by Bill Tuthill from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine C is descended from B, which was descended from BCPL. BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language) was developed in 1967 by Martin Richards. B was an interpretive language written in 1970 by Ken Thompson (1) after he abandoned a Fortran implementation for the PDP-7. BCPL and B were typeless languages, which may account for the type permissiveness of C. They restricted their scope to machine words and were rather low level.

by Marshall Kirk McKusick from the January 1985 issue of Unix Review magazine Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie presented the first UNIX paper at the Symposium on Operating Systems Principles at Purdue University in November, 1973. Professor Bob Fabry was in attendance and immediately became interested in obtaining a copy of the system to experiment with at Berkeley. At the time, Berkeley had only large mainframe computer systems doing batch processing, so the first order of business was to get a PDP-11/45 suitable for running the then current Version 4 of UNIX.

by Dixon P. Otto from the April 1983 issue of TODAY magazine “I had no intention of doing anything with computers again,” says Neale Bartter of Wooster, Ohio, reflecting on the time in 1974 when he gave up a computer career for farming. “Now I spend most of my time in here with the computer,” he says from the office of his turn-of-the-century home. He nodded towards the micro sitting on the desk next to him.

An Optimistic Approach to Software Piracy By Charles Bowen and J. Stewart Schneider from the January/February 1983 issue of TODAY magazine Fellow man. It’s the kind of faith that, if contagious, could spawn a whole new kind of marketing in the microcomputer community. At a time when major software houses are spending tens of thousands of dollars in what some say is a futile effort to protect their programs against pirates, a man named Andrew Fluegelman gives his programs away.

by Francine Sevel from the July 1983 issue of TODAY magazine Just the right touch of entertainment is often as much a part of a restaurant’s charm as that secret recipe handed down from generation to generation. And, as time and technology have revolutionized every aspect of society, restaurants have had to keep pace. Even pizza parlors have not escaped the wheels of motion. Today’s number one pizza chain not only has a full array of pizza selections: double cheese, thick vs.

by Judy Getts from the June 1987 issue of Computer Language Chuck Duff is the kind of man you’d expect to run into early in the morning in a university coffee shop, styrofoam cup in hand, talking Hegel with a student. You’d expect to see him in an art gallery rambling between the neoclassicists and linear chromatists, keen-eyed and at home, or even face-to-face in a folk-jazz cafe if you motioned the waitress aside and asked who is the James Beard behind the watercress crepes.

By Susan J. Shepard from the July 1987 issue of Computer Language The Intel 80386 microprocessor is here—at last. It is proving to be all that we expected, and the last obstacle to 386 supermicrocomputers is an operating system that can avail the developer and user of its power. It will provide a powerful and affordable platform for expert systems and other AI applications that are truly useful. AI has been been waiting for this chip; many AI applications developers whispering, “When the 386 is available…” and hinting of powerful systems for the desktop and a rich development environment for the programmer working and learning in the real world.

A Good Buy on UNIX Special Report by Dean Hannotte from the June 12, 1984 issue of PC Magazine The Mark Williams Company’s COHERENT operating system is a rewritten version of the seventh edition of UNIX, with some extensions and enhancements. Regrettably, it has incoherencies. The Mark Williams Company’s COHERENT operating system is a State-of-the-art microcomputer implementation of AT&T’s UNIX, without the state-of-the-art AT&T licensing fees. It is a completely rewritten version of the seventh edition of UNIX and includes some of its multi-user and multitasking abilities.

by Vaughn Vernon from the December 1987 issue of Computer Language OS/2, Microsoft’s latest addition to its operating system line, could well become the operating system of the next decade for Intel 80286/80386 microcomputers. Its multitasking capabilities, full-featured application programming interface (API), and extendability to future hardware almost guarantee its success. Microsoft sees microcomputing as a platform for office automation hardware and software: The office of the future (regardless of a company’s structure and line of business) is envisioned as a place of personal and group productivity.

By Dan Azulay from the January 1984 issue of Electronic Fun with Comouters and Games magazine How this powerful language stacks up Those of you who have been driven to desperate acts because you’ve mastered BASIC and feel there is nothing left in life, take heart There’s always FORTH, a very fast, very efficient computer language that is rapidly becoming the language of professional programmers and game designers. If you’re planning to go to computer camp this summer you may be surprised to learn that in addition to honing your BASIC skills to a fine edge you might be presented with a language you’ve scarcely heard of—FORTH.