Posted on 07/24/2012 12:21:27 PM PDT by blam
Rush Limbaugh: Jim....What's His name, Free Republic Got Banned at CompuServe And...
Rush Limbaugh
July 24, 2012
Rush is talking about the early internet and mentions Jim Robinson and Free Republic.
Free Republic Rules!
“It was Prodigy, not Compuserve.”
You done did it............again.
Keeping my eye out for Buckhead. ;o)
Let us not neglect the WildCat BBS....
Was that mid-80 Xerox machine’s mouse already optical like the Xerox DocuTech 6135ps I toyed with in mid-90?
After her first corporation was merged with the next corporation and the first corporation’s mainframes were trashed, IT management threw a hot potato into her lap in the expectation it would be an excuse to discredit the personal computer transition project in the financial accounting department for which my wife had been made responsible. Much to their dumbfoundment, she solved the problem and reduced the deliverable from the previous thirty day reporting cycle to two days.
The task was to compute the latest pricing schedules for crude oil production lots. The application software used was Sorcim/CA Supercalc. The platform was an IBM PC-XT. The schedules were entirely too large to fit in the limited memory space of the IBM PC-XT, which is why the IT Dept. thought they were going to watch as the inevitable failure occurred. Instead, we studied the problem and came up with a way of breaking the schedules down into their smaller tables which easily fit into the available memory space. Then we learned how to use the macro language features to automatically load the spreadsheet tables in succession until the price schedules were computed, saved, and printed. The run took about 12 hours. With modificatons along the way to adapt to the later and faster computers and a changeover to Micosoft Excel, the runs were reduced to only 1 to 2 hours after seven years of use. The IT managers did not forgive or forget.
WX, thanks for some good info.
Yes, the Xerox 8010 was using an optical mouse as early as 1981, and not just the mid 80s. Xerox had their own optical mouse design in 1980.
ML, did you see my post #192? Sounds a bit like what you mentioned.
I heard of Modem Butterfly BBS. I was taking C programming class in early 90’s our prof said we could e-mail our assignments via Compuserve, he didn’t know our computer lab was connected to wide area network (Internet). In the Unix command line I used to snoop pressing w to see what other users were doing and try anything, learned to how to telnet, irc chat, gopher, ftp download stuff all over the place, at home I dial in to the university lab to explore more. Lots of users were online like 24x7.
Optical mouse back in the 80’s, wow! People thought the optical mouse was Microsoft’s innovation because Macintosh didn’t use optical mouse at first.
Missed it! Was listening, but then went for a swim. Oh, well, I’ll catch it on the rerun.
Kudos to all y’all.
Optical mouse back in the 80’s, wow! People thought the optical mouse was Microsoft’s innovation because Macintosh didn’t use optical mouse at first.
The first optical mouse was the Xerox Lyon's mouse US4521772 and US4521773, patent granted in 1985 but there were working versions a couple of years earlier than that. The Lyon's mouse used a hexagonal black/white pattern to sense position. Other later optical mice used a multi-colored square grid for position.
Around 1984 I built a laser mouse using IR laser diodes made by the fellow in the lab next door, they were otherwise pretty much unobtainable. I filed for a patent and it was granted in 1988, US4794384. This idea languished at Xerox. Standards for invisible laser beams in the workplace had not been worked out and I had other things to do.
Some smart guys at HP noticed that if you used my hardware and hellishly lit a surface with any appreciable texture you could get position information, and they patented that. Sigh, what can I say, it was my first patent and I hadn't learned to generalize. Got no help from the attorney either.
Logitec introduced the first laser mouse to the market when my patent had a year left to run. I pointed this out to the Xerox attorneys and they couldn't be asked to write a letter for the bucks involved.
OMG! That’s hilarious!
What is really, really amazing about Free Republic is we can go from a discussion of Limbaugh and his mention of Jim Thompson, to a total techno-geek discussion of computers. There are a whole bunch of very smart, experienced folks here who make the site what it is. Now class, compare and contrast us with leftist cesspools like Kos and DU.......
I have 3 boys and 3 girls and one dog. I often throw in the dogs name when mixing up the boys names and I often shuffle the girls names around too.
I've heard him say quite a few things in recent months and years that I'm 99% certain he picked up here.
I didn't notice when we met that your nose was brown.
Bob
Just teasing buddy. I considered pinging our MI list to this, but I guess it's not really Military Intel.
Although the Xerox optical mouse was standard equipment with the 6085 in 1985, I do remember seeing an optical mouse being used with the 8010 during a demonstration in 1982. Perhaps this was a demonstration of the prototypes? The experimental versions were being built in 1981. See some great illustrations and background:
Lyon, Richard F. The Optical Mouse, and an Architectural Methodology for Smart Digital Sensors. VLSI·81-1 AUGUST 1981. @ Xerox Corporation 1981.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/parc/techReports/VLSI-81-1_The_Optical_Mouse.pdf
Xeroid Binger (1967-1981) checking in. During my last couple of years as a Xerox suit I was in the Beta office for the mouse, the ethernet and the Altos systems. That was in Santa Clara, CA. I took executives from Ford Aerospace, Varian and HP on the corporate jet to Dallas and then on to Rochester to see all of these products in about 1979.
Being in the sales and marketing department we were back on top of technology with the 9700 Laser Printer. I formed a startup company using that product with the idea that we could eventually merge text and graphics. We had four software engineers working on that when suddenly the MAC appears on the scene.
And now the rest is history. We loyalists still use their products. We have the DocuColor 252 installed here. A very nice product. High quality printing with a finisher that folds and staples booklets and catalogs on the fly. We are 75 miles from the nearest service, however the machine never breaks down. As a former Xerox Branch Manager for Technical Service I can tell you that is a really big deal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.