ae
The ANALYTICAL ENGINE
Newsletter of the Computer History Association of California
ISSN 1071-6351
Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994
Kip Crosby, Managing Editor
Jude Thilman, Telecommunications Editor
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CONTENTS
EDITORIAL: WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU? .......................... 2
NEW ADDRESS Effective Next Issue .......................... 3
IN MEMORIAM: GARY KILDALL ................................ 3
LET'S SEE, THIS PIN IS +5V.... ........................... 4
DAVID CRAIG UNCOVERS A SLEEPING CAT ....................... 5
FOG EXITS (on little cat feet) ............................ 5
MOTOROLA'S MIDWESTERN MUSEUM .............................. 6
EXPANSION OF UNUSUAL SYSTEMS .............................. 7
NO JOY ON LISA DEVELOPMENT TOOLS .......................... 7
SPOTTER ALERT ............................................. 8
SPOTTER FLASH ............................................. 8
DESPERATE PLEA FOR MONEY .................................. 8
AND SPEAKING OF MONEY.... ................................. 9
OVERVIEW OF BUREAUCRATIC PROCESSES ....................... 10
FLAMING DORADOS AND OTHER STORIES: Herb Yeary and Charlie
Sosinski Talk About Computer Support at Xerox PARC ....... 11
THE APPLE LISA COMPUTER: A RETROSPECTIVE by David Craig .. 32
A CALIFORNIA COMPUTER ON THE MOON, by James Tomayko ...... 54
BOOK REVIEW: HISTORY OF COMPUTING by Lexikon Systems ..... 56
ACQUISITIONS ............................................. 58
LETTERS .................................................. 59
QUERIES .................................................. 65
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED .................................... 72
ADDRESSES OF CORRESPONDING ORGANIZATIONS ................. 73
THANKS TO.... ............................................ 73
NEXT ISSUE ............................................... 74
GUIDELINES FOR DISTRIBUTION .............................. 74
GUIDELINES FOR SUBMISSION ................................ 74
SUBSCRIBE! ............................................... 75
NINES-CARD ............................................... 76
ADD MONEY, MAIL.... ...................................... 78
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 2
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Editorial: WHAT'S IN IT FOR YOU?
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Quite a bit, actually.
Dr. Tom Haddock, author of the fine _Collector's Guide to
Personal Computers and Pocket Calculators_, makes a handsome
offer to CHAC members: His unique and valuable book will be
available from the publisher at a 20% discount. Order directly
from:
Books Americana
Box 2326
Florence AL 35630 USA,
mention the Association, and pay only US$11.95 plus $3 shipping
for this indispensable reference.
We hope that this will be the first of many such co-operations;
as the CHAC grows and makes connections, we look forward to
being more generous with our subscribers and benefactors. The
process has already begun. Remember when the hard-copy edition
of the ENGINE was a stapled sheaf of copier paper? It's become a
proper magazine with cover art; before long we'll add
illustrations inside. Remember when the electronic ENGINE was a
30K file? The newest issues are six or seven times that size --
and growing fast. And your ENGINE sub costs you _less_ than it
did last July, because this year it's tax-deductible.
There's so much we could do, in coming months and years, to
bring you _more_ and _better_ computer history. We'll put more
resource files, like Doug Jones' widely admired repair
instructions for docs, up on our request mailer. We'd like to
offer history books and tapes at special subscriber prices. Down
the line, we hope to take advantage of technologies like CD-ROM
and digital video -- to bring the real, perennial liveliness of
computer history to whole new generations. And then, in 1999,
the Museum....with luck, the most vivid and spectacular showcase
that California computing could ever have.
If you're a member of the CHAC, stick with us and these benefits
will be yours. If you _haven't_ joined yet, joining now will
mean more than ever before -- to you and to us. The _more_
subscribers we have, the _more_ we can offer with every
subscription.
What's in it for you? Right now, plenty. Before long, even more!
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 3
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NEW ADDRESS EFFECTIVE NEXT ISSUE
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CHAC and the ANALYTICAL ENGINE are moving to Palo Alto, CA, in
mid-August. We will have both a new snail-mail address and a new
e-mail address, which will be published in the October ENGINE.
Mail to the El Cerrito addresses will be forwarded.
(It's classic....start in a garage, move to the Valley.)
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IN MEMORIAM: GARY KILDALL
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Dr. Gary Kildall, programmer of the CP/M operating system and
co-founder of Digital Research, Inc., died on Monday, July 11,
1994, in the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula,
Monterey, CA, USA. The County coroner's office is investigating
his death, and at our press time, foul play had not been ruled
out.
Kildall was born on May 19, 1942 in Seattle, WA, where his
parents operated the Kildall Nautical School -- for which he did
his first programming. He received a bachelor's degree in
mathematics and an M. S. and Ph. D. in computer science, all
from the University of Washington.
In 1972, while a teacher at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School
in Monterey, Kildall purchased an Intel 4004 microprocessor. His
experiments with arithmetic routines for it drew him closer to
Intel's fledgling programming efforts, and he began contract
work for the company, developing code for the Sim-04 singleboard
development system. Proceeding to the Intellec 8 Mod 8 [see
"Dawn of the Micro," ANALYTICAL ENGINE January 1994,] he
developed the first high-level language for microprocessors,
PL/M, a port of the IBM mainframe language PL/I that was
eventually offered by Intel for both the 8008 and 8080.
He crucially influenced the history of the microcomputer in
1973-74 when he wrote CP/M as a speculative operating system for
a microprocessor-based computer using floppy disks for program
and data storage. With his wife, Dorothy McEwen, he founded
Digital Research (DRI) to market CP/M in several versions; it
remained the dominant micro operating system for almost a
decade, until Microsoft Corporation's MS-DOS overtook it in the
marketplace. DRI later developed the GEM graphical operating
environment, which was used on Motorola-based Atari computers
and in several Intel-compatible applications -- notably the
widely used page composition program Ventura Publisher.
Dr. Kildall continued to teach at the Naval Postgraduate School
for several years following the establishment of DRI. More
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 4
recently he founded other computer-related companies including
KnowledgeSet, which produced the first CD-ROM edition of
Grolier's Encyclopedia, and Prometheus Light and Sound, a
developer of advanced computer telephony. His last project of
record was _Computer Connections_, a history of the computer
industry, which he published earlier this year in a small
edition for family and friends; a larger commercial edition is
anticipated.
Gary Kildall will be remembered by the world's computing
community as a gifted teacher, a consistent innovator, and a
developer who took great personal risks but disdained the
aggressive and litigious tactics of his competition. The
Computer History Association of California extends condolences
to Dr. Kildall's son, Scott, and daughter, Kristin; to his
former wife, Dorothy McEwen; to his mother, Emma Kildall, and
sister, Patricia Guberlet.
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LET'S SEE, THIS PIN IS +5V....
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While we were talking to Dr. Tom Haddock (above,) he came up
with another idea of considerable merit: a Master Index of
integrated circuits, with manufacturers' names, schematics,
pinouts, production dates, and any other salient details, all
keyed to the legend on the chip cap.
Such an index would be useful to people in many walks of life,
and especially for collectors and restorers. Not much is as
frustrating as stumbling over a dusty box of IC's stuck into
foam, and having no idea what they are. A comprehensive cross-
index would also make it much easier to determine equivalency
when the original chip simply isn't available. Modern machinery
of almost any type -- from a computer to a pickup truck -- can
be forced out of service indefinitely when a scarce or obsolete
IC fails.
Such an index would be voluminous, but CD-ROM technology would
make it practical. At a time when American business derives new
productivity from (for example) comprehensive regional and
national databases of telephone numbers, it's clear that
computing and computer history could benefit from organizing
information on the same scale.
Having said that, we have to wonder if this task has been begun,
not by historians necessarily, but by the electronics industry
itself. Has any attempt ever been made to collect and cross-
index the IC catalogs or databases that already exist? If so,
details please to the El Cerrito address or cpu@chac.win.net.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 5
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DAVID CRAIG UNCOVERS A SLEEPING CAT
-------------------------------------------------
Admirers of California's computer history -- especially in its
more obscure aspects -- should definitely check out David
Craig's article, "Canon's Cat Computer: The Real Macintosh,"
that appears in issue #6 of _Historically Brewed_, the magazine
of the Historical Computer Society.
Jef Raskin will be familiar to many of our readers as the
supervising engineer for Apple's Macintosh project, a post he
held from 1979 to 1982. But in February 1982 Raskin resigned
from Apple because Macintosh development had reached an
intractable philosophical fork: Steve Jobs wanted the Mac to be
a strict technical descendant of the brilliant but troubled Lisa
(see page 44,) whereas Raskin believed that the two were
separate computers with distinct purposes and markets.
Pursuing development of his own ideas, Raskin founded
Information Appliance, Inc., in Menlo Park, CA, in 1984 -- and
designed the computer that became the fascinating, but little-
known, Canon Cat. We won't be specific about its unusual design
philosophy, unique toolkit, or sad fate, but....if you're not a
_Historically Brewed_ reader yet, we assure you that this
fascinating article is one more good reason to subscribe!
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FOG EXITS (ON LITTLE CAT FEET)
-------------------------------------------------
The FOG International Computer Users' Group, one of Northern
California's earliest and most ambitious micro support groups,
has apparently ceased operations, after months of conflicting
reports.
FOG was established in Santa Clara, CA in September 1981, as a
clearinghouse of information and support for users of the
phenomenal Osborne micros. Founding members and early directors
included Frank Morton, Byron McKay, Bob Kavinoky, Leo Grandi,
Jim Schenkel, David Oates, Jack Brown and Gale Rhoades, among
others. Practically from its inception to its demise, FOG
published the FOGHORN, a newsletter which grew to embrace all of
CP/M computing, and was one of the most respected and
technically astute of all user-group newsletters. FOGLIGHT, a
companion publication for the MS-DOS platform, was produced from
late 1984 to mid-1991.
FOG survived Osborne's shattering bankruptcy in September 1983.
Building on a mailing list provided by micro software developer
Sorcim/IUS, the organization grew to 10,000 members by January
1984, and probably to 30,000 -- in almost every country of the
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 6
world -- at its peak. "In its heyday, FOG was the world's most
comprehensive source of information about micro hardware and
software," says Gale Rhoades. "A comparable resource simply no
longer exists. It was unique for its insistence on networking,
on sharing knowledge of _how_ the system worked -- not just
information on _what_ the computer was supposed to do, which is
the focus of technical support today."
Like many other West Coast support groups, FOG declined
unrelentingly as the CP/M operating system faded from the micro
marketplace. Its remarkable accumulation of hardware, software
and documentation is scattered throughout Northern California,
and we must assume that some of it has been sold. CHAC is
cooperating in an effort to salvage any remaining FOG assets. We
invite any principal of FOG, particularly someone with
significant involvement between 1981 and 1984, to describe this
history in greater detail for publication in the ANALYTICAL
ENGINE.
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MOTOROLA'S MIDWESTERN MUSEUM
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Motorola processors have been the speedy, spacious hearts of so
many of California's best-known computers -- SUNs, Apple Macs,
NeXTstations, Atari ST's, and lots of others -- that certainly
the history of Motorola's electronic development is of interest
to our readers. All the better to discover, as we recently did,
that Motorola has its own Museum of Electronics.
Founded in 1991, the Museum traces the evolution of Motorola,
Inc., and its product lines from its beginnings as a maker of
car radios in 1930, through historical exhibits bolstered by
audiovisual presentations. It also uses interactive computer
displays to highlight Motorola's widespread uses of contemporary
electronics technologies. At 20,000 square feet, this facility
is tidy but well-appointed, and the few pictures we received
suggest that a rigorous visit would easily consume a whole day.
This museum has won significant awards in its brief career,
including the 1992 Dibner Prize for museum exhibition and
presentation from the Society for the History of Technology. It
hosts many educational programs in cooperation with Chicago-area
school districts and in conjunction with Motorola University,
which uses the Museum as a "three-dimensional textbook" for
graduate courses in management and business administration.
The Museum is located in Schaumburg, IL, 30 to 40 minutes' drive
northwest of O'Hare International Airport and less than an
hour's drive from the Chicago Loop. Admission is by appointment,
Monday through Friday 9 a. m. to 4:30 p. m. and on some Sunday
afternoons. For appointments or further information contact:
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 7
Conference Planning
Motorola Museum of Electronics
1297 East Algonquin Road
Schaumburg IL 60196-1065
+1 708 576-8620
(And be sure to request their excellent map.)
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EXPANSION OF UNUSUAL SYSTEMS
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Kevin Stumpf sent us this release:
The Commercial Computing Museum Project is dedicated to the
acquisition and preservation of artifacts and memorabilia from
the commercial use of electronic digital computers (data
processing and office automation). Without a proper and complete
account of the practical, if not routine and mundane side of
computing, its history would consist solely of a series of
terrific and exciting technological leaps....that highlight the
machinery instead of also recognizing the importance of the
people, processes and procedures that harnessed and actually
used the machines.
The Commercial Computing Museum Project replaces and continues
the work started by Kevin Stumpf under the name of the Unusual
Systems Collection of Computer Control Panels and Consoles.
Eventually the Project will become a "place" where people can go
to be educated and entertained as they wander past static
displays or participate in interactive displays that will....
exhibit and demonstrate the tools and techniques of data
processing and office automation.
The museum will also be a repository of information, especially
about Canadian companies, for student and professional
historians of computing technology to write splendid histories
of this vital aspect of the North American workplace, yet
unglamorous aspect of the computing industry.
For more information contact:
Kevin Stumpf
+1 519 744-2900
unusual@kstumpf.waterloo-rdp.on.ca
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NO JOY ON LISA DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
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We've had several -- say, three -- inquiries recently as to
whether Apple plans to release Lisa development tools and source
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 8
code into the public domain; certainly a question well posed by
developers and historians alike. But according to highly placed
sources at Apple, the answer is a firm no, at least in the
foreseeable future. Oh, well!
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SPOTTER ALERT
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The publicity boom that began with the _New York Times_ and
_Forbes ASAP_ pieces in April simmers along at a gratifying
level. We've been mailing copies of the ENGINE, the FAQ, and
other background information to any newspaper, magazine or
online service that requests them.
Of course we ask for tearsheets, and we've been in this business
too long to assume they're always sent. Therefore, once again:
If you spot any mention of CHAC or the ENGINE in any periodical,
_please_,
* If your copy of the piece is clippable, clip and mail to the
El Cerrito address.
* If you can't spare the physical copy, send the text as
net.mail to cpu@chac.win.net, or photocopy and fax to the El
Cerrito address.
* If you're too busy for that, just send the publication name,
date and page number and we'll do the hunting.
Thanks! (And thanks to the spotters who have given us invaluable
help with keeping up so far.)
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SPOTTER FLASH
-------------------------------------------------
Mike Malone's fine (if we do say so) article from the April 17th
_New York Times_ spread the good word still further as it was
republished in syndication. Thanks to Joel Willard and to
Quintin Christophe from Chicago, IL, for sending us the clipping
from the May 19th _Chicago Tribune_, and to Dr. Dominic Verda of
Scottsdale, AZ, for letting us know that it appeared in the
_Arizona Republican_.
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DESPERATE PLEA FOR MONEY
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Even the most casual computer watcher (not you, we know,) has to
be amazed at the effect of computing on banking and securities
trading. How much of the money in circulation exists only on
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 9
DASD and display screens? Ninety per cent? Ninety-five? Who says
cash is king!
If there's that much money in cyberspace, we wouldn't mind a
little more of it in _our_ cyberspace. In the last fifteen
months the CHAC has earned a reputation; built a network of
contacts; collected hardware and software; and, of course, put
out five issues of the ANALYTICAL ENGINE. Nobody could give us
that. We had to create, collect and earn it all.
The only thing we don't have is money. Isn't it lucky that you
_can_ give us money?
One $35 sub to the paper ENGINE:
* prints and mails ten more copies of the ENGINE, or
* prints and mails about sixty letters, or
* pays our Internet expense for a week, or
* pays our locker storage for two weeks.
When you subscribe to the ENGINE, your cash doesn't vanish
anonymously into some vast river. It's serious money that does
serious work -- and gets seriously appreciated. Not to mention
that _you_ get four big, fact-packed, query-laden, trivia-prone
issues of the ANALYTICAL ENGINE -- _and_ a tax deduction.
Think about what thirty-five dollars can do for you. Then think
about what it can do for the CHAC. Then subscribe -- and make it
work for us all. Thank you!
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AND SPEAKING OF MONEY....
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When you donate to the CHAC -- as many of you have -- take a few
minutes to find out if your employer offers matching grants to
charitable organizations. It can make a big difference.
A matching grant is the purest win-win situation imaginable.
First, of course, every dollar you give can mean up to two
dollars for the CHAC. But it's also true that charitable
generosity makes you look good to your employer. _And,_ when we
receive matching money from companies, we can thank them in the
august pages of the ENGINE -- which is good publicity for them
_and_ for us.
Make a matched contribution and you win, your company wins, and
the Association wins twice. What could be better?
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 10
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OVERVIEW OF BUREAUCRATIC PROCESSES
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Even in the few weeks between the delayed April ENGINE and this
one, CHAC made important gains in the real world.
FEDERAL TAX-EXEMPT STATUS
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In April's ENGINE we noted Bruce Rice's prediction that the IRS
would ask for more information, and they did; but one round of
clarification sufficed, and on June 21 the IRS Exempt
Organizations department "based on information you supplied....
determined you are exempt from federal income tax.... as an
organization described in section 501(c)(3)" of the Internal
Revenue Code.
The struggle for corporate and tax-exempt status, which occupied
huge blocks of time between September 1993 and June 1994, is now
finished. With this pre-eminent hurdle behind us, we can get on
with the grass-roots business of building a staff, an
organization, and a reputation.
NONPROFIT POSTAL PERMIT
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Of the two post offices we approached, one said it was too small
to authorize the permit, the other promised to send us the
paperwork but never has. Since we're moving to Palo Alto (see p.
3) we'll try again at a post office down there.
FUNDRAISING, GRANTS RESEARCH AND PROPOSALS
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Our fundraising prowess has been greatly enhanced by the
Association's newest staff member, Ms. Nancy Wiltsek of San
Francisco.
Ms. Wiltsek has been a professional consultant in grants
planning, fundraising and charitable contribution for several
years, and has published articles on corporate philanthropy for
the Applied Research Center and the Nonprofit Management
Newsletter. She is a member of the Board of the Center for
Electronic Arts, and of the Program Advisory Board of the
Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management, University of
San Francisco. She received her M. N. A. degree from that
institution in 1990.
As fundraising manager for your Association, Nancy will bring
significant experience and skill to the launching of our capital
campaign and corporate donor campaign -- helping to establish a
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 11
sound fiscal footing for the CHAC while she brings us ever
closer to the founding of the Museum.
INTERNSHIP
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With our nonprofit status accomplished, we can recruit an intern
to help with typing and filing. Since the funding for a stipend
hasn't appeared yet, we'll wait (again) to advertise until we've
set up shop in the South Bay.
IMPROVED STORAGE
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The Association's hardware and software collection, all except
the two minis and the library, has been moved to secure storage
in Redwood City. It's still a locker, it's still expensive, but
for the moment, it works. When we move the minis from San
Francisco, we'll need to rent the next larger size....
No doubt there are a few things we haven't thought of. And guess
what, we still can't take credit cards.
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FLAMING DORADOS AND OTHER STORIES:
Herb Yeary and Charlie Sosinski talk about
Computer Support at Xerox PARC
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Interview by Kip Crosby and Max Elbaum
[On March 5, 1994, Max and KC stopped by Herb's comfortable
place in the Valley to interview these two support specialists
who maintained the in-house Xerox Altos and Dorados during the
glory days of Xerox PARC's personal computer development. The
result is a revealing look at the inner workings of an
unparalleled R&D lab -- not only at its hardware and software,
but at its politics too.]
KC: Herb tells me that you and he were two of the people who
did assembly and production work at Xerox PARC.
Charlie Sosinski: I consider we were mostly in service, for
the staff and for prototypes -- the Dorados, the biggies. Herb
and I built the first ten or so Dorados, before they went into a
production mode.
KC: What about Altos, Dandelions, some of the others?
CS: We serviced those. Our main function at PARC was to
provide service for the software people.
KC: In other words, you were keeping the development machines
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 12
up and running....
CS: Right, and everybody happy.
KC: I've never met anyone [in field service] who could keep
_everybody_ happy.
CS: Herb and I were a good team, we kept a lot of people
happy, and got compliments for it. It was a good time in our
lives. Isn't that right, Herb? I mean, rarely would they have
anything bad to say about us.
Herb Yeary: Just so long as we could keep the hardware
going!
KC: So this was basically in-house field service. What period
are we talking about? Roughly starting in '72, or earlier than
that?
CS: Probably later. I started work at PARC in the middle of
'74 as a contractor and I became an employee in early '77. Herb
I think started in '76, and we both left in '85. So this was the
golden era of the personal computer -- or the start of it.
KC: I was going to say, it was certainly the golden era of
PARC.
CS: I think PARC then had three separate labs. They had Basic
Sciences, and then the systems lab, and we were in the computer
lab.
HY: [And] a graphics lab at one point.
CS: Since it was in this great era of personal computer
developments, we sort of outshone the other labs. We were sort
of....
HY: I think they saw us as having more notoriety.
CS: Other labs didn't like that too much. They were a little
envious.
KC: I wonder, ultimately, if Xerox ever knew quite what a
tiger they had by the tail, because so far as PARC was concerned
-- I know there was a lot of organization and re-organization,
and there was no small amount of friction between PARC itself
and management elsewhere. We can sort of pivot off this book
[Alexander and Smith's _Fumbling the Future_] because in a lot
of ways it resembles an org chart -- it'll be great at filling
in the names. As for what it actually felt like, we'll trust you
gentlemen to fill us in on that.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 13
Max Elbaum: Xerox PARC was one of the earliest participants
in what later became known as the computer revolution. But
hindsight is one thing and being at a particular point in time
is another. What was it like to be in so close to the beginning
of it? What were your motives for starting to work at PARC? When
you started to work at Xerox, what did you expect?
HY: I had been working in field service for Scientific Data
Systems. I expected this to be similar work, and up to a point
it was -- maintaining computer systems. But when I got involved
in debugging new ones, too -- the Dorado -- it was a much more
exciting place than I had worked before. There was a lot of
excitement in the air there and a lot of very gifted people,
scientists and others. Just a tremendous amount going on.
KC: Did you come to Xerox from SDS as part of that deal, or
was it an independent thing? I don't know whether Xerox
inherited any of SDS's employees....
HY: It became XDS when Xerox bought them. But when I came to
PARC it was actually a new job, I didn't transfer there or
anything like that. And at that point I was working for
Honeywell, Xerox had split off to Honeywell.
KC: Xerox had spun XDS off to Honeywell to get rid of the
mainframes.... but then you came back to PARC. Okay; Charlie,
what about you?
CS: I was a contractor at the time for a small Texas company
that made very early computerized telephone systems. PARC bought
one of these to experiment with and I was assigned to take care
of it there, which I did for about two years. At first I didn't
think PARC was a real place. It reminded me of the Disneyland of
computers. I just couldn't believe the people and all the perks
they had. When my job vaporized for the [communications]
company, I went on at PARC because I knew it was a marvelous
place. There were some very intelligent people there, plus Xerox
funded it very well. So it seemed like a wonderful career move
to work for them.
KC: I think it must have been, in its own way. What was PARC
hoping to do with the computerized telephone system?
CS: They wanted to combine everything with the terminal --
so that while you were typing away at your computer terminal,
you could answer the phone through it, dial numbers through it,
everything. Sort of an early attempt at multi-media, your whole
office installed in your terminal.
KC: So they were building on what they had already created
with EtherNet, and trying to go from local area communication to
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 14
wide area communication between computers?
CS: Yes, I think this was the forerunner of their EtherPhone,
which actually let people talk over the EtherNet. It was a D-
machine system. I think they competed with Rolm at that time,
with what they called CBX, computerized basic exchange units.
Since PARC was using the Data General computers at that time,
they were very interested in it because it seemed to fit right
into their software.
KC: EtherPhone as a separate product is not something I ever
heard of. I knew there was some experimentation along that line.
Did it ever get beyond....
HY: As far as I know, no, it remained a prototype system.
KC: But it was their hope that they could take the EtherNet
protocol and by tying it in to something like a PBX system, go
as far with it physically as was necessary.
HY: I don't know the goals myself. But the principals
involved were Dan Swinehart, mostly, and Larry Stewart.
CS: It was part of that everything in one computer. You get
to do all of your communications by voice or by data.
KC: So that the strategic goals of the system were not unlike
what people are trying to do, for example, with the AV-series
Macintosh [Quadra] now, 20 years later. Voice, modem, any kind
of way you want to interact through the computer, the protocol
-- if you will -- is built in.
Now, you mentioned Data General computers. PARC has to have been
backed by a bunch of mainframes. Was PARC using XDS, were they
using their own computers?
HY: In the early days when I got there they had a bunch of
Data General 800s, I believe in the SSL laboratory. There were
racks of these in the lab and terminals going into various
offices.
KC: So they had a bunch of Novas or Eclipses connected to a
terminal in each office and they were running a network off a
minicomputer backbone?
HY: Right.
CS: See, when I first came there I worked for SSL lab as a
contractor, but [later] I hired on through the computer science
lab, and they had a computer called MAX which was kind of built
in the image of -- a PDP-10, was it? Which was a time-sharing
machine used for developing the Alto.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 15
HY: Well, when I came they had the Altos, and MAX was still
in use. I think they built MAX first and probably used it as a
time sharing system.
KC: MAX was basically a copy of a PDP-10, and the way I heard
it was that PARC built MAX because Xerox wanted them to use
either an XDS 940 or a Sigma 7, which was their own product, and
PARC didn't want to do it because all the software they wanted
to run was for a PDP-10. So they said, "Well, if Xerox out of
its own mislaid corporate pride won't buy us a PDP-10, we'll
just build one from scratch!"
HY: I believe that's accurate. I wasn't there when it
happened, but in fact I've heard that said.
KC: That just speaks to the tremendous reservoir of
engineering talent, of screwdriver and soldering talent that
these guys must have had, because I can think of very few labs
in the early Seventies with the nerve to try to duplicate
someone else's existing architecture from the ground up.
Especially to the level of software compatibility.
HY: These fellows didn't lack for engineering talent and
they were well-rounded men. The printing machine was developed
along the same time, and EARS -- that was Gary Starkweather...
KC: Gary Starkweather built a thing called the SLOT, which
stood for Scanned Laser Output Terminal.
HY: That was the spinning prism -- rotating prism.
KC: Rotating prism in what sense?
HY: A laser was aimed at a rotating prism. The prism
reflected the light and turned it into a raster scan.
KC: The interesting thing to me was that, through some
wizardry I've never understood, they managed to make a laser
printer with throughput as high as the copier it had been
converted from. I think it was good for one page per second.
HY: That's correct. That was the original design.
CS: When I came in they already had EARS, and that was in
'74.
HY: That was the first one I had ever seen and it was already
running.... I know that it was developed there and it was that
scanning laser thing that made it go. It's the heart of most
laser printers today, isn't it?
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 16
KC: Pretty much so. Some people have tried to replace the
rotating prism with arrays of LED's, but they can't get the same
reliability. Now EARS was an acronym, right? It stood for
EtherNet, Alto, Raster character generator, and Scanner.
HY: That's right. I remember it used a Diablo 44 disc drive.
KC: What's this about a Diablo disc drive?
CS: We got the privilege to work on the EARS several times
when it broke down. We didn't work on the engine so much but we
worked on the computerized part.
KC: When it broke, how would it break?
HY: Generally disc drives. They weren't so good, they had
head crashes and things like that.
CS: Or the computer got too hot. I think the main problems
with the printer was the toner dust. They had to keep it clean.
HY: They had other fellows to do that.
CS: I think Ron Weaver did that, or Gary Swaggert. The engine
was kind of unique since it was the only one around. So the
[copier] engineers had to do most of the maintenance on the
engine itself.
KC: When you say the engine, what do you mean?
HY: Was it a 3100, is that right?
CS: Something like that -- 3100 Copier Plus -- modified to a
printer and they put this laser in it. 60-page-per-minute
copier.
KC: They were never small, it's true. And then what they did
was build a laser engine and couple that to it -- laser head. So
the laser that had been built for this machine was unique and
when it had to be maintained -- where would you get the spare
parts for something like that?
HY: They made them there -- as far as I know that stuff was
all made there. PARC had a huge machine shop downstairs.
KC: When you went to repair or maintain, for example, the
laser engine, would you have to go into it, see what was wrong
and....
CS: We didn't do that.... other people did that. People who
worked for Gary Starkweather were Xerox copier experts who came
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 17
to PARC and did nothing but that.
HY: I think Dan Putnam was one....
CS: Yeah, who is now the vice-president at Adobe.
KC: People hop around! But you were maintaining computers,
and these were the computers that, for example, Smalltalk
development was being done on?
HY: That was yet another group of people and we didn't
maintain that particular hardware, but it was the same kind of
computer.
CS: Several labs had ongoing development -- responsibility
-- for the Altos and Dorados, and the computing machines were
the same for each group, after the labs were initially set up.
When Alto was developed it spread throughout PARC and a few
outside of PARC.
KC: As soon as the Alto was developed, what they tried to do
was get one on -- or under -- pretty much everybody's desk,
right? Because they needed to know if EtherNet worked, and that
was the best test, was to put an Alto everywhere and hook them
all together.
HY: I'm trying to think of how many machines they had there.
CS: I think we had a hundred.
HY: Sounds right. On our net -- we were Net 3, and we had
the most Altos.
CS: And different areas and parts of the building had other
nets of Altos as well, but our main lab was covered by this one
net, and this was our domain.
KC: In your estimation, about how many Altos did they have up
and running at PARC?
HY: Would you say two hundred?
CS: Yeah, I would say a couple hundred. The Alto 2 was
developed, which was much more reliable, and had more memory....
HY: It had more memory because much more dense chips became
available.
KC: What was the point of a Dorado? What would a Dorado do
that an Alto wouldn't?
HY: It's very fast. It was several times as fast as the
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 18
Alto.
CS: Since PARC did a lot of graphics stuff they really needed
the computing power to do that. And it was least an order of
magnitude faster than the Alto, it was a ten-MIP machine.
HY: Well, maybe three to five.
CS: Three to five MIPS, and three thousand watts of power!
That's almost 20 years ago.... And that was dumped out on the
building, and if you put a watt in the room, you've got to take
a watt out. And it costs more to take that watt out.
KC: You bet it does. You notice my office is rarely cold.
Back to the Alto and the Dorado, the first implication of what
you're saying is that the Alto was good for about half a MIP?
HY: Along that order, maybe.
KC: It's a rather stunning amount of computer power for
1973.
CS: Yes, if the Dorado was an order of magnitude higher, that
sounds about right.
KC: So now, I have never seen this anywhere. Of the
integrated circuitry in the Alto and the Dorado, what proportion
was Xerox in-house development? Were they developing their own
processors at that point?
HY: Everything was off the shelf. They were working on other
machines later, on the Dragon, where they did do processor
development. I never was involved in the Dragon, and we left
before that was finished. But people were working on IC designs.
KC: So for example, in the Alto, who built the processors?
They weren't Intel processors.
CS: They were ALU chips -- a garden variety part.
KC: Fairchild maybe?
HY: It could have been Fairchild, or Signetics maybe....
CS: ALU 181's. And there were two of them in there --
HY: I think, 4-bit chips.
CS: In a 16-bit machine.
KC: So they got a 16 bit word width by stacking four 4-bit
chips? They were cascadable?
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 19
HY: That's what I remember.
KC: Here again, that was incredible for the time -- for
1973.
CS: One of the companies I worked for before PARC was Four
Phase Systems, and this fellow there was designing....his goal
was the single-chip processor, and we're talking about 1972. He
was very well known, I think he came from Fairchild to develop
this single-processor chip.
KC: When you talk about a Fairchild or a Signetics 4-bit
chip, that would fit for the period, because -- take the Intel
4004 as an example, or one from General Instrument whose
designation I forget -- a lot of people between 1971 and 1973
were investing heavily in 4-bit processors. And a 16-bit word
width by comparison was an accepted mainframe standard. Shrunk
down into an Alto, that was quite an achievement.
CS: Do you guys [CHAC] have the Alto [in your collection] or
not?
KC: I just hope I can find one that somebody will part with!
HY: If you find one outside the lab it's probably a 2. Most
of the ones that left PARC were 2's. The 1's weren't as
reliable, mostly because of the memory, and almost all of them
stayed inside PARC.
CS: Which meant they were the ones we ended up working on!
(laughs)
HY: That's what we were there for. When one breaks you take
the boards, you get it running again, and you might work on the
boards a half a day, however long it takes. And the disc drives,
we spent a lot of our time on disc drives and moving stuff. We
moved stuff all over the place.
CS: And we had to reconnect the EtherNet every time....
HY: I would guess a third of our time was spent moving
computers around.
CS: Fortunately they were on wheels.
KC: But still when you consider you have to reconnect
stuff....
HY: Everything, not just the network. It took a couple of
hours to move one from one office to the other. And we didn't
just move one, maybe a pair or three or four.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 20
CS: They had this neat software that would run every night,
called DMT. And we had a dedicated Alto called Peeker, remember?
And each machine would be left with a kind of screen saver
running, a square that moved around and checked the memory in
all these different locations. And if it got an error when it
was doing this little test, the Peeker would log it.
HY: It was a memory diagnostic that ran overnight. I'll tell
you this. The first Altos had these Intel.... I didn't think it
was going to make it. The 4K chips when they came out were
really okay, reliable, but the 1K Intel chips -- 1130's --
weren't.
CS: Every morning we would check, and anyone who had a bad
chip, we'd go in. The nice thing about it, so many of these
software people didn't know they had a bad or a flaky memory
chip, and a lot of times we'd say "We have detected a bad chip
in your computer and we'd like to change it." And they'd say
"Oh, wonderful!"
HY: They would fail, but luckily the diagnostic would catch
it before.... And memory was doubly important because the Alto
was the first bitmap-display machine -- at least that I'm aware
of. It took about half the memory to run the bitmap display.
KC: It wasn't like you'd have memory on the motherboard that
was CPU memory, and another bank off somewhere else that was
video memory.
CS: It was all one hunk of memory and partitioned, half video
-- half CPU.
HY: That's right, that was all in the software. The hardware
was just a bank of memory.
CS: [Peeker] was a neat system. You could look at all the
computers in your lab or even the other labs and tell who had a
potential problem.
KC: It sounds like they were actively trying to make these
machines easy to maintain. Was there anything else like that?
CS: One nice thing about working there was the attitude that
maintenance and service were integral. In a lot of places you
work, manufacturing and service don't really get along that well
and they don't cooperate. Whereas PARC was a single community
that knew what had to be done. They put great reliance on
diagnostic procedures, and if you discovered a problem, they'd
find the engineer who designed the component and require him to
sit down with us until we all understood the problem.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 21
HY: I wouldn't even say it was required, they just did it.
If anyone was having difficulty, they were on it right away.
KC: Sounds like heaven, guys. Getting a problem with a
computer and being able to sit down with the design engineer
right there. You couldn't do better than that.
CS: Absolutely.
HY: Of course not. It was new to me.
CS: It was marvelous. Most of the engineers liked to talk to
Herb and me because we never suggested better ways that they
could design stuff -- or not usually. Often their colleagues
would say "Why did you do it this way?" Whereas we just said
"Oh, that's great!"
KC: So there was some question of hardware unreliability, but
there was a degree of fail-safe. Did you mention you also had a
de-bugging computer?
CS: They were named Smaug and Bilbo. From the trilogy by
Tolkien. Smaug was the dragon and Bilbo was the Hobbit. I'm
pretty sure Mike Overton built those, so he might have named
them.
HY: I wasn't there at the very beginning of the Altos. I
came along after the Altos were pretty much deployed but they
needed somebody to help maintain them.
KC: So this debugging computer for the network, how would it
work, what would it let you do?
HY: It was a normal [Alto,] but it was mounted in an open
rack so we could get to it -- we had it accessible, and we had a
scope on it. Open frame. We took the chassis out and put it in a
rack and it was there about 4 feet off the ground.
CS: Since we had a spare set of boards of two in there, if
someone had a problem we could just swap their board out.
KC: So that you had a couple of spares of pretty much
everything.
HY: Oh, sure, they were very generous with us in giving us
spares. We always had plenty of spares.
KC: It's deadly. You talk about off the shelf parts. Those
strange portrait mode black and white display tubes.... were
they off the shelf?
CS: Ball Brothers Incorporated. I think they were built
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 22
especially for PARC. Maybe they weren't.
HY: You're right. Maybe they had the monitors made and we
just bought the tubes. PARC designed the frame for the thing.
CS: But I think the parts that went in it were standard Ball
Brothers monitors.
KC: So there was nothing special about the pieces, it was the
way all the pieces fit together?
CS: Absolutely, yes.
HY: Didn't Sun do a similar....
KC: They sure did. Now where was the manufacturing done, the
board-level manufacturing?
HY: They did it somewhere else.
CS: Was it Twin Industries that built some of those early
boards? Herb and I were there mostly when they were
manufacturing Dorados. We had our board built by either Twin
or.... initially they were called the Stitchwell boards. The
first couple of Dorados were Stitchwell. Then they hired a
person and she sat there with a Stitchwell machine and made
boards.
KC: Just before we leave the Alto, one question largely from
personal curiosity: What were the differences between the Alto 1
and the Alto 2?
HY: Repackaging mostly. And I think some minor design
changes.
CS: Actually they had to take larger memory chips. The Alto
1's could only have 64K memory in them and the Alto 2 went up to
256K. They were using the 4K chips....
HY: They came out with 4K chips, the Alto 2, and then went to
16[K].
CS: Some of them went to 16. Those 1130's were not reliable
chips and the Alto 2 never used those. So it made the Alto 2
more reliable right off the bat.
KC: But the Alto 2 was the customer machine, the machine that
was sold.
CS: Right. The White House bought some.
KC: As a matter of fact, one of the ones I just missed was
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 23
one that had been installed at the House of Representatives. One
of those did not happen to fall into my hands, too bad.
CS: One of the things about the Alto that made it easier to
work on was that if the disc was dead -- in most computers --
you could never boot, but this had this magic switch, in that you
hit a certain key and you booted off the network. Even with a
dead disc you could still do some diagnostics. If you had a dead
part in the memory and it was right in the boot area, you could
flip this switch on the front and it would swap the memory
around so you could boot using the other part of it.
KC: Oh, make bank two into bank one....
When we get past the Alto 2 we're up to the Dorado, and
one thing I don't know is, were any Dorados ever sold?
HY: At least a couple.
CS: The Dorado was a very complicated machine and they
thought it would take design engineers to maintain them. But
Herb and I proved them wrong, that we could maintain them, so
they re-thought that.
KC: Was it about the same size computer?
HY: The size of a large oven.
CS: The first ones we tried to put in offices were about the
size of that stereo cabinet. It was so noisy. It had these high-
speed fans on it, five of 'em. And it had to have a lot of sound
deadening. We found that they were such an efficient heater in
the office that the guy just about had to work in his underwear
because it was so hot.
HY: I know we put one in Butler [Lampson]'s office.... It's
been 10 years since we've worked there, and we worked there for
almost 10 years, so this was quite a ways back.
CS: We worked so hard on reliability with the Dorados, then
we decided they were unreliable just because they got so hot.
HY: You couldn't get the heat out of them very well.
KC: Even with 5 fans?
CS: Yeah, they had to put all that sound deadening material
in there....
HY: The fans were like a hurricane. They were really big high
volume fans.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 24
KC: What made all the heat?
CS: ECL chips. The power supply, minus 5 volts, put out 300
amps. They had a +5 and +2V -- they were 150 amps. It was easy
to set a board on fire because you had this unlimited amount of
current, and you'd have a short on the board.... We saw several
of them just literally burn up. The fans were so powerful you
couldn't see where the smoke was coming out. You could smell it
and you knew that there was something seriously wrong, but you
couldn't tell. And you had to shut each machine off and pull the
boards out to find out.
HY: I remember one day -- this was probably the third or
fourth machine we put together.... We'd plug each board in, turn
it on, watch it a little, and turn it off, because we had to be
very careful. But we plugged this one board in, turned it on,
and it smoked a little bit so we turned it off. We decided that
Charlie would watch to see where the smoke was. I turned it on,
he leaned over the board, got real close to it, and about a
dozen little capacitors went off like incendiary bombs! They
flew all over! We took the board down and it turned out the
capacitors had been installed backwards -- tantalum capacitors
-- and it blew them up.
CS: Like fireworks going off! That was the problem with the
Dorados, more than anything, was the unlimited current. It could
be very destructive. So we had to make sure we had smoke alarms.
We ended up putting all the Dorados in the computer room, in
racks, two in a rack so that we could have a lot of air
conditioning. We had about 20 Dorados in this one room in the
early days, all connected to the terminals in the offices
through the seven-wire interface. We'd go through stages of
increasing the air conditioning to handle it . But they were
very much in demand; people just loved that machine because it
was fast. They would say, I could get my work done in an hour,
and it would take me all day on an Alto.
KC: It sounds like the improvement in the Dorado wasn't just
in raw processing speed, but comprehensive -- all the way up.
Was there different software, or did the Alto and Dorado run the
same software?
HY: The Dorado ran the Alto software in addition to its own.
CS: Mesa. Then they developed Cedar on the Dorado.
KC: What was that?
CS: That was one of these multi-window operating systems. You
had the computer power there to do multi-tasking.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 25
KC: And it would do cooperative multi-tasking, it was an OS/2
style system where you could run several tasks at once with each
task claiming a processor slice?
CS: That was all embedded in the software. Somehow I got the
feeling it was a little more powerful than OS/2.
KC: With an operating system tailored to a five-MIPS machine,
I don't doubt it. Was the Dorado also a 16-bit computer?
CS: Yes.
KC: Different processors, though?
CS: I think they just went to the ECL version.
KC: That was what made all the heat?
CS: Emitter-coupled logic is more current-driven than
voltage-driven architecture. If we didn't have CMOS today I
can't think of the problems we would have had building some of
these microprocessors. You'd need a smoke stack on them!
KC: Pretty much. I'm sure you gentlemen realize that even
with CMOS, there have been some problems in the industry lately
with very-high-speed processors and some of the heat they put
out. [_Great rumor about contemporary superscalar processor
deleted by fact checker._]
HY: Meltdown time!
CS: Sounds like the only way out of that is to go to a
point-six-micron [etch trace] technology. Then they have to go
to lower logic voltage, to 3.3 [volts] rather than 5.
KC: We can foresee that, but I'm not sure it'll solve the
problem. So eventually you had 15 or 20 Dorados sitting in this
machine room where presumably you could keep an eye on all of
them....
CS: We set up several different labs that had Dorados.
HY: I think they built over a hundred Dorados, and we had
[responsibility for] maybe 60 of them....
CS: The other lab had some guys who started maintaining
theirs.
HY: They built so many of them with the multi-wire boards,
and those were probably the worst attempt at a board I've ever
seen in my life.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 26
KC: What do you mean by a "multi-wire" board?
HY: It wasn't a PC board, it was a process where they strung
wires somehow.
CS: It was varnished wire with a layer of poured epoxy over
it. The wires could meet at 90 degrees on the same level,
something you can't do on a PC board -- you have to change
levels. You could actually intersect these wires and they called
the intersection a knuckle. But a lot of the boards developed
shorts at the knuckles.
HY: They could short when they were hot and be okay when they
were cool -- they were a disaster.
CS: So we went to a PC after that. It was from Stitchwell, to
multi-wire, to PC.
KC: Was the same level of internal diagnostic on the Dorado
that there had been on the Altos?
HY: Even better!
CS: The way we de-bugged a Dorado was, we'd use an Alto.
This fellow Ed Fiala developed a system called Midas, which was
built into the Dorado boards, where it had all the pertinent
signals listed. And by hooking up this Alto and running this
program Midas, we could look at all these signals on the
Dorados, so when the Dorado stopped we could look at the result
of all these mufflers -- as they called them -- or MUXes. That
restored a signal and we could tell the state of all these
signals.
KC: It was basically a real elaborate Sniffer. Now if you had
the Alto jacked into the network could you diagnose any Dorado
on the network?
HY: No, this connection [to the Alto] was a hard wire....
KC: It's a "tell me where it hurts" connection?
CS: That's right. For each bank of Dorados we had an Alto,
and we'd jack it in as soon as we had a problem reported.
KC: One Dorado, which sounds like a decently powerful
machine, was connected to how many terminals?
HY/CS: One! The personal computer! That's why everybody loved
it.
KC: It was a personal computer, except nine-tenths of it
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 27
happened to be in the basement, so to speak.
HY: Oh, I'd say ninety-nine per cent, was off where the
users didn't have to worry about it. All they had on their
desks, really, was a terminal and keyboard, but they were hooked
straight to this powerful machine.
KC: It was like having a dedicated minicomputer.
HY: That's what it was, exactly.
CS: The thing that always amazed me -- some people were
prone to static, and you'd think you'd be immune to that having
a computer in the basement, but some people would come in there
and touch that keyboard and they'd damage a board. With the
computer 200 feet away.
KC: You say that the first boards were hand-laid-up, and then
came the multi-wire, and finally they went to PC boards as we
understand the term. It sounds like....
HY: The PC Dorados were quite reliable. The multi-wires just
weren't, because of the underlying technology.
KC: It sounds like kind of a long development cycle. How long
were Dorados produced?
CS: We built the first couple in 1978, and we were still
building some when we left in '85. They were starting to go to
SUNs, but I think probably we were still making them -- or we
weren't, but the garage was. I would say the Dorados were built
for at least five years, at least until '82. The first couple of
years you [HY] were doing most of the Altos and I was on the
team that was building the Dorados.
HY: [laughs] You were the team, Charlie.
KC: Most of the Dorados were for use inside Xerox?
CS: At first CSL was going to have the only Dorados, because
none of the other labs wanted to get involved in building them.
It was a major effort. We had some 12 engineers for 2 years.
HY: It didn't seem like the lab wanted to do it at first,
and [Bob Taylor] persuaded them to do it, I think. I don't know
exactly how he did it, or how much was public and how much never
left his office....
CS: Bob Taylor is a unique individual. He managed all these
brilliant people and kept them together. They called it some
type of democracy, but I always felt it was benevolent
dictatorship. Once the other labs saw this Dorado, everybody
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 28
wanted them. They'd say "My God, this is unbelievable."
KC: It sounds pretty unbelievable.
HY: They were about $50,000....
KC: In parts or finished?
HY: Probably thirty to fifty thousand in raw parts. That
doesn't count if you sell the thing, it's got to be 3 or 4 times
that. It had to cost $150,000 to $200,000 to the customer.
KC: Still, for 5 MIPS that wouldn't have been a bad price,
at that time.
Now, one other thing before we get to the social and
political history. Another machine that I've always been curious
about was called the Note Taker?
CS: Yes, that was Alan Kay's machine.... We didn't get
involved that much, that was built in the other lab actually. I
know it was originally Alan Kay's dream because we used to talk
to him about -- he called it "Dynabook"....
KC: He called it the _Interim_ Dynabook. He has never
conceded to this day that anything is actually the Dynabook.
There's got to always be one more little improvement.
CS: That was the ultimate, right -- you'd never get there.
KC: So you were not involved with anything beyond the
Dorados.
CS: The Altos and the Dorados. We did do some service on the
Dolphin.
HY: It was a scaled-down Dorado.
KC: Scaled down in what sense?
HY: In speed, power and all that.
CS: They were mostly built in the garage. It was about the
size of an Alto -- or a little bigger, but it was the same kind
of push-under-the-desk [form factor].
KC: It was an attempt to put some sizable fraction of a
Dorado's power and functionality in an Alto's case.
HY: I think that's a fair description. It was called a D-
machine.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 29
KC: What was the Dandelion?
HY: Dandelion was an actual product that went through a
couple of development cycles --
CS: and was called the Star.
KC: Oh, Dandelion became the Star. Now I got it.
This just goes to show you that computer history has to
be taken care of, to be moderated, to be curated if you will, at
a lot of different levels. And that's a lot what we're about --
striking a balance between nuts-and-bolts history and political
and organizational history. But in the broad sense it's all part
of the same thing.
So, now -- what about the exodus?
CS: You field that first!
HY: I remember the day Bob Taylor resigned. I had no clue
there was anything wrong, but there must have been something
going on for a few months. Bill Spencer was putting pressure on
Bob of some kind. Anyway, Bob called a meeting one Monday
morning at nine o'clock. And he walked in and resigned, and it
caught me flabbergasted. I didn't know what was going on. Then
immediately Chuck Thacker resigned and I guess they both left --
I know Bob did, I think Chuck did -- and Bill Spencer was
addressing the group. And I thought maybe they were going to
lynch him. He was a big man, a big imposing guy. I'd never seen
such hostility. These guys were mad, they were fuming.
CS: I understand they offered him a good retirement if he
would promise not to set up a lab in competition to PARC.
HY: There was a lot of loyalty to Bob Taylor. I remember Bill
Spencer saying something about, what can I do to rectify
this.... and one guy yelled "You can fucking resign!" They were
just furious and they were all yelling. Some of those people I
had never seen angry before, in all that time.
CS: There was probably no work done for the next couple of
months, in some of the labs.
ME: Did they have some idea of why he had left --
HY: I'm sure some of the senior people did. I don't know
about the rest of them. I was pretty far down looking up, and
things were really murky. Later on we saw a copy of a letter
that Bill Spencer had written Bob and it put a lot of pressure
on him, saying he had to do things a certain way. He just wasn't
that kind of person and wouldn't do it. It just angered
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 30
everybody and they started leaving right away. Within two or
three months, I bet sixty to seventy per cent of the people had
left.
CS: That was somewhere in the middle of September, and by the
first week of January the doors opened, I guess there was some
milestone on the first of January -- and people really started
rolling out. I think 40 or 50 people left.
HY: I'm sure they were all deciding where they were going to
go. Just a handful of the original guys stayed.
KC: But you stayed.
HY: It's not the same for me, I'm a technical support
person. I'm not a scientist, I'm talking about all the scientists
who left.
KC: I know fairly well who left at that point. But you have
an unusual perspective, from the public standpoint, of having
been there after the exodus. Most of what you might call the
public history of that whole event ends with the day it
happened. So what happened after the exodus -- how did they try
to build PARC back up?
HY: I don't know what the management actually tried or
decided. I remember Doctor [George] Pake addressing the group a
couple of times, and one time in particular he looked to me like
me was almost in tears. I think he really regretted seeing the
people leaving. You didn't see that in Bill Spencer, as far as I
know.
CS: Spencer eventually took George Pake's place.
HY: Quite a bit later.
ME: How rapidly did they try to bring new people in?
CS: They started to reorganize the labs. They moved some
people....
ME: Consolidation-type thing?
CS: Yeah, CSL was just totally gutted.
HY: Most of the major people left. A lot of the big guys
left.
CS: A lot of them didn't go to DEC either.
HY: Certainly quite a few people did.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 31
CS: Even Herb and I could see the writing was on the wall for
us. What we had done in the past.... what gradually happened to
us, within about a year, they sort of moved us out of the lab
and put us in a service group.
HY: The hardware people were mostly gone, and so [management]
didn't know what to do with us, or they didn't care so much
about us. We were just a necessary part.... whereas before when
the hardware guys were there we felt somewhat integrated into
the group.
KC: And so the standard of internal cooperation went downhill
and it wasn't the same after that.
HY: It didn't happen immediately. I'm not privy to
management, I don't know all that went on in every place, but
the productivity certainly went down.
CS: They had to re-evaluate some of their projects because so
many people left.
I think they still continued development on the Cedar
[multitasking environment] and the Dragon. When you lose all
that talent --
HY: Even the Dragon, I'm sure, was slowed down a lot after
Thacker and Butler Lampson left.
KC: It's amazing to me from what I know. I've come at this
from another angle. I've talked to people at places like
ParcPlace, where there were Xerox PARC alumni who were more
trying to continue the traditions of software development,
rather than hardware development. After the people like Thacker
and Lampson and Adele Goldberg, people like that, Alan Kay,
after they scattered all over the place it was almost difficult
to understand how enhanced the processes must have been by
having all these people in one building.
HY: Right. Dr. Kay and Adele Goldberg, though, didn't work
for CSL and they weren't part of that group. I don't know when
they left.
CS: This was a CSL group -- there were about 50 scientists.
KC: When the exodus happened it was mostly at CSL, so far as
people who left immediately, but that was only the epicenter of
the explosion. It went through the other labs and a lot of
people left -- not then, but six months or a year later. It blew
the whole place.
HY: Gary Starkweather left. I've heard a story about that.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 32
As far as I know his work is the only work that ever benefited
Xerox. They made lots of money off his work, and for him to
leave had to be sort of the crowning touch.
KC: Anything else?
CS: One unique experience over there. We were working in a
Dorado lab called the Purple Lab, and there was this group that
Larry Tesler was showing some of the software. One fellow was
Steve Jobs, and there was a whole entourage. Somebody said "Oh,
these people are from Apple Computers," and we said, "Who would
ever buy a computer called 'Apple?'" Talk about underestimating.
[copious laughter] Apple! What a dumb name for a computer!
KC: The funny thing was that you were looking right at Larry
Tesler showing Steve Jobs around, and Steve Jobs went back to
the office, burst in on Mike Markkula, and said roughly "I have
seen the future and it works!" And it's true that Jobs took that
vision and made it work, but look at how much more time and
money he spent.
HY: Kip, I really appreciate your sense of the history.
KC: And yours! There's so much of it, gentlemen, we've
barely begun.
-------------------------------------------------
THE APPLE LISA COMPUTER: A RETROSPECTIVE
-------------------------------------------------
(c) Copyright 1993 - David T. Craig (1)
CIS 71533,606
INTRODUCTION
-------------------------------------------------
This paper is an attempt by a long-time Lisa user to clarify the
significance of the Apple Lisa personal computer for the
computing industry. The audience is anyone who has an interest
in innovative computing technology, and wants to learn a little
about Apple Computer's brief foray into this area via the Lisa
computer.
This paper hopes to show why the Lisa was significant in its
time, and how some of what was called "Lisa Technology" is
slowly migrating to other computer systems, notably the Apple
Macintosh computer series.
The author has never worked for Apple, and so is not privy to
any "insider secrets" about this machine. All information
contained herein was obtained from Apple's cornucopia of Lisa
and Macintosh literature, from discussions with other Lisa
owners, and through my personal involvement with and observation
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 33
of both machines since 1984.
This paper is loosely based upon the excellent article "The
Legacy of the Lisa" (MacWorld magazine, Sep. 1985) as written by
Mr. Larry Tesler, one of the Lisa's main designers and currently
Chief Scientist at Apple Computer.
A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
-------------------------------------------------
Apple began developing the Lisa in 1979. The Lisa's charter was
to build a revolutionary device that was truly easy to use, and
thereby mitigate the limitations of existing computers.
Developing a computer which was an order of magnitude easier to
use than traditional computers required several major
departures, not all of which were obvious.
Even the name "Lisa" has always been rather enigmatic for most
computer users, including Lisa owners. To set the story straight
(as far as I know) here are the facts: Officially, Apple states
that "Lisa" stood for "Local Integrated Software Architecture."
Unofficially, "Lisa" has been associated with the name of a
child fathered by one of the Lisa designers. (2)
The Lisa had several design goals:
* Be intuitive,
* be consistent,
* conform to the ways people actually work,
* have enough performance to do the jobs that need doing,
* provide an open software and hardware architecture,
* be reliable,
* be pleasing, and
* fit into an everyday work environment.
The Lisa was based on sophisticated hardware technology. The
single compact desktop unit contained a 12-inch black-and-white
screen, and two revolutionary floppy disk drives called "Twiggy"
-- after the English supermodel of the day, because she, and
they, were so thin. The Lisa contained a Motorola 68000
processor and 1 megabyte of memory, expandable to 2 megabytes.
Cabled to the Lisa's case were a keyboard, and a (then) uncommon
peripheral called a "mouse," which was a key element of the
Lisa's design.
Apple introduced the Lisa to the general public in January 1983
at a price of $9,995. In April 1985, after only one and a half
years, Apple discontinued the Lisa in favor of its sibling, the
Macintosh.
Lisa development was a tremendous undertaking for Apple and
basically required most of the company's resources, both
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 34
financial and personal. Apple reports that Lisa cost $50 million
to develop and required 200 man-years of development effort. The
story behind the development is fascinating and should be more
fully recorded, but this paper can provide only a "Reader's
Digest" version of the development history; a more complete
history can only be written by the developers themselves, and
this author, sadly, believes that such a treatment will never
see the light of day.
The Lisa may be considered a computer that sprang from the loins
of a host of predecessor systems, and many of its
"revolutionary" ideas were not really new -- notwithstanding the
cries of Apple marketers, who think everything Apple does is
new. Work by many computer companies over decades (yes, decades)
was drawn on by Apple to design the Lisa. For example, Apple
borrowed several key ideas from Xerox and its early Alto system.
In 1979 Mr. John Couch, Apple's head of software, was made
General Manager of a new Apple division called POS, Personal
Office Systems. Mr. Couch's charter was to develop and promote
the Lisa for the office system market, and provide a return on
Apple's substantial Lisa investment.
From meager beginnings, POS blossomed into a 300-person
division, with around 100 people devoted to the software and
hardware development effort. The Lisa had begun as a rather
humdrum text based system, not a good sign for a "revolutionary"
computer. Couch assembled a team of very talented people from
within Apple and throughout Silicon Valley. After some field
trips to neighboring Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), the
developers (and some ex-PARC people who became Apple employees)
embarked upon what became the Lisa computer as known to the
public. Perhaps the key change at this point was the migration
from a text-based system to a window-based system inspired by
Xerox's Smalltalk development environment.
Apple unveiled the Lisa in late 1982 to selected outsiders. On
19 January 1983, after repeated delays and two years beyond the
originally projected introduction date, Apple officially
declared Lisa a working system that would be deliverable in May
1983. Apple at this time hoped to mark the beginning of a new
era in personal computers & establish the software technology
standard of the 80's.
Apple's comprehensive Lisa introduction also included a suite of
revolutionary and sophisticated programs called the Lisa Office
System (later renamed "Lisa 7/7" by Apple). This suite consisted
of 7 general application programs -- LisaWrite, LisaDraw,
LisaCalc, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList, and LisaTerminal --
and was bolstered by extensive well-written documentation and an
innovative self-paced training course for new Lisa owners, based
upon the LisaGuide program, which Apple called an "interactive
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 35
manual." For hardware diagnostic purposes Apple provided the
LisaTest program, though Apple appears to have discontinued the
release of this program to owners in favor of referring them to
the local friendly Apple dealer for Lisa servicing. For a user
"operating system" Apple created the Desktop Manager. This
program was a file organizer and program manager which created
the illusion of a "desktop," on which users could place, move,
rename, and delete files, and run programs.
Apple supplied three different printers for Lisa, all capable of
printing exactly what the user saw on the screen. The dot-matrix
printer could print both high-resolution text and graphics. The
daisy-wheel printer was unique in that it could also print
graphics, though the ribbon was used up very quickly for this
task. Later in the Lisa's life Canon provided a color inkjet
printer for it. Apple appears to have had plans to support a
laser printer with the Lisa, but these plans were abandoned,
although Apple did have a $30,000 in-house laser printer which
was used by the Lisa developers.
Apple's internal software development centered around the Lisa
Monitor environment, which was text-based, and resembled the
environments Apple provided for its Apple II and Apple III
computer systems. The majority of Lisa programs were written in
the Pascal language by Apple, except for a few written in 68000
assembler. A COBOL and a BASIC were also available. To give an
idea of the size of this effort: The Lisa operating system
source contained about 90,000 lines of Pascal, and the Office
System applications contained approximately 50,000 lines each.
The programmers used a wonderful window- and mouse-based editor
called LisaEdit. Outside developers were offered a development
kit called the Lisa Workshop, a descendant of the Lisa Monitor
environment. With the Workshop a programmer could develop rather
sophisticated programs, primarily in Pascal.
A major software development effort by Apple focused on the Lisa
Desktop Libraries, a collection of about 100 software modules
which provided the software foundation for Lisa Technology.
These modules were used by all Lisa programs and were the
mainstay of the Lisa's consistent user interface. A key
component of the Desktop Libraries was QuickDraw, a fast and
versatile graphics module written in around 40,000 lines of
68000 assembly language.
During the Lisa's rather short life, very few programs were
written for it by outside developers who could exploit its
revolutionary user interface. The main reason for this was the
lack of any fairly simple development environment that would
allow outside developers to write "Lisa-like" programs without a
tremendous amount of technical knowledge. After Apple developed
the major Lisa programs, they attempted to develop a universal
"framework" for programming called the Lisa ToolKit; but
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 36
development of this, though basically finished, was halted when
Apple withdrew resources from Lisa software development to
accelerate Macintosh development. Apple had also not documented
fully, nor designed in an easily understandable fashion, the
code which formed the basis for the software component of Lisa
Technology. Finally, third-party developers hesitated to commit
to the Lisa given its high perceived price and its low sales
numbers.
A major headache for Apple during the development effort was the
pair of Twiggy disk drives in each Lisa. The single 5.25-inch
high density floppy (860K bytes) with software-controlled
automatic ejection and micro-stepping technology proved a little
too revolutionary, and held back the Lisa schedule. After
introduction Apple wisely abandoned Twiggy in favor of the new,
more reliable 3.5 inch Sony micro-floppy drives with 400K bytes
per disk. Complementing the floppy drives was a ProFile hard
disk drive with 5M bytes capacity, originally offered for the
Apple III. A 10M byte ProFile was later developed by Apple for
the Lisa 2.
Apple spent a lot of time during Lisa's development testing Lisa
features with real users. Apple's literature on this topic shows
that the Lisa developers were occasionally surprised by the user
testing results, but the end product of these tests was a better
Lisa system. Apple also gave high priority to understandable
foreign language translations for the Lisa software, developing
a useful technical solution to the problem of "localization"
through Phrase files which contained all the phrases that a Lisa
program could display to the user. With access to the Phrase
files, a translator with minimal computer skills could translate
the program's messages and create a national-language version,
without having to delve into the highly technical underlying
source code. The Lisa at power-on also supported foreign
language diagnostic messages, which could be keyed in from the
keyboard.
Apple projected sales of 10,000 Lisas in the last half of 1983
and 40,000 in 1984. In retrospect, Apple was able to sell around
80,000 Lisas during its 18 month life -- an average of 4,500
units a month or 13,000 per quarter, figures very close to
initial sales projections. (I believe Apple's sales were less
than expected in the first months after the Lisa's introduction,
but sales picked up near the end of the Lisa's life).
DEVELOPMENT RISKS
-------------------------------------------------
Apple confronted several significant risks with Lisa's
introduction.
On the technical front, the software development effort was
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 37
immense, and could easily have delayed the introduction. The
Twiggy disk drive proved barely workable, but the more reliable
Sony 3.5 inch disk drives were substituted. The Lisa's printing
technology was a risk, since Apple was basically trying to get
dot-matrix and daisy-wheel printers to emulate a high-resolution
laser printer. Font and printer problems were eventually
resolved.
On the business front, Apple had several very high hurdles to
jump. The company was unable to invest enough time in helping
outside developers. The seven programs of the Office System were
basically all the programs Apple had for the Lisa's
introduction. Product planners were on the dangerous edge of
confusing the Lisa and Macintosh product lines. Finally, Apple's
data communications strategy appeared primitive; Apple did
develop a network for the Lisa, called AppleBus (later
AppleTalk,) but Lisa networking never achieved popularity with
users.
After a year with the Lisa product line, Apple's management came
to the conclusion that Apple could only support one line of
computer with a graphical interface. Lisa lost out to the
Macintosh. The Lisa's name was changed to Macintosh XL (quoted
variously as standing for "Extra Large" or "X-Lisa"). In April
1985 the Lisa was discontinued and the Macintosh became Apple's
top-end computer; after the discontinuation Apple supported the
Lisa hardware with a 5-year program of spare parts and repair
services.
To ease the transition to the Macintosh, Apple developed a
program called MacWorks that allowed the Lisa to run most
contemporary Macintosh programs. MacWorks supported Apple's
strategy: to sell its remaining inventory of Lisas to the
Macintosh public, which desired a Macintosh more powerful than
the original 128K and 512K models.
The bulk of Apple's remaining Lisa inventory was sold to a Utah
company called Sun Remarketing. (3) Sun continues to sell the
Lisa today as a Macintosh. Apple's final Lisa collection was
placed in a landfill by Apple several years ago; I'm not certain
of the reason for this, but believe it may have been a result of
a lawsuit concerning the Lisa brought by several Apple
stockholders.
The Lisa legacy at Apple is still somewhat alive, at least in a
physical sense. The Apple Corporate Museum houses a few
functioning Lisas for display purposes, but I believe they may
be running Macintosh rather than Lisa software. [Unfortunately,
the Apple Museum is currently closed indefinitely. -- Ed.]
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 38
LISA TECHNOLOGY
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa has proven to be one of the most underrated personal
computer systems in the industry's history. When Apple
introduced the Lisa in 1983, very few people seemed to
understand the revolutionary concepts implicit in its design. In
retrospect, we can say that Apple itself shared this lack of
understanding.
Apple's revolutionary "Lisa Technology" combined tight
integration of hardware and software with a simple design goal:
to make the computer as easy to use as possible, without
sacrificing power that would enable the user to accomplish
significant computing tasks. In Apple's words, Lisa Technology
was based upon "the extensive use of graphics, consistent user
interface, and pointing device (the 'mouse') which together
emulate the way an individual works in the office".
To quote one of Apple's Lisa documents, the Lisa hardware and
software combination "must be seen to be believed;" but in fact
it must be used, extensively, before it can be appreciated.
Discussing Lisa's important differences will only bring on
skepticism; demonstrating the system is some help, but often not
a lot. The non-Lisa user meeting a Lisa for the first time will
perennially ask, "Can something that looks so gimmicky really do
serious work?" But I think that most people who spend several
hours with a Lisa accomplishing something real -- aside from
those few who have tried it and really don't like it -- will
come away with positive conclusions about the Lisa's value, or
at least the value of its technology.
One effective presentation tool used by Apple for Lisa customers
was the Lisa Concept Pyramid. The apex of this pyramid
represented the solutions required by the target customer, the
information professional, who was called a "knowledge worker" by
Apple). The generic applications are all tools which can be used
by almost anyone.
The middle layer of the pyramid represented the underlying
technology of a truly "easy to use" system. The prototype of
this technology was created within Xerox PARC, but Apple's
refinement of it consumed the bulk of Lisa's 200-man-year
development effort. Many contributions by Apple were
enhancements of integration and of the user interface; keys to
that accomplishment included the one-button mouse and its driver
software. Another cornerstone is Visual Fidelity, or the
correlation between screen image and printed output now referred
to as "WYSIWYG."
The bottom layer is the foundation for the layers above. The
major design issues were all dictated by the needs of the
software, rather than the traditional domination of the design
by hardware. (4) The Lisa operating system needed to be multi-
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 39
tasking, to allow multiple programs to co-exist on the screen.
The Graphics/Mouse technology was the key to making the Lisa's
user interface possible.
All Lisa user actions were centered around the one-button mouse.
The user moved the mouse pointer (usually a small arrow-shaped
pointer) to the screen object of interest. For example, to
activate a menubar command the user moved the mouse pointer to
the appropriate command group label, e. g. Edit, and pressed the
mouse button. The selected menu would then "pull down" showing a
list of the specific commands the user could work with. Still
holding the mouse button down, the user dragged the mouse
pointer to the desired command, e. g. Copy, and released the
mouse button when the mouse arrow touched the Copy command and
the command name in the menu was highlighted. At this point the
selected menu command was activated and performed its function
on the selected window object. For example, if you were using
LisaWrite, the Lisa's word processor, you could copy data from a
LisaWrite document by first selecting with the mouse pointer the
text to copy, and then activating the Edit menu Copy command.
The Lisa's technology has now been copied extensively by other
systems, both within Apple and elsewhere. But in my opinion
several aspects of the Lisa's design made it unique. These
aspects have not, so far, been adopted to any significant degree
by other microcomputer systems.
SOFT POWER-ON AND POWER-OFF
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa was powered on and powered off by a button on the front
plate of the computer case, but its power button was not a true
"hard" power switch; a Lisa, once plugged in, was always
running. When the Lisa was "off" it was really in a low-power
mode (what might now be called a sleep mode) that toggled to
full power when the user pressed the power button. Conversely,
if the user pressed the power button to turn the Lisa "off," the
hardware called to the operating system (really to the Lisa
Desktop Manager) which commanded all executing programs to save
their documents. When all programs indicated that they had
committed their documents to disk, the Lisa toggled to its low-
power mode.
SELF-ORGANIZING DESKTOP
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa maintained an orderly desktop for the user. At power-
down, the Desktop Manager would save the state of the desktop as
well as all open document data. When the user powered-up the
Lisa, the Desktop Manager restored the desktop state as it was
on power-down.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 40
DOCUMENT-CENTERED VIEW
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa supported a document-centered view which gave priority
to documents, not programs. To start a new document in any
application, the Lisa user tore off a sheet of "stationery" from
a pad icon that resided on the screen. When "opened" by the user
a stationery pad automatically duplicated itself, set its name
and the current date, and created a window on-screen for the
user. (Stationery pads survive in Macintosh System 7, but the
Macintosh does not use a document-based view.) Lisa program
icons rarely came into play except to move the program file to
another disk. Generally, Lisa users kept document stationery
pads easily accessible on the screen and kept program icons in a
folder, which they opened only to add new programs or delete old
ones.
RELIABLE FILE DATA STORAGE
-------------------------------------------------
Several design decisions made the Lisa's file system unusually
reliable. To reduce the impact of a system crash, the file
system maintained distributed redundant information about the
files, in different forms and in different places on disk media.
For example, information about a file in the central disk
catalog was repeated in a special disk block at the head of that
file. Also, each block on the disk specified the part of the
file to which it belonged, in a special string called a "block
tag." Since all files and blocks on a disk were able to identify
and describe themselves, there were several ways to recover lost
information. A utility called the Scavenger was able to
reconstruct damaged disk catalogs from the redundant information
stored in and about each file.
The Scavenger is activated automatically whenever the Lisa
determines that a disk has problems. At this point the Lisa's
low-level operating system informs the Desktop Manager, which
displays a dialog for the user. The user may elect to have the
Lisa repair the disk or eject it. In my experiences with the
Lisa I've only had one disk that the Scavenger could not fix.
The Lisa's ProFile hard disk and Twiggy floppy drives also
included extensive reliability features. One such feature was
disk block sparing. When a disk block (of 512 bytes) was
detected as beginning to fail, the Lisa's disk drive (whether
ProFile or Twiggy) moved the data to a spare area of the disk
and marked the failing block as "bad". Whenever a program
attempted to access a bad block, the drive automatically
substituted a "spared" data block.
The original Macintosh supported block tags at the hardware
level, but Apple never provided a Mac Scavenger program to
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 41
monitor and use these tags. Neither did Apple's Finder program
(the Desktop Manager equivalent for the Mac) support checks for
failing disk blocks. After several years Apple abandoned disk
block tag use. Newer Macintoshes have introduced block sparing
for high density floppies and hard drives.
UNIQUE SYSTEM SERIAL NUMBERS
-------------------------------------------------
Each Lisa contained a unique serial number, stored in a special
electronic chip, which the Desktop Manager could read. The Lisa
used the serial number for program protection, and to establish
uniquely identified communication nodes within Lisa data
networks.
PROGRAM ANTI-PIRACY AND DATA PROTECTION
-------------------------------------------------
All Lisas provided a simple and effective method of protecting
user programs from piracy, and data files from overly curious
co-workers.
When the user installed a new program, the Lisa "serialized" the
disk copy of the program by writing the ROM-based serial number
to the program floppy disk. The user of this disk would then be
unable to copy this "protected master" program file to another
Lisa. The user could still execute the protected program from
the floppy disk, but this was tedious, given that Lisa programs
tended to be large and floppy-disk-based program execution would
try the patience of most users.
Document protection was provided by passwording. The user could
select a document icon with the mouse and, through a menu-driven
dialog, obtain general information about the document. This
information included the document's size and a field for the
protection password. If the user typed a password into this
field, the document was protected. When any user attempted to
open a protected document, the Lisa displayed a dialog asking
for the password.
NON-PHYSICAL FILE NAMES
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa did not display physical file names to the user.
Instead the Desktop Manager presented a "document name view"
which allowed descriptive names with up to 63 characters. The
underlying filesystem allowed file names up to 31 characters
long, which could not contain the directory separator character
"-". For each document the Desktop Manager maintained a user
document name (e. g. "Vacation Plans - 1983") and a physical
low-level file name (e. g. "{T3D456}").
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 42
This non-physical file name scheme allowed the use of multiple
documents with the same user-defined name, whose underlying
physical file names were different. In this regard the Lisa
mimicked the physical working desktop, where a worker might have
five photocopies of the same document at the same time.
To the best of my knowledge, no other currently available
microcomputer supports non-physical document names.
PULL-OUT HELP CARD IN THE KEYBOARD
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa keyboard contained small pull-out firm plastic sheets
of helpful information. The first sheet showed the keyboard
itself and a layout of all the keys that the could be typed in
combination with the Option key. Other cards gave concise
information about Lisa operating features and techniques, such
as how to copy documents. Another blank card allowed users to
write down important personal information pertaining to the
Lisa; for example, the phone number of the local Apple service
center or representative.
HARDWARE BASED MEMORY MANAGEMENT
-------------------------------------------------
The original Lisa contained 1 megabyte of physical memory, with
about half of it used for the Lisa Desktop Manager and the
Desktop Libraries. A sophisticated hardware-based memory
virtualization allowed Lisa programs to access more memory than
was physically installed. This strategy also allowed the Lisa to
segregate executing programs so that they could not access other
programs' data at inappropriate times. If memory protection was
violated, the Lisa would stop the errant application and alert
the user that the program had been terminated.
ENVIRONMENTS WINDOW
-------------------------------------------------
Through the Environments Window, Lisa provided a simple method
for the computer to run radically different operating
environments. On boot-up, Lisa ran a special low-level program
called the Environment Selector, which located and ran a default
operating environment, if one was present. Otherwise, the
Selector displayed a window allowing the user to select a run-
time environment. Apple supplied two different environments: the
Office System environment for non-technical end users, and the
Workshop environment for programmers. Other companies supplied
additional environments, e. g. an implementation of UNIX.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 43
ADJUSTABLE SCREEN CONTRAST AND DIM DURATION CONTROL
-------------------------------------------------
Lisa screen contrast could be adjusted by the user with a
special program called Preferences. This program also allowed
the user to define a duration of inactivity, after which the
screen would automatically dim and lessen contrast. This feature
prevented screen "burn-in," which happens when screen images at
high contrast "burn into" the screen's phosphors. The Lisa
automatically, gradually dimmed the screen in pleasing
increments -- a nice touch on Apple's part which prevented a
jarring change in screen brightness and contrast.
SCREEN PRIVACY FEATURE
-------------------------------------------------
For users who dealt with sensitive data, the Lisa provided a
simple screen privacy feature. The user could press Option-
Shift-[numeric keypad zero] at any time and the screen would
immediately dim.
SELF-TEST AND FOREIGN LANGUAGE USAGE VIA THE ATTACHED KEYBOARD
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa, when powered on, ran a special hardware self-test
which made certain that it could safely run user programs and
manipulate user data. Hardware failure would trigger a specific
failure error number which could be used by an Apple service
center to isolate the defective part.
During these diagnostic tests (which took around 3 minutes to
execute) the Lisa displayed icons and messages to the user. The
messages could appear in either English, French, or German,
according to which keyboard was attached; Lisa keyboards were
self-identifying and provided the Lisa with information
including the keyboard "language". For example, if the keyboard
was a German keyboard, then all diagnostic messages appeared in
German.
Unfortunately, this language-sensing compatibility didn't extend
to the menus of Office System applications and programs like
LisaWrite!
SPECIAL SERVICE MODE
-------------------------------------------------
Lisa firmware contained a "service mode" which could be
activated when the computer was powered on; this special feature
allowed the knowledgeable user to run additional diagnostic
tests. Also supported was a cross-hatch display pattern which
made it easier to adjust the screen contrast.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 44
EASY SYSTEM DISASSEMBLY
-------------------------------------------------
Any subassembly of a Lisa, except for dangerous portions like
the monitor CRT, could be disassembled by the end-user, readily
and with few if any tools. For example, users could remove and
replace a disk drive with ease by just gripping the tabs at the
base of the front panel, popping the front off, and unscrewing a
single screw which held the drive in place.
MACINTOSH XL, MACWORKS, LISA-TO-MAC MIGRATION KIT
-------------------------------------------------
When Apple planned to discontinue Lisa, the company was left
without a high-end system. All Apple had to offer at the time
was the Macintosh 128K or 512K models, which were more compact
than the Lisa but lacked the appeal of its bigger screen, bigger
memory, and hard disk.
Apple's hardware and software engineers quickly developed a
special program named MacWorks that allowed a Lisa owner to turn
that computer into a "big" Macintosh. Apple produced three
versions of MacWorks before turning over all MacWorks
development to Sun Remarketing (see endnote).
Apple combined the new MacWorks with a renamed Lisa called the
Macintosh XL. This gambit sold a rather surprising (to Apple)
number of Lisas. MacWorks is still a commercial product for Sun
Remarketing, which went on to develop an enhanced MacWorks Plus
that lets a Lisa emulate a Macintosh Plus. (I wonder how many
Lisas/Macintosh XLs Sun really sells now, but the company has
been prodigious in developing and producing XL hardware
peripherals, including larger hard disks and a board that allows
SCSI devices to work with the XL.)
Apple solved the problem of transferring Lisa data to a
Macintosh with the Macintosh XL Migration Kit, consisting of a
special Lisa program called Lisa-to-Macintosh and a set of
Macintosh data conversion programs. The Lisa program (primarily)
wrote Lisa data files to a Macintosh disk; the Macintosh data
conversion programs took the resulting files and converted them
to Macintosh data files in an appropriate format. For example,
LisaWrite documents could be converted to either MacWrite or
Microsoft Word files for use by the Macintosh.
MACINTOSH: BACK TO THE FUTURE
-------------------------------------------------
Though the Lisa is now over a decade old, Lisa Technology still
influences the Macintosh. As the Macintosh product line matures,
it has in many ways circled back to approach the Lisa of 1983.
When Apple introduced the Lisa in January 1983, the Macintosh
was already under development. In January 1984 Apple introduced
the Macintosh which, at a casual glance, resembled a physically
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 45
smaller Lisa in many ways. But underneath, the Macintosh and the
Lisa were totally different. The Lisa depended on a multi-
tasking operating system, the Macintosh only on single-tasking.
The Lisa's extra memory (8 times that of the original Macintosh
128) and hard drive allowed use of comparatively sophisticated
Lisa programs and larger data files. The Lisa's Desktop Manager
and its distinctive user interface were drawn on by the
Macintosh developers as a foundation for the Macintosh Finder.
A short list of Lisa legacy items from Mr. Larry Tesler's
article "The Legacy of the Lisa" (MacWorld magazine, Sep. 1985)
appears below (I've added the Software development list):
* User interface
- Menubar, pull-down menus, keyboard-activated menu commands
- Printing dialog boxes
- Appearance, structure, and operation of windows and scroll
bars
- Ability to move windows and icons by dragging with the mouse
- Windows that zoom to open and close
- Dialog and alert boxes with buttons and check boxes
* Applications
- QuickDraw graphics package
- LisaDraw converted to MacDraw
- LisaProject converted to MacProject
- LisaWrite, LisaCalc, LisaTerminal influenced Macintosh
applications
- Lisa Desktop Manager influenced the Macintosh Finder design
- Lisa printing architecture influenced Macintosh printing
* Software development
- Lisa Pascal converted to MPW Pascal
- Lisa Clascal influenced MPW Object Pascal
- Lisa Workshop influenced design of Macintosh Programmer's
Workshop
- Lisa Workshop editor (LisaEdit) influenced editor design
- Lisa ToolKit influenced heavily the Macintosh MacApp
framework
* Hardware
- Single-button Mouse design
- ImageWriter printer
The Lisa legacy may also be seen in its influence, through the
Macintosh at least, on environments for non-Apple
microcomputers, including Microsoft Windows, Digital Research's
GEM, and Commodore's AmigaDOS. Close examination of these
systems will show a superficial resemblance to the Lisa (and
Macintosh) environments. But many times below the surface one
finds behavior that is reminiscent of the PC-DOS and CP/M
systems from (relatively) long ago.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 46
Other Macintosh technical areas influenced by the Lisa were:
* System 7 Stationery
* System 7 Apple Events
* Finder's Print Monitor
When I work with the Macintosh (e. g. a Macintosh II series
machine) in 1993, I notice two prominent differences from the
Lisa of 1984.
First, the Macintosh is much faster than the Lisa. Editing
complicated images in LisaDraw is almost an exercise in
futility. Apple has made excellent progress in enhancing the
speed of its Macintosh series. If Apple had kept the Lisa
product line one could only assume that hardware speed
improvements would have followed advancing technology. I've
heard that Apple developed a prototype Lisa based upon the 68020
processor, but canceled this project along with the Lisa as a
whole. This might have made the Lisa a much faster machine.
Second, the Macintosh seems comparatively incomplete in some
ways. For example, the Macintosh Finder does not save the
desktop, open application location, and data states, as did the
Desktop Manager. I miss being able to press the Lisa's power-off
button and just walk away from the computer, knowing that the
computer would save all my application data and turn off
automatically. Whenever I wished to resume work, I just pressed
the power-on button and the Lisa showed me a screen matching the
one I had left.
I don't mean to criticize the Macintosh unfairly, since it has
in its own right contributed much to the field of personal
computing. But the Lisa benefited in general by resulting from a
total system approach that delivered integrated functions with a
consistent and high quality user interface. I can only speculate
how this "total approach" originated, but think it may have
something to do with the experience and age differences of the
Lisa and Macintosh development teams. From my readings it
appears that the Lisa developers were about a decade older than
their Macintosh counterparts. The Lisa developers came mainly
from large computer companies like Xerox, HP, and DEC, which had
created and manufactured minicomputer systems, while the
Macintosh developers came mainly from within Apple's II and III
computer divisions. The Lisa developers also appear to have had
a different programming philosophy than the Macintosh
developers. The Lisa's core software was primarily written in
Pascal, a high-level language. Macintosh core software, on the
other hand, was written in 68000 assembly language.
I can only hope that Apple will resurrect some Lisa Technology
that is appropriate for Macintosh (and newer) systems. This hope
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 47
assumes that Apple will preserve the Lisa development materials
as best it can. Unfortunately, my experiences in this area
suggest that Apple has lost some Lisa materials already and does
not put a high priority on saving (what many there may consider)
the "antiquated" Lisa technology that remains. I see the
preservation of Lisa design notes and Lisa Office System source
code files as crucial for the continuation of the Lisa's legacy.
Hopefully Apple will remove the confidentiality status of its
Lisa materials in the upcoming years so that outsiders like
myself may have access to this body of knowledge.
SYSTEM 7 LISA DEDICATION: THE LAST WORD?
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa was considered by many at Apple to be a failed
experiment. Even so it appears that some people working there
understand, and wish to commemorate, the Lisa's legacy to the
Macintosh. These people provided a short dedication to the Lisa
Desktop Manager and its designers in the Macintosh System 7
operating system, which first appeared in 1990, almost a decade
after the Lisa's debut.
On a Macintosh running System 7 you may obtain a dialog showing
a Lisa dedication. Hold down the Option key and select the menu
item "About the Finder" (this item is called "About this
Macintosh" if the Option key is not held down). You should see a
pretty mountain scene with a list of names at the bottom edge.
Wait about 15 seconds and the bottom names will scroll, showing
more names of contributors to various versions of the Macintosh
Finder. Eventually you will see a dialog describing the Lisa
Desktop Manager.
REFERENCES: GENERAL
-------------------------------------------------
Many reference materials for the Lisa exist but, unfortunately,
most have become difficult to obtain. Fortunately, the author of
this paper appears to have almost everything ever written about
the Lisa, both in the general press and by Apple Computer. All
my Lisa materials are available to others if they pay for the
copying and shipping.
This discussion of Lisa references mainly covers reference works
pertaining to the original Lisa, not to the "Macintosh version"
Macintosh XL. The original Lisa ran its own operating system
(called the Lisa OS) while the Macintosh XL ran the Macintosh
OS.
For general Lisa information I recommend the following books and
articles:
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 48
* The Complete Book of Lisa (Kurt Schmucker, 1984)
* The Lisa Computer System (BYTE magazine, Feb. 1983)
* The Lisa 2: Apple's Ablest Computer (BYTE magazine, 1984)
* A First Look at Lisa (Personal Computing magazine, Mar. 1983)
* Apple's Lisa (The Seybold Report on Professional Computing,
Jan. 1983)
* Lisa Makes the Scene (Apple Orchard magazine, Mar. 1983)
* Background Information: How Lisa Works (Apple Computer, 1983)
* Introducing Lisa: Apple's Personal Computer for the Office
(Apple Computer, 1983)
* Apple Introduces Lisa: A Revolutionary Personal Computer for
the Office (Apple, 1983)
* The Apple Lisa (Officemation Product Reports, Apr. 1983)
* Lisa/Mac XL Handbook (Michael Posner, Lisa Lives User Group,
1992)
* How Apple presents Lisa (Softalk magazine, Sep. 1983)
* Personal Computer Series: Apple Lisa 2 (Electronic Design,
Jul. 1984)
* Lisa Owner's Manual (Apple Computer, 1984)
Three books were written for the Lisa, but only Schmucker's book
may be considered worth reading. Michael Posner's 123 page
handbook is worthwhile for a decent overview of the Lisa's
history and operational information. This handbook is also
noteworthy for its recent publication date, which demonstrates
the longevity of the Lisa. To join Posner's _Lisa Lives_ user
group write to him at 5170 Woodruff Lane, Palm Beach Gardens,
Florida 33418.
REFERENCES: NEWSLETTERS AND PRODUCT SHEETS
-------------------------------------------------
Several Lisa-specific magazines were also around for a while.
* Semaphore Signal
* ICON
* The LisaTalk Report
Semaphore Signal was a very detailed Lisa newsletter which
produced around 30 issues. ICON was also good. The LisaTalk
Report was the newsletter of the Lisa NetWorkers, a group which
tried to breathe some life into the Lisa after Apple
discontinued it.
Many other general Lisa references exist, ranging from general
magazine articles to press clippings. For information about the
Lisa's first operating system, Lisa Office System or Lisa 7/7,
see the following:
* Reviewing Lisa's Office System (St. Mac magazine, Mar. 1984)
* Venerable Lisa Software Improved (Personal Computing magazine,
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 49
Mar. 1985)
* The Lisa Office System (Apple Computer, 1984)
* Lisa Product Data Sheets (Apple Computer, 1983-1984)
* LisaGuide screen prints (David Craig, 1984)
The Product Data Sheets are worth reading for their descriptions
of the programs Apple created for the Lisa, including LisaWrite,
LisaDraw, LisaCalc, LisaGraph, LisaProject, LisaList, and
LisaTerminal, as well as the Lisa itself. The screen prints are
a complete collection of the 126 screens shown by Apple's
interactive tutor for new Lisa users, LisaGuide.
REFERENCES: HISTORICAL/ARCHITECTURAL
-------------------------------------------------
For historical information about the Lisa see the following.
* The Legacy of the Lisa (MacWorld magazine, Sep. 1985)
* The Apple 32 Line: Past, Present, and Future (A+ magazine,
Jul. 1984)
* Lisa Chronology (Orphan Support column, MACazine, 198?)
* _Fire in the Valley_ (Freiburger and Swaine, Osborne-McGraw-
Hill, 1984)
* _The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple_ (M. Moritz,
1984)
The Lisa Legacy article is especially worth reading, since it
was written by one of the Lisa's main designers, who provides a
concise narrative of how the Lisa changed personal computing.
Lisa development history and details are documented in the
following references:
* The Past, Present, and Future of the Macintosh Desktop
(Semaphore Signal, Mar. 1986)
* An Interview with Wayne Rosing, Bruce Daniels, and Larry
Tesler (BYTE, Feb. 1983)
* The Birth of the Lisa (Personal Computing magazine, Feb. 1983)
* Lisa's Design (Popular Computing, Mar. 1983)
* Lisa: A Vision for the Couch at Apple (Softalk magazine, Jul.
1983)
* Racing to a Draw: How Apple Gets its Software out the Door
(St. Mac, Jun. 1984)
* Apple's Second Try at UNIX (UnixWorld magazine, Mar. 1988)
* A Death in the Family (ICON magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3)
The BYTE article is an excellent interview with the main Lisa
designers. "Racing to a Draw" is worth reading for its fairly
detailed description of LisaDraw and MacDraw development. The
"Couch" article is a good discussion of Mr. John Couch, the
General Manager for Lisa, who may be considered Lisa's "father".
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 50
REFERENCES: TECHNICAL
-------------------------------------------------
Readers with technical aptitude can search out a smorgasbord of
Lisa references that should satisfy the hungriest technophile:
* The Architecture of the Lisa Personal Computer (Proceedings of
the IEEE, Mar. 1984)
* Lisa User Interface Guidelines (Apple Computer, Nov. 1983)
* Lisa's Alternative Operating System (Computer Design, Aug.
1983)
* Lisa: Up Close and Personal (Softalk magazine, Sep. 1983)
* Network Introduction Package (Apple Computer, 1983)
* The Lisa Applications ToolKit (Apple Computer, 1983)
* Lisa Workshop User's Guide (Apple Computer, 1984)
* Lisa Development System Internals Documentation (Feb. 1984)
* Lisa Desktop Libraries Interface Listings (David Craig)
* Lisa Hardware Manual (Apple Computer, May 1983)
* Guide to the OS (Apple Computer, Oct. 1982)
The Lisa Architecture paper is a tremendous resource of Lisa
technical design and implementation facts, written by a primary
Lisa designer, but it is extremely difficult to find. The Lisa
User Interface Guidelines is a wonderful 100 page document that
describes the design behind the Lisa's user interface. The
Desktop Library interface listings describe the routines and
data structures developed to implement Lisa Technology. The Lisa
Hardware Manual is a lengthy tome describing Lisa's hardware in
extreme detail; if you are an electronic-hardware fanatic, this
manual is for you. The author also has a 1981 preliminary
version of the hardware manual which runs to only 80 pages,
versus 200 pages for the 1983 version. "Guide to the OS" is an
internal Apple manual describing the Lisa Monitor development
environment, precursor to the public Lisa Workshop environment.
This document should be of interest to those who yearn for
information about the Lisa's early development years and the
tools used for the programming effort.
REFERENCES: LISA TOOLKIT
-------------------------------------------------
Shortly after Apple introduced the Lisa in 1983, an enterprising
computer engineer from Seattle started a programming group
called the ToolKit User's Group (TUG). This group centered
around the Lisa ToolKit, which was based on the Pascal language
derivative Clascal, as developed by Apple for long-term Lisa
development. Those with an interest in the ToolKit will find the
following resources beneficial.
* Software Frameworks: The Lisa ToolKit (BYTE magazine, Dec.
1984)
* Professor Overrider's Almanac (David Redhed, TUG's newsletter,
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 51
4 issues)
* Save the ToolKit: A Call to Arms (Call A.P.P.L.E., Jun. 1984)
* An Introduction to Clascal (Apple Computer, Jul. 1984)
* The Lisa Applications ToolKit Reference Manual (Apple
Computer, 1984)
* Object-Oriented Programming for the Macintosh (Kurt Schmucker,
1986)
* ToolKit source code (David Craig)
The Schmucker Macintosh book is recommended for its concise
introduction to the Lisa ToolKit and the Clascal language.
Though devoted to the Macintosh and MacApp, Apple's ToolKit son,
this book does provide an excellent chapter on both the ToolKit
and Clascal. The ToolKit source code is a wonderful collection
of well-written modules which any programmer could profit from
reading.
REFERENCES: MACWORKS
-------------------------------------------------
Those inquiring about MacWorks, which allows a Lisa to run
(most) Macintosh software, should pursue the following:
* MacWorks XL User's Manual (Apple Computer, 1984)
* MacWorks Plus: Making a Lisa Speak Macintosh (MacTech
Quarterly, Spring 1989)
Several articles and manuals describe how to transfer Lisa data
to a Macintosh using the Macintosh XL Migration Kit; the most
accessible is probably:
* Using the Macintosh XL Migration Kit (Apple Computer, 1985)
REFERENCES: PATENTS
-------------------------------------------------
Several U.S. patents filed by Apple cover key Lisa technologies:
* Lisa Twiggy disk drive front panel (Patent # Des. 266,426,
Oct. 1982)
* ProFile hard disk case (Patent # Des. 273,295, Apr. 1984)
* Lisa case (Patent # Des. 277,673, Feb. 1985)
* Lisa mouse (Patent # 4,464,652, Aug. 1984)
* Twiggy disk drive (Patent # 4,466,033, Aug. 1984)
* Lisa QuickDraw "regions" (Patent # 4,622,545, Nov. 1986)
* Lisa Memory Management Unit (Patent # 4,926,316, May 1990)
REFERENCES: REPAIR
-------------------------------------------------
There are several good Lisa hardware repair books which current
Lisa (or Macintosh XL) owners should seriously consider
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 52
purchasing:
* Macintosh Repair & Upgrade Secrets (Larry Pina, 1990)
* Lisa/Macintosh XL Do-it-yourself Guide (Sun Remarketing, 1990)
* Apple Service Technical Procedures: Lisa/Macintosh XL (Apple
Computer, 1988)
The Apple Service Technical Procedures manual is a very detailed
document describing how to fix errant Lisas or Mac XLs. The
original Lisa systems came with a wonderful disk called LisaTest
that allowed a novice Lisa owner to diagnose the Lisa's
maladies.
REFERENCES: PRECURSORS
-------------------------------------------------
For an overview of prior art that Apple liberally "borrowed" for
the Lisa design, see various papers from Xerox and others (the
entries marked "*" are contained in the Xerox publication "Xerox
Office Systems Technology: A Look into the World of the Xerox
8000 Series Products" [OSD-R8203A, Jan. 1984]).
* The Star User Interface: An Overview (*)
* Designing the (Xerox) Star User Interface (* [also in BYTE,
Apr. 1982])
* Alto: A Personal Computer (Computer Structures, Principles,
and Examples, 1982)
* The Smalltalk Graphics Kernel (BYTE, Aug. 1981)
REFERENCES: MISCELLANEOUS
-------------------------------------------------
Finally, this article's author has written several other, more
specific Lisa papers:
* Apple Lisa Graphical Object-Oriented User Interface (Oct.
1987)
* A Review of Apple's Lisa Pascal (Oct. 1988)
* A Review of Apple's Lisa Workshop (Oct. 1988)
* Apple Lisa 7/7 Tool Deserialization (1988)
SUMMARY
-------------------------------------------------
The Lisa may be seen in retrospect as an experiment that both
succeeded and failed. It succeeded by introducing several
concepts to the computing industry which revolutionized the way
(some) computers were built and the ways (some) users used them.
It failed to convince its dual target market (both power users
and normal users) that it had met its goals of being easy to
use, powerful, and reliable. Lisa marketing was both imaginative
and aggressive for its time but, even so, could not measure up
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 53
to the accomplishments of the system itself.
Apple Computer is one of the few companies in the world with the
gumption to attack Lisa-sized, Lisa-radical projects. Apple's
successful demonstration that a desktop system could be both
powerful and easy to use, and its attempt to migrate Lisa
Technology features to its newer computers, should be considered
a feather in the hats of all participants in the Lisa adventure.
In a few short years, a relatively small group of talented and
dedicated people developed a system meant to endow ordinary men,
women and children with computing resources barely even dreamed
of. Whatever provoked this conjunction of technical talent, it
resulted in a brief, unparalleled flash of brilliance that is
now a fading but alluring image.
We can only hope that this fading flash will somehow be
rekindled in the future. Having the Lisa legacy without learning
from it would be worse than not having it at all.
-------------------------------------------------
NOTES
1) An earlier version of this article was published in LISA
LIVES, the newsletter of the Lisa Lives Users' Group, for Spring
1993.
This paper will shortly be available in an updated version which
will include considerably more Lisa operational and technical
information. To request a copy of the revised paper, please send
2 or 3 Macintosh 3.5" disks and a SASE to:
David T. Craig
941 Calle Mejia, Apt. 509
Santa Fe NM 87501
2) Interesting conjectures as to "Lisa's" identity can be found
in Robert X. Cringely's _Accidental Empires_ (Addison-Wesley,
1992) and in Owen Linzmayer's _The Mac Bathroom Reader_
(forthcoming).
3) Sun Remarketing
Box 4059
Logan, UT 84323-4059
+1 800-821-3221
FAX +1 801-755-3311
4) This, too, was a philosophical inheritance from Xerox PARC.
See Aaron Alpar, "LOGO and Smalltalk," ANALYTICAL ENGINE V1#2,
page 8.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 54
-------------------------------------------------
A CALIFORNIA COMPUTER ON THE MOON
-------------------------------------------------
[We just had to include a commemoration for the silver
anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. Spaceflight computer
expert Dr. James Tomayko of Carnegie Mellon University offers
this description of MARCO 4418, a California computer to
the....er, core, built by TRW in Redondo Beach. -- Ed.]
The computer in the Apollo Abort Guidance System (AGS) may be
the most obscure computing machine in America's manned
spaceflight program. The 330-page "Apollo Spacecraft News
Reference" prepared for the Apollo 11 mission contains not a
single reference to it, in contrast to several pages of
description of the Primary Guidance, Navigation, and Control
System (PGNCS) computer and its interfaces. The invisibility of
the AGS is a tribute to PGNCS, since the AGS was never needed to
abort a landing. It was. however, an interesting system in its
own right.
NASA policy decreed an abort if one more system failure would
potentially cause loss of crew. Hence the failure of either the
PGNCS or the AGS would have aborted the landing. The AGS
operated in parallel to the PGNCS in the LEM (Lunar Excursion
Module,) and provided independent position, velocity, attitude,
and steering information; it could verify navigation data while
the LEM was behind the moon and blacked out from ground control,
and first exercised this capability during the Apollo 9 and 10
circumlunar missions. The AGS pioneered "strapped-down" guidance
system architecture, using sensors fixed to the LEM to determine
motion, rather than a stable isolated platform as do
conventional inertial guidance systems.
The AGS system occupied only three cubic feet and comprised
three major components: an Abort Electronic Assembly (AEA) or
computer, an Abort Sensor Assembly (ASA) or inertial sensor, and
a Data Entry and Display Assembly (DEDA) for the AGS.
AEA and DEDA: The Computer Hardware
-------------------------------------------------
Like the PGNCS computer, the AGS computer evolved as its
designers clarified its requirements and purpose. The first
design included only a "programmer," not a true computer but a
fairly straightforward sequencer, with about 2,000 words fixed
memory and without navigation functions. Its job was simply to
bring the LEM to a lunar orbit higher than any surface
obstacles; the crew would then wait for rescue from the Command
Module, with its more sophisticated navigational and maneuvering
abilities.
In the fall of 1964, to bolster autonomy and safety, the AGS was
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 55
respecified to provide rendezvous capability without relying on
outside information. TRW then decided to include a computer,
first considering an existing Univector accumulation machine,
but finally choosing the custom-designed MARCO 4418 (for MAn
Rated COmputer). It was an 18-bit machine, with 17 magnitude
bits and a sign bit. It used 8-bit op codes and 13-bit
addresses. Numbers were stored in the two's complement form,
fixed point. Twenty-seven instructions were available, with per-
instruction execution time varying from 10 to 70 microseconds.
Unit size was 5 by 8 by 23.75 inches, weight 32.7 pounds, and
power requirement 90 watts. The 4,000-word memory was bit serial
access, divided into 2K fixed and 2K erasable cores. The cores
were of the same construction throughout, unlike those in the
primary computer, making the ratio of fixed memory to erasable
memory in the MARCO 4428 re-definable; TRW was obviously
building in compatibility with later applications.
The DEDA was smaller, at 5.5 by 6 by 5.2 inches, and less
versatile than its counterpart in the primary computer. It was
located at the right of the LEM control panel in front of the
pilot. Sixteen pushbutton keys included CLEAR, READOUT, ENTER,
HOLD, PLUS, MINUS, and the digits 0-9. Of the nine windows in
its single readout display, three showed the address in octal,
one the sign, and five, digits; this resembled the readout of
the Gemini spacecraft computer.
SOFTWARE FOR THE AGS
-------------------------------------------------
AGS software repeatedly had to be "scrubbed" or reduced in size.
By 1966, 2 full years before the first active mission using the
LEM, only _20 words_ remained of 4,000 in AGS memory. Memory
management became a key concern of both TRW and NASA. Since the
fixed portion was programmed early and remained set to save
money, all changes had to be made in the erasable portion, which
became very expensive and arduous; the developers fought to free
up storage literally one location at a time. Some programming
also had to be altered to forestall possible dangers. For
example, early versions of AGS software followed the primary
computer in calling for engine shutdown and an attitude hold
upon restart; this sequence would be potentially disastrous for
a LEM close to the lunar surface. The installed version
permitted the crew to fire the engines manually during a
restart.
Software development followed a tight schedule and, despite
obstacles, was completed in eleven months from receipt of
mission profile and requirements to delivery of final program
tape. One method of software verification was probably unique.
To simulate motion and provide more realistic inputs to the
computer, technicians drove MARCO 4418 around Houston in a walk-
in van, with the programs running.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 56
USE OF THE AGS
-------------------------------------------------
The AGS was never used for an abort, but did contribute to
rendezvous and docking with the CM on the Apollo 11 mission, and
monitored PGNCS performance during all missions in which it
flew. The only criticism of its performance was from astronaut
John Young, who remarked that "one mistake in a rendezvous, and
the whole thing quit;" restarts apparently occurred during
recovery from some operator errors.
In the last analysis, AGS was like a parachute -- mandatory, but
presumably never needed. Its important legacy for NASA, however,
was in improved ability to develop and manage spaceflight
software.
[Abridged and adapted, by permission, from Volume 18, Chapter 2,
_Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology_ (Marcel
Dekker, pub.)]
-------------------------------------------------
Book Review: HISTORY OF COMPUTING
An Encyclopedia of Computer History (Version 2.0)
Antelope, CA: Lexikon Services, 1994
Hyperstack for MS-DOS or MS-Windows,
approximately 650 pages, US$19.95
ISBN 0-944601-405
Reviewed by Kip Crosby
-------------------------------------------------
When I began collecting tidbits of computer history, I stashed
them in an MS-Windows string-search database, sorted by date. I
badgered after details and worried that they'd escape before I
had time to key them in. My paperbacks blossomed with post-it
bookmarks. I puzzled over contradictions from multiple sources.
(Is everybody saying "Been there, done that?") After many
rampages through libraries, and thirty or forty hours of keying,
I had....a pretty good reference stack. For some things.
Now along comes Mark Greenia and knocks my socks off. Watch out!
Your socks are in peril too.
Lexikon Services' HISTORY OF COMPUTING bills itself as many
references: an encyclopedia, a dictionary, a personal and
corporate biography, and a series of chronologies. Anything that
won't fit in one of those frameworks is relegated to a rich
series of appendices, including things like "Personnel Changes
in the 1990's," "Top 50 Software Sellers," and "Decimal-
Hexadecimal-Binary." There are odd calls here; for example, I
might have included "Programming Languages" under General Topics
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 57
rather than making it Appendix A, and if "Digital Computer
Survey of 1953" is a General Topic, why is "Computer
Manufacturers of 1956" Appendix B? But some awkward
categorization only underscores the problem that this hyperstack
bravely addresses: Computer history is a _huge_ topic from the
standpoint of any single reference work.
Okay. Computer history isn't all here, either, and some of the
gaps are frustrating; as an example, the biographical section
ranges from Howard Aiken to Konrad Zuse and comprises only
twenty-five individuals. But an hour spent with the HISTORY OF
COMPUTING will convince you that these gaps are less significant
than they seem at first. This stack, in its voracious
inclusiveness, has the same compelling fascination as the
Guinness Book of World Records. Want to know about SHOOT
(Superfluid Helium On-Orbit Transfer,) the first expert system
used on the space shuttle? It's in here. Ever wonder what
"Amstrad" is an abbreviation for? You'll just have to search and
find out. What the heck was the "IRSIA-FHRS"? (Look in "Early
Vacuum Tube Computers.") You can zip from entry to entry and
menu to menu, mesmerized, until you stand up and discover that
your knees are very stiff. Above and beyond the merit of the
HISTORY OF COMPUTING as a reference work -- which is
considerable-- its entertainment value as a computer history
browser is a real clincher.
Labeled "Version 2.0," this stack is really the fourth update
since the HISTORY first appeared, and every revision has brought
significant enhancement. The most welcome news in 2.0 is a true
automatic text search feature, both menu-by-menu and across the
whole stack, which does a lot to smooth out the sometimes
puzzling organization. 2.0 is also more comprehensive than any
previous version and, with over 1,300 entries, is the equivalent
of a _big fat book._ The bibliography alone, with over two
hundred attentively chosen titles, is worth the price of the
disk.
If this program has an Achilles' heel, it is the minor
copyediting and spelling. A few minutes' browsing in the Q-Z
section of the Computer Dictionary, for example, turns up
"Argone" for Argonne, "Sherbius" for Scherbius, and "Bletchly"
for Bletchley as in Park. These errors would be no more than
annoying, except that the program is a string-search engine....
The search is marred, also, by being oblivious to a world of
infixed capitalizations. When I search on "VisiOn" to find
VisiCorp's windowing application suite, I'd rather not get hit
with "vision," "envision" and "television," which give quite a
few false matches. Presumably these quirks can be addressed in
the next release, and if the stack's prior history is any guide,
they will be. Greenia is conscientious about improvements.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 58
Uneven, unabashed, and unrivaled, Lexikon's HISTORY is a must-
have for any student of computers or their ancestors. I look at
paying $19.95 and 2Mb disk space for this stack, and remember
the hours of fluorescent library dust I invested to come....not
even close. If you've read this far into the ANALYTICAL ENGINE
and you have a computer that runs MS-DOS or MS-Windows, order
the HISTORY OF COMPUTING before this day is out.
Lexikon Services
3241 Boulder Creek Way
Antelope, CA 95842
-------------------------------------------------
ACQUISITIONS
-------------------------------------------------
[We haven't accepted a lot of hardware this quarter, since there
was no point to storing it in El Cerrito, hauling it down to
Redwood City and storing it again. Machines waiting in the wings
include an Osborne One, a Cromemco Z-2D, an IMSAI VDP-40, an HP
Integral, some sort of Altos, probably a Morrow MD-3, and
possibly a Kaypro 10 and a Compupro.]
HP 125
-------------------------------------------------
Dan Swaigen
"E. T. lives!" That's the traditional reaction to our April
cover subject, the HP 125, with its futuristic "pod" looming
from a pedestal base. This one was purchased from Dan Swaigen of
Sunnyvale.
We had to store this computer before we had time to do a
technical assessment, but in general: It's a member of the "100
Series" of micros (like the 110 laptop and the 150 touchscreen,)
which flourished in the early Eighties. During this time, HP
largely abandoned proprietary operating systems and applications
for micros, so that (for example) the 125's operating system is
CP/M, its BASIC/125 is modified MS-BASIC, and its WORD/125 is a
custom version of Lexisoft's popular CP/M word processor,
Spellbinder.
Like most early 125's, ours is paired with the 82901 dual 5.25"
DSDD floppy disk drive, and a keyboard which unfortunately has a
swath of plastic rot (see QUERIES). Another large box contains
software for the 125 and 150, some of it still in the shrink-
wrap, and a bunch of ring binders of program listings and
possibly also HP newsletters. This is a treasure trove, and we
impatiently await a second chance to look it over. Thanks, Dan!
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 59
KAYPRO II
-------------------------------------------------
Mel Shattuck
Think back to the days when computers were the size of a
room....then the size of a refrigerator, or two....then the size
of a desk. At the dawn of the Great Shrinking, it was so easy to
sit back and dream. _How about a computer with a handle on it?_
And before long, each in its own way, there they were: the
breathtakingly expensive IBM 5100, militantly odd digital group
Bytemaster or Conterm Hyperion, wildly popular Osborne, or the
Compaq Portable, very suit-and-tie. Yet Non-Linear Systems'
Kaypro II, with its sporty silver-and-blue color scheme, somehow
epitomizes the luggable. The Z-80 CPU made it quick, or quick
enough; the nine-inch CRT, a big improvement over the five-inch
screen of the 5100 or Ozzie, would let you do a whole day's word
processing with no threat of a headache at the end. CP/M as the
operating system opened the doors to a galaxy of software. Some
combination of form factor, convenience, reliability, and the
accessible $1795 price put this firmly in the pantheon of
memorable computers.
Mel Shattuck of Berkeley, a micro hand from the days of Cromemco
and before, brought this pristine Kaypro over to CHAC's garage
and donated it, along with appropriate distribution software,
work disks, and manuals. Thanks a lot, Mel. Not having a Kaypro,
in a computer museum in California, would be hard to imagine.
-------------------------------------------------
LETTERS
-------------------------------------------------
POSTAL COMMEMORATION OF COMPUTING
-------------------------------------------------
In a recent exchange of E-mail with David Greelish at HCS, I
discovered that he had also thought about the possibility of
getting the USPS to issue commemorative stamps for the 50th
anniversary of the birth of the US computer industry.
My wife is a stamp collector, and she has a USPS booklet that
has the rules for suggesting topics for postal commemorative
stamps. What it says is that you have to submit the suggestion
for a commemorative stamp or stamp series to the
USPS Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee
Room 5800
475 L'Enfant Plaza West SW
Washington DC, 20260-6352
It says that helpful background information should be provided
but that suggested artwork should not be provided. The committee
receives hundreds of suggestions every month, and they can only
use a few suggestions a year, so brief and to-the point
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 60
suggestions with clear and concise supporting statements are
important.
Suggestions approved by the committee and accepted by the USPS
are then assigned to design committees which oversee the design
of the stamp, so don't expect commemorative stamps to be issued
without a few years lead time! Right now is the time to suggest
commemoration of events that happened in 1947, and it may be too
late to start the mill grinding to celebrate a 1946 event.
I went through your list of dates and found the following stuff
that has 50th birthdays coming up soon, to which I added a few
things for which I don't have the dates or appropriate details:
ENIAC -- America's first electronic computer, built at the Moore
School of Electrical Engineering at the University of
Pennsylvania, it became operational in November 1945, and was
demonstrated to the Army on February 15, 1946. ENIAC was
apparently converted to a stored program computer in 1947; this
latter date may actually be more important than is generally
realized, since it is at that time that ENIAC apparently became
a general purpose computer in the sense we now understand the
term.
EDVAC -- \ I don't have the dates for these machines! Some, but
ILLIAC -- \ not all of these machines need to be commemorated
SILLIAC -- > but I don't know which. These were the research
MADVAC -- / machines that filled an important gap between ENIAC
ORDVAC - / and the birth of the modern computer industry.
ERA 1101 -- The first commercially built computer to be
delivered in the United States, this was sold by Engineering
Research Associates to the Georgia Institute of Technology in
December 1950.
UNIVAC I -- This was the first commercially sold computer; the
contract to build it was between the Eckert-Mauchly Computer
Company and the U S Bureau of the Census, signed on Sept 25,
1946. The machine was finally delivered by Remington Rand on
March 31, 1951. Ultimately, 40 more machines of this model were
sold. As a result, Remington was, for a few years, the world's
leading computer manufacturer.
IBM 701 -- The most important of the early computers, in
retrospect. The prototype was unveiled on April 7, 1952; the
first production model was shipped in December, 1952, and the
first customer delivery, to Los Alamos, was made on April 1,
1953. This machine propelled IBM into a position of world
leadership in the computer industry.
As an aside, I should note that the British should look into
getting British commemorative stamps issued for the following
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 61
important machines:
Manchester Mark I -- This was the first fully operational
computer that was designed from the start as a stored program
machine. Runs first full length stored program, June 21, 1948.
EDSAC -- Another event the British need to celebrate! Built by
Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge, this ran its first program in May
1949.
LEO -- The Lyons Tea Company's amazing venture, and a machine
that not only marked the start of the British computer industry,
but managed to beat the Americans to market!
Finally, I'll suggest a general introductory argument to be made
in letters to the USPS advisory committee:
The computer industry was born in the wake of World War II, and
over the next decade, we will be celebrating the 50th
anniversaries of a number of important developments in this
field. Given the important role that computers play in today's
world economy, and given the important role our country has
played in developing this industry, we feel that it would be
very appropriate to mark these anniversaries on a series of
commemorative postal stamps.
-- from Doug Jones, jones@cs.uiowa.edu
[One of our favorite rationales for electronic transmission of
the ENGINE is the warp-speed propagation of good ideas, and Doug
has certainly contributed his share. Our Association's letter to
the USPS Advisory Committee is in preparation. So far as the
United Kingdom's GPO is concerned, we would certainly add
COLOSSUS to the list of meritorious devices.]
MORE ON COMPUTERS AND MUSIC
-------------------------------------------------
I can't say if the system was ILLIAC I or II, but the following
text might be of interest. It's taken from the liner which
accompanied a 10" LP record published by Bell Labs in 1961 under
the title "Music from Mathematics":
In addition to "playing" music it is also possible for a
computer to "compose" music. On Side Two of this record is
presented an excerpt from a series of unusual experiments
conducted at the University of Illinois by Lejaren A.
Hiller, Jr. and Leonard M. Issacson. They successfully
programmed the ILLIAC computer to compose music according
to various rules of musical composition which were stored
in the computer. The computer produced sequences of
letters and numbers which were then transcribed by hand
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 62
into conventional musical notation suitable for playing by
human musicians. This two-minute excerpt from the 20-
minute _Illiac Suite for String Quartet_ is played by the
WQXR String Quartet (Harry Glickman and Hugo Fiorato,
violins; Jack Braunstein, viola; and Harvey Shapiro,
cello). A more detailed description of _The Illiac Suite_
is presented in the album notes.
Excerpts from the enclosed notes, starting on page 7:
THE COMPUTER AS COMPOSER [...] In order to investigate
this idea [computer-composed music] L. M. Issacson and L.
A. Hiller, Jr., in 1955, conducted a series of experiments
of composing music with _Illiac_, the high-speed digital
computer at the University of Illinois. They completed
four groups of experiments and published samples of them
in _The Illiac Suite for String Quartet_.
THE ILLIAC SUITE FOR STRING QUARTET
To set a digital computer to composing simple melodies,
Hiller and Issacson assigned numbers in sequences to the
notes of the music scale from low C upwards. At first only
white notes were used, with sharps and flats omitted; but
in later experiments a chromatic scale of about two and a
half octaves was used. Then the computer was set to
generating sequences of random numbers. These can be
interpreted as equivalent to random music.
[a couple of pages of descriptions of the four movements and the
sequence filters which were applied to produce the computer-
written music]
Musicians who have played computer compositions have
complained that the score is often too difficult for human
fingers and conventional musical instruments to perform
well.
That may well be. Perhaps in the future computers will
compose "easier" scores; or, what is more likely, they may
circumvent human musicians and conventional instruments
entirely, and play the music themselves.
In fact, several computers have been "practicing" for
several months, and already they are becoming versatile
musical instruments.
For context, the disk shows a copyright date of 1960 and the
enclosed booklet (from which the above was taken) shows a 1961
copyright.
-- from Joe Morris, MITRE.
[Liner notes and booklet text reprinted by permission of AT&T.]
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 63
HISTORY QUERIES
I have a series of questions concerning the use of certain
techniques in computer design. They are:
1.) Which were the first computers to use microprogrammed
architectures as opposed to hardwired architectures?
2.) Which were the first computers to use interrupts? Was the
interrupt state stored in RAM or internal registers on the
processor?
3.) Which were the first computers to use paging of RAM or ROM
memory?
If someone could point me at someone whom might know the answer
to these questions or could suggest some publication, library,
etc. that might be of help, I would be very much obliged.
Andrew Robertson
Department of the History of Science
Harvard University
CP/M COMPUTERS: REPLIES TO BESEHANIC, LACEY, GALLES, WEST
Kip, got the ENGINE yesterday. Some random comments and
responses to things in it:
-- Cover, the picture of an HP 125 is not accurate. It has the
pedestal base WAY too big. Have you considered taking photos and
scanning them?
-- Pg. 22, the Morrow doesn't _have_ a monitor or a keyboard.
Let's not apply PC terms to pre-PC computers, please. The Morrow
series hooks up to a serial TERMINAL, which provides the system
console. Morrow sold several terminals under their label,
including relabeled ADM 3A's and Freedom Liberty terminals.
-- Pg. 25, note that the HP 86 will run CP/M with the insertion
of a CP/M cartridge.
-- Pg. 35 (1) The Husky Hunter is a CP/M machine which was part
of the standard equipment of NATO forces. If Jan Besehanic
wishes, I will copy the Husky brochures for him. If he wants to
sell or trade the Hunter for another computer, I'd like to have
it for my collection. (2) Tell Dave Lacey to talk to Sydex. They
will add the Microlog format to 22DISK if it isn't already in
there, and then anyone with a PC with an 8" drive attached can
copy the files to other formats. Microsolutions will sell him a
Compaticard and cable to attach an 8" drive to a PC, or I will
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 64
copy the files for him for $10 a disk. I don't know what he can
do about NBI word processor disks, but Sydex might have some
ideas. (3) I have the NorthStar Advantage manuals, and will sell
Bob Galles copies, if he wants. ED and ASM, of course, are
standard CP/M utilities which any book on CP/M describes; he can
look in his local library, or I will sell him a CP/M book. If
F80 is a FORTRAN compiler, he will have to identify which one it
is, by running it, before I can help him.
-- Pg. 37, Tell John Todd West that Avocet sells a whole line of
PC cross compilers, including Z80. They advertise in CIRCUIT
CELLAR INK, among other places.
-- from David A. J. McGlone, via GENIE
[David,
Thanks for the useful information! We'll take this occasion to
remind our readers that, as a resource for the worldwide
community of CP/M computers and their users, nothing surpasses
Lambda Software Publishing and _The Z-Letter_.
As for our covers -- well, we certainly will run photos as this
issue demonstrates, but we'll run art, too. April's cover was no
engineering drawing, obviously; it was meant to _feel_ like an
HP 125 and convey some of the design's ingratiating weirdness.
-- KC]
MICROS: LAST-MINUTE SAVE
Just going through your on-line magazine. Really want to commend
you on this publication. I was wondering if something like this
existed and I am glad it does. There is a wealth of information
as well as hardware and software that should be preserved before
it becomes too difficult to find. The time is ripe for the
collection and organization of this material and devices.
Lots of early microcomputer stuff is still out there to be
acquired before someone tosses it out (unknowingly). For
example, I often tour thrift shops for antique calculators,
books, etc. Recently, I stopped into the local thrift shop and
found that someone had anonymously donated the following:
- Osborne 1 portable
- Commodore PET
- Adam
- Atari 800
- original IBM PC
- Commodore 64
- VIC-20
They weren't there the day before. (Since it was 1/2 off day, I
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 65
bought them all, except the Adam and the PC.) These machines
came close to being tossed in the dumpster by someone. Even the
thrift shop was not sure what they were. I am glad to see that
publications such as yours are bringing together individuals who
are interested and knowledgeable about computing and the value
of preserving its historical roots. Thanks to all your staff (&
readers)!
-- from Mark Greenia, Lexikon Services Publications, via AOL
ORIGIN OF "MINICOMPUTER": REPLY TO JONES
Hello from sunny Nottingham, in the UK.
I have just read vol. 1 #2 of your interesting publication. You
asked about the origin of "Minicomputer".
The answer is in "The Ultimate Entrepreneur", by Glenn Rifkin
and George Harrar of ComputerWorld:
"John Leng, who started and ran DEC's Canadian operation until
1964, flew to London to establish DEC's presence in the United
Kingdom. In the mid-sixties, mini-skirt fever raged on London's
Carnaby Street. Leng zig-zagged through British traffic in an
Austin Mini. He sent back sales reports: "Here is the latest
minicomputer activity in the land of miniskirts as I drive
around in my Mini Minor." The phrase caught on in DEC, and then
the industry trade publications grabbed onto it. The age of the
minicomputer was born."
This book has many interesting anecdotes for anyone with an
interest in computer history.
Keep it up,
-- from Nigel Lowey, DEC UK
-------------------------------------------------
QUERIES
-------------------------------------------------
[Queries are sorted by subject, and within that, by model if
applicable.
If the person querying has permitted us to publish an e-mail
address, we have done so, and please reply directly to it;
otherwise, reply to cpu@chac.win.net or the El Cerrito address,
and we will store and forward.
Necessary warning: Income from subs keeps the ENGINE robust and
lack of same, unfortunately, makes it lose weight. Currently we
try to publish queries that we receive from anyplace in the
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 66
world, on the premise that, even if the subject and author
aren't in California, the answer well might be. If the ENGINE
has to get thinner, we may be compelled to require a California
source or tie-in for published queries. Vote _against_ this dire
possibility by subscribing today! EOPlug ]
ANALOG COMPUTER, NON-ELECTRIC, URGENTLY WANTED
I would like to procure a high-quality analog computer, known as
slide rule, preferably one with four digits of precision. The
usual supply stores don't carry them any more. Does anyone know
where slide rules can be found these days?
-- from Peter van Roy, DEC Paris
[This seems to be a question of general interest and we already
have two answers. Try:
Bob Otnes
Oughtred Society
2160 Middlefield Road
Palo Alto CA 94301 USA
or
Suzanne Wyatt
Box 83
Dearborn MO 64439 USA
both of whom have slipsticks for sale, so far as we know. --
Eds.]
DEC VT-180: CURIOSITY AT CORNELL
I'm ashamed to confess, I had never heard of a VT-180 before...
well, at least not until one was donated to our Classic Computer
Club. I've given it a full check-out, and discovered that this
unit contains a Z-80 CPU, has 64K RAM, and runs CP/M 2.0 from an
RX-180 floppy system.
My question is: What the heck?
As I said, I've never seen a reference to the VT-180 or RX-180
floppies anywhere, and I'm dying to know a little bit more about
them. What were they developed for? When were they in
production? What format is the RX-180? How close on the heels of
this machine was the Rainbow released? Thanks very much for any
and all information!
- from Seth J. Morabito, Cornell University Classic Computer
Club, sjm1@cornell.edu, sethm@pnet.com
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 67
EDUCOMP: THE GOOD OLD DAYS
When I was in junior high back in 1977, we had a computer that I
believe was manufactured by DEC, but it went by the name
"EDUCOMP". The computer's distinguishing features were as
follows:
- Had a Teletype with a punch-tape read/write unit as the I/O
device.
- Had a drive for those 5-inch Dectape thingy's.
- Had an OS built around BASIC. This OS was loaded in from the
tape when the system was booted.
- Booting the system consisted of inserting one of those
circular key-things into the system unit (which was about the
size of a large modern microwave oven, as was the tape drive),
turning the key, and depressing four toggle switches in the
proper sequence.
- If everything was working, the teletype would respond with a
"." prompt, at which point you typed "R BASIC" (there was no
lower case). The tape would whir back and forth for a minute or
so, and then come back with the word "READY".
- There was a variety of software available. The most popular
was a horserace simulation where the greatest horses of all time
(Man-O-War, Citation, Whirlaway, Coaltown, etc.) competed
against each other with the help of an odds table and a random-
number generator. The user could place bets and win or lose
money.
- Other software included a lunar lander, 3D tic-tac-toe, a
simulation of Mendelian inheritance in a population of moths, a
rather interesting diplomacy simulation, and several others. All
programs used either pure text or primitive TTY character
graphics. All were written in BASIC. Does anyone else remember
this system? Did DEC make it? Any info and other reminiscences
will be much appreciated!!
-- from Richard S. Smith, rsmith@netcom.com
FORTUNE 32:16: JUST ABOUT ANYTHING
Hi. I've just been given a Fortune 32:16 system that is about 12
years old and has been in daily use all that time running the
inventory & sales ledgers etc for a small business with 5
terminals and two printers. The configuration is as follows:
68000 Processor 1 Mb RAM 20 Mb Shugart Hard Disk 5 1/4" Floppy
(800K maybe?) at least 8 serial ports
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 68
The software I have is: For:Pro 1.8f & 1.7 Fortune Word
Processor Fortune Business Basic Fortune Account system, written
in Business Basic. Just about all the Docs are also here.
What I'm after is the Fortune C development package, more up to
date OS; I know there was a For:Pro 2.1 as the C-Kermit makefile
supports it. Also any hardware info would be good as I'd like to
try and upgrade the RAM and Hard Drive.
So please, if anyone has anything on this let me know. I used
one of these for a short time when they first came into the UK
and they were pretty impressive in their day.
Thanks for anything you have!
-- from Jonathan Stockley, via Internet
MATTEL INTELLIVISION: TECHSTUFF
I'm looking for information on the old Mattel Intellivision
video game console.
1) The Intellivision I (brown case, internal power supply)
requires (according to the box of the Computer Module) "factory
modification" to allow it to be used with the Atari 2600 adapter
(or as Mattel called it, the "System Changer"). Does anyone know
what this modification was and how to do it?
2) The Intellivision II has some compatibility problems with
some 3rd party software. I hear there is a modification to fix
this. Anyone have this information?
If anyone knows of sources for game cartridges or consoles or
especially stuff for the Intellivision Computer Module or the
Aquarius, please let me know.
-- from David Tipton, 6500dtpt@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
MITS ALTAIR FLOPPY DRIVE WANTED
I am looking for a MITS Altair floppy drive including controller
cards.
-- from Rick "richard66" Shane, +1 614 444-0213, via AOL
[Rick,
You and half the rest of the world -- lately. The good news is
that Haddock catalogs this drive at US$200 to 300, so it's not
stratospheric, but it will still take some digging at any price.
If we hear of one for sale we'll let you know. -- Ed.]
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 69
NCR DECISIONMATE V: BOOTLESS
Does anyone have a CP/M disk for the NCR Decisionmate V? I have
the original system with all manuals, and it has a hard drive
but I can't boot it since the system files got messed up. Any
CP/M boot disk should work...
Thanks!
-- from John Wink, jgwink@cayley.uwaterloo.ca, via Internet
[John,
You're being too optimistic when you surmise that "Any CP/M boot
disk should work," but if David McGlone has a bootable disk in
the proper format, he can help you out. See the address for
Lambda Software Publishing on page 73. ]
NORTHSTAR HORIZON: BOOTLESS TOO
I just picked up a NorthStar Horizon computer. (It will go
nicely with my SOL-2.) On turn-on, it tries to access the
floppy, but I don't have the boot disk. Does anyone have a copy
of the boot floppy that they could duplicate/email? I would also
like to know if there is any documentation available (SAM's,
TAB, etc.) Thanks,
-- from Charlie Brett, cfb@fc.hp.com
[Charlie,
Again, David McGlone at Lambda Software Publishing is your
source. Refer to his letter on page 64. ]
RACAL-MILGO OMNIMODE 48 SAYS "HELLO"
I picked up a couple of these Racal-Milgo things for US$2 ea. I
really would like to figure a way to use them, as every time I
power them up they say "HELLO," and I like that. I wish all the
rest of my stuff was so polite as to greet me before it started
causing problems! Anyone want to tell me what use I could put
these to? -- as just turning them on and off again is getting
boring....
-- from David Case, via Internet
RESEARCH MACHINES LINK 480Z: "A WORTHY INTELLECTUAL CHALLENGE"
A friend has....decided to go back to the basics of computing
and teach himself some machine code. He obtained a Research
Machines link 480Z machine -- Z80 processor.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 70
Does anyone have, or does anyone know where I might find, a
listing of the call addresses into the ROM?
(Until he started asking me about this, I'd forgotten that I'd
ever written machine code... I think it's a worthy intellectual
challenge for a musician who's become fed up with using Amiga
programs without knowing what happens under the hood...)
-- from Mike Holderness, via Internet
SEMICONDUCTOR LASERS: AUTHOR'S QUERY
.... I'm working on a history of, amongst other things, the
semiconductor laser, and I'm trying to track down its first
application to data storage. I have the Philips/compact disc
side of the story fairly well tied down, but there are two other
things I need to know, viz.:
- How on earth and why did IBM get involved with MCA (in
Discovision, the company that holds the basic patents on laser
audio-video analog disk technology)?
- Who first proposed adapting the compact disk player for use as
a CD-ROM drive?
-- from Bob Johnstone, bobjohnstone@twics.com
SHARP MZ-800: ANY INFO WANTED
Today I bought at a second-hand shop a Sharp MZ-800 computer
(built-in cassette drive, plugs into TV set). At boot-up you can
either load something from tape or enter a monitor. The only
functions of the monitor that I have as yet discovered are
loading from and saving to tape, and turning the beeper on/off.
Does anyone know about this thing? Manuals? Software? Useful
hints?
All info appreciated! Cheers,
-- from Sander van Malssen, via Internet
TEAC CT-600H TAPE DRIVE: REPLACEMENT NEEDED
A friend....just had his tape drive blow out on him. It is a
TEAC CT-600H according to the number on the cassette, and the
size is 60Mb per tape. The thing about this drive, though, is
that it appears to take standard tape cassettes! I've never seen
a drive like this before. Does anyone know where we could find a
replacement?
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 71
Regards,
-- from Peter L. Buschman, 97buschmanp@matt.alma.edu
[Peter,
By "standard tape cassettes" do you mean quarter-inch audio
cassettes, or is this one of those drives from the mid-eighties
that backed up to video tapes? Just curious. -- Ed.]
UNIX BOOKS: REPLY TO BOOTH
Russell Schulz of Edmonton, AB, Canada notes that reprints of
the "UNIX System Software Readings" are available from UMI, 300
North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; +1 313-761-4700, business
hours US Eastern time. UMI quotes bound reprints of the
AT&T/Bell System Technical Journal (which is what these were) at
US$50 per issue, with four to six weeks' delivery.
VICTOR 9000: BOOT DISK SOUGHT
Does anyone know where I can get a boot disk for a VICTOR 9000
system? It is a CP/M-86 machine. I bought it at a garage sale
(actually I wanted the printer, an Epson MX-100, and they would
not sell me just the printer). I received some of the manuals
and some program disks including a SYSGEN disk but not the boot
disk. Any other info on this machine is appreciated i. e.:
upgrading, possible uses other than a big paperweight or a boat
anchor.
-- from stan.salter@ablelink.org, via Internet
VISION: WHAT WAS IT?
I seem to remember that in 1983, before the Mac hit the
scene....the VisiCalc people came out with a GUI for the PC (XT-
class, AT's hadn't come out yet) called VisiOn, which included
the first mouse available for PC's. It came with a word
processor and some other software. Does anyone remember this? I
just remember the ads (I owned an Apple ][ at the time). What
was it like?
-- from Jonathan Badger, via Internet
[Jon,
Our on-line references say that VisiCorp introduced VisiOn, a
suite of integrated software with windowing capabilities, at
Fall COMDEX in November 1982. A projected list price of US$1500,
daunting hardware requirements (512K RAM) and rampant bugginess
doomed it almost immediately; but Bill Gates perceived it as
enough of a threat that he accelerated the development of the
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 72
Interface Manager, which became MS-Windows. You'll find some
more details in _PC/Computing_ magazine (US), March 1993, on
page 158. -- Ed.]
WORD MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: GETTING BACK ON TRACK
I know someone who needs to read a 5.25-inch floppy, 16 hard
sector, using an old Word Management System. If I could find a
machine that would read the old Micropolis drive diskettes, I've
got the old program.
Anyone got a way?
-- from "hshubs" via BIX
ONE FROM THE EDITORS: HELP FIGHT PLASTIC ROT
Small computers and terminals of the 1970s and early 1980s
typically have hard plastic cases, gray to gray-beige in color.
Over a period of years this plastic has often turned a garish
yellow-brown and become very brittle. This has happened to a lot
of Hewlett-Packard computers -- including our own HP 86 and HP
125 -- but Karen Lewis at HP Archives says it also appears on
many Apple II's and III's.
Protecting the computer case from UV light will arrest this
degradation, but we're interested in reversing it! We've asked
several authorities and, so far, only learned that xylene-based
copier cleaner will restore the original appearance of the
plastic surface. But xylene is nasty to electronic components
and painted finishes, it's quite toxic, and something tells us
this isn't a permanent repair anyway.
To the best of our knowledge, this is a minor epidemic and will
have much worse effects in ten to twenty years if not explored
now. If any ENGINE reader has pertinent background in the
chemistry of plastics, we -- and quite a few others in the
curators' and restorers' community -- will be grateful for
advice.
-------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
-------------------------------------------------
_The Computer Museum NEWS_, Summer 1994. Networked Planet;
Computer Bowl All-Star Game; Internet Auction; Contemporary Art
and Computers; Special programs. 8 pp.; available with US$25.00-
50.00 annual membership. From Brian Wallace.
_International Calculator Collector_, Volume 2 Number 2, Summer
1994. Collecting trends; New members; "Calculated Boom" (October
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 73
1972 _Newsweek_ reprint); Ten-key adding-listing machines;
Classifieds; more. 16 pp.; US$12 per year with membership. From
Guy Ball.
_Historically Brewed_, newsletter of the Historical Computer
Society. Issue #6, Jul/Aug 1994. Kaypro Korner; Canon Cat; PCjr;
Unisys; The MITS Story. 24 pp. US$15.00 per year; Can$20.00;
International, US$24.00. From David Greelish.
_The Z-Letter_, newsletter of the CP/M and Z-System community.
Number 30, March/April 1994. Bondwell 2 laptop; Evolution of ZDB
Z-System database; correspondence, resources and technical
discussion. 20 pp. [We printed this in the April issue as the
contents listing for _Z-Letter_ #28. We regret the misprint.]
Number 31, May/June 1994. Customer and subscription database
programming; Bench debugging; Speeding up Eagle disk drives;
correspondence, resources and technical discussion. 24 pp.
US$18 for 12 issues (2 years); Canada/Mexico, US$22;
International, US$36. From David A. J. McGlone.
-------------------------------------------------
ADDRESSES OF CORRESPONDING ORGANIZATIONS
-------------------------------------------------
The Computer Museum, 300 Congress Street, Boston MA 02210. Brian
C. Wallace, curator of historical computing.
International Association of Calculator Collectors, 10445
Victoria Avenue, Riverside CA 92503. Guy Ball, Bruce L. Flamm,
directors.
Historical Computer Society, 10928 Ted Williams Place, El Paso
TX 79934. CompuServe 100116,217. David A. Greelish, director and
editor.
Lambda Software Publishing, 149 West Hilliard Lane, Eugene OR
97404. David A. J. McGlone, editor and publisher.
Unusual Systems, 220 Samuel Street, Kitchener, Ontario N2H 1R6,
Canada. Kevin Stumpf, president.
-------------------------------------------------
THANKS TO....
-------------------------------------------------
Nancy Mulvany and Robert Praetorius for donations.
Roger Sinasohn and his rough-but-ready Land Rover for help with
the (re)move to Redwood City.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 74
Tom Haddock and Dan Alexander for the book tie-in.
Wesley Hohfeld for lending us his pickup truck; and Hilary
Crosby for driving it.
-------------------------------------------------
NEXT ISSUE
-------------------------------------------------
IBM and RAMAC, Part Two; and lots, lots more....
-------------------------------------------------
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Submissions are welcome from both members and non-members of the
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The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 75
Each author may publish a maximum of one signed article per
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Decision of the editors is final but copyright of all published
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The preferred document file format is Microsoft Word for DOS or
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SUBSCRIBE!
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In the first months of 1952, Rey Johnson leased the building
that became the IBM San Jose Labs. On April 24, 1953, an IBM 701
was delivered to Lockheed Aircraft Company in Glendale.
California's computer industry was off to a flying start -- more
than forty years ago. Today it continues to set standards for
the world.
During that forty years, millions of people designed, engineered
and produced hardware and software, each contributing to a vast
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So where are our millions of subs? Where are our millions of
articles?
The ANALYTICAL ENGINE works tirelessly to present the stories of
industry notables like Rey Johnson....world-renowned companies
like Hewlett-Packard....little-known hardware like Intel's
pioneering "blue boxes." These are stories for _you_ -- and for
millions like you. The ANALYTICAL ENGINE is completely devoted
to the history of computing in California, one of the most
spectacular successes of the Industrial Age.
And all we need is you. Your story, your subscription. Either
one (or both!) will help us ever climb this climbing wave --
help us promote and celebrate the lengthening past of California
computing while its future unrolls beneath our feet. Four times
a year, the ANALYTICAL ENGINE will bring articles, interviews,
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Our big job's getting bigger. If you're reading this ENGINE as
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The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 76
-------------------------------------------------
ETERNAL VIGILANCE....
-------------------------------------------------
Always remember that, if you're expecting an ANALYTICAL ENGINE
and you don't get one, we want to know about it. Pronto.
We're not saying that this is likely and, frankly, it isn't.
But: Maintaining the list of addresses to send the ENGINE via
Internet mail requires the (fallible or fatigued) human brain as
a bridge between two pieces of software. As for paper copies, it
seems that the Postal Service occasionally sends one to
\dev\null. In early July we know that one electronic copy, and
two paper copies, of the April ENGINE were definitely mailed and
never arrived. If you're supposed to get an ENGINE and you don't,
_complain_ and we'll send you another one.
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 77
-------------------------------------------------
NINES-CARD
-------------------------------------------------
Hey, That Moose Is Eating My Tape!
The UCLA computer club ("UCLA CC" or just "CC") was formed in
the sixties, and was already a thriving institution by 1969.
"The machine" that we got to use was an IBM 360/91, a mainframe
running IBM's OS/MVT. We would submit card decks in the evening,
and we'd get our printouts back the next morning. Each club-
member's job was allotted 18 seconds of CPU time per night.
These charges were accounted for in terms of the "Machine-Unit-
Second", or "MUS". So, eventually, the UCLA CC had their own
punched cards made up with a large picture of a moose on them,
chewing on a magtape, with a stack of printout paper and the
"club log" in the background.
The '91 was roughly a ten million dollar machine; I heard that
there were only about 10 of them ever made. "Ours" had 16
Megabytes of core memory in it -- half the memory of the $10,000
workstation I'm typing this onto (but of course it isn't real
magnetic doughnuts any more).
Originally, the "club log" was simply a logbook (an engineering-
style lab book) to keep track of when and by whom the club's
office in the engineering building was opened and closed each
day. Each log entry had a time and a small area for comments.
Gradually, the comments section took over, and the log evolved
into something like a 50-person shared diary, in the form of
more than a dozen lab books. Clubbies would write stories,
poems, songs, parodies, philosophy, draw cartoons and
psychedelic art -- in some ways it was like an unmoderated, very
local, multimedia-based newsgroup. Unfortunately, the log(s)
were stolen during the 1970's, and they never re-appeared....
-- from Doug Landauer, Ben Lomond, CA.
[Can you _imagine_ having a 360/91 for your computer club? I
wonder if that machine is still around! -- KC]
The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 78
-------------------------------------------------
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The Analytical Engine, Volume 2, Number 1, July 1994 Page 79
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