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21st January
1953 Paul Allen was born.
Historical Computing Event:
April 4th 1975 – Microsoft was founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.
1953-2018 Paul Allen, RIP
You can also thank Paul Allen and his family for the USS Indianapolis Project, it was quite a surprise to know that it had been found.
24th January
Apple Computer Inc
Historical Computing Event:
1984 Apple Computer Inc unveils its revolutionary Macintosh personal computer. The first mass market computer to employ a GUI, together with a prominent TV advert directed by Ridley Scott during the Superbowl XVIII between the LA Raiders and Washington Redskins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnrJzXM7a6o
On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.
unlike nowadays eh
30th January
Historical Computing Event:
1982 A 15 year old, Richard Skrenta, writes the first apple in-the-wild computer virus. This code was 400 lines long and disguised as an boot program called “Elk Cloner”. The confessed ‘prank’ was later discovered to be an Apple DOS 3.3 boot sector virus spread by floppy disk to Apple II systems and displayed the following:
ELK CLONER:
THE PROGRAM WITH A PERSONALITYIT WILL GET ON ALL YOUR DISKS
IT WILL INFILTRATE YOUR CHIPS
YES IT’S CLONER!IT WILL STICK TO YOU LIKE GLUE
IT WILL MODIFY RAM TOO
SEND IN THE CLONER!
4th February
Historical Computing Events:
2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room creating a now, globally familiar online virtual social media platform.
Whilst Just yesterday, parent company Meta seen it’s share price plummet around $230bn/£169bn in stock market value ooops! 🙂
2014 Satya Nadella succeeds Steve Ballmer as CEO of Microsoft.
6th February
Historical computing event:
This one is not just historical, is transcendental:
The patenting of the integrated circuit (IC) on February 6th, 1959:
https://earthsky.org/human-world/this-date-in-science-microchip-patent/
And then, seven years later, this application of the IC idea started a fast, profound and lasting revolution in computers’ hardware and consequent capabilities:
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/think/2019/11/ibms-robert-h-dennard-and-the-chip-that-changed-the-world/
The patenting of the IC followed its invention the previous year:
https://cybernews.com/editorial/revolutionary-day-the-birth-of-the-integrated-circuit/
Excerpt:
“Over six decades ago, Jack Kilby submitted one of the most consequential patents in human history.”
….
“On September 12, 1958, Kilby presented his summer project to TIs management, including the head of the company Mark Shepherd.”
….
“It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the integrated circuit (IC). Alternatively known as a microchip, the device has virtually created the world we live in today.
Virtually, all modern devices rely on microchips to power any computer’s logic components, the microprocessors. Basically, if the device requires more ‘brain’ than manual operation, it likely depends on the IC.“
Ex Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7) since mid-2020. Now: running macOS Big Sur 11.6 & sometimes, Linux (Mint)
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV and Malwarebytes for Macs.
? says:
thanks, Oscar. pardon my hooking on to your post. i forgot to post on February 10 and didn’t want to get dates out of sync. i was watching the Decades tv program and they highlighted when the reigning World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov finally lost to IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in 1996…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov
14th February
(Another) Historical computing event:
And, as it happens, the 14th of February 2011 was also the first day of a three-days “Jeopardy” contest between the IBM’s “Watson” AI program running on a supercomputer/server farm that contained a huge database of facts of the kind likely to be asked at “Jeopardy”, confronting the 17-straight game winner Ken Jennings and also another champion, Brad Rutter … that Watson won. Jennings signaled his resignation by saying: “I welcome our computer overlords.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watson_(computer)
This was an epoch-making demonstration of the advances in computer science and practice that made possible a “Watson” that could, with very little help, interpret natural language, the way questions and comments were being made, and sort out which were directed at it, parsing these, determining their probably meaning and providing the answers most likely to be relevant to the questions — more often than not the correct ones, as well as an occasional wise-guy remark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18EdAKuC1U
That is why it (and the IBM team that developed it) won. By a lot.
Ex Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7) since mid-2020. Now: running macOS Big Sur 11.6 & sometimes, Linux (Mint)
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV and Malwarebytes for Macs.
30th March 1951
Census Bureau receives the first UNIVAC 1 computer:
https://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/march/30/
“The US Census Bureau receives the first UNIVAC I computer, the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. Although the Census Bureau began using it at the end of March it was not actually moved to the Census Bureau until a few months later. The UNIVAC was capable of completing 1,905 operations per second, which it stored on magnetic tape. The Census Bureau had helped drive the development of devices that eventually led to computers, beginning with Herman Hollerith’s 1890 punch card machine.”
More to read about this event and its significance here:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/univac-computer-dedicated
Excerpt:
“UNIVAC and other first-generation computers were replaced by transistor computers of the late 1950s, which were smaller, used less power, and could perform nearly a thousand times more operations per second. These were, in turn, supplanted by the integrated-circuit machines of the mid-1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the development of the microprocessor made possible small, powerful computers such as the personal computer, and more recently the laptop and hand-held computers.”
Ex Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7) since mid-2020. Now: running macOS Big Sur 11.6 & sometimes, Linux (Mint)
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV and Malwarebytes for Macs.
Apple was founded 46 years ago, on April 1, 1976
The Apple of 1976 should be unrecognizable compared to today’s gigantic corporation, and yet key early decisions by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and more, are still having an impact today.
Tim Cook marked the 45th anniversary of Apple with a tweet looking back to his friend and colleague, co-founder Steve Jobs.
“As Apple celebrates 45 years today, I’m reminded of Steve’s words from many years ago: “It’s been an amazing journey so far, yet we have barely begun.” Thanks to every member of our Apple family for all you’ve done to enrich lives. Here’s to the next 45 years & beyond!”…
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