Charles David Tandy: 1918-1978 from the June 1979 issue of Electronics Australia Charles David Tandy, founder of the huge Radio Shack and Tandy chain of electronic stores, died recently at the age of 60. Just before his death, he had seen his Company’s annual turnover nudge the billion dollar mark — no mean accomplishment for someone who, as a child, had experienced the rigours of the great depression. by NEVILLE WILLIAMS

from the April 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine by Adam Osborne The first small signs of a long predicted shake out are beginning to appear among microprocessor manufacturers. The first two casualties are the Elecronic Arrays EA9002 and possibly the Rockwell PPS-8. The EA9002 simply took too long to develop. The smallest EA9002 system has three chips: The EA9002 CPU with read/write memory, external read only memory and I/O ports.

from the May 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine by Adam Osborne Now that the Intel 8085 and 8048 are here, IMSAI is going for these two products; IMSAI is not planning to offer a Z-80 CPU card. I wonder why the Z-80 and the Intel products have to be mutually exclusive? I have had a chance to examine the 8085 and the 8048— and I believe some intriguing user patterns are likely to emerge.

Sun and NeXT throw open the doors to industry-standard object-oriented computing from the February 1994 issue of NeXTWorld magazine by Lee Sherman NEXTSTEP running on millions of desktops with scalable performance that makes it the environment of choice for everything from low-end workstations to high-performance servers. It once seemed impossible. But the stunning announcement in November that found longtime competitors NeXT and Sun agreeing to combine forces in an attempt to push NEXTSTEP as the standard operating and development environment for object-oriented client-server systems has dramatically increased NEXTSTEP’S chances of becoming entrenched in the enterprise, long before Taligent or Microsoft can even field a product.

by David Morgenstern from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Apple this year hopes to put an extra shine on its Macintosh product lines with Halo, a strategy that will aim models at specific market segments. Sources said the company will offer several high-performance configurations with limited availability. The Halo systems will reportedly offer the highest-­speed single or multiple processors available and will provide unique features via bundled PCI cards.

from the July 15, 1985 issue of ComputerWorld magazine by Mitch Betts The Internal Revenue Service is taking steps to ensure that this year’s computer fiascoes, which delayed the processing of tax returns for several weeks, will not happen again next year. According to IRS Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, the IRS plans to acquire additional computer capacity at IRS service centers, provide additional training for programmers and conduct a complete review of computer operations.

from the July 1978 issue of Byte magazine by Lou Frenzel - Heath Company - Benton Harbor Ml 49022 All personal and hobby computers are microprocessor based. That is, they use a single processor integrated circuit chip. One of the most important decisions you will ever make in purchasing a personal computer is choosing the type of microprocessor. The semiconductor manufacturers have provided computer designers with a wide range of microprocessing units having varying degrees of power and sophistication.

from the May 1982 issue of Practical Computing magazine The mainframe manufacturers are finding that microcomputers - so recently derided as mere toys - are making inroads into their hitherto safe preserves. Clare Gooding examines their contrasting styles, and ponders on how the giant mainframe builders will fare among the quick-witted bandits of the micro world. Time was when anyone working with computers had a hard time at social gatherings. If you were foolish enough to admit it, the reaction was either “Oh that’s all too technical for me, don’t know anything about it”, or worse, an inundation of stories about payroll computer errors and gas bills for £0.

by Vaughn Vernon from the December 1987 issue of Computer Language OS/2, Microsoft’s latest addition to its operating system line, could well become the operating system of the next decade for Intel 80286/80386 microcomputers. Its multitasking capabilities, full-featured application programming interface (API), and extendability to future hardware almost guarantee its success. Microsoft sees microcomputing as a platform for office automation hardware and software: The office of the future (regardless of a company’s structure and line of business) is envisioned as a place of personal and group productivity.

by John Poultney from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine Iomega is spinning a new scheme for portable storage: 20MB floppy disks roughly half the size of business cards. The company has shown prototypes at Comdex/Fall in Las Vegas. The new N*hand disks will measure 48mm square and will incorporate floating read-write heads, much like Iomega’s Zip drives. Positioning the products as OEM devices for portable electronics, Iomega said it envisions N*hand competing with flash­-memory PC cards, such as those used in digital cameras.