10 10 106 https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/64f7a130ab28c0b92c9e207e416deef4.jpg c73b90d716eb6383fd2f664470ac2d08 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nelma Persona Subject The topic of the resource hardware: desktop computer Description An account of the resource Historical Context: Nelma Data Corporation was a desktop computer manufacturer based in Mississauga Ontario. In 1982, the company announced its Persona desktop computer (the NDC 100 Persona). In Fall 1983, the computer was shown at computer expo trade show COMDEX'83 held in Las Vegas, and advertised as "the professional small business computer." The Persona was distributed through ComputerLand which, at that time, was possibly the world’s largest computer retail chain. Since its introduction in August 1981, the IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly referred to as the IBM PC) had been rapidly gaining in popularity despite the fact that it operated under little known DOS operating system from Microsoft instead of the popular  CP/M operating system from Digital Research.  The main idea behind the Persona's development was to offer an affordable desktop computer with capabilities (and appearance) similar to that of the IBM PC but running CP/M instead of DOS. Later, to deal with the popularity of the IBM PC and rapidly expanding IBM PC clone market, Nelma offered a hardware kit to turn the Persona into an  IBM PC compatible computer. The Nelma Persona was designed by Jose Laraya -- the same engineer who in the early 1970s was leading the design of the MCM/70 personal computer at Micro Computer Machines of Toronto. Technical specifications: <ul> <li>CPU: Zilog Z80A</li> <li>RAM: 64Kb</li> <li>external storage: two  180Kb floppy drives</li> <li>ports: serial and parallel</li> <li>keyboard: QWERTY-style, detachable, with keypad and 11 program function keys</li> <li>display: a stand alone 12 inch CRT, monochrome (green)</li> </ul> Nelma offered a range of optional hardware for Persona including: <ul> <li>Intel 8086 processor kit</li> <li>360Kb floppy diskette drives</li> <li>10Mb Winchester hard drive</li> <li>additional 64Kb or 128Kb RAM</li> <li>high resolution color graphics</li> </ul> Software: <ul> <li>CP/M operating system version 2.2, Digital Research</li> <li>WordStar word processor, MicroPro</li> <li>MailMerge mailing list handler, MicroPro</li> <li>CalcStar spreadsheet, MicroPro</li> <li>InfoStar database, MicroPro</li> <li>SpellStar spelling checker, MicroPro</li> <li>MBasic, Microsoft</li> <li>Persona communications package, Nelma</li> <li>Persona Professional Accounting, Nelma</li> </ul> The museum has a NDC 100 Persona (serial number 8300321) with a keyboard and monitor. It was manufactured in March 1983. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Nelma Data Corporation Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant North America https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/e9fcd54c0f77182261c06360d32b4915.jpg 2bfe9b7e8cb2ec81b915f360efb9d2f8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ryerson 6800 Microcomputer Subject The topic of the resource computer hardware: educational computer Description An account of the resource Historical context: Microprocessor-based computers (microcomputers) were built at educational institutions as soon as the first 8-bit microprocessors became commercially available. They were initially constructed  as educational aids, as microprocessor trainers, and even as digital laboratory workstations set up at some universities to expose students to the principles of the emerging discipline of microprocessor systems design. These early educational microcomputers  were built around microprocessor demonstration boards offered by semiconductor companies as a low cost hardware aid to assist systems engineers in programming microprocessor-based devices. In 1973, Intel offered its SIM-8 demonstration board. Soon after other semiconductor companies offered their demonstration boards to support their microprocessors: Microsystems International Ltd. introduced its MOD-8 demonstrator in 1974, Motorola released its MEK 6800 in 1976 and so did MOS Technology and NEC which offered their demonstrators (the KIM-1 and the TK-80, respectively)  in the same year. In the 1970s, these demonstrators were popular with computer hobbyists. The Ryerson 6800 microcomputer was designed and constructed in the late 1970s at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Toronto Metropolitan University) to support its digital electronics course. According to a former Ryerson professor Peter Hiscocks. "The unit was put together to support the teaching of microprocessors when that was brand new in the EE curriculum  at Ryerson. The person that put the unit together was Augustine [Lee], I believe." The course was coordinated by Jack Miller and taught by, among other instructors, Augustine Lee and Doug Hawkes. The Ryerson 6800  was built around the Motorola MEK 6800D2 demonstration board. It was one of several single-board microcomputers used by students of Ryerson's Electrical Technology Department. Technical Specifications (for the MEK 6800D2): <ul> <li>CPU - Motorola 6800, 8-bit</li> <li>RAM - 1KB (4 x MCM 6810AP)</li> <li>ROM - SCM44520L with JBUG Monitor</li> <li>PORTS - asynchronous serial RS232, parallel I/O, audio cassette tape interface</li> <li>keypad -  hexadecimal: 16 keys for data entry section and 8 function keys</li> <li>display - 6 hex digit LED display.</li> </ul> Software: Motorola 6800 JBUG Monitor Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Motorola and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1970s Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context R6800 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Toronto, Canada Ryerson https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/8dacd22e5adf510b3b51fdc13fbda8a6.JPG 4901f74afb74300216691918a7e69f29 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Multiflex Video Display Terminal Kit Subject The topic of the resource computer hardware: video display terminal Description An account of the resource Historical Context: Multiflex Technology Inc. was one of the companies of the Exceltronix group controlled by Eugen Hutka. In 1979, Hutka founded Exceltronix with its retail office at 319 College Street in Toronto. In the early 1980s, Multiflex was developing complete computer systems based on the Zilog Z80, Motorola 68000, and Intel 8086 processors together with a variety of peripheral and expansion cards. The company also manufactured stand-alone intelligent terminals, video display kits, as well as a range of other electronic products including peripheral and expansion cards for the Apple ][ computer. In 1984, Multiflex designed its first in the line of BEST computers compatible with the IBM PC and AT desktops, making Exceltronix one of the largest Canadian manufacturers of microcomputers of the 1980s. Multiflex Video Display Terminal Kit -- technical description (from the Exceltronix Catalogue Supplement, Spring 1983): The video display terminal is "originally designed as a low cost access unit for our [Exceltronix] soon to be operational computerized mail-ordering and bulletin board system." The terminal "is controlled by a Z80A microprocessor and a 6845 CRT controller chip. The keyboard is fully ASCII encoded and the character generator contains the full 128-character set as well as a 128-character alternate set both of which are in 5x7 dot matrix format. The screen display is 80 characters by 24 lines if the unit is hooked to an external monitor or 64 by 24 if run through an RF modulator to a TV. There are 3 software selectable attributes (dim, reverse video, and alternate character set) which can be chosen one at a time for the whole screen... Also included are 2 RS232 ports: one for a modem and one so that a printer can be attached to the terminal... The MULTIFLEX Video Display Terminal has provisions for an on board modem freeing a serial port." The Multiflex Video Display Terminal Kit was offered in 1982 and sold by Exceltronix. The museum has a complete Multiflex Video Display Terminal Kit as well a Multiflex Video Display board (without a built-in keyboard) and a keyboard in a separate enclosure. For more information on the Multiflex Video Display Terminal Kit visit this <a href="https://github.com/rcl9/MultiFlex-Z80-H19-Terminal-Emulation-ROMs">GitHub link.</a> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Multiflex Technology Inc. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1982-- Type The nature or genre of the resource computer hardware Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context MULTIFLEX03 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, 1980s https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/59c8bca8dca795e9e9c5fb2cc259ba45.jpg 12eb1d49013e65707386b627e1ebedaa Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Volker-Craig VC204 Video Display Terminal Subject The topic of the resource computer hardware: video display terminal Description An account of the resource 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. (Montreal), Cybernex Ltd. (Ottawa), Electrohome (Kitchener), Lektromedia (Pointe Claire), NORPAK (Kanata), TIL Systems Ltd (Toronto), and Volker-Craig (Waterloo) were some of the pioneering companies. Volker-Craig Ltd. was a Canadian manufacturer of video terminals, founded in 1973 by Michael C. Volker and Ronald G. Craig, both graduates from University of Waterloo. The company's early objective was to manufacture inexpensive video terminals. In a 2020 interview by Steven Forth for Ibbaka market blog, Volker recollects that "In those days... video displays were very, very expensive and being a student, I thought, this [video terminal manufacturing] needs to be done in a way that is economical for students." Volker's fourth-year engineering project to design an electronic circuitry for a video terminal that would allow the presentation of characters on the screen of a rudimentary television set was an entrepreneurial trigger. By the end of the 1970s, Volker-Craig was selling its terminals around the world through its offices and distributors in, among other countries, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, and US. In January 1982, Volker-Craig merged with five other companies to form NABU Manufacturing Ltd. with headquarters in Ottawa, and continued to develop video terminals including the popular VC4404. In 1984, as a result of NABU's restructuring, Volker-Craig became once again a fully independent company renamed as Volker-Craig Technologies Ltd. The VC204 video display terminal was one of the earliest products offered by Volker-Craig. It was an alphanumeric terminal designed to operate with an external monitor. It was implemented using TTL technology and offered both ASCII and APL language character sets. Technical specifications: not available The museum has a VC204 video display terminal without documentation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Volker-Craig Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource mid-1970s Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context VC204 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Canada, 1970s https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/d6d85cdd2f23c420a3f0a6cff10a98c5.png c0bd3200d33f1cba19b90c1d680151d6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alias|Wavefront Maya 1.0 Subject The topic of the resource software: 3D animation and visual effects software Description An account of the resource Historical Context Since the 1950s, computer operators had used a variety of cathode ray tube (CRT) terminals for displaying information in a rudimentary graphical form during the execution of data processing tasks. Some computer users went further and, in their spare time, experimented with the use of computers and CRTs for entertainment. In 1958, an American physicist William Higinbotham created Tennis — possibly the first video game. As rudimentary as it was, it attracted much attention during visits to Brookhaven National Lab where Higinbotham was employed as an engineer in charge of instrumentation design. Then came more sophisticated video games such as Spacewar! developed in 1962 at MIT by Steve Russell in collaboration with other MIT students, as well as the first experimentation with computers for the purpose of art creation and animation. By the early 1970s, these experiments resulted in the first generation of commercial-grade computer image editing systems (such as Richard Shoup's SuperPaint, 1973) and animation programs (such as National Research Council Canada's computer animation program, 1971). These developments were possible in large part due to the advancements in computer and semiconductor industries, such as the arrival of affordable minicomputers and the introduction of semiconductor memories. Computer animation in Canada began in 1971 when the National Research Council Canada (NRC) scientists Nestor Burtnyk and Marceli Wein offered their animation software that greatly simplified a traditional and labor-intensive frame-by-frame animation process, requiring animation artists to draw every single frame. Instead, their program required an artist to draw only key frames leaving the generation of frames linking the key ones entirely to the computer. Peter Foldès was the first artist to use NRC's animation software. His 1973 film Hunger won, among other distinctions, a Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival in 1974, the Best Animated Film award at the 1975 British Academy of Film & Television Awards, and an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Academy) nomination in 1974 in the Best Animated Short Film category. In 1996, Burtnyk and Wein were presented with an Academy award for "for their pioneering work in the development of software techniques for Computer Assisted Key Framing for Character Animation." Burtnyk’s and Wein’s work was just the beginning of what would become one of the most innovative and impactful sectors in the Canadian software industry. Toronto-based Alias Systems Corporation founded in 1984, Softimage established in Montreal in 1986, and Side Effects Software incorporated in Toronto in 1987 quickly established themselves at the forefront in the development of tools supporting ever growing needs of digital artists and animators. Maya The work on Maya 3D animation and visual effects software started in 1993 at Alias Systems Corporation — the company founded a decade earlier as Alias Research by Stephen Bingham, Susan McKenna, Nigel McGrath, and David Springer. The company's early objective was to produce a practical software package for the creation of realistic 3D video animations and to support computer-aided design. Alias' first products—the Alias/1 (1985) and Alias/2 (1986) 3D software packages—were acquired by several automotive companies and employed in the production of special effects in blockbuster feature films including The Abyss — a science fiction movie awarded the Academy's Oscar for Best Visual Effects in 1989. Alias' new 3D animation software—the PowerAnimator introduced in 1990—was even more successful. It was used in the production of special effects in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993), earning both movies Oscars in the Best Visual Effects category. In 1994, six blockbuster films employed PowerAnimator-generated special effects: Forrest Gump, The Mask, Speed, The Flintstones, True Lies, and Star Trek: The Next Generation—A Final Unity with the Oscar awarded to Forrest Gump. The growing competition from other 3D companies as well as continuous pressure exerted by the entertainment and gaming industries upon 3D companies to deliver tools for even more realistic and sophisticated animation stimulated Alias to begin evolving its PowerAnimator into the next generation 3D animation software, Maya. In 1995, under the umbrella of Silicon Graphics, Alias merged with Santa Barbara, California-based Wavefront—another successful computer graphics company—to form Alias|Wavefront with headquarters in Toronto. This merger opened the door to an even more sophisticated world of 3D animation. In January 1998, the company released Maya Versio 1.0 — its new 3D animation software package. The software was primarily based on Alias' PowerAnimator and Wavefront's successful Advanced Visualizer. In the subsequent years, Alias|Wavefront was continuously upgrading and expanding Maya beginning with the release of Maya Builder, Maya Complete, and Maya Unlimited in 1999. "Maya Unlimited extends the realm of possibility for digital artists who want to shape the frontier of advanced 3D technology," stated Alias|Wavefront in its corporate history published by the company in 2004. And indeed, it did. Maya quickly became the 3D modelling and animation software of choice for the animation and gaming industries. Since 1999, it has been used for the creation of special effects in numerous popular movies including Matrix (1999, Oscar in the Best Visual Effects category), Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999, Oscar nomination in the Best Visual Effects category), Stuart Little (1999, Oscar nomination in the Best Visual Effects category), Dinosaur (2000, the fifth highest-grossing film of that year), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, Oscar in the Best Visual Effects category), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001), Shrek (2001, Oscar in the Best Animated Feature category), The Birds (2001, Oscar in the Best Animated Short Film category), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002, Oscar in the Best Visual Effects category), Spider-Man (2002, Oscar nomination in the Best Visual Effects category), Ice Age (2002, Oscar in the Animated Feature Film category), The ChubbChubbs! (2002, Oscar in the Animated Short Film category), Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002, Oscar nomination in the Best Visual Effects category), The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King (2003, Oscar in the Best Visual Effects category), and many others. In 2002, Alias|Wavefront, was awarded an Oscar in the Technical Achievement category for its development of Maya. While this was Alias|Wavefront's first time to receive an Oscar, several employees had been honoured by the Academy previously for their achievements in the Scientific and Technical Awards categories. These Academy recognitions would continue to be bestowed upon the company's employees in the following years. In July 2003, the company changed its name to Alias. In October 2005, it was acquired by Autodesk of San Rafael, California. Since then, Autodesk has continued to develop Maya and other Alias' popular software packages including StudioTools, ImageStudio, and PortfolioWall  — Alias' key solutions for design and visualization. Maya major releases: Maya version 1.0 (Alias|Wavefront, January 1998) Maya Complete (Alias|Wavefront, 1999) Maya Unlimited (Alias|Wavefront, 1999) Maya 3 (Alias|Wavefront, June 2000) Maya 4.5 (Alias|Wavefront, June 2002) Maya 5 (Alias|Wavefront, April 2003) Maya 6 (Alias, 2004) Maya 6.5 (Alias, January 2005) Maya 7 (Alias, August 2005) Maya 8 (Autodesk, 2006) Maya 8.5 (Autodesk, 2007) Autodesk Maya 2009 (Autodesk, 2008) Autodesk Maya 2010 (Autodesk, 2009) Autodesk Maya 2011 (Autodesk, 2010) ...... Autodesk Maya 2023 (Autodesk, 2022) The museum has: - Maya 1.0, (box set), Alias|Wavefront, January 1998; the box set     includes:    *  Learning Maya Version 1.0, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using Maya Modelling, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Maya 1.0 Release Notes, Alias|Wavefront, February 1998    *  Maya 1.0 Developer's Kit Release Notes, Alias|Wavefront,        February 1998    *  Maya 1.0 Installing & Licensing, Alias|Wavefront, 1998    *  Maya 1.0 F/X, Artisan, and Developer's Kit (DVD-ROM),       Alias|Wavefront, 1998    *  Using Maya Version 1.0, Basics, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using Maya Version 1.0, Animation, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using Maya Version 1.0, Dynamics, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using Maya Version 1.0, HyperGraph, Sets & Expressions,       Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using Maya Version 1.0, Rendering, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  VIZPAINT 2D User's Guide 3.3, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Using MEL, ver. 1.0, Alias|Wavefront, January 1998    *  Discover Maya (DVD-ROM), Alias|Wavefront, 1998    *  Composer 4.5M (DVD-ROM), Alias|Wavefront, 1998    *  several promotional and reference brochures, 1998 - Character Animation in Maya, Alias|Wavefront, January 1999;  the front   cover has a stamp "Property of Lucas Arts Entertainment Company Art   Department" - Learning Maya 5, Foundation, Alias|Wavefront, 2003; includes    DVD-ROM - Learning Autodesk Maya 8, Foundation (DVD-ROM), Autodesk, 2006 - G. Maestri and M. Larkins, Maya 8 at a Glance, Wiley Publishing   Inc., 2006; includes DVD-ROM - Autodesk Maya 8.5, (DVD-ROM), Autodesk, 2007 - Learning Autodesk Maya 2009, The Special Effects Handbook,   Autodesk, 2008 - Eric Keller, Mastering Maya 2009, Wiley Publishing Inc., 2009;   includes DVD-ROM - Silicon Graphics Indigo^2 workstation, model nr. CMNB007BF195, with   PowerAnimator installed. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Alias|Wavefront Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1998 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Artifacts donated by Robertson Holt Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant world, 1998-- https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/7fea73e3682003d24ee65a0105908576.jpg bc5cbb95695dc1734c2ca3e35cd1e182 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Micro Computer Machines Collection Description An account of the resource <div>In April, 1972, Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, California, announced its first 8-bit microprocessor — the 8008. In just a few months, the prototypes of the first general purpose computers powered by the 8008 chip were already working on site at the French company Réalisations et Études Électroniques located in the suburbs of Paris and at Micro Computer Machines (MCM) with headquarters situated on the outskirts of Toronto. These firms fully recognized, articulated, and acted upon the immense potential of the budding microprocessor technology for the development of a new generation of cost effective computing systems. However, it was MCM which built and, later, manufactured the first microprocessor-based computer designed specifically for personal use — the first PC. MCM's first computer—the MCM/70—was designed in the period between 1972 and 73 and announced on September 25, 1973, in Toronto. The computer was unveiled in New York on September 27th and, the following day, in Boston. One of its early prototypes was demonstrated in May of 1973 during the Fifth International APL Users' Conference in Toronto. The MCM/70 computers were purchased in North America and Europe by acedemic institutions as well as large organizations and companies including Chevron Oil Research Company, Firestone, Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, Ontario Hydro-Electric Power Commission, NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre, and U.S. Army. The MCM/70 was followed by the MCM/700 (1975), /800 (1976), /900 (1977), the Power (1980) computers.</div> <div> Acquisition: The objects in the collection have been donated by E.M. Edwards Estate, A. Arpen, R. Bernecky, R. Elliott, L. Gladstone, M. Kutt, J. Laraya, G. Ramer, R. Rea, G. Seeds, M. Smyth, Z. Stachniak, and J. Woods. HARDWARE <ul> <li>Early MCM/70 prototype (based on Intel SIM8-01) (1972)</li> <li>Memory board from the rack-mounted MCM/70 prototype (1972)</li> <li>MCM/70 Executive (1973)</li> <li>early MCM/70 ROM board (1973?)</li> <li>MCM/70 Model 708 computer (1974)</li> <li>MCM/70 power supply (1974?)</li> <li>MCM printer, Model MCP 132 N (1975)</li> <li>DDS-1000 Diskette Subsystem (1975)</li> <li>MPD-1000 Diskette Subsystem (1975)</li> <li>A prototype of an MCM/700 variant designed by E.E. Edwards (1975?)</li> <li>MCM/800 Model 808 computer (1976)</li> <li>A prototype of an MCM/800 variant designed by E.E. Edwards (1977?)</li> <li>MCM/900 Model 924 computer (1978)</li> <li>MCM Micro Power Model 524 computer (1981)</li> </ul>  SOFTWARE  <ul> <li>MCM/70 Mathematics Library, May 7, 1974</li> <li>MCM/70 Statistics Library, May 7, 1974</li> <li>MCM/70 Finance Library, May 7, 1974</li> <li>MCM/70 Electricity and Electrical Engineering Library, May 7, 1974</li> <li>MCM/70 Fun and Games Library, May 7, 1974</li> <li>APL A* code listings, June 4, 1980</li> </ul>  MANUALS and GUIDES   <ul> <li>MCM/70 Introductory Manual, Micro Computer Machines (1973)</li> <li>J. Morgan Smyth, MCM/70 User's Guide, Micro Computer Machines (1974) (spiral bounded preprint)</li> <li>J. Morgan Smyth, MCM/70 User's Guide , Micro Computer Machines, Toronto and Kingston (1974)</li> <li>MCM/70 Installation Guide, MCM (1974?)</li> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer, Distributor Service Manual, Preliminary issue, Micro Computer Machines (September 1974)</li> <li>MCP-132 (HyType) Printer Operating Guide, MCM (July 1975)</li> <li>MCM/APL Reference Cards, MCM (1976 and May 1981)</li> <li>SCI-1200 Communications Sub-System, Installation Instructions and Reference Manual, MCM (1976?)</li> <li>MCP-132 Printer User's Guide, rev. 1 (June 1, 1977)</li> <li>DDS-500 Dual Disk System User Guide [preliminary], Micro Computer Machines (June 8, 1977)</li> <li>MCM System/800 Utilities Manual, rev. AA, MCM (August 1977)</li> <li>MCM Computers System 800: Using The MCM Computer as a Terminal and Transferring Data to and from APL Plus, manual nr. 018 033, rev. AA, MCM (January 1978)</li> <li>VDU-9620 Reference Manual, MCM (August 1978)</li> <li>DDS-1000 Diskette Drive User's Manual, MCM Computers Ltd., rev. AA (October 1978)</li> <li>TEXT/900 Word Processing System, MCM Computers Ltd., rev. AC (November 1978)</li> <li>MCM/900 User's Manual, rev. AB, MCM (December 1978)</li> <li>MCM LIB/8 System Documentation [describes a collection of APL functions which facilitate the creation and maintenance of a library of user application packages for the MCM/800], Micro Computer Machines (197?)</li> <li>FAS: Financial Accounting System User's Manual, MCM Computers Ltd. (197?)</li> <li>Fast Functions on the MCM/900, MCM Computers Ltd. (197?)</li> <li>FAS: Financial MCM System/900 Utilities Manual, MCM Computers Ltd., rev. AA (February 1979)</li> <li>MCM System/900 Utilities Manual, rev. AA, MCM (February 1979)</li> <li>Communications Subsystem Reference Manual, rev. AB, MCM Computers Ltd. (March 1979)</li> <li>MCM/900 User's Manual, MCM Computers Ltd., rev. AC (May 1979)</li> <li>TEXT/900 With Data Files, Supplementary Documentation, MCM Computers Ltd., rev. AA (July 1979)</li> <li>CAS-900 Client Accounting System, MCM Computers Ltd. (September 19, 1979)</li> <li>DCS: Data Communication System User's Guide, version 3, MCM Computers Ltd. (April 1980)</li> <li>Small Business System: Programmer's Reference Manual, version 1, MCM Computers Ltd. (August 1980)</li> <li>MCM/APL User's Guide, preliminary release, MCM Computers Ltd. (September 1980)</li> <li>Client Accounting System, General Ledger, Accounting Reports, MCM Computers Ltd. (February 1981)</li> <li>Client Accounting System, Time and Charges, MCM Computers Ltd. (February 1981)</li> <li>924/1024 System Technical Manual [preliminary], MCM (February 27, 1981)</li> <li>[]ZZ System Functions User's Guide, preliminary release, MCM Computers Ltd. (March 31, 1981)</li> <li>A Fast []FNT Type Numeric Formatter, MCM Computers Ltd., 7 pages (1 May, 1981)</li> <li>Power Mail: Message Processing Facility, MCM (May 1981)</li> <li>POWER Utilities User's Guide, preliminary release, MCM Computers Ltd. (June 1981)</li> <li>Distributor Announcement, No. 44, MCM (May 11, 1982)</li> </ul>  CORPORATE DOCUMENTS      1971  <ul> <li>Hypothecation of Shares and Purchase of Shares Agreements Between Gordon Ramer and Merslau Kutt (December 28, 1971)</li> <li>Kutt Systems, Inc., Micro Computer Machines Inc., and MCM Computers Ltd. corporate data, Ontario Ministry of Consumer and Commercial Relations, Toronto, file number 251340 (copy on micro-fish)</li> <li>Intel's Invoice for: SIM4-01, MP7-01, and MCS-4 chip set to be sent to Mers Kutt, December 28, 1971</li> <li>Intel's Form of Invoice for: SIM4-01, MP7-01, and MCS-4 chip set to be sent to Mers Kutt, signed by Hank Smith, December 28, 1971</li> </ul>       1972 <ul> <li>Intel, Shipping Request for SIM4-01, SIM8-01, MP7-02, to be delivered to Mers Kutt, May 12, 1972</li> <li>Intel, Packing Slip for SIM4-01, SIM8-01, MP7-02, to be delivered to Mers Kutt, May 12, 1972</li> <li>Intel's Form of Invoice for: SIM4-01, SIM8-01, MP7-02, to be sent to Kutt Systems Inc., May 12, 1972</li> <li>Intel's Form of Invoice for: SIM8-01 to be sent to Kutt Systems Inc., May 23, 1972</li> <li>Minutes of the Special General Meeting of the Shareholders of KUTT SYSTEMS INC., Saturday, November 11, 1972, 1 page</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., 1972 Financial Statements (draft), 7 pages</li> <li>Letter from Hal Fenney (Intel) to Mers Kutt, October 4, 1972 [re SIM8-01 board], 1 page</li> <li>Note from Hank Smith (Intel) to Mers Kutt, October 4, 1972 [re SIM8-01 board], 1 page</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., 1972 Financial Statements, 7 pages</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Company Certificate from the Registry Office for the Registry Division of Toronto (April 17, 1972)</l i></li> </ul>        1973 <ul> <li>Collection of design documents of two MCM/70 prototypes (April-July, 1973)</li> <li>Agreement to Purchase and Transfer Stock (March 7, 1973?)</li> <li>Receipt for MCM shares purchase (April 5, 1973)</li> <li>Portfolio of MCM Shareholder Documents (May 7 and May 14, 1973)</li> <li>Agreement between G. Ramer and M. Kutt, 4 pages (May 16, 1973) Letter to MCM shareholders, signed Mers Kutt, President, 2 pages (August 24, 1973)</li> <li>Letter from Micro Computer Machines to Canadian Consulates, signed Mers Kutt, President, 2 pages (November 1, 1973)</li> <li>Letter to MCM shareholders, signed Mers Kutt, President, 1 page (November 1973)</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., 1973 Interim Financial Statements (unedited), 6 pages</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., 1973 Financial Statements, 6 pages</li> <li>Collection of MCM corporate information documents (1973)</li> <li>Collection of Kutt Systems Inc. and MCM Inc. Corporate Documents (1973)</li> </ul>        1974 <ul> <li>MCM corporate information, 31 pages, 1974</li> <li>Letter to potential users of MCM products, February 1974, signed by Peter J. Wolfe, Manager, Business Systems, 1 page.</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Purchase Order no 10199 [for Intel's MCS8s], March 1, 1974, 1 page</li> <li>Data Device Corporation price list for MCM products, May 13, 1974, 1 page</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, May 17, 1974, signed ?, Secretary</li> <li>Data Device Corporation quotation for an MCM/70 system, May 21, 1974, signed Ted Berg, Vice President, 1 page</li> <li>Letter to shareholders of Micro Computer Machines Inc,. May 28, 1974, signed Mers Kutt, President, 2 pages</li> <li>"To the members of the Board of Directors of Micro Computer Machines Inc.", a memorandum signed by 21 MCM empolyees, August 1, 1974, 3 pages</li> <li>Letter from Micro Computer Machines Inc. to APL'ers, 1974(?), signed Ted Berg, President, 1 page</li> </ul>        1975 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Jun 13, 1975</li> <li>Letter to potential users of MCM products, 1975(?) [re the announcement of the IBM 5100], signed Ted Berg, President, 1 page</li> <li>Letter from Ted Berg to Sales Representatives "Notice of Upcoming Product Features", November 27, 1975, signed T.M. Berg, 1 page</li> <li>MCM employment documents for E. Edwards</li> </ul>        1976 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Jun 21, 1976</li> <li>Letter from Borden and Elliot to Gordon Ramer, November 26, 1976, 2 pages</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Common Shares, issued in 1976</li> <li>MCM/700 Configuration, technical specification, May 7, 1976</li> </ul>        1977 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Jun 24, 1977</li> <li>Letter from Borden and Elliot to Gordon Ramer, March 9, 1977, 2 pages</li> <li>Agreement to Purchase and Transfer Ownership of Stock, October 29, 1977</li> </ul>        1978 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Jun 8, 1978</li> <li>Powerful New Business Computer System Introduced by MCM, MCM Computers Ltd. press release, 1978, 1 page</li> <li>MCM Computers Ltd., 1978 Auditors' Report. 8 pages</li> <li>Distributor Price List, September 27, 1978, 1 page</li> <li>Interactive Computer Systems, Inc., Price List, November 1, 1978, 2 pages</li> <li>System 800/900 Actuarial/Insurance Users, November 1978, 1 page</li> <li>Distributorship Agreement, 1978, 12 pages</li> </ul>        1979 <ul> <li>1978 Auditors' Report, February 13, 1979, 8 pages</li> <li>Canadian Price List, MCM, March 1, 1979, 2 pages</li> <li>Distributor Price List, MCM, March 1, 1979, 1 page</li> <li>Letter to shareholders of MCM Computers Ltd, May 24, 1979, 2 pages, signed C.M. Williams, President</li> <li>Notice of Correction, letter to shareholders of MCM Computers Ltd, June 4, 1979, signed B.C. Wallace, Chairman, 1 page</li> <li>MCM Computers Ltd., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, May 25, 1979, signed by W.S. Robertson, Secretary, 1 page</li> <li>MCM Computers Ltd., Proxy, May 1979, 1 page</li> <li>Representative System 800/900 Installations, May 1979, 3 pages</li> <li>Canadian Price List, MCM, July 1, 1979, 2 pages</li> <li>Distributor Price List, MCM, July 1, 1979, 2 pages</li> <li>TAS-900 Pricing, November 26, 1979, 1 page</li> <li>Cost Justification for the DMS/FAS on the System 900, MCM, 1979(?), 2 pages</li> </ul>        1980 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, Jun 11, 1980</li> </ul>        1982 <ul> <li>Micro Computer Machines Inc., Notice of Annual Meeting of Shareholders, May 25, 1982, 1980</li> </ul>   MARKETING MATERIALS        1973 <ul> <li>Media/Press Release, September 28, 1973, 4 pages [the announcement of the MCM/70]</li> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer, Preannouncement, Confidential Information [promotional brochure with an MCM/70 prototype on the first page], 2 double-sided pages, August 1973</li> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer [promotional brochure with an MCM/70 prototype on the first page], 1 double-sided page, 1973</li> <li>The MCM/70T Intelligent Terminal [promotional brochure], 1 page, November(?) 1973</li> <li>A Sample of Quotations from Letters Received, November 1973, 2 pages [quotations from letters received by MCM re the MCM/70]</li> <li>Collage of articles on the MCM/70 prepared by MCM for shareholders, 1973, 6 pages</li> <li>Inquiries & Responses Received After Trip [to Europe with the MCM/70 prototype], 2 pages</li> </ul>        1974 <ul> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer [promotional brochure with the production model of the MCM/70 on the front page], 4 double-sided pages [includes information on the MCM/70 hardware, preliminary specifications of the MCM/APL interpreter, information on the MCM/70 in science, business, and education], February 1974</li> <li>The MCM/70 in education [promotional brochure], 2 double-sided pages, 1974?</li> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer [promotional brochure with the production model of the MCM/70 on the front page], 5 double-sided pages [includes information on the MCM/70 hardware, preliminary specifications of the MCM/APL interpreter, information on MCM as well as on the MCM/70 in science, business, and education], 1974</li> <li>MCM/70 Desk Top Computer, MCM/APL [promotional brochure with the production model of the MCM/70 on the front page], 5 double-sided pages [includes information on the MCM/70 hardware, preliminary specifications of the MCM/APL interpreter, information on MCM as well as on the MCM/70 in science, business, and education], 1974</li> </ul>        1975 <ul> <li>Introducing The Smallest, Least Expensive, Stand-Alone APL Desktop Computer MCM/700 [promotional brochure], 6 pages</li> <li>MCM Sales Reference, 21 pages, 1975?</li> <li>SDS-250/DDS-500 Diskette Subsystems [promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1975?</li> <li>PMR-400 Card Reader [promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1975?</li> <li>MCP-132 Printer/Plotter [promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1975?</li> <li>Application Libraries [list of software for the /700 system], 4 pages</li> <li>Promotional letter from Peter J. Wolfe, Marketing Manager, to potential MCM clients, 2 pages.</li> <li>MCM price list, 1 page.</li> </ul>       1976 <ul> <li>MCM News, Newsletter, vol 1(?) [most likely published in the early 1976], 8 pages</li> <li>Micro Computer Machines, Inc., Distributor Information Kit, Micro Computer Machines, 1976</li> <li>System 800, [MCM Computers promotional brochure for the MCM/800 system], 6 pages</li> <li>System Software" [information on software for the MCM/800], 2 pages</li> <li>Applications Library Summary [information on software libraries for the] MCM/800, 4 pages</li> <li>PVAS A new concept for Performing Pension Actuarial Valuations and Pension Plan Administration [promotional brochure for the /800 system], 6 pages</li> <li>TEXT 800, Word Processing with System 800 [promotional brochure for the /800 system], 3 pages</li> <li>TEXT 800, Word Processing with System 800 [promotional brochure for the /800 system], 2 pages</li> <li>VDU-9620 Video Display For System 800 [promotional brochure], 5 pages</li> <li>< VDU-9620 Video Display For System 800 [promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>MCP-132 Printer/Plotter [promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>DDS-500 Diskette System [promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>Here's what other Actuaries say about the MCM/800 system [promotional brochure], 6 pages</li> <li>MCM's System 800: the combination of data processing and word processing [promotional brochure], 1 page</li> <li>The MCM/800 System Software, 2 pages</li> </ul> 1977 <ul> <li>MCM FI-PLAN [the MCM/800 promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>System 800 Demonstration Package, Rev. AA, October 1977, 9 pages</li> <li>O. Zimmerman, MCM/800 and APL Gain Acceptance in Insurance Applications at Crown Life, 9 pages</li> </ul> 1978 <ul> <li>MCM FI-PLAN: Sample Projection , 6 pages</li> <li>MCM 800 vs Timesharing , 6 pages</li> <li>If you spend more[...] [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>APL and Virtual Memory [...] [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 2 pages</li> <li>MCM 800 vs IBM 5110, 2 pages</li> <li>Introducing.... [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 4 pages</li> <li>MCM Computers: System 900 [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 4 pages</li> <li>Businesses today are faced with a maze of problems [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1978?</li> <li>APL and Virtual Memory -- two main reasons why... [the MCM/900 promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1978?</li> </ul> 1979 <ul> <li>DCS/900 Data Communications with System/900 [promotional brochure], 1 page, 1979?</li> <li>AID/900 Utilities and Libraries for System/900 [promotional brochure], 1 page, 1979?</li> <li>LIB/900 Program Development with System/900 [promotional brochure], 1 page, 1979?</li> <li>PLOT/900 Plotting Software for System/900 [promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1979?</li> <li>MCM Computers System/900 [promotional brochure], 4 pages, 1979?</li> <li>System 900: The Affordable Solution [promotional brochure], 2 pages, 1979?</li> <li> CAS-900 Client Accounting System [promotional brochure], 4 pages, 1979?</li> <li>TEXT/900 Word Processing with System/900 [promotional brochure for the /800 system], 3 pages, 1979?</li> <li>TEXT/900 Word Processing with System/900 [promotional brochure for the /800 system], 1 page, 1979?</li> <li>MCM Price Lists, 1975-79.</li> </ul>       1980 <ul> <li>Power [MCM Power promotional brochure], 4 pages, 1980?</li> <li>Product Data Sheet and Hardware Tech Spec[brochures for the MCM Power], 2 pages, 1980?</li> <li>MCM User Support Notes, May 15, 1980 -- March 20, 1981.</li> </ul>   1982 <ul> <li>CAS Price List, The Intergroup Partnership (May 1, 1982)</li> <li>Distributor Announcement No. 44, MCM Computers (May 11, 1982)</li> </ul>   PHOTOGRAPHS <ul> <li>Photograph of the MCM/70 wide-case prototype, b/w original (1973)</li> <li>Photograph of E.E. Edwards with the MCM/70 Executive, b/w original. Photograph for Politiken (1973)</li> <li>Photograph of the MCM/70, b/w original, (1973?)</li> <li>The announcement of the MCM/70, Toronto, Sep. 25, 1973 -- b/w original (Sep. 25, 1973)</li> <li>Photograph of the MCM/800 with CRT -- b/w original (1976?)</li> <li>Photograph of the MCM/900 business system -- b/w original (1978?)</li> <li>Photograph of the MCM/900 computer -- b/w original (1978?).</li> <li>The MCM/700 production line, MCM's manufacturing facility in Kingston. Photograph by Jose Laraya(?) (1975?)</li> <li>DDS-500, photograph by Jose Laraya(?) (1975?)</li> <li>3 photographs of the MCM/800 by Jose Laraya(?) (1976?)</li> <li>6 photographs of MCM team at York University (photographs of Andre Arpin, Don Genner, Mers Kutt, Morgan Smyth, Gord Ramer). Photograph by Z. Stachniak (November 2001)</li> </ul> MCM DIGITAL LIBRARY <ul> <li>Andre Arpin speaking at York University, Toronto, March 28, 2003 (audio)</li> <li>Andre Arpin, MCM/70 -- The First Portable Microcomputer presentation, York University, Toronto, March 28, 2003 (PowerPoint)</li> <li>interview with Andre Arpin, Kingston, April 10, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Don Genner, Guelph, August 31, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Mers Kutt, Toronto, March 1, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Mers Kutt, Toronto, March 6, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>Mers Kutt speaking at York University, Toronto, October 24, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Mers Kutt, Toronto, November 11, 2002 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Jose Laraya, Toronto, September 13, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Jose Laraya, Toronto, September 28, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Gordon Ramer, Toronto, March 27, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>nterview with Reg Rea, Stoney Creek, October 20, 2005 (audio)</li> <li>interview with Morgan Smyth, Toronto, July 25, 2001 (audio)</li> <li>interview with John Woods, Milton, October 22, 2008 (audio)</li> <li>e-mail communications with former users of MCM hardware</li> </ul> BOOKS, RESEARCH PAPERS, ARTICLES <ul> <li>A. Arpin, External Allocation System (EASY) / A Virtual System (AVS). In Proc. of the APL 75 Congress, Pisa, Italy (1975)</li> <li>R.F. Bauer, Implementation of APL on Small Computers. In Proc. of the APL 79 Conference, Rochester N.Y. (1979)</li> <li>B.J. Bleackley and J. LaPrairie, Entering the Computer Age. The Computer Industry in Canada: The First Thirty Years, The Book Society of Canada Ltd, 1982</li> <li>J. Chevreau, The Third Coming of Mers Kutt, Report on Business Magazine, November 1985, pp. 111--118</li> <li>M. Kutt, microcomputer development notes, (1972), 36 pages</li> <li>J. Morgan Smyth, York APL, Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, Toronto (1972)</li> <li>J. Morgan Smyth, EASY and AVS: The Two Auxiliary Storage Subsystems of the MCM/70. In Proc. of the APL 75 Congress, Pisa, Italy (1975), pp. 313--319</li> <li>G. Ramer(?) York APL Users Guide, APL Systems, November 15, 1971</li> <li>Stachniak, Z. Learning from Prototypes, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 42, no. 2 (2020), pp. 63-71.</li> <li>Stachniak, Z. Software Recovery and Beyond: The MCM/70 Case, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing vol. 41, nr. 4 (2019), pp. 110-118.</li> <li>Stachniak, Z. MCM on Personal Software, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 39, no. 1 (2017), pp. 29--51.</li> <li>Z. Stachniak, The Making of the MCM/70 Microcomputer, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 25, issue 2 (April-June 2003), pp. 62--75.</li> <li>Z. Stachniak, The MCM/70 Microcomputer, Core 4.1, The Computer History Museum (September 2003), pp. 6--12</li> <li>A. Wahl, Kutt's last stand, Canadian Business (October 11--24, 2006), pp. 56--64.</li> <li>Kutt takes wraps off new minicomputer, Canadian Datasystems, October 1973, p. 49.</li> <li>A file with various articles related to MCM, 1973-2003.</li> </ul>   OTHER <ul> <li>M. Kutt Archive, 1973-74</li> <li>G. Ramer Archive, 1972-75</li> <li>R. Elliott Archive, 1975-1982</li> <li>Collection of documents concerning EE.Edwards' participation in the 1973 International APL Conference in Denmark. The collection includes an invitation from the Danish Computing Society (Jun 8, 19073), an English translation of the "Computer in a briefcase" article that appeared in Politiken on August 23, 1973, and a photograph of E.E. Edwards with the MCM/70 Executive.</li> <li>Several MCM digital cassettes</li> <li>I love APL, MCM sticker</li> <li>Pavement Management System, manual, MCM/POWER, 83 pages (198?)</li> <li>Lecture notes from an MCM seminar taken by Russell Elliott on June 9--10, 1977</li> <li>Seven files of various software printouts</li> <li>Intel 4004 uComputer; the first single board computer received by MCM from Intel in 1972</li> <li>MCM's ten-th anniversary coffee mug.</li> <li>Letter from the Chancellery of Honours Directorate, Government of Canada, concerning possible appointment of Mers Kutt to the Order of Canada, January 12, 2004.</li> </ul> </div> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Zbigniew Stachniak Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2003-2021 Subject The topic of the resource <img src="http://museum1.eecs.yorku.ca/www_decorations/MCM_logo.jpg" alt="MCM_logo" width="5%" height="5%" border="0" /> The MCM Collection documents computer development activities at Micro Computer Machines (MCM). Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource SIM8-01 based prototype of the MCM/70 Subject The topic of the resource computer hardware: microcomputer Description An account of the resource Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) The MCS-8 microcomputer set was announced by Intel in late 1971. Everyone in systems engineering has been waiting for the under \$100 computer. Today it's here! [the alternative, Intel, 1971] The set consisted of a single-chip CPU—the 8-bit 8008 microprocessor—and standard semiconductor ROM's, RAM's, and shift registers. It was the MCS-8 and, in particular, its first implementation in Intel's SIM8-01 prototyping system that generated the first wave of design activities aimed at the development of microprocessor based architectures for general purpose programmable computers. In just a few months, the prototypes of such computers powered by the 8008 chip were already working on site at the French company Réalisations et Études Électroniques located in the suburbs of Paris and at Micro Computer Machines (MCM) with headquarters situated on the outskirts of Toronto. These firms fully recognized, articulated, and acted upon the immense potential of the budding microprocessor technology for the development of a new generation of cost effective computing systems. However, it was MCM which built the first microprocessor-based computer designed specifically for personal use — the MCM/70, the first PC. The SIM8-01 was marketed as a complete prototyping system for the development of MCS-8 applications. It was offered in April 1972 and, at that time, its schematic diagram included in the premiere edition of the 8008 8-Bit Parallel Central Processor Unit manual was the only published design of an 8-bit computer with a single-chip CPU. It was inevitable that MCM would use the SIM8-01 to attempt at implementing the core features of the company's future PC. In mid-1972 MCM’s chief hardware engineer Jose Laraya built the first prototype of the MCM/70. His computer utilized an Intel SIM8-01 simulation board as well as an Intel MP7-02 Eprom programmer which was used by MCM's software engineer Gord Ramer during the development of the MCM/APL interpreter that the production model of the MCM/70 would feature. Although the SIM8-01 architecture proved inadequate to achieve MCM’s design objectives, this first prototype confirmed that building a versatile microprocessor-based computer was feasible. The official announcement of the MCM/70 came on September 25, 1973, in Toronto. Its manufacturing commenced in mid 1974. Recommended readings: <ul> <li>Stachniak, Z. <a href="http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2643"> Inventing the PC: the MCM/70 Story </a>, McGill-Queen's University Press (2011).</li> <li>Stachniak, Z. Intel SIM8-01: A proto-PC IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, January-March 2007 (vol. 29 no. 1), pp. 34—48.</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Micro Computer Machines Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Ontario, Canada, 1972 https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/799b3d889e9d66edfee9c752434f24bb.jpg 8650aae07d84bf4724123fbc3514f4b0 https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/056a1ad2a2d817137bee4d0f9eb853d9.jpg fbb87648b4cdc24139248f5d97de5681 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Wang 320SE calculator at York University Subject The topic of the resource hardware: electronic calcuator Description An account of the resource Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) The commercialization of the transistor in the first half of the 1950s had a dramatic impact on the decade-old computer industry. The all-transistor computers were offered as early as 1953 and, by the end of the 1950s, all major computer manufacturers were building transistorized machines. Similar shift to solid-state technology was made across consumer electronics industry (for example, in the mid-1950s, all-transistor radios quickly began to replace large and bulky vacuum tubes-based radio sets). Despite clear advantages that solid-state electronics had to offer to calculator manufacturers (if built, transistor-based  calculators would be smaller, quieter, more versatile, and virtually maintenance free when compared with the traditional desktop electro-mechanical calculators), the calculator industry was much slower in adopting the new technology. Calculator manufacturers were quite reluctant to venture into electronics when no competitors, even those with electronics divisions (such as Olivetti, Burroughs, Sony, and Canon), were putting any electronic calculators on the market. They were simply unwilling to go against their main core products that still delivered corporate wealth and prestige, they had no desire to invest substantial resources into concurrent divisions of electronic calculators that would internally compete with their best-performing divisions of electro-mechanical calculators. It was not until the early 1960s that the first solid-state calculators appeared on the consumer market and almost instantly gained consumer acceptance. While most of the early electronic calculators supported only rudimentary arithmetic operations with, in some cases, one or two memory registers for storing intermediate results, several firms introduced calculators with functionality that went far beyond that. The execution of short sequences of instructions (programs) was the most notable of these new features. Programs for such calculators could be keyed-in by an operator or read from an external storage media (such as punch cards) and, then executed as many times as desired by a single press of a key. In 1964, Massachusetts-based companies Mathatronics Inc. and Wang Laboratories Inc. introduced their first programmable calculators: the Mathatron and the LOCI-2, respectively. The following year, an Italian manufacturer of office equipment Olivetti introduced its Programma 101. All these programmable calculators were positioned to bridge the gap between ordinary desk-top calculators that offered instantaneous, personal, and easy to use operations but no substantial information processing capabilities, and the large and complex mainframe computers that required high-degree of training and long waiting times to perform users' computational tasks. Some of these calculators could be interfaced with a range of peripherals including printers, plotters, and external storage. Libraries of ready to run programs were also offered. Wang announced its new 300 Series programmable calculator in 1967. The calculator's more advanced models in the 300 series were offered in 1968. In their basic configuration, all these systems consisted of the central processing unit (CPU, referred to as "electronic package" in Wang's literature) and of up to four keyboard consoles remotely connected to the CPU. Using a standard keyboard console (model "K") a user could execute programs composed in terms of rudimentary arithmetic operations as well as square root, logarithmic and exponential functions. Programs of up to 80 steps were stored on dedicated punch cards and could be executed by reading them using an optional CP-1 Card Programmer interfaced with the calculator. Using a trigonometric keyboard unit (model "KT") a user could include trigonometric functions in programs. The calculator also offered random access storage (in up to four random access registers) and automatic summation of products, multipliers, and/or entries. Wang published a library of applications programs in areas ranging from engineering to finance. Wang 320SE at York University In the mid-1960s, York was rapidly growing and establishing new key departments. In 1965, Ralph W. Nicholls joined York University from the University of Western Ontario to form a new Department of Physics. In the same year, he became founding director of York's Centre for Research in Experimental Space Science (CRESS, later renamed the Centre for Research in Earth and Space Science) that quickly gained prominence in North America. Unfortunately, York's first computer--the IBM System/360 Model 30--was only installed in November 1966 and, until then, CRESS members had to rely on calculators and computer resources offered by the University of Toronto. In 1968, the Department of Physics moved into a newly constructed Petrie Science Building by which time a new IBM System/360 Model 40 was operational. In order to reduce the access to the new shared computer in cases that did not require full computational power of a mainframe computer, CRESS installed a Wong 320SE system in Petrie building. The 320SE system simulatneously supported four keyboard terminals. The calculator's CPU was located in one of the utility rooms. Each of the four terminal keyboards was placed in the hall of each floor. The calculator was decommissioned in the early 1990s. Museum's holdings Hardware: <ul> <li>Wang 320SE central processing unit,</li> <li>Wang 320K conventional keyboard terminals (3 units),</li> <li>Wang 320KT trigonometric keyboard terminal.</li> </ul> Manuals and promotional literature: <ul> <li>300 Series WANG Electronic Calculators -- Instruction Manual, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1967,</li> <li>300 Series Program Library, vol. 1, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1967,</li> <li>300 Series electronic calculator -- instruction manual, vol. 1, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1968,</li> <li>370 Series Programmable Calculating System, promotional brochure, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1968,</li> <li>370 System Reference Manual, vol. 1, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1968,</li> <li>370 Calculating System Program Library, vol. 1, Wang Laboratories Inc., 1968.</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Wang Laboratories Inc. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1968 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant York University, 1968-199? calculator https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/2fe8b1e04c7eed79b7cfa64f80fe66c1.jpg 9b8f18cec70f2574cc0e0a6dd0e633a2 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gandalf SAM 201 modem Subject The topic of the resource hardware: modem Description An account of the resource Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) The rapid development of computer technologies and applications in the 1950s and 1960s created demand for sharing data and resources by connecting computers and computer equipment together over short as well as long distances. A pair of dedicated hardware devices called modems (MOdulator/DEModulators) were used to encode digital information originated at one end of the communications link and to decode such information using the second modem on the other end without degradation in accuracy of transferred data. By the end of the 1960s, there were over 2,000 digital computers installed in Canada and the number of new installations was steadily increasing in the following years. This advancement as well as the trend towards distributed processing and on-line remote access to data processing resources provided an opportunity to supply these new installations with made in Canada modems and other electronic data transmission devices. ESE Ltd. of Toronto and Gandalf Technologies Ltd. of Nepean were among the earliest and best known Canadian manufacturers of such products. Gandalf Technologies In April 1971, Desmond Cunningham and Colin Patterson incorporated Gandalf Data Communications Ltd. (later renamed as Gandalf Technologies, Inc.) with headquarters in Manotick, Ontario (later moved to Nepean). Gandalf's first product was the LDS 100 asynchronous modem (called Local Data Set or LDS). It's competitive price relative to the rental of modems offered by phone companies resulted in lucrative sales to major Canadian corporations and institutions including the federal government's Communication Research Centre, McGill University, Bell Northern Research, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Atomic Energy of Canada. The following year, Gandalf offerd the synchronous version of its modem -- the LDS 200. The success of these products led to the name 'Gandalf box' being adopted as a generic term for these and future Gandalf modems. The PACX data switch (Private Automatic Computer eXchange) introduced in late 1972, was Gandalf's first product that put the company on the international map. The device allowed multiple user terminals to access any one of a number of available computers. Each terminal was connected to a Gandalf LDS 126 data set which, in turn communicated with a PACX switch. The data set had two thumb wheels on the front panel. To access a specific computer connected to a PACX switch, the user rolled the wheels to the two-digit number assigned to the selected computer. The PACX switch quickly found world-wide acceptance and made Gandalf one of the world's most innovative companies in the data communications industry of the 1970s. Throughout the 1970s and the early 1980s, Gandalf offered successive generations of modems (including the SAM 201), multiplexers, and PACX switches with enhanced performance features. These new products were manufactured and distributed through Gandalf manufacturing and sales facilities in Nepean as well as through newly established Gandalf Sales Inc. in Chicago, and Gandalf Digital Communications Ltd. located in Warrington UK. Gandalf's clients included some of the world's largest organizations such as British Steel, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, and Shell in the UK alone. Although by 1981 annual revenues had reached $40 million, the company decided to go public in order to stay competitive in the data communications market which by then was already crowded with companies ranging from small enterprises such as Develcom of Saskatoon to large corporations including 3COM, AT&T, Northern Telecom, and British Telecom. By 1985, the company had grown into a multinational corporation with annual sales of approx. $85 million and subsidiaries in the US, UK, France, and the Netherlands. Despite a wide range of innovative hardware and software products introduced in the 1980s and 1990s, including end-to-end network management system--Gandalf Passport--and the StarMaster local and wide area digital networking system (designed to carry a variety of traffic types such as video, data, voice, fax, LAN), the company could not sustain intense competition from companies such as Cisco Systems and Cabletron Systems in the rapidly developing remote access market. Financial losses incurred by the company in the 1990s forced Gandalf into bankruptcy in 1997. Gandalf SAM 201 technical specifications and product information <ul> <li>year of introduction: the early 1980s,</li> <li>price: $1,300-$1,450,</li> <li>data rate: 1200, 2400 bps,</li> <li>modulation method: DPSK,</li> <li>transmission mode: full duplex,</li> <li>synchronization: asynch/synch,</li> <li>calling mode: orig/auto answer,</li> <li>diagnostics: analog, digital loopback,</li> <li>features: Bell 201 C and CCITT compatible; V.26 compatible.</li> </ul> Museum holdings <ul> <li>Gandalf SAM 201 modem,</li> <li>Gandalf Access Series 24S modem,</li> <li>Gandalf LDM 408 modem,</li> <li>Gandalf TTS 400C, modem,</li> <li>Gandalf 1980-81 Catalogue.</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Gandalf Technologies, Inc. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1980s Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant world-wide, 1980s Gandalf modem https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/28dd30e28d7cf0ad71142f63b4ef207b.jpg b0b72f7aa9115302c112a316ec01e8d7 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Burroughs Bookkeeping Machine Subject The topic of the resource hardware: electromechanical calculator Description An account of the resource Historical context (by Z. Stachniak) The industrial revolution of the 19th century brought new manufacturing methods and with them the ability to produce high quality precision instruments and mechanical devices in large quantities. The first typewriters appeared in the early 19th century and the first wave of useful calculators soon after in Europe and a few decades later in America. America entered the age of mechanical calculators in late 19th century, much later than Europe. When major European countries were undergoing extensive industrialization, the United States was still primarily involved in agriculture while Canada was not even on the map as a country. The Civil War of 1861-1865 did not help with the industrialization either, delaying the effects of the industrial revolution on the North American continent for a decade. It was not until after the Civil War when new forms of manufacturing (steam-powered) allowed the American industry to grow and spread across the nation. It was at that time, when a vibrant office equipment industry was created with calculator manufacturing centers in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and Philadelphia. Large businesses, agencies, and institutions were expanding fast, putting more and more people into their offices. It quickly became evident that ever increasing number of calculation tasks could not be handled cost-effectively without appropriate calculating aids. While American institutions were looking for efficient ways for conducting their business, inventors and entrepreneurs were determined to supply them with all sorts of office gadgets. Two individuals—Dorr E. Felt and William S. Burroughs—played a key role in establishing the calculator industry. Both were determined to provide businesses with just the right kind of calculators: fast, accurate, easy to operate and, in the case of Burroughs' calulators, with printing capabilities. In the end, they created calculator empires that dominated the American calculator market well into the next century. When William S. Burroughs was working as a bank clerk, he envisioned the process of tedious arithmetic operations mechanized to such a degree that the results would also be automatically printed on paper. In the end, Burroughs not only designed such a machine—the Arithmometer (1884)—but also co-founded American Arithmometer Company in St. Louis to manufacture it. By the end of the 1800s, his company was successfully selling several hundred machines a year. In 1917, Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Detroit (formerly American Arithmometer Company of St. Louis) opened its Canadian subsidiary in Windsor, Ontario. Three years later, the Canadian branch moved to the newly constructed facility in Windsor at the corner of McDougall St. and Elliott St. Over the years, the Canadian subsidiary manufactured several calculators including motor-driven adding and listing Bookkeeping Machine and a range of portable adding machines. Burroughs Bookkeeping Machines The Burroughs Bookkeeping Machines were some of the most impressive adding machines made. Although they were large and heavy, their bevelled glass walls on three sides allowed viewing of their internal mechanical operations during calculations, certainly aimed at creating a "WOW" effect with a machine priced at between $615 to $715. The calculators offered between 6 to 17 columns of keys, a numeric display, and a printing mechanism with a wide carriage featuring a paper length setting and an end of page bell. These calculator could perform addition only. The multiplication could be done by repeated additions. Apart from numeric keys, Burroughs Bookkeeping Machines offered several "function" keys. A column could be cleared by pressing the red key at the top of that column. Other keys were designed to clear the entire keyboard, to perform repeated additions for multiplication, to calculate total and subtotal results as well as other functions depending on the calculator's model. Several options were provided including electric drive that eliminated manual use of a crank handle to perform calculations. This option offered a tabular steel frame with the motor and gearbox mounted underneath. Museum holdings <ul> <li>Burroughs Bookkeeping Machine (17 columns, electric), model/serial number C2-1286030, manufactured by Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Canada, Windsor, Ontario,</li> <li>Burroughs Portable Adding Machine, model/serial number 03-370060, manufactured by Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Canada (?)</li> </ul> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Canada Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920s(?) Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource The calculator was donated by Unisys Canada Inc. in 2016 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant World, the early 1900s calculator https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/12a9946d3c388db96702cc6e60d89ae6.jpg a11c43be4eff1bfae168aab48bcf5943 https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/66075ee80fd6521ed29c3cafa920258a.jpg c4d8f18a8eb12436d68b1bf5487e664d https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/0057a9c53a1b1e5679b816786564042a.jpg bc088e6bba0f22baaf592a5bcbbcfd57 https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/cc5fde984acde33263af8f4bd3481230.jpg 063b9bf49a605cae3fdd073e4dfbcf7e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Northern Electric—Nortel Networks Collection Subject The topic of the resource <img src="http://museum1.eecs.yorku.ca/www_decorations/Nortel_Logo.png" alt="Nortel_logo" width="25%" height="25%" border="0" /> The collection is dedicated to the corporate history of  Northern Electric and Manufacturing, Northern Electric, Northern Telecom, Bell-Northern Research, and Nortel Networks. Description An account of the resource Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1895. It's main business was the manufacturing of telephone equipment for Bell Telephone Company of Canada. In 1914, the Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company merged with the Imperial Wire and Cable Company of Montreal to form the Northern Electric Company.  Although the new company's main business continued to be telecommunication equipment, Northern Electric also ventured into consumer electronics market manufacturing radios, television sets, console radio-phonographs, hi-fi amplifiers, and so on. In 1971, Northern Electric and Bell Canada formed Bell-Northern Research (BNR) — an Ottawa-based telecommunications research and development company. Around the same time, Northern Electric introduced its first electronic  PBX (Private Branch Exchange — a private telephone network used within a company or organization) named the SG-1. Four years later, BNR introduced the  SL-1 PBX  which was the world's first all-digital PBX aimed at medium-sized businesses.  In 1976, Northern Electric Company changed its name to Northern Telecom Limited and the company focused its operations exclusively on fully digital telecommunications products.  Northern Telecom was the first company in its industry to deliver a complete line of fully digital telecommunications products. Its SL-1 became the world’s most successful PBX and, by 1991, the company  was the world’s largest PBX supplier offering its Meridian communication systems line. In 1998, the company's name was changed to Nortel Networks to emphasize its focus on networking solutions for telecommunication over the Internet and other communications networks. In 2009, the company filed for bankruptcy protection. Abbreviations: <ul> <li>BNR: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.</li> <li>WC: W. Clipsham</li> <li>NT: Northern Telecom</li> <li>NOR: Nortel Networks</li> <li>WEC: Western Electric Company</li> <li>WB: items donated by Walter Banks</li> <li>KB: items donated by Keith Brickman</li> <li>HB: items donated by Henry Wiebe</li> <li>GR: items donated by Greg Reynolds</li> <li>ZS: items donated by Zbigniew Stachniak</li> <li>JM: items donated by John Morden</li> <li>RR: donated by Robert Roden</li> <li>SC: items donated by Stanley Chow</li> <li>DC: items donated by David Cuddy</li> </ul> HARDWARE <ul> <li>Digital Multiplex Switching System DMS-100 schematic diagram, Northern Telecom, 1979-1980 [SC]</li> <li>BNR XMS (eXtended Multicomputer System) workstation with two built-in 8" floppy drives [SC]</li> <li>BNR XMS workstation (prototype?)</li> <li>Two external 8" floppy diskette drives for the BNR XMS workstation[SC]</li> <li>Northern Telecom/Nortel Passport 50 DS1 MVPE module, [GR]</li> <li>Nortel Networks Passport 50 E3A FP module, [GR]</li> <li>Nortel Networks Passport 50 OC3S FP module, [GR]</li> <li>Nortel Networks Passport 50 CP module, [GR]</li> <li>Nortel's 1 MEG Modem, NTEX35AA, [ZS]</li> <li>Nortel Display Phone</li> <li>Northern Electric paper calculator, 1973 [JM]</li> <li>Dual NAND silicon microcircuit, Northern Electric, 1960s? [RR]</li> <li>Northern Telecom Alex videotex terminal, 1988</li> <li>Northern Telecom Displayphone telephone and data terminal, 1981</li> <li>Northern Telecom Displayphone 220 telephone and data terminal, 1987</li> <li>Nortel Europa smartphone [DC]</li> </ul> Corporate Documents <ul> <li>Northern Electric Company incorporation documents (original), 1914. [Nortel]</li> <li>Northern Telecom worldwide senior management structure, May 1983, [KB]</li> <li>Northern Telecom Inc., Major Business Units, May 1, 1985, [KB]</li> <li>Northern Electric Organization structure, September 1972. [KB]</li> <li>A file of Northern Telecom and BNR Human Resources publications and documents, 1979-1988</li> </ul> NEWSLETTERS and MAGAZINES <ul> <li>Northern Circuit, Northern Electric, Spring 1965. [KB]</li> <li>Northern News, Northern Electric, vol. 44, no. 7 (1969). [JM]</li> <li>The Networks, Northern Electric, September 1973. [JM]</li> <li>telesis, BNR issues: vol. 3, no. 2 (1973) [WB]; vol. 4, no. 3 (1975); vol 4., no. 1 (1976) [WC]; vol. 5, no. 2 (1977) and no. 9 (1978) [WB]; vol. 6, no. 1 (1979) [WB]; vol. 8, no. 4 (1981); vol. 12, no. 1 and 2 (1985) [WC, DC]; issues 92, 93 (1991), 98 (1994). [WC]</li> <li>the, Northern Electric, Ottawa, issue 2 (1969), 4, 5 (1970). [WC]</li> <li>Miscellany, BNR, vol. 2, 3 (1987), 4, 5 (1988), 6, 7 (1989). [WC]</li> <li>Printed Circuit, Northern Telecom at Bramalea vol. 18, no. 7 (1991). [JM]</li> <li>Lachine Journal, Northern Telecom at Lachine, no. 5 (1992). [JM]</li> <li>Network news, Northern Telecom, May 1992. [JM]</li> <li>Between-Us, Northern Telecom at Lachine and Laurentian no. 4 (1993). [JM]</li> <li>Protel Technical Notes, BNR, Language Development Group; issues: vol. 1, nr. 1--7, 1980.</li> <li>Data Packet, Data Networks Division, Northern Telecom, vol. 2, issue 3 )198?) [WC]</li> </ul> MANUALS, USER GUIDES, REPORTS, PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL 1940-1949 <ul> <li>No. 1 Crossbar Dial Telephone System, Photographs, Educational Bulletin No. 2.5, WEC, December 1947. [HW]</li> </ul> 1950-1959 <ul> <li>No. 5 Crossbar Dial Telephone System, Completion of a Call, Educational Bulletin No. 2.5 B-1, WEC, April 1954. [HW]</li> <li>The Step-By-Step Dial Telephone System, Telephone System Training, Lesson No. 3, No. 2.5 B-1, WEC, June 1954. [HW]</li> </ul> 1960-1969 <ul> <li>E.H. Lanham, A Brief Story of the Growth, Evolution, and Expansion of Telephone Systems from the Magneto Era to the Present, Technical Memorandum TM 8161-2-64, Northern Electric, December 31st, 1964.</li> <li>Toronto Works, Telephone Directory, Northern Electric Company, Switching Division, 1 November 1966 [WBr] 1 Nov. 1966. [HB] Preliminary Version, IPSA (29 November, 1970) [WK].</li> </ul> 1970-1979 <ul> <li>Time to switch... SP-1 electronic switching systems, Northern Electric, October 1973. [JM]</li> <li>Datapac: Standard Network Access Protocol, Trans-Canada Telephone System, 30 November, 1974. [WC]</li> <li>Datapac: Overview, Trans-Canada Telephone System, 1974? [WC]</li> <li>Datapac: Four papers presented to the Third International Conference on Computer Communications, Toronto, Canada (August 1976). [WC]</li> <li>An Introduction to GRAPPLE Programming, ver. 4.21, BNR 13490, July 1974. [WB]</li> <li>GRAPPLE Console Users Manual, ver. 1.0, BNR(?), 18 June, 1975. [WB]</li> <li>GRAPPLE Language Reference Manual, ver. 5.10, BNR 13500, June 1975. [WB]</li> <li>Datapac: Standard Network Access Protocol Specification, Trans-Canada Telephone System, 1976. [WC]</li> <li>Datapac: Four papers presented to the Third International Conference on Computer Communications, Toronto, August 1976, Trans-Canada Telephone System, 1976. [WC]</li> <li>W. Clipsham, SL10 Data Network Processor: General Description, BNR, Issue 1, September 1976. [WC]</li> <li>D. Drynan, SL10 Data Network Processor: Trunk System, BNR, February 1977. [WC]</li> <li>Integrated Software Engineering System: Cost-Benefit Analysis, BNR, November 1978. [WC]</li> <li>Integrated Software Engineering System: Overview, BNR, November 1979. [WC]</li> <li>Integrated Software Engineering System: System Requirements Specification, BNR, November 1979. [WC]</li> </ul> 1980-1989 <ul> <li>Introducing a major advancement in the evolution of the telephone: Displayphone, promotional brochure, Northern Telecom, April 1981 [DC]</li> <li>Does your telecommunications system give you access to your internal database? Displayphone promotional brochure, Northern Telecom, 198? [DC]</li> <li>SL-1 Displayphone promotional brochure, Northern Telecom, 198? [DC]</li> <li>Displayphone User Guide, Northern Telecom, February 1982 [ZS]</li> <li>Displayphone User Guide, Northern Telecom, issue 3 [ZS]</li> <li>Displayphone 220 User Guide, Northern Telecom, 1987 [ZS]</li> <li>ALEX Installation Guide, Northern Telecom, issue 1 [ZS]</li> <li>DMS-100 System Description, BNR, 1986. [SC]</li> <li>Writing Handbook, BNR, 1987. [WC]</li> <li>DPN: Data Networking System Reference Handbook, Northern Telecom, 1986. [WC]</li> <li>DMS-100/200 NT-40 Instruction Set, BNR, 1987. [SC]</li> <li>H. Johnson, Object-Oriented Programming in PROTEL (draft), BNR, 1988. [SC]</li> <li>H. Johnson, An Object-Oriented Language Based on PROTEL (draft), BNR, 1989. [SC]</li> <li>DPN-100: Data Networking Reference Handbook, Northern Telecom, 1988. [WC]</li> <li>B. Baker, Multiprocessing Core for DMS, BNR, 1989. [SC]</li> <li>Telephony, BNR, Technical Educational Department, 198?</li> <li>Meridian M4020 Integrated Terminal: Bringing integrated data and voice to the desktop, Northern Telecom, 1985. [DC]</li> </ul> 1990- <ul> <li>DPN-100/500: Data Networking General Description, Release 1.0, BNR, February 11, 1990. [WC]</li> <li>DPN: Data Networking System, BNR, October 1990. [WC]</li> <li>Advaced Telephone Terminals Design: Driving the Development of Next-Generation Terminals, Nortel-Northern Telecom, July 1997. [DC]</li> </ul> PAPERS and OTHER PUBLICATIONS <ul> <li>W.A. Depp and W.H.T. Holden, Circuits for Cold Cathode Glow Tubes, Bell Telephone System Technical Publications, Monograph B-1685, compliments of Northern Electric, 1949. Originally published in Electrical Manufacturing, vol. 44, pp. 92-97 (1949).</li> <li>J.H. Felker, Typical block diagram for a digital computer, Bell Telephone System Technical Publications, Monograph 2046, compliments of Northern Electric, 1952. Originally published in Transactions of American Institute of Electrical Engineers, vol. 71, part 1 (1952), pp. 175-182.</li> <li>Datapac and the SL-10 Packet Switching System: Selected Published Papers, 1976-79, BNR.</li> <li>M. Fridrich and W. Older, Helix: The Architecture of the XMS Distributed File System, reprint with the permission from IEEE Software (May 1985). [SC]</li> <li>N. Gammage and L. Casey, XMS: A Rendezvous-Based Distributed System Software Architecture, reprint with the permission from IEEE Software (May 1985). [SC]</li> <li>Northern Telecom: The Anatomy of Transformation, 1985--1995, Nortel/Northern Telecom (November 1996). [WC]</li> <li>H. Johnson, PROTEL A programming Language for Large Real-Time Applications, publisher: ? (1984).</li> <li>SINC Network Description, SINC Technical Document, Bell/BNR SINC Design Team (October 31, 1974). [WC]</li> <li>DPN Technical Papers 1985-1986, BNR. [WC]</li> <li>W.W. Clipsham, F.E. Glave, and M.L. Narraway, Datapac Network Overview, Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Computer Communication, P.K. Verma (ed), Toronto. 3-6 August 1976; the material includes memos and slides prepared for the presentation. [WC]</li> <li>The BNR Network (197?) [WC]</li> <li>I. Cunningham, Host to Network Protocol for the Bell-Northern Research Network, version 1.2, BNR (October 1973). [WC]</li> <li>B. Clipsham et al, First Level Protocol for a Data Switch, version V, August 14, 1972, CASE: R3777. [WC]</li> <li>C.C. Martel, I.M. Cunningham, and M.S. Grushcow, The BNR Network: A Canadian Experience with Packet Switching Technology, BNR. [WC]</li> <li>N. Dam, D. Schenkel, and W.Prater, Micro-SNAP - An X.25 Microcomputer System, MSNAP-BNR (197?) [WC]</li> <li>B. Hobbs, Chrysalis: Transforming The Way We Do Business, Northern Telecom S321 (September 19, 1991). [JM]</li> <li>32 photographs of the Northern Telecom constructions at 8200 Dixie Rd. taken between February 23 and December 8, 1987. [JM]</li> <li>Four photographs of the Northern Electric Calgary Cable Plant, 19?? [JM]</li> <li>Various promotional Nortel Networks brochures, 1995--2003. [ZS]</li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Nortel Europa smartphone Subject The topic of the resource smartphone Description An account of the resource Nortel Europa (description courtesy of <a href="https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/phone-detail/one-orbitor">Mobile Phone Museum</a>) The Nortel One (also known as the Europa handset) was an early instance of what’s come to be known as a ‘smartphone’, developed to show off the future that Nortel envisioned as a product family it called the Orbitor. Work on the Orbitor vision started at Bell-Northern Research (Nortel’s R&D subsidiary) in the early 1990s with a series of concept models focusing on what a handheld personal communicator could be like.  Once this proof-of-concept was validated through extensive user and chooser research, the design for Nortel One started apace in early 1995. It used the GSM radio and physical interface module from theNortel 92x/1920 phones with a digital signal processor (DSP) core for speech recognition and added an ARM processor module that interfaced with the touchscreen and powered the screen user interface.  The first working units, of which 80 were made, were delivered at the end of February 1998 in time for the GSM World Congress in Cannes, France. The development of the Nortel One device was primarily a skunk works  project undertaken at Nortel's Bell-Northern Research (BNR). It required the incorporation of many new technologies, overcoming internal corporate process challenges at Nortel, and managing a variety of logistics issues that the team working on the product had to address. The project largely flew under the radar at Nortel but succeeded thanks to a dedicated multi-disciplinary design team drawing on broad expertise at BNR (Ottawa, Canada) and AEG Mobile Communication (Ulm, Germany), then part of Matra-Nortel.   Initially, the prototype devices were going to be manufactured at an AEG factory in Berlin, but the manufacturing was moved to an SCI factory in Bordeaux, France where the final units were built. When it was originally conceived, the Nortel Orbitor was envisaged as being a “highly featured, pocket-sized wireless device” that would use advanced voice-recognition technology and a touch-sensitive screen to deliver voice, messaging and graphical notes in “one convenient, easy-to-use mobile communications devices.” The team working on the device boldly claimed they were “creating a new vision of personal communications for this decade [the 1990s] and into the next century.” They made it clear that the Orbitor was not a telephone, pager or a personal digital assistant (PDA) but that it was “something new, different and unique.” They preferred to describe it as being part of “a new category of personal communications management products that would put the user in control of emerging services and applications.” The original idea for the Orbitor was to be a compact, lightweight personal device, about the size of a wallet, that would be attached to a person’s clothing or easily fit in a pocket or handbag. The early design ideas centred on users being able to “dial” a number by simply speaking a number or a person’s name – a concept, that at the time, seemed like science fiction. Early concept models also included a detachable speaker that was designed to fit over a user’s ear “for handsfree operation and private conversations” – akin to a detachable Bluetooth headset that would come in later years. Nortel also envisaged that the Orbitor would support multimedia capabilities allowing users to communicate in different ways. For example, sending written messages to one person while having a call with another at the same time – yet another example of a use-case that is now taken for granted. Another revolutionary feature of the Orbitor was the use of animation in the user interface rather than plain text and static graphics – a capability that was only just starting to emerge on PCs at that time. The graphics on the Orbitor were animated offering an early example of skeuomorphic design – which mimics real-world experiences in the user interface. For example, when a message was received, an envelope moved onto the Orbitor’s screen and when the user selected it, the envelope unfolded to reveal the message. When the user deleted the message, the paper crumpled up and dropped off the bottom of the screen. The designers believed these “real-world images would make the Orbitor extremely easy to use by attracting user’s attention to the action being performed in a clear, unambiguous and memorable fashion.” A further example, that is also taken for granted these days, was when the Orbitor played a voice message an animated slider on a bar moved across the display. Users could use the touch screen to stop the message and play back portions of it by touching the bar at the appropriate position. Another innovation was offering “canned messages” such as “leave a voice msg.” or “call back to reschedule” so users could respond discreetly to calls when they were in a meeting or otherwise occupied. The early concepts of the Orbitor were validated starting in late 1992, using industrial design models in videos where various users were seen using the Orbitor in real-life situations. This was a smart approach as it avoided the costly and time-consuming process of building working prototypes. Screen simulations were super-imposed onto the devices used in the video which were so realistic at the time that some viewers thought the Orbitor models being used were real products. More details of the Orbitor concepts and underlying research can be found in the article that featured in the BNR in-house magazine, Telesis, Issue 97, December 1993. The first reveal of a functioning Orbitor device occurred in the BNR Futures Room at Nortel’s booth at Telecom’95 in Geneva, Switzerland. It was a fully featured device with a GSM radio, large 320 x 160-pixel eight-shade greyscale touch-sensitive screen and a graphical user interface, combined with advanced voice dialling and personal hands-free capabilities that had been pioneered on the Nortel 922 mobile phone. The prototype was powered by General Magic's MagicCap OS.  This demo garnered intense interest and was successful enough to give Nortel the confidence to progress down the road towards a commercial product. The Orbitor concept became the Europa device, which was eventually branded commercially as the Nortel One. By 1997, the design team decided to replace the MagicCap OS with Microware’s OS-9 combined with P-Java (a.k.a. Personal Java). The use of Java pioneered the notion of downloadable applications (today known as “apps”) to further personalize the user experience. The Nortel One worked in conjunction with the “Nortel One Server” which these days would be described as a “cloud platform”, or perhaps even an “app store". This allowed operators to provide customised data and services to users, including personalised menus and home screens, as well as being able to deliver apps in the form of Java applets.  Users could back up their phones to the server. Nortel believed that typical applications that would be offered on the Nortel One could include timetables and schedules, restaurant guides, stock prices, sports results, road and traffic information, ticketing, work scheduling and more. All types of content that are commonplace today. The phone had a range of features including text entry using the stylus either via character recognition or a soft keyboard, a “business card style directory”, a rudimentary browser with virtual buttons (tiles) that allowed users to access content and PIM (personal information manager) capabilities. The handset had a range of features including text entry using the stylus either via character recognition or a soft keyboard, a “business card style directory”, a rudimentary browser with virtual buttons (tiles) that allowed users to access content and PIM (personal information manager) capabilities, integrated speech recognition for voice-activated dialling, and a personal speakerphone.  A novel sliding keypad preserved the familiar 3-by-4 cellphone keypad with SEND and END buttons— when slid open the large touch-sensitive display was revealed. The first 80 pre-production handsets were manufactured in February 1998 to be showcased at the GSM World Congress trade show that month in Cannes, France by members of the Nortel team, including Ken Blakeslee. The Nortel One appeared again at the CeBIT fair in Hannover, Germany in March 1998. Initially, Nortel had planned to showcase the device as a major feature on its exhibition stand. However, the decision was taken to move the prototype devices to a back room away from public view. They were demoed by invitation to a few selected customers and industry personnel (including Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki) who were hugely impressed by the device with its futuristic capabilities such as weather data on a greyscale map with real-time data being transferred over SMS.  Nortel was also secretly working with the UK’s BT Cellnet to deploy the Nortel One offering a complete end-to-end solution combining the handset and a server solution hosting Java applications that could be downloaded onto the device. The team at BT Cellnet comprised several individuals including Simon Robinson, Tony Eales, Brian Greasley and others. The trial was destined to take place following GSM World Congress in 1998 with a goal of launching in the summer of 1998. The device and service portfolio was also shown to a number of retailers including Carphone Warehouse founder Charles Dunstone. Sadly, the BT Cellnet trial never came to fruition when John Roth, the then CEO of Nortel, abruptly ended the project. He felt that Nortel lacked the expertise required to be successful in consumer electronics devices and would not be able to hit the price points needed to be successful. Ultimately, this meant the future commercial iteration of the phone never came to market, but it has become a notable (albeit little-known) device in the history of the smartphone. Interestingly the patents and prior art that Nortel created around the Orbitor project have gone on to feature in several court cases concerning intellectual property in mobile phones, reflecting what a ground-breaking device it was for its time. Addendum: Nortel Europa — historical context (by Z. Stachniak) Integration of different, often disparate, functionalities within a single personal device, as exemplified by the smartphone, is not a new concept. In the 16th century, crucifix dials served as instruments to determine the time of day. These were small boxes in the shape of a crucifix typically crafted from brass and engraved with hour numbers and religious scenes. A built-in magnetic compass was used primarily, though not exclusively, to orient the instrument. It also aided in determining directions while traveling. Some of these dials incorporated other functionalities such as the conversion of "Italian hours" (24 hours of a day and night) into "common hours" (1 to 12 day hours) and vice versa carried on using built-in rulers. Thus, the dial addressed temporal and spiritual needs, provided secular guidance and helped to contemplate things eternal. <img src="https://media.britishmuseum.org/media/Repository/Documents/2014_10/8_15/ccd580a6_53f5_4382_9b07_a3be0105c968/mid_00442495_001.jpg" alt="16th century crucifix dial made by Melchior Reichle. The British Museum, museum number 1874,0727.3. " width="40%" height="40%" /> 16th century crucifix dial made by Melchior Reichle. Source: The British Museum, museum number 1874,0727.3. The rapid advancements in microelectronics during the 1970s and 1980s enabled the integration of multiple information management functionalities into single handheld devices, such as electronic organizers and personal digital assistants (PDAs). The Psion Organizer, released in 1984, offered users an electronic diary, searchable address database, flat-file database, calculator, and clock, as well as the execution of application programs and limited programmability. <img src="https://museum1.eecs.yorku.ca/images/psion_at_YUCoM.jpg" alt="Nortel Orbitor prototype" width="30%" height="30%" /> The Psion Organizer, 1984. Source: York University Computer Museum. In the same year, Motorola introduced the DynaTAC 8000X phone, recognized as the first commercially available portable handheld cell phone. It offered approximately 30 minutes of talk time on full charge and limited call management features. The immediate social acceptance of PDAs and cell phones contributed to the popularization of the concept of personal, portable communication and information management devices. It was inevitable that sooner or later, a new generation of personal electronic devices combining PDA-like functionality with mobile telephony into a single device would emerge, and several companies began to work on such projects, including IBM (the Simon smartphone launched in 1994), Nokia (the Communicator released in 1996), and Alcatel (the One Touch Com introduced in 1998). Notably, BNR began its work on its vision for such a device (known as the Orbitor) in 1992.  Comprehensive market research was conducted to identify the types of products and services that would address crucial user needs through the use of such devices, as well as key user values for personal communications and data management. The Orbitor project was initiated by the BNR's Corporate Design Group which aimed at defining and implementing a new vision for personal communications. Initially, the device was envisaged as <blockquote>compact, lightweight, personal device—the size of the wallet—that would attach to a person's clothing or fit easily into a packet or purse. Offering voice, messaging, and graphical notes capabilities, Orbitor would be operated via voice-recognition capabilities and a touch-sensitive screen. Users could "dial" a telephone number simply by speaking a number or a person's name (provided that name has been entered in the personal directory) into the Orbitor's microphone. Orbitor would be designed with a detachable speaker that would fit comfortably over a user's ear for hands-free operation and private conversation. Orbitor would also be equipped with a detachable stylus to enable users to write messages, destined for other users, directly on the screen. As envisaged, Orbitor would also incorporate a multimedia capability that would let users communicate in different ways with more than one party at a time -- sending written messages to one person, while carrying on a voice conversation with another, for example. [1] </blockquote> <img src="https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/cc5fde984acde33263af8f4bd3481230.jpg" alt="Nortel Orbitor prototype" width="50%" height="50%" /> One of the Orbitor's concept designs. Source: [1]. The concept was first visualized in 1992 through videos produced by BNR as part of their extensive behavioural research. A variety of potential communication services were demonstrated by simulating them on a non-operational mock-up of the device. During the following three years, the Orbitor's design progressed to a state where its main features could be showcased in a working prototype. “We’ve been talking about and working with this concept for some time now, and we wanted to show our customers that its market implementation is not that far away," explained Arlan Anderson, manager of BNR's Portable Terminals Platform Development, in a press release from 1995 [2].  "We decided the best way to do that was to develop an operational prototype that could be demonstrated on a real switch.” In October 1995, such a technology demo was prepared for the Telecom ’95 trade show held in Geneva, Switzerland. "I was recruited/tasked to create a tiger team to create a working demo that could be put on display at T’95," recollected David Cuddy, former director of Nortel's Advanced Terminals Technologies group [3]. "This wasn’t a prototype of a product. It was a technology demo, or more accurately perhaps, a concept demo. What we built wasn’t based on Java - that design decision came later - but used the Magic Cap platform created by General Magic. [...] Given the positive response from prospective NT customers and trade journalists who saw our T’95 Orbitor demo, a decision was subsequently made to launch a product development program." The Orbitor's demonstration—among four special presentations featured at the BNR Futures Room at Nortel’s Telecom ’95 booth—showcased simultaneous voice and data communications through the DMS GSM system at Nortel's booth. “We demonstrated new audio and acoustic values that we call “Personal Handsfree,” which allow you to conduct a high-quality telephone conversation without having to hold the handset to your head," Arlan added [2]. "We also demonstrated several different types of messaging – handwritten messages, voice mail, and text messaging – accessed through the handset display.” During the 10-day event, the Orbitor demo was shown to over 800 customers and key government officials. According to Arlan, feedback was overwhelmingly positive: <blockquote>There is a lot of excitement around personal communications services in general, and people were very enthusiastic about what they saw and heard. The need for the types of user values exhibited by the Orbitor prototype was clearly acknowledged. In particular, the service providers noted the potential of Orbitor as a new wireless communications format that can help them evolve their business and differentiate themselves from competitors,</blockquote> Des Ryan, senior product design manager, Corporate Design Group, concurred. “The prototype enabled our customers to experience a future of their business where high-value services will be very easy to use, and showed that this future is within reach today.” [2] In the following two years, the Orbitor's design foundations underwent major transformation driven by many factors, most notably the commercialization of the Internet and the introduction of Sun Microsystems' Java. In 1986, NSF created its NSFNET network which soon became the primary Internet backbone. However, the network's mandate limited its usage exclusively to research and educational support endeavors. The "privatization of the Internet" culminating in NSF's retirement of its network in 1995, widely expanded Internet accessibility and paved the way for a wide range of new services from personal and corporate websites to e-commerce platforms. The release of Java 1.0 software in 1996 marked another pivotal factor impacting Orbitor's development. The BNR design team promptly recognized the significance of Sun's platform as an enabler of a vast array of sophisticated communications services. Consequently, in the same year, BNR decided to implement Orbitor as a Java-enabled device  code-named "Europa" — the first personal communications device of this kind. In an article for Talking Business magazine back in 1996, Ken Blakeslee, former head of the Business Development team at Nortel's Wireless Networks UK office, observed, "People understand what they want to do with mobile phones. It's only now that the technology arrived to enable it." The Europa handset, later rebranded as “Nortel One” [5], was officially unveiled during the 1998 GSM World Congress in Cannes in February 1998 and, a month later demonstrated at the CeBIT'98 International Trade Fair that took place in Hanover. The device had evolved into a full Java-enabled smartphone, running Microware OS-9 as the core operating system. It offered an advanced touch-sensitive graphical user interface, speech recognition, personal handsfree, and other advanced features. In addition, thanks to the Java underpinnings, it supported downloadable ‘apps’ as part of a client-server architecture. Sadly, as part of Nortel corporate refocusing, the Orbitor/Europa project was abruptly terminated in 1998. Nortel subsequently withdrew from the telephone handset market, divesting its portfolio of GSM, wireless, enterprise and landline telephones. The Advanced Terminal Technologies group was dismissed in 2000, and the following year, Nortel shut down the entire Corporate Design Group. Several groups within Nortel/BNR and outside companies participated in the Orbitor/Europa project including: <ul> <li>Corporate Design Group, Nortel,</li> <li>Advanced Terminal Technologies Group, Nortel,</li> <li>Nortel Wireless Networks, UK,</li> <li>Marta Communication Cellular Terminals, France,</li> <li>AEG Mobile Communications,  Germany,</li> <li>Sun Microsystems, USA.</li> </ul> In 1997, over 50 contributors from various BNR/Nortel groups and departments involved in the R&D  project signed a commemorative Europa poster. <img src="https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/files/original/66075ee80fd6521ed29c3cafa920258a.jpg" alt="Europa poster" width="50%" height="50%" /> Nortel Europa poster, 1997. Source: York University Computer Museum. References [1] Brown, M., Fairless, J., French-St.George, M., Lindsay, M., Roberts, T., and Ryan, D.,"Orbitor: a new personal communications concept," Telesis 97 (1993), pp. 5--13. [2] Orbitor, Nortel press release(?) (1995). [3] David Cuddy, private communication (2024). [4] Talking Business Magazine, Sun Microsystems (1996). [5] Nortel One: Nortel's Multimedia & Service Delivery Solution, promotional brochure, Nortel (1998) . Nortel Europa main features and technical specifications (as of 1998) Main features: <ul> <li>Java-powered cellular handset: Java enabled secure access to data from both the Internet and local Intranets,</li> <li>touch screen graphical user interface with handwriting character recognition and animated graphics (operated via touch, stylus, and keypad)</li> <li>business card style directory,</li> <li>ink notes: set-to-set ink messaging, allowing to send electronic hand written notes, diagrams, etc. from one device to another,</li> <li>text editor,</li> <li>built in help facility,</li> <li>Personal Information Manager (PIM) functions,</li> <li>integrated message center including SMS, voice, fax, e-mail, as well as notification and voice-mail interface,</li> <li>Internet browsing: Inpact browser,</li> <li>voice activated dialing,</li> <li>hands-free operation.</li> </ul> Hardware specifications: <ul> <li>motherboard: based on the Nortel 920 and 922 handsets,</li> <li>daughter card (the Europa Daughter Card, a.k.a. the EDC) containing: CPU, RAM, Intel Flash, and other components,</li> <li>CPU: Digital Equipment Corp. StrongARM SA-1100,</li> <li>RAM: 524,288 x 8-bit, implemented using eight Mitsubishi M5M5408ATP static RAM chips,</li> <li>flash memory: several types including Intel StrataFlash T28F800 and boot sector flash memory AMD AM29LV002B,</li> <li>SIM card: micro SIM,</li> <li>wireless network protocol: GSM, TI Gemini processor(?),</li> <li>keyboard: sliding, 20 keys (12 alphanumeric and 8 direction, phone, and function keys),</li> <li>display: 320x160 pixels touch screen, back-lit, 8-shade grey scale, controlled by the National Semiconductor COP472-3 liquid crystal display controller,</li> <li>audio-analog front end: Philips UCB 1200 (aka Betty),</li> <li>dimensions: 166x64x30,</li> <li>weight: 300g.</li> </ul> Software: <ul> <li>operating system: Microware OS-9,</li> <li>Personal Java platform, compliant with Java Telephony Application Programming Interface (JTAPI) ver. 1.2,</li> <li>GUI written in Java,</li> <li>variety of planned downloadable user applications, including: timetables/schedules, work scheduling, What's-on-Guide, restaurant guides, ticketing, stock prices, e-commerce, sports results, road and traffic information.</li> </ul> Museum holdings <ul> <li>Nortel Europa 900, SN 004900 01 015129 0,</li> <li>Telesis, Nortel, issues 93, (December 1993) and 103 (July 1997),</li> <li>Nortel One: Nortel's Multimedia & Service Delivery Solution, promotional brochure, Nortel (1998),</li> <li>other Orbitor related holdings can be reviewed in the museum's Nortel archive,</li> <li>A 1997 commemorative Europa poster.</li> </ul> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource unveiled in 1995 at Telecom’95 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bell-Northern Research Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource donated by David Cuddy