Expensive Desk Calculator
Expensive Desk Calculator by Robert A. Wagner is thought to be computing's first interactive calculation program.Alan Kotok (15 May 2006)The Mouse That Roared: PDP-1 Celebration Event Lecture Computer History Museum (Google Video link). Retrieved on 22 June 2006. Kotok's description begins at 1:02. The software first ran on the TX-0 computer loaned to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by Lincoln Laboratory. It was ported to the PDP-1 donated to MIT in 1961 by Digital Equipment Corporation. Friends from the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, Wagner and a group of fellow students had access to these room-sized machines outside classes, signing up for time during off hours. Overseen by Jack Dennis, John McKenzie and faculty advisors, they were personal computer users as early as the late 1950s. The calculators Wagner needed to complete his numerical analysis homework were across campus and in short supply so he wrote one himself. Although the program has about three thou ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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PDP-1
The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is known for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt, Beranek and Newman, and elsewhere. The PDP-1 is the original hardware for one of the first video games, Steve Russell's 1962 game '' Spacewar!.'' Description The PDP-1 uses an 18-bit word size and has 4096 words as standard main memory (equivalent in bit size to 9,216 eight-bit bytes, but in character size to 12,388 bytes since the system actually divides an 18-bit word into three six-bit characters), upgradable to 65,536 words. The magnetic-core memory's cycle time is 5.35 microseconds (corresponding roughly to a clock speed of 187 kilohertz); consequently most arithmetic instructions take 10.7 microseconds (93,458 operations per second) because they use two memory cycles: the first to fetch the instruc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jack Dennis
Jack Bonnell Dennis (born October 13, 1931) is an American computer scientist and Emeritus Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The work of Dennis in computer systems and computer languages is recognized to have played a key role in hacker culture. As a Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty member he sponsored easier access to computer facilities at MIT during the early development of the subculture. Much of what would later become Unix came from his early collaboration with Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson. This collaborative and open philosophy lives on today. Dennis was also a member of the Tech Model Railroad Club, which incubated much of the early slang and traditions of hacking. Early life and education Dennis graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as Bachelor of Science (1953), Master of Science (1954), and Doctor of Science (1958). His doctoral thesis analyzed the relation between mathe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expensive Tape Recorder
Expensive Tape Recorder is a digital audio program written by David Gross while a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Gross developed the idea with Alan Kotok, a fellow member of the Tech Model Railroad Club. The recorder and playback system ran in the late 1950s or early 1960s on MIT's TX-0 computer on loan from Lincoln Laboratory. The name Gross referred to this project by this name casually in the context of Expensive Typewriter and other programs that took their names in the spirit of " Colossal Typewriter". It is unclear if the typewriters were named for the 3 million USD development cost of the TX-0. Or they could have been named for the retail price of the DEC PDP-1, a descendant of the TX-0, installed next door at MIT in 1961. The PDP-1 was one of the least expensive computers money could buy, about 120,000 in 1962 USD. The program has been referred to as a hack, perhaps in the historical sense or in the MIT hack sense. Or the term may have been applied ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expensive Planetarium
''Spacewar!'' is a space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. It was written for the newly installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After its initial creation, ''Spacewar!'' was expanded further by other students and employees of universities in the area, including Dan Edwards and Peter Samson. It was also spread to many of the few dozen installations of the PDP-1 computer, making ''Spacewar!'' the first known video game to be played at multiple computer installations. The game features two spaceships, "the needle" and "the wedge", engaged in a dogfight while maneuvering in the gravity well of a star. Both ships are controlled by human players. Each ship has limited weaponry and fuel for maneuvering, and the ships remain in motion even when the player is not accelerating. Flying near the star to provide a gravity assist was a commo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Expensive Typewriter
Expensive Typewriter was a pioneering text editor program that ran on the DEC PDP-1 computer, which had been delivered to MIT in the early 1960s. Description Since the program could drive an IBM Selectric typewriter (a letter-quality printer), it may be considered the first word processing software. It was written and improved between 1961 and 1962 by Steve Piner and L. Peter Deutsch. In the spirit of an earlier editor program, named " Colossal Typewriter", it was called "Expensive Typewriter" because at that time the PDP-1 cost a lot of money (approximately ) as compared to a conventional manual typewriter. References See also * PDP-1 The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is known for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the Massachusetts ... * Expensive Desk Calculator * Expensive Planetarium * Expensive Tape Recorder * Text ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Heroes Of The Computer Revolution
Heroes or Héroes may refer to: * Hero, one who displays courage and self-sacrifice for the greater good Film * ''Heroes'' (1977 film), an American drama * ''Heroes'' (2008 film), an Indian Hindi film Gaming * ''Heroes of Might and Magic'' or ''Heroes'', a series of video games *''Heroes of the Storm'' or ''Heroes,'' a 2015 video game * ''Heroes'' (role-playing game) (1979) * ''Sonic Heroes'', a 2003 video game in the ''Sonic the Hedgehog'' franchise Literature * ''Heroes'' (book series), short novels and plays intended for young boys * ''Heroes'' (comics), a 1996 comic book by DC Comics * ''Heroes'' (novel), a 1998 novel by Robert Cormier * ''Heroes'' (play), a translation by Tom Stoppard of ''Le Vent Des Peupliers'' by Gérald Sibleyras * '' Heroes: Saving Charlie'', a 2007 novel based on the American TV series ''Heroes'' * ''Heroes'', a role-playing game magazine by Avalon Hill * ''Heroes'', a 2018 collection of stories from ancient Greek mythology by Stephen Fry ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Steven Levy
Steven Levy (born 1951) is an American journalist and editor at large for '' Wired'' who has written extensively for publications on computers, technology, cryptography, the internet, cybersecurity, and privacy. He is the author of the 1984 book '' Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution'', which chronicles the early days of the computer underground. Levy published eight books covering computer hacker culture, artificial intelligence, cryptography, and multi-year exposés of Apple, Google, and Facebook. His most recent book, ''Facebook: The Inside Story'', recounts the history and rise of Facebook from three years of interviews with employees, including Chamath Palihapitiya, Sheryl Sandberg, and Mark Zuckerberg. Early life and education Levy was born in Philadelphia in 1951. He graduated from Central High School and received a bachelor's degree in English from Temple University. He earned a master's degree in literature from Pennsylvania State University. Career In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Numerical Analysis
Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods that attempt to find approximate solutions of problems rather than the exact ones. Numerical analysis finds application in all fields of engineering and the physical sciences, and in the 21st century also the life and social sciences like economics, medicine, business and even the arts. Current growth in computing power has enabled the use of more complex numerical analysis, providing detailed and realistic mathematical models in science and engineering. Examples of numerical analysis include: ordinary differential equations as found in celestial mechanics (predicting the motions of planets, stars and galaxies), numerical linear algebra in data analysis, and stochastic differential equations and Markov chains for simulati ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Calculators
An electronic calculator is typically a portable electronic device used to perform calculations, ranging from basic arithmetic to complex mathematics. The first solid-state electronic calculator was created in the early 1960s. Pocket-sized devices became available in the 1970s, especially after the Intel 4004, the first microprocessor, was developed by Intel for the Japanese calculator company Busicom. Modern electronic calculators vary from cheap, give-away, credit-card-sized models to sturdy desktop models with built-in printers. They became popular in the mid-1970s as the incorporation of integrated circuits reduced their size and cost. By the end of that decade, prices had dropped to the point where a basic calculator was affordable to most and they became common in schools. In addition to general-purpose calculators, there are those designed for specific markets. For example, there are scientific calculators, which include trigonometric and statistical calculatio ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Personal Computer
A personal computer, commonly referred to as PC or computer, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as Word processor, word processing, web browser, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and PC game, gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the 1960s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with computers. While personal computer users may develop their applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software ("freeware"), which i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tech Model Railroad Club
The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) is a student organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Historically, it has been a wellspring of hacker culture and the oldest such hacking group in North America. Formed in 1946, its HO scale layout specializes in the automated operation of model trains. History The first meeting of the Tech Model Railroad Club was organized by John Fitzallen Moore and Walter Marvin in November 1946. Moore and Marvin had membership cards #0 and #1 and served as the first president and vice-president respectively. They then switched roles the following year. Circa 1948, the club obtained official MIT campus space in Room 20E-214, on the third floor of Building 20, a "temporary" World War II-era structure, sometimes called "the Plywood Palace", which had been home to the MIT Radiation Lab during World War II. The club's members, who shared a passion to find out how things worked and then to master them, were among the first hackers. S ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Computer History Museum
The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the Digital Revolution, computing revolution and its impact on society. History The museum's origins date to 1968 when Gordon Bell began a quest for a historical collection and, at that same time, others were looking to preserve the Whirlwind (computer), Whirlwind computer. The resulting ''Museum Project'' had its first exhibit in 1975, located in a converted coat closet in a Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC lobby. In 1978, the museum, now ''The Digital Computer Museum'' (TDCM), moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlborough, Massachusetts and opened to the public in September 1979. Maurice Wilkes presented the first lecture at TDCM in 1979 – the presentation of such lectures has continued to the present time. TDCM incorporated as ''The Computer Museum, Boston, The Computer Museum'' (TCM) in 1982. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |