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Robert Lafore (educator)
Robert W. Lafore (born March 11, 1938) is a computer programmer, systems analyst and entrepreneur. He coined the term "interactive fiction", and was an early software developer in this field. Career Lafore worked as a systems analyst for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the early days of microcomputing, he wrote programs in BASIC for the TRS-80 and founded his own software company. Lafore has written a number of text adventure games, for which he coined the term "interactive fiction", for the company Adventure International. Lafore has authored a number of books on the subject of computer programming, including ''Soul of CP/M.'',Book review of ''Soul of CP/M'' by David Carroll. in and ''Assembly Language Primer for the IBM PC and XT''. Later books included ''C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Programmer
A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates computer software or applications by providing a specific programming language to the computer. Most programmers have extensive computing and coding experience in many varieties of programming languages and platforms, such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Perl, Extensible Markup Language (XML), PHP, HTML, C, C++ and Java. A programmer's most often-used computer language (e.g., Assembly, C, C++, C#, JavaScript, Lisp, Python, Java, etc.) may be prefixed to the aforementioned terms. Some who work with web programming languages may also prefix their titles with ''web''. Terminology There is no industry-wide standard terminology, so "programmer" and "software engineer" might refer to the same role at different companies. Most typically ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Systems Analyst
A systems analyst, also known as business technology analyst, is an information technology (IT) professional who specializes in analyzing, designing and implementing information systems. Systems analysts assess the suitability of information systems in terms of their intended outcomes and liaise with end users, software vendors and programmers in order to achieve these outcomes.Shelly, Gary B., Cashman, Thomas J., & Vermaat, Misty E. ''Discovering Computers 2008, Complete.'' Boston: Thomson Course Technology. ISBN 1 -4239-1205-5 A systems analyst is a person who uses analysis and design techniques to solve business problems using information technology. Systems analysts may serve as change agents who identify the organizational improvements needed, design systems to implement those changes, and train and motivate others to use the systems. Industry As of 2015, the sectors employing the greatest numbers of computer systems analysts were state government, insurance, computer sys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values than simply economic ones. An entrepreneur is an individual who creates and/or invests in one or more businesses, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards.The process of setting up a business is known as entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures. More narrow definitions have described entrepreneurship as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which is often similar to a small business, or as the "capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks to make a profit." The people who create these businesses are often referred to as entrepreneurs. While de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interactive Fiction
'' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the form of interactive narratives or interactive narrations. These works can also be understood as a form of video game, either in the form of an adventure game or role-playing game. In common usage, the term refers to text adventures, a type of adventure game where the entire interface can be " text-only", however, graphical text adventures still fall under the text adventure category if the main way to interact with the game is by typing text. Some users of the term distinguish between interactive fiction, known as "Puzzle-free", that focuses on narrative, and "text adventures" that focus on puzzles. Due to their text-only nature, they sidestepped the problem of writing for widely divergent graphics architectures. This feature meant that i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, the lab overlooks the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and is managed by the University of California system. History 1931–1941 The laboratory was founded on August 26, 1931, by Ernest Lawrence, as the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, associated with the Physics Department. It centered physics research around his new instrument, the cyclotron, a type of particle accelerator for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1939. Throughout the 1930s, Lawrence pushed to create larger and larger machines for physics research, courting private philanthropy, philanthropists for funding. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microcomputing
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 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College in 1963. They wanted to enable students in non-scientific fields to use computers. At the time, nearly all computers required writing custom software, which only scientists and mathematicians tended to learn. In addition to the program language, Kemeny and Kurtz developed the Dartmouth Time Sharing System (DTSS), which allowed multiple users to edit and run BASIC programs simultaneously on remote terminals. This general model became very popular on minicomputer systems like the PDP-11 and Data General Nova in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Hewlett-Packard produced an entire computer line for this method of operation, introducing the HP2000 series in the late 1960s and continuing sales into the 1980s. Many early video games trace their ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ''Tandy Radio Shack, Z80 icroprocessor'. It is one of the earliest mass-produced and mass-marketed retail home computers. The TRS-80 has a full-stroke QWERTY keyboard, the Zilog Z80 processor, 4 KB dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) standard memory, small size and desk area, floating-point Level I BASIC language interpreter in read-only memory (ROM), 64-character per line video monitor, and a starting price of US$600 (equivalent to US$ in ). A cassette tape drive for program storage was included in the original package. While the software environment was stable, the cassette load/save process combined with keyboard bounce issues and a troublesome Expansion Interface contributed to the Model I's reputation as not well-suited to serious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Software Company
A software company is a company whose primary products are various forms of software, software technology, distribution, and software product development. They make up the software industry. Types There are a number of different types of software companies: *There are companies selling available to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, such as Microsoft's Outlook, Word and Excel, Adobe Systems's Acrobat, Illustrator and other designing tools, or Google apps like Chrome. *Many companies provide Software Development services, and have a structure to develop custom software for other companies and businesses. *Companies producing specialized commercial off-the-shelf software, such as Panorama, Hyperion, and Siebel Systems *Companies providing Software as a Service (SaaS), such as Google's email service Gmail, Voice and Maps, and companies like Salesforce and Zendesk. *Technology that mobilizes social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Parler. * *There ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adventure Game
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of literary genres. Many adventure games (List of text-based computer games, text and List of graphic adventure games, graphic) are designed for a single player, since this emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' is identified as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include ''Zork'', ''King's Quest'', ''Monkey Island'', and ''Myst''. Initial adventure games developed in the 1970s and early 1980s were text-based, using text parsers to translate the player's input into commands. As personal computers became more powerful with better grap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adventure International
Adventure International was an American video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a microcomputer system. The adventure game concept originally came from ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' which ran strictly on large mainframe systems at the time. History After the success of Adams' first text adventure, '' Adventureland,'' other games followed rapidly, with Adventure International (or "AI") releasing about two games a year. Initially the games were drawn from the founders' imaginations, with themes ranging from fantasy to horror and sometimes science fiction. Some of the later games were written by Scott Adams with other collaborators. In 1980, five of the company's games were ported to the VIC-20. Developer Neil Harris recalled: " r sales guys could not figure out what they were gonna do with them. 'What are these games? I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1938 Births
Events January * January 1 ** The Constitution of Estonia#Third Constitution (de facto 1938–1940, de jure 1938–1992), new constitution of Estonia enters into force, which many consider to be the ending of the Era of Silence and the authoritarian regime. ** state-owned enterprise, State-owned railway networks are created by merger, in France (SNCF) and the Netherlands (Nederlandse Spoorwegen – NS). * January 20 – King Farouk of Egypt marries Safinaz Zulficar, who becomes Farida of Egypt, Queen Farida, in Cairo. * January 27 – The Honeymoon Bridge (Niagara Falls), Honeymoon Bridge at Niagara Falls, New York, collapses as a result of an ice jam. February * February 4 ** Adolf Hitler abolishes the War Ministry and creates the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces), giving him direct control of the German military. In addition, he dismisses political and military leaders considered unsympathetic to his philosophy or policies. Gene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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