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General Computer Corporation
General Computer Corporation (GCC), later GCC Technologies, was an American hardware and software company formed in 1981 by Doug Macrae, John Tylko, and Kevin Curran. The company began as a video game developer and created the arcade games '' Ms. Pac-Man'' (1982) in-house for Bally MIDWAY and '' Food Fight'' (1983) as well as designing the hardware for the Atari 7800 console and many of its games. In 1984 the company pivoted to developing home computer peripherals, such as the HyperDrive hard drive for the Macintosh 128K, and printers. GCC was disestablished in 2015. History GCC started out making mod-kits for arcade video games. ''Super Missile Attack'' was sold as an enhancement board to Atari, Inc.'s '' Missile Command''. Atari sued, but ultimately dropped the suit and hired GCC to develop game (and stop making enhancement boards for Atari's games without permission). They created an enhancement kit for ''Pac-Man'' called ''Crazy Otto'' which they sold to Midway, who in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
GNU Compiler Collection
The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) is a collection of compilers from the GNU Project that support various programming languages, Computer architecture, hardware architectures, and operating systems. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) distributes GCC as free software under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain which is used for most projects related to GNU and the Linux kernel. With roughly 15 million lines of code in 2019, GCC is one of the largest free programs in existence. It has played an important role in the growth of free software, as both a tool and an example. When it was first released in 1987 by Richard Stallman, GCC 1.0 was named the GNU C Compiler since it only handled the C (programming language), C programming language. It was extended to compile C++ in December of that year. Compiler#Front end, Front ends were later developed for Objective-C, Objective-C++, Fortran, Ada (programming language), Ada, Go (programming la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inkjet Printer
Inkjet printing is a type of printer (computing), computer printing that recreates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper or plastic substrates. Inkjet printers were the most commonly used type of printer in 2008, and range from small inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines. By 2019, laser printing, laser printers outsold inkjet printers by nearly a 2:1 ratio, 9.6% vs 5.1% of all computer peripherals. The concept of inkjet printing originated in the 20th century, and the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s. While working at Canon Inc., Canon in Japan, Ichiro Endo suggested the idea for a "bubble jet" printer, while around the same time Jon Vaught at Hewlett-Packard (HP) was developing a similar idea. In the late 1970s, inkjet printers that could Digital printing, reproduce digital images generated by computers were developed, mainly by Epson, HP and Canon. In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elizabeth Betty Ryan
Betty Ryan is an American game developer and programmer. She worked for General Computer Corporation in the 1980s where she was its first female employee. She programmed the 1982 arcade video game ''Quantum'' which was published by Atari, Inc. in 1982, as well as working on games for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Atari 7800. Early life and education Ryan received a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering and Applied Sciences from Harvard University. She had four children. Career Ryan joined General Computer Corporation in 1982, as its the ninth employee and first female employee. She programmed the arcade video game ''Quantum'' in her basement. Ryan worked on the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 ports of ''Pole Position'' and ''Dig Dug''. She also worked on the AtariLab educational software. Her sister, Carol Ryan Thomas, was hired later as a game tester and debugger. Ryan has spoken about her work in game development for the American Classic Arcade Museum. Since 2003, she has been work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burlington, Massachusetts
Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. History It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but this has never been confirmed. It was first settled in 1641, and was officially incorporated on February 28, 1799; several of the early homesteads are still standing, such as the Francis Wyman House, dating from 1666. The town is sited on the watersheds of the Ipswich River, Ipswich, Mystic River, Mystic, and Shawsheen River, Shawsheen rivers. In colonial times up through the late 19th century, there was an industry in the mills along Vine Brook, which runs from Lexington, Massachusetts, Lexington to Bedford, Massachusetts, Bedford and then empties into the Shawsheen River. Burlington is now a suburban industrial town at the junction of the Boston-Merrimack River, Merrimack corridor, but for most of its history, it was almost en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SCSI
Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced in the 1980s and has seen widespread use on servers and high-end workstations, with new SCSI standards being published as recently as SAS-4 in 2017. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interfaces. The SCSI standard defines command sets for specific peripheral device types; the presence of "unknown" as one of these types means that in theory it can be used as an interface to almost any device, but the standard is highly pragmatic and addressed toward commercial requirements. The initial Parallel SCSI was most commonly used for hard disk drives and tape drives, but it can connect a wide range of other devices, including scanners and optical disc drives, although not all controllers can handle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macintosh Plus
The Macintosh Plus computer is the third model in the Macintosh line, introduced on January 16, 1986, two years after the original Macintosh and a little more than a year after the Macintosh 512K, with a price tag of US$2,599. As an evolutionary improvement over the 512K, it shipped with 1 MB of RAM standard, expandable to 4 MB, and an external SCSI peripheral bus, among smaller improvements. Originally, the computer's case was the same beige color as the original Macintosh, Pantone 453; however, in 1987, the case color was changed to the long-lived, warm gray "Platinum" color. It is the earliest Macintosh model able to run System Software 5, System 6, and System 7, up to System 7.5.5, but not System 7.5.2. Overview Bruce Webster of ''BYTE'' reported a rumor in December 1985: "Supposedly, Apple will be releasing a Big Mac by the time this column sees print: said Mac will reportedly come with 1 megabyte of RAM ... the new 128K-byte ROM ... and a double-sided ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floating-point Unit
A floating-point unit (FPU), numeric processing unit (NPU), colloquially math coprocessor, is a part of a computer system specially designed to carry out operations on floating-point numbers. Typical operations are addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square root. Modern designs generally include a fused multiply-add instruction, which was found to be very common in real-world code. Some FPUs can also perform various transcendental functions such as exponential or trigonometric calculations, but the accuracy can be low, so some systems prefer to compute these functions in software. Floating-point operations were originally handled in software in early computers. Over time, manufacturers began to provide standardized floating-point libraries as part of their software collections. Some machines, those dedicated to scientific processing, would include specialized hardware to perform some of these tasks with much greater speed. The introduction of microcode in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motorola 68881
The Motorola 68881 and Motorola 68882 are floating-point units (FPUs) used in some computer systems in conjunction with Motorola's 32-bit 68020 or 68030 microprocessors. These coprocessors are external chips, designed before floating point math became standard on CPUs. The Motorola 68881 was introduced in 1984. The 68882 is a higher performance version produced later. Overview The 68020 and 68030 CPUs were designed with the separate 68881 chip in mind. Their instruction sets reserved the "F-line" instructions – that is, all opcodes beginning with the hexadecimal digit "F" could either be forwarded to an external coprocessor or be used as "traps" which would throw an exception, handing control to the computer's operating system. If an FPU is not present in the system, the OS would then either call an FPU emulator to execute the instruction's equivalent using 68020 integer-based software code, return an error to the program, terminate the program, or crash and require a re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Serial I/O
In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are sent as a whole, on a link with several parallel channels. Serial communication is used for all long-haul communication and most computer networks, where the cost of cable and difficulty of synchronization make parallel communication impractical. Serial computer buses have become more common even at shorter distances, as improved signal integrity and transmission speeds in newer serial technologies have begun to outweigh the parallel bus's advantage of simplicity (no need for serializer and deserializer, or SerDes) and to outstrip its disadvantages (clock skew, interconnect density). The migration from PCI to PCI Express (PCIe) is an example. Modern high speed serial interfaces such as PCIe send data several bits at a time using modu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modem
The Democratic Movement (, ; MoDem ) is a centre to centre-right political party in France, whose main ideological trends are liberalism and Christian democracy, and that is characterised by a strong pro-Europeanist stance. MoDem was established by François Bayrou to succeed the Union for French Democracy (UDF) and contest the 2007 legislative election, after his strong showing in the 2007 presidential election. Initially named the Democratic Party (''Parti démocrate''), the party was renamed "Democratic Movement", because there was already a small Democratic Party in France. MoDem secured an agreement with La République En Marche! (LRM) — later Renaissance (RE) — in the 2017 legislative election after Bayrou had endorsed the candidacy of Emmanuel Macron in February. The two parties have since been in alliance, as of late named Ensemble. The party's founder and leader Bayrou has served as Prime Minister of France since December 2024. History Background MoDem tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacTech
''MacTech'' is a monthly magazine for consultants, IT Pros, system administrators, software developers, and other technical users of the Apple Macintosh line of computers. The magazine was called "MacTech" for its first two issues, starting in 1984, after which its name was changed to MacTutor. At the time the magazine defined itself as "a technical publication devoted to advancing programming knowledge of the Macintosh for both hacker and professional alike". In the spring of 1989 a new and separate magazine called ''MacTech'' was launched by TechAlliance, a global Apple users group headquartered in Renton, WA that hosted the Apple Programmers and Developers Association (APDA). The founding editor of ''MacTech'' was Andrew Himes, and Himes described the magazine as "The journal designed by people who program and develop for the Apple Macintosh. You hold in your hands what is designed to be a legendary publication for a legendary computer. In these wee, early hours of the compu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floppy Disk
A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a fabric that removes dust particles from the spinning disk. The three most popular (and commercially available) floppy disks are the 8-inch, 5¼-inch, and 3½-inch floppy disks. Floppy disks store digital data which can be read and written when the disk is inserted into a floppy disk drive (FDD) connected to or inside a computer or other device. The first floppy disks, invented and made by IBM in 1971, had a disk diameter of . Subsequently, the 5¼-inch (133.35 mm) and then the 3½-inch (88.9 mm) became a ubiquitous form of data storage and transfer into the first years of the 21st century. 3½-inch floppy disks can still be used with an external USB floppy disk drive. USB drives for 5¼-inch, 8-inch, and other-size floppy disks are rare ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
