Kitchen Table International
Kitchen Table International was a fictitious computer company created as a faux amalgam of Radio Shack, Apple Inc., Commodore Business Machines, and other organizations of the time, and was the subject of one of the earliest regular computer humor columns, appearing in Wayne Green's 80 Micro magazine from January 1981 through July, 1983. It was invented by computer journalist , and billed as the "world's leading supplier of fictitious hardware, software, firmware, and limpware". Each month a new "innovation" was introduced that poked fun at the infant personal computer industry. These included a "black phosphor" com ...
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Radio Shack
RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Outside of those territories, the company licensed other companies to use the RadioShack brand name in parts of Asia, North Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. In February 2015, RadioShack Corporation filed for Chapter 11 protection under United States bankruptcy law after 11 consecutive quarterly losses. By then, it was operating only in the United States and Latin America. In May 2015, General Wireless Inc., an affiliate of Standard General, bought the company's assets, including the RadioShack brand name and related intellectual property, for US$26.2 million. General Wireless Operations Inc. was formed to operate the RadioShack stores, and General Wireless IP Holdings LLC was formed to hold the intellectual prop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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QWERTY
QWERTY () is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard ( ). The QWERTY design is based on a layout created for the Sholes and Glidden typewriter and sold to E. Remington and Sons in 1873. It became popular with the success of the Remington No. 2 of 1878, and remains in ubiquitous use. History The QWERTY layout was devised and created in the early 1870s by Christopher Latham Sholes, a newspaper editor and printer who lived in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In October 1867, Sholes filed a patent application for his early writing machine he developed with the assistance of his friends Carlos Glidden and Samuel W. Soule, Samuel W. Soulé. The first model constructed by Sholes used a piano-like keyboard with two rows of characters arranged alphabetically as shown below: - 3 5 7 9 N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 2 4 6 8 . A B C D E F G H I J K L M Sholes struggled ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stan Kelly-Bootle
Stanley Bootle, known as Stan Kelly-Bootle (15 September 1929 – 16 April 2014), was a British author, academic, singer-songwriter and computer scientist. He took his stage name Stan Kelly (he was not known as Stan Kelly-Bootle in folk music circles) from the Irish folk song "Kelly, the boy from Killane". His best-known song is the "Liverpool Lullaby" or "The Mucky Kid" which was recorded in 1965 on the ''Three City Four'' LP and sung by Marian McKenzie. It was also sung by the Ian Campbell Folk Group on the ''Contemporary Campbells'' LP. It was later recorded by Judy Collins in 1966 for her album ''In My Life''. Cilla Black recorded it three years later as the B-side to her pop hit "Conversations". Kelly-Bootle achieved the first postgraduate degree in computer science in 1954, from the University of Cambridge. Early life Stan Kelly-Bootle was born Stanley Bootle in Liverpool, Lancashire, on 15 September 1929 and grew up in the Wavertree area of the city. His parents were Arthur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Prentice-Hall
Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service. History On October 13, 1913, law professor Charles Gerstenberg and his student Richard Ettinger founded Prentice Hall. Gerstenberg and Ettinger took their mothers' maiden names, Prentice and Hall, to name their new company. Prentice Hall became known as a publisher of trade books by authors such as Norman Vincent Peale; elementary, secondary, and college textbooks; loose-leaf information services; and professional books. Prentice Hall acquired the training provider Deltak in 1979. Prentice Hall was acquired by Gulf+Western in 1984, and became part of that company's publishing division Simon & Schuster. S&S sold several Prentice Hall subsidiaries: Deltak and Resource Systems were sold to National Education ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer Press Association
Founded in 1983, the Computer Press Association (CPA) was established to promote excellence in the field of computer journalism. The association was composed of working editors, writers, producers, and freelancers who covered issues related to computers and technology. The CPA conducted the annual Computer Press Awards, which was the preeminent editorial awards of the computer and technology media. The CPA Awards honored outstanding examples in print, broadcast and electronic media. Awards were given for print publications, such as PC Magazine; online news media, such as Newsbytes News Network (both were multiple winners); individual columns and features by well-known journalists such as Steven Levy (author of “ Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution”); broadcast awards such as “Best Radio Program”; as well as book awards in categories such as Best Product Specific Book. CPA PresidenJeff Yablon(1994-1996) developed an updated code of ethics for technology journalists tha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ImageWriter
The ImageWriter is a product line of dot matrix printers formerly manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc., and designed then to be compatible with their entire line of computers. There were three different models introduced over time, which were popular mostly among Apple II and Macintosh owners. Original ImageWriter The first ImageWriter is a serial-based dot matrix printer introduced by Apple Computer in late 1983. The printer was essentially a re-packaged 9-pin dot matrix printer from C. Itoh Electronics (model C. Itoh 8510, with a modified ROM and pinout), released the same year. It was introduced as a replacement for the earlier parallel-based Apple Dot Matrix Printer/DMP (also a C. Itoh model) and, while primarily intended for the Apple II, worked across Apple's entire computer product line. The ImageWriter could produce images as well as text, up to a resolution of 144 DPI and a speed of about 120 CPS (characters per second). In text mode, the printer was logic-seek ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Videotape
Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocassette recorders (VCRs) and camcorders. Videotapes have also been used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram. Because video signals have a very high bandwidth, and stationary heads would require extremely high tape speeds, in most cases, a helical-scan video head rotates against the moving tape to record the data in two dimensions. Tape is a linear method of storing information and thus imposes delays to access a portion of the tape that is not already against the heads. The early 2000s saw the introduction and rise to prominence of high-quality random-access video recording media such as hard disks and flash memory. Since then, videotape has been increasingly relegated to archival and si ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Image Scanner
An image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting or an object and converts it to a digital image. Commonly used in offices are variations of the desktop ''flatbed scanner'' where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning. ''Hand-held scanners'', where the device is moved by hand, have evolved from text scanning "wands" to 3D scanners used for industrial design, reverse engineering, test and measurement, orthotics, gaming and other applications. Mechanically driven scanners that move the document are typically used for large-format documents, where a flatbed design would be impractical. Modern scanners typically use a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a contact image sensor (CIS) as the image sensor, whereas ''drum scanners'', developed earlier and still used for the highest possible image quality, use a photomultiplier tube (PMT) as the image sensor. A ''rotary scanner,'' used for high-speed documen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dot-matrix Printer
A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon and the paper, so that each pin makes a small dot on the paper. The combination of these dots forms a dot matrix image. They were also known as serial dot matrix printers. While inkjet and laser printers technically exhibit dot matrix printing, they work differently than impact "dot matrix printers" and can deposit ink or toner at higher dot resolutions more quickly, with less inherent noise. The impact printer has the ability to make copies using multi-part forms, unlike an inkjet or laser printer. History In the 1970s and 1980s, dot matrix impact printers were generally considered the best combination of cost and versatility, and until the 1990s were by far the most common form of printer used with personal and home computers. The ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disk Drive
Disk storage (also sometimes called drive storage) is a general category of storage mechanisms where data is recorded by various electronic, magnetic, optical, or mechanical changes to a surface layer of one or more rotating disks. A disk drive is a device implementing such a storage mechanism. Notable types are the hard disk drive (HDD) containing a non-removable disk, the floppy disk drive (FDD) and its removable floppy disk, and various optical disc drives (ODD) and associated optical disc media. (The spelling ''disk'' and ''disc'' are used interchangeably except where trademarks preclude one usage, e.g. the Compact Disc logo. The choice of a particular form is frequently historical, as in IBM's usage of the ''disk'' form beginning in 1956 with the " IBM 350 disk storage unit".) Background Audio information was originally recorded by analog methods (see Sound recording and reproduction). Similarly the first video disc used an analog recording method. In the music indu ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apple Inc
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company by market capitalization, the fourth-largest personal computer vendor by unit sales and second-largest mobile phone manufacturer. It is one of the Big Five American information technology companies, alongside Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft. Apple was founded as Apple Computer Company on April 1, 1976, by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne to develop and sell Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. It was incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer, Inc. in 1977 and the company's next computer, the Apple II, became a best seller and one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Apple went public in 1980 to instant financial success. The company developed computers featuring innovative graphical user inter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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COBOL
COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. COBOL is still widely used in applications deployed on mainframe computers, such as large-scale batch and transaction processing jobs. However, due to its declining popularity and the retirement of experienced COBOL programmers, programs are being migrated to new platforms, rewritten in modern languages or replaced with software packages. Most programming in COBOL is now purely to maintain existing applications; however, many large financial institutions were still developing new systems in COBOL as late as 2006. COBOL was designed in 1959 by CODASYL and was partly based on the programming language FLOW-MATIC designed by Grace Hopper. It was created as part ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |