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Sorcim
Sorcim was an early start-up company in Silicon Valley, founded in June 1980 by Richard Frank, Paul McQuesten, Martin Herbach, Anil Lakhwara, and Steve Jasik - all former Control Data Corporation employees working in the Language Group in Sunnyvale, CA. Jasik left company early on, to develop the MacNosy product for the Macintosh. Sorcim was best known for SuperCalc, a spreadsheet the company developed for the Osborne Computer Corporation portable computer. The company made many other products, including SuperWriter and SuperProject before its acquisition by Computer Associates in 1985. Although the company continued as a largely autonomous division of CA, it never again achieved prominence after the acquisition. The company was named "Sorcim" after Richard Frank saw a reflection of the word “micros” in an airplane window. Early history The company was founded to expand the microcomputer products from Digicom, a company formed by Richard in 1978. Paul joined in 1979. The Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SuperCalc
SuperCalc is a CP/M-80 spreadsheet application published by Sorcim in 1980. History VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program but its release for the CP/M operating system ran only on the HP-125, Sharp MZ80, and the Sony SMC-70. SuperCalc was created to fill that void and market opportunity. Alongside WordStar, it was one of the CP/M applications bundled with the Osborne 1 portable computer. It quickly became popular and was ported to MS-DOS in 1982. An improvement over VisiCalc (though using much the same command structure using the slash key), SuperCalc was one of the first spreadsheet programs capable of iteratively solving circular references (cells that depend on each other's results). It would be over 10 years after the introduction of SuperCalc before this feature was implemented in Microsoft Excel, although in Lotus 1-2-3, manual programming of iterative logic could also be used to solve this issue. According to the SuperCalc product manager, iterative calculations wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Associates
CA Technologies, formerly known as CA, Inc. and Computer Associates International, Inc., is an American multinational corporation headquartered in New York City. It is primarily known for its business-to-business (B2B) software with a product portfolio focused on Agile software development, DevOps, and computer security software spanning across a wide range of environments such as a mainframe, distributed computing, cloud computing, and mobile devices. The company markets nearly 200 software products. Some of the best-known are ACF2 (security), TopSecret (security), Datacom (database), Easytrieve (report generator), IDMS (database), InterTest (debugging), Librarian, Panvalet (source code library management), and TLMS (tape library management). Through 2018, CA Technologies maintained offices in more than 40 countries and employed approximately 11,300 people. CA holds more than 1,500 patents worldwide, and has more than 900 patent applications pending. It was headquartered on L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Osborne 1
The Osborne 1 is the first commercially successful portable computer, released on April 3, 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation. It weighs , cost US$1,795, and runs the CP/M 2.2 operating system. It is powered from a wall socket, as it has no on-board battery, but it is still classed as a portable device since it can be hand-carried when the keyboard is closed. The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors. Competitors quickly appeared, such as the Kaypro II. History The Osborne 1 was developed by Adam Osborne and designed by Lee Felsenstein, first announced in early 1981. Osborne, an author of computer books decided that he wanted to break the price of computers. The computer's design was based largely on the Xerox NoteTaker, a prototype developed at Xerox PARC in 1976 by Alan Kay. It was designed to be portable, with a rugged ABS plastic case and a handle. The Os ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VisiCalc
VisiCalc (for "visible calculator") is the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for Apple II by VisiCorp on 17 October 1979. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool, prompting IBM to introduce the IBM PC two years later. VisiCalc is considered to be Apple II's killer app. It sold over 700,000 copies in six years, and as many as 1 million copies over its history. Initially developed for the Apple II computer using a 6502 assembler running on the Multics time sharing system, VisiCalc was ported to numerous platforms, both 8-bit and some of the early 16-bit systems. In order to do this, the company developed porting platforms that produced bug compatible versions. The company took the same approach when the IBM PC was launched, producing a product that was essentially identical to the original 8-bit Apple II version. Sales were initially brisk, ... [...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] |
Siemens
Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''Energy'', ''Healthcare'' (Siemens Healthineers), and ''Infrastructure & Cities'', which represent the main activities of the corporation. The corporation is a prominent maker of medical diagnostics equipment and its medical health-care division, which generates about 12 percent of the corporation's total sales, is its second-most profitable unit, after the industrial automation division. In this area, it is regarded as a pioneer and the company with the highest revenue in the world. The corporation is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. Siemens and its subsidiaries employ approximately 303,000 people worldwide and reported global revenue of around €62 billion in 2021 according to its earnings release. History 1847 to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Felsenstein
Lee Felsenstein (born April 27, 1945) is an American computer engineer who played a central role in the development of the personal computer. He was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club and the designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer. Before the Osborne, Felsenstein designed the Intel 8080 based " SOL" computer from Processor Technology, the PennyWhistle modem, and other early "S-100 bus" era designs. His shared-memory alphanumeric video display design, the Processor Technology VDM-1 video display module board, was widely copied and became the basis for the standard display architecture of personal computers. Many of his designs were leaders in reducing costs of computer technologies for the purpose of making them available to large markets. His work featured a concern for the social impact of technology and was influenced by the philosophy of Ivan Illich. Felsenstein was the engineer for the Community Memory project, one of the e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West Coast Computer Faire
The West Coast Computer Faire was an annual computer industry conference and exposition most often associated with San Francisco, its first and most frequent venue. The first fair was held in 1977 and was organized by Jim Warren (computer specialist), Jim Warren and Bob Reiling. At the time, it was the biggest computer show in the world, intended to popularize the personal computer in the home. The West Coast PC Faire was formed to provide a more specialized show. However, Apple Inc. stopped exhibiting at the West Coast Computer Faire, refusing to exhibit at any show other than COMDEX that also had PC-based exhibits. In 1983, Warren sold the rights to the Faire for US$3 million to Prentice Hall, who later sold it to Sheldon Adelson, the owner of Interface Group and COMDEX. In total, sixteen shows were held, with the last in 1991. After Warren sold the show, it had a few more good years, and then declined rapidly. History The first fair took place on April 16–17, 1977, in San ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CHILL
In computing, CHILL (an acronym for CCITT High Level Language) is a procedural programming language designed for use in telecommunication switches (the hardware used inside telephone exchanges). The language is still used for legacy systems in some telecommunication companies and for signal box programming. The CHILL language is similar in size and complexity to the original Ada language. The first specification of the CHILL language was published in 1980, a few years before Ada. ITU provides a standard CHILL compiler. A free CHILL compiler was bundled with GCC up to version 2.95, however, was removed from later versions. An object-oriented version, called Object CHILL, was developed also. ITU is responsible for the CHILL standard, known as ITU-T Rec. Z.200. The equivalent ISO standard is ISO/IEC 9496:2003. (The text of the two documents is the same). In late 1999 CCITT stopped maintaining the CHILL standard. CHILL was used in systems of Alcatel System 12 and Siemens EWSD ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Private Company
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is offered, owned, traded, exchanged privately, or Over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter. In the case of a closed corporation, there are a relatively small number of shareholders or company members. Related terms are closely-held corporation, unquoted company, and unlisted company. Though less visible than their public company, publicly traded counterparts, private companies have major importance in the world's economy. In 2008, the 441 list of largest private non-governmental companies by revenue, largest private companies in the United States accounted for ($1.8 trillion) in revenues and employed 6.2 million people, according to ''Forbes''. In 2005, using a substantially smaller pool size (22.7%) for comparison, the 339 companies on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zenith Z89
The Z-89 is a personal computer produced by Zenith Data Systems (ZDS) in the early 1980s. Description The Zenith Z-89 is based on the Zilog Z80 microprocessor running at 2.048 MHz, and supports the HDOS and CP/M operating systems. The US$2295 Z-89 is integrated in a terminal-like enclosure with a non-detachable keyboard, 12-inch monochrome CRT with a 80x25 screen, 48 KB RAM, and a 5.25" floppy disk drive. The keyboard is of high build quality and has an unusual number of special purpose keys: REPEAT, ESC, TAB, CAPS, CTRL, SCROLL, RESET, BREAK, BACK SPACE, LINE FEED, DELETE, REPEAT, and two with red and blue squares. There are five function keys and a numeric keypad. The video display has reverse video and block graphics are available. The computer has two small card cages inside the cabinet on either side of the CRT, each of which accept up to three proprietary circuit cards. Upgrade cards available for this included disk controller cards (see below), a 16 KB RAM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Osborne
Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939 – March 18, 2003) was a British author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. He introduced the Osborne 1, the first commercially successful portable computer. Early life Osborne was born to British parents in Bangkok, Thailand on March 6, 1939. His father, Arthur Osborne, was a teacher of eastern religion and philosophy and a lecturer in English at Chulalongkorn University. All members of the family were fluent in the Tamil language. He spent World War II in southern India, with his mother. He attended Presentation Convent School in Kodaikanal until Class 6. In 1950, the Osborne family moved to England. From the age of 11, he was educated at a Catholic boarding school in Warwickshire but from 1954 to 1957 was a pupil at the grammar school Leamington College for Boys, where he played chess. He graduated with a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
