Project Objectives:

This site has been originally developed in 2007, by a student team from Florida Gulf Coast University led by Rick Szatkowski and supervised by Dr. Janusz Zalewski, for the IEEE Computer Society's Computing History Competition CHC61, focusing on an "Unsung Hero". We chose as a topic an important figure in early personal computer development, 

Dr. Jonathan A. Titus. The specific objectives of our project were three-fold:

Historical Accuracy.

Educational Value.

Website Attractiveness.

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Historical Accuracy:

To assure accuracy in collecting and presenting historical data, we applied the following rules governing the process:

used only reliable sources, that is, those sources that were independently reviewed.

contacted Dr. Titus, interviewed him for the project and obtained additional information and artifacts.

purchased actual parts of Mark-8 microcomputer from eBay and began the development of our own unit.

acquired original copies of articles and books, and obtained permissions to publish relevant excerpts on the website.

verified historical data with the mentor and computing experts, to make sure that all presented information is true, correct and complete.

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Educational Value:

There were two educational aspects of developing this website:

(1) enhancing our own knowledge and skills, and (2) providing an educational resource for the general population. In this view, we feel that the following has been accomplished:

To maximally benefit from the project, in addition to putting together our own copy of Mark-8 microcomputer, which turns out to be a long-term task, we decided to embark on a simpler project, which would let us gain experience in modern computer design, while researching historical facts.

Attracted by a computer game experiment, published in the original article on Mark-8, and directed by Dr. Titus to the use of a microcontroller, we gained practical experience in computer design, using the XGame Station.

To provide a maximally useful resource to the general population, we created the Lessons section, which guides a student through 12 steps of computer design, using examples from Mark-8 and Dr. Titus’ professional writings, and additionally provides a template for using another processor architecture to learn about computer design, if someone wants to follow this pattern or even extend the website.

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Website Attractiveness:

To ensure attractive look of the website we used the latest 2006 technologies (this site has been fully developed using Visual Studio 2005 and Macromedia Flash 8) and applied the following criteria that would take advantage of these technologies:

graphics – wherever possible, we used the latest advances in graphical design, for example to develop the timeline and comm board.

reliability – the site has been fully tested to verify that each of the pages follows all W3C standards and is error free; all external links have been verified to not contain any malware and be current.

usability – we made sure that users would have an easy access to the information and could navigate through the website with a few simple clicks.

extensibility – we provided an option of adding new information, which might have been missed or overlooked, or simply be important in maintaining and expanding the website.

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