Dennis Barker
5 YEARS AGO IN BYTE
Like Godzilla appearing on the edge of town,
Windows 3.0 finally arrived. But people didn't run away. They ran out to buy it. Jon Udell, who'd worked with beta versions for months, rightly wrote that version 3.0 would change the face of DOS computing: "After years of twists and turns, Microsoft has finally nailed this product." His forecast: "The Windows momentum that has been building is about to become a tidal wave."
Father of computer graphics.
We paid tribute to Ivan Sutherland. As a graduate student at MIT in the 1950s, he developed the SketchPad. You could use it to draw, rotate, and edit primitives, without having to be an ace programmer. Sutherland had created the first CAD program.
"Who Needs OS/2?
"
That's what we asked on our cover, but that wasn't really the issue. OS/2, which Microsoft still sold at that time, had things Windows didn't, such as a multithreaded architecture and a 32-bit progamming model. And it lacked something: a foundation built on "creaky old DOS." Power users, we said, "will find the move from Windows to OS/2 a natural."
Sun lowered the price/performance curve
with its SparcStation SLC, a diskless workstation priced below $5000 (12 MIPS, 8 MB of RAM, Ethernet, and a 17-inch monitor). "Quite a bargain for an office running a network of SparcStations."
State of the Art scouted out coming networking technologies:
wireless LANs, fiber optics, ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), and zapping data over AM and FM radio.
Trendsetting board of the month:
VideoLogic's DVA-4000. By converting analog signals from a TV, VCR, or laserdisc player, the board let you play live video in a window on your VGA screen. We prete
nded stockbrokers would use it to snag Dow quotes or watch financial news shows.
10 YEARS AGO IN BYTE
Programming techniques.
Hundreds of pages on languages, libraries, debugging techniques, subroutines, data-flow diagrams, and tricks for the 6502 programmer.
GEM '85
Our West Coast editor John Markoff reported on Digital Research's GEM (Graphics Environment Manager) after attending a seminar for OEMs and programmers thinking of converting to the new GUI. It appeared GEM's biggest competitor was the Mac OS. GUIs that were in the works for IBM-type machines--Desq, Visi On, and something called Windows--seemed to be jinxed.
ComponentWare '85
"Software-ICs" proposed a plan for building reusable software components. "The notion of objects that communicate by messages isfundamental to Software-ICs."
The Mindset was a PC clone
that did some graphics chores in hardware, and it was swift at run
ning Time Arts' Lumena paint program. One model had genlock circuitry, so it could interact with video cameras and recorders (shades of the Amiga).
CyberBYTE
We officially announced the BYTE Information Exchange, becoming the first magazine to extend into what is now called cyberspace. BIX featured on-line conferences, E-mail, BYTE articles, and the massive collective knowledge of BYTE readers.
15 YEARS AGO IN BYTE
On the cover,
Robert Tinney "created a visual fantasy on a communications theme. Imagine a network of personal computers where each person's computer is a node." Editor Carl Helmers noted that this "fantasy" network already existed: the phone system combined with modem equipment.
Intercomputer communications was the focus of the issue.
Helmers proposed "The Grass Roots Electronic Post Office"--basically a global E-mail system. "Thus any two people who have a personal computer and a Bell 103-compati
ble modem can send electronic messages back and forth."
And Flipper scores the winning touchdown.
An article about AI-based personalized news services told this story: A Stanford researcher put in his profile that he would like to see any stories about dolphins. Sure enough, his report included football scores--of the Miami Dolphins.
In the News, June 1985
Lotus and Intel announced an expanded-memory specification for PCs.
At Comdex, Compaq announced 286-based Portable and Deskpro models; TeleVideo unwrapped an AT clone that used an 8-MHz 286 (the IBM AT used a 6-MHz chip); Zenith brought out two "portables," weighing 17 and 25 pounds.
Manhattan Graphics released ReadySetGo, once of the first desktop publishing packages.
Microsoft introduced Access--a $250 communications program, not the database program.
Blasts from the Past
