Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:29:14 -0700
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From: "David S. Bennahum" 
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Subject: CM>  SCCS Interface magazine.
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 29

> heart by Creative Computing).  I vaugely recall that Wanye had been
> associated in some fashion with the creation of Byte, but separated from
> Byte for some reason, and (after being denied the use of "Kilobyte") started
> Kilobaud.  This is probably all muddled ... can someone contribute more info?

As I recall, Wayne was an established publisher of ham magazines when
PCs were beginning, and started Byte with his wife as publisher.
Their marriage broke up, and she got the mag.  "Kilobyte" was a pun.

Does anyone recall "SCCS Interface?"  It was the second nationally
circulated magazine (between Byte and Kilobaud) but fell to gross
incompetence very soon.

Lar
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:56:58 -0700
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Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud.
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Sender: bks@netcom.com (Bradley K. Sherman)
Subject: Re:  CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud.


Wayne Green was publishing a monthly magazine,
_Cold Fusion_ as recently as 1995.

    --bks (www.ironic.com)
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            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 20:06:45 -0700
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Messages are currently not coming through to the list.  By the time you get
this note, the problem should be resolved.  My apologies to all.

best,
db
Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:49:11 -0700
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Subject: CM> Wayne Green, 80 Micro Magazine
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Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
Subject: Wayne Green


Wayne Green, in Peterborough NH published 80 Micro, the major TRS-80   
magazine of the time.
I had a subscription to it from 1981/82 until the end, 1987/1988(?). The   
magazine did switch from the Z-80 Tandy's to the IBM clones but didn't   
last that much longer after that, as I recall.

Leslie Pearson
(lespea@muze.com)
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:59:28 -0700
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Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud.
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Sender: Robert Manny 
Subject: Re: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud.


Wayne Green still does the Ham Radio magazine 73, I believe. Anyway I still
see it in the stores, and I believe he's still the editor.
--
Over and Out
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:40:30 -0700
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From: mmr@darwin.ptvy.ca.us (Mike Roberts) (by way of "David S. Bennahum" )
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: mmr@darwin.ptvy.ca.us (Mike Roberts)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

One of the earliest and most egregious examples was IBM's announcement
of a time-sharing system for its 360/65 circa 1964-65 - an effort to
pre-empt Honeywell/GE, DEC and Univac.  The resultant machine, 360/67
and its software were first delivered in late 66 or early 67 as I recall
and didn't work worth a damn.  The result was opening the door for 
a wave of DEC timesharing on campuses and the triggering of homegrown
efforts at several univ - notably Stanford and Michgan - to build
non-IBM timesharing systems for IBM 360/370 hardware.

This fiasco got quite a bit of attention by the Justice Dept during
its 1970's anti-trust action against IBM.

- Mike Roberts

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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 20:01:58 -0700
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Subject: CM> Ancient/Dead Computer Languages Site ?
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Sender: "Michael J. Lavery" 
Subject: Ancient/Dead Computer Languages Site ?

        Is there a Web site that covers ancient/dead computer languages?

        In my introductory computer course, we used a language called MAD
(Michigan Algorithm Decoder), It was a front-end for FORTRAN Assembly, I
believe. I think. ... Well, it was over 30 years ago!

        And I have tried to find information about my favorite of only a
decade ago - COMAL, but no luck.

- - - - - - - - - -
 Michael J. Lavery, Esq.         "As private parts to the Gods,
                                   are we, they play with us for
                                   their sport."
 America Online:  EMJAY2                       Lord Melchett
 Domain:  emjay@dorsai.org                  Black Adder II  - Chains
 GayCom: (THE BACKROOM) - GAY.LAW@tbr.com                :-?
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:51:50 -0700
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Subject: CM> Poitner to Net Timeline, correction, TOPS-10 system.
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Sender: Carl Ellison 
Subject: Re: CM> Poitner to Net Timeline, correction.

At 11:15 PM 7/14/96 -0700, Carl Ellison wrote:

>Our node at the U of Utah, when it first came up on the net, was running a
>DEC 10 system prior to TENEX.  I forget the name of the OS, but it was DEC's
>plain vanilla PDP-10 time sharing OS, as modified by us. 

My buddy Mike reminded me it was the TOPS-10 system.

 - Carl

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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:43:58 -0700
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: Brad Thompson 
Subject: RE: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

Oh yes, Vaporware is not limited to the Software world. When the
Commodore Amiga (or was that the Atari ST? I can never remember) was
first demonstrated at a trade show, it was running an amazing set of
software. The products looked like Microsoft Word, and other such
products. The demonstrators didn't want you to get to close, though,
because if you did, you would have found out that it was an IBM PC
stuffed into an Amiga case!

Needless to say, when it shipped, everyone wanted to know how to get a
hold of the programs that had been demonstrated at the trade fairs, and
they weren't available.

Note, I really believe that there are a LOT of cases of Vaporware that
are never noticed because the companies go belly up and no one mentions
the Vaporware that never was. Can you name 10 products that NEVER made
it to market because the company went belly up? If these products
weren't vaporware, then why didn't the company sell the products?

Brad Thompson.
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:46:33 -0700
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Subject: CM> Pronunciation of ENIAC
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Sender: kumquat@nt-mail.hill.com (Gary Kessler)
Subject: Re: CM> Pronunciation of ENIAC

>From: Home Reitwiesner 
>
>When I went to the 50th anniversary of ENIAC in Philadelphia in February
>1996, I was surprised by the pronunciation of the name ENIAC - they said
>it as if the E was the E in DENY.  Those of us who worked on ENIAC almost
>50 years ago said it with the E as in ENJOY.  I asked Kay (McNulty), the
>widow of John Mauchley, and she was as confused as I.

I "grew up" hearing ENIAC pronounced with the E as in ENJOY; i.e.,
"EH-nee-ack." I met John Mauchley in the summer of 1976 at a History of
Computing Conference held at Los Alamos Nat. Lab., and my recollection is
that he pronounced it that way.

/gary kessler

     ==================================================================
     Gary C. Kessler                      +1 802-655-8633 (DDI)
     Hill Associates, Inc.                +1 802-655-0940 (main number)
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:36:17 -0700
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
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Sender: Brad Thompson 
Subject: RE: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

Seven to eight years ago, I knew for certain of two companies that
practiced this. One I was working for and the other my room mate was
working for. I will describe each in turn:

Although I believe the company is completely belly up, I won't give the
name of the company. I might as well be safe.

There were a total of five people in the development department. Two
hardware engineers, three software engineers. My boss (one of the
hardware engineers) decided that he wanted a Voice Recognition system
for the IBM PC running as a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program
running under MS-DOS. We already had some Voice Recognition hardware and
software systems for the Apple, Atari and the Commodore 64. Jack (names
changed to protect the innocent) and I had never worked on the IBM
before, so we had to learn a lot of things from scratch. It took us nine
months, but we came out with a credible program - a 64K TSR that was
compatible with quite a few programs on the market. In other words, it
would add voice recognition to your favorite text editor. Our closest
competitor had a 256K program that didn't work half as well as ours. Our
program did need some improvements, especially in the User interface. So
we played around with it for another 4 months and came up with version
1.1. The company started selling quite a few copies. At this point,
marketing got into the act and started advertising version 2.0 with
lot's of stuff, including expanded memory support, the whole nine yards.
Well, I was getting a little tired of the company (I won't bore you with
the details), so I moved on. The marketing people still kept advertising
version 2.0, and even took Visa orders for the product! The programmer
that replaced me played with it for 6 months, then quit. The programmer
after him played with it for two years! After 2.5 years, they finally
come out with a bloated 2.0 version. However the market was no longer
interested in it.

I am less sure of the second story however, I believe this is correct as
to the facts.

A friend of mine worked at a company writing Atari ST programs. He wrote
a spreadsheet program for this company, but really wasn't being
compensated very well for what he was working on. Plus working
conditions were not the best. Anyway, he was just able to get himself to
finish the spread sheet program when his boss brings him in a copy of a
major trade rag. He shows him a big full page ad with his program listed
prominently, PLUS an Editor, a Database program, and a Word Processor.
Probably the first advertised "Suite" of office products. However the
other three didn't exist, and my friend was the only real programmer for
the company!

When my friend quit, the company lasted about six months and went
chapter 11.

Brad Thompson.

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            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 19:54:22 -0700
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To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community
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Sender: Sally Bates 
Subject: ?Origins of the phrase Virtual Community


I'm interested in tracking down the origins of the phrase vitual
community.  A friendly Yale library undertook a Nexis search for
me and could find nothing earlier than Rheingold.  Rheingold thinks
he may have read it somewhere but isn't sure.  In a paper that's 
been submitted for publication in a meteorology journal, I've
attributed Rheingold with coining the phrase, but I'm uneasy about this.  
Any help on tracking this down would be appreciated.  I've appended
my correspondence with the Yale librarian


 Sally Bates, Information Manager       | sally@unidata.ucar.edu
 UCAR/Unidata Program Center            | Phone: (303) 497-8637 
 P.O. Box 3000                          | FAX:   (303) 497-8690     
 Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000           | http://www.unidata.ucar.edu

---------------------------------
On Sat, 18 Nov 1995, Fred Shapiro wrote:
 
> The earliest use on Nexis is a Dec. 22, 1987 article by Howard Rheingold 
> in _Whole Earth Review_, entitled "Virtual Communities: Exchanging Ideas 
> through Computer Bulletin Boards."
 
How far back does Nexis go?  Could the term have been used in the 1960s?
There were a lot of people then interested in the potential of 
computer/communications networks.  I think Rheingold mentions most of 
them in his book.
 
(And I really appreciate the help on this!  I didn't know 
where to begin trying to answer the question of who used the term first!)

--Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 19:08:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Fred Shapiro 
To: Sally Bates 
Subject: Re: ?Virtual Community
 
Nexis goes back to the mid-1970s.  Lack of Nexis occurrences before 1987 
is a pretty strong indication that it was not used in the 1960s.  Also, I 
don't think "virtual" in its current vogue usage (as in "virtual 
reality") was around much before the mid-1980s, although it was used in 
computer science in a more prosaic sense much before this

.______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 23:05:14 -0700
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Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & MS-DOS.
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Sender: Ersatzzz@aol.com
Subject: the vapors


  To my suggestion that Microsoft is most often
  pointed to as a vaporware-meister, John Clarke
  wrote "Jonny come lately's if you ask me"--
  and no doubt he's right. But if I'm remembering
  the New Yorker's profile of Gates some while
  back, hasn't the tale now passed into legend
  about how Gates and his partner told IBM 
  that they had an operating system ready for
  their forthcoming PC, and that it just needed
  a little tinkering... and then wrote DOS in a
  matter of months, thus getting in on the
  ground floor with a non-existant product, and
  deterring IBM from looking elsewhere?

  Considering the role of DOS in the history of
  personal computing, that's a central example
  of vaporware. Or is this apocryphal, a bit of
  spin by Gates to make himself seem more
  swashbuckling in hindsight?

  --Sam Pratt (this story is for New York Mag,
      btw)



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Subject: CM> Origins of the term "Vaporware", Stewart Alsop
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 30

> Sender: Richard Brodie 
> Subject: RE: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."
> 
> I believe "vaporware" was coined by Esther Dyson in her industry
> newsletter RELease 1.0 to describe Microsoft Windows, which was

Stewart Alsop published a list showing how many months various
products had been in "vapor" -- past their originally annonced
delivery date.  Not sure if he predated Esther on the term or got it
from her.

Lar

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Sender: Paul Andrews 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware", Esther Dyson?

Richard et al, Although "vaporware" was perhaps popularized by Esther, 
she credits Ann Winblad, who in turn heard it from Microsoft's Mark 
Ursino...but Stewart Alsop (stewart_alsop@infoworld.com) may have been 
the one to turn it into everyday lingo with his P.C. Letter list.

Not to dampen Richard's birthday memories, but Microsoft shipped 
Windows 1.0 on Nov. 20, 1985, 10 days and two (not three) years after the 
momentous smoke 'n mirrors announcement of Nov. 10, 1983. (The 1985 
shipment came during Fall Comdex.)

Paul

Andrews/Seattle Times
co-author, GATES: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry and Made 
Himself the Richest Man in America

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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Subject: CM> Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud
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Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 30


> Sender: Nelson Winkless 
> Subject: Re: Wayne Green, Byte, Kilobyte, and Kilobaud
...
> newsletter, and BYTE came upon the scene with Carl as editor. (Don't know
> whether this preceeded or followed David Ahl's CREATIVE COMPUTING...which

My recollection is that Creative Computing began as a magazine after
Byte, but David had published a book of 101 Computer Games while still
working at DEC -- previous to Byte.  The emphaisis in both was on
BASIC programming, games, and education -- they fell more in the
tradition of Bob Albrecht's Peoples Computer Company newspaper and
early BASIC texts.  Counter culture.  Byte was more technical -- for
computer hobbyists.  

There were also several newsletters before Byte.  One published by
Carl Helmers, as Nelson menitoned, another on the 8008 by a West coast
man whose name escapes me off hand (Hal Singer?), the Bug Book guys in
Virginia had one I believe, another by Stephen Gray (?). etc.  These
were followed shortly by many local club newsletters, one of which,
SCCS interface, had a short run as a national magazine.

Lar

______________________________________________________________________
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Subject: CM> "Vaporware" & Ted Nelson's Xanadu.
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Sender: RICKBARRY@aol.com
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 30

On Fri, 12 Jul 1996 Ersatzzz@aol.com wrote:

>   I'm just starting to research an article for a New York
>   weekly about the history and practice of vaporware.
>   [...]

There was a very well done article about Ted Nelson in WIRED Magazine a year
ago or more ago which claimed that his XANADU software project was the
longest standing and most expensive vaporware project ever.  I don't know if
it is true or not, and I hope that Ted Nelson will be remembered in a
different way than that, but it does seem like a bit of trivia relevant to
your research.

Rick Barry

Richard E. Barry, Barry Associates
3808 North Albemarle Street; Arlington, Virginia  22207 USA
Tel:+703/241-3808; Fax: +703/241-7968; E-mail: rickbarry@aol.com
Welcome to World Wide Web Homepage: http://www.rbarry.com/

  




______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: Community Memory 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> S-100 microcomputers
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Sender: Carl Dick 
Subject: S-100 microcomputers

Does your project have interest in the S-100 series of microcomputers 
(derivatives of the Altair)?
        I was present in the early days of JADE COMPUTER, Lawndale, CA.  They 
offered a unique combination:
  1) Integrated circuits from the "gray market" which put the one chip retail 
price lower than quantity prices from major distribution, such as 
Hamilton-Avnet.
  2) Close proximity to the TRW computer club.  Every working board required 
access to a soldering iron and an oscilloscope.  TRW enthusiasts were 
beta-testers, debuggers, and part-time employees.
  3) An excellent selection of S-100 kits.  Tarbell revolutionized storage 
with a 300 baud audio cassette interface.  SD Systems made the jump to 
dynamic, low-power RAM.  Does anyone remember motherboards with a pink solder 
mask?
        JADE was venturesome to an extreme.  One project was "The Piggy", a 
pre-assembled system in a two-color custom box.  The customer was expected to 
select a paint scheme based on college colors, such as red and white or blue 
and yellow.
        I remember trying to make a functional word processor for $3,000.  It 
would use "The Electric Pencil" or "Wordstar" software, serial terminal with 
80 column display, 2 5-1/4" floppy drives (128K per disk), and a rebuilt IBM 
Selectric printer.

 -- Carl Dick      trimagna@primenet.com



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: Community Memory 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Tracking mags.
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Sender: "Kip Crosby, CHAC" 
Subject: Tracking mags

Lar Press wrote:
>Does anyone recall "SCCS Interface?"  It was the second nationally
>circulated magazine (between Byte and Kilobaud) but fell to gross
>incompetence very soon.

It would be interesting to define "very soon" more exactly.  The CHAC has
the first five issues (which we got from somebody in Virginia of all places)
but we'd like the rest of the set, except we don't know how many that was.

__________________________________________
Kip Crosby                 engine@chac.org
        http://www.chac.org/chac/  
Computer History Association of California



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware," IBM.
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Sender: Lawrence Zeitlin 
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware."

In the early days of the computer industry, IBM was the main offender. It could
, and did, freeze the market by announcing forthcoming and often undeveloped pr
oducts. In the late 60's I was a consultant to the GE Computer Division in Phoe
nix. Sales of GE's 635 mainframe dried up the moment IBM announced specs for th
e 360 series, a computer which would not be delivered for a year. This type of
behavior was a prime motivator for the Justice Dept. proceedings against IBM. S
ometimes preannouncement is not malicious but just stupid. Osborne Computer com
pany, the makers of the first portable computer (42 lbs.) went into bankrupcy s
hortly after announcing a new model while dealer's shelves were stocked with th
e old stuff. The cash flow dried up and the company ran out of funds before the
 new model could be delivered.

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
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______________________________________________________________________
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From: Community Memory 
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Subject: CM> Byte, Kilobaud, Creative Computing...
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Sender: "Walt Crawford"   
Subject: Re: Byte, Kilobaud, Creative Computing...

Re: Creative Computing, Byte, Kilobaud

I'm a lurker here (my first "programming" was in 1968,
on an IBM 188 Collator plugboard, so I'm a newbie)--but
I can add a little bibliographic research to Nelson
Winkless' excellent summary:

1. Creative Computing came first; it began publishing
   with the November/December 1974 issue, and was shut
   down (by Ziff-Davis, I believe) at the end of v. 11
   in 1985.

2. Byte began in September 1975, so it's natural that
   there would be some uncertainty about which came first.

3. Kilobaud began in January 1977 and continued for all
   of 24 issues (1977 and 1978).

4. Perhaps the oldest of Wayne Green's publishing exploits
   was "73" (various subtitles), which began in October
   1960 and continued for a very long time. ("Green"
   appears to be correct, incidentally.)

I miss Creative Computing...it was about *uses* for
computing, and had a soul that's missing in much of
today's PC literature.

-walt crawford, Research Libraries Group
 br.wcc@rlg.org
Opinions mine; bibliographic data from RLIN, RLG's
hundred-million-record bibliographic database.


______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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______________________________________________________________________
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From: Community Memory 
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Subject: CM> Origins of Net for distance learning?
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-
Sender: "Richard J. Smith" 
Subject: Navigating the Internet & Distance Education


Out of curiosity, I'd like to know if anyone on this list
knows of an early usage of the Internet for distance
education. 

I developed and implemented an informal on-line course
called "Navigating the Internet: An Interactive Workshop"
in the Summer of 1992. It had 864 participants from an
international clientele, and I used a listserv for
"interactive" participation. A subsequent workshop had
over 15,000 participants from 50 countries -- no listserv
or interactive participation. (1)

Does anyone on this list know of earlier usage of the
Internet for distance education? In my research, the
earliest class I came across was a modem class out of the
Houston. I don't think used the Internet. (2)

I tell students my class was the first "Mega Course" over
the Internet. It was probably not the first full e-mail
Internet course. Any Comments?


1. Smith, Richard J., "Design and Implementation of a
Distance Education Course over the Internet" Ph.D. diss.,
University of Pittsburgh. 1995.

2. Gill Rogers. "Teaching a Psychology Course by
Electronic Mail." Social Science Computer Review. 7
(1989): 63.


Richard J. Smith, Ph.D.
rjs@intersurf.com
(504) 926-7069
http://www.intersurf.com/~rjs/



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
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From: Community Memory 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community, WELL
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Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of the phrase Virtual Community

Thus spake Sally Bates:
>I'm interested in tracking down the origins of the phrase vitual
>community.  A friendly Yale library undertook a Nexis search for
>me and could find nothing earlier than Rheingold.  Rheingold thinks
>he may have read it somewhere but isn't sure.  In a paper that's 
>been submitted for publication in a meteorology journal, I've
>attributed Rheingold with coining the phrase, but I'm uneasy about this.  
>Any help on tracking this down would be appreciated.

The idea, even if not the exact phrase, was very much a topic of discussion
on the WELL in the 1985 to 1987+ timeframe.  (One thing we've always been
good at over here is meta-discussions.....)  Howard was, of course, an active
participant in those discussions.  My memory of them is far too vague to be
a good source for attributing coinage of the phrase, but my sense is that we
all had the same thing in mind and Howard was the one who distilled it down
into two words.  If he *did* read it somewhere, I'd suggest checking with
Matthew McClure (mmc@well.com), John Coate (formerly tex@well.com) or Cliff
Figallo (fig@well.com) as all three were also participants -- and all three
are likely to have coined phrases of this sort as well.  Of course, there
were at least two dozen other people involved, including me (no, I don't
think I coined it), so there are a lot of possibilities.  Sadly, we no longer
have many archives of the early WELL, so there's no way to search tapes or
anything like that.  Sorry.

--
        Robert Bickford                       rab@well.com
  former County Chair, Libertarian   /-------------------------------------\
    Party of Marin County (CA)       | Don't Blame Me: I Voted Libertarian |
Member, CA State Central Committee   \-------------------------------------/



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
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Subject: CM> Origins of word "vaporware"
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Sender: Murphy@SBAServ.SBA.UConn.Edu (Murph Sewall)
Subject: Re: CM> Origins of word "vaporware"

On 7/14/96 11:26 PM, Richard Brodie wrote:
>I believe "vaporware" was coined by Esther Dyson in her industry
>newsletter RELease 1.0 to describe Microsoft Windows

The term "vaporware" is older than that I believe.  From May 1984 through
April 1993, I wrote a monthly column titled "Vaporware" about--guess what.
The last 5 years of that column were widely distributed on the Internet
(compiling it finally started to get in the way of the "day job"--that is,
my life :-)

I got the term from a Wall Street Journal article a month or two before the
introduction of IBM's PCjr--then code named "Peanut" (was that Spring
'84?).  An executive from Atari was complaining about how difficult it was
to interest consumers in new models because everyone was waiting for IBM to
introduce their heavily rumored "home PC."  As I recall, the quote was
something like, "It's hard enough competing with hardware and software
without also having to compete with vaporware!"

I suspect the term is older than that article.  I remember thinking at the
time that it was a rather obvious derivative.  There is a small amount of
(fairly recent) marketing literature (both academic and utilitarian) about
"pre-announced" products.  The practice of announcing either officially or
by rumor, new products in an attempt to persuade customers to defer
committing to a competitor's product dates back 40 years or more.

In the computing business, IBM routinely announced specifications for
products it didn't plan to ship for months or years.  The practice figures
prominently in the anti-trust case against IBM (my memory dates that to the
1960s, but the case may have started in the 50's and the practices that led
Justice to file would be even older).  In addition to preempting the
market, IBM was interested in lining up developers so that as much
attractive software as possible would be available for the new machines
when they did ship (a concept that continues today).

/s Murphy A. Sewall       (860) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (860) 456-7725 fax
   http://mktg.sba.uconn.edu/MKT/Faculty/Sewall.html



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 00:35:32 -0700
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From: Community Memory 
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Subject: CM> Vaporware and "Suites."
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Subject: Suites

First "suite" I ran into was something that came packaged with the Columbia
VP-1600 I bought in 1983. The "Perfect" group included Perfect Calc
(spreadsheet), Perfect Filer (sort of a database), and Perfect Writer.

Copyright in the manual is 1983 so is pretty close.

The "vaporware" was the promised CPM/86 which did not show up for almost a
year and only after repeated bugging of Columbia.

Of posible interest to the CPSR-History archives is the term "100% Compatable"
which was becoming very important at the time. In 1983, three "transportables"
were generally accepted as being "100% compatable": the Columbia, the Compaq,
and the Corona. I chose the Columbia because of the amber screen and the
wide array of promised packaged software - the suite mentioned, both MS-DOS
and CPM/86 plus a few others.

What was not important to me at the time but became very inportant later
was the inclusion of the Microsoft Assembler (MASM) and the built-in ROM
debugger.

People tend to forget just how expensive commercial software was at the time
and how little memory was supplied (PCs came with 64k standard then, my
Columbia was bloated at 128k which was soon increase to 256k at a cost of
over $300. Few years later a "multifunction I/O board" added another 384k
(to 640) at a cost of $100. It is sitting on my filing cabinet now with
2.2 Mb of RAM inside.

However the big point was "100% compatable". What this really meant was
"100% compatable with the IBM ROM BIOS of October 27, 1982". At the time,
IBM was vigorously protecting the software (AFAIR Columbia was sued for
being too close and Compaq had an agreement with IBM that they would build
only "portables", a market element IBM was not interested in at the time).

Believe Phoenix was the first to do a proper independent reverse engineer
and have other people design to the spec. but at the time IBM was being
very free with technical information (through PC-DOS 2.0, the IBM Technical
Manaual included a great deal of 8086 assembly code).

The test at the time was primarily "will it run 1-2-3 ?" because while
1-2-3 nominally paid lip service to MS/PC-DOS, what made it so fast on
a 4.77 Mhz machine was the fact that for the most part it bypassed the 
operating system and made direct BIOS calls.

Further, to really speed things up, instead of bothering with Int 10 to
access the display, Lotus wrote directly to the 64k video buffer at segment
A000h (640k). This more than anything else firmly fixed the "640k barrier" 
which limited development on the PC platform for so long but remember that
even as late as 1985 PCs were being sold with less - when the IBM PC AT
was introduced it came with either 256 or 512k of memory - to go
to 640k required a separate add-on board which was not cheap.

                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett

______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
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______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 1996 00:01:23 -0700
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From: Community Memory 
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Subject: CM> Virginia Review of Sociology -- Call for Papers
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Sender: Ellis Godard 
Subject: Virginia Review of Sociology -- Call for Papers



                    Call for Papers

                SOCIOLOGIES OF CYBERSPACE

        The board of the Virginia Review of Sociology invites the submission
of candidate chapters for a special volume titled "The Sociologies of
Cyberspace." This volume will address whether and to what extent cyberspace
represents, presents, or conduces social change of significance -- that is,
the manners in which and the degrees to which cyberspace is different from
other social arenas, and whether and how this is sociologically significant.
For purposes of this volume, we conceive cyberspace to include all forms of
computer-mediated and -enhanced communications and interactions.

        We will give preference to those submissions that advance
methodological approaches to, explicitly account for empirical findings
about, and develop theoretical understandings of cyberspace.  We are
particularly interested in papers that go beyond a psychological and
individualistic analysis, and particularly encourage those submissions that
make comparative use of several online services and/or social groups.  We
hope to include a variety of empirical, methodological, and theoretical
approaches to cyberspace, and intend to emphasize the possible diversity of
such approaches. 

        Possible topics include, but are not limited to: patterns of social
life online, including demographic distributions as well as patterns of
social control, boundary enforcement, role enactment, community building,
resource allocation, and collective behavior; political, economic, and other
determinants of online social life; and political, economic, religious, and
other social consequences and implications of cyberspace, particularly
including interactions between online and offline social life.

        Manuscripts should be submitted in triplicate, printed in double
spacing on only one side of each page.  Citations and references should
conform to that system prescribed by and for the American Journal of Sociology. 

        Submissions should have a target date of October 31, 1996.  Any
acceptance of submissions beyond that date is at the discretion of the
volume editor.  We would appreciate a brief notice of intent by September
30, 1996.

        Comments and queries are welcomed and encouraged.  For further
information, or to submit a paper, please contact the editor of the volume
J. Ellington ("Ellis") Godard, Cabell Hall 539, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903 (jeg5s@virginia.edu).  The faculty advisor
for this volume will be Thomas M. Guterbock, and the series editor is Donald
Black.

        The Virginia Review of Sociology is a series of volumes published by
JAI Press, and coordinated and edited by the graduate students and faculty
of Sociology at the University of Virginia.  Each volume explores and
reflects current empirical and theoretical development within the field of
sociology.  Themes of previous volumes have included law and conflict
management, and cultural conflict in modern America.

(Please post or forward this notice elsewhere, as appropriate, for open
distribution.)






J. Ellington ("Ellis") Godard Jr. -- (804) 296-9692 --  lemuria@virginia.edu
Doctoral Candidate, UVa Sociology -- http://faraday.clas.virginia.edu/~jeg5s
Instructor, SOC 219 (Microcomp Apps) 520 Caroline Ave, Charlottesville 22902



______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________