31 Dec 2008
0 CommentsWho Invented the Dot in Filenames?
Who invented the dot (“.”) that precedes the file type extension, as in document.doc or metal.mp3? As we near the end of what has emerged as a most interesting year, we all could use the diversion of examining the history of something so simple and pervasive, that we all take for granted.
A note from my friend Brad Templeton reminded me that being in the right place at the right time can be profound. In fact, as strange as it sounds, Brad Templeton may well have invented the dot in “.com“, as he discusses here. As he says:
Brad Templeton
“Indeed if it was me, it was simply by virtue of the fact that having been around at the beginning of these things, and taking an interest in these issues. Being in the right place at the right time. But it’s simultaneously mind-boggling, conceit-building and humbling to think that what I said might have sparked something that became so universal.”
This led me to ask myself, who orginated the ubiquitous dot that separates the extension, denoting file type, from the base file name. A much older concept, clearly the use of dot as an internet name separator was influenced, perhaps subconciously, from the longstanding filenaming convention.
The Windows filenames of today are direct descendents of MS-DOS which lacked tree-structured directories and restricted filenames to an 8.3 format, consisting of a maximum of 8 characters of base filename followed by up to 3 characters of an extension connoting the type of data stored in the file. MS-DOS, in turn, directly inherited this convention from CP/M, and indirectly from the UNIX family of operating systems.
I have directly worked with all of the above systems since their early days, but to go back further, I must rely on the oral history I was hearing at the time. CP/M was directly inspired by the Digital Equipment Corporation family of operating systems such as DOS-11 and RSX-11. The dot convention may well have been inherited via TOPS-10 for the DEC PDP-10 line of computers. Can anyone please confirm or deny this? At the very least, the 3 letter limitation of extension length, still common today, came from those systems which stored the extension in a 16-bit word in a format known as RAD50.
However, filename extensions separated by a dot were also a feature of Multics, which dates back to 1964.
Thus it is unclear to me whether Multics or DEC operating systems were the true originator of this concept, or whether there is an even older, perhaps common, ancestor. Can an alert reader, possibly a computing pioneer, help enlighten us on this important question.
Happy New Year to all. Wishing you all a happy and prosperous 2009.
888
In a world full of change, do maturity and learned experience continue to have value? Absolutely. Serial entrepreneurs learn to “replay a tape” of past successes, and even more importantly, to avoid pitfalls that have bedevilled them in the past. However, replaying the tape is much more complicated as the pace of change accelerates. A good analogy is that you are replaying the tape as the format transitions through 
If you want to learn from first hand from Ariane de Bonvoisin on the subject of “Taking Charge of Change”, or even ask your own questions, sign up for her 21 August, 2008 
In today’s knowledge-based economy, much discussion centres around the importance of clustering. For example, in financial services, cities like New York, London and Toronto have all benefited at the expense of smaller rivals (eg. Philadelphia, Paris and Montreal or Vancouver). Likewise, as entrepreneurial technology startups have spread around the world, the Silicon Valley remains a magnet and model for that magic blend of people, ideas and capital aspiring to create the next 
jimmurphy
“The Ultimate Audiophile’s Turntable”
British Audiophile Bible in the 1970’s and 1980’s
Blackberry Pearl – Convergence of Network and Information
First Mass Market PDA 1996
Apple iPhone – Next Generation Browsing Experience
Asus eee – MID Computer
From that springboard, he became interested in the way fads and other changes propagate through society, especially illustrated by recent books like Malcolm Gladwell’s 
Now, let’s drill a bit deeper to understand why this is so important. Malcolm Gladwell is a (very persuasive) popularizer of complicated and transformational ideas. By contrast, Duncan Watts, associate professor of Sociology at Columbia University and author of the 2003 book 
The world is indeed a strangely fascinating place. Technological forces have recently flattened the world, making the global village predicted by 
Likewise, the 1999 Vietnamese/American film 
It seems that several people missed the “Comments” link where Grover posted his materials for the Venture 2.0 Playbook. Therefore, I’m reposting his comments with the link here below. Also, although we’ve had some great dialogue offline about this extremely important topic, I’d like to see some here.
15 Feb 2009
0 CommentsGetting Creative – “Yes We Can” or “Mind the Gap”?
In today’s challenging economic times, it is extra important for governments, academics and individuals to plan our future economic prosperity. Thus, it is timely that Richard Florida and Roger Martin from the Martin Prosperity Institute, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto this month published Ontario in the Creative Age, which provides a detailed future-oriented policy blueprint.
It sets a policy agenda to help us unleash our full potential in the Twenty-first Century where economic success is increasingly coming from creatively-oriented enterprise versus our traditional strength in routine physical and routine service occupations. The report is backed by research which highlights both our existing strengths and weaknesses including those in education, income and even the gap in our creative/routine job mix compared to our peers. Starting from the base of today, the agenda suggests four main focus areas to drive future prosperity:
Having read this paper, it is encouraging to see such a forward thinking analysis that will certainly drive future governmental, business and economic decision and policy making. With that in mind, and being of an optimistic “yes we can” mentality, I was, however, struck by how very little attention was paid to the biggest gap of all — Funding this agenda.
Without proper funding, our ability to transform our economy in these wise and necessary ways, will go unfulfilled. I’ve written about this “funding gap” numerous times and from different perspectives:
I’m certainly not alone in this concern. Many others in positions of thought leadership have raised the issue of funding of investment, some with very specific policy proposals and others just highlighting the gap:
Make no mistake, having surveyed funding sources for startups and social enterprise, Ontario (and Canada) significantly lags most regions in the US and Western Europe — our primary OECD comparables. The reasons for this are numerous and will be discussed in a separate posting, but this funding gap is our extra hurdle before we can be successful in driving the Florida/Martin challenge to transform Ontario to a creative economy.
And to be clear, this transition to the creative economy needs to be driven by the competitive, market economy. That implies that it will not the primary role of governments to provide the major funding for our transformation. Fundamentally, governments should not be picking winners and losers, but simply equiping market forces to go to work. And, given our long history and culture of relying on governments for answers, it is important to clarify that point. With the right framework in place, businesses and individuals will compete to drive the path to our future.
Thus, as their primary task, it is imperative that our federal and provincial governments develop a strong and co-ordinated policy framework, dealing with taxation, security regulation, and the like, to encourage the private sector to make such investments. And, in our current times of economic stimulus, the extra icing on the cake should be to channel some of those near term stimulus dollars toward growing the creative sector that is so essential to our future economic prosperity.