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69-555: The HP 2640A was introduced in November 1974 at a list price of US$ 3000. Based on the Intel 8008 CPU, it had 8 KB of ROM firmware and came standard with 1 KB of RAM, expandable up to 8 KB (two 4 KB semiconductor RAM cards). In September 1975 Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP 2644A, which was an HP 2640A with mass storage (two mini-tape cartridges, 110 KB each), for US$ 5000. HP followed up in 1976 with

138-407: A US$ 50,000 development contract in early 1970 (equivalent to $ 392,000 in 2023). Texas Instruments (TI) was also brought in as a second supplier. TI was able to make samples of the 1201 based on Intel drawings, but these proved to be buggy and were rejected. Intel's own versions were delayed. CTC decided to re-implement the new version of the terminal using discrete TTL instead of waiting for

207-456: A dumb move. He said that if you have a computer chip, you can only sell one chip per computer, while with memory, you can sell hundreds of chips per computer." Another major concern was that Intel's existing customer base purchased their memory chips for use with their own processor designs; if Intel introduced their own processor, they might be seen as a competitor, and their customers might look elsewhere for memory. Nevertheless, Noyce agreed to

276-406: A feature beyond Windows Forms today. This would be supported by programs such as DEL/3000 and VIEW/3000 which would map form data into runtime variables and databases. It also supported teletype character mode like a standard ASCII terminal, and did not need specialized communications like IBM. The hardware was radically different from most "dumb" terminals in that the characters were not stored in

345-552: A huge effort to develop. Eventually, HP ended up selling essentially a low-cost version of the HP 2640. Today, terminal emulators still implement the late 1970s feature set of these terminals on common PCs. See also List of HP 26xx terminals (introduction, price, discontinuation) Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 (" eight-thousand-eight " or " eighty-oh-eight ") is an early 8-bit microprocessor capable of addressing 16 KB of memory, introduced in April 1972. The 8008 architecture

414-454: A line, and cursor left and right, inserting or deleting characters. They powered on ready to do math in "immediate mode", where you would type in an expression such as PRINT 2 + 3 , and you would get an answer when you hit enter, without the complication of logging in, or the overhead of maintaining a big computer room and operator. A computer controlled cassette drive using audio cassettes with clear leaders for optical detection of end of tape

483-516: A powerful BASIC language interpreter. Chronologically, the models of the family were: All 98x0 and 9821 systems used the same I/O interfaces. A 400 line per minute 80-column thermal line printer was designed to fit on top of the 9820 and 9830. The success of the HP9830 led to a next generation with faster logic: All the 98x5, with the exception of the 9805, used DC200 cartridge tapes, instead of cassette tapes. The 9825, 9831, 9835, and 9845 all used

552-445: A problem. The 8008 has is no provision to save its architectural state . The 8008 can only write to memory via an address in the HL register pair. When interrupted, there is no mechanism to save HL so there is no way to save the other registers and flags via HL. Because of this, some sort of external memory device such as a hardware stack or a pair of read/write registers must be attached to

621-452: A register and memory. Eight math/logic functions are supported between the accumulator (A) and any register, memory, or an immediate value. Results are always deposited in A. Increments and decrements are supported for most registers but, curiously, not A. Register A does, however, support four different rotate instructions. All instructions are executed in 3 to 11 states. Each state requires two clocks. The following 8008 assembly source code

690-407: A simple data array. To save memory, which could extend over several pages, characters were allocated as linked lists of blocks which were dynamically allocated. Display enhancements were encoded as embedded bytes in the stream. Software enhancements which did not affect the appearance such as dim or underline, but protected and unprotected fields were also coded with embedded bytes. The display hardware

759-543: A single-chip CPU. The new system was released as the Datapoint 2200 in the spring 1970, with their first sale to General Mills on 25 May 1970. CTC paused development of the 1201 after the 2200 was released, as it was no longer needed. Six months later, Seiko approached Intel, expressing an interest in using the 1201 in a scientific calculator, likely after seeing the success of the simpler Intel 4004 used by Busicom in their business calculators. A small re-design followed, under

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828-500: A small company in Florida, for its use in developing early real estate software. The U.S. Coast Guard devised a teletype message-forwarding system based on 9825As which were deployed as a working prototype for a subsequent purpose-built system, and also used them in the coordination of LORAN radionavigation transmitter chains. HP9825s were used in conjunction with Oscor software to score one-design yachting regattas in remote locations, such as

897-479: A speed comparable to the first IBM PCs. They could draw a mesh of a 3D SIN(X)/X function with no hidden lines over the course of several minutes, a technological breakthrough for the time. Because programs were designed to run from ROM (read only memory) the call subroutine instruction had to be changed because in the HP211x the return location was written in the first location of the subroutine. Instead, another register

966-523: A standard 5.25-inch floppy disk drive storing 270 KB per diskette. The ultimate and final model in the 2640 series was the 2647F programmable graphics terminal introduced in June 1982, an improved replacement for the 2647A with the 2642A's floppy drive. Unlike the preceding terminals in the 264X family that had 8080A CPUs, the 2647F used the faster Intel 8085A running at 4.9 MHz. HP kept the 264X family in production until early 1985. The HP catalogs usually refer to

1035-630: Is a little slower in terms of instructions per second (36,000 to 80,000 at 0.8 MHz) than the 4-bit Intel 4004 and Intel 4040 . but since the 8008 processes data 8 bits at a time and can access significantly more RAM, in most applications it has a significant speed advantage over these processors. The 8008 has 3,500 transistors . The chip, limited by its 18-pin DIP , has a single 8-bit bus working triple duty to transfer 8 data bits, 14 address bits, and two status bits. The small package requires about 30 TTL support chips to interface to memory. For example,

1104-404: Is for a subroutine named MEMCPY that copies a block of data bytes of a given size from one location to another. Intel's 8008 assembler supported only + and - operators. This example borrows the 8080's assembler AND and SHR (shift right) operators to select the low and high bytes of a 14-bit address for placement into the 8 bit registers. A contemporaneous 8008 programmer was expected to calculate

1173-631: Is only one mechanism to address data memory: indirect addressing pointed to by a concatenation of the H and L registers, referenced as M. The 8008 does, however, support 14-bit program addresses. It has automatic CAL and RET instructions for multi-level subroutine calls and returns which can be conditionally executed, like jumps. Eight one-byte call instructions (RST) for subroutines exist at the fixed addresses 00h, 08h, 10h, ..., 38h. These are intended to be supplied by external hardware in order to invoke interrupt service routines, but can employed as fast calls. Direct copying may be made between any two registers or

1242-457: The CNT parameter value and decremented at the end of the loop until it becomes zero. Note that most of the instructions used occupy a single 8-bit opcode. The following 8008 assembly source code is for a simplified subroutine named MEMCPY2 that copies a block of data bytes from one location to another. By reducing the byte counter to 8 bits, there is enough room to load all the subroutine parameters into

1311-443: The HP 9800 series desktop computers rather than the curved contours now considered to be ergonomic. It featured three keypad areas: Alphabetic, numeric, and an array of cursor positioning and editing keys somewhat similar to modern PC keyboard layouts. There were also a number of smaller function and feature control keys arrayed in two rows above the normal keypad areas. The keyboard chassis

1380-467: The 14-bit address, which can access "16 K × 8 bits of memory", needs to be latched by some of this logic into an external memory address register (MAR). The 8008 can access 8 input ports and 24 output ports. For controller and CRT terminal use, this is an acceptable design, but it is rather cumbersome to use for most other tasks, at least compared to the next generations of microprocessors. A few early computer designs were based on it, but most would use

1449-674: The 1976 World Fireball championships in Nova Scotia, the World Windsurfing championships in 1976/1977 in Cancún and Bahamas, and also Laser championships. The HP9825 was selected because it was portable – the only alternatives were phone access to time sharing computers which was not reliable from these locations. 9830s were built with a processor similar in architecture to the HP 1000 / 2100 series minicomputer with 16-bit memory address, and an AX and BX general processor register . They ran at

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1518-508: The 25 line by 80 character display that was the standard of the time required the characters to have a very high profile. HP's response was to specify a CRT with an aspect ratio designed around the desired character shape instead of the other way around. Of course, this also mandated rather high manufacturing costs as standard parts could not be used. HP took pains to further improve the rendering of displayed characters via half-pixel positioning of individual lines within each character. Although

1587-425: The 2640B remained in production until August 1981. In September 1976, HP introduced the 2645A, which could handle speeds up to 9600 baud and had a number of advanced features, including as an option the mini-tape cartridge storage of the 2644A. The introductory list price was US$ 3500, or US$ 5100 with the cartridge storage option. The 2645A was the first terminal in the 2640 series to use the Intel 8080A , rather than

1656-683: The 2640B, an updated, cost-reduced version of the 2640A with a list price of US$ 2600, along with three international versions: the Cyrillic -oriented 2640C, the Swedish/Finnish-oriented 2640S, and the Danish/Norwegian-oriented 2640N. All of these early members of the 2640 series had the relatively slow 8008 CPU running at 700 kHz, and they were thus limited to speeds of 2400 baud . The 2640A and 2644A were discontinued in February 1977, but

1725-448: The 2648A graphics terminal, a 2645A derivative which added 720×360 black-and-white raster graphics in a separate graphics page that could overlay the main text memory. This was joined in May 1978 by the 2647A programmable graphics terminal, which included its own BASIC interpreter . In October 1980, HP introduced the 2642A, which was like the 2645A, but instead of optional tape cartridges it had

1794-452: The 8008 via the I/0 ports to help save the state of the 8008. HP 9800 series The HP 9800 is a family of what were initially called programmable calculators and later desktop computers that were made by Hewlett-Packard , replacing their first HP 9100 calculator. It is also named "98 line". The 9830 and its successors were true computers in the modern sense of the term, complete with

1863-446: The 8008's register file. Interrupts on the 8008 are only partially implemented. After the INT line is asserted, the 8008 acknowledges the interrupt by outputting a state code of S0,S1,S2 = 011 at T1I time. At the subsequent instruction fetch cycle, an instruction is "jammed" (Intel's word) by external hardware on the bus. Typically this is a one-byte RST instruction. At this point, there is

1932-493: The 8008, as its CPU. Almost all subsequent 2640-family terminals would have 8080A CPUs, all running at 2.5 MHz. The 2645A was followed in November 1976 by the 2641A, a 2645A derivative designed for the APL programming language, and in April 1977 by the 2645R, a 2645 which supported right-to-left Arabic text as well as left-to-right text in Roman letters. In July 1977, Hewlett-Packard introduced

2001-586: The 85, the first machine in the HP Series 80 line of personal desktop scientific computers, was produced. It had a powerful BASIC interpreter, and was affordable by individuals whose employers might have expensive 9845s. That division evolved to produce UNIX HP 9000 series workstations, also acquiring the Apollo Computer Company. HP Basic would later evolve into Rocky Mountain BASIC for workstations, which

2070-459: The Apple and IBM PC. HP 9830s were commonly employed at aerospace companies such as Boeing . They were also used by some school systems such as Arlington, Virginia , and Renton, Washington , which used pencil mark-sense cards with card readers to accommodate classroom use. An HP 9830 system with an integrated hard drive was also provided by HP in the early 1970s to National Real Estate Exchange, Inc.,

2139-457: The CPU is incapable of reading or writing more than a single byte into memory at a time. Since there is no instruction to load a register directly from a given memory address, the HL register pair must first be loaded with the address, and the target register can then be loaded from the M operand, which is an indirect load from the memory location in the HL register pair. The BC register pair is loaded with

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2208-643: The Datapoint 2200 itself): the US SCELBI kit and the pre-built French Micral N and Canadian MCM/70 . It was also the controlling microprocessor for the first several models in Hewlett-Packard's 2640 family of computer terminals. In 1973, Intel offered an instruction set simulator for the 8008 named INTERP/8. It was written in FORTRAN IV by Gary Kildall while he worked as a consultant for Intel. The 8008

2277-404: The HP 2645A, as well as developing several games in assembler (most notably "Keep On Drivin'", Tennis and Reversi ). Plotters could also be interfaced to using HP/GL 2 with TinyBasic. The HP 264X series included several models beyond the HP 2640A. The great over-reach was a color graphics terminal that cost more than the HP 2647 monochrome graphics workstation that sold very few units but cost

2346-489: The HP 9825 generates a list of prime numbers: Another unique characteristic of HPL was the right arrow. This arrow was known as the gazinta (slang for "goes into"). The statement 1→P would be pronounced "One gazinta P". The Data Terminals Division also produced a BASIC programmable version of the HP2640 series terminal, the HP 2647a , which also featured AGL, an HP standardization of the HP 9830 plotter commands. HP 2647 BASIC

2415-584: The HP Series 80 machines, including the HP 85 and HP 87 , which were smaller BASIC language computers with CRT displays. They came from HP's Advanced Products Division based in Corvallis . For a short time in the late 1970s and early 1980s there was a class of similar desktop computers, such as the Tektronix 4051 , IBM 5100 and Wang 2200 - before they were replaced in the marketplace by personal computers such as

2484-447: The VT100, such as offline forms, multipages, and (in some models) local storage. The styling looked like vaguely like a microwave or toaster oven . It was boxy, with a " widescreen " aspect ratio for the reason that it gave the same character length as a punched card. This is still seen in the modern command window . HP had determined that the combination of a standard 4:3 aspect ratio with

2553-465: The architecture of the 3300's planned successor with a CPU as part of the internal circuitry re-implemented on a single chip. Looking for a company able to produce their chip design, CTC co-founder Austin O. "Gus" Roche turned to Intel, then primarily a vendor of memory chips. Roche met with Bob Noyce , who expressed concern with the concept; John Frassanito recalls that: "Noyce said it was an intriguing idea, and that Intel could do it, but it would be

2622-434: The basis for the device-independent HP AGL graphics language standard implemented on other HP computers such as the HP 1000 minicomputer and HP 2647 intelligent graphics terminal. Also available for programming the HP 9800 series was a bootable development environment based on UCSD Pascal . In HPL instead of variables such as A1 and J2, there were numbered registers r1, r2, up to r199999. The following HPL program for

2691-462: The character cell was only 7 horizontal by 9 vertical dots, half-pixel positioning effectively doubled the horizontal resolution to 14 dots, giving the characters very smooth outlines. (The initial sales literature referred to it as using a 7×9 matrix generated in a 9×15 dot character cell). All of this resulted in an extremely easy to read display with the dot-matrix nature, and the scan lines, almost invisible. The keyboard had flat tops, similar to

2760-530: The characters entered by the user would not be transmitted to the host until a 'special' key, typically the enter key, but other keys were also deemed special (i.e. immediate interrupt of the host) such as control y and function keys. Only the data within the unprotected areas would be transferred in this way, using a semi block mode mechanism, a sort of half way house between block mode and normal character mode, Formatted fields also meant forms could be stored in memory ( tested for and recalled locally or repainted from

2829-403: The day, but the HP 2640 was smart enough to only retransmit the line from the first character typed by the user, omitting, for example, the operating system's command prompt. This was later implemented as "line mode". Another method was to paint a formatted screen in character mode with protected fields and place it into local edit mode similar to the above but the user did not know. This meant that

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2898-414: The design's intellectual property to Intel instead of paying the $ 50,000 contract. Intel renamed it the 8008 and put it in their catalog in April 1972 priced at US$ 120 (equivalent to $ 874 in 2023). This renaming tried to ride off the success of the 4004 chip, by presenting the 8008 as simply a 4 to 8 port, but the 8008 is not based on the 4004. The 8008 went on to be a commercially successful design. This

2967-584: The end of the test ending in a beep. The HP 2640 introduced "block mode", similar to the IBM 3270 (although the IBM 3270 did not work for ASCII standard serial communications). The escape sequences Esc-[ and Esc-] defined unprotected areas, but it didn't have to take up a visible space. It acted much like a web page, disconnected from the host until the SEND key was pressed. The fields could screen for alphabetic or numeric characters,

3036-506: The host if not present), just the unprotected data areas need be sent, thereby removing the need to repaint or issue direct cursor placements in order to update the screen (TIM/3000 Air Call Computer Systems). The PCL language was PCL level 3 in an HP645/7, which was later implemented to drive Hewlett Packard's first Laserjet printer. HP Printer Control Language shares a common non- ANSI escape sequence grammar and common sequences with HP terminals. In-house developers ported TinyBASIC to

3105-475: The instruction set of the 8080, 8085, and Z80 , but also in the instruction set of modern x86 processors (although the instruction encodings are different). The 8008 architecture includes the following features: Instructions are all one to three bytes long, consisting of an initial opcode byte, followed by up to two bytes of operands which can be an immediate operand or a program address. Instructions operate on 8-bits only; there are no 16-bit operations. There

3174-409: The keyboard. Later models arranged these across the top row, and provided for screen labels close to their respective keys. Terminal configuration in the 262X series was done entirely through the screen-labeled function keys rather than dedicated keys and through escape sequences sent from the host computer. The on-screen labeling of the eight function keys, pioneered by the HP 300 ("Amigo") computer,

3243-499: The later and greatly improved Intel 8080 instead. The subsequent 40-pin NMOS Intel 8080 expanded upon the 8008 registers and instruction set and implements a more efficient external bus interface (using the 22 additional pins). Despite a close architectural relationship, the 8080 was not made binary compatible with the 8008, so an 8008 program would not run on an 8080. However, as two different assembly syntaxes were used by Intel at

3312-407: The leadership of Federico Faggin , the designer of the 4004, now project leader of the 1201, expanding from a 16-pin to 18-pin design, and the new 1201 was delivered to CTC in late 1971. By that point, CTC had once again moved on, this time to the Datapoint 2200 II , which was faster. The 1201 was no longer powerful enough for the new model. CTC voted to end their involvement with the 1201, leaving

3381-627: The next display byte or a cursor jump sequence was issued to jump several bytes. You could also completely turn off enhancements as well as provide protected only field enhancements. This data structure would inspire the sparse matrix data structure for the Twin spreadsheet. The HP 2640 also introduced multiple pages of memory, much like the DOS box in Microsoft Windows today, and the page up and page down key which appears on PC keyboards. Users learned to use

3450-400: The numbers and type them in for the assembler. In the code above, all values are given in octal. Locations SRC , DST , and CNT are 16-bit parameters for the subroutine named MEMCPY . In actuality, only 14 bits of the values are used, since the CPU has only a 14-bit addressable memory space. The values are stored in little-endian format, although this is an arbitrary choice, since

3519-417: The offline key to take the terminal offline, edit a line in the display buffer, and then retransmit it. This gave the effect of command line recall and editing even if the operating system did not support it. For example, when working at an operating system's command prompt, an erroneous command could quickly be corrected and re-sent without having to retype the entire line. This was possible in many terminals of

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3588-482: The processor used was only a slight adaptation from that used on HP minicomputers, the system software would be completely redesigned for a computer with its operating system and language system built into read-only memory. BASIC was similar to FORTRAN used by engineers on the HP 1000 minicomputer, but much simpler to use as an interpreted language. Arrow cursor keys were provided which could scroll up and down lines, and interactively insert or delete characters which

3657-413: The same I/O interfaces. the 9815 had a unique I/O interface. The HP 9800 series were developed by HP's Loveland division (Calculator Products Division), and later Fort Collins division (Desktop Computer Division). Early desktop computers were marketed as "Calculators" to make purchasing easier. At the time, some companies had different procedures for purchasing "Computers". They spawned development of

3726-555: The serial interface could be changed from RS-232 to current loop, etc. The optional tape drives of the 2645 model were interfaced via another plug-in card. The plug-in card capability strongly resembled the later Apple II expansion architecture. The manufacturing area was across from R&D cubicles in the Data Terminals Division in Cupertino . The testing area was dubbed "beepland" because it had racks of 500 terminals, with

3795-479: The spring of 1972, and with key help from Tektronix , the system was fully functional a year later. In the UK, a team at S. E. Laboratories Engineering (EMI) led by Tom Spink in 1972 built a microcomputer based on a pre-release sample of the 8008. Joe Hardman extended the chip with an external stack. This, among other things, gave it power-fail save and recovery. Joe also developed a direct screen printer. The operating system

3864-496: The terminal model as simply "2640A", and infrequently as "HP 2640", or "HP 2640A" (both with a blank after the "HP"), or "2640". The incorrect "HP2640" and "HP2640A" are often seen outside of HP. The functionality defined by the HP 264X series hasn't changed much as the preferred terminal for HP1000 and HP 3000 series computers. They never achieved the fame of the VT100 among programmers, but included sophisticated features not found in

3933-469: The time, the 8080 could be used in an 8008 assembly-language backward-compatible fashion. The Intel 8085 is an electrically modernized version of the 8080 that uses depletion-mode transistors and also added two new instructions. The Intel 8086 , the original x86 processor, is a non-strict extension of the 8080, so it loosely resembles the original Datapoint 2200 design as well. Almost every Datapoint 2200 and 8008 instruction has an equivalent not only in

4002-399: Was capable of reading this unusual data structure. When the cost of memory came down by the 262X series, this was changed to a "parallel" structure with one bit for each enhancement code, but the logic required to emulate previous behaviors was complex. Inserting a code for underline would "propagate" to the next display enhancement, while deleting such a code would also have to be propagated to

4071-418: Was created to keep track of return locations on a separate stack area, like more modern processors. This made recursion possible. Some models (e.g. 9835B) used a 32-character 1 line uppercase LED display, which on the one hand might seem limiting, but on the other hand had the same effect as one-line window into a full screen editor which did not become common until the 1980s, with controls to go up or down

4140-549: Was designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) and was implemented and manufactured by Intel . While the 8008 was originally designed for use in CTC's Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal, an agreement between CTC and Intel permitted Intel to market the chip to other customers after Seiko expressed an interest in using it for a calculator . In order to address several issues with the Datapoint 3300 , including excessive heat radiation, Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) designed

4209-507: Was essentially Microsoft BASIC with HP 9830-style plotting commands added, and was one of Microsoft's first big contracts with a mainstream computer company. HP also produced a series of handheld pocket computers with a one-line display such as the HP-75, although such devices were not popular for long. The HP 9835 was also used as the basis for a business computing system, and later the HP 250 which lives on as an application platform. In 1979

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4278-533: Was followed by the Intel 8080 , and then the hugely successful Intel x86 family. One of the first teams to build a complete system around the 8008 was Bill Pentz's team at California State University, Sacramento . The Sac State 8008 was possibly the first true microcomputer, with a disk operating system built with IBM Basic assembly language in PROM, all driving a color display, hard drive, keyboard, modem, audio/paper tape reader, and printer. The project started in

4347-497: Was implemented in 10  μm silicon-gate enhancement-mode PMOS logic . Initial versions could work at clock frequencies up to 0.5 MHz. This was later increased in the 8008-1 to a specified maximum of 0.8 MHz. Instructions take between 3 and 11 T-states, where each T-state is 2 clock cycles. Register–register loads and ALU operations take 5T (20 μs at 0.5 MHz), register–memory 8T (32 μs), while calls and jumps (when taken) take 11 T-states (44 μs). The 8008

4416-669: Was one of the first applications of a hierarchical menu which allows accessing many functions with a small number of keys. This arrangement is now common on TI graphic calculators , and automated teller and gas pump machines, though no longer used in GUI user interfaces. Internally, the electronics used a motherboard with plug-in daughter cards. The microprocessor, memory, serial interface card, and various optional functions were each on separate cards. This permitted easy field maintenance, upgrades, and reconfiguration. For example, more memory (providing larger scrollback capability) could be easily added,

4485-481: Was programmable in BASIC, which could be extended with ROMs to do graphics plotting, matrix math and string variables. The ROM cartridges were designed to extend the BASIC language, and were very similar to the cartridges later used by video game consoles. The Plotter ROM added commands which made creating a chart much more simple than is possible with C++ or C#, and used either user or world coordinates rather than integer plotter units. These commands would later become

4554-502: Was separate from the main body, connected via a thick cable. The keyboard used a bit-paired layout (similar to that on a teleprinter machine) rather than the typewriter-paired arrangement on DEC's VT100. Although large, users loved the keyboard because "it had a key for everything". Similar to the HP desktop computers, it had a number of F-keys (F1 through F8) placed close to the screen. Paper templates were available for some application programs to which placed legends for these keys on

4623-509: Was unheard of with most CRT or printing terminals until the advent of the screen editor in the late 1970s, and the programmer could single-step or check values of variables. Two rows of user-defined function keys with paper labels were some of the earliest implementation of general function keys. They would be the basis for later screen labeled function keys used in later Hewlett Packard (and IBM) terminals and computers, and now widely adopted in calculators, bank terminals, and gas pumps. It

4692-407: Was used for storage. Random access to a file was by number, but a hard drive could also be attached. The matching line thermal printer was quite fast, printing one horizontal line of dots at once. The speed of a page was faster than later dot matrix printers, and not much worse than modern ink jet printers . HP incorporated thermal printers into many plotting and terminal products later. Although

4761-455: Was written using a meta-assembler developed by L. Crawford and J. Parnell for a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11 . The operating system was burnt into a PROM. It was interrupt-driven, queued, and based on a fixed page size for programs and data. An operational prototype was prepared for management, who decided not to continue with the project. The 8008 was the CPU for the very first commercial non-calculator personal computers (excluding

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