Remove Low Cost Remove Magazine Remove Personal Remove Store
article thumbnail

The Rise and Fall of 3M’s Floppy Disk

Cars That Think

If you ask the average person what the company 3M does, odds are if they have a few gray hairs hanging out on their scalp, they might say that the company makes floppy disks. I bought them from a junk store, and maybe paid $2 for them. In the mid-1950s, 3M advertised its Scotch audio reel-to-reel tape.

article thumbnail

One Way to Stop the Social Spread of Disinformation

Cars That Think

A decentralized cloud would minimize the need to use third-party services to manage and store data on people and business enterprises. The HEC can allow consumers to better control how their data is stored, shared, and monetized, Alamouti says. Alamouti, cofounder and executive board chairman of Mimik , in Oakland, Calif.,

article thumbnail

Inventing Postscript, the Tech That Took the Pain out of Printing

Cars That Think

It would have been quite different had Warnock and company not been in the right place at the right time to meet the right person. The time was right because of the imminence of three hardware developments: the first low-cost, bit-mapped personal computer, the first low-cost laser printer, and a decline in price of high-density memory chips.

Design 105
article thumbnail

Creating the Commodore 64: The Engineers’ Story

Cars That Think

The original intent had been a game machine, but at this point the personal-computer market was beginning to look promising. At a meeting of Charpentier, Winterble, and Tramiel, the decision was made to go for a personal computer. When the design of the Commodore 64 began, the overriding goals were simplicity and low cost.

Engine 117
article thumbnail

Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story

Cars That Think

In 1979 the Macintosh personal computer existed only as the pet idea of Jef Raskin, a veteran of the Apple II team, who had proposed that Apple Computer Inc. make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. Somebody like Burrell Smith would design a computer on paper and people would say.

Design 118
article thumbnail

How the Graphical User Interface Was Invented

Cars That Think

In 1984, the low-cost Macintosh from Apple Computer Inc., brought the friendly interface to thousands of personal computer users. The combination of windowing displays, menus, icons, and a mouse that is increasingly used on personal computers and workstations. Cupertino, Calif., Graphical user interface (GUI).

Design 144
article thumbnail

The First Million-Transistor Chip: the Engineers’ Story

Cars That Think

If you let people just dive in and try anything they want, any trick they’ve read about in some magazine, you end up with a lot of circuits that are marginal and flaky” —Roland Albers Path timings were documented in initial project specifications and updated at the weekly meetings Albers called once the actual designing of circuits was under way.

Engine 136