According to "Dealers of Lightning - Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" it was the Alto.
Bob
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Bob Withers Two things are infinite: the universe and
bwit(a)pobox.com human stupidity, and I'm not sure about
http://www.pobox.com/~bwit the universe. - Albert Einstein
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On Sunday, June 20, 1999 10:14 PM, Glenatacme(a)aol.com [SMTP:Glenatacme@aol.com] wrote:
> In a message dated 6/20/99 10:06:55 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> rcini(a)email.msn.com writes:
>
> > I just finished watching "Pirates of Silicon Valley" on TNT, an
> > interesting interpretation of the dynamics between Apple and Microsoft from
> > 1975 to 1997.
> >
> > Here's the question -- what was the name of the computer at Xerox that
> > Steve Jobs "modeled" the Lisa/Mac after? Was it the Alto or the Star?
>
> Definitely it was the Star. My ex worked at Xerox from '85 through '87.
> Some details in "Pirates" were, um, a little "inaccurate," but they got one
> thing right -- there were a lot of really pissed off people at Xerox when the
> Apple GUI hit the streets.
>
> Glen Goodwin
> 0/0
I'm watching Pirates of Silicon Valley on TNT right now (yes, I'm so lame
I have my computer in front of the television) and Bill Gates is working
on a box... the dialogue infers that it is supposed to by an Altair,
but it's just a big box with four blinking lights (alternates - 2 red,
2 green) and reading paper tape.... next scene he's working on a PDP-8/?
(I I think, but I'm not up on my PDPs... not so much working on it as
having the machine open on his table... no soldering iron, manuals,
cards... I could have made the scene a lot better with the stuff in my
basement...)
Oh well.
Kevin
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It's you isn't it? THE BASTARD OPERATOR FROM HELL!"
"In the flesh, on the phone and in your account..."
-- BOFH #3
<Yes, you're right. The same Signetics data book lists the 74LS367 as
<having a typical propagation delay of 10ns. Incidentally, if I claimed
<8us for the 8T97, that was a typo, I meant 8ns, of course.
<
<Anyway, the 74F367 (I looked in the Philips databook) claims a typical
<delay of 5ns, so that should easily replace the 8T97 (provided decoupling
<an layout is OK - these FAST chips like to cause ground-bounce, etc).
At that time the difference of 2-4nS was insignificant relative to CPU
timing and memory timing. At the time the 8t97 was vogue memories were
fast at 250nS and typically 450ns was the norm for Eproms. I freely
swapped 8t97s with '367s based on availability. Also as time wore on the
8t97 would disappear and the '367 would get faster. Moot point in general
then.
Allison
<$14.95". I looked through all the 1979 BYTEs and I saw the board for sale
<but I didn't see a $99 original ELF kit. The Super ELF kit was $106.95. My
<only Quest catalog is for 1982 and I didn't see the board or the kit in it
Wrong mag... should have been looking in Popular Electonics, maybe Kbaud.
One of the truths of the late 70s and early 80s was BYTE was only one of
the hourde!
Allison
--- Doug Coward <dcoward(a)pressstart.com> wrote:
> Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com> said:
> >I have a Quest Elf that I built from a kit as a kid...
> OK, I stand corrected. I know you and I talked about this before.
Right.
> But I never could find an advertisement for the Quest ELF. But with a date,
> I finally found it. The print in their ad is so small I could read this ad
> 20 times and not see this one little line that says "original ELF kit board
> $14.95".
Maybe that was the price. It's been so long, I forget. I remember that I
could afford it and not a full-blown Elf II or whatever was common by then.
> I looked through all the 1979 BYTEs and I saw the board for sale
> but I didn't see a $99 original ELF kit.
That came later, I think. Try around 1980 or 1981.
> The Super ELF kit was $106.95. My only Quest catalog is for 1982 and
> I didn't see the board or the kit in it.
I think it was gone by then. By 1982, I had a C-64 (w/1540!) I was getting
paid to program.
> But I'll look again tonight. And I'll dig out BYTE for 80 and 81.
Good place to look. I have a crate of those, too. Some did not survive
a basement flood at my mother's place. :-(
> How's the ELF99 coming?
No progress lately. I got stumped at the layout phase and have had zero
time to devote to it in the past six months. I've been working on my
farm when I'm not pushing bits to pay for the farm. I have some I/O chips
and other parts, a schematic captured in OrCAD and no idea how to get a valid
netlist from OrCAD Capture into OrCAD layout. I can do the tutorials from the
rat's-nests, but I can't get my schematics (even a 2-chip TTL test) to
generate a file that will give me part silhouettes and a rat's-nest.
> allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) said:
> > Quest Electornics, ELF as per the PE article. I have one.
>
> Was your ELF a full kit or just a bare board when you bought it?
I just bought the bare board. I may have mis-remembered the price. I
know I got the CPU chip and 1822 RAMs from Hughes-Peters here in Columbus. I
also got the RCA VIP docs from them, too, when a friend cleaned out his file
cabinet.
> And I guess this is as good a time as any to ask if anyone has a
> booklet called "Programs for the COSMAC ELF: GRAPHICS" by Paul C.
> Moews. I have the other two ": INTERPRETERS" and ": MUSIC and GAMES"
> that I can copy for a copy of ": GRAPHICS".
Never seen it, sorry.
-ethan
_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
Me neither. I have a WANG WLTC that I'm supposed to send him and need his
address, but he hasn't answered any of the emails...
///--->>>
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Cameron Kaiser <ckaiser(a)oa.ptloma.edu>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Montag, 21. Juni 1999 16:04
Subject: Re: GridPad 1910 sales?
>::Hi. A while back I was talking with Rodger on the list about the
>::(appearant) abundance of GridPad 1910's that he was selling.... did th
>::message t osend money float by me, or are we all still in waiting? And
>::come to think of it, I haven't seen any messages from Rodger recently...
>
>Nor I. I sent him a couple of "anyone home?" mails which didn't bounce, but
>I hadn't heard any reply, either.
>
>--
>-------------------------- personal page:
http://calvin.ptloma.edu/~spectre/ --
>Cameron Kaiser Database Programmer/Administrative
Computing
>Point Loma Nazarene University Fax: +1 619 849
2581
>ckaiser(a)ptloma.edu Phone: +1 619 849
2539
>-- It is a tremendous Mitzvah to be happy always! -- Reb.
Nachman -------------
>
I picked up some cards that say "Dual Port RAM" that have a number of these
ICs on them. They all have 1979 and 1980 date codes on them and the
letters SA or SB. Anyone know what they are? I can't find them in any of
my IC references.
Joe
Ethan Dicks <ethan_dicks(a)yahoo.com> said:
>I have a Quest Elf that I built from a kit as a kid. It was the Popular
>Science design, pre-1861 video chip. It has a speaker, a Q LED, 8 toggle
>switches for data, DMA/EF4 pushbutton, RUN/LOAD/MEMPROT toggles and the
>original TIL311 latching hex displays. My PCB is rev 2.1, 1979. I bought
>just the PCB and assembly plans for $35 around 1980. The entire kit was
>available for $99.
OK, I stand corrected. I know you and I talked about this before. But I
never could find an advertisement for the Quest ELF. But with a date,
I finally found it. The print in their ad is so small I could read this ad
20 times and not see this one little line that says "original ELF kit board
$14.95". I looked through all the 1979 BYTEs and I saw the board for sale
but I didn't see a $99 original ELF kit. The Super ELF kit was $106.95. My
only Quest catalog is for 1982 and I didn't see the board or the kit in it.
But I'll look again tonight. And I'll dig out BYTE for 80 and 81.
How's the ELF99 coming?
allisonp(a)world.std.com (Allison J Parent) said:
> Quest Electornics, ELF as per the PE article. I have one.
Was your ELF a full kit or just a bare board when you bought it?
And I guess this is as good a time as any to ask if anyone has a
booklet called "Programs for the COSMAC ELF: GRAPHICS" by Paul C.
Moews. I have the other two ": INTERPRETERS" and ": MUSIC and GAMES"
that I can copy for a copy of ": GRAPHICS".
Thanks,
--Doug
===================================================
Doug Coward dcoward(a)pressstart.com (work)
Sr Software Engineer mranalog(a)home.com (home)
Press Start Inc. http://www.pressstart.com
Sunnyvale,CA
Visit the new Analog Computer Museum and History Center
at http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
===================================================
I have a MITS HDC enclosure which has surfaced after some time in "the heap" which has all the original markings, and paint, along with 20+ years' scuffs and scrapes, but which has no controller electronics, nor do I believe it ever had any. This baby has a multi-slot 100-pin (not S-100) bacplane and a (+5, +12 ?) linear power supply inside. No connector panel and no cover for the cardcage. It might make a nice enclosure for a bridge controller + drive combo.
Any offers?
Dick
The last I heard from Roger he said it was going to be a while before he was ready. I haven't seen anything else.
Bob
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Withers Two things are infinite: the universe and
bwit(a)pobox.com human stupidity, and I'm not sure about
http://www.pobox.com/~bwit the universe. - Albert Einstein
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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On Monday, June 21, 1999 4:37 PM, Tim Hotze [SMTP:review@RyansPC.ryanspc.com] wrote:
> Hi. A while back I was talking with Rodger on the list about the
> (appearant) abundance of GridPad 1910's that he was selling.... did th
> message t osend money float by me, or are we all still in waiting? And
> come to think of it, I haven't seen any messages from Rodger recently...
>
> thanks
>
> Tim
>
