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Micropro
MicroPro International Corporation was an American software company founded in 1978 in San Rafael, California. They are best known as the publisher of WordStar, a popular early word processor for personal computers. History Founding and early success Seymour I. Rubinstein was an employee of early microcomputer company IMSAI, where he negotiated software contracts with Digital Research and Microsoft. After leaving IMSAI, Rubinstein planned to start his own software company that would sell through the new network of retail computer stores. He founded MicroPro International Corporation in September 1978 and hired John Robbins Barnaby as programmer, who wrote a word processor, WordMaster, and a sorting program, SuperSort, in Intel 8080 assembly language. After Rubinstein obtained a report that discussed the abilities of contemporary standalone word processors from IBM, Xerox, and Wang Laboratories, Barnaby enhanced WordMaster with similar features and support for the CP/M operating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 is Intel's second 8-bit computing, 8-bit microprocessor. Introduced in April 1974, the 8080 was an enhanced successor to the earlier Intel 8008 microprocessor, although without binary compatibility.'' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspaper. The same advertisement appeared in the :File:Intel 8080 Advertisement May 1974.jpg, May 2, 1974, issue of ''Electronics'' magazine. Originally intended for use in Embedded system, embedded systems such as calculators, cash registers, computer terminals, and industrial robots, its robust performance soon led to adoption in a broader range of systems, ultimately helping to launch the microcomputer industry. Several key design choices contributed to the 8080’s success. Its 40‑pin package simplified interfacing compared to the 8008’s 18‑pin design, enabling a more efficient data bus. The transition to NMOS logic, NMOS technology provided faster transistor speeds than the 8008's PMOS logic, PMOS while also simplifyin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB). Microcomputers became popular in the 1970s and 1980s with the advent of increasingly powerful microprocessors. The predecessors to these computers, mainframes and minicomputers, were comparatively much larger and more expensive (though indeed present-day mainframes such as the IBM System z machines use one or more custom microprocessors as their CPUs). Many microcomputers (when equipped with a keyboard and screen for input and output) are also personal computers (in the generic sense). An early use of the term "personal computer" in 1962 predates microprocessor-based designs. ''(See "Personal Computer: Computers at Companies" reference below)''. A "microcomputer" used as an embedded control system may have no human-readable input and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team of engineers and designers at IBM, International Business Machines (IBM), directed by William C. Lowe and Philip Don Estridge in Boca Raton, Florida. Powered by an x86-architecture Intel 8088 processor, the machine was based on open architecture and third-party peripherals. Over time, expansion cards and software technology increased to support it. The PC had influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market, a substantial influence on the personal computer market; the specifications of the IBM PC became one of the most popular computer design standards in the world. The only significant competition it faced from a non-compatible platform throughout the 1980s was from Apple Inc., Apple's Maci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Personal Computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC game, gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with computers. While personal computer users may develop their applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software ("freeware"), which i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CP/M
CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/Intel 8085, 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Digital Research, Inc. CP/M is a disk operating system and its purpose is to organize files on a magnetic storage medium, and to load and run programs stored on a disk. Initially confined to single-tasking on 8-bit processors and no more than 64 kilobytes of memory, later versions of CP/M added multi-user variations and were migrated to 16-bit processors. CP/M's core components are the ''Basic Input/Output System'' (BIOS), the ''Basic Disk Operating System'' (BDOS), and the ''Console Command Processor'' (CCP). The BIOS consists of drivers that deal with devices and system hardware. The BDOS implements the file system and provides system services to applications. The CCP is the command-line interpreter and provides some built-in commands. CP ... [...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] |
Samna
Samna was a competitor to WordStar and MultiMate in the DOS market for word processors in the 1980s. Based in large part on the look and feel of the Lanier enterprise word processing system's software, Samna was targeted at businesses who had used the Lanier system but were interested in moving to lower-cost PC-based word processing. Samna was developed and published by Samna Corp., an Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.-based computer software company that was bought by Lotus Software in November 1990 for $65 million USD. Samna is also the developer of Ami and Ami Professional word processors. Overview Samna had many strengths, but was regularly criticized in reviews over speed issues. Even before GUI environments like Windows, it pioneered treating the empty editing screen as a 'scratchpad', that is, a space that you could cursor into, placing a character or other entry anywhere at will on a printable page. In WordPerfect and Word, and virtually all other editors of that period, territo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assembly Language
In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence between the instructions in the language and the architecture's machine code instructions. Assembly language usually has one statement per machine instruction (1:1), but constants, comments, assembler directives, symbolic labels of, e.g., memory locations, registers, and macros are generally also supported. The first assembly code in which a language is used to represent machine code instructions is found in Kathleen and Andrew Donald Booth's 1947 work, ''Coding for A.R.C.''. Assembly code is converted into executable machine code by a utility program referred to as an '' assembler''. The term "assembler" is generally attributed to Wilkes, Wheeler and Gill in their 1951 book '' The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Dig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Initial Public Offering
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as ''floating'', or ''going public'', a privately held company is transformed into a public company. Initial public offerings can be used to raise new equity capital for companies, to monetize the investments of private shareholders such as company founders or private equity investors, and to enable easy trading of existing holdings or future capital raising by becoming publicly traded. After the IPO, shares are traded freely in the open market at what is known as the free float. Stock exchanges stipulate a minimum free float both in absolute terms (the total value as determined by the share price multiplied ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaypro
Kaypro Corporation was an American home and personal computer manufacturer based in Solana Beach, California, in the 1980s. The company was founded by Non-Linear Systems (NLS) to compete with the popular Osborne 1 portable microcomputer. Kaypro produced a line of rugged, luggable CP/M-based computers sold with an extensive software bundle which supplanted its competitors and quickly became one of the top-selling personal computer lines of the early 1980s. Kaypro was exceptionally loyal to its original customer base but slow to adapt to the changing computer market and the advent of IBM PC compatible technology. It faded from the mainstream before the end of the decade and was eventually forced into bankruptcy in 1992. History Kaypro began as Non-Linear Systems (NLS), a maker of electronic test equipment, founded in 1952 by Andrew Kay, the inventor of the digital voltmeter. In the 1970s, NLS was an early adopter of microprocessor technology, which enhanced the flexibility of pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sperry Corporation
Sperry Corporation was a major American equipment and electronics company whose existence spanned more than seven decades of the 20th century. Sperry ceased to exist in 1986 following a prolonged hostile takeover bid engineered by Burroughs Corporation, which merged the combined operation under the new name Unisys. Some of Sperry's former divisions became part of Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, and Northrop Grumman. The company is best known as the developer of the artificial horizon and a wide variety of other gyroscope-based aviation instruments like autopilots, bombsights, analog ballistics computers and gyro gunsights. In the post-WWII era the company branched out into electronics, both aviation-related, and later, computers. The company was founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry. History Early history The company was incorporated on April 14 1910 by Elmer Ambrose Sperry as the Sperry Gyroscope Company, to manufacture navigation equipment—chief ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rosen Electronics Letter
Benjamin "Ben" M. Rosen (born March 11, 1933) is the former chairman and former acting chief executive officer of Compaq and a co-founder of Sevin Rosen Funds. Early life Rosen was born to a Jewish family in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 11, 1933, to Isadore and Anna Rosen. Rosen's father was a dentist and his mother was a secretary. "Benji" as he was called, was the youngest of his parents' three children. He received a B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1954, and M.S. from Stanford University in 1955, and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School in 1961. Career He worked on Wall Street for 15 years, ending his career as a Senior Technology Analyst and Vice President at Morgan Stanley. Sevin Rosen Funds Rosen co-founded the venture capital company Sevin Rosen Funds in 1981 with L. J. Sevin. In this capacity, Rosen invested in Compaq Computer Corporation in 1981, eventually serving as Chairman for 18 years. For four months in 1999, Rosen also served as Ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
