This book takes the reader through the design and implementation of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum's custom chip, revealing for the first time the decisions behind its design and its hidden secrets. By using it as case study, the techniques required to design an 8-bit microcomputer are explained, along with comprehensive details of the Ferranti ULA manufacturing process. If you have ever wanted to design your own computer or wondered what was behind the most successful microcomputer of the 1980s, then this is the book for you. For the first time, the inner working of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum's custom chip and heart of the computer, the Ferranti ULA, is exposed in minute detail. Packed with over 140 illustrations and circuit diagrams, this book takes the reader through the cutting edge technology that was the Ferranti ULA and the design of the ZX Spectrum home computer, illustrating the principles and techniques involved in creating a cost effective computer that required nothing more than a television set and a cassette recorder. The ZX Spectrum ULA is an essential read for the electronics hobbyist, student or electronic engineer wishing to design their own retro-style microcomputer or anyone with an interest in historical micro-electronic and digital design. All topics are explained in simple yet precise terms, building on their careful introduction towards the full functionality presented by the Sinclair computer. Some of the topics covered are: The architecture of the standard microcomputer, Ferranti and their ULA, manufacturing process and structure, The functional layout of the ZX Spectrum ULA, Video display generation, Memory contention and timing, ZX Spectrum design bugs such as "The Snow Effect," Hidden features, ULA version differences.

First published in 1982, William Tang’s Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner is generally considered to be the best introduction to 8-bit machine code programming ever written. With many great game writers crediting this as the book that got them started, there still is no better way to learn the language at the heart of the ZX Spectrum. * * * As the original publisher Melbourne House wrote: If you are frustrated by the limitations of BASIC and want to write faster, more powerful, space-saving programs or subroutines, Spectrum Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner is the book for you. Even with no previous experience of computer languages, you will be able to discover the ease and power of the Spectrum's own language. Each chapter includes specific examples of machine language applications which can be demonstrated and used on your Spectrum as well as a self-test questionnaire. At the end of the book, all this is brought together in an entire machine language program - from design right through to the complete listing of an exciting, original arcade game. * * * Acorn Books is proud to present its Retro Reproduction Series, a collection of classic computing works from the 1980s and 90s, lovingly reproduced in the 21st century. From standards of programming reference no self-respecting microcomputer programmer would be without, to obscure works not found in print anywhere else, these modern reprints are perfect for any connoisseur of retro computing.

How amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Aside from the exceptional history of Tetris, very little is known about gaming culture behind the Iron Curtain. But despite the scarcity of home computers and the absence of hardware and software markets, Czechoslovakia hosted a remarkably active DIY microcomputer scene in the 1980s, producing more than two hundred games that were by turns creative, inventive, and politically subversive. In Gaming the Iron Curtain, Jaroslav Švelch offers the first social history of gaming and game design in 1980s Czechoslovakia, and the first book-length treatment of computer gaming in any country of the Soviet bloc. Švelch describes how amateur programmers in 1980s Czechoslovakia discovered games as a medium, using them not only for entertainment but also as a means of self-expression. Sheltered in state-supported computer clubs, local programmers fashioned games into a medium of expression that, unlike television or the press, was neither regulated nor censored. In the final years of Communist rule, Czechoslovak programmers were among the first in the world to make activist games about current political events, anticipating trends observed decades later in independent or experimental titles. Drawing from extensive interviews as well as political, economic, and social history, Gaming the Iron Curtain tells a compelling tale of gaming the system, introducing us to individuals who used their ingenuity to be active, be creative, and be heard.

Wireless localization techniques are an area that has attracted interest from both industry and academia, with self-localization capability providing a highly desirable characteristic of wireless sensor networks. Localization Algorithms and Strategies for Wireless Sensor Networks encompasses the significant and fast growing area of wireless localization techniques. This book provides comprehensive and up-to-date coverage of topics and fundamental theories underpinning measurement techniques and localization algorithms. A useful compilation for academicians, researchers, and practitioners, this Premier Reference Source contains relevant references and the latest studies emerging out of the wireless sensor network field.

This textbook is aimed at newcomers to nonlinear dynamics and chaos, especially students taking a first course in the subject. The presentation stresses analytical methods, concrete examples, and geometric intuition. The theory is developed systematically, starting with first-order differential equations and their bifurcations, followed by phase plane analysis, limit cycles and their bifurcations, and culminating with the Lorenz equations, chaos, iterated maps, period doubling, renormalization, fractals, and strange attractors.

One of the main problems in chip design is the enormous number of possible combinations of individual chip elements within a system, and the problem of their compatibility. The recent application of data structures, efficient algorithms, and ordered binary decision diagrams (OBDDs) has proven vital in designing the computer chips of tomorrow. This book provides an introduction to the foundations of this interdisciplinary research area, emphasizing its applications in computer aided circuit design.

This book tells the story of the classic home computers that paved the way for the PCs we use today - from 1977s pioneering MITS Altair to the latest swivel screen designs of the iMac and the Tablet PC.

Presents the author's thesis that consciousness, in its manifestation in the human quality of understanding, is doing something that mere computation cannot; and attempts to understand how such non-computational action might arise within scientifically comprehensive physical laws.

A comprehensive description and assessment of the use of marker-assisted selection for increasing the rate of genetic gain in crops, livestock, forestry and fish, including the related policy, FAO's tradition of dealing with issues of importance to agricultural and economic development in a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral manner.