[Tfug] Microsoft reportedly wants open source software users to pa y rolyalties

George Cohn gwcohn at simplybits.net
Fri May 18 08:22:38 MST 2007


Here's the link to the whole transcript for those interested:

http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part3.html

I started working for Control Data Corporation in 1969 in Tucson.  They 
leased a factory across the street from Burr-Brown on Tucson Blvd & 
Medina, building some of the first "CRT monitors".

They were not bit mapped but could only show text.  Huge affairs with 
Motorola 14 inch B&W TV chassis and a card cage with 4 cards full of TTL 
logic to generate the text and rudimentary cursor control, serial 
connection to the mainframe.

There was another company in Tucson at the same time called TEC that was 
a family owned business.  They cloned the CDC terminals and built a 
cheaper version using commercial grade TTL.  The CDC terminals used a 
higher end, nearly mil-spec TTL.  I worked for TEC briefly in 1974.

For some years, occasionally you would see a movie where someone was at 
an airline ticket counter and the agent would be using either the CDC or 
TEC terminal for reservations.  That was their largest market.

George Cohn




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