2003- Caldera International finished the acquisition of the Server Software and Services divisions of Santa Cruz Operation. They turned around and officially renamed to the SCO group. The focus was more to the UNIX platform. The SCO group was in a major lawsuit with Novell until Masrch 2010 when the courts ruled that Novell had the proper rights to the SCO properties in the Linux OS. Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 21 The IBM 701 is announced Atari stock splits 2-for-1 Apple releases Mac OS X Server Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
2009 - Craigslist was under fire for their erotic services. Reports of prostitution and other illegal activities were being conducted in the category. Craigslist revamped their site to remove the erotic services and add an “Adult” section – with more moderation. However, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster was given an injunction for threatening executives of Craigslist with criminal prosecution for aiding prostitution in the state. Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 20 AppleLink is created Microsoft and Intuit discontinue their merger due to Antitrust issues Intel makes the Pentium processor available Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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). ...
2011 – The first tweets on the raid came from Sohaib Athar, a.k.a. @ReallyVirtual. At the time he didn’t know what he was tweeting about, just there was a helicopter hovering over Abbottabad at 1AM. Shortly after, Twitter went a buzz because inside that bunker was Osama Bin Laden. However, it was determined the first tweet actually came from @keithurbahn (aka Keith Urbahn, Chief of Staff for Donald Rumsfeld). So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn. — Keith Urbahn (@keithurbahn) May 2, 2011 This caused Twitter to explode and soon after, 14.8 million tweets were posted even before President Obama could take the podium to address the nation. 1964- John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz run the first ...
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 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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