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.

by Clifford Colby with Stephen Howard & Kelly Ryer from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine On 20 December 1996 Apple announced it was buying NeXT Software for $US400 million and would use NeXTstep - NeXT’s Unix-based operating system - as the underpinnings of its future operating system. The announcement ends all speculation that Apple might acquire Be for the same purpose. According to Ellen Hancock, Apple’s chief technical officer, the company is commit­ted to releasing a beta version of the next-generation OS to select user sites and developers by the end of 1997.

by Mark G. Boyd from the June 1983 issue of Micro magazine When something new comes along most of us tend to be conservative about giving up the familiar. A good example of this behavior is the use of structured programming languages on microcomputers. Languages like Pascal have been available to us for a couple of years; they are easier to program in and more efficient than BASIC. However, only a relative minority of microcomputer users have switched to a structured language, and none of the major manufacturers offer anything other than BASIC as standard equipment.

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.

from the June 1985 issue of Computer Language magazine By Craig LaGrow He calls himself a programmer at heart. But as an accomplished science fiction writer, president of a successful software company, technical book author, musician, and runner, P.J. Plauger is certainly a man of many talents. His friends and work associates know him as Bill — a name he was affectionately given by his older sister three days after his birth.

by Henry Bortman and Jeff Pittelkau from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine The Mac commnunity has been electrified by the announce1nent that Apple’s next OS will be based on NeXTstep technologies. But, if this hybrid OS does not meet our expectations, Power Mac users will soon be able to use a third-party alternative: a strategy we dub ‘Plan Be .’ Apple has its work cut out for itself.

from the November 1987 issue of PC Tech Journal magazine An inside look reveals how one company rapidly converted a complex data manager from DOS to the OS/2 environment. by Steven Armbrust When Microrim, Inc., became a beta site for IBM’s new Operating System/2 (OS/2) in late 1986, Microrim chairman and founder Wayne Erickson knew immediately what he and his staff had to do. Not only did they have to convert R:BASE System V, Microrim’s largest and most complex database manager, to run under OS/2, but the job had to be done in time to demonstrate a working product when IBM officially announced OS/2.

from the June 1, 1987 issue of MacWEEK by Michael Goodwin Why is Alan Boyd’s office like a hypertext document? Because it is hard to know where to look first. There is a high-powered Mac II work-alike (a Levco Prodigy with 4 Mbytes of RAM) driving a big, high-resolution screen displaying a complicated menu of a tour of the National Art Gallery. Next to that, a color TV monitor (displaying the Annunciation) is hooked to a videodisc player.

by Richard Foxworthy, Editor from the February 1997 issue of Australian MacUser magazine By now, most readers will have heard the news - Gil Amelio and the crew at Apple Computer spent their Christmas break writing large cheques - totalling $US400 million - to acquire NeXT Software, the company launched by original Apple co-founder Steve Jobs after losing a 1985 power struggle with then Apple CEO John Sculley. In a twist that will delight many and horrify some, Steve Jobs himself - the single person most responsible for the Macintosh - is part of the deal.

from the December 1985 issue of Australian Personal Computer The Reduced Instruction Set Processor (RISC) era has begun, albeit quietly, and working examples are now appearing on the market. Dick Pountain examines three such processors. What exactly is a RISC, and why is it a good thing? A reduced instruction set processor, as the name suggests, is one which can execute only a small number of different instructions, compared to the prevailing standards of the day.