In 1978, the world applauded the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt; a relatively young and vigorous John Paul II became Pope; and Sony kicked off the home-video revolution with the introduction of Beta-format VCRs.
Atari announced the $1000, 8K of RAM (expandable to 48K) Atari 800 with arguably the best graphics of any small PC of the era. (The graphics subsystem was designed by Jay Miner, who would later help design the Amiga.) Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston launched VisiCalc -- arguably the first truly serious business tool for small computers. Of course, BYTE was there for it all, and was already discussing very advanced topics such as how to network small PCs together (and this was a full decade and a half before most PCs would be networked). Elsewhere in BYTE, robotics was hot; PASCAL, C, FORTRAN, and BASIC were the top languages; and BYTE carried a discussion of an amazing and extravagantly expensive new technology that might, some day in the distant future, become available for small computers: the hard drive.
1979 In 1979, Three Mile Island almost was a for-real "China Syndrome;" Margaret Thatcher became Britain's Prime Minister; the USSR invaded Afghanistan; Iranian militants took 90 hostages in Tehran (and indirectly influenced the upcoming Presidential election in the United States); Sony introduced the Walkman; Skylab fell from orbit; the first Star Trek movie opened.
Hayes Microcomputer Products announced the Micromodem 100, a $400 item that blazed along at either 110 or 300 Bps. Not entirely by coincidence, CompuServe was founded. BYTE covered how to run mailing lists on small computers; presented early detail on the "Standard Data Encryption Algorithm;" discussed the new LISP language; and detailed Motorola's new 68000 chip. BYTE was very broad, with articles on everything from "Soldering Techniques" to "Noniterative Digital Solution of Linear Transfer Functions."
2008 International Mathematica Conference Dr. Dobb's interviews Wolfram Research's Theo Gray, co-founder and Director of User Interfaces, and Roger Germundsson, Director of Research and Development, about the upcoming 2008 International
Mathematica Conference.
How Do You Do Nightly Builds and Tests when there is No Overnight? Software Production in a Geographically Distributed Environment
Attend this Webcast and find out how to overcome common build-test-deploy challenges that affect all members of a distributed team, including:
<ul>
<li> Communication difficulties, because of time-zone and cultural differences</li>
<li> Workflow challenges, like lack of documented procedures and build and test handoff problems</li>
<li> Slow build and test cycles, broken builds, and other factors that hamper distributed team productivity</li>
</ul>
Thursday, September 25, 2005 " 11am PT / 2pm ET
</p>
In this volume of Best of BYTE, we explore the emergence of some heuristic algorithms. Although we have only scratched the surface of this intriguing subject, we hope we've suggested the potential of the synthesis of heuristics and algorithms.
