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Parasitic Engineering
Parasitic Engineering, Inc., was an American computer company founded by Howard Fullmer in 1976. Named as a tongue-in-cheek reference to a comment by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, MITS co-founder Ed Roberts (computer engineer), Ed Roberts, Parasitic's first products were hardware upgrade kits to MITS' Altair 8800 microcomputer kit, improving the latter's power supply Power rating, rating and susceptibility to Noise (electronics), noise. The company later released their own microcomputer based on the same bus as the Altair, the S-100 bus, S-100, but it was less popular than the company's hardware-improvement kits. By 1979, the company had pivoted to providing upgrades to Tandy Corporation, Tandy's TRS-80. Parasitic went defunct in 1983. Foundation (1976–1977) Howard Fullmer founded Parasitic Engineering from the basement of his Oakland, California, house in early 1976. The name was a swipe at Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems, MITS co-founder Ed Roberts (co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oakland, California
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay Area and the List of largest California cities by population, eighth most populated city in California. With a population of 440,646 in 2020, it serves as the Bay Area's trade center and economic engine: the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to municipal corporation, incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854. Oakland is a charter city. Oakland's territory covers what was once a mosaic of California coastal prairie, California coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, and north coastal scrub. In the late 18th century, it became part of a large ''rancho'' grant in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbionese Liberation Army
The United Federated Forces of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) was a small, American far-left organization active between 1973 and 1975; it claimed to be a vanguard movement. The FBI and American law enforcement considered the SLA to be the first terrorist organization to rise from the American left. Six members died in a May 1974 shootout with police in Los Angeles. The three remaining fugitives recruited a few new members, but nearly all of them were apprehended in 1975 and prosecuted. The pursuit and prosecution of SLA members lasted until 2003, when former member Sara Jane Olson, another fugitive, was convicted and sentenced for second-degree murder during the SLA 1975 bank robbery in Carmichael, California. During its active years from 1973 to 1975, the group murdered at least two people, committed armed bank robberies, and attempted bombings, among other violent crimes. Its spokesman was escaped convict Donald DeFreeze, but Patricia Soltysik and Nancy Ling Perry, young ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seven-segment Display
A seven-segment display is a form of electronic display device for displaying decimal numerals that is an alternative to the more complex dot matrix displays. Seven-segment displays are widely used in digital clocks, electronic meters, basic calculators, and other electronic devices that display numerical information. History Seven-segment representation of figures can be found in patents as early as 1903 (in ), when Carl Kinsley invented a method of telegraphically transmitting letters and numbers and having them printed on tape in a segmented format. In 1908, F. W. Wood invented an 8-segment display, which displayed the number 4 using a diagonal bar (). In 1910, a seven-segment display illuminated by incandescent bulbs was used on a power-plant boiler room signal panel. They were also used to show the dialed telephone number to operators during the transition from manual to automatic telephone dialing. They did not achieve widespread use until the advent of LEDs in the 1970 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 (''"eighty-eighty"'') is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility.'' Electronic News'' was a weekly trade newspaper. The same advertisement appeared in the May 2, 1974 issue of ''Electronics'' magazine. The initial specified clock rate or frequency limit was 2 MHz, with common instructions using 4, 5, 7, 10, or 11 cycles. As a result, the processor is able to execute several hundred thousand instructions per second. Two faster variants, the 8080A-1 (sometimes referred to as the 8080B) and 8080A-2, became available later with clock frequency limits of 3.125 MHz and 2.63 MHz respectively. The 8080 needs two support chips to function in most applications: the i8224 clock generator/driver and the i8228 bus controller. It is implemented in N-type metal-oxide-semiconductor logic (NMOS) usin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Morrow (computers)
George Morrow (January 30, 1934 – May 7, 2003) was part of the early microcomputer industry in the United States. Morrow promoted and improved the S-100 bus used in many early microcomputers. Called "one of the microcomputer industry's iconoclasts" by Richard Dalton in the Whole Earth Software Catalog, Morrow was also a member of the Homebrew Computer Club. Early life and education Born in Detroit in 1934, Morrow was a high school dropout. At the age of 28, he decided to return to school, receiving a bachelor's degree in physics from Stanford University, followed by a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Oklahoma. He sought a PhD in mathematics from UC Berkeley, but while there became fascinated by computers and began working as a programmer in the computer lab there. Meanwhile, the Altair 8800 made its debut in 1975, and Morrow began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club. Career Starting in 1976, he designed and sold computers, computer parts, and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parasitic Engineering Equinox 100 Crop
Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The entomologist E. O. Wilson has characterised parasites as "predators that eat prey in units of less than one". Parasites include single-celled protozoans such as the agents of malaria, sleeping sickness, and amoebic dysentery; animals such as hookworms, lice, mosquitoes, and vampire bats; fungi such as honey fungus and the agents of ringworm; and plants such as mistletoe, dodder, and the broomrapes. There are six major parasitic strategies of exploitation of animal hosts, namely parasitic castration, directly transmitted parasitism (by contact), trophicallytransmitted parasitism (by being eaten), vector-transmitted parasitism, parasitoidism, and micropredation. One major axis of classification concerns invasiveness: an endoparasite lives inside the host's body; an ect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bridge Rectifier
A diode bridge is a bridge rectifier circuit of four diodes that is used in the process of converting alternating current (AC) from the input terminals to direct current (DC, i.e. fixed polarity) on the output terminals. Its function is to convert the negative-going AC pulses into positive going pulses, after which a low-pass filter can be used to smooth the result into DC. When used in its most common application, for conversion of an alternating-current (AC) input into a direct-current (DC) output, it is known as a bridge rectifier. A bridge rectifier provides full-wave rectification from a two-wire AC input, resulting in lower cost and weight as compared to a rectifier with a three-wire input from a transformer with a center-tapped secondary winding. The essential feature of a diode bridge is that the polarity of the output is the same regardless of the polarity at the input. The diode bridge circuit was invented by Polish electrotechnician Karol Pollak and patented in De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capacitor
A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a capacitor is known as capacitance. While some capacitance exists between any two electrical conductors in proximity in a circuit, a capacitor is a component designed to add capacitance to a circuit. The capacitor was originally known as the condenser, a term still encountered in a few compound names, such as the ''condenser microphone''. The physical form and construction of practical capacitors vary widely and many types of capacitor are in common use. Most capacitors contain at least two electrical conductors often in the form of metallic plates or surfaces separated by a dielectric medium. A conductor may be a foil, thin film, sintered bead of metal, or an electrolyte. The nonconducting dielectric acts to increase the capacitor's c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constant-voltage Transformer
A voltage regulator is a system designed to automatically maintain a constant voltage. A voltage regulator may use a simple feed-forward design or may include negative feedback. It may use an electromechanical mechanism, or electronic components. Depending on the design, it may be used to regulate one or more Alternating current, AC or Direct current, DC voltages. Electronic voltage regulators are found in devices such as Power supply unit (computer), computer power supplies where they stabilize the DC voltages used by the processor and other elements. In Alternator (automotive), automobile alternators and central power station generator plants, voltage regulators control the output of the plant. In an electric power distribution system, voltage regulators may be installed at a substation or along distribution lines so that all customers receive steady voltage independent of how much power is drawn from the line. Electronic voltage regulators A simple voltage/current regulator c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linear Regulator
In electronics, a linear regulator is a voltage regulator used to maintain a steady voltage. The resistance of the regulator varies in accordance with both the input voltage and the load, resulting in a constant voltage output. The regulating circuit varies its resistance, continuously adjusting a voltage divider network to maintain a constant output voltage and continually dissipating the difference between the input and regulated voltages as waste heat. By contrast, a ''switching regulator'' uses an active device that switches on and off (oscilates) to maintain an average value of output. Because the regulated voltage of a linear regulator must always be lower than input voltage, efficiency is limited and the input voltage must be high enough to always allow the active device to drop some voltage. Linear regulators may place the regulating device in parallel with the load ( shunt regulator) or may place the regulating device between the source and the regulated load (a series re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Rating
In electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, the power rating of equipment is the highest power input allowed to flow through particular equipment. According to the particular discipline, the term ''power'' may refer to electrical or mechanical power. A power rating can also involve average and maximum power, which may vary depending on the kind of equipment and its application. Power rating limits are usually set as a guideline by the manufacturers, protecting the equipment and simplifying the design of larger systems, by providing a level of operation under which the equipment will not be damaged while allowing for a certain safety margin. Equipment types Dissipative equipment In equipment which primarily dissipate electric power or convert it into mechanical power, such as resistors, and speakers, the power rating given is usually the maximum power that can be safely dissipated by the equipment. The usual reason for this limit is heat, although in certain ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Oscillator
An electronic oscillator is an electronic circuit that produces a periodic, oscillation, oscillating electronic signal, often a sine wave or a square wave or a triangle wave. Oscillation, Oscillators convert direct current (DC) from a power supply to an alternating current (AC) signal. They are widely used in many electronic devices ranging from simplest clock generators to digital instruments (like calculators) and complex computers and peripherals etc. Common examples of signals generated by oscillators include signals broadcast by Transmitter, radio and television transmitters, clock signals that regulate computers and quartz clocks, and the sounds produced by electronic beepers and video games. Oscillators are often characterized by the frequency of their output signal: *A Low-frequency oscillation, low-frequency oscillator (LFO) is an electronic oscillator that generates a frequency below approximately 20 Hz. This term is typically used in the field of audio synthesiz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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