May 11: VisiCalc Demonstrated

May 10, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Software

Visicalc

1979 – Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston demonstrate the spreadsheet program “Visicalc”. Of course, it will become the “killer app” for PC’s. 100 cells could be calculated in 20 seconds. By the first year, sales will hit on hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand in six years. VisiCalc will fall to clones and ultimately to products like Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 11

Other Events in the Day in Technology History

• Sega begins shipping the Saturn system
• AOL launches free webmail
• Verizon sells part of Alltel to AT&T

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May 4: Player vs Player (PvP) Comic Launches

May 3, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

PVP

1998 - My first attempt at a website back then was self publishing comics. I started with a website I called “Toonzed“. Other website were popping up. GPF, College Roomies from Hell, Penny Arcade. One of those website was called Player vs Player (PvP). Still going strong today, they have made some pretty funny comics. There are a lot of great web comics out there, too. I only scratched that surface.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 4

• “I Love You” virus hits computers
• AOL repairs glitch so Apple Macs can use the service
• Microsoft pulls their offer to Yahoo. Jerry Yang sends a memo to employees on what happened.

Related articles

• New Hardcore PvP World On Aerial Hieghts! (voxelblog.wordpress.com)
• Where one 3-way PvP game closes, another opens a window (spinksville.wordpress.com)
• May 2: First Microsoft Mouse (dayintechhistory.com)

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April 27: Koko Gorilla Takes over AOL Chat

Apr 26, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: AOL, Day in Tech History

1998 - Using AOL chat, a sign language interpreter and an active audience, a female gorilla named Koko answered questions to the public. Koko resides at the Gorilla Foundation and with a vocabulary of 2,000 words, was able to respond to the chat room.

Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for April 27

• Xerox introduces the 8010 Star Information System.
• Captain Midnight hijacks an HBO satellite
• Giants Pitcher Brian Wilson‘s Twitter is shut down due to posts that could give advantage

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April 5: SATAN Security Administration Tool Released

Apr 4, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

Hacker Troll Sock Puppet

1995- The program is called the Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks. But you may call it SATAN. The Perl written program – Written by Dan Famer and Wietse Venema –  was released to help network admins find vulnrabilities in their remote systems. There was a lot of controversy over the tool and it’s release, since it was the first user friendly tool.

SATAN was never updated since, and has been replaced with: Nessus and SAINT.

Wikazine – Full show notes for April 5

• AOL unveils Netscape Navagator v. 6
• Honeywell MicroSystem 6/10
• Apple releases Boot Camp for dual booting Mac

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March 25: Comcast G4 Acquires TechTV

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

Techtv

2004 – I remember watching TechTV from the ZDNet Days. Even watched a live show back in the days when Spring Comdex was in Chicago. When it changed to TechTV, we got some great social tech pioneers like Leo Laporte, Kevin Norton, Chris Pirillo and Kevin Rose, among others. When Comcast purchased the channel, they merged it with their own channel – G4. By May, G4 Tech TV was running in full force. Ultimately the name got changed to G4 and the pioneer shows like Call for Help and Screen Savers were ended.

Wikazine – Full show notes for March 24

Other Day in Tech History items:

• AOL and eBay cross marketing agreement
• Excel 4.0 is released
• The first Computers Freedom and Privacy Conference

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March 17: AOL Finishes Acquisition of Netscape

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

aol

1999- America Online(AOL) completes the acquisition of Netscape Communications Corporation. The acquisition started in Nov. 24, 1998. The acquisition was a $10 million arrangement in stock and cash.

Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark were the founders of Netscape. The Netscape browser would be discontinued in December 2007, and ultimately end support on March 1, 2008.

Wikazine – Full show notes for March 17

• Apple files suit to Microsoft and HP
• Office 97 Small Business Edition is released
• Tim Paterson contacts Microsoft on intent to sell MS-DOS

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March 12: First CeBit Conference

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

cebit

1986- It’s full name is Centrum der Büro- und Informationstechnik (Centre of Office and Information technology). CeBit actually was started in the 70′s with the Hanover fair. However, the two separated in 1986 when it was decided that together, the two were not doing too well. Since then, CeBit has grown to be a very important conference for all IT.

CeBit expanded in 1999, and the sponsor brought the show to Asia, Australia, Turkey, and the US.  CeBit runs 5 days in Hanover, Germany.

Wikazine – Full show notes for March 12

• V-Chip technology becomes mandatory in televisions
• AOL buys Bebo
• 2007 - Hulu launches in the US

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February 5: Victoria Secret was First Major Webcast

Feb 4, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History, Geek

Victorias Secret

1999 - Victoria Secret holds their annual fashion show after dealing with the networks for the last 10 years. The event attracts attention – 1.5 million visitors to be exact. The company uses the same idea the next year to rousing success. This was considered the first Major Successful webcast.

Wikazine – Full show notes for February 5

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• Namco acquires controlling interest in Atari
• AOL blackout
• Gibert Amelio becomes Chairman of Apple

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February 2: AOL Takes Over Compuserve

Feb 1, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: AOL, Apple, Day in Tech History, Geek, Internet

aol

1998 – In the 90′s, AOL and Compuserve were battling out for top dog in the ISP market. However, AOL showed a lot more game back then as Compuserve ultimately faltered when it’s main investor – H&R Block – decided to divest. The big quandary: Who was to buy Compuserve. Well, the end result was a buyout of Compuserve to AOL after Worldcom picked it up and then took what they wanted.

Wikazine – Full show notes for February 2

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• Sun begins shipping the SunPCi
• GI Joe action figure is first released by Hasbro
• Google Earth v5.0 and Google Ocean are released
• Apple fires Michael Spindler and replaces with Gil Amelio

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January 29: Tetris hits United States

Jan 28, 2012 by Jeffrey Powers @geekazine    No Comments    Posted under: Day in Tech History

Tetris

1988 - Spectrum Holobyte releases the puzzle game Tetris for the Commodore 64 and IBM PC. This was the first game imported from the Soviet Union. The game was written by Alexi Paszitnov and Vagim Gerasimov at the Computer Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow. The Commodore 64 version would cost you $24.95, and the IBM version cost $34.95.

Wikazine – Full show notes for January 26

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• Microsoft releases Word 3.0 for Mac
• Best Buy announces they will stop selling Macintosh
• AOL compensates subscribers for their “unlimited internet” issues

Related articles

• January 7: Commodore 64 Introduced (dayintechhistory.com)
• January 21: Kevin Mitnick Uses the Internet (dayintechhistory.com)
• Starcraft 2, Meet Tetris, Tetris, Starcraft 2 [Clips] (kotaku.com)

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