A Brief History of the Personal Computer by Frederick Hoehn, copyright 2016, all rights reserved. Chapter 1 The field of Electronics has come a long way. And for many years, we've had hobbyists who delighted in Electronics. Some of them were Ham Radio Operators. I was a Ham Radio Operator as a teenager, and built my own transmitter from a Heath kit. My Dad taught me to solder. There was a group in the Silicon Valley area called the Homebrew Computer Club. Steve Wozniak ("the Woz"), one of the co-founders of Apple Computer, got involved somewhat with the Homebrew Computer Club. Woz was employed at Hewlett-Packard, an important Silicon Valley manufacturer of electronic test equipment. Among its customers was the U.S. military. But there was a personal computer before the Apple personal computers. It was the "Altair," featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine right around the Jan, 1975 issue. The Altair was a kit that the customer would assemble, so you had to have a little skill with electronic components. And it would be advantageous if you knew how to solder. The Altair was based on the Intel 8080 microprocessor chip. The Altair didn't do very much, and didn't have much memory. But hobbyists were glad to have even that limited computer to work with. There was a row of lights on the front panel that you could use for readout/display. You could write your own computer program, and then enter it into the computer with toggle switches on the front panel. Doing it that way, of course, necessarily limited the size of the program. Mr. Allen, a student at Harvard showed his friend, Bill Gates, the cover of the magazine with the Altair computer. They realized the business opportunity that software would be needed, and they started writing software for the Altair. Seems like one of the first programs they wrote was a BASIC interpreter, so that people could write programs in the BASIC programming language for the Altair. Someone came up with a way to use an audio cassette recorder to enter programs into the Altair. So much easier than the toggle switches. Others came up with ways to add more memory chips to the Altair. So when the soon-to-be Microsoft company demonstrated its software at the company making the Altair, it worked just fine, and a partnership was struck up between the Altair manufacturer and Microsoft. But it seems like the Microsoft software was entered into the Altair computer from a punched paper tape, using a paper tape reader. That punched paper tape was probably generated on a teletype machine. Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard to take advantage of this business opportunity, and moved to near the Altair facility. Woz had done a job with Steve Jobs, a video game for Nolan Bushnell. Believe Bushnell's company was Atari. Woz and Steve Jobs got interested in building a computer. Woz did the engineering. Jobs was not an Engineer, he was more the business guy. Woz put together a computer, and they showed the computer at the Homebrew Computer Club. There was a lot of interest, and probably some sales. There was a store there in the Silicon Valley area. Seems like it was called "The Byte Shop." In computers, a byte is eight bits. A bit is a binary digit that can have the value of either 1 or 0. The binary number system that is used in digital computers has only 1's and 0's. Thus, they are digital computers. There have been a few analog computers, but over time, their reliability decreases. Woz and Jobs started selling their computers through that store. Their company was named "Apple Computer." As time went by, more advanced Apple computers would become available. One thing that helped sales of the Apple computers was that they had a "killer app," in other words, an application that made owning an Apple computer very much desirable. That killer app was "Visicalc," a Spreadsheet program. Some college and university students pursuing business majors were doing the equivalent of the spreadsheet manually, on paper. When they found that they could do spreadsheets on the Apple, they wanted Apple computers. And business people out in the real world wanted Apple computers with their spreadsheet programs. The spreadsheet program was a grid of rectangles. You could have your vertical columns for weeks or months, and then, your horizontal row categories for the different products of the business. Amounts bought, amounts sold, returned products, predicted sales. Pretty much any quantity used in business calculations. And then, you could also create formulas for those boxes in the grid. The contents of the box could be automatically calculated by the computer program, once you gave it the formula for that box. For example, you might tell it that a certain box in the grid was to be the sum of three other certain boxes in the grid. This enabled business people to make predictions about the business, and use computing power to make their businesses more profitable. Later, there was "Lotus 1,2,3.", which was another Spreadsheet program. And also Microsoft "Excel." But the Personal Computer industry took a big leap forward when the computer giant, IBM, decided to get into personal computers. Until then, IBM had dealt mainly in large, "mainframe" computers, used by large corporations. But IBM wanted to keep it a secret that they were getting into personal computers until they had a product ready to market. IBM set up a special division in Florida to do the IBM personal computers. IBM would do the hardware (the transistors, resistors, integrated circuit chips, motherboards). But IBM knew they were going to need some software. Actually, IBM had computer programmers, but they wanted to get their new personal computers on the market quickly, so they made the decision to go to Bill Gates at Microsoft to do a deal for software. When Gates sat down with the IBM people, they asked him to first sign a non-disclosure agreement prohibiting him from talking about what they would discuss. Gates signed the agreement. IBM did a deal with Microsoft for some software. Seems like the first thing was a BASIC interpreter. IBM also wanted and needed an O.S. (operating system). I think that Microsoft, at that time, didn't have an O.S. to sell IBM, but Gates referred IBM to this other fellow. Seems like it was Gary Kildall in Santa Cruz, CA. So, IBM went to Santa Cruz. But when they got there, the man they wanted to talk with was out, delivering something to a customer. So instead, IBM talked with his wife. But when IBM asked her to sign the non-disclosure agreement, she didn't think that she should sign. So that meeting didn't accomplish anything. IBM told Bill Gates they still needed an O.S., and Gates was able to purchase another O.S. that he could provide IBM with. Seems like IBM called that first O.S. "PCDOS." The DOS stands for disk operating system. It resided on the hard drive, and didn't go into memory until you turned on the computer. When you turned off the computer, whatever was in memory was lost, so better save all important stuff on the hard drive, or on a "floppy" disk. When the IBM personal computer came out, there was much fanfare. Perhaps you remember the TV commercials with someone portraying Charlie Chaplain admiring the IBM personal computer, but silently. Speaking lines in the commercials were done by someone else. The real Charlie Chaplain had been a star of silent movies. Lots of people bought those early computers. Then IBM came out with more advanced computers. The hard drive stored computer files and programs. There was such a thing, back in those days, as a "floppy drive." I've been told those first floppy disks really were actually floppy when you picked them up in your hand. They were magnetic storage devices like the hard drives. Later on, the floppies became less floppy, and the diameter went down to 5 1/4 inches. Later, the diameter went down to 3 1/2 inches. Unlike the hard drive, you could take the "floppy disks" out of their drive. Thus, you could have a shelf of various floppy disks, if you wanted. But floppy disks and floppy drives have pretty much been replaced now by flash drives, also called thumb drives because they're about the size of a thumb. A brand of flash drive that I've found to be satisfactory is SanDisk. They're available with various storage capacities, 4 gigabyte, 8 gigabyte, 16 gigabyte, 32 gigabyte. But there's another brand of flash drive, significantly smaller than SanDisk. The problem is, those smaller flash drives break as you use them, so I don't buy them anymore. The flash drives have a USB connector on them that plugs into your personal computer. USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. Chapter 2 We know the Xerox Corp. for their photo copying machines for letters and business documents. But at one point, Xerox, based in New York state, set up a research facility in Palo Alto, CA, called PARC (Palo Alto Research Center.) PARC came up with some nifty things, but very few of them went into production with Xerox. One thing that did was the laser printer. The PARC Engineer that was working on the laser printer was having trouble getting things to focus correctly. He made a drawing of what kind of shape the optics should have to focus correctly. It appeared that a cylindrical prism would do the job. He found a cylindrical prism in an Edmund Scientific catalog. When the cylindrical prism arrived, it worked just fine. So the laser printer was one of Xerox's successes that came out of PARC. Seems like the mouse, a pointing device, was also developed at PARC. I use a wireless mouse whenever I use my computer. But the early mouse had a wire coming out of it that plugged into the computer. But how does the wireless mouse communicate with the computer? Over the air with low power radio transmitters and receivers, like a cell phone does. And the wireless mouse has an AA battery inside. As you move the mouse around on your desk, you're moving a pointer around on your computer screen. When you have the pointer pointing to what you want, click the left switch on the mouse to tell the computer that you're making that choice, such as to open a file, or close a file, or create a new file, or turn off the computer. Steve Jobs got himself invited to PARC to see what was going on there. Some of what didn't go into Xerox production from PARC went into production at Apple. When Apple came out with the Macintosh computer, it used a GUI (graphic user interface) like what was being used at PARC. Later, Microsoft came out with pretty much the equivalent, calling it the "Windows" operating system. Both of these operating systems used a lot of graphic "icons," such as an image of a waste basket, in which to deposit files that you want to delete. But a big development in personal computers came with the arrival of the Internet, and the World Wide Web, which apparently grew out of a communications system used by DARPA, a government research agency. One of those people made a trip, and on his return trip, left something behind. Perhaps it was his electric razor. So he sent an electronic message asking for someone's help with that. And that was one of the first emails. Some people pay for email accounts that have extra services. But there are still places on the Internet that provide free email accounts. Find them with a search engine like Google.com You can send and receive messages for free. And the message arrives almost immediately, unlike a letter sent through the U.S. Mail. And now, people have mobile Internet on their "smart" phones. A smart phone can be an iphone from Apple, or any of the Android phones, or a Windows phone. Smart phones, like computers, have microprocessors in them. Application programs can be downloaded to smart phones, and are called "apps." These days, most computers are equipped with WiFi, which is wireless Internet. But in the early days of Internet, you obtained Internet service through your telephone company. They called it "dial-up internet," and it was slow by today's standards. Then something came along called DSL (direct subscriber line) that was somewhat faster. I think my friend, Tom, had that. But with today's WiFi, you don't need a telephone line, it goes by radio waves over the air. Some landlords provide WiFi service to their tenants, and some restaurants for their customers, and Public Libraries. I've carried my laptop computer to the library to use the library's WiFi. Or, you can leave your computer at home and go use the computers at the public library. For a while there, I was at the library nearly every day. But now I use a WiFi "hotspot." It accomplishes the same purpose as the public library WiFi without going to the library. The first WiFi hot spot that I had was from Straight Talk, but they were unsatisfactory. Then I had one from Virgin Mobile, and it was better. But now I have a "GO" WiFi hotspot, which, in my opinion is the best of the three. GO is a subsidiary of ATT. I think the device cost about $80.00, and then I pay about $25 per month. I didn't have to sign a contract. I just buy a $25 card every month, and add it to my account online. After you buy the $25 card, you scratch off the gray material on it that covers the secret number, using a nickel or a penny. If you want a printer, Dell Computer has monochrome printers for under $100 (black and white printers.) And if you need color printers, they're also available, but you'll pay more to use them. When you purchase a printer, Dell supplies an optical disk to use in your optical disk drive that provides the "software drivers" to make the printer work with your computer. Optical drives work with optical disks. These are not magnetic. A small laser is used to read the information from the optical disk. The laser uses light, thus "optical" drive. But don't let a laser beam shine into your eyes, or it could possibly do damage to your eyes. When the blank disk was "burned," the energy of a laser beam changed some of the plateaus on the disk into pits. The patterns of pits and plateaus on the disk provide the information, whether it's computer files, or music, or movies. Optical drives open a drawer to accept a CD-ROM or a DVD. Insert the disk, and then use your mouse to tell the computer to close the drawer, like you did to tell the computer to open the drawer. CD is compact disk, used for computer files, but also used for music, instead of the old phonograph records. ROM is read only memory. DVD is digital video disk, used for computer files, and also for movies, like the older video cassette tapes. The Internet is useful for purchasing things. I bought a printer online, paid with a credit card, and it was delivered to my residence. When you first turn your computer on, it does what is called "booting up." I'm guessing that expression comes from another expression, "pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps." The computer has to load the operating system from the hard drive into memory, because computer programs don't execute out of the hard drive, they execute out of RAM memory. But after IBM came out with its personal computers, they later discovered that the real profits in personal computers were in the software, and not so much in the hardware. Other manufacturers such as Compaq came out with IBM computer "clones." Seems like someone at IBM said, "We don't want to be in the business of manufacturing commodities." Last I heard, IBM stopped making personal computers. But the IBM name gave a big boost the the Personal Computer industry. If you catch the Nightly Business Report, IBM is referred to as "Big Blue." Personal computer software, at least in the operating system department, seems to be pretty much dominated these days by Microsoft. But there's an alternative called the "Linux" operating system. I've heard it has some very enthusiastic followers. Red Hat is a company that has provided Linux. I believe they participated in the Fedora Linux project. And there's "Absolute Open BSD." BSD stands for Berkeley Software Distribution, a version of the Unix operating system. The U. of Calif. at Berkeley was somewhat involved with that, and I think also one of the four founders of Sun Microsystems, which was later purchased by Oracle. And of course, Apple computer has their operating systems, such as OS X ("OS ten"). I had a job in Silicon Valley in about 1981 as a programmer, writing assembly language code for the Z-80 microprocessor. My employer had a Radio Shack TRS-80 computer with an Assembler program to convert my Assembly language programs into executable Z-80 machine language code. Then the Z-80 program would be put into ROM chips that would be plugged into sockets in our product motherboard. The product was a protocol converter used by oil companies. Speaking of punched paper tapes generated on teletype machines, we had a Gardner-Denver wire wrap machine at one of my employers in Houston, TX. If you're going to manufacture a large quantity of circuit boards, you don't wire wrap them, you use printed circuit techniques. It's a printed circuit because you use a printing process called "silk screening" to put the printed circuit pattern onto the epoxy board. At the beginning, the epoxy board is covered with a layer of copper, an excellent conductor of electricity. But the epoxy doesn't conduct electricity. It is therefore an insulator. During the silk screening, parts of the the copper are covered with a chemical that resists acid. Then the board is placed into acid that etches away the parts of the copper that aren't wanted, leaving the parts of the copper that comprise your printed circuit board. Now, unless the board is strictly "surface mount technology," holes are drilled to accommodate the electronic components. Next the circuit board is "stuffed" with the electronic components, the resistors, the capacitors, the diodes, the transistors, the integrated circuits. Now the printed circuit board gets soldered, and then excess wire length such as from resistors and capacitors is trimmed off. Then the board goes for testing to make sure it's working properly. But wire wrap is good for a small quantity of circuit boards. I was told that in converting over from one computer system to another, perhaps it was from an IBM 360 to an IBM 370 system, that they had lost a program for a certain wire wrap circuit board. And they wanted to manufacture one or more of those wire wrap boards. They had the wiring list for the board, but they had no way to make the mylar tape for the Gardner-Denver wire wrap machine. In the shop there, we had an Interdata computer that provided a diagnostic program for one of our products. If the board passed that test, ship it. If not, fix the problem until the board passed the test. I put together a transistor circuit to turn on and off the sixty miliamp loop current for our teletype machine, and connected it to the Interdata computer. Each letter of the alphabet, and each number, zero through nine, had its own code of highs and lows in the teletype system. I wrote a program for the Interdata computer to punch the mylar tape for the Gardner-Denver wire wrap machine. But I told my boss, "Look, I'm a typist, but when I type, I often have to make corrections as I type. We need someone who is pretty much a perfect typist to type this wiring list into the Interdata computer." So they found a young woman there to type the wiring list for that wire wrap board into the Interdata computer. And we punched out a mylar tape on the teletype machine and used it to wire wrap the wire wrap board with the Gardner-Denver machine. Wire wrapping is a method of making the necessary connections on the circuit board. Integrated circuit sockets on the circuit board are not soldered to copper strips on the board, but have small wire wrap posts projecting from the bottom of the circuit board. Following the directions displayed on the wire wrap machine, an operator takes the appropriate length of wire wrap wire, generally a 30 gauge insulated wire, but with the insulation stripped off each end of the wire, and places one end into the wire wrap gun, places it over the post, and squeezes the trigger. The wire is wrapped 5 or 6 times around the post. Then the same for the other end of the wire. Then the same until the circuit board has been completed. Using that Interdata computer with its diagnostic program only gave us a pass/fail test for the circuit board. But we developed a way to use that for troubleshooting the product circuit board. If the product board failed the test, we connected a Logic Analyzer to suspect integrated circuit chips on the board. A failure signal from the Interdata computer would trigger the Logic Analyzer. One manufacturer of Logic Analyzers was Tektronix, and another was Hewlett Packard, and both companies were also making oscilloscopes. After the board failed the test, you would look at the Logic Analyzer to find out what the inputs and outputs of the integrated circuit chips had been at the time of failure. If an I.C. "and gate" had both inputs high, then its output should also be high. But if not, then replace that defective I.C. For more on "and gates" and other logic integrated circuits, please see my book, "Boolean Algebra." I mentioned that computers use the binary number system. But all those 1's and 0's can be cumbersome for humans, so we sometimes employ the Octal and Hexadecimal number systems, making life a little easier for humans. When we count in the octal number system, it goes, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,10,11,12, etc. There are no 8's or 9's in the octal number system. The octal number system is based on the number eight, which is two cubed. When we count in the hexadecimal number system, it goes, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F,10,11,12, etc. Hex for six, and decimal for ten. Six plus ten is sixteen. The hexadecimal number system is based on the number sixteen. Sixteen, of course, is two raised to the fourth power. The capital letters, A through F, are numbers in the hexadecimal number system. Their value is equal to the decimal numbers ten through fifteen. When we count in the binary number system, it goes, 0,1,10,11,100,101,110,111,1000,1001,1010,1011,1100,1101,1110,1111,10000,10001,10010, etc. But the computers still use binary, and can process data in BCD (binary coded decimal). The binary number, 11101, is equal to the decimal number 29, and also equal to 35 in octal, and also equal to 1D in hexadecimal. Let's take, for example, a sixteen bit binary number. Now, working from right to left, divide it into three bit groups. Now convert each of those three bit groups into their octal equivalent. Then we have the octal equivalent of that binary number. Or, do the same, except four bit groups. Now convert each of those four bit groups into their hexadecimal equivalent. Then we have the hexadecimal equivalent of that binary number. After IBM computer clones started coming out, Microsoft had the MSDOS operating system, which was superseded by the Windows operating system. The latest version of Windows is "Windows 10." There was also a DRDOS from Digital Research. Those very early computers used eight bit microprocessors. But then sixteen bit microprocessors came along. Then 32 bit, and then 64 bit. The more bits of data that you can process at the same time, the more powerful the computer. Another thing that has made computers more powerful is increases in "clock" speed. That's the oscillator that controls the timing of the microprocessor chip. Improvements have been made to microprocessors, enabling them to operate faster. At the beginning, RAM (random access memory) chips were expensive, and computers didn't have much memory. But prices have come down, and computers now will typically have two gigabytes of RAM. A gigabyte is a thousand megabytes. A megabyte is a thousand kilobytes. A kilobyte is a thousand bytes. Early memory chips were "static RAM." But then "dynamic RAM" came along, and was significantly less expensive. But the circuit design engineers for the computer have to make the extra effort to provide "refresh" pulses for the dynamic ram chips that weren't necessary with the static RAM chips. A typical hard drive will have 400 gigabytes of storage capacity. You can buy blank CD-ROM's and DVD's to back up your hard drive files. Or, you can use flash drives. Or, you can use both to protect your precious files, that you don't want to lose. A feature that I've used with my Hewlett Packard laptop computers is the System Recovery feature. One time I downloaded something from the Internet, and immediately didn't like it. I did a System Recovery to restore the computer to factory conditions. But first save all your files and folders to flash drive or something, because doing a System Recovery will wipe out your files. After the System Recovery, load your files back on the hard drive from wherever you saved them to. To do the System Recovery, start with the computer off. Then turn it on, and start pressing the "Esc" key on the keyboard. You should get a screen with some choices. I believe it's function key, F11, that you press to do a System Recovery. If you have any problems doing that, Microsoft has a telephone helpline that you can call, and so does Hewlett Packard, I think, in case your computer is a Hewlett Packard. I believe you can find those telephone numbers on the Internet. Computer questions can also be answered by librarians that work in the computer department at the Public Library. ___James chapter 1 1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes that are dispersed around, greetings. 2 My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into various temptations, 3 Knowing this, that the testing of your faith works patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, so you'll be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God for it, who gives to all men liberally, and won't find fault, and it shall be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. 7 For let that man not think that he'll receive anything from the Lord. 8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. 9 Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted, 10 But the rich, in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he'll pass away. 11 For the sun has no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withers the grass, and the flower of it falls, and the grace of the fashion of it perishes, so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. 12 Blessed is the man that endures temptation, for after he's been tested, he'll receive the crown of life, that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13 Let no man say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God," for God can't be tempted with evil, nor does he tempt any man, 14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it produces sin, and sin when it's finished, produces death. 16 Do not err, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning. 18 He chose to father us with the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. 19 So, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, 20 For the anger of man doesn't accomplish the righteousness of God. 21 So, lay apart all filthiness and the unnecessary naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man seeing his natural face in a mirror, 24 For he sees himself, and goes his way, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues in it, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. 26 If any man among you seems to be religious, and doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is for nothing. 27 Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ___James chapter 2 1 My brothers, don't have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. 2 For if a man with a gold ring comes to your assembly in fancy clothes, and a poor man in dirty clothes comes in also, 3 And you have respect to him that wears the fancy clothes, and say to him, "Sit here in a good place," and say to the poor, "Stand there, or sit here under my footstool," 4 Aren't you then partial in yourselves, and have become judges with evil thoughts? 5 Listen, my beloved brothers, hasn't God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? 6 But you have despised the poor. Don't rich men oppress you, and bring you before the judgment seats? 7 Don't they blaspheme that worthy name by which you're called? 8 If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, "You shall love your neighbor like yourself," you do well, 9 But if you have respect of persons, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as sinners. 10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. 11 For he that said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not kill." Now if you don't commit adultery, yet if you kill, you've become a breaker of the law. 12 Speak in such a way, and do, as those who'll be judged by the law of liberty. 13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that has shown no mercy, and mercy rejoices against judgment. 14 What does it profit, my brothers, though a man says he has faith, and doesn't have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister needs clothes, and lacks daily food, 16 And one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you don't give them the things that are needed for the body, what good is that? 17 Even so faith, if it doesn't have works, is dead, being alone. 18 Yes, a man could say, "You have faith, and I have works, show me your faith without your works, and I'll show you my faith by my works." 19 You believe that there is one God, you do well, the devils also believe, and tremble. 20 But don't you know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? 21 Wasn't Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son on the altar? 22 Do you see how faith worked with his deeds, and by works faith was made perfect? 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God." 24 You see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. 25 Likewise also wasn't Rahab the prostitute justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? 26 For like the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. ___James chapter 3 1 My brothers, don't be many masters, knowing that we'll receive the greater condemnation. 2 For in many things we offend all. If any man doesn't offend in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. 3 See, we put bits in the horses' mouths, so they'll obey us, and we turn around their whole bodies. 4 Look also at the ships, which though they're so large, and are driven by fierce winds, yet they're turned around by a very small helm, wherever the captain wants. 5 Even so, the tongue is a little member, and boasts great things. See how great a matter a little fire kindles! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of sin, so is the tongue among our members that it makes dirty the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and it is set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of animals, and of birds, and of snakes, and of things in the sea, gets tamed, and has been tamed by mankind, 8 But no man can tame the tongue, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless God, the Father, and with it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. 10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be. 11 Does a fountain send out at the same place sweet water and bitter? 12 Can the fig tree, my brothers, produce olive berries? Or a vine, figs? So no fountain can yield both salt water and fresh. 13 Who is a wise man, possessing knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good lifestyle his works with meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, don't glory, and don't lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom doesn't descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be reasoned with, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is planted in peace by those who make peace. ___James chapter 4 1 Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your lusts that war in your members? 2 You lust, and don't have, you kill, and desire to have, and can't obtain, you fight and war, yet you don't have, because you don't ask. 3 You ask, and don't receive, because you ask wrongly, so you can consume it on your lusts. 4 You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world is an enemy of God. 5 Do you think that the scripture says for nothing, "The spirit that lives in us lusts to envy?" 6 But he gives more grace. So he says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he'll run away from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double minded. 9 Be afflicted, and mourn, and cry, let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he'll lift you up. 11 Don't speak evil about each other, brothers. He that speaks evil about his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil about the law, and judges the law, but if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy, who are you that judges someone else? 13 Go on now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we'll go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and make a profit," 14 Actually, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is a puff of steam, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. 15 For you ought to say, "Lord willing, we'll live, and do this, or that." 16 But now you rejoice in your boastings, all such rejoicing is evil. 17 Therefore to him that knows to do good, and doesn't do it, to him it is sin. ___James chapter 5 1 Go on now, you rich men, cry and howl for your miseries that shall come on you. 2 Your riches are corrupted, and your clothes are moth eaten. 3 Your gold and silver are rusted, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh like fire. You've heaped treasure together for the last days. 4 See, the wages of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which you've kept back by fraud, shouts, and the shouts of those who've reaped have entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbath. 5 You've lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton, you've nourished your hearts, like in a day of slaughter. 6 You've condemned and killed the just, and he doesn't resist you. 7 Be patient therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See, the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receives the early and latter rain. 8 You also be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is getting near. 9 Don't grudge against each other, brothers, so you won't be condemned, see, the judge stands at the door. 10 Take, my brothers, the prophets, who've spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11 See, we count them happy that endure. You've heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. 12 But above all things, my brothers, don't swear, not by heaven, nor by the earth, nor by any other oath, but let your yes be yes, and your no, no, so that you don't fall into condemnation. 13 Is anyone among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is anyone merry? Let him sing psalms. 14 Is anyone sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord, 15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he'll be forgiven. 16 Confess your faults to each other, and pray for each other so you'll be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man is does a lot of good. 17 Elijah was a man subject to the same kind of passions that we are, and he prayed earnestly that it wouldn't rain, and it didn't rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. 19 Brothers, if any of you strays from the truth, and someone converts him, 20 Let him know, that he that converts the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.