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 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Happy National Pi Day – The celebration of 3.14 1988 – It’s the song that found it’s rebirth and the term “Rick Rolled” became a urban saying. Of course, we are talking about Rick Astley and the song: Never Gonna Give You Up. It hit #1 on the charts. Of course, it’s internet fame has turned this into a whole new beast. Wikazine – Full show notes for March 14 Microsoft releases XBox in Europe NEC announces they will be getting into the computer market Apple releases the Power Macintosh computer Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
1986-$21.00 a share was the first price for stock in Microsoft. 2.5 million shares were sold, raising the price to 27.75 and netting the company 61 million initially. Since then, the highest it has gone was 57.91 on Dec 24th, 1999. Yet with about 10 stock splits and several dividends in the 24 years, people definitely got their money’s worth. If you would have purchased 100 shares in 1986 and let those shares ride until today, you would have 102,400 shares of stock at appx. $29 a share. Wikazine – Full show notes for March 13 Apple and Bandai demonstrate the Pippin Atmark Multimedia computer JTS sells Atari to HIACXI Jerry Jalava gets the first prothstetic thumb drive Podcast: Play in ...
1983 -IBM announces the IBM Personal Computer XT (eXtended Technology). It features a Intel 8088 processor, 10MB hard drive, 128 kB RAM, 40Kb ROM and double-sided 360 kB floppy drive. For $4995, it’s all yours. The machine was also called IBM Machine Type number 5160.The XT could support up to 256 kb on the motherboard. You could get expansion cards to raise to 640 kb. The 8088 processor ran at 4.77 MHz. It weighed 32 lbs (desktop only) and was 19.5 inches wide by 16 inches deep and 5.5 inches high. The IBM PC XT was the successor to the IBM PC. It was developed until April 1987. Wikazine – Full show notes for March 8 Sierra and Broderbund announce the ...
1950- Silly Putty – the stretchable goo that picks up print off a newspaper – is introduced. Peter Hodgson first introduced James Wright’s idea by packaging one ounces into a plastic egg. Interesting facts about Silly Putty – It has some adhesive attributes, which can make it a great way to pick up dirt and pet hair. Silly Putty bounces like a ball and will break when given a sharp blow. Silly Putty is also known as Thinking Putty and is made of Silocone Polymer. It was originally created to be a rubber substitute for use in World War II. Wikazine – Full show notes for March 6 Apple vs. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard The Michelangelo Virus The Bring Newton Back Protest Podcast: ...
1997- US Senator Orrin Hatch holds a hearing on the Antitrust activities of Microsoft. Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems and Jim Barksdale of Netscape Communications were present to question if Microsoft is intentionally pushing out the Netscape web browser for Internet Explorer. Of course, this would become a long drawn out investigation which almost splits Microsoft into separate companies. Wikazine – Full show notes for March 2 Delphi is first released by Borland Yahoo! is incorporated Napster begins blocking access to one million MP3 Steve Jobs announces the iPad2 Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
1999 – Microsoft’s newest programming language at the time – C# (pronounced “C-Sharp”) was hacked on this day. The perpetrator was a seventeen year old female hacker from Belgium, calling herself “Gigabyte”. 2002 – Gigabyte posts the source code to the virus on her website. Kim Vanvaeck would be arrested in 2004 for writing the malicious code. The reason why she did it? I want to let people (and especially guys) know there ARE girls out there who like computers and for more than games. I think that’s quite important … for all girls out there who know something about computers but are surrounded by guys who think they’re all stupid.. Wikazine – Full show notes for February 25 IBM releases ...
2000 – Microsoft released the next version of the Windows Operating system in Windows 2000. Also known at Windows NT 5.0, it was the beginning of merging the NT and 9x versions. Of course, the companion was Windows ME, which didn’t do too well. The end result streamlined the two OS into Windows XP. Wikazine – Full show notes for February 17 [dithsponsorq12] Apple QuickTake 100 Camera is released XBox cord recall DTV in the US was suppose to happen today, but was delayed Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
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