Research in Motion Itner@ctive 950 Pager
subject: hardware: two-way pagers
description: Historical Context The Inter@ctive Pager 950 announced by Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion Limited (RIM) in August 26, 1998, was a successor to and a major refinement of the Inter@ctive 900 two-way pager introduced by the company in 1996. It was smaller, lighter, and cheaper than the 900. It featured more powerful processor, more memory, improved LCD display, easier-to-use keyboard, menu-driven interface, enhanced messaging applications, and extended battery life. The pager operated on BellSouth Interactive Paging Service in the US and Cantel AT&T in Canada. In May 1999, RIM introduced a variant of its Inter@ctive 950 pager--the Inter@ctive 850--designed for the eLink wireless email service from American Satellite Corp. operating on American Mobile's ARDIS network in the US. In addition to offering advanced two-way messaging services, the eLink wireless email service allowed users with standard POP3 complaint email systems to extend their desktop email to the Inter@ctive Pager 850. RIM advertised its 850 and 950 pagers as "first complete, secure, integrated wireless email solution", as devices that allowed mobile professionals to send and receive email and messages as well as synchronize their schedule, tasks and contacts with their PC. "Now you can communicate with millions of Internet e-mail users worldwide directly from your pager. Plus, you can send custom messages to other Inter@ctive Pagers, fax machines, alphanumeric pagers and telephones via text-to voice service. With custom programming, you can even retrieve data from the Internet and corporate intranets." (RIM, October 1999) The Inter@ctive Pager 950 received Mobility Award in Wireless Hardware category at the Mobile Insights '99 Conference. Technical Specifications: processor: Intel 386EX memory: 4MB flash memory, 512KB SRAM display: LCD with backlighting, 132 x 65 resolution, selectable 6- or 8-lines keyboard and controls: 31-key QWERTY-style, mouse-type scroll wheel ports: RS-232C-compliant s…
creator: Research In Motion Limited
date: 1998
coverage: North America, 1998-

Commodore 202 adding machine
subject: hardware: electric calculator
description: Historical context Commodore International Ltd. (or Commodore) was one of the world's largest manufacturers of electronic hand-held calculators as well as home, educational, and business microcomputers. It was best known for its popular personal computers including the PET line of personal desktops as well as the VIC-20, Commodore 64, and the Amiga computers. It was founded on October 10, 1958 as Commodore Portable Typewriter Company Limited in Toronto, Ontario. Two years later, the company incorporated its Commodore Business Machines subsidiary in New York. In 1976, Commodore reorganized its corporate structure as Commodore International Ltd. and moved its financial headquarters to the Bahamas and the operations headquarters to Pennsylvania. The restructured company encompassed several entities world-wide including Commodore Business Machines Ltd., Canada. In 1947, the company's founder—Jack Tramiel—emigrated from Poland to the US. During his US army service (1948-51) he gained considerable experience in repairing office equipment which he turned into business in his civilian life, first in Bronx, New York, and later in Toronto, Canada, where he moved in 1955. His Toronto business was initially focused on repairs and selling licensed typewriters, adding machines, and other office equipment. Initially located at 2 Toronto Street, in the city's downtown core, a short distance from the IBM Toronto Downtown Office, the company relocated several times before establishing its headquarters at 946 Warden Ave, Scarborough, Ont. During the 1960s the scope of Commodore's business expanded to office furniture as well as to electric and eventually electronic calculators. The first Commodore-branded adding machine was the model C mechanical calculator manufactured by a Czechoslovakian company Nisa and sold by Commodore around 1960. The first exclusive Commodore adding machine—the 202—was announced in 1967. The following year, the company began to turn its focus toward electronic…
creator: Ricoh and Commodore International Ltd.
date: 1967
coverage: North America, Europe, late 1960s -- early 1970s

DATAR images
subject: DATAR project
description: DATAR project: scans of photographs and front pages of technical documents. For full listing of DATAR-related documents and photographs, consult DATAR Collection.
creator: Royal Canadian Navy
date: 1948-1956
relation: DATAR collection
language: English
coverage: Canada, 1940s-1950s

Pied Piper computer
subject: hardware: home computer
description: The Pied Piper was designed in the early 1980s by Semi-Tech Microelectronics Corp. (STM) and advertised as a portable, low-cost, versatile business computer. It was sold with the Perfect Software package. The Pied Piper consisted of a CPU unit in plastic enclosure with a built-in keyboard and a single diskette drive. The computer had a keyboard cover which enhanced the computer's portability. It could use any standard TV set or a monitor as a display terminal. In 1983, the Pied Piper was shown at the NCC show in Anaheim, California and at the Fall Comdex show in Las Vegas. The computer operated under the CP/M 2.2 OS and was sold with software package from Perfect Software Inc. Optional software included MBASIC (Microsoft), dBase II (Ashton-Tate), WordStar (MicroPro International), and Multiplan (Microsoft). Hardware: CPU: Z80A CPU RAM: 64 Kbytes VRAM: 2 Kbytes ROM: 8 Kbytes display: text mode only (24 lines x 40 or 80 characters), 16 colors keyboard: QWERTY, 62 keys ports: serial RS232C port, parallel printer port, RF Modulator port, external diskette drive port diskette drive: 5.25 inch (164 Kbytes, formatted) expandability: expansion for two boards, optional external diskette drive, interface for hard drive The museum has a Pied Piper, model PPC 001, serial number 100983189 and the following software and documentation: Software and Documentation: PerfectWriter (with manual), Perfect Software (1983) PerfectSpeller (with manual), Perfect Software (1983) PerfectCalc (with manual), Perfect Software (1983) PerfectFiler (with manual), Perfect Software (1983) Modem Master (with Modem Communications Manual), Semi-Tech Microelectronics (1983) The computer was purchased on December 17th, 1983 at Gladstone Electronics -- one of the most popular computer stores in Toronto in the early 1980s.
creator: Semi-Tech Microelectronics Corp
format: Hardware
type: Hardware

CEMCorp ICON
subject: educational computer
description: Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) Since the late 1940s, several computer enthusiasts and dedicated educators have engaged in a variety of computing-related activities, ranging from the design of computer toys and educational aids to publishing and establishing computer clubs and organizations. In 1949, Edmund Berkeley published Giant Brains or Machines That Think, a book intended for a general audience interested in technological innovations. He followed it with a series of computer construction projects and educational devices in the 1950s, including Simon, BRAINIAC, and GENIAC. These devices were not intended as scientific instruments, but rather as educational tools to exhibit in simple understandable form the essential principle of any artificial brain [E. Berkeley and R.A. Jensen, World's Smallest Electric Brain, Radio Electronics, October 1950.] Berkeley's computer education ideas inspired others to find ways of introducing knowledge about computers and their role in modern society to educators, electronics hobbyists, and even children. One such individual was Joseph Weisbecker, a computer engineer at RCA. His career spanned a wide range of fields, from designing mainframe computer hardware to developing microprocessors and microcomputer architectures. However, his true passion lay in demystifying the little-understood world of digital computing. Weisbecker's numerous iterations of his Flexible Recreational and Educational Device (FRED) were not another tape of computer toy—despite having designed many in the past—but as affordable, general-purpose computers for use in homes and schools. The introduction of the first microprocessors in the early 1970s not only reshaped the semiconductor industry but also gave rise to the global microcomputer industry. Education quickly emerged as one of the key application areas driving this new technological wave. As early as 1973, during the launch of its MCM/70 computer, the Canadian electronics company Micro Computer Ma…
creator: The Ministry of Education of Ontario, CEMCorp, Unisis
source: ICON archive, YUCoM
date: 1983-1994
coverage: Ontario, Canada

TRACE Newsletter
subject: computer publication
description: TRACE Newsletter was an official publication of the Toronto Region Association of Computer Enthusiasts. It was published monthly or semimonthly between March 1976 and February 1985. Holdings: nr. 1 (March 1976) — nr. 68 (March-April 1984), and nr. ? (February 1985).
creator: The Toronto Region Association of Computer Enthusiasts
publisher: The Toronto Region Association of Computer Enthusiasts
date: 1976-1985

University of Toronto M6809 computer
subject: single board microcomputer
description: Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) In April 1972, Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, CA, announced its first 8-bit microprocessor, the 8008. Shortly after, the company introduced the 8008-powered SIM8-01 single-board computer designed as a trainer and a software development system for the 8008-based applications. The introduction of this novel hardware marked more than just a leap in microprogrammable controller technology. Within months, prototypes of the first general-purpose computers powered by the 8008 chip were operational on-site at the French company Réalisations et Études Électroniques located in the suburbs of Paris and at Micro Computer Machines with headquarters situated on the outskirts of Toronto. The SIM8-01 board generated the first wave of computer hobby activities in North America. It also became an educational tool that enabled electrical engineering students to gain a deep understanding and appreciation of this new microprocessor technology. In 1973, the SIM8-01 board became the primary hardware at the newly established digital design labs at the University of Maryland and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. These labs broadened the digital system design curriculum, introducing students to microprocessor technology recognized as a crucial component in computer engineering education. Other universities opted for various microprocessor development and demonstration systems, such as the Motorola MEK6800 single-board computer introduced in 1975, or developed and constructed their own hardware to support their microprocessor laboratories. The University of Toronto M6809 computer In the late 1970s, the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Toronto developed and built the M6809 single-board microcomputer for its microprocessor lab. "Peter Pereira [a Senior Technologist at the University of Toronto] and I developed the hardware and Robert MacKay [a Ph.D. student] developed a Monitor Program that made it easy to use the board," recollect…
creator: University of Toronto
source: donated by Arlen Michaels
coverage: Canada, 1979 to mid 1980s

Volker-Craig/NABU 4404 Video Display Terminal
subject: computer hardware: video display terminal
description: Historical Context: In the 1950s, the operators of mainframe computers used dedicated consoles, hardcopy terminals (such as teletypes and modified electric typewriters), and a variety of cathode ray tube (CRT) displays to run and control data processing tasks. Computer consoles typically featured rows of switches and associated lights that allowed operators to run and control the execution of programs, analyze data stored in memory, and to control other hardware interfaced with computers. Hardcopy terminals were used to print on roles of paper information such as operator's commands, computer responses, and other console messages. Finally, CRTs were used to displaying information (e.g. memory contents) in a rudimentary graphical form. The "glass teletype" that appeared in the mid-1960s was the first attempt at providing a single device allowing computer operators to run their systems having all the essential control and data processing information displayed on a screen. However, it was not until the early 1970s, when the first "dumb" video display terminals, featuring limited editing capabilities, were introduced (one of the earliest such terminals was the 7700A Interactive Display Terminal introduced by Lear Siegler Inc. in 1973). All these terminals shared the same basic keyboard-display-interface design: each featured a keyboard, a CRT screen that could display full sets of alphanumeric characters, and each had the capability to send and receive data via communication lines to a remote host computer. By the mid-1970s, video terminals became the most effective human-computer interface devices and they remain so until the mid-1980s, when they were displaced by microcomputers that could be interfaced with mainframes and minicomputers to perform terminal jobs in addition to microcomputing tasks, when PC monitors had become a common occurrence worldwide. In Canada, the design and manufacturing of computer display terminals began in the early 1970s. Comterm Inc. (Montr…
creator: Volker-Craig
date: 1980s
relation: NABU Collection

Volker-Craig VC204 Video Display Terminal
subject: computer hardware: video display terminal
description: Historical Context: In the 1950s, the operators of mainframe computers used dedicated consoles, hardcopy terminals (such as teletypes and modified electric typewriters), and a variety of cathode ray tube (CRT) displays to run and control data processing tasks. Computer consoles typically featured rows of switches and associated lights that allowed operators to run and control the execution of programs, analyze data stored in memory, and to control other hardware interfaced with computers. Hardcopy terminals were used to print on roles of paper information such as operator's commands, computer responses, and other console messages. Finally, CRTs were used to displaying information (e.g. memory contents) in a rudimentary graphical form. The "glass teletype" that appeared in the mid-1960s was the first attempt at providing a single device allowing computer operators to run their systems having all the essential control and data processing information displayed on a screen. However, it was not until the early 1970s, when the first "dumb" video display terminals, featuring limited editing capabilities, were introduced (one of the earliest such terminals was the 7700A Interactive Display Terminal introduced by Lear Siegler Inc. in 1973). All these terminals shared the same basic keyboard-display-interface design: each featured a keyboard, a CRT screen that could display full sets of alphanumeric characters, and each had the capability to send and receive data via communication lines to a remote host computer. By the mid-1970s, video terminals became the most effective human-computer interface devices and they remain so until the mid-1980s, when they were displaced by microcomputers that could be interfaced with mainframes and minicomputers to perform terminal jobs in addition to microcomputing tasks, when PC monitors had become a common occurrence worldwide. In Canada, the design and manufacturing of computer display terminals began in the early 1970s. Comterm Inc. (Montr…
creator: Volker-Craig
date: mid-1970s
coverage: Canada, 1970s

Volker-Craig VC404 Video Display Terminal
subject: hardware: video display terminal
description: Historical Context: In the 1950s, the operators of mainframe computers used dedicated consoles, hardcopy terminals (such as teletypes and modified electric typewriters), and a variety of cathode ray tube (CRT) displays to run and control data processing tasks. Computer consoles typically featured rows of switches and associated lights that allowed operators to run and control the execution of programs, analyze data stored in memory, and to control other hardware interfaced with computers. Hardcopy terminals were used to print on roles of paper information such as operator's commands, computer responses, and other console messages. Finally, CRTs were used to displaying information (e.g. memory contents) in a rudimentary graphical form. The "glass teletype" that appeared in the mid-1960s was the first attempt at providing a single device allowing computer operators to run their systems having all the essential control and data processing information displayed on a screen. However, it was not until the early 1970s, when the first "dumb" video display terminals, featuring limited editing capabilities, were introduced (one of the earliest such terminals was the 7700A Interactive Display Terminal introduced by Lear Siegler Inc. in 1973). All these terminals shared the same basic keyboard-display-interface design: each featured a keyboard, a CRT screen that could display full sets of alphanumeric characters, and each had the capability to send and receive data via communication lines to a remote host computer. By the mid-1970s, video terminals became the most effective human-computer interface devices and they remain so until the mid-1980s, when they were displaced by microcomputers that could be interfaced with mainframes and minicomputers to perform terminal jobs in addition to microcomputing tasks, when PC monitors had become a common occurrence worldwide. In Canada, the design and manufacturing of computer display terminals began in the early 1970s. Comterm Inc. (Montr…
creator: Volker-Craig Ltd., Waterloo, Canada
date: 1978
coverage: World, 1978--