MetaComCo
MetaComCo (MCC) was a computer systems software company started in 1981 and based in Bristol, England by Peter Mackeonis and Derek Budge. A division of Tenchstar, Ltd. MetaComCo's first product was an MBASIC compatible interpreter for IBM PCs, which was licensed by Peter Mackeonis to Digital Research in 1982, and issued as the Digital Research Personal Basic, running under CP/M. Other computer languages followed, also licensed by Digital Research and MetaComCo established an office in Pacific Grove, California, to service their United States customers. In 1984 Dr. Tim King joined the company, bringing with him a version of the operating system TRIPOS for the Motorola 68000 processor which he had previously worked on whilst a researcher at the University of Cambridge. This operating system was used as the basis of AmigaDOS (file-related functions of AmigaOS); MetaComCo won the contract from Commodore because the original planned Amiga disk operating system called Commodore A ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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ST BASIC
Atari ST BASIC (or ST Basic) was the first dialect of BASIC that was produced for the Atari ST line of computers. This BASIC interpreter was bundled with all new STs in the early years of the ST's lifespan, and quickly became the standard BASIC for that platform. However, many users disliked it, and improved dialects of BASIC quickly came out to replace it. Development Atari Corporation commissioned MetaComCo to write a version of BASIC that would take advantage of the GEM environment on the Atari ST. This was based on a version already written for Digital Research called DR-Basic, which was bundled with DR's CP/M-86 operating system. The result was called ST BASIC. At the time the ST was launched, ST BASIC was bundled with all new STs. A further port of the same language called ''ABasiC'' was supplied for a time with the Amiga, but Commodore quickly replaced it with the Microsoft-developed AmigaBASIC. Interface The user interface consists of four windows: #EDIT, for entering ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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TRIPOS
TRIPOS (''TRIvial Portable Operating System'') is a computer operating system. Development started in 1976 at the Computer Laboratory of Cambridge University and it was headed by Dr. Martin Richards. The first version appeared in January 1978 and it originally ran on a PDP-11. Later it was ported to the Computer Automation LSI4 and the Data General Nova. Work on a Motorola 68000 version started in 1981 at the University of Bath. MetaComCo acquired the rights to the 68000 version and continued development until TRIPOS was chosen by Commodore in March 1985 to form part of an operating system for their new Amiga computer; it was also used at Cambridge as part of the Cambridge Distributed Computing System. Students in the Computer Science department at Cambridge affectionately refer to TRIPOS as the ''Terribly Reliable, Incredibly Portable Operating System''. The name TRIPOS also refers to the Tripos system of undergraduate courses and examinations, which is unique to Cam ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AmigaDOS
AmigaDOS is the disk operating system of the AmigaOS, which includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, and file Redirection (computing), redirection. In AmigaOS 1.x, AmigaDOS is based on a TRIPOS port by MetaComCo, written in BCPL. BCPL does not use native pointer (computer programming), pointers, so the more advanced functionality of the operating system was difficult to use and error-prone. The third-party ''AmigaDOS Resource Project'' (ARP, formerly the ''AmigaDOS Replacement Project''), a project begun by Amiga developer Charlie Heath, replaced many of the BCPL utilities with smaller, more sophisticated equivalents written in C (programming language), C and assembly language, assembler, and provided a wrapper library, arp.library. This eliminated the interfacing problems in applications by automatically performing conversions from native pointers (such as those used by C or assembler) to BCPL equivalents and vice versa for all AmigaDOS ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Perihelion Software
Perihelion Software Limited was a United Kingdom company founded in 1986 by Dr. Tim King along with a number of colleagues who had all worked together at MetaComCo on AmigaOS and written compilers for both the Amiga and the Atari ST. Perihelion Software produced an operating system for the INMOS Transputer called HeliOS. This was a system that looked like Unix but which could pass messages to processes running on either the same processor or another one. This was used in the Atari Transputer Workstation, among other places. Later HeliOS was ported to other processors including the ARM architecture. Perihelion Software also produced an in-memory database system called Polyhedra. The group responsible for this product was set up as a subsidiary, Perihelion Technology Limited (PTL), which did a management buyout A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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BASIC Interpreter
A BASIC interpreter is an Interpreter (computing), interpreter that enables users to enter and run programs in the BASIC programming language, language and was, for the first part of the microcomputer era, the default Application software, application that computers would launch. Users were expected to use the BASIC interpreter to type-in programs, type in programs or to load programs from storage (initially cassette tapes then floppy disks). BASIC interpreters are of historical importance. Microsoft's first product for sale was a BASIC interpreter (Altair BASIC), which paved the way for the company's success. Before Altair BASIC, microcomputers were sold as kits that needed to be programmed in machine code (for instance, the Apple I). During the Altair period, BASIC interpreters were sold separately, becoming the first software sold to individuals rather than to organizations; Apple BASIC was Apple's first software product. After the Altair 8800, MITS Altair 8800, microcomputers w ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bristol
Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. The county is in the West of England combined authority area, which includes the Greater Bristol area (List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, eleventh most populous urban area in the United Kingdom) and nearby places such as Bath, Somerset, Bath. Bristol is the second largest city in Southern England, after the capital London. Iron Age hillforts and Roman villas were built near the confluence of the rivers River Frome, Bristol, Frome and Avon. Bristol received a royal charter in 1155 and was historic counties of England, historically divided between Gloucestershire and Somerset until 1373 when it became a county corporate. From the 13th to the 18th centur ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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RAND Corporation
The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the 1950s, RAND research has helped inform United States policy decisions on a wide variety of issues, including the Cold War space race, the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, the U.S.–Soviet nuclear arms confrontation, the creation of the Great Society social welfare programs, and national health care. RAND originated as "Project RAND" (from the phrase "research and development") in the post-war period immediately after World War II. The U.S. Army Air Forces established Project RAND with the objective of investigating long-range planning of future weapons. Douglas Aircraft Company was granted a contract to research intercontinental warfare. Project RAND later evolved into RAND, and expanded its research into civilian fields suc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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REDUCE
Reduction, reduced, or reduce may refer to: Science and technology Chemistry * Reduction (chemistry), part of a reduction-oxidation (redox) reaction in which atoms have their oxidation state changed. ** Organic redox reaction, a redox reaction that takes place with organic compounds ** Ore reduction: see smelting Computing and algorithms * Reduction (complexity), a transformation of one problem into another problem * Reduction (recursion theory), given sets A and B of natural numbers, is it possible to effectively convert a method for deciding membership in B into a method for deciding membership in A? * Bit Rate Reduction, an audio compression method * Data reduction, simplifying data in order to facilitate analysis * Graph reduction, an efficient version of non-strict evaluation * L-reduction, a transformation of optimization problems which keeps the approximability features * Partial order reduction, a technique for reducing the size of the state-space to be searche ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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LISP
Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation. Originally specified in the late 1950s, it is the second-oldest high-level programming language still in common use, after Fortran. Lisp has changed since its early days, and many Programming language dialect, dialects have existed over its history. Today, the best-known general-purpose Lisp dialects are Common Lisp, Scheme (programming language), Scheme, Racket (programming language), Racket, and Clojure. Lisp was originally created as a practical mathematical notation for computer programs, influenced by (though not originally derived from) the notation of Alonzo Church's lambda calculus. It quickly became a favored programming language for artificial intelligence (AI) research. As one of the earliest programming languages, Lisp pioneered many ideas in computer science, includ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sinclair QL
The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was the last desktop microcomputer from Sinclair Research aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small to medium-sized businesses and higher educational establishments, but failed to achieve commercial success. While the ZX Spectrum has an 8-bit Zilog Z80 as the CPU, the QL uses a Motorola 68008. The 68008 is a member of the Motorola 68000 family with 32-bit internal data registers, but an 8-bit external data bus characteristic of microcomputers. History Development The QL was conceived in 1981 under the code name ''ZX83'', as a portable computer for business users, with a built-in ultra-thin flat-screen CRT display similar to the later TV80 pocket TV, printer and modem. As development progressed it eventually became clear that the portability features were over-ambitious ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs that translate source code from a high-level programming language to a lower level language, low-level programming language (e.g. assembly language, object code, or machine code) to create an executable program.Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, Jeffrey D. Ullman - Second Edition, 2007 There are many different types of compilers which produce output in different useful forms. A ''cross-compiler'' produces code for a different Central processing unit, CPU or operating system than the one on which the cross-compiler itself runs. A ''bootstrap compiler'' is often a temporary compiler, used for compiling a more permanent or better optimised compiler for a language. Related software ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lattice C
The Lattice C Compiler was released in June 1982 by Lifeboat Associates and was the first C compiler for the IBM Personal Computer. The compiler sold for $500 and would run on PC DOS or MS-DOS (which at the time were the same product with different brandings). The first hardware requirements were given as 96KB of RAM and one (later two) floppy drives. It was ported to many other platforms, such as mainframes ( MVS), minicomputers ( VMS), workstations (UNIX), OS/2, Amiga, Atari ST, and Sinclair QL. The compiler was subsequently repackaged by Microsoft under a distribution agreement as Microsoft C version 2.0. Microsoft developed their own C compiler that was released in April 1985 as Microsoft C Compiler 3.0. Lattice was purchased by SAS Institute in 1987 and rebranded as SAS/C. After this, support for other platforms dwindled until compiler development ceased for all platforms except IBM mainframes. The product is still available in versions that run on other platforms, but t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |