Maker Pro
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SMT LM1496?

N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Winfield Hill said:
Michael Black wrote...
Winfield said:
[stuff deleted]
I was an early customer for Bill Gates and Paul Allen's
paper-tape BASIC. It was a fine program and had many buyers,
but he groused anyway and mailed us all letters of complaint
(wish I'd saved mine). Hey, I never improperly used my copy!
I don't remember how much ram the original BASIC program took,
but it may have been under 1k.

I thought the letter had been printed in Byte, but a few years back
when I looked for it, I couldn't find it. I thought I had seen it
in a magazine.

It is, however, reprinted in "Fire in the Valley" by Freiberger and
Swaine, in the photo section. The letter is titled "An Open Letter
to Hobbyists", and is dated Feb. 3, 1976.

Thankfully that's one letter that's widely available on the web.
Here's a copy, where Bill complains of only earning $2 per hour.
I think we can all agree that he solved that problem. Bigtime!

=================================================================

AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS

By William Henry Gates III

February 3, 1976


An Open Letter to Hobbyists

To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of
good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and
an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will
quality software be written for the hobby market?

break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being
written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist
can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his
product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested

One word comes to my mind: Linux...
 
N

Nico Coesel

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim Thompson said:
[...]
The "powers that be" at Harvard learned of this & were ready to expell
Mr. Gates because "all students at Harvard sign a form making all
software developed on the University's computers public domain." In
order to keep from being expelled from Harvard and to be allowed to
resign, Mr. Gates signed over all rights to Microsoft's products to the
public domain.

After leaving Harvard, Mr. Gates seemed to forget this & continued to
market both the 6800 & 8080 BASICs. Unfortunately [for him] it is all
a matter of public record.[...]"
Really... I though he was a California educated young man?

Neither, it seems... :)

Lots of successful people have dropped out of school to pursue their
own ideas... Edwin Land (Polaroid) is another example.

Lots of unsuccesfull people who dropped out of school make the
neighbourhood an unpleasant en unsafe place...
 
J

Jim Thompson

Jan 1, 1970
0
What? What? I love the sound of tube radios, etc. Even a tube-based AM radio
sounds so much better. I'm not talking about Hi-Fi here.

;~)

Be Nice!
Dana Frank Raymond
[snip]
Let's hear it for 'warm' sound! ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

I built many a tube amplifier when I was a kid, but when transistors
came along around 1956 (in my father's Radio/TV repair shop) I never
looked back ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
D

Don Lancaster

Jan 1, 1970
0
Michael A. Terrell said:
And if MS wrote it to run under their latest WIN-ware it would take
512 MB of ram to run. :(

One of the WOZ legends was that he memorized the entire Apple I
operating system and directly keyed it in.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: [email protected] fax 847-574-1462

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim said:
I built many a tube amplifier when I was a kid, but when transistors
came along around 1956 (in my father's Radio/TV repair shop) I never
looked back ;-)


Its a good thing, Jim. No one would have let you design ICs with
TUBES! ;-)
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Don said:
One of the WOZ legends was that he memorized the entire Apple I
operating system and directly keyed it in.


That explains a lot about him doesn't it?
 
M

Michael Black

Jan 1, 1970
0
Michael A. Terrell" ([email protected]) said:
Its a good thing, Jim. No one would have let you design ICs with
TUBES! ;-)

Wait. If he'd stayed with tubes, think of the state of Compactron tubes
today! "Gilbert Cells" in a 7-pin tube. Complete tube op-amps in
a single envelope, needing only power, heater, and whatever feedback you
wanted external. RS-232 drivers and receivers each in a single tube
envelope. Something better than an analog phase detector in a single
tube package. And if the guy in the next cubicle was doing digital,
we'd see all of the common TTL devices in single tube packages.

Michael
 
M

Michael A. Terrell

Jan 1, 1970
0
Michael said:
Wait. If he'd stayed with tubes, think of the state of Compactron tubes
today! "Gilbert Cells" in a 7-pin tube. Complete tube op-amps in
a single envelope, needing only power, heater, and whatever feedback you
wanted external. RS-232 drivers and receivers each in a single tube
envelope. Something better than an analog phase detector in a single
tube package. And if the guy in the next cubicle was doing digital,
we'd see all of the common TTL devices in single tube packages.

Michael

I'd hate to see the size of a 288 pin microprocessor chip, and the power
supply needed to run it. ;-)
 
M

Michael Black

Jan 1, 1970
0
ånønÿmøu§ ([email protected]) said:
[...]
Thankfully that's one letter that's widely available on the web.
Here's a copy, where Bill complains of only earning $2 per hour.
I think we can all agree that he solved that problem. Bigtime!

Yeah, but he forgot about this (that was posted in another group (or
possibly a mailing list) a couple of years ago.) :

"[...] a thread was started about Bill Gates' famous "open
letter" calling all hobbyists "thieves" because we were all stealing
"his" software.

This led into a discussion of why Mr. Gates was "asked to resign" from
Harvard. Someone pointed out the whole story was located on the "Boston
Globe's" website. [ To those outside of the U.S., the Globe is to Boston
what the Times is to London...not prone to hyperbole. ]

So I checked out the website & found that Mr Gates & Mr. Allen had used
Mr. Gates' account on Harvard's DEC-10 to write M.I.T.S. 8080 & 6800
BASICs [Microsoft's _only_ software products at that time.][Bill Gates
& Paul Allen were Microsoft's only employees at the time also.]

The "powers that be" at Harvard learned of this & were ready to expell
Mr. Gates because "all students at Harvard sign a form making all
software developed on the University's computers public domain." In
order to keep from being expelled from Harvard and to be allowed to
resign, Mr. Gates signed over all rights to Microsoft's products to the
public domain.

After leaving Harvard, Mr. Gates seemed to forget this & continued to
market both the 6800 & 8080 BASICs. Unfortunately [for him] it is all
a matter of public record.[...]"
Really... I though he was a California educated young man?

No, Swiftwater Bill, jr hails from Seattle, where he and Paul ALlen
(and some other teenagers) played with a DEC computer at a local company.
They set out to write a BASIC interperter for the 8008, but while
they eventually got a computer running with that CPU, they never
did write the interpreter.

The history, written pretty early after the event, say that they
did not have a computer to test the BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
The first time they had a chance to run it (and see if it ran) was when
one or both of them went down to MITS in Albequerque New Mexico.

Since MITS was there and the only customer (I'm too lazy to check, but I
think there was some disagreament at the time over whether they sold
complete rights to the interpreter to MITS, or just partial rights),
they moved down there, and that's where Microsoft was formed.

The move to Seattle came later.

Now since I've set it up, I need to add that apparently the
Microsoft guy we know has no connection with a character from
the Yukon goldrush.

Histories of the Klondike goldrush speak of a Swiftwater Bill,
who was somewhat of a conman, and maybe married to more than
one woman at a time. Likely he was a cad. He miss-spent
money he was supposed to spend on supplies when he went down
to San Francisco, but nobody wanted to kill him, which puts
him in more friendly terms than Soapy Smith over in Skagway,
who seemed to be an outright murderer.

Swiftwater Bill's last name was Gates, ie his real name
was William Gates, and he was supposed to be out of
Seattle.

As nice it would be to connect this rogue with Microsoft's
Bill Gates, I've found pieces that suggest there is no such
connection.

Michael
 
D

Dana Raymond

Jan 1, 1970
0
Didn't know the rest of the story. Very interesting...
 
D

Dana Raymond

Jan 1, 1970
0
I read Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics when I was a teenager. I
remember many of the "Revolutionary", including "Magic Wrinkles" (data
storage in cellulose film that was written by a laser and a heat source),
and thermoelectric (PN Junction Material, can't remember the name off the
top of my head) panels that could be built into room walls, etc. They would
heat when current flowed in one direction and cooled in the other. As well,
they would emit light when stimulated another way.

We now see this material in thermal heat pump applications and battery power
drink coolers, but it was going to change the world ack then. ;~)

I still have quite a few of those magazines here. I used to read "Carl &
Jerry", a series by a ham that wrote adventures-in-electronics stories back
then. I'm 45 now and can recall in detail quite a few of those stories. They
got me started in electronics and a first love.

http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm

Wonderful stuff. Fond memories.

Dana Frank Raymond

Jim Thompson said:
What? What? I love the sound of tube radios, etc. Even a tube-based AM radio
sounds so much better. I'm not talking about Hi-Fi here.

;~)

Be Nice!
Dana Frank Raymond
[snip]
Let's hear it for 'warm' sound! ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

I built many a tube amplifier when I was a kid, but when transistors
came along around 1956 (in my father's Radio/TV repair shop) I never
looked back ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
J

jibaro

Jan 1, 1970
0
many years ago, a book store was going out of business; we found a stack of
those magazines from the '50's. would you beleive 50 cents each in "mint"
condition.
we got a bunch of them.
i remember an article about using an AM radio (tubes, I suppose) to track
thunderstorms, and a TV (B&W, I'm certain) to predict tornadoes.

the sad magazines are gone (bad not on ebay!)

fond memories from my childhood in Puerto Rico.

Dana Raymond said:
I read Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics when I was a teenager. I
remember many of the "Revolutionary", including "Magic Wrinkles" (data
storage in cellulose film that was written by a laser and a heat source),
and thermoelectric (PN Junction Material, can't remember the name off the
top of my head) panels that could be built into room walls, etc. They would
heat when current flowed in one direction and cooled in the other. As well,
they would emit light when stimulated another way.

We now see this material in thermal heat pump applications and battery power
drink coolers, but it was going to change the world ack then. ;~)

I still have quite a few of those magazines here. I used to read "Carl &
Jerry", a series by a ham that wrote adventures-in-electronics stories back
then. I'm 45 now and can recall in detail quite a few of those stories. They
got me started in electronics and a first love.

http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm

Wonderful stuff. Fond memories.

Dana Frank Raymond

Jim Thompson said:
What? What? I love the sound of tube radios, etc. Even a tube-based AM radio
sounds so much better. I'm not talking about Hi-Fi here.

;~)

Be Nice!
Dana Frank Raymond
[snip]
Let's hear it for 'warm' sound! ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

I built many a tube amplifier when I was a kid, but when transistors
came along around 1956 (in my father's Radio/TV repair shop) I never
looked back ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
D

Dana Raymond

Jan 1, 1970
0
Carl & Jerry, the teenage characters, would catch thieves by placing gyros
set to go off at a specific time in a suspect's lunch box, find where bank
robers hid the money using a tape recorder connected to the ignition of a
car, help a girlfriend lose weight and then shock a "Wolf" (LOL!) at a movie
theatre, and determine the gender of people walking far away via home-build
radar (Girl's swished their hips more - very 1950s!).

One story was one kid explaining how transistors worked to the other, in
terms and concepts learned from using tubes. I don't have that one,
unfortunately!

Dana Frank Raymond

Dana Raymond said:
I read Radio Electronics and Popular Electronics when I was a teenager. I
remember many of the "Revolutionary", including "Magic Wrinkles" (data
storage in cellulose film that was written by a laser and a heat source),
and thermoelectric (PN Junction Material, can't remember the name off the
top of my head) panels that could be built into room walls, etc. They would
heat when current flowed in one direction and cooled in the other. As well,
they would emit light when stimulated another way.

We now see this material in thermal heat pump applications and battery power
drink coolers, but it was going to change the world ack then. ;~)

I still have quite a few of those magazines here. I used to read "Carl &
Jerry", a series by a ham that wrote adventures-in-electronics stories back
then. I'm 45 now and can recall in detail quite a few of those stories. They
got me started in electronics and a first love.

http://home.gwi.net/~jdebell/pe/cj/cnjindex.htm

Wonderful stuff. Fond memories.

Dana Frank Raymond

Jim Thompson said:
What? What? I love the sound of tube radios, etc. Even a tube-based AM radio
sounds so much better. I'm not talking about Hi-Fi here.

;~)

Be Nice!
Dana Frank Raymond
[snip]
Let's hear it for 'warm' sound! ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

I built many a tube amplifier when I was a kid, but when transistors
came along around 1956 (in my father's Radio/TV repair shop) I never
looked back ;-)

...Jim Thompson
 
D

Don Lancaster

Jan 1, 1970
0
Michael said:
ånønÿmøu§ ([email protected]) said:
[...]
Thankfully that's one letter that's widely available on the web.
Here's a copy, where Bill complains of only earning $2 per hour.
I think we can all agree that he solved that problem. Bigtime!

Yeah, but he forgot about this (that was posted in another group (or
possibly a mailing list) a couple of years ago.) :

"[...] a thread was started about Bill Gates' famous "open
letter" calling all hobbyists "thieves" because we were all stealing
"his" software.

This led into a discussion of why Mr. Gates was "asked to resign" from
Harvard. Someone pointed out the whole story was located on the "Boston
Globe's" website. [ To those outside of the U.S., the Globe is to Boston
what the Times is to London...not prone to hyperbole. ]

So I checked out the website & found that Mr Gates & Mr. Allen had used
Mr. Gates' account on Harvard's DEC-10 to write M.I.T.S. 8080 & 6800
BASICs [Microsoft's _only_ software products at that time.][Bill Gates
& Paul Allen were Microsoft's only employees at the time also.]

The "powers that be" at Harvard learned of this & were ready to expell
Mr. Gates because "all students at Harvard sign a form making all
software developed on the University's computers public domain." In
order to keep from being expelled from Harvard and to be allowed to
resign, Mr. Gates signed over all rights to Microsoft's products to the
public domain.

After leaving Harvard, Mr. Gates seemed to forget this & continued to
market both the 6800 & 8080 BASICs. Unfortunately [for him] it is all
a matter of public record.[...]"
Really... I though he was a California educated young man?

No, Swiftwater Bill, jr hails from Seattle, where he and Paul ALlen
(and some other teenagers) played with a DEC computer at a local company.
They set out to write a BASIC interperter for the 8008, but while
they eventually got a computer running with that CPU, they never
did write the interpreter.

The history, written pretty early after the event, say that they
did not have a computer to test the BASIC interpreter for the Altair.
The first time they had a chance to run it (and see if it ran) was when
one or both of them went down to MITS in Albequerque New Mexico.

Since MITS was there and the only customer (I'm too lazy to check, but I
think there was some disagreament at the time over whether they sold
complete rights to the interpreter to MITS, or just partial rights),
they moved down there, and that's where Microsoft was formed.

The move to Seattle came later.

Now since I've set it up, I need to add that apparently the
Microsoft guy we know has no connection with a character from
the Yukon goldrush.

Histories of the Klondike goldrush speak of a Swiftwater Bill,
who was somewhat of a conman, and maybe married to more than
one woman at a time. Likely he was a cad. He miss-spent
money he was supposed to spend on supplies when he went down
to San Francisco, but nobody wanted to kill him, which puts
him in more friendly terms than Soapy Smith over in Skagway,
who seemed to be an outright murderer.

Swiftwater Bill's last name was Gates, ie his real name
was William Gates, and he was supposed to be out of
Seattle.

As nice it would be to connect this rogue with Microsoft's
Bill Gates, I've found pieces that suggest there is no such
connection.

Michael

Um, the PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY video pretty much got most of it
right.
My take on part of it appears at http://www.tinaja.com/glib/waywere.pdf

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: [email protected] fax 847-574-1462

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com
 
D

Dana Raymond

Jan 1, 1970
0
I didn't know that. I'll google "Les Soloman" to see if I can find any frye
stories.
Thanks Don

Dana
 

Johnwer

Feb 16, 2009
1
Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
1
Siliconix L144

Hi Win,
I was searching for the Data Sheet for the Siliconix L144 and ended up in this thread. An application that utilized this part has recently crossed my desk and my customer wants to duplicate the particular circuit but the L144 as well as a few other components are obsolete. (This circuit was designed in 1979) Would you know where I could get the data sheet for this part?

Thanks,
John
 
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