91–100 of 103 posts
What's more interesting than how the calculator works is how Sinclair was able to write the code for such a chip, which the article doesn't attempt to guess at. I wonder if he used some kind of boostrap on paper, looking at the algorithms.
Unfortunately, as calculator prices collapsed, so did Sinclair Radionics' profits, and the company was broken up in 1979 after heavy losses. He fought Moore's law, and the law won. But this whole thing reminds me of Woz's work in the first Apples. Why wasn't his genius work similarly wiped out? Soon after the Apple, there were dozens - hundreds - of new personal computer manufacturers. I think it's software. The valu…
But Sinclair went on to kick start the UK Microcomputer industry. The ZX range (Aka TS range in the States) was one of the most popular an influential home computers of the 8-bit era. I think only the C64 beat it world wide. it was also one of the most cloned systems as Brazil, Russia and many other Eastern European countries cloned it and extended the original design. Apple was niche and mostly unknown in the UK at…
I can still remember humping various PETs in and out of Olympia for trade shows - and I still recall the various tricks you used to make sure that disks copied correctly.
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VisiCalc on the Apple had a huge contribution to its success. It was the proverbial "killer app" that drove Apple II sales.
Yes, that and Apple Writer. Full disclosure: I wrote Apple Writer.
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Allegedly the name "Polish Notation" stuck because nobody could pronounce its inventor's name: Jan Łukasiewicz
The correct pronunication is “John Wookuh-shev-eetch”, according to my decoding of the IPA notation [ˈjan wukaˈɕɛvʲitʂ] from Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_%C5%81ukasiewicz ) using Wikipedia’s help page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA_for_Polish .
Sorry for OT.
All thing look really amaizing. I'd love to see more in this topic.
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Surely also ridiculous diversions such as the C5 electric car. "Micromen" is a fantastic drama of the period... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIcAyFVK0gE
Different company. Sinclair Research was the company that was born from the ruins of Radiophonics. Not that Research fared much better!
Unfortunately, as calculator prices collapsed, so did Sinclair Radionics' profits, and the company was broken up in 1979 after heavy losses. He fought Moore's law, and the law won. But this whole thing reminds me of Woz's work in the first Apples. Why wasn't his genius work similarly wiped out? Soon after the Apple, there were dozens - hundreds - of new personal computer manufacturers. I think it's software. The valu…
But Sinclair went on to kick start the UK Microcomputer industry. The ZX range (Aka TS range in the States) was one of the most popular an influential home computers of the 8-bit era. I think only the C64 beat it world wide. it was also one of the most cloned systems as Brazil, Russia and many other Eastern European countries cloned it and extended the original design. Apple was niche and mostly unknown in the UK at…
Not even remotely true. There was a large homegrown industry (I worked in Cambridge at the time). Sinclair was a well-known early player but many others grew up at the same time and independantly. For a time it was known as the "Cambridge Phenomenon". What did spring from Sinclair was Acorn. If anything kick started the UK microcomputer industry it was the Cambridge University Computer Lab where Sinclair and others got much of their talent.
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At the time of the C5 I worked for one of the then government owned utility companies which had shops selling the C5. Was able to get a staff discount but was told of of the 2 seater version with a roof that was planned for release and saw pictures and spec etc, so I waited. Great idea, ahead of it's time engineering and attitude wise as well. Did not even have rare earth magnets, seen C5's with rare earth magnet mot…
I'm not sure I agree it's a good idea at all. 30 years later, and the electric car market is still miniscule. There might start to be a market demand for them when petrol is at least twice as expensive as it is now. But there's some wiggle room to reduce the tax on it a lot.
I still feel though the whole electric vechile area needs more personal cheaper options and sadly even the electric bycicles options out there are not exactly cheap and flooding the markets.
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Trusting the numbers coming out of a calculator was ALWAYS a bad idea, especially if lives depended on it. It wasn't just the calculator making a mistake - you could have made a mistake keying in the numbers. This is dealt with by: 1. running the results through the inverse equations to verify that you get the inputs back again 2. calculating the results using an independent method to verify them 3. having a differen…
BTW, I think every engineer should watch the series on the Smithsonian channel "Air Disasters". Each episode chronicles a particular disaster, and then painstakingly goes through what went wrong and how the problems were fixed. One can learn a lot about systems design from these case studies on how and why things go wrong.
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I wouldn't call them "fits", really. 40 years ago these calculators were looked upon with a bit of skepticism. Engineers that were used to seeing the log tables with their own eyes and hand-manipulating slide rules were being asked to trust the results coming out of these calculators. And lives depended on it, really. If you were a civil engineer designing a bridge and you needed to be absolutely sure the numbers you…
Trusting the numbers coming out of a calculator was ALWAYS a bad idea, especially if lives depended on it. It wasn't just the calculator making a mistake - you could have made a mistake keying in the numbers. This is dealt with by: 1. running the results through the inverse equations to verify that you get the inputs back again 2. calculating the results using an independent method to verify them 3. having a differen…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the time of the C5 I worked for one of the then government owned utility companies which had shops selling the C5. Was able to get a staff discount but was told of of the 2 seater version with a roof that was planned for release and saw pictures and spec etc, so I waited. Great idea, ahead of it's time engineering and attitude wise as well. Did not even have rare earth magnets, seen C5's with rare earth magnet mot…
I'm not sure I agree it's a good idea at all. 30 years later, and the electric car market is still miniscule. There might start to be a market demand for them when petrol is at least twice as expensive as it is now. But there's some wiggle room to reduce the tax on it a lot.