khalid01 25.09.2007 18:58 |
KHALID Phone Plaza We are a Standard mobile phones distributor , We deal with phones like Nokia , Samsung , Qtek , Imate , Sony Ericsson ,Motorola Sidekick , Palm Treo and Nextel , which are all very cheap. They are Brand New/Unlocked and they come with complete accessories.They also come with 1year international warranty. Note : If you buy two you will get one for free. if interested contact us at k.majiid@merseymail.com PRICELIST FOR NOKIA PHONES IN STOCK : Nokia 6125 ....$150 Nokia 6136 ....$160 Nokia 6265i .....$140 Nokia 6282 ......$170 Nokia 8800 .....$175 Nokia 770 .....$165 Nokia 8801 .....$180 Nokia E50 ......$130 Nokia E61i......$170 Nokia E70 .....$150 Nokia N70 .....$155 Nokia N71 .....$165 Nokia N72....$175 NOKIA VERTU..$250 Nokia N80 .....$190 Nokia N90 ....$190 Nokia N91 .....$200 Nokia N92 ....$220 Nokia N93 .....$200 Nokia N93i.....$250 Nokia N95 .....$300 Nokia N75 ....$350 Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition ..$250 PRICELIST FOR MOTOROLA PHONES IN STOCK : Motorola Mpx 300........$300 Motorola A1200 .....$170 Motorola A910.....$130 Motorola E1070 .....$135 Motorola L6 Candybar RAZR ....$140 Motorola Q .....$230 Motorola Rokr E2 ....$190 Motorola V1050.....$145 Motorola V195 ....$135 Motorola V3 (Gold) Edition ....$130 Motorola V3c RAZR for Verizon.....$135 Motorola V3i Dolce & Gabbana .....$165 MOTOROLA V3x (PINK) .....$140 Motorola W220 GSM .....$180 MDA4...................$130 Mitac MIO 8930.........$280 HTC P3600.....$200 Toshiba Phones: Toshiba 902T.....USD$180 Toshiba 903T.....USD$185 Toshiba 904T.....USD$190 Toshiba TX60.....USD$230 Toshiba TX62.....USD$220 Toshiba TX80.....USD$230 Xplore Phones: Xplore M70.....USD$175 Xplore M98.....USD$160 PRICELIST FOR IMATE PHONES IN STOCK : I-Mate JAM ....$190 I-Mate JAMin ....$200 I-Mate JASJAR .....$300 I-Mate K-Jam .....$210 I-Mate Smartflip .....$220 I-Mate SP5 .....$130 I-Mate SP5m ....$120 Philips Phones: Philips 766........USD$165 Philips 768........USD$175 Philips 968........USD$175 Philips S900......USD$160 Sharp Phones: Sharp 703SH....USD$170 Sharp 903SH....USD$245 Sharp GX29......USD$175 Sharp SX633.....USD$230 PRICELIST FOR SAMSUNG PHONES : Samsung U700...$300 Samsung P920 .....$245 Samsung I830....$220 Samsung Serene SGH-E910.....$300 Samsung S401i...$180 Samsung D870 .....$200 Samsung Z710 ....$230 Samsung p900 .....$255 Samsung p860 ......$235 PRICELIST FOR SONY ERICSSON PHONES : Sony Ericsson K310 ....$125 Sony Ericsson K510 ....$135 Sony Ericsson K610 ....$145 Sony Ericsson K790 ....$180 Sony Ericsson K800 ....$170 Sony Ericsson M600 ....$155 Sony Ericsson P990i .........$230 Sony Ericsson W700i ...$130 Sony Ericsson W810 ....$135 Sony Ericsson W850 GSM .....$220 Sony Ericsson W900i ....$230 Sony Ericsson W950 .....$240 Sony Ericsson W960......$280 Sony Ericsson Z710 .....$240 Sony Ericsson p910i.....$165 Sony Ericsson P1i.......$200 O2 XdPhones O2 Xda Atom.............USD$300 O2 Xda Atom Exec...USD$310 O2 Xda Stealth..........USD$320 Pantech Phones: Pantech G670............USD$170 Pantech PG-3600V....USD$165 Pantech PG-6200......USD$175 Pantech PG-8000......USD$170 Pantech PG6100........USD$220 PRICELIST FOR PALM TREO PHONES : Palm Treo 650 GSM A....$120 Palm Treo 700w ....$140 Palm Treo 750w ..$200 PRICELIST FOR SIDEKICKS: Sidekick 2......$110 Sidekick 3......$140 D-Wade Sidekick 3 ..$200 LRG Sidekick 3.....$180 PRICELIST FOR NEXTEL Nextel i930..$140 Nextel i830...$120 PRICELIST FOR QTEK PHONES : Qtek 8100 .....$110 QTEK 8300 .....$120 Qtek 8310 ....$150 Qtek 8500 ....$155 Qtek 8600 ....$200 Qtek 9000 3G Pocket PC .....$250 Qtek 9100 Smartphone / Pocket PC ....$150 Qtek 9600 .....$250 Qtek G100 GPS PPC and Pharos Ostia GPS Software(US Maps}....$155 QTEK S200 GSM/GPRS Pocket PC .....$190 Qtek S300 .... $200 Qtek 2020 .... $210 Qtek s100 .... $170 Qtek 8020 .... $150 Qtek 9090 .... $2 |
its_a_hard_life 26994 25.09.2007 19:10 |
WTF..... |
Mr Mercury 25.09.2007 19:15 |
<font color="#FF00FF">its_a_hard_life wrote: WTF.....My thoughts exactly......... |
Freya is quietly judging you. 25.09.2007 19:25 |
I'LL TAKE THEM ALL. |
its_a_hard_life 26994 25.09.2007 19:33 |
<b><font color=007788>?Freya? wrote: I'LL TAKE THEM ALL.Robbed a bank today, did ya? ;) Or ya just gonna rob this guy and blame it on some poor soul? :D |
its_a_hard_life 26994 25.09.2007 19:34 |
<font color=FF9900>Mr Mercury</font> wrote:Seriously... I was like... "WTF" face when I read this. XD<font color="#FF00FF">its_a_hard_life wrote: WTF.....My thoughts exactly......... |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:38 |
Acorn Computers was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the UK. These included the Acorn Electron, the BBC Micro and the Acorn Archimedes. Acorn's BBC Micro computer dominated the UK educational computer market during the 1980s and early 1990s, drawing many comparisons with Apple in the U.S. Though the company was broken up into several independent operations in 1998, it leaves an impressive legacy, particularly in the development of RISC personal computers. A number of Acorn's former subsidiaries, notably ARM Holdings, live on today. A new company licensed the Acorn trademark in 2006 to sell a range of branded laptop computers. Prehistory On 25 July 1961, Clive Sinclair founded Sinclair Radionics to develop and sell electronic devices such as calculators. The failure of the Black Watch wristwatch and the calculator market's move from LEDs to LCDs led to financial problems, and Sinclair approached the National Enterprise Board (NEB) for help. After losing control of the company to the NEB, Sinclair encouraged Chris Curry to leave Radionics and get Science of Cambridge (SoC) up and running. In June 1978, SoC launched a microcomputer kit that Curry wanted to develop further, but Sinclair could not be persuaded. During the development of the MK14, Hermann Hauser, a friend of Curry's, had been visiting SoC's offices and had grown interested in the product. CPU Ltd (1978–83) Curry and Hauser decided to pursue their joint interest in microcomputers and, on 5 December 1978, they set up Cambridge Processor Unit Ltd (CPU) as the vehicle with which to do this. CPU soon obtained a consultancy contract to develop a microprocessor-based controller for a fruit machine for Ace Coin Equipment (ACE) of Wales. The ACE project was started at office space obtained at 4a Market Hill in Cambridge. Initially, the ACE controller was based on a SC/MP microprocessor, but soon the switch to a 6502 was made. The microcomputer systems CPU had financed the development of a 6502-based microcomputer system using the income from its design-and-build consultancy. This system was launched in January 1979 as the first product of Acorn Computer Ltd, a trading name used by CPU to keep the risks of the two different lines of business separate. Acorn was chosen because the microcomputer system was to be expandable and growth-oriented. It also had the attraction of appearing before "Apple" in a telephone directory. Around this time, CPU and Andy Hopper set up Orbis Ltd to commercialise the Cambridge Ring networking system Hopper had worked on for his PhD, but it was soon decided to bring him into CPU as a director because he could promote CPU's interests at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory. CPU purchased Orbis, and Hopper's Orbis shares were exchanged for shares in CPU Ltd. CPU's role gradually changed as its Acorn brand grew, and soon CPU was simply the holding company and Acorn was responsible for development work. At some point Curry had a disagreement with Sinclair and formally left Science of Cambridge, but did not join the other Acorn employees at Market Hill until a little while later. The Acorn Microcomputer, later renamed the Acorn System 1, was designed by Sophie Wilson. It was a semi-professional system aimed at engineering and laboratory users, but its price was low enough, at around £80, to appeal to the more serious enthusiast as well. It was a very small machine built on two cards, one with an LED display, keypad, and cassette interface (the circuitry to the left of the keypad), and the other with the rest of the computer (including the CPU). Almost all CPU signals were accessible via a Eurocard connector. The System 2 made it easier to expand the system by putting the CPU card from the System 1 in a 19-inch Eurocard rack that allowed a number of optional additions. The System 2 typic |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:38 |
BBC Micro and the Electron With the Atom on the market, Acorn could begin to think about its replacement. There were new 16-bit processors coming onto the market – should they move in that direction? After a great deal of discussion, Hauser suggested a compromise – an improved 6502-based machine with far greater expansion capabilities: the Proton. Acorn's technical staff had not wanted to do the Atom and they now saw the Proton as their opportunity to "do it right". One of the developments proposed for the Proton was the Tube, a proprietary interface allowing a second processor to be added. This compromise would make for an affordable 6502 machine for the mass market which could be expanded with more sophisticated and expensive processors. The Tube enabled processing to be farmed out to the second processor leaving the 6502 to perform data input/output (I/O). In later years the Tube would play an important role in the development of Acorn's own processor. In early 1980, the BBC Further Education department conceived the idea of a computer literacy programme, mostly as a follow-up to a BBC documentary, The Mighty Micro, in which Dr Christopher Evans from the UK National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming microcomputer revolution. It was a very influential documentary – so much so that questions were asked in parliament. As a result of these questions, the Department of Industry (DoI) became interested in the programme, as did BBC Enterprises, which saw an opportunity to sell a machine to go with the series. BBC Engineering was instructed to draw up an objective specification for a computer to accompany the series. Eventually, under some pressure from the DoI to choose a British system, the BBC chose the NewBrain from Newbury Laboratories. This selection revealed the extent of the pressure brought to bear on the supposedly independent BBC's computer literacy project – Newbury was owned by the National Enterprise Board, a government agency operating in close collaboration with the DoI. The choice was also somewhat ironic given that the NewBrain started life as a Sinclair Radionics project, and it was Sinclair's preference for developing it over Science of Cambridge's MK14 that led to Curry leaving SoC to found CPU with Hauser. The NEB moved the NewBrain to Newbury after Sinclair left Radionics and went to SoC. In 1980–1982 the UK Department of Education and Science (DES) had begun the Microelectronics Education Programme to introduce microprocessing concepts and educational materials. In 1982 through to 1986, the DoI allocated funding to assist UK local education authorities to supply their schools with a range of computers, the BBC Micro being one of the most popular. In parallel the DES continued to fund more materials for the computers, such as software and applied computing projects, plus teacher training. Although the NewBrain was under heavy development by Newbury, it soon became clear that they were not going to be able to produce it – certainly not in time for the literacy programme nor to the BBC's specification. The BBC's programmes, initially scheduled for autumn 1981, were moved back to spring 1982. After Curry and Sinclair found out about the BBC's plans, the BBC allowed other manufacturers to submit their proposals. The BBC visited Acorn and were given a demonstration of the Proton. Shortly afterwards, the literacy programme computer contract was awarded to Acorn, and the Proton was launched early in 1982 as the BBC Micro. In April 1984 Acorn won the Queen's Award for Technology for the BBC Micro. The award paid special tribute to the BBC Micro's advanced design, and it commended Acorn "for the development of a microcomputer system with many innovative features". In April 1982 Sinclair launched the ZX Spectrum. Curry conceived of the Electron as Acorn's sub-£200 competitor. In many ways a cut-down BBC Micro, it used one Acorn-designed ULA to reproduce most of the f |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:39 |
This Acorn Business Computer (ABC) plan required a number of second processors to be made to work with the BBC Micro platform. In developing these, Acorn had to implement the Tube protocols on each processor chosen, in the process finding out, during 1983, that there were no obvious candidates to replace the 6502. Because of many-cycle uninterruptible instructions, for example, the interrupt response times of the 68000 were too slow to handle the communication protocol that the host 6502-based BBC Micro coped with easily. Development of the National Semiconductor 32016-based model of the ABC range, later sold as the Cambridge Workstation (using the Panos operating system), had shown Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber the value of memory bandwidth. It also showed that an 8 MHz 32016 was completely trounced in performance terms by a 4 MHz 6502. Furthermore, the Apple Lisa had shown the Acorn engineers that they needed to develop a windowing system – and this was not going to be easy with a 2–4 MHz 6502-based system doing the graphics. Acorn would need a new architecture. Acorn had tested all of the available processors and found them wanting. Having ruled out existing CPUs, it was clear to the developers that Acorn should seriously consider designing its own processor. Acorn’s engineers came across papers on the Berkeley RISC project. They could now handle the truth: if a class of graduate students could create a competitive 32-bit processor, then Acorn would have no problem. A trip to the Western Design Center in Phoenix showed Furber and Wilson that they did not need massive resources and state-of-the-art R&D facilities. Sophie Wilson set about developing the instruction set, writing a simulation of the processor in BBC Basic that ran on a BBC Micro with a 6502 second processor. It convinced the Acorn engineers that they were on the right track. Before they could go any further, however, they would need more resources. It was time for Wilson to approach Hauser and explain what was afoot. Once the go-ahead had been given, a small team was put together to implement Wilson's model in hardware. The official Acorn RISC Machine project started in October 1983. VLSI Technology, Inc were chosen as silicon partner, since they already supplied Acorn with ROMs and some custom chips. VLSI produced the first ARM silicon on 26 April 1985 – it worked first time and came to be known as ARM1. Its first practical application was as a second processor to the BBC Micro, where it was used to develop the simulation software to finish work on the support chips (VIDC, IOC, MEMC) and to speed up the operation of the CAD software used in developing ARM2. Wilson subsequently coded BBC Basic in ARM assembly language, and the in-depth knowledge obtained from designing the instruction set allowed the code to be very dense, making ARM BBC Basic an extremely good test for any ARM emulator. Such was the secrecy surrounding the ARM CPU project that when Olivetti were negotiating to take a controlling share of Acorn in 1985, they were not told about the development team until after the negotiations had been finalised. In 1992 Acorn once more won the Queen's Award for Technology for the ARM. Financial problems Acorn's watershed year was 1984 – it had gone public just as the home computer market collapsed. It was the year when Atari was sold, Apple nearly went bust, and Acorn had solved the one problem it had had throughout its history: production volumes. The Electron had been launched in 1983, but problems with the supply of its ULAs meant that Acorn was not able to capitalise on the 1983 Christmas selling period – a successful advertising campaign, including TV advertisements, had led to 300,000 orders, but the Malaysian suppliers were only able to supply 30,000 machines. The apparently strong demand for Electrons proved to be illusory: rather than wait, parents bought Commodore 64s or ZX Spectrums for their children's presents. Ferranti s |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:39 |
BBC Master and Archimedes The BBC Master was launched in February 1986 and met with great success. From 1986 to 1989, about 200,000 systems were sold, each costing £499, mainly to UK schools and universities. A number of enhanced versions were launched – for example, the Master 512, which had 512 KiB of RAM and an internal 80186 processor for MS-DOS compatibility, and the Master Turbo, which had a 65C102 second processor. The first commercial use of the ARM architecture was in the ARM Development System, a Tube-linked second processor for the BBC Master which allowed one to write programs for the new system. It sold for around £4,000 and included the ARM processor and three support chips, 4 MiB of RAM and a set of development tools with an enhanced version of BBC BASIC. The second ARM-based product was the Acorn Archimedes desktop-computer, released in mid-1987. The Archimedes was popular in the United Kingdom, Australasia and Ireland, and was considerably more powerful and advanced than most offerings of the day, but the market was already stratifying into the PC-dominated world. Acorn continued to produce updated models of the Archimedes including a laptop (the A4) and in 1994 launched the Risc PC, whose top specification would later include a 200 MHz+ StrongARM processor. These were sold mainly into education, specialist and enthusiast markets. ARM Ltd Acorn's silicon partner, VLSI, had been tasked with finding new applications for the ARM CPU and support chips. Hauser's Active Book company had been developing a handheld device and for this the ARM CPU developers had created a static version of their processor, the ARM2aS. Apple was developing an entirely new computing platform, the Newton. Various requirements had been set for the processor in terms of power consumption, cost and performance, and there was also a need for fully static operation in which the clock could be stopped at any time. Only the Acorn RISC Machine came close to meeting all these demands, but there were still deficiencies. The ARM did not, for example, have an integral memory management unit as this function was being provided by the MEMC support chip and Acorn did not have the resources to develop one. Apple and Acorn began to collaborate on developing the ARM, and it was decided that this would be best achieved by a separate company. The bulk of the Advanced Research and Development section of Acorn that had developed the ARM CPU formed the basis of ARM Ltd when that company was spun off in November 1990. Acorn Group and Apple Computer Inc each had a 43% shareholding in ARM (in 1996), while VLSI were an investor and first ARM licensee. Set-Top boxes In 1994, a subsidiary of Acorn, Online Media, was founded. Online Media aimed to exploit the projected video-on-demand (VOD) boom, an interactive television system which would allow users to select and watch video content over a network. In September 1994 the Cambridge Trial of video-on-demand services was set up by Online Media, Anglia Television, Cambridge Cable and Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd (ATML) – the trial involved creating a wide area ATM network linking TV-company to subscribers' homes and delivering services such as home shopping, online education, software downloaded on-demand and the World Wide Web. The wide area network used a combination of fibre and coaxial cable, and the switches were housed in the roadside cabinets of Cambridge Cable's existing network. Olivetti Research Laboratory developed the technology used by the trial. An ICL video server provided the service via ATM switches manufactured by ATML, another company set up by Hauser and Hopper. The trial commenced at a speed of 2 Mbit/s to the home, subsequently increased to 25 Mbit/s. Subscribers used Acorn Online Media set-top boxes. For the first six months the trial involved 10 VOD terminals; the second phase was expanded to cover 100 homes and 8 schools with a further 150 termin |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:39 |
Network Computers When BBC2's The Money Programme screened an interview with Larry Ellison in October 1995, Acorn Online Media Managing Director Malcolm Bird realised that Ellison's network computer was, basically, an Acorn set-top box. After initial discussions between Oracle Corporation and Olivetti, Hauser and Acorn a few weeks later, Bird was dispatched to San Francisco with Acorn's latest Set Top Box. Oracle had already talked seriously with computer manufacturers including Sun and Apple about the contract for putting together the NC blueprint machine; there were also rumours in the industry that said Oracle itself was working on the reference design. After Bird's visit to Oracle, Ellison visited Acorn and a deal was reached: Acorn would define the NC Reference Standard. Ellison was expecting to announce the NC in February 1996. Sophie Wilson was put in charge of the NC project, and by mid-November a draft NC specification was ready. By January 1996 the formal details of the contract between Acorn and Oracle had been worked out, and the PCB was designed and ready to be put into production. In February 1996 Acorn Network Computing was founded. In August 1996 it launched the Acorn Network Computer. It was hoped that the Network Computer would create a significant new sector in which Acorn Network Computing would be a major player, either selling its own products or earning money from licence fees paid by other manufacturers for the right to produce their own NCs. To that end, two of Acorn's major projects were the creation of a new 'consumer device' operating system, Galileo and, in conjunction with Digital Semiconductor and ARM, a new StrongARM chipset, the SA1500 / SA1501. Galileo's main feature was a guarantee of a certain quality of service to each process in which the resources (CPU, memory, etc.) required to ensure reliable operation would be kept available regardless of the behaviour of other processes. The SA1500 sported higher clock rates than existing StrongARM CPUs and, more importantly, a media-focussed coprocessor (the Attached Media Processor or AMP). The SA1500 was to be the first release target for Galileo. After having incorporated its STB and NC business areas as separate companies, Acorn created a new wholly owned subsidiary, Acorn RISC Technologies (ART). ART focused on the development of Galileo and other software and hardware technologies built on top of ARM processors. The break up of Acorn (1998–2000) and on-going developments of their technology Acorn's last real hopes of becoming a major player in the computer industry had fizzled out: set-top boxes were not taking off as expected, and the Network Computer, too, had been a bit of a flop – traditional PCs were reaching the types of prices thought to justify such a design, and increases in bandwidth to the home were slow to come about, making a broadband internet connection something of a luxury for the late '90s. Between 1996 and 1998 Olivetti disposed of its interest in Acorn Group through a series of structured transactions, raising £54m. Acorn restructured its operations, bringing its subsidiary companies back together as divisions within Acorn. Acorn Risc Technologies became the Workstation Division, which was closed in late 1998 when Acorn finally stopped producing desktop-computers in favour of set-top boxes. The last machine, code-named Phoebe or Risc PC 2, was nearly fully developed at the time of the project's abandonment, and therefore was never produced in volume nor sold to the public. Notably, numbers of its distinctive yellow case were produced and sold off cheaply. ARM, however, had gone from strength to strength. In 1998, the Company underwent an initial public offering (IPO) and reregistered as a public company under the name ARM Holdings plc when it completed its IPO and listed its shares for trading on the London Stock Exchange and for quotation on the Nasdaq National Market. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter ac |
Lester Burnham 25.09.2007 19:39 |
On 24 July 2006, Nominet's Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) ruled that the domain name acorncomputers.co.uk should be transferred to the new Acorn from computer enthusiast Roy Johnson. The company made a complaint to DRS contending that the "use of [Acorn Computers'] company name is illegal and has caused much confusion and continues to do so which is detrimental to [Acorn] and extremely misleading". Despite the fact that Johnson appeared to have been operating the website since at least 2001, five years before the new Acorn was registered as a company, mail to Johnson's registered address was returned by Royal Mail marked addressee has gone away. The reuse of the Acorn Computers Ltd name has caused an amount of confusion and controversy, particularly amongst the users of Acorn's previous products. |
Mr Mercury 25.09.2007 19:58 |
ZX Spectrum The real beginning of home computing all started with the ZX Spectrum. Introduced by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1982, it proved to be a huge hit in the home. The machine was small, smaller than any laptop available today. It plugged into a standard television set and used a standard tape recorder for storage. It was equipped with 48K of ram which was plenty for what it needed to do. A 5.25" disk drive was available for those that needed it (programmers and the like). It was a machine tailored for home use. Sinclair proved that his machine could be a flexible tool. Word Processing, database & spreadsheet applications were cheaply available and it mimicked the action of the arcade games which had become so popular in the late 70's. Space Invaders, Pac Man, Pong - all classics of their time and could all be played cheaply within the home. Despite Sinclair having to sell Sinclair Research to Amstrad after the dismal sales provided by the Sinclair C5, the ZX spectrum continued to thrive. New 128K versions with more powerful sound were produced with a choice of a built in disk or tape drive. The games became more advanced. Dizzy proved to be a classic of its time, providing great puzzles. The computer also managed to keep up with the hottest arcade games of the era. Although the spectrum could not compete graphically with the arcade power, it managed to match the gameplay with astounding success. Operation Wolf, Chase HQ and Streetfighter II all proved to be amazing conversions for the computer. Of course no technology can keep up with the ever increasing demand placed on it by the consumer market. 16 bit computers and consoles such as the Sega Megadrive and Commodore Amiga well outsold it with their advanced graphics and superior speed. However, they themselves only lasted a few years before being replaced with 32bit equipment. Pentium processors were selling like hot-cakes and Sony made a tremendous break into the market with the Playstation. For 10 years the ZX Spectrum was a mainstream computer. Nothing before or since has matched it. Just think how obsolete the Pentium III will be in 10 years time. The spectrum was incredibly well designed and it is the amazing British design which put it in good stead for an entire decade. No computing machine could match that today. ----------------------------------------------- The Spectrum came with 16K of RAM on board the basic unit, expandable to 48K. The keyboard is vaguely reminiscent of the early 8K Commodore PETs, but with the layout so well designed that touch typing is possible: the keys have a nice responsive feel to them, rather than the original "press and click" keys. As was the case with earlier models each key has a number of functions on it, including the famous single key stroke entry for BASIC keywords. The price of the base unit was a remarkable £125 and since the expansion to 48K cost around £60 this machine was easily the first affordable computer for home use. At the time of release the 48K base models were planned and price at a very low cost of £175 - making it cheaper than the 3.5K VIC. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Features present on this machine that were not present on the previous ZX80 and ZX81 include full colour high resolution graphics and sound. The availability of the machine was immediate with Sinclair producing 20,000 models a month to meet the high demand. Also available immediately is a new printer, although the original printers designed for the ZX80/81 also work perfectly. Sir Clive also gave details on an RS232 network board costing no more than £25 for the ZX Spectrum - this of course caused major upheavel in the computer industry. The MicroDrive was also mentioned during the conference, this wonderful piece of kit is a 2 & 1/4' disk drive for the Spectrum with each disk holding upto 100K per disk and a tran |
iGSM 25.09.2007 22:14 |
BIG and they're cheesy. Heh, Bobo...your mother treats you badly. |
john bodega 26.09.2007 04:55 |
That's how the cookie crumbles and STOP RUINING MY LIFE. |
Micrówave 26.09.2007 14:10 |
<font color=FF9900>Mr Mercury</font> wrote: ZX Spectrum The real beginning of home computing all started with the ZX Spectrum. Introduced by Sir Clive Sinclair in 1982, it proved to be a huge hit in the home.Sorry British. Apple 1977, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs had already done that. They had a 5.25 drive by 1978. Scoreboard: United States Built in 1977, the Apple ][ was based on Wozniak's Apple I design, but with several additions. The first was the design of a plastic case--a rarity at the time--which was painted beige. The second was the ability to display color graphics--a holy grail in the industry. The Apple ][ also included a larger ROM, more expandable RAM (4K to start), and 8 expansion slots. It had integer BASIC hard-coded on the ROM for easier programming, and included two game paddles and a demo cassette for $1,298. In early 1978 Apple also released a disk drive for the machine, one of the most inexpensive available. The Apple ][ remained on the Apple product list until 1980. It was also repackaged in a black case and sold to educational markets by Bell & Howell. Apple president Mike Markkula was one Apple II user that was dissatisfied with cassette tape storage. He had a favorite checkbook program, but it took two minutes to read in the program from the tape, and another two minutes to read in the check files.[1] Consequently, at the executive board meeting held in December 1977 he made a list of company goals. At the top of the list was "floppy disk". Although Wozniak didn't know much about how floppy disks worked, he had once looked through a manual from Shugart (a Silicon Valley disk drive manufacturer): As an experiment Woz had [earlier] conceived a circuit that would do much of what the Shugart manual said was needed to control a disk drive. Woz didn't know how computers actually controlled drives, but his method had seemed to him particularly simple and clever. When Markkula challenged him to put a disk drive on the Apple, he recalled that circuit and began considering its feasibility. He looked at the way other computer companies--including IBM--controlled drives. He also began to examine disk drives--particularly North Star's. After reading the North Star manual, Woz knew that his circuit would do what theirs did and more. He knew he really had a clever design.[2] Other issues that Wozniak had to deal with involved a way to properly time the reading and writing of information to the disk. IBM used a complex hardware-based circuit to achieve this synchronization. Wozniak, after studying how IBM's drive worked, realized that if the data was written to the disk in a different fashion, all that circuitry was unneeded. Many floppy disks sold at that time were "hard sectored", meaning that they had a hole punched in the disk near the center ring. This hole was used by the disk drive hardware to identify what section of the disk was passing under the read/write head at any particular time. Wozniak's technique would allow the drive to do self-synchronization ("soft sectoring"), not have to deal with that little timing hole, and save on hardware. Wozniak asked Randy Wigginton for help in writing some software to control the disk drive. During their week of Christmas vacation in 1977 they worked day and night creating a rudimentary disk operating system, working hard to get the drive ready to demonstrate at the Consumer Electronics Show in the first week of 1978. Their system was to allow entry of single letter commands to read files from fixed locations on the disk. However, even this simple system was not working when Wozniak and Wigginton left for the show. When they got to Las Vegas they helped to set up the booth, and then returned to working on the disk drive. They stayed up all night, and by six in the morning they had a functioning demonstration disk. Randy suggested making a copy of the |