Back in the late 1970s my best friend Renee gave me a pocket calculator for my birthday. Needless to say, I was impressed. I was sure this modern gadget would make life a lot easier. It was a great little machine: ran on a 9-volt battery, had happy red lighted numbers, and had lots of blue buttons with serious mathematical symbols on them.
Of course, I err in speaking of this machine in the past tense; it still lives in my desk at home. I can't bear to throw it away. A few weeks ago my handy little calculator was the butt of several jokes from the very modern DDJ editors, and this caused me to pause and reflect a bit as we face a new year fill of exciting technological advancements.
Motorola had a big shindig here in October to announce its new 68030 chip and gave out solar-powered calculators as a promotional prize. The guys on the staff generously donated the calculator to me so I could finally enter the 1980s. I appreciate this snazzy new tool, but somehow I can't bear to part with my old clunker.
January 1988. We've reached another year closer to 2000, and I find I have a hard time letting some of what made 1987 possible go without mention. Thanks to those great folks on the Dill editorial staff who have gone on to bigger and better (?) things: Nick Turner, Deborah Hart, Vince Leone, and Levi Thomas. Also our columnists, who we hope will still send in an occasional piece of brilliant prose: Michael Ham, Ray Duncan, and Namir Shammas. Namir is passing the baton of his Structured Programming column into the able hands of Kent Porter as of next issue.)
We have lots of exciting things in store for 1988, the first being the issue you hold in your hands, our annual 680x0 issue. In this issue we debut our new Macintosh column, To the Macs, by Stan Krute. Our editorial schedule for the rest of the year is as follows:
Give Tyler a call with any article ideas.
Starting in February, we will add Examining Room, a series of short product reviews, to DDJ's traditional fare. We won't accept unsolicited reviews but invite you to join the team of "examiners." If you have any ideas, give Ron Copeland a call.
So now we re ready for a new year. I have my new calculator and you have your new magazine. But, being a sentimental sort, I'm determined to hang on to my relic of a calculator. I picture myself well into the 21st century, cuddled around the heat projection unit with my rosy-faced grandkids, all of them eager to hear another tale of days gone by. "Tell us about your first calculator again, Grandma, "they will say. "Well," I'll reply, "Back in the late 1970s your Auntie Renee gave me a pocket calculator for my birthday
As we dive headfirst into a year filled with technological promises, let us not forget the people and forces that brought us to where we are today. Best wishes for 1988.
February--Debugging
March--Object-oriented programming
April--M languages
May--Designing applications
June--Real-time programming
July--Distributed data (hypermedia)
August--Annual C issue
September--Software engineering
October--Postscript; Forth
November--Graphics and video
December--Operating systems