Intel 8085The Intel 8085 ("eighty-eighty-five") is an 8-bit microprocessor produced by Intel and introduced in March 1976. It is software-binary compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 with only two minor instructions added to support its added interrupt and serial input/output features. However, it requires less support circuitry, allowing simpler and less expensive microcomputer systems to be built. The "5" in the part number highlighted the fact that the 8085 uses a single +5-volt (V) power supply by using depletion-mode transistors, rather than requiring the +5 V, −5 V and +12 V supplies needed by the 8080.
Byte (magazine)Byte (stylized as BYTE) was a microcomputer magazine, influential in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s because of its wide-ranging editorial coverage. Byte started in 1975, shortly after the first personal computers appeared as kits advertised in the back of electronics magazines. Byte was published monthly, with an initial yearly subscription price of $10. Whereas many magazines were dedicated to specific systems or the home or business user's perspective, Byte covered developments in the entire field of "small computers and software", and sometimes other computing fields such as supercomputers and high-reliability computing.
Microsoft BASICMicrosoft BASIC is the foundation software product of the Microsoft company and evolved into a line of BASIC interpreters and compiler(s) adapted for many different microcomputers. It first appeared in 1975 as Altair BASIC, which was the first version of BASIC published by Microsoft as well as the first high-level programming language available for the Altair 8800 microcomputer. During the home computer craze during the late-1970s and early-1980s, BASIC was ported to and supplied with many home computer designs.
Multiuser DOSMultiuser DOS is a real-time multi-user multi-tasking operating system for IBM PC-compatible microcomputers. An evolution of the older Concurrent CP/M-86, Concurrent DOS and Concurrent DOS 386 operating systems, it was originally developed by Digital Research and acquired and further developed by Novell in 1991. Its ancestry lies in the earlier Digital Research 8-bit operating systems CP/M and MP/M, and the 16-bit single-tasking CP/M-86 which evolved from CP/M.
DBasedBase (also stylized dBASE) was one of the first database management systems for microcomputers and the most successful in its day. The dBase system includes the core database engine, a query system, a forms engine, and a programming language that ties all of these components together. dBase's underlying file format, the file, is widely used in applications needing a simple format to store structured data. Originally released as Vulcan for PTDOS in 1978, the CP/M port caught the attention of Ashton-Tate in 1980.
Users' groupA users' group (also user's group or user group) is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually (but not always) computer-related. Users' groups started in the early days of mainframe computers, as a way to share sometimes hard-won knowledge and useful software, usually written by end users independently of the vendor-supplied programming efforts. SHARE, a user group originated by aerospace industry corporate users of IBM mainframe computers, was founded in 1955 and is the oldest computer user group still active.
Resident monitorIn computing, a resident monitor is a type of system software program that was used in many early computers from the 1950s to 1970s. It can be considered a precursor to the operating system. The name is derived from a program which is always present in the computer's memory, thus being "resident". Because memory was very limited on those systems, the resident monitor was often little more than a stub that would gain control at the end of a job and load a non-resident portion to perform required job cleanup and setup tasks.
VT100The VT100 is a video terminal, introduced in August 1978 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was one of the first terminals to support ANSI escape codes for cursor control and other tasks, and added a number of extended codes for special features like controlling the status lights on the keyboard. This led to rapid uptake of the ANSI standard, which became the de facto standard for hardware video terminals and later terminal emulators.
RetrocomputingRetrocomputing is the current use of older computer hardware and software. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons. Occasionally, however, an obsolete computer system has to be "resurrected" to run software specific to that system, to access data stored on obsolete media, or to use a peripheral that requires that system.
CromemcoCromemco was a Mountain View, California microcomputer company known for its high-end Z80-based S-100 bus computers and peripherals in the early days of the personal computer revolution. The company began as a partnership in 1974 between Harry Garland and Roger Melen, two Stanford Ph.D. students. The company was named for their residence at Stanford University (Crothers Memorial, a Stanford dormitory reserved for engineering graduate students).
