Blasts From The Past

Bill Gates was drumming up support at users-group meetings for OS/2, but developers (and BYTE columnist Jerry Pournelle) complained that OS/2 didn't take advantage of the 386 and that it was a crippled OS on the 286. Compaq's 20-MHz Portable 386 weighed 20 pounds, had 1 MB of RAM, and 40 MB of hard drive sp ace for a mere $7999.

Remember the movie Tron , about a programmer who finds himself trapped inside the electronic world of computers? Today its special effects seem tame, but at the time people were wowed. We wrote about how it was made and how Tron presaged a new era in computer-generated imagery.

Steve Ciarcia's well-known Circuit Cellar column, one that attracted a loyal following over the years, debuted. And Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wrote an article about how to extend the 6502 processor using software.