author | Wang Qilong
produced | CSDN (ID: CSDNnews)
Through "Today in History", we can see the future from the past, and we can change the future from the present.
Today is September 22, 2021. Today, 31 years ago, the world-famous 11th Asian Games was grandly opened at Beijing Workers’ Stadium ; this is the first comprehensive international sports held in China The successful conclusion of the competition laid an important foundation for the subsequent birth of the Beijing Olympics. In the history of computers, many key events have also been born today, affecting the technological process of the world.
September 22, 1948: Uruguay computer pioneer Gaston H. Gonnet was born
Gaston H. Gonnet was born on September 22, 1948 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He is an Uruguay-Canada computer Scientist, professor and entrepreneur, famous for his work on the Maple computer algebra system. Gonnet is the creator of the electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary and the co-founder of the University of Waterloo symbolic computing group.
Source: Wikipedia
On August 29th "Today in History", we introduced Mathematica developed by Stephen Wolfram, the father of the Wolfram Language, and Maple is a general-purpose system on the same level as Mathematica. Maple is a computer algebra system developed in the early 1980s. It was not noticed at first. Since the publication of MapleVR2 in 1992, more users have discovered that it is a powerful and user-friendly computer algebra system.
In 1980, Gonnet, who specializes in symbolic and algebraic calculations, joined the symbolic computing group of the University of Waterloo.Began to develop the Maple algebra system. In the group, he is responsible for algorithm design and analysis, especially search, text search and sorting algorithms. In 1984, Gonnet continued to participate in the New Oxford English Dictionary project at the University of Waterloo. The University of Waterloo has the most distinctive scientific research in computer and related disciplines. As a leader in the design and development of computer software in Canada, the school’s computer scientists have developed a series of internationally renowned software, such as Watfor, Watfiv, Watbol, Sparspark and Shanghai Educational software such as Maple introduced in the article.
Teachers from the Institute of Computer Science and Computer Science of the University of Waterloo used a computer to give 20 volumes of , 570 million words, Oxford English Dictionary. They are inseparable from the silent work of Gaston H. Gonnet. In recent years, the University of Waterloo’s graduates of computer science are very popular. Among the eight American universities and five Canadian universities where Microsoft prefers to admit graduates, the University of Waterloo ranks first. Over the years, there have been more University of Waterloo graduates working at Microsoft than any other North American university.
Source: Wikipedia
September 22, 1952: processor pioneer, Turing Award winner John L. Hennessy was born
John L. Hennessy (John L. Hennessy) was born in 1952 On September 22, 2005, he was an American computer scientist, chairman of the Google parent company Alphabet, and the founder of MIPS Computer Systems. He was the president of Stanford University. Hennessy "created a systematic and quantitative method for designing and evaluating computer architecture,And have a profound impact on the microprocessor industry", in 2017, Hennessy and David A. Patterson (David A. Patterson) won the Turing Award.
Source: Wikipedia
1985, the first A MIPS microprocessor R2000 was released. MIPS is a RISC-based instruction set architecture. In 1984, John Hennessy established MIPS Computer Systems based on his research experience in the Stanford University MIPS project, and launched R2000 in 1985. R2000 is a 32-bit microprocessor chipset that implements the MIPS I instruction set architecture. R2000 is the first commercial implementation of the MIPS architecture and the first commercial RISC processor to be widely used. MIPS is English Microprocessor without Interlocked Piped Stages
RISC, the reduced instruction set processor, is relative to the CISC (complex instruction set processor) such as X86. Now we The V in RISC-V is often said to be a Roman numeral, that is, the 5 in Arabic numerals, which refers to the fifth generation of RISC. RISC-V is an instruction set architecture, which is the same as ARM and MIPS Kind of stuff. RISC-V was born in 2010, the biggest feature is open source, anyone can design a RISC-V architecture processor without any copyright issues.
John Hennessy and David Patterson pioneered A systematic and quantitative method to design and evaluate computer architecture has had a lasting impact on the RISC microprocessor industry. Today, 99% of the more than 16 billion microprocessors produced each year are RISC processing RISC processor; Almost all smart phones, tablets, and billions of embedded devices that make up the Internet of Things have RISC processors.
The two Turing Award winners also elaborated on their views in their classic book "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach" (Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach). This book is groundbreaking because it is the first book that provides engineers and designers with an analytical and scientific framework to evaluate the value of microprocessor design; it is also a book that consolidates modeling and analysis of new processes The capabilities of the microprocessor architecture have greatly accelerated the progress of microprocessor design.
The influence of great men has not faded to this day. In the field of operating systems, the closed source of Windows has promoted the birth and rise of Linux, and the closed phenomenon in the field of chips is even more serious. The hope of RISC-V as an open source processor has entered the public’s field of vision in recent years, and Chinese people have begun to renew Ignite the hope of "self-produced and self-researched". Will RISC become the epitome of an era, or a passer-by in the turbulent business landscape? Welcome to participate in this issue of comments and voting, and talk about your insights on future chip development.
Source: Wikipedia
September 22, 1986: The intellectual property rights of computer software were protected by copyright for the first time
The issue of computer software protection was first raised by German scholars in the 1960s. Later, scholars from many countries, including those from Britain, the United States, and Germany, put forward various protection schemes on this issue. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) also established a special working group, and in 1978 The "Model Law on the Protection of Computer Software" was published, and legislative suggestions for software protection in various countries were put forward. WIPO also proposed a draft "Computer Software Protection Treaty" in 1983, with a view to establishing an international software protection system. However, due to various reasons, these proposals and plans failed in the end.
WIPO’s "Model Law on the Protection of Computer Software" defines computer programs as,"A set of instructions expressed in words, codes, graphics or any other form, when loaded into a machine-readable medium, enables a computer-an electronic or similar device with information processing capabilities-to execute or complete a specific item Task or result". Since then, countless cases have occurred worldwide to improve these protection systems. The Whelan case that occurred 35 years ago solved the problem of the scope of protection of computer programs.
Source: CSDN downloaded from Oriental IC
On September 22, 1986, the appellee Whelan Company, which is the Weiland Partnership (hereinafter referred to as Weiland), was engaged in the development and sales of computer software customized by customers. Granted the copyright to a computer program called Dentalab used to manage dental clinics. The program is written in the programming language EDL (EventDrivenLanguage) and runs on an IBM computer.
The appellant (defendant in the first instance) Jessrow Dental Clinic (hereinafter referred to as Jessrow) operates dental equipment and equipment. It has signed an agreement with Welland under which Jessrow will act as Wellland’s Sales agents sell Dentalab procedures to other dental clinics. Later, Jesrow himself designed a program with the function of the Dentalab program, but it can be widely used in dental clinics that use a relatively simple computer system. The program uses the BASIC language and is called Dentcom.
Wayland sued the Federal District Court of Pennsylvania, claiming that Jethrow's Dentcom violated his Dentalab. The district court held that the copyright law protects the structure of the computer program, and that the structure of the defendant Jessrow's Dentcom program is substantially similar to that of the plaintiff Weland's Dentalab program, and that the defendant infringed the plaintiff's copyright. Defendant Jessrow dissatisfied and appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Source: CSDN downloaded from Oriental IC
The court believes that for practical works such as computer programs, only the creative purpose and overall function are the ideas of the work, and various design approaches to achieve this purpose and function ,As long as it is not unique, it is an "expression of thought" rather than the thought itself. Therefore, "Structure, Order and Organization" (SSO) is the object of copyright protection. As long as the SSOs of the two procedures are similar, it constitutes "substantial similarity", and if there is evidence to prove that they have "contacted" the previous procedure, the infringement can be determined.
After the Weiland case, the United States has slid farther and farther away from the principles of copyright law, and further expanded the scope of protection to the "look and feel" of "user interface" and "screen display", namely two The software looks and feels that its functions are the same to determine the infringement. The code used to run computers and other electronic equipment can be copyrighted like printed materials, which is a decisive victory for manufacturers of internal components of computers.
Source: Wikipedia, Computer Software Copyright Workbook
September 22, 1999: Tektronix announced the sale of its color printing business to Xerox
1938, US Patent Office_ Chester Carlson, an employee of span8span, invented the photocopier. But at the time, carbon paper was very popular, and Carlson was rejected by more than 20 companies including IBM and General Electric .
In 1947, Carlson met Joseph Wilson. The two hit it off. Carlson was bought together with technology and joined the predecessor of Xerox, the photo paper company "Harrod". From 1947 to 1960, the company invested 75 million U.S. dollars, which is a big bet for a small company with annual sales of 20 million U.S. dollars.
In 1960, they succeeded. The name of "Harrod" was changed to Xerox, and the copier named "Xerox 914" appeared in the offices of major companies in the United States. Xerox applied for more than 500 patents for "914".Other companies that want to produce the same photocopier must pay patent fees in advance, which forms a unique moat for Xerox. This myth continued until 1968, when Carlson died, Joseph Wilson also retreated behind the scenes, Xerox ushered in a turning point.
Source: CSDN downloaded from Oriental IC
Xerox's contribution to the computer industry-Palo Alto Research Center, can be said to have to be mentioned, but today's topic is Xerox's sunset Xishan copiers. In 1977, Xerox chose to launch a Xerox 850 "exquisite electric typewriter" after hesitating to change the market through technological innovation. Since the launch date was already out of date, the Xerox 850 was a complete failure. At this time, Xerox is gradually losing its dominant position in the copier market.
As Japanese companies launched cheap products and began to enter the market, Xerox's revenue and profits plummeted. Xerox began to diversify, first entering the computer field and then into the financial services field. But these two diversification attempts are disastrous. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Xerox lingered in the transition from photocopiers to computer-driven printers. Like many time-honored brands, Xerox could not accept such rapid changes in cutting-edge technology.
On September 22, 1999, Tektronix announced the sale of its color printing business to Xerox. This was the largest acquisition in Xerox's 103-year history, and it was also an attack on Hewlett-Packard Company , which was thriving at the time. Rich Thoman, then CEO of Xerox, told Business Press that this acquisition could help the company occupy more than 30% of the office color printing market, second only to HP.
Tektronix was established in 1946 as an electronic testing company. It went public in 1963 and already controlled 75% of the world's oscilloscope market in the late 1960s. However, just like Xerox, in the 1980s, Tektronix did not realize that the market had undergone a fundamental change. The original analog technology would be replaced by digital technology, and the company was in trouble.Income has fallen sharply, and layoffs are inevitable. In 1990, in the face of continued losses, the company's board of directors regained control of the company and pinned its hopes on Xerox, which was also dying.
Just six months later, in April 2000, Xerox announced that it would lay off 5,200 employees in the first quarter and spend $625 million on restructuring. Today in 2021, the PC business accounts for more than 60% of HP. If you can seize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Xerox may be reshaped. In the “Today in History” column on September 4, the article introduced the birth of Kodak cameras, and Xerox’s situation at this moment is just like Kodak, a century-old company. It is no coincidence that these two companies were born in New York State. City of Rochester. Regarding the Xerox story, this is just the tip of the iceberg. What mistakes did this big company make in the past that brought it to the verge of bankruptcy? Pay attention to today in history, look at the future from the past, and change the future from the present.
[Contributions welcome] Taking history as a mirror, we can know the rise and fall. Since the development of computer science, there have been many important events and figures. All friends are welcome to jointly build "Today in History". Contribution email: tangxy@csdn.net.
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