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#computerhistory

7 posts7 participants0 posts today
रञ्जित (Ranjit Mathew)

I didn’t realize that this had become available — Gary was a pioneer in Personal Computing and Computer Education:

“In His Own Words: Gary Kildall” [2016], Computer History Museum (computerhistory.org/blog/in-hi).

On HN: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1

CHM · In His Own Words: Gary KildallGary Kildall was a pioneer of personal computer software. He wrote programming language tools, including assemblers (Intel 4004), interpreters (BASIC), and compilers (PL/M). He created a widely-used disk operating system (CP/M). He and his wife, Dorothy McEwen, started a successful company called Digital Research to develop and market CP/M, which for years was the dominant operating system for personal microcomputers. Thousands of programs were written to run under it, and a million or more people might have used it.
#ComputerHistory#Memoirs
Karsten Schmidt

Memoirs of the CP/M creator released:

“Our father, Gary Kildall, was one of the founders of the personal computer industry, but you probably don’t know his name. Those who have heard of him may recall the myth that he ‘missed’ the opportunity to become Bill Gates by going flying instead of meeting with IBM. Unfortunately, this tall tale paints Gary as a ‘could-have-been,’ ignores his deep contributions, and overshadows his role as an inventor of key technologies that define how computer platforms run today.

Gary viewed computers as learning tools rather than profit engines. His career choices reflect a different definition of success, where innovation means sharing ideas, letting passion drive your work and making source code available for others to build upon. His work ethic during the 1970s resembles that of the open-source community today."

computerhistory.org/blog/in-hi

CHM · In His Own Words: Gary KildallGary Kildall was a pioneer of personal computer software. He wrote programming language tools, including assemblers (Intel 4004), interpreters (BASIC), and compilers (PL/M). He created a widely-used disk operating system (CP/M). He and his wife, Dorothy McEwen, started a successful company called Digital Research to develop and market CP/M, which for years was the dominant operating system for personal microcomputers. Thousands of programs were written to run under it, and a million or more people might have used it.
#ComputerHistory#CPM#PersonalComputing
*
Chris

@silverpill

You mentioning development in Rust and thinking about maths domain specific languages reminded me about a very early maths DSL which I encountered in the early 1980s when at University, APL. Mathematicians found it easier to write something in APL than programmers, mainly because it used a special character set and keyboard. In Leeds University they used Decwriters with special keycaps with the symbols. These were a combination of keyboard and dot matrix printer. The picture below shows a standard Decwriter, I couldn't find an image of one with the APL keycaps, but I do have an image of the layout. The code looked like this example from https://aplwiki.com/wiki/Convex_Hull

ConvexHull←{
⍝ ⍵: matrix (2 rows) of points - first row:abscissae  second row:ordinates
⍝ return: matrix (2 rows) of points of convex hull

⍝ try:  ConvexHull ⍉9 2⍴1 0,1 ¯10,3 3,2 1,6 3,1 6,3 1,6 1,9 0
⍝
     ⎕IO←0
     pts←(⊂⍋⊃↓⍵)⌷[1]⍵                        ⍝sort by x-values:first point←→start vertex
     phs←{                                   ⍝ 12○⍵ polar phase ○¯1>≥○1.  see DFNS
         x y←⊂[1↓⍳⍴⍴⍵]⍵                      ⍝ x and y coordinates.
         x0 xn←1 0=⊂0=x                      ⍝ points on/off y axis.
         top←(x0×○0.5)+xnׯ3○(|y)÷x+x0       ⍝ upper quadrants.
         (0∨.≠⍵)×(1-2×y<0)×top+○x<0          ⍝ other quadrants.
     }
     angles←phs(0 1↓pts)-[0]0⌷[1]pts         ⍝phases(radians) of the vectors
     ixStart←0,1+⊃angles⍳⌊/angles            ⍝start with indexes of first segment
     ixHull←{
         ix0 ix1←¯2↑⍵                        ⍝ix1: index of last point←→last vertex
         v←{⍵+(⍵<0)×○2}phs pts-[0]ix1⌷[1]pts ⍝phases with respect to the last vertex
         other←(⍳1↓⍴pts)~ix0 ix1             ⍝indexes of other points
         angles←|(ix0⊃v)-(⊂other)⌷v              ⍝       _______/\_______
         angles←{f←⍵>○1 ⋄ (⍵×~f)+f×-⍵-○2}angles  ⍝angles (p0-p1)  (p1-px)
         ⍵,(angles⍳⌈/angles)⊃other           ⍝new vertex is where angle is largest
     }⍣{
         0=⊃⌽⍺                               ⍝repeat until first and last vertex coincide
     }ixStart
     (⊂ixHull)⌷[1]pts
 }
#Computing#ComputerHistory#APL
*
alecm

July 15th 1991: 34 years ago I published the first “modern” password cracker…

…or, rather, smeared its development over a few months in response to requests from Unix systems administrators all over the globe – on the Internet and/or several other networks. It was a spark that still glows, but also helped inform the way Infosec developed as a discipline, notably arguments about full disclosure.

Gosh I feel old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrxJlp_3utk

image text: Thirteen years ago, on 15th June 1991, I posted v2.7a of Crack to the newsgroup alt.sources [groups.google.com] - I messed-up the posting process a bit, since these were the days when people cared about netiquette, the Web was multicast and named USENET, a
Dropsafe · Crypticide I: Thirteen Years of Crack
More from alecm
#computerHistory#crack#passwordCracking
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