Data Disc, Incorporated , was a public American computer hardware company active from 1962 to 1977 and based in Silicon Valley . The company primarily manufactured hard disk drive units for mainframes and minicomputers . The company also manufactured specialized analog hard disk drives that stored video information for scientific organizations such as NASA as well as the television industry. Data Disc also produced graphical terminals and data tape drives, the latter under their subsidiary Bright Industries, Inc. . In 1976, the company changed their name to Amcomp, Inc. , and in 1977, they were acquired by Datapoint .
116-648: Data Disc was founded in February 1962 in Palo Alto, California by Armin Miller and Daniel Teichroew. Miller had previously worked for the Ampex Corporation , where he developed the basis for modified frequency modulation (MFM), a line code for magnetic data recording that doubled the density and transfer rate of data of the earlier FM encoding scheme . For MFM (also known as Miller modulation code), he
232-436: A 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the city was $ 119,046, and the median income for a family was $ 153,197. Males had a median income of $ 91,051 versus $ 60,202 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 56,257. About 3.2% of families and 4.8% of the population were below the poverty line , including 4.0% of those under age 18 and 5.0% of those age 65 or over. Palo Alto, north of Oregon Expressway ,
348-478: A built-in keyboard and display for the console. Some Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD have virtual consoles to provide several text terminals on a single computer. The fundamental type of application running on a text terminal is a command-line interpreter or shell , which prompts for commands from the user and executes each command after a press of Return . This includes Unix shells and some interactive programming environments. In
464-536: A collegiate summer baseball club that has been in the Bay Area since 1950, eight years longer than the San Francisco Giants. The Oaks were originally managed by Tony Makjavich for 49 years. The Oaks were going to fold before the summer 2016 season but were taken on by Daniel Palladino and Whaylan Price, Bay Area baseball coaches who did not want to see the team die. The Oaks have a rich history within
580-430: A field that may have previously required a full screen-full of characters to be re-sent from the computer, possibly over a slow modem line. Around the mid-1980s most intelligent terminals, costing less than most dumb terminals would have a few years earlier, could provide enough user-friendly local editing of data and send the completed form to the main computer. Providing even more processing possibilities, workstations like
696-530: A green or amber screen. Typically terminals communicate with the computer via a serial port via a null modem cable, often using an EIA RS-232 or RS-422 or RS-423 or a current loop serial interface. IBM systems typically communicated over a Bus and Tag channel, a coaxial cable using a proprietary protocol, a communications link using Binary Synchronous Communications or IBM's SNA protocol, but for many DEC, Data General and NCR (and so on) computers there were many visual display suppliers competing against
812-622: A keyboard in 1941, as did the Z4 in 1942–1945. However, these consoles could only be used to enter numeric inputs and were thus analogous to those of calculating machines; programs, commands, and other data were entered via paper tape. Both machines had a row of display lamps for results. In 1956, the Whirlwind Mark ;I computer became the first computer equipped with a keyboard-printer combination with which to support direct input of data and commands and output of results. That device
928-548: A keyboard. Teleprinters were used as early-day hard-copy terminals and predated the use of a computer screen by decades. The computer would typically transmit a line of data which would be printed on paper, and accept a line of data from a keyboard over a serial or other interface. Starting in the mid-1970s with microcomputers such as the Sphere 1 , Sol-20 , and Apple I , display circuitry and keyboards began to be integrated into personal and workstation computer systems, with
1044-461: A library such as ncurses . For more complex operations, the programs can use terminal specific ioctl system calls. For an application, the simplest way to use a terminal is to simply write and read text strings to and from it sequentially. The output text is scrolled, so that only the last several lines (typically 24) are visible. Unix systems typically buffer the input text until the Enter key
1160-516: A low of 39.0 °F (3.9 °C) to a high of 57.8 °F (14.3 °C). In July, average temperatures range from 55.7 to 79.4 °F (13.2 to 26.3 °C). The record high temperature was 108 °F (42 °C) on September 6, 2022, and the record low temperature was 20 °F (−7 °C) on January 11, 1949, and December 24, 1990. Temperatures reach 90 °F (32 °C) or higher on an average of 12.0 days. Temperatures drop to 32 °F (0 °C) or lower on an average of 14.0 days. Due to
1276-613: A microprocessor is built in, but not all terminals with microprocessors did any real processing of input: the main computer to which it was attached would have to respond quickly to each keystroke. The term "intelligent" in this context dates from 1969. Notable examples include the IBM 2250 , predecessor to the IBM 3250 and IBM 5080, and IBM 2260 , predecessor to the IBM 3270 , introduced with System/360 in 1964. Most terminals were connected to minicomputers or mainframe computers and often had
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#17327986110041392-474: A political party. Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos can be of any race . The 2010 United States Census reported that Palo Alto had a population of 64,403. The population density was 2,497.5 inhabitants per square mile (964.3/km ). The racial makeup of Palo Alto
1508-594: A real-world terminal, sometimes allowing concurrent use of local programs and access to a distant terminal host system, either over a direct serial connection or over a network using, e.g., SSH . Today few if any dedicated computer terminals are being manufactured, as time sharing on large computers has been replaced by personal computers, handheld devices and workstations with graphical user interfaces. User interactions with servers use either software such as Web browsers , or terminal emulators, with connections over high-speed networks. The console of Konrad Zuse 's Z3 had
1624-496: A registered national historic district, is bounded by Kingsley, Lincoln, and Addison Avenues and the cross streets of Ramona, Bryant, and Waverley. The district includes a large number of well-preserved residences dating from the 1890s, including 833 Kingsley, 345 Lincoln, and 450 Kingsley. 1044 Bryant was the home of Russell Varian , co-inventor of the Klystron tube . The Federal Telegraph laboratory site, situated at 218 Channing,
1740-430: A result, Palo Alto has two downtown areas: one along University Avenue and one along California Avenue (renamed after the annexation since Palo Alto already had a Lincoln Avenue). The Mayfield News wrote its own obituary four days later: It is with a feeling of deep regret that we see on our streets today those who would sell, or give, our beautiful little city to an outside community. We have watched Mayfield grow from
1856-593: A sequence of codes were sent to the terminal to try to read the cursor's position or the 25th line's contents using a sequence of different manufacturer's control code sequences, and the terminal-generated response would determine a single-digit number (such as 6 for Data General Dasher terminals, 4 for ADM 3A/5/11/12 terminals, 0 or 2 for TTYs with no special features) that would be available to programs to say which set of codes to use. The great majority of terminals were monochrome, manufacturers variously offering green, white or amber and sometimes blue screen phosphors. (Amber
1972-472: A shell, most of the commands are small applications themselves. Another important application type is that of the text editor . A text editor typically occupies the full area of display, displays one or more text documents, and allows the user to edit the documents. The text editor has, for many uses, been replaced by the word processor , which usually provides rich formatting features that the text editor lacks. The first word processors used text to communicate
2088-605: A small hamlet, when Palo Alto was nothing more than a hayfield, to her present size ... and it is with a feeling of sorrow that we contemplate the fact that there are those who would sell or give the city away. Palo Alto continued to annex more land, including the Stanford Shopping Center area in 1953. Stanford Research Park , Embarcadero Road northeast of Bayshore, and the West Bayshore/San Antonio Road area were also annexed during
2204-455: A standard, AlphaWindows , that would allow a single CRT screen to implement multiple windows, each of which was to behave as a distinct terminal. Unfortunately, like I2O , this suffered from being run as a closed standard: non-members were unable to obtain even minimal information and there was no realistic way a small company or independent developer could join the consortium. An intelligent terminal does its own processing, usually implying
2320-486: A stock swap. Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( / ˌ p æ l oʊ ˈ æ l t oʊ / PAL -oh AL -toh ; Spanish for ' tall stick ' ) is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California , United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area , named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto . The city of Palo Alto was established in 1894 by
2436-446: A terminal as "intelligent" was its ability to process user-input within the terminal—not interrupting the main computer at each keystroke—and send a block of data at a time (for example: when the user has finished a whole field or form). Most terminals in the early 1980s, such as ADM-3A, TVI912, Data General D2, DEC VT52 , despite the introduction of ANSI terminals in 1978, were essentially "dumb" terminals, although some of them (such as
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#17327986110042552-666: A thousand acres (4.0 km ) extending from today's Page Mill Road to Serra Street and from El Camino Real to the foothills. Coutts named his property Ayrshire Farm. His fanciful 50-foot-tall (15 m) brick tower near Matadero Creek likely marked the south corner of his property. Leland Stanford started buying land in the area in 1876 for a horse farm, called the Palo Alto Stock Farm . Stanford bought Ayrshire Farm in 1882. In 1884, Leland Stanford and his wife, Jane lost their only child Leland Stanford Jr. when he died of typhoid fever at age 15 and decided to create
2668-456: A typical application the host sends the terminal a preformatted panel containing both static data and fields into which data may be entered. The terminal operator keys data, such as updates in a database entry, into the appropriate fields. When entry is complete (or ENTER or PF key pressed on 3270s), a block of data, usually just the data entered by the operator (modified data), is sent to the host in one transmission. The 3270 terminal buffer (at
2784-521: A university in his memory. In 1886, they proposed having the university's gateway be Mayfield. However, they had one condition: alcohol had to be banned from the town. Known for its 13 rowdy saloons, Mayfield rejected his request. This led them to drive the formation of a new temperance town with the help of their friend Timothy Hopkins of the Southern Pacific Railroad , who in 1887 bought 740 acres (3.0 km ) of private land for
2900-583: A visiting boat captain, John Greer. Greer owned a home on the site that is now Town & Country Village on Embarcadero and El Camino Real . Greer Avenue and Court are named for him. To the south of the Sotos, the brothers Secundino and Teodoro Robles in 1849 bought Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito from José Peña, the 1841 grantee. The grant covered the area south of Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito to more or less present-day Mountain View. The grant
3016-557: A warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb). Palo Alto was incorporated in 1894. In 1909 a municipal charter created a local government consisting of a fifteen-member city council, with responsibilities for various governmental functions delegated to appointed committees. In 1950, the city adopted a Council–manager government . Several appointed committees continue to advise the city council on specialized issues, such as land-use planning, utilities, and libraries, but these committees no longer have direct authority over City staff. Currently,
3132-402: Is " thin client ". A thin client typically uses a protocol like X11 for Unix terminals, or RDP for Microsoft Windows. The bandwidth needed depends on the protocol used, the resolution, and the color depth . Modern graphic terminals allow display of images in color, and of text in varying sizes, colors, and fonts (type faces). In the early 1990s, an industry consortium attempted to define
3248-463: Is a California Historical Landmark recognizing Lee de Forest 's 1911 invention of the vacuum tube and electronic oscillator at that location. While not open to the public, the garage that housed the launch of Hewlett Packard is located at 367 Addison Avenue. Hewlett Packard recently restored the house and garage. A second historic district on Ramona Street can be found downtown between University and Hamilton Avenues. The Palo Alto Chinese School
3364-406: Is a serial computer interface for text entry and display. Information is presented as an array of pre-selected formed characters . When such devices use a video display such as a cathode-ray tube , they are called a " video display unit " or "visual display unit" (VDU) or "video display terminal" (VDT). The system console is often a text terminal used to operate a computer. Modern computers have
3480-483: Is a tributary to San Francisquito Creek below Interstate 280. Palo Alto has a number of significant natural habitats, including estuarine , riparian , and oak forest. Many of these habitats are visible in Foothills Park , which is owned by the city. The Charleston Slough contains a rich marsh and littoral zone, providing feeding areas for a variety of shorebirds and other estuarine wildlife. Typical of
3596-522: Is a type of computer terminal that communicates with its host in blocks of data, as opposed to a character-oriented terminal that communicates with its host one character at a time. A block-oriented terminal may be card-oriented, display-oriented, keyboard-display, keyboard-printer, printer or some combination. The IBM 3270 is perhaps the most familiar implementation of a block-oriented display terminal, but most mainframe computer manufacturers and several other companies produced them. The description below
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3712-495: Is achieved via RS-232 serial links, Ethernet or other proprietary protocols . Character-oriented terminals can be "dumb" or "smart". Dumb terminals are those that can interpret a limited number of control codes (CR, LF, etc.) but do not have the ability to process special escape sequences that perform functions such as clearing a line, clearing the screen, or controlling cursor position. In this context dumb terminals are sometimes dubbed glass Teletypes , for they essentially have
3828-499: Is by some measures the most expensive college town in the United States. Graphical terminal A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that can be used for entering data into, and transcribing data from, a computer or a computing system. Most early computers only had a front panel to input or display bits and had to be connected to a terminal to print or input text through
3944-462: Is called a " dumb terminal " or a thin client . In the era of serial ( RS-232 ) terminals there was a conflicting usage of the term "smart terminal" as a dumb terminal with no user-accessible local computing power but a particularly rich set of control codes for manipulating the display; this conflict was not resolved before hardware serial terminals became obsolete. A personal computer can run terminal emulator software that replicates functions of
4060-485: Is filled with older homes, including Craftsman and California Colonials, some of which date back to the 1890s but most of which were built in the first four decades of the 20th century. South of Oregon Expressway, the homes, including many Joseph Eichler -designed or Eichler-style houses, were primarily built in the first 20 years after World War II. While the city contains homes that now cost anywhere from $ 800,000 to well over $ 40 million, much of Palo Alto's housing stock
4176-778: Is in the 13th Senate District , represented by Democrat Josh Becker , and in the 23rd Assembly District , represented by Democrat Marc Berman . In the United States House of Representatives , Palo Alto is in California's 16th congressional district , represented by Democrat Anna Eshoo . According to the California Secretary of State , as of February 10, 2019, Palo Alto has 40,040 registered voters. Of those, 20,857 (52.1%) are registered Democrats , 4,689 (11.7%) are registered Republicans , and 13,520 (33.8%) have declined to state
4292-462: Is in terms of the 3270, but similar considerations apply to other types. Block-oriented terminals typically incorporate a buffer which stores one screen or more of data, and also stores data attributes, not only indicating appearance (color, brightness, blinking, etc.) but also marking the data as being enterable by the terminal operator vs. protected against entry, as allowing the entry of only numeric information vs. allowing any characters, etc. In
4408-523: Is in the style of California mid-century middle-class suburbia. The median home sale price for all of Palo Alto was $ 1.2 million in 2007 and $ 1.4 million in July 2009. Palo Alto ranked in as the 5th most expensive city in the United States as of 2007 , with an average home sales price of $ 1,677,000. In 2010, Palo Alto ranked as the 2nd most expensive city in the United States, with a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home listing for $ 1.48 million on average. Palo Alto
4524-400: Is limited, the number of concurrent lines that can be displayed at one time is limited. Vector-mode displays were historically important but are no longer used. Practically all modern graphic displays are raster-mode, descended from the picture scanning techniques used for television , in which the visual elements are a rectangular array of pixels . Since the raster image is only perceptible to
4640-473: Is parallel and crosses the narrow corridor of land that connects the two parcels that makeup Palo Alto. Somewhat perpendicular to these roads are Sand Hill Road from El Camino until it crosses San Francisquito Creek into Menlo Park, Embarcadero Road, Oregon Expressway/Page Mill Road , Arastradero Road/East Charleston Road, and San Antonio Road (the last forms part of the boundary with Mountain View). According to
4756-444: Is pressed, so the application receives a ready string of text. In this mode, the application need not know much about the terminal. For many interactive applications this is not sufficient. One of the common enhancements is command-line editing (assisted with such libraries as readline ); it also may give access to command history. This is very helpful for various interactive command-line interpreters. Even more advanced interactivity
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4872-428: Is provided with full-screen applications. Those applications completely control the screen layout; also they respond to key-pressing immediately. This mode is very useful for text editors, file managers and web browsers . In addition, such programs control the color and brightness of text on the screen, and decorate it with underline, blinking and special characters (e.g. box-drawing characters ). To achieve all this,
4988-654: Is the oldest in the entire Bay Area. It is also home to the second oldest opera company in California, the West Bay Opera . One early major business was when Thomas Foon Chew , owner of the Bayside Canning Company in Alviso founded by his father, expanded his business by starting a cannery in 1918 in what was then Mayfield that initially employed 350 workers but later expanded. In the 1920s
5104-509: The IBM 2741 (1965) and the DECwriter (1970). Respective top speeds of teletypes, IBM 2741 and the LA30 (an early DECwriter) were 10, 15 and 30 characters per second. Although at that time "paper was king" the speed of interaction was relatively limited. The DECwriter was the last major printing-terminal product. It faded away after 1980 under pressure from video display units (VDUs), with
5220-750: The Intel 8080 . This made them inexpensive and they quickly became extremely popular input-output devices on many types of computer system, often replacing earlier and more expensive printing terminals. After 1970 several suppliers gravitated to a set of common standards: The experimental era of serial VDUs culminated with the VT100 in 1978. By the early 1980s, there were dozens of manufacturers of terminals, including Lear-Siegler , ADDS , Data General, DEC , Hazeltine Corporation , Heath/Zenith , Hewlett-Packard , IBM, TeleVideo , Volker-Craig, and Wyse , many of which had incompatible command sequences (although many used
5336-635: The Los Trancos and Monte Bello Open Space Preserves part of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District . The city extends as far as Skyline Boulevard along the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains . The northern more densely populated parcel is bordered by San Francisquito Creek (with Menlo Park and East Palo Alto in adjacent San Mateo County beyond) to the north, San Francisco Bay to
5452-632: The San Francisco Bay on November 2. Portolá descended from Sweeney Ridge southeast down San Andreas Creek to Laguna Creek (now Crystal Springs Reservoir ), thence to the San Francisquito Creek watershed, ultimately camping from November 6–11, 1769, by a tall redwood later to be known as El Palo Alto . In 1777, Father Junipero Serra established the Mission Santa Clara de Asis , whose northern boundary
5568-488: The Santa Cruz Mountains to the west, there is a " rain shadow " in Palo Alto, resulting in an average annual rainfall of only 15.12 inches (384 mm). Measurable rainfall occurs on an average of 55.8 days annually. The wettest year on record was 1983 with 32.51 inches (826 mm) and the driest year was 2013 with 3.81 inches (97 mm). The most rainfall in one month was 12.43 inches (316 mm) in February 1998 and
5684-507: The United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 25.8 square miles (67 km ), of which 23.9 square miles (62 km ) is land and 1.9 square miles (4.9 km ), comprising 7.38%, is water. The official elevation is 30 feet (9 m) above sea level, but the city boundaries reach well into the northern section of the Santa Cruz Mountains . Palo Alto is crossed by several creeks that flow north in
5800-506: The VT220 terminal strongly influenced the Model M shipped on IBM PCs from 1985, and through it all later computer keyboards. Although flat-panel displays were available since the 1950s, cathode-ray tubes continued to dominate the market until the personal computer had made serious inroads into the display terminal market. By the time cathode-ray tubes on PCs were replaced by flatscreens after
5916-493: The 1950s. Large amounts of land west of Foothill Expressway were annexed between 1959 and 1968; this is mostly undeveloped and includes Foothills Park and Arastradero Preserve . The last major annexations were of Barron Park in 1975 and, in 1979, a large area of marshlands bordering the bay. Many of Stanford University's first faculty members settled in the Professorville neighborhood of Palo Alto. Professorville, now
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#17327986110046032-584: The ASR Teletype models, included a paper tape reader and punch which could record output such as a program listing. The data on the tape could be re-entered into the computer using the tape reader on the teletype, or printed to paper. Teletypes used the current loop interface that was already used in telegraphy. A less expensive Read Only (RO) configuration was available for the Teletype. Custom-designs keyboard/printer terminals that came later included
6148-497: The American industrialist Leland Stanford when he founded Stanford University in memory of his son, Leland Stanford Jr. Palo Alto later expanded and now borders East Palo Alto , Mountain View , Los Altos , Los Altos Hills , Stanford , Portola Valley , and Menlo Park . As of the 2020 census , the population was 68,572. Palo Alto has one of the highest costs of living in the United States, and its residents are among
6264-501: The Bayside Canning Company became one of the largest in the world. In 1949 the Palo Alto cannery, now part of the Sutter Packing Company under the ownership of Safeway , closed; at the time it was the largest employer in Palo Alto with about a 1,000 workers. Various businesses used the building since including Fry's Electronics . Palo Alto is also home to a long-standing baseball tradition. The Palo Alto Oaks are
6380-489: The Palo Alto community. Palo Alto lies in the southeastern section of the San Francisco Peninsula . It consists of two large parcels of land connected by a narrow corridor. The southern inland section, located south of Interstate 280 , is hilly, rural, and lightly populated and is the site of Pearson–Arastradero Preserve and Foothills Park both part of the Palo Alto park system and also large parts of
6496-651: The South Peninsula region of the San Francisco Bay Area, Palo Alto has a Mediterranean climate with mild, moderately wet winters and warm, dry summers. Typically, in the warmer months, as the sun goes down, the fog bank flows over the foothills to the west and covers the night sky, thus creating a blanket that helps trap the summer warmth absorbed during the day. Even so, it is rare for the overnight low temperature to exceed 60 °F (16 °C). In January, average daily temperatures range from
6612-437: The age of 18 living in them, 13,975 (52.7%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 1,843 (7.0%) had a female householder with no husband present, 659 (2.5%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 979 (3.7%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships , and 188 (0.7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships . 7,982 households (30.1%) were made up of individuals, and 3,285 (12.4%) had someone living alone who
6728-642: The application must deal not only with plain text strings, but also with control characters and escape sequences, which allow moving the cursor to an arbitrary position, clearing portions of the screen, changing colors and displaying special characters, and also responding to function keys. The great problem here is that there are many different terminals and terminal emulators, each with its own set of escape sequences. In order to overcome this, special libraries (such as curses ) have been created, together with terminal description databases, such as Termcap and Terminfo. A block-oriented terminal or block mode terminal
6844-649: The arrival of Europeans, the Ohlone lived on the San Francisco peninsula; in particular, the Puichon Ohlone lived in the Palo Alto area. The area of modern Palo Alto was first recorded by the 1769 party of Gaspar de Portolá , a 64-man, 200-horse expedition setting out from San Diego to find Monterey Bay . The group trekked past the bay without recognizing it and continued north. When they reached modern-day Pacifica , they ascended Sweeney Ridge and saw
6960-411: The beginning of the decade and 19.6 kbps by the end of the decade, with higher speeds possible on more expensive terminals. The function of a terminal is typically confined to transcription and input of data; a device with significant local, programmable data-processing capability may be called a "smart terminal" or fat client . A terminal that depends on the host computer for its processing power
7076-577: The board of directors. He was succeeded as president by William W. Stevens. Miller later went on to found Datacopy , a pioneering manufacturer of image scanners , in 1973. Data Disc expanded with regional sales offices across the United States in November 1969, and the company left Palo Alto for larger headquarters in Sunnyvale, California , in March 1971. Andrew W. O'Sullivan replaced Stevens as president
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#17327986110047192-561: The city council has seven members. The mayor and vice-mayor serve one year at a time, with terms ending in January. General municipal elections are held in November of even-numbered years. Council terms are four years long. According to one study in 2015, the city's effective property tax rate of 0.42% was the lowest of the California cities included in the study. In the California State Legislature , Palo Alto
7308-647: The community that started nearby. On September 23, 1856, the Crosby land was transferred to Sarah Wallis to satisfy a debt he owed her. In 1880, Secundino Robles, father to twenty-nine children, still lived just south of Palo Alto, near the location of the present-day San Antonio Shopping Center in Mountain View. Many of the Spanish names in the Palo Alto area represent the local heritage, descriptive terms, and former residents. Pena Court, Miranda Avenue, which
7424-410: The computer handling character generation and outputting to a CRT display such as a computer monitor or, sometimes, a consumer TV, but most larger computers continued to require terminals. Early terminals were inexpensive devices but very slow compared to punched cards or paper tape for input; with the advent of time-sharing systems, terminals slowly pushed these older forms of interaction from
7540-569: The computer manufacturer for terminals to expand the systems. In fact, the instruction design for the Intel 8008 was originally conceived at Computer Terminal Corporation as the processor for the Datapoint 2200 . From the introduction of the IBM 3270 , and the DEC VT100 (1978), the user and programmer could notice significant advantages in VDU technology improvements, yet not all programmers used
7656-600: The development of the VDU were the Univac Uniscope and the IBM 2260 , both in 1964. These were block-mode terminals designed to display a page at a time, using proprietary protocols; in contrast to character-mode devices, they enter data from the keyboard into a display buffer rather than transmitting them immediately. In contrast to later character-mode devices, the Uniscope used synchronous serial communication over an EIA RS-232 interface to communicate between
7772-479: The device) could be updated on a single character basis, if necessary, because of the existence of a "set buffer address order" (SBA), that usually preceded any data to be written/overwritten within the buffer. A complete buffer could also be read or replaced using the READ BUFFER command or WRITE command (unformatted or formatted in the case of the 3270). Block-oriented terminals cause less system load on
7888-577: The direction of the San Francisco Bay, Adobe Creek near its eastern boundary, San Francisquito Creek on its western boundary, and Matadero Creek in between the other two. Arastradero Creek is a tributary to Matadero Creek, and Barron Creek is now diverted to Adobe Creek just south of Highway 101 by a diversion channel. The San Francisquito Creek mainstem is formed by the confluence of Corte Madera Creek and Bear Creek not far below Searsville Dam . Further downstream, Los Trancos Creek
8004-423: The display, as well as the ability to switch emulation modes to mimic competitor's models, that became increasingly important selling features during the 1980s especially, when buyers could mix and match different suppliers' equipment to a greater extent than before. The advance in microprocessors and lower memory costs made it possible for the terminal to handle editing operations such as inserting characters within
8120-484: The drives could even be stopped and started arbitrarily, with the heads midway through the platter, without causing a head crash . Data Disc sold their read–write heads to other companies on an OEM basis; companies whose drives used particulate magnetic media instead of thin-film magnetic media often had to lubricate their drives with silicone oil to prevent the heads from sticking to the drives. Two former Ampex engineers, Fred Pfost and Kurt Machein, joined Data Disc in
8236-564: The early ADM-3 as a starting point). The great variations in the control codes between makers gave rise to software that identified and grouped terminal types so the system software would correctly display input forms using the appropriate control codes; In Unix-like systems the termcap or terminfo files, the stty utility, and the TERM environment variable would be used; in Data General's Business BASIC software, for example, at login-time
8352-624: The fact that early character-mode terminals were often deployed to replace teletype machines as a way to reduce operating costs. The next generation of VDUs went beyond teletype emulation with an addressable cursor that gave them the ability to paint two-dimensional displays on the screen. Very early VDUs with cursor addressibility included the VT05 and the Hazeltine 2000 operating in character mode, both from 1970. Despite this capability, early devices of this type were often called "Glass TTYs". Later,
8468-460: The features of the new terminals ( backward compatibility in the VT100 and later TeleVideo terminals, for example, with "dumb terminals" allowed programmers to continue to use older software). Some dumb terminals had been able to respond to a few escape sequences without needing microprocessors: they used multiple printed circuit boards with many integrated circuits ; the single factor that classed
8584-692: The field of computer graphics with the release of the Anagraph graphical terminal in November 1972 and the 6600 system in December 1973. In June 1974, by which point the company employed 269 in total, Data Disc raised a 52,000-square-foot building across the street for Bright to occupy. By mid-1975, Data Disc's hard drive sales accounted for 55 percent of their revenues; meanwhile, sales of graphics terminal sales accounted for 15 percent; sales of Bright tape drives for 20 percent; and sales of videodiscs for 10 percent. In September 1975, Sullivan
8700-485: The following July. Data Disc filed its initial public offering in mid-1972. In June 1972, Data Disc acquired Bright Industries from Tracor of Austin, Texas , for 5,000 shares of Data Disc's stock, as well as $ 100,000 in cash. Bright, a maker of traditional data tape drives, was acquired to round out the company's roster of products and make them more enticing to Data Disc's hard drive customers, who often bought tape drives from competitors. Likewise, Data Disc expanded to
8816-548: The host and less network traffic than character-oriented terminals. They also appear more responsive to the user, especially over slow connections, since editing within a field is done locally rather than depending on echoing from the host system. Early terminals had limited editing capabilities – 3270 terminals, for example, only could check entries as valid numerics. Subsequent "smart" or "intelligent" terminals incorporated microprocessors and supported more local processing. Programmers of block-oriented terminals often used
8932-429: The human eye as a whole for a very short time, the raster must be refreshed many times per second to give the appearance of a persistent display. The electronic demands of refreshing display memory meant that graphic terminals were developed much later than text terminals, and initially cost much more. Most terminals today are graphical; that is, they can show images on the screen. The modern term for graphical terminal
9048-419: The industry. Related developments were the improvement of terminal technology and the introduction of inexpensive video displays . Early Teletypes only printed out with a communications speed of only 75 baud or 10 5-bit characters per second, and by the 1970s speeds of video terminals had improved to 2400 or 9600 2400 bit/s . Similarly, the speed of remote batch terminals had improved to 4800 bit/s at
9164-812: The last revision (the DECwriter IV of 1982) abandoning the classic teletypewriter form for one more resembling a desktop printer. A video display unit (VDU) displays information on a screen rather than printing text to paper and typically uses a cathode-ray tube (CRT). VDUs in the 1950s were typically designed for displaying graphical data rather than text and were used in, e.g., experimental computers at institutions like MIT ; computers used in academia, government and business, sold under brand names like DEC , ERA , IBM and UNIVAC ; military computers supporting specific defence applications such as ballistic missile warning systems and radar/air defence coordination systems like BUIC and SAGE . Two early landmarks in
9280-431: The later ADM and TVI models) did have a primitive block-send capability. Common early uses of local processing power included features that had little to do with off-loading data processing from the host computer but added useful features such as printing to a local printer, buffered serial data transmission and serial handshaking (to accommodate higher serial transfer speeds), and more sophisticated character attributes for
9396-525: The lower reaches of San Francisquito Creek (i.e., parts of modern Menlo Park and northern Palo Alto) was given to Maria Antonia Mesa in 1841. She and her husband Rafael Soto (who had died in 1839) had settled in 1835 near present-day Newell and Middlefield roads and sold supplies. In 1839, their daughter María Luisa Soto (1817–1883) married John Coppinger, who was to be, in 1841, the grantee of Rancho Cañada de Raymundo (in modern San Mateo county). Upon Coppinger's death in 1847, Maria inherited it and later married
9512-494: The mid-1960s; outside of work, they developed the VDR-210CF, a device that could record analog video signals onto a hard disk. This allowed broadcasters to perform instant replays of sports events on the fly, with the ability to jog between frames, replay in slow motion, and pause on a still frame cleanly (the helical scanning heads of videotape decks usually could not perform such trick plays cleanly, and pausing could wear out
9628-687: The most educated in the country. However, it has a youth suicide rate four times higher than the national average, often attributed to academic pressure. As one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley , Palo Alto is home to the headquarters of multiple tech companies, including HP , Space Systems/Loral , VMware , and PARC . Palo Alto has also served as headquarters or the founding location of several other tech companies, including Apple , Google , Facebook , Logitech , Tesla , Intuit , IDEO , Pinterest , and PayPal . Ford Motor Company and Lockheed Martin each additionally maintain major research and technology facilities within Palo Alto. Before
9744-528: The most rainfall in one day was 3.75 inches (95 mm) on February 3, 1998. Measurable snowfall is very rare in the populated areas of Palo Alto, but 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) fell on January 21, 1962. A dusting of snow occasionally occurs in the highest (unpopulated) section of Palo Alto near Skyline Ridge, where the elevation reaches up to 2,812 feet (857 m). According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Palo Alto has
9860-404: The multiplexer and the host, while the 2260 used either a channel connection or asynchronous serial communication between the 2848 and the host. The 2265, related to the 2260, also used asynchronous serial communication. The Datapoint 3300 from Computer Terminal Corporation , announced in 1967 and shipped in 1969, was a character-mode device that emulated a Model 33 Teletype . This reflects
9976-698: The new Mexico until May 10, 1825. Mexico proceeded to sell off or grant much of the mission land. During the Mexican–American War , the United States seized Alta California in 1846; however, this was not legalized until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed on July 4, 1848. Mexican citizens in the area could choose to become United States citizens and their land grants were to be recognized if they chose to do so (though many legal disputes arose over this). The land grant, Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito , of about 2,230 acres (9.0 km ) on
10092-451: The new townsite. This Hopkins Tract, bounded by El Camino Real, San Francisquito Creek, Boyce, Channing, Melville, and Hopkins Avenues, and Embarcadero Road, was proclaimed a local Heritage District during Palo Alto's centennial in 1994. The Stanfords set up their university, Stanford University , and a train stop (on University Avenue) by the new town. This new community was initially called University Park (the name "Palo Alto" at that time
10208-474: The north-east, Mountain View , Los Altos , and Los Altos Hills to the east and south-east and Stanford University to the south-west and west. Several major transit routes cross this parcel from the north-west to the south-east. The biggest and closest to the bay is the Bayshore Freeway and going inland are Alma Street/Central Expressway , El Camino Real , and Foothill Expressway . Interstate 280
10324-407: The operator attempted to enter more data into the field than allowed. A graphical terminal can display images as well as text. Graphical terminals are divided into vector-mode terminals, and raster mode . A vector-mode display directly draws lines on the face of a cathode-ray tube under control of the host computer system. The lines are continuously formed, but since the speed of electronics
10440-404: The population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 24,644 people (38.3%) lived in rental housing units. As of the census of 2000, there were 58,598 people, 25,216 households, and 14,600 families residing in the city. The population density was 955.8/km (2,476/sq mi). There were 26,048 housing units at an average density of 424.9/km (1,100/sq mi). The racial makeup of the city
10556-472: The same limited functionality as does a mechanical Teletype. This type of dumb terminal is still supported on modern Unix-like systems by setting the environment variable TERM to dumb . Smart or intelligent terminals are those that also have the ability to process escape sequences, in particular the VT52, VT100 or ANSI escape sequences. A text terminal , or often just terminal (sometimes text console )
10672-413: The screen usually causes the terminal to scroll down one line, entering data into the last screen position on a block-oriented terminal usually causes the cursor to wrap — move to the start of the first enterable field. Programmers might "protect" the last screen position to prevent inadvertent wrap. Likewise a protected field following an enterable field might lock the keyboard and sound an audible alarm if
10788-431: The signal on the tape due to friction concentrated on one spot on the tape). This device was sold by Machein's company Machtronics and licensed to Data Disc for resale to broadcast entities. Data Disc developed a specialized version of their videodisc recorders for NASA , which were able to store RGB component video signals sequentially and convert them to composite video signals usable by broadcasters. Data Disc's system
10904-415: The simplest form, a text terminal is like a file. Writing to the file displays the text and reading from the file produces what the user enters. In Unix-like operating systems, there are several character special files that correspond to available text terminals. For other operations, there are special escape sequences , control characters and termios functions that a program can use, most easily via
11020-494: The structure of the document, but later word processors operate in a graphical environment and provide a WYSIWYG simulation of the formatted output. However, text editors are still used for documents containing markup such as DocBook or LaTeX . Programs such as Telix and Minicom control a modem and the local terminal to let the user interact with remote servers. On the Internet , telnet and ssh work similarly. In
11136-511: The technique of storing context information for the transaction in progress on the screen, possibly in a hidden field, rather than depending on a running program to keep track of status. This was the precursor of the HTML technique of storing context in the URL as data to be passed as arguments to a CGI program. Unlike a character-oriented terminal, where typing a character into the last position of
11252-474: The term "glass TTY" tended to be restrospectively narrowed to devices without full cursor addressibility. The classic era of the VDU began in the early 1970s and was closely intertwined with the rise of time sharing computers . Important early products were the ADM-3A , VT52 , and VT100 . These devices used no complicated CPU , instead relying on individual logic gates , LSI chips, or microprocessors such as
11368-840: The way to San Jose started in January 1864. El Camino became Main Street; the northeast–southwest cross streets were named for Civil War heroes, with California Avenue originally being Lincoln Street. The town had its own newspaper by 1869 (the Mayfield Enterprise , in English and Spanish), incorporated in 1903, and had breweries and a cannery. In 1875, French financier Jean Baptiste Paulin Caperon, better known as Peter Coutts, purchased land in Mayfield and four other parcels around three sides of today's College Terrace – more than
11484-417: The year 2000, the hardware computer terminal was nearly obsolete. A character-oriented terminal is a type of computer terminal that communicates with its host one character at a time, as opposed to a block-oriented terminal that communicates in blocks of data. It is the most common type of data terminal, because it is easy to implement and program. Connection to the mainframe computer or terminal server
11600-544: Was 41,359 (64.2%) White , 17,461 (27.1%) Asian , 1,197 (1.9%) African American , 121 (0.2%) Native American , 142 (0.2%) Pacific Islander , 1,426 (2.2%) from other races , and 2,697 (4.2%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3,974 persons (6.2%). The Census reported that 63,820 people (99.1% of the population) lived in households, 205 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 378 (0.6%) were institutionalized. There were 26,493 households, out of which 8,624 (32.6%) had children under
11716-422: Was 41.9 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.7 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 93.0 males. There were 28,216 housing units at an average density of 1,094.2 units per square mile (422.5 units/km ), of which 14,766 (55.7%) were owner-occupied, and 11,727 (44.3%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.5%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.6%. 39,176 people (60.8% of
11832-441: Was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.30 and the average family size was 2.95. In the city, the population was spread out, with 21.2% under the age of 18, 4.9% from 18 to 24, 32.4% from 25 to 44, 25.9% from 45 to 64, and 15.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females, there were 95.8 males. For every 100 females aged 18 and over, there were 93.6 males. According to
11948-422: Was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.41. There were 16,477 families (62.2% of all households); the average family size was 3.04. The population was spread out, with 15,079 people (23.4%) under the age of 18, 3,141 people (4.9%) aged 18 to 24, 17,159 people (26.6%) aged 25 to 44, 18,018 people (28.0%) aged 45 to 64, and 11,006 people (17.1%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
12064-538: Was 75.76% White , 2.02% Black , 0.21% Native American , 17.22% Asian , 0.14% Pacific Islander , 1.41% from other races , and 3.24% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 4.65% of the population. There were 25,216 households, of which 27.2% had resident children under the age of 18, 48.5% were married couples living together, 7.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 42.1% were non-families. 32.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 10.8% had someone living alone who
12180-528: Was San Francisquito Creek and whose lands included modern Palo Alto. The area was under the control of the viceroy of Mexico and ultimately under the control of Spain. On November 29, 1777, Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe (now the city of San Jose a few miles to the south of what was to be Palo Alto) was established by order of the viceroy despite the displeasure of the local mission. The Mexican War of Independence ending in 1821 led to Mexico becoming an independent country, though San Jose did not recognize rule by
12296-603: Was a Friden Flexowriter , which would continue to serve this purpose on many other early computers well into the 1960s. Early user terminals connected to computers were, like the Flexowriter, electromechanical teleprinters /teletypewriters (TeleTYpewriter, TTY), such as the Teletype Model ;33 , originally used for telegraphy ; early Teletypes were typically configured as Keyboard Send-Receive (KSR) or Automatic Send-Receive (ASR). Some terminals, such as
12412-464: Was attached to what is now College Terrace), but was incorporated in 1894 with the name Palo Alto. With the Stanfords' support, Palo Alto grew to the size of Mayfield. Mayfield eventually passed an ordinance banning saloons that took effect in January 1905. On July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield and the two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925. As
12528-518: Was awarded a patent in 1963. In 1965, by which the company employed 26 people, Data Disc moved their headquarters to the Stanford Industrial Park , occupying half of a 36,000-square-foot building formerly occupied by Lockheed . The company gradually expanded their presence to occupy the entire footprint of that building by the late 1960s. At Data Disc, Miller developed the first low-mass, three-point-suspension read–write head that
12644-567: Was bounded on the south by Mariano Castro's Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas grant across San Antonio Road. This later became the Robles Rancho, which constitutes about 80% of Palo Alto and Stanford University today. In 1863, it was whittled down in the courts to 6,981 acres (28.25 km ). Stories say the grand hacienda was built on the former meager adobe of José Peña near Ferne off San Antonio Road, midway between Middlefield and Alma Street. Their hacienda hosted fiestas and bull fights. It
12760-499: Was claimed to reduce eye strain). Terminals with modest color capability were also available but not widely used; for example, a color version of the popular Wyse WY50, the WY350, offered 64 shades on each character cell. VDUs were eventually displaced from most applications by networked personal computers, at first slowly after 1985 and with increasing speed in the 1990s. However, they had a lasting influence on PCs. The keyboard layout of
12876-464: Was essentially Foothill Expressway , was the married name of Juana Briones and the name occurs in Courts and Avenues and other street names in Palo Alto and Mountain View in the quadrant where she owned vast areas between Stanford University, Grant Road in Mountain View and west of El Camino Real. Yerba Buena was to her credit. Rinconada was the major Mexican land grant name. The township of Mayfield
12992-472: Was formed in 1855, around the site of a stagecoach stop and saloon known as "Uncle Jim's Cabin" near the intersection of El Camino Real and today's California Avenue in what is now southern Palo Alto. In October 1863 the San Francisco to San Jose railroad had been built as far as Mayfield and service started between San Francisco and Mayfield (the station is now California Avenue ); train service all
13108-409: Was later licensed to IBM and used in their influential Winchester drives . This allowed for the head to come into closer contact with the spinning disk, allowing for much higher linear densities than that of Data Disc's competition (3200 bpi versus 300 bpi of their 1960s competitors). With the thin-film, nickel-cobalt-plated platters that Data Disc was using at the time for their drive units,
13224-406: Was ruined in the 1906 earthquake and its lumber was used to build a large barn nearby, which was said to have lingered until the early 1950s. On April 10, 1853, 250 acres (1.0 km ), comprising the present-day Barron Park, Matadero Creek and Stanford Business Park, was sold for $ 2,000 to Elisha Oscar Crosby , who called his new property Mayfield Farm. The name of Mayfield was later attached to
13340-456: Was succeeded as president by James J. Woo, an 11-year veteran of IBM . One of his first acts as president was renaming Data Disc to Amcomp, Inc., in reflecting its focus away from disk drive units and toward other peripherals and complete computer systems. The name change was finalized in June 1976. In March 1977, Datapoint Corporation of San Antonio, Texas , acquired Amcomp for $ 2 million in
13456-649: Was used by NASA in 1969 during the Apollo 11 moon landings and the Mariner 6 and 7 missions to Mars. Another application-specific version of their videodisc recorders allowed physicians to make rapid X-rays without film development wait times. Data Disc formalized their video systems unit as a subsidiary in July 1969. Following a corporate reorganization caused by a sudden doubling of production volume, Miller resigned as president of Data Disc in April 1969, while remaining on
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