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Generating Ideas
Published in Barry L. Cross, Lean Innovation, 2012
Would that be a helpful feature? I have been talking about this example for a couple of years, and the response to the idea has been strongly favorable. What would it take? Well, we would need some way of reading the key data on some of your core groceries. Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have been out for years, and the passive versions cost three cents to five cents each—they are cheap. We could store volume (two liters of milk), type (you like 1%), and expiry date on the RFID tags. We would also need some way of reading the tags. An RFID sensor inside the fridge, wired to the Wi-Fi unit we will build into the fridge would have an additional cost of about $30. On your home computer, we build a grocery list program where you keep your basic household needs: milk, juice, eggs, maybe beer. It may be tough to get vegetables and fruit on there, but you are restocking those on a weekly basis anyway. The grocery list program is created by the appliance company, downloaded over the Internet.
CHAPTER 3 A Brief Biography of Computer Games
Published in Vorderer Peter, Bryant Jennings, Playing Video Games, 2012
Just as the people's computing movement was getting underway, the microcomputer revolution opened up access to computing technology. Dozens of companies emerged between 1975 and 1977 to manufacture microcomputers. Apple Computer was the most significant with respect to the future of computer gaming. Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak founded Apple in 1976 to sell Wozniak's elegantly designed Apple I microcomputer, and they launched its successor, the Apple II, at the first West Coast Computer Fair in 1977. Wozniak had previously designed a successful game, Breakout,for Atari. Apple's home computer was nothing less than a Breakout machine, with features such as color graphics, sound, and paddle support built into the Apple II; Wozniak acknowledged that many of the features “that made the Apple II stand out in its day came from a game” and the “fun features… were built in… only to do one pet project, which was to program a BASIC version of Breakout and show it off to the [Homebrew Computer] Club” (quoted in Connick, 1986, p. 24). The Apple II became a leading platform for grassroots game programming through the early 1980s; its alumni developed commercial games and founded game publishers. Scott Adams, for example, popularized “adventure games” for microcomputers such as the Apple II after learning about Adventure at the Canadian Computer Conference in 1977 (Adams, 1979). Home computers provided a significant market for commercial game software through the 1980s.
Getting Connected
Published in Mark Cousins, Russ Hepworth-Sawyer, Logic Pro 9, 2012
Mark Cousins, Russ Hepworth-Sawyer
Although it’s easy enough to produce music solely using your computer, it’s inevitable that you’ll want to add some additional equipment to enhance your workflow: whether it’s a USB controller keyboard to control one of Logic’s many virtual instruments, an additional hard drive for storing samples, or an audio interface so that you can record electric guitar. Understanding the various connections in and out of your computer is therefore vital to getting the best from Logic and will allow you to expand your setup from a basic home computer to a full-sized professional studio!
Factors affecting the design and development of responsive facades: a historical evolution
Published in Intelligent Buildings International, 2020
Negar Heidari Matin, Ali Eydgahi
Implementation of kinetic in responsive facades combined with existing technologies at the time, displayed different appearances that indicate deep influence of technology and its development (Chen, Lin, and Fan 2015). Technologies of sensing, actuating, and control systems used in buildings were first published by Popular Science Magazine with their application in remote control of garage door opener in 1931 (Veliko and Thun 2013). Control of building mechanisms such as responsive facades was advanced due to the availability of electrical components and control systems in the 1960s (Ahmed et al. 2016). The Kaufmann’s hand-operated facade was the basis for the development of motorized mechanism for blinds that were used in the Los Angeles County Hall of Records in 1962. This facade mechanism was equipped with a switch control technique to adjust pivotal actuators based on a preset algorithm (Matin, Eydgahi, and Shyu 2017). Furthermore, advances in computer engineering introduced a new possibility in central controlling of facade systems. The advancement of computer engineering provided the access to many digital systems such as mainframe computers, primitive microprocessors, desktop microcomputer, home computer and personal computer from 1960s to early 1980s (Veliko and Thun 2013). In 1967, Buckminster Fuller designed a futuristic responsive facade for the United State Pavilion at Montreal Expo 67. The technology used in this responsive facade was a soft self-regulated shading system with structural cables, which operated using a roller blind mechanism (Khoo 2013).
Fifty years in home computing, the digital computer and its private use(er)s
Published in International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, 2020
The mentioned home computers disposed of very different architectures and configurations. They used different CPUs (mostly Zilog’s Z80 or MOS’s 6502), different amounts of RAM memory, graphic and sound capabilities. When programming games the user was confronted with different technological obstacles of those platforms and with the slowness of their BASIC interpreters. Those disadvantages forced some of the hobby programmers to learn assembly languages. Assembly programmes are running much faster than BASIC programmes, use less memory and allowed the direct programming of the computer’s hardware elements. To programme with assembly language either a special (commercial) development system had to be used or the programme could have been ‘poked’ into the computer’s memory by using a so-called BASIC loader. With this BASIC was only used for storing the machine language opcodes10 into the RAM and starting the completed programme afterwards. (Therefore specific commands were implemented in nearly all home computer BASIC versions.) A BASIC routine to carry that out had the following form:10 MEM=100020 READ A30 IF A=−1 THEN END40 POKE MEM,A50 MEM=MEM+160 GOTO 2070 DATA 169,211,174,0,0,157,0,12880 DATA 157,0,129,157,0,130,157,090 DATA 131,232,205,255,0,208,238100 DATA −111