model. In conjunction with Mark IV, Postley was responsible for the creation of the first software users' group, the "IV League", and the first Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIGBDP, for business data processing). Early life Postley graduated from UCLA in 1945 with a degree in mathematics. Career Introduction to computers In 1948 he became the first employee of the UCLA Institute for Numerical Analysis where he helped to build SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer), the second ever computer (after ENIAC), which was dedicated on August 17, 1950. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert M
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' () "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown, godlike" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin.Reaney & Wilson, 1997. ''Dictionary of English Surnames''. Oxford University Press. It is also in use as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe, the name entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WordStar
WordStar is a discontinued word processor application for microcomputers. It was published by MicroPro International and originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system (OS), with later editions added for MS-DOS and other 16-bit computing, 16-bit PC OSes. Rob Barnaby was the sole author of the early versions of the program. Starting with WordStar 4.0, the program was built on new code written principally by Peter Mierau. WordStar dominated the market in the early and mid-1980s, succeeding the market leader Electric Pencil. WordStar was written with as few assumptions as possible about the operating system and machine hardware, allowing it to be easily ported across the many platforms that proliferated in the early 1980s. Because all of these versions had relatively similar commands and controls, users could move between platforms with equal ease. It was already popular when its inclusion with the Osborne 1 portable computer made the program the ''de facto'' standard for mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Spectra 70
The RCA Spectra 70 is a line of mainframe computers and related electronic data processing (EDP) equipment that was manufactured by the Radio Corporation of America’s computer division beginning in April 1965. The Spectra 70 line included several CPU models, various configurations of core memory, mass-storage devices, terminal equipment, and a variety of specialized interface equipment. The system architecture and instruction set were largely compatible with the non-privileged instruction set of the IBM System/360, including use of the EBCDIC character set. While this degree of compatibility made some interchange of programs and data possible, differences in the operating system software precluded transparent movement of programs between the two systems. Competition in the mainframe market was fierce, and in 1971 the company sold the computer division and the Spectra 70 line to Sperry Rand, taking a huge write down in the process. System overview Five models of the Spec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM System/360
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applications and a complete range of applications from small to large. The design distinguished between architecture and implementation, allowing IBM to release a suite of compatible designs at different prices. All but the only partially compatible Model 44 and the most expensive systems use microcode to implement the instruction set, featuring 8-bit byte addressing and fixed-point binary, fixed-point decimal and hexadecimal floating-point calculations. The System/360 family introduced IBM's Solid Logic Technology (SLT), which packed more transistors onto a circuit card, allowing more powerful but smaller computers. System/360's chief architect was Gene Amdahl, and the project was managed by Fred Brooks, responsible to Chairman Thomas J. Wat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BUNCH
The BUNCH was the nickname for the group of mainframe computer competitors of IBM in the 1970s. The name is derived from the names of the five companies: Burroughs, UNIVAC, NCR, Control Data Corporation (CDC), and Honeywell. These companies were grouped together because the market share of IBM was much higher than all of its competitors put together. During the 1960s, IBM and these five computer manufacturers, along with RCA and General Electric, had been known as "IBM and the Seven Dwarfs". The description of IBM's competitors changed after GE's 1970 sale of its computer business to Honeywell and RCA's 1971 sale of its computer business to Sperry (who owned UNIVAC), leaving only five "dwarves". The companies' initials thus lent themselves to a new acronym, BUNCH. International Data Corporation estimated in 1984 that BUNCH would receive less than $2 billion of an estimated $11.4 billion in mainframe computer sales that year, with IBM receiving most of the remainder. IBM so domi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intellectual Property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets. The modern concept of intellectual property developed in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. The term "intellectual property" began to be used in the 19th century, though it was not until the late 20th century that intellectual property became commonplace in most of the world's List of national legal systems, legal systems."property as a common descriptor of the field probably traces to the foundation of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) by the United Nations." in Mark A. Lemley''Property, Intellectual Property, and Free Riding'', Texas Law Review, 2005, Vol. 83:1031, page 1033, footnote 4. Supporters of intellectual property laws often describe their main purpose as encouragin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Copyright Protection
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States and fair dealings doctrine in the United Kingdom. Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights normally include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution. Copyrights can be granted by publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Copyright Office
The United States Copyright Office (USCO), a part of the Library of Congress, is a United States government body that registers copyright claims, records information about copyright ownership, provides information to the public, and assists Congress and other parts of the government on a wide range of copyright issues.Overview . United States Copyright Office. Retrieved on September 8, 2023. It maintains online records of copyright registration and recorded documents within the copyright catalog, which is used by copyright title researchers who are attempting to clear a [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informatics General
Informatics General Corporation, earlier known as Informatics, Inc., was an American computer software company in existence from 1962 through 1985 and based in Los Angeles, California. It made a variety of software products, and was especially known for its Mark IV file management and report generation product for IBM mainframes, which became the best-selling corporate packaged software product of its time. It also ran computer service bureaus and sold turnkey systems to specific industries. By the mid-1980s Informatics had revenues of near $200 million and over 2,500 employees. Computer historian Martin Campbell-Kelly, in his 2003 volume ''From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry'', considers Informatics to be an exemplar of the independent, middle-sized software development firms of its era, and the Computer History Museum as well as the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota have conducted a number of oral histori ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American Aerospace engineering, aerospace engineer, business magnate, film producer, and investor. He was The World's Billionaires, one of the richest and most influential people in the world during his lifetime. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness. As a film tycoon, Hughes gained fame in Hollywood beginning in the late 1920s, when he produced big-budget and often controversial films such as ''The Racket (1928 film), The Racket'' (1928), ''Hell's Angels (film), Hell's Angels'' (1930), and ''Scarface (1932 film), Scarface'' (1932). He later acquired the RKO Pictures film studio in 1948, recognized then as one ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
