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After 50 Years, Digital Voices Speak Again

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Instead, they were encoded in the grooves of a phonograph record bound inside the magazine. Due to their low cost, thin form factor, and pliability, flexi discs became the medium of choice for magazine publishers who wished to supplement articles with audio content. Recordings were not limited to musical performances.

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

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A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. 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. It appeared in the May 1988 issue of IEEE Spectrum.

Design 103
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Flight Simulator Gave Birth to 3D Video-Game Graphics

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In 1977, he wrote an article for Kilobaud: The Small Computer Magazine describing the “Sublogic Three-Dimensional Micrographics Package” he had created, which brought 3D to microcomputers outfitted with the popular Motorola 6800 microprocessor. “I Microsoft worried that some consumers might view it as a low-cost PC alternative.

Building 134
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How the Graphical User Interface Was Invented

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A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. In 1984, the low-cost Macintosh from Apple Computer Inc., tested all the commercially available pointing devices, from the still-popular light pen to a joystick and a Graphicon (a curve-tracing device that used a pen mounted on the arm of a potentiometer). Cupertino, Calif.,

Design 139
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Designing the First Apple Macintosh: The Engineers’ Story

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make a low-cost “appliance”-type computer that would be as easy to use as a toaster. A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. announced in late 1980 that the 68000 microprocessor was available, but that chip was new and unproven in the field, and at $200 apiece it was also expensive. Motorola Corp.

Design 112
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Creating the Commodore 64: The Engineers’ Story

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A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. They lacked completely the sophisticated design tools of today’s engineering workstations, but they had one readily available design tool found almost nowhere else in the home-computer industry: a chip-fabrication line on the premises. Computer magazines such as Creative Computing and Compute!

Engine 112
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How Ted Hoff Invented the First Microprocessor

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A PDF version is available on IEEE Xplore. Busicom had hired Intel to develop a set of custom chips for a low-cost calculator and had sent three engineers to Santa Clara to work on the chip designs. Teaming up with Stanley Mazor and Federico Faggin, he created the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004. You’re crazy.”

IDEA 115