May 17: HTML, HTTP Set Up on NeXTcube

May 16, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Internet

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

1991- Tim Berners-Lee sets up HyperText Markup language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) at CERN. He put the protocol on a NeXTStep machine. The server was then launched onto the word wide web, effectively making this the first day you could get a website that could support more than text.

That is when CERN and Berners-Lee release the World Wide Web standard. However, there was a long way to go. It wasn’t until August 6th, that Berners-Lee put up the first webpage.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 17

Intel Pentium III at 550 MHz

• Ars Technica sold
• Lawrence Welk passes away (1992)

Related articles

• Tim Berners-Lee: Protect the Open Web! #WWW2012 (advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org)
• February 26: Introduction of first Broswer – WorldWideWeb (dayintechhistory.com)
• April 30: World Wide Web Goes to Public Domain (dayintechhistory.com)

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May 12: Prodigy Takeover from IBM

May 11, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

Prodigy

1996 – IBM and Sears and Roebuck lose Prodigy due to takeover. They sell their interests to a group of investors – led by Prodigy Management: founders of Boston Technology and International Wireless.  Ed Bennett, CEO of Prodigy takes the lead in this acquisition. Carlos Slim Helu – Owner of Telmex – then provided Internet access for Mexico and Latin America.

Ultimately, Prodigy went public in 1999 and stayed that way until bought out by SBC (AT&T).

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 12

• MITS receives a retraining order for Microsoft on the 8080 BASIC
• XBOX360 is unveiled
• France passes the Three Strikes rule

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May 9: Linux Adopts Tux the Penguin

May 8, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Linux

Tux the Penguin

1996 - Linus Torvelds adopts Tux the Penguin as the official mascot of Linux. Tux was first suggested by Alan Cox, then officially created by Larry Ewing. After a little refinement, Tux came to represent not only Linux, but also Open Source. James Hughes named the penguin TUX – for Torveld’s UniX. The image of Tux was submitted in previous Linux Logo contests, but never won. They then adopted Tux as the mascot, where he is loved by all who live and work in this space.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 9

• uMax SuperMac
• Facebook lifts the 5000 friend mark

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May 7: Intel Pentium II: Slot 1 Processor

May 6, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History

Intel

1997 - Intel changes the processor game a bit with the Pentium II processor. Starting at speed of 200 MHz / 66 MHz bus, the proc had a new design. What was called “Slot 1” processor, Intel got away from the pin architecture to a card slot. You would insert the PII to the slot just like you would memory, an ISA or PCI card.

What was Code-named Klamath, the processor incorporated 7.5 million transistors using 0.35 micron process technology, contained a 512kB Level-2 external cache,  performs at 613 MIPS (300 MHz), and is able to address 64GB of memory. MMX instruction was included on the processor. Prices started at $636  for 233 MHz, $775 for 266 MHz and US$1981 for 300 MHz).

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 7

• The Millionaire Calculating Machine
• Telstar II Satellite is launched
• Microsoft lays off 3,000

Related articles

• April 7: ATOM Processor Launched (dayintechhistory.com)
• History of Laptops: Portable Computing from 1997 to 2011 Infographic (en.community.dell.com)
• April 2: IBM PS/2 (80386) Released (dayintechhistory.com)

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May 2: First Microsoft Mouse

May 1, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Microsoft

microsoft mouse

1983 - Microsoft releases the 2-button mouse. It was designed for Microsoft Word 1.0. The first mouse would fail, but the second version in 1985 would solidify the mouse on PC’s. Of course, Microsoft launched Microsoft Word v. 1.0for $229.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 2

Other Events in the Day in Technology History

• Excel launches for Macintosh
• Intel releases 3600MHz Pentium D processor

Related articles

• April 29: Google Files IPO (dayintechhistory.com)
• April 30: World Wide Web Goes to Public Domain (dayintechhistory.com)
• April 3: Microsoft a Monopoly (dayintechhistory.com)

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May 1: First BASIC Program Written

Apr 30, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

code

1964- John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz run the first BASIC program at 4 AM in Darthmouth. The duo used a General Electric 225 mainframe computer and ran a simple compiler program.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 1

• AMD is founded
• Tamagotchi is released in the US
• Lenovo takes over IBM desktop and notebook divisions for $655 million in cash and $600 million in stock.

Related articles

• April 29: Google Files IPO (dayintechhistory.com)
• Tamagotchi ♥ (withsummerlove.com)
• NASA retires its last IBM Z9 mainframe (slashgear.com)
• Twitter announces Osama Bin Laden’s death hours before the official announcement by President Barack Obama

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April 25: Activision is Formed

Apr 24, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Gaming

Activision

1980 - Activision was technically founded in 1979, but it wasn’t until April 25 that the “Fantastic Four” joined up as the first third-party software company for video games. David Crane and Alan Miller left Atari August 1979 to start programming under the Activision name. Larry Kaplan and Bob Whitehead stayed behind until April 25th when Activision came out. Richard Muchmore was the venture capitalist and Jim Levy rounded the group as Activision’s CEO.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 25

• Sun Microsystems announces project JXTA
• XP x64 OS
• Yahoo begins the national TV ad campaign

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April 20: Oracle Buys Sun Microsystems

Apr 19, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Software

oracle

2009 - Oracle announces they have purchased Sun Microsystems in a $7.4 billion dollar deal. This includes stock at $9.50 / share. That would also be the acquisition of SPARC processors, Solaris OS, Java and MySQL, among other items. The deal would be finalized on January 27th 2010.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 20

• Compaq and Sears-Roebuck offer Presario line of personal computers
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen write the letter to MITS on breach of contract
• IBM opens it’s first PC store in New York City

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April 15: 100 Years of Titanic, Damn Small Linux Released

Apr 14, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Historical Date, Linux

damn small Linux

1912 – The RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg at 11:40 pm (7:40 pm EST). Of course from that, over 1,500 lost their lives to the cold, dark water, when the ship took the immortal dive. The ship had a passenger manifest of 2,223. The wreck was finally discovered on September 1st, 1985.

2005 – It was the release of the Damn Small Linux program, a Linux distribution that was designed to take up as little drive space as possible. John Andrews – DSL‘s developer – Never allowed the ISO to go past 50 MB in size. You would be able to put DSL onto a CD or USB drive if needed. You can get the DSL ISO to install here

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 15

• Pentium II processors introduced
• The paper disc format is announced
• The first McDonalds Hamburger is sold
• Search Engine “Cuil” launches in alpha.

Related articles

• February 10: “Linux is Obsolete” Thread Ends (dayintechhistory.com)
• Titanic tale continues to fascinate (teddyoshea.wordpress.com)

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April 14: JenniCam Debuts

Apr 13, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

jennicam

1996-  Nineteen year old Jennifer Kaye Ringley takes several webcams and places them within her house. For the next seven years, she would livestream her life to all on the Internet. Since Ringley was raised a nudist, she would appear on the video without clothes on. The site was not pornographic – although any sexual escapades would be caught live. Jennifer leads a Social media free life nowadays.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 14

• US District Court Rules in favor of Microsoft and HP
• Quicktime for Mac OS and Mac OS X
• Lindows becomes Linspire

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