from the September 1984 issue of Australian Personal Computer magazine Wayne Wilson, of Blacktown ts a little-known Australian hi-tech hero. He invented the concurrency concept that Australians now buy back from Microsoft and Digital Research. “We also had multi-user before Digital Research, and were the first to offer CP/M windowing" claims Wilson, and his partner, Roger Jones, who were also first to offer 8 and 16 bit running together. You’d think the world would beat a path to the door of AED (Acoustic Electronic Developments) unfashionably-located Blacktown Sydney factory door.

by Gary A. Kildall from the January 1980 issue of Dr. Dobb’s Journal 1973… I was sitting quietly at my desk when Masatoshi Shima hurried into my office at Intel and asked me to follow him to his laboratory down the hall. In the middle of his work bench, among the typical snaggle of jumpers, oscilloscopes and multimeters, sat a binocular microscope with spider-leg probes, all of which were subjecting a minute piece of silicon to help­less investigation.

by Mark G. Boyd from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine When something new comes along most of us tend to be conservative about giving up the familiar. A good example of this behavior is the use of structured programming languages on microcomputers. Languages like Pascal have been available to us for a couple of years; they are easier to program in and more efficient than BASIC. However, only a relative minority of microcomputer users have switched to a structured language, and none of the major manufacturers offer anything other than BASIC as standard equipment.

by Stephen L. Childress from the July 1983 issue of Micro magazine (Note: The figures are not available for this article because they are impossible to read on my source.) The modularization of the I/O system allows OS-9 to enhance the standard I/O at run time, not assembly or patch time. Device names and addresses are not fixed by the operating system but, rather, the program may attempt I/O to any device name.

by Stephen L. Childress from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine Unless you’ve been on sabbatical to Siberia of late you will have noticed the swell of interest in the Unix operating system software. Most new and all the old popular 16-bit computers are supporting Unix or one of the numerous look-alikes. Why all the furor? It seems at last we’ve begun to rethink computer programming and usage. Recognizing that software development is expensive and timeconsuming, we must exploit the falling cost of today’s hardware.

by Phil Daley from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine The operating systems that I have seen available for the Apple use essentially the same read/write routines, but they have been modified or changed. All the disks created by any one system can be read by any other system if you know the procedure. Modifying disks to make them copyprotected (unreadable) is a different technique and a different topic. The Operating Systems covered in this article all use standard DOS 3.

by Howard Baldwin RUNS BEOS ON INTEL AS NEW APPS ARE UNVEILED from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine As Apple celebrates strong sales of Mac OS 8, Be (650/462-4100, www.be.com), developer of one of the oter operating systems for PowerPC CPUs, continues to bop along with new releases of its software. In July, the company shipped its BeOS Preview Release for PowerPC, followed by an update that adds AppleTalk printing and improves video drivers and IDE support.

by Galen Gruman from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine How quickly the dream died. In December 1994, Apple ended its Macintosh monopoly, giving Power Computing and Radius licenses to make their own Macs. With Wtndows 95 on the horizon and the success of an Intel/Microsoft duopoly clear, Apple’s leaders and the industry saw a chance for the Mac market to gain a new level of competitiveness, flexibility, and innovation.

by Stephen Beale from the November 1997 issue of MacWorld magazine Apple Computer drove spike through the heart of its Mac OS-Iicensing program when it announced on September 2 that it will acquire the core assets of Power Computing, the company that built the largest Mac-clone business. Apple will exchange $ 100 million in common stock for Power Computing’s Mac OS license and 200,000-name mailing list, and also has the right to retain Power Computing executives involved in direct marketing, distribution, and engineering.

from the August 1984 issue of Australian Micro Computerworld magazine Franklin Computer, maker of Apple-compatible computers, has filed for reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the US Federal Bankruptcy Code. In a prepared statement, Franklin president, Morton David said the company was experiencing falling sales and a “strain in financial resources’. To date, the company has about $US33.9 million in assets and $US22.8 million in liabilities, a spokesperson said. The company owes significant sums to at least 20 unsecured creditors.