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Indus GT
The Indus GT is a -inch floppy disk drive that was introduced by Indus Systems in 1983 for the Atari 8-bit family. It was later released for the Apple II and Commodore 64. On the Atari, it was widely regarded as the best drive of the era, with the most features, highest performance, and even best industrial design. They were known for the advertising slogan, "Turn your Atari into a Ferrari". The GT was sold until around 1987, at which point the rights were sold to Logical Design Works and reintroduced as the LDW Super 2000, sold primarily into Poland, and the CA-2001, sold into the US. The GT drive is housed in a black metal case and the opening in the front for the floppy was covered by a flip-open smoked plexiglass door that makes the unit look completely sealed when closed. A two-digit seven-segment LED display is on the face of the unit behind the door, but remains readable even with the door closed. Buttons beside the display allow the user to select among track number, mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk Drive
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 disks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Programmable Array Logic
Programmable Array Logic (PAL) is a family of programmable logic device semiconductors used to implement logic functions in digital circuits introduced by Monolithic Memories, Inc. (MMI) in March 1978. Introductory advertisement on PAL (Programmable Array Logic). MMI obtained a registered trademark on the term PAL for use in "Programmable Semiconductor Logic Circuits". The trademark is currently held by Lattice Semiconductor.Monolithic Memories, Inc (MMI) filed for a work mark on the term "PAL" for use in "Programmable Semiconductor Logic Circuits" on April 13, 1978. A registered trademark was granted on April 29, 1980, registration number 1134025. MMI's first use of the term PAL in commerce was on February 21, 1978. The trademark is currently held by Lattice Semiconductor Corporation of Hillsboro, Oregon. Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office online database. PAL devices consisted of a small PROM (programmable read-only memory) core and additional output logic used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore 1541
The Commodore 1541 (also known as the CBM 1541 and VIC-1541) is a floppy disk drive which was made by Commodore International for the Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore's most popular home computer. The best-known floppy disk drive for the C64, the 1541 is a single-sided 170-kilobyte drive for 5¼" disks. The 1541 directly followed the Commodore 1540 (meant for the VIC-20). The disk drive uses group coded recording (GCR) and contains a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, doubling as a disk controller and on-board disk operating system (DOS) processor. The number of sectors per track varies from 17 to 21 (an early implementation of zone bit recording). The drive's built-in disk operating system is CBM DOS 2.6. History Introduction The 1541 was priced at under at its introduction. A C64 plus a 1541 cost about $900, while an Apple II with no disk drive cost $1,295. The first 1541 drives produced in 1982 have a label on the front reading VIC-1541 and have an off-white case to m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari SIO
The Serial Input/Output system, universally known as SIO, was a proprietary peripheral bus and related software protocol stacks used on the Atari 8-bit family to provide most input/output duties for those computers. Unlike most I/O systems of the era, such as RS-232, SIO included a lightweight protocol that allowed multiple devices to be attached to a single daisy-chained port that supported dozens of devices. It also supported plug-and-play operations. SIO's designer, Joe Decuir, credits his work on the system as the basis of USB. SIO was developed in order to allow expansion without using internal card slots as in the Apple II, due to problems with the FCC over radio interference. This required it to be fairly flexible in terms of device support. Devices that used the SIO interface included printers, floppy disk drives, cassette decks, modems and expansion boxes. Some devices had ROM based drivers that were copied to the host computer when booted allowing new devices to be suppo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 1050
The Atari 1050 was a floppy disk drive for the Atari 8-bit family home computers, released in June 1983. It was compatible with the 90 kB single-density mode of the original Atari 810 it replaced, and added a new "enhanced" or "dual density" mode that provided 130 kB. Based on a half-height Tandon mechanism, it was much smaller than the 810 and matched the styling of the new 600XL and 800XL machines. By the time it was available, a wide variety of third party drives had been introduced for the 8-bit platform, many of which were faster and offered true double-density support for 180 kB. The lack of double-density support on the 1050 was a mystery to onlookers at the time, as the hardware had full support for this format. The launch was further marred by releasing it with the older Atari DOS 2.0S, S for "single", which did not support the 130 kB capacity. Atari replaced 2.0 with DOS 3.0 which supported the enhanced density mode, but used an entirely new format t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari DOS
Atari DOS is the disk operating system used with the Atari 8-bit family of computers. Operating system extensions loaded into memory were required in order for an Atari computer to manage files stored on a disk drive. These extensions to the operating system added the disk handler and other file management features. The most important extension is the disk handler. In Atari DOS 2.0, this was the File Management System (FMS), an implementation of a file system loaded from a floppy disk. This meant at least an additional RAM was needed to run with DOS loaded. Versions There were several versions of Atari DOS available, with the first version released in 1979. Atari was using a w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optimized Systems Software
Optimized Systems Software (OSS) was a company that produced disk operating systems, programming languages with integrated development environments, and applications primarily for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. OSS was best known for their enhanced versions of Atari BASIC and the MAC/65 assembler, both of which are much faster than Atari's products, and the Action! programming language. OSS also sold some products for the Apple II. OSS transitioned to 16-bit platforms with Personal Pascal for the Atari ST and Personal Prolog for Macintosh (which was also advertised for the Atari ST, but may not have been released). OSS was not as significant in those markets. History Optimized Systems Software was formed in early 1981 by Bill Wilkinson, Mike Peters, Paul Laughton, and Kathleen O'Brien. Laughton, the primary author of Atari BASIC, was still employed by Atari, Inc. at the time, and had permission to be involved with OSS from his manager. O'Brien wrote the Atari As ... [...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] |
Random Access Memory
Random-access memory (RAM; ) is a form of computer memory that can be read and changed in any order, typically used to store working Data (computing), data and machine code. A Random access, random-access memory device allows data items to be read (computer), read or written in almost the same amount of time irrespective of the physical location of data inside the memory, in contrast with other direct-access data storage media (such as hard disks, CD-RWs, DVD-RWs and the older Magnetic tape data storage, magnetic tapes and drum memory), where the time required to read and write data items varies significantly depending on their physical locations on the recording medium, due to mechanical limitations such as media rotation speeds and arm movement. RAM contains multiplexer, multiplexing and demultiplexing circuitry, to connect the data lines to the addressed storage for reading or writing the entry. Usually more than one bit of storage is accessed by the same address, and RAM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 8-bit Family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 central processing unit, CPU at and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, with one developer eventually also co-patenting USB. While using the same internal technology, the Atari 800 was sold as a high-end model, while the 400 was more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog Z80
The Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog as the startup company's first product. The Z80 was conceived by Federico Faggin in late 1974 and developed by him and his 11 employees starting in early 1975. The first working samples were delivered in March 1976, and it was officially introduced on the market in July 1976. With the revenue from the Z80, the company built its own chip factories and grew to over a thousand employees over the following two years. The Zilog Z80 is a software-compatible extension and enhancement of the Intel 8080 and, like it, was mainly aimed at embedded systems. Although used in that role, the Z80 also became one of the most widely used CPUs in desktop computers and home computers from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. It was also common in military applications, musical equipment such as synthesizers (like the Roland Jupiter-8), and coin-operated arcade games of the late 1970s and early 1980s, including '' Pac-Man''. Zilog licensed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Digital 2797
The FD1771, sometimes WD1771, is the first in a line of floppy disk controllers produced by Western Digital. It uses single density FM encoding introduced in the IBM 3740. It is packaged in a 40-pin DIP."The FD1771 is a single-chip floppy disk formatter/controller that interfaces with most available disk drives and virtually all types of computers." The FD1771 was announced on July 19, 1976, and sold for $60 each in lots of 100. Later models in the series added support for MFM encoding and increasingly added onboard circuitry that formerly had to be implemented in external components. Originally packaged as 40-pin dual in-line package (DIP) format, later models moved to a 28-pin format that further lowered implementation costs. Derivatives The FD1771 was succeeded by many derivatives that were mostly software-compatible: *The FD1781 was designed for double density, but required external modulation and demodulation circuitry, so it could support MFM, M2FM, GCR or other ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
