#Unisys

[mahcookiez]

hybe kibo.....

[retrocompmx]

Un día como hoy (11 de noviembre) en la computación

El 11 de noviembre de 1986, se fusionan Burroughs Corporation y Sperry Rand para formar el consorcio de consultoría multinacional Unisys que provee hoy de servicios de aplicaciones e infraestructura en la nube. Llegó a ser la segunda empresa informática más grande, solo superada por IBM #retrocomputingmx #Unisys

[prcg]

La SEC multa a cuatro empresas con 7 millones de dólares por 'divulgaciones cibernéticas engañosas' sobre el hack de SolarWinds

La Comisión de Bolsa y Valores (SEC) anunciado el martes que acusó e impuso sanciones a cuatro empresas por realizar divulgaciones engañosas relacionadas con la violación de datos de SolarWinds de 2019. Las cuatro empresas acusadas son las firmas de ciberseguridad Check Point, que pagarán una multa civil de 995.000 dólares; Mimecast, que pagará $990.000; y las empresas tecnológicas Unisys, que…

[postgamecontent]

The Unisys Icon: One Canadian Xennial's Memories of Ontario's Obscure Computer

One topic that often comes up in retro gaming circles is how aspects of gaming history not part of the American story don't get enough attention. I personally feel it's mostly up to the people to whom the stories belong to tell them. So I am going to follow my own advice today and tell the tale of a computer that statistically speaking almost no one has used, and some of that computer's software. I have to tell this story from memory, because this computer and its software functionally no longer exist. Practically no photographs of any of its games exist. We're relying on decades-old recall here, so… I'll do my best.

The Unisys ICON was a computer developed as an initiative by the Ontario Ministry of Education to create a standard for Ontario schools. It used an Intel 80186 CPU and its OS was an early version of a Unix-like system that eventually came to be known as QNX. Yes, the Blackberry one. Still in use, I believe. Each Unisys ICON came with its own monitor and a very robust keyboard with a trackball embedded in it. Computers ran in a network from a designated server machine. They were pretty expensive and the whole program was quite controversial, with many considering it a colossal waste of tax money. I mean, in hindsight… probably?

The first line of ICONs were introduced to schools in Ontario in 1984, and support for the platform continued until 1994. During that time, several models were created along with a fair bit of bespoke software. Most of it was meant to be educational, used for teaching programming to older kids and more general lessons to younger ones. I don't recall any pure games without any educational component, although some of them really danced on that line. When the ICON program was canceled in 1994, the Archives of Ontario declined to preserve the ICON and its software. They were all ordered to be destroyed, and just about all of them were.

Only a few fully working models are known to be in existence today, and some of the software was just straight-up lost forever. No emulators exist, and there is no way to play any ICON software unless you have access to one of those few remaining units. So yes, all my UK friends out there? I know you dislike it when Americans make jokes about your Spectrum and Amiga computers and games, but you can only joke about something if you've heard about it. No one jokes about the ICON. I mean, until they find out about its nickname, "The Bionic Beaver". That's easy pickins.

My elementary school in a small Northwestern Ontario town had about a hundred students total from Junior Kindergarten to Grade 6. It was such a small school, we didn't even have a Grade 5 class and teacher. They just divided the Grade 5 students by academic achievement and stuck the higher achievers in the Grade 6 class and the lower ones stayed in the Grade 4 class with slightly more difficult texts and homework. Anyway, it was a small school. It no longer exists. But in the 1980s, we had a couple of Apple II computers. They were pretty old by then, and the green and black monitors didn't impress kids who had tasted the Commodore 64, Tandy, or NES. But hey, we played Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and Crosscountry Canada on them when we could.

I remember when we got our ICONs. It was a pretty big deal! Our school received four of them, with one designated as the server. They were put in a prime location in the hallway, between the fourth grade classroom and the school entrance. If a person was going to the auditorium, they'd have to pass by them. Not like those Apple IIs, tucked away in a less traveled part of the hallways. Our school was proud of those ICONs, and the student body was excited to use them. One of the fun things about visiting the junior high school was that it had a whole lab of ICONs, with different games. Pure decadence! Absolutely sick!

Anyway, the memories of Xennials from Ontario are by and large all that remains of these things now. Even the Wikipedia entry's list of software is missing games I know I played on there. So what can you do? I'm going to talk about some of the games I remember, and since literally no screenshots exist, I drew some pictures. Quickly, mind you. And from 35+ year old memories, no less. Sorry, it's all I've got.

(Not actual screenshots)

SpectICON: This was a paint program, and when our ICON computers were turned on this is what they defaulted to. When the program loaded up, it had a colorful picture of a tree in autumn in place. You could change the palette using the trackball, and if you rolled it with some power the colors of the tree would wildly alternate. My friend Peter dubbed this "Disco Tree". It could do some simple animation, mostly by morphing between two images. I used this to make an animation of a robot turning into a car, because I was ten years old in 1989 and Transformers was the thing.

Offshore Fishing: One of the more popular games in my school. You would move your boat to different locations on a map, after which it would switch to a side-view. You then used the trackball to maneuver your fishing net, trying to catch as much as you can. If a shark comes, it will break your net and you'll lose a lot of money. This was supposed to teach us about the fishing industry, I think?

Math Maze: Another popular one in my school. You would make your way through a maze, battling monsters and looking for treasures. You could pick a knight or a wizard, and your choice of weapon between a sword and a wand. Knight with wand was splendid. No effect on the gameplay, of course. When you met a monster or found a treasure, it was time to do MATH. The last boss of the dungeon would ask what weighed more, a pound of feathers or a pound of gold. We were very proud when we sorted out the answer to that one. The cut-out box at the side showing a close-up of the action had some interesting visuals, at least.

A Day in the Life Of: We didn't have this one at my school, but the junior high school had it and I played it there. A strange game where you played as a student, and you could just straight up cut school and go to the mall if you wanted to. The mall had some different spots to visit, including an arcade where you could play a minigames called Mutant Bunnies Attack or something. It was basically Activision's Kaboom, and since we had a trackball… well, this was a pretty good time. I don't remember the actual point of this one.

Crosscountry Canada & Lemonade Stand: You might know these games from other platforms. They were ported to the ICON and played pretty much the same way here as anywhere else. Both were old hat for us and didn't get much play as a result.

Greenhouse: A gardening game. You had to grow plants by setting a variety of conditions, including temperature, watering, and sunlight. Each plant had different needs, but if you could sort it out you would be rewarded by seeing them grow. I messed around with this one a bit, but it was on the junior high school computers so I didn't get to play it as much as I would have liked.

Robot R&D: Robots! This was a cool one. You would build a robot from different parts and materials. You could then put them through a variety of tests to see how they would react. You could immerse them in water, try to crush them, or just drop them from high places. For most kids, you had them at "build a robot".

There were lots of other games, but these were the ones I played and the ones I remember. I wish I could tell you about all of them, but this is the limit of my knowledge. Maybe someone else out there can remember other ones and talk about them? I hope that one day this off-beat, highly geographically and temporally localized computer is properly archived and its software is made accessible again. I would like to play Offshore Fishing at least one more time in my life. Thanks for reading!

Extra Note: I just remembered the darned things would say HELLO when you booted them up. A talking computer?!

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Home 💜

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Spotted, quelli belli

[stephensmithuk]

The Hound of the Baskervilles: The Man on the Tor

E. Remington and Sons, founded in 1816, was an American company known for firearms and typewriters, manufacturing the first commercial model of the latter. The typewriter part of the business was sold off in 1886 and via a series of corporate changes, the company is now part of Unisys. Not that it makes typewriters anymore.

The earliest known use of the word "sexy" comes from a letter by Arnold Bennett in 1896.

This is a period where people, especially of class, very much cared about avoiding scandal. A married woman visiting a single man late at night would be a scandal.

At this time Laura Lyons would have to prove that her estranged husband had committed both adultery and abandoned her. Proving the former would usually require a private detective of some form, beyond the means of most people.

A red letter day is one of special significance. In the UK, there are certain days where English High Court judges wear scarlet robes instead of the normal black. This would include religious festivals and the Sovereign's birthdays (official and actual), but I am unable to find an updated official list to reflect the situation with the current King.

Red Letter Days is also the name of a company that sells "experiences" like tank driving days or a cream tea at a posh hotel.

While Franklin possibly isn't aware of it as it was a common turn of phrases, the term "double event" was used in a postcard purporting to be from Jack the Ripper sent the day after that serial killer murdered two women in the space of an hour.

The Court of Queen’s Bench, now the Court of King's Bench, is the division of the High Court dealing with things like personal injury, libel and breach of contract:

Frankland clearly does not remember that you cannot sue the Sovereign. He could sue the Devon County Constabulary though, which has since become the Devon and Cornwall Police.

Tins for food were widespread at this time. They were made of iron, soldered with a tin-lead alloy, which could lead to poisoning by the latter until Max Ams developed a seam in 1888 that only required the solder on the outside.

A pannikin is a metal cup coated in enamel.

"Spartan" means austere. The city state of Sparta in ancient Greece was known, in a rather mythologicalised fashion, for its heavily militarised society, eschewing personal comfort for this. It attracted a lot of admirers as a result, including playing a big part in fascist beliefs. Their reputation for physical prowess has also seen several sports teams adopt their name, like AC Sparta Prague, who dominate the Czech association football game.

There is also of course 300...

[wildmonkeysects]

War Profiteers

Remember President Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower, who after green-lighting the overthrow of Iran’s democracy in 1953 at the behest of petrochemical corporations, had a change of heart and warned about the Military Industrial Complex? Here are the top 100 USA Military Industrial Complex “defense” contractors, all corporate welfare queens mooching off the public, who have blood on their hands in Palestine and elsewhere:

Academi

Action Target

ADT Corporation

Advanced Armament Corporation

AECOM

Aerospace Corporation

Aerovironment

AirScan

AM General

American Petroleum Institute

Argon ST

ARINC

Artis

Assett

Astronautics Corporation of America

Atec

Aurora Flight Sciences

Axon Enterprise

United Kingdom BAE Systems

BAE Systems Inc

Ball Corporation

Ball Aerospace & Technologies

Barrett Firearms Manufacturing

Battelle Memorial Institute

Bechtel

Berico Technologies

Boeing Defense, Space & Security

Booz Allen Hamilton

Boston Dynamics

Bravo Strategic

CACI

Carlyle Group

Carnegie Mellon University

Ceradyne

Cloudera

Colt Defense

The Columbia Group

Computer Sciences Corporation

Concurrent Technologies Corporation

CSRA (IT services company)

Cubic Corporation

Omega Training Group

Curtiss-Wright

DeciBel Research

Dillon Aero

Dine Development Corporation

Draper Laboratories

DRS Technologies

DynCorp

Edison Welding Institute

[Israei]l Elbit Systems

M7 Aerospace

Ensco

United Kingdom/Military contractor Ernst & Young

Evergreen International Aviation

Exxon

Fluor Corporation

Force Protection Inc

Foster-Miller

Foster Wheeler

Franklin Armoury

General Atomics

General Dynamics

Bath Iron Works

General Dynamics Electric Boat

Gulfstream

Vangent

General Electric Military Jet Engines Division

Halliburton Corporation

Health Net

Hewlett-Packard

Honeywell

Humana Inc.

Huntington Ingalls Industries

Hybricon Corporation

IBM

Insight Technology

Intelsat

International Resources Group

iRobot

ITT Exelis

Jacobs Engineering Group

JANUS Research Group

Johns Hopkins University

Kaman Aircraft

KBR

Kearfott Corporation

Knight's Armament Company

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions

L3Harris Technologies

Aerojet

Brashear

[France] Lafayette Praetorian Group

Lake Shore Systems

Leidos

EOTech

Lewis Machine & Tool Company

Lockheed Martin

Gyrocam Systems

Sikorsky

LRAD Corporation

ManTech International

Maxar Technologies

McQ

Microsoft

Mission Essential Personnel

Motorola

Natel Electronic Manufacturing Services

Navistar Defense

Nextel

Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems

Northrop Grumman Ship Systems

Northrop Grumman Technical Services

Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems

NOVA

Oceaneering International

Olin Corporation; also see John M. Olin and John M. Olin Foundation

Oshkosh Corporation

Para-Ordnance

Perot Systems

Picatinny Arsenal

Pinnacle Armor

Precision Castparts Corporation

Raytheon Technologies

Collins Aerospace

Rockwell Collins

Goodrich Corporation

Pratt & Whitney

Raytheon Intelligence & Space

Raytheon Missiles & Defense

Raytheon BBN

Remington Arms

Rock Island Arsenal

Roundhill Group

Ruger

Saab Sensis

Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

SGIS

Sierra Nevada Corporation

Smith & Wesson

Smith Enterprise (SEI)

SPRATA

Springfield Armory

SRC Inc

SRI International

Stanley

Stewart & Stevenson

Swift Engineering

Tactical Air Support

Teledyne

Teledyne FLIR

Textron

AAI Corporation

Bell Helicopter Textron

Trijicon

TriWest Healthcare Alliance

Unisys

U.S. Ordnance

Verizon Communications

Vinnell Corporation

Westinghouse Electric Corporation

[gozlerimebakipdaherseyianlasalar]

amk unisi acilir yene

[hackernewsrobot]

The Unisys Icon: One Canadian Xennial's Memories of Ontario's Obscure Computer

https://postgamecontent.com/post/771726085147803648/the-unisys-icon-one-canadian-xennials-memories

[businessoutsider]

Univac and Borroughs would later merge to become "Unisys." This data center is rather fanciful compared to the current ones!!

Univac, Early Computer 

[masr356]

ROSEN, NATIONAL TRIAL LAWYERS, Encourages Unisys Corporation Investors to Inquire About Securities Class Action Investigation | masr356.com

New York, New York–(Newsfile Corp. – December 28, 2024) – WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, continues to investigate potential securities claims on behalf of shareholders of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: NYSE:) resulting from allegations that Unisys may have issued materially misleading business information to the investing public. SO WHAT: If you purchased Unisys securities you…

[ericalto]

ROSEN, HIGHLY OPEN LAW FIRM, Encourages Unisys Corporation Investors to Inquire about Securities Class Investigation

New York, New York–(Newsfile Corp. – December 27, 2024) – WHY: The Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, continues to investigate potential securities claims on behalf of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: NYSE: ) shareholders over allegations that Unisys may have released misleading corporate information to the investing public. AND THEN: If you have purchased Unisys securities you may be…

[newtras]

ROSEN, THE LONG LAW FIRM, Urges Unisys Corporation Investors to Inquire About Securities Class Action Research

New York, New York–(Newsfile Corp. – December 21, 2024) – WHY: The Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, is announcing an investigation into potential securities claims on behalf of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: NYSE: ) shareholders due to allegations that Unisys may have released misleading corporate information to the investing public. AND THEN: If you have purchased Unisys securities…

[satrthere]

ROSEN, THE LONG LAW FIRM, Urges Unisys Corporation Investors to Inquire About Securities Class Action Research

New York, New York–(Newsfile Corp. – December 21, 2024) – WHY: The Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, is announcing an investigation into potential securities claims on behalf of Unisys Corporation (NYSE: NYSE: ) shareholders due to allegations that Unisys may have released misleading corporate information to the investing public. AND THEN: If you have purchased Unisys securities…