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Dick Smith Super-80 Computer
The Dick Smith Super-80 was a Zilog Z80 based kit computer developed as a joint venture between Electronics Australia magazine and Dick Smith Electronics. It was presented as a series of construction articles in Electronics Australia magazine's August, September and October 1981 issues. Electronics Australia had published a number of computer projects before the Super-80, including the EDUC-8 in 1974, the Mini Scamp and the DREAM 6800 Video Computer. The computer was sold as a "short form" kit for A$ 289.50. For this, the purchaser received the computer PCB, an assembly manual (a copy of the construction articles from Electronics Australia) and basic components, including 16kB of RAM and a 2kB EPROM containing a machine code monitor program. The technical manual and power transformer were sold separately, as were a kit of I.C. sockets, a BASIC interpreter program and from mid-1982 onwards, a metal case to house the computer. The computer proved to be a popular construc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronics Australia
''Electronics Australia'' or ''EA'' was Australia's longest-running general electronics magazine. It was based in Chippendale, New South Wales. Publication history It can claim to trace its history to 1922 when the '' Wireless Weekly'' magazine was formed. Its content was a mix of general and technical articles on the new topic of radio. In April 1939 the magazine became monthly and was renamed ''Radio and Hobbies''. As its name suggests, it was a more technical publication for hobbyists, but it also featured articles on television, optics, music and aviation. Nonetheless its base was radio, and it contained many how-to-build projects. The first editor was John Moyle, from 1947 to 1960. With the advent of television, television was added to its title in February 1955, ''Radio Television & Hobbies'', or RTV&H. During these years numerous how-to-build articles on high fidelity audio, amateur radio and even electronic organs and television sets were published. The growing f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asynchronous Serial Communication
Asynchronous serial communication is a form of serial communication in which the communicating endpoints' interfaces are not continuously synchronized by a common clock signal. Instead of a common synchronization signal, the data stream contains synchronization information in form of start and stop signals, before and after each unit of transmission, respectively. The start signal prepares the receiver for arrival of data and the stop signal resets its state to enable triggering of a new sequence. A common kind of start-stop transmission is ASCII over RS-232, for example for use in teletypewriter operation. Origin Mechanical teleprinters using 5-bit codes (see Baudot code) typically used a stop period of 1.5 bit times.Dead link: 2015-Oct-03 Very early electromechanical teletypewriters (pre-1930) could require 2 stop bits to allow mechanical impression without buffering. Hardware which does not support fractional stop bits can communicate with a device that uses 1.5 bit time ... [...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/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. 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. The combination of CP/M and S-100 bus computers became an early standard in the microcomputer industry. This computer platform was widely used in business through the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s. CP/M increased the market size for both hardware and software by greatly reducing the amount of programming required to install an application on a new manufacturer's computer. An important driver of software innovation was the advent of (comparatively) low-cost microcomputers running CP/M, as independent programmers and hackers bought them and shared their crea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk Format
Floppy disk format and density refer to the logical and physical layout of data stored on a floppy disk. Since their introduction, there have been many popular and rare floppy disk types, densities, and formats used in computing, leading to much confusion over their differences. In the early 2000s, most floppy disk types and formats became obsolete, leaving the -inch disk, using an IBM PC compatible format of 1440 KB, as the only remaining popular format. Different floppy disk types had different recording characteristics, with varying magnetic coercivity (measured in oersteds, or in modern SI units in amperes per meter), ferrite grain size, and tracks per inch (TPI). TPI was not a part of the physical manufacturing process; it was a certification of how closely tracks of data could be spaced on the medium safely. The term density has a double meaning for floppy disks. Originally, single density and double density indicated a difference in logical encoding on the same t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk Controller
A floppy-disk controller (FDC) has evolved from a discrete set of components on one or more circuit boards to a special-purpose integrated circuit (IC or "chip") or a component thereof. An FDC directs and controls reading from and writing to a computer's floppy disk drive (FDD). The FDC is responsible for reading data presented from the host computer and converting it to the drive's on-disk format using one of a number of encoding schemes, like FM encoding (single density) or MFM encoding (double density), and reading those formats and returning it to its original binary values. Depending on the platform, data transfers between the controller and host computer would be controlled by the computer's own microprocessor, or an inexpensive dedicated microprocessor like the MOS 6507 or Zilog Z80. Early controllers required additional circuitry to perform specific tasks like providing clock signals and setting various options. Later designs included more of this functionality on t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology products, including data storage devices, data center systems and cloud storage service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...s. Western Digital has a long history in the electronics industry as an integrated circuit maker and a storage products company. It is one of the largest computer hard disk drive manufacturers, along with producing solid state drives and flash memory devices. Its competitors include the data management and storage companies Seagate Technology and Micron Technology. History 1970s Western Digital was founded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch and then the 3½-inch became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare to non-existent. Some individuals and organizations continue to use older equipment to read or transfer data from floppy disks. Floppy disk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Users' Group
A users' group (also user's group or user group) is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually (but not always) computer-related. Overview Users' groups started in the early days of mainframe computers, as a way to share sometimes hard-won knowledge and useful software, usually written by end users independently of the vendor-supplied programming efforts. SHARE, a user group originated by aerospace industry corporate users of IBM mainframe computers, was founded in 1955 and is the oldest computer user group still active. DECUS, the DEC User's Society, was founded in 1961 and its descendant organization, Connect Worldwide, still operates. The Computer Measurement Group (CMG) was founded in 1974 by systems professionals with a common interest in (mainframe) capacity management, and continues today with a much broader mission. The first UNIX users' group organized in 1978. Users' groups began to proliferate with the microcomputer revolution of the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microbee
MicroBee (or Micro Bee) was a series of networkable home computers by Applied Technology, which became publicly listed company MicroBee Systems Limited soon after its release. The original Microbee computer was designed in Australia by a team including Owen HillSecret of project Granny Smith By Gordon Laing, July 12, 2005 - theage.com.au and Matthew Starr. The MicroBee's most distinctive features are its user configurable video display (capable of mimicking the displays of other computers and devices including the TRS-80, Sorcerer and SOL20 with later colour and graphic models 40 and 80 column terminals, Super-80, ZX Spectrum, early arcade machines, Amstrad CPC 464) and its battery backed non-volatile RAM and small size allowing it to be powered off, transpor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Applied Technology
Applied science is the use of the scientific method and knowledge obtained via conclusions from the method to attain practical goals. It includes a broad range of disciplines such as engineering and medicine. Applied science is often contrasted with basic science, which is focused on advancing scientific theories and laws that explain and predict events in the natural world. Applied science can also apply formal science, such as statistics and probability theory, as in epidemiology. Genetic epidemiology is an applied science applying both biological and statistical methods. Applied research Applied research is the practical application of science. It accesses and uses accumulated theories, knowledge, methods, and techniques, for a specific state-, business-, or client-driven purpose. Applied Research can be better understood in any area when contrasting it with, basic, or pure, research. Basic geography research strives to create new theories and methods that aid in the expla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CRTC6845
The Motorola 6845, or MC6845, is a display controller that was widely used in 8-bit computers during the 1980s. Originally intended for designs based on the Motorola 6800 CPU and given a related part number, it was more widely used alongside various other processors, and was most commonly found in machines based on the Zilog Z80 and MOS 6502. The 6845 is not an entire display solution on its own; the chip's main function is to properly time access to the display memory, and to calculate the memory address of the next portion to be drawn. Other circuitry in the machine then uses the address provided by the 6845 to fetch the pattern and then draw it. The implementation of that hardware is entirely up to the designer and varied widely among machines. The 6845 is intended for character displays, but could also be used for pixel-based graphics, with some clever programming. Among its better-known uses is the BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC, and Videx VideoTerm display cards for the Apple I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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