Byte (April 1985)

18 days ago

_{Cover of the April 1985 issue of Byte}

You really got your money's worth when you bought an issue of Byte in the 1980s. For only $3.50 per issue (less if you were a subscriber), you got a whopping 500+ pages. And the cover story in April 1985? Artificial Intelligence. Contents of this issue includes:

Features

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar: Build The Home Run Control System - The first part of a series on building a home control system using X-10 modules, sensors and a single board computer.

Coprocessing in Modula-2 - Writing concurrent programs in Modula-2.

A Million-Point Graphics Tablet - A guide to building a low cost graphics tablet for the Zenith Z-100.

_{Table of Contents from the April 1985 issue of Byte}

Themes

Communication With Alien Intelligence - How we might communicate with aliens from an artificial intelligence perspective.

The Quest to Understand Thinking - Attempting to understand how the brain works starting with the simplest steps.

The LISP Tutor - Developing a computer based tutor effective at teaching the LISP programming language.

PROUST - A knowledge based systems for automatically debugging Pascal programs.

Architectures for AI - Improving computational throughput for artificial intelligence.

The LISP Revolution - LISP was the first language primarily used for AI applications. It is still used today though Python and C++ seem to be the main players now.

The Challenge of Open Systems - In this context, "open systems" refer to systems of interconnected and interdependent computers.

Vision - Computer Vision was one of the earliest applications of artificial intelligence. This article discusses methods of making computers see.

Learning in Parallel Networks - Building learning systems with parallel networks.

Connections - Comparing parallelism in nature with artificial intelligence.

Reverse Engineering The Brain - Creating artificial intelligence by simulating the brain.

The Technology of Expert Systems - Expert Systems were another early implementation of artificial intelligence concepts.

Inside an Expert System - Developing an Expert System using Pascal.

_{Table of Contents from the April 1985 issue of Byte (continued)}

Reviews

The ITT XTRA - An IBM compatible computer with 256K of RAM, two double-density 5.25" floppy drives, and monochrome display for $2395.

Insight - A Knowledge System - Review of this rule-based knowledge system for the IBM PC.

Kernel

Computing At Chaos Manor: Over The Moat - A look at various products including CP/M Utilities, WRITE, dBASE III, Framework, S1 Operating System, Symphony, System Backup, The World Plus, and more.

BYTE West Coast: Lasers, Office Publishing, and More - A look at products from Canon, Imagen, Interleaf, Kurzwil, Ricoh, Sun Microsystems, Tardis Software, and Xerox.

BYTE U.K.: New Database Ideas - A look at Frame Theory for use in database management systems.

BYTE Japan: The Fifth Generation in Japan - A look at the Hitachi S-810 family of vector super computers. The S-810 was the second super computer from Japan and the first from Hitachi. The fastest of them could reach about 630 MFLOPS.

Editorial: Golfers and Hackers - A comparison of golfing and hacking.

Microbytes - An IBM PC emulator for Macintosh users; a memory upgrade for the Mac; Microsoft releases C compiler; Zenith releases new portables with backlit LCD displays; Proteon offers 80 megabits per second networking ($8000 per node); and more.

Letters - Readers write in about the Fujitsu Micro 16, the Apple II, Wordstar .BAK files, manual from Apple, and more.

What's New - A brief look at new products including the General Electric 3-8100 thermal printer, SuperKey, GE TVs that can be used as 80-column monitors, 300bps direct acoustic modem from GE, the Kaypro 286i IBM PC AT compatible computer, the Alphacom Aero printer (Epson RX-80 compatible), 30-megabyte hard drive from Control Data Corporation, S-100 graphics cards, and more.

Ask BYTE - Questions answered about switching power supplies for the S-100 bus, high resolution graphics, and more.

Book Reviews - Reviews of Build Your Own Expert System by Chris Naylor, Artificial Intelligence In BASIC by Mike James, The Cognitive Computer: On Language Learning And Artificial Intelligence by Roger C. Schank.