Day in Tech History

Day in Tech History Podcast, Blog 365 Days a Year!

January 19, 2019

January 20, 1885: the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway Patent

1885 – Sounding like anything but a roller coaster, the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway was the first American designed amusement coaster designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson. Only 5 cents to ride, the Switchback was a simple coaster that took you about 600 feet to the next tower at six miles per hour. It had a height of 50 feet and a drop of 43 feet. It opened on June 16, 1884 and eventually was replaced. But on this day, the roller coaster saw one of its first patents from this ride. Learn more about Patents: Ingenious Inventions, How they work and How they...

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Apple / Day in Tech History

January 18, 2019

January 19, 1983: Apple Lisa Introduced

Happy Birthday to me. 1983 – at an introductory price of $9995, Apple introduces the Lisa computer – the first computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The computer featured a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor, dual 5.25″ 860 KB floppy drives, a 5 MB hard drive and more. Lisa cost Apple Computer US$50 million to develop. The software for it cost Apple Computer US$100 million to develop.“Lisa” is an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture. I Love Lucy gave birth on TV First IBM PC virus was “the Brain” MegaUpload was Closed New York sets...

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Computer / Day in Tech History

January 17, 2019

January 18, 1983: Franklin Ace 1200

1983 – During the CP/M Show, Franklin Electronic Publichers revealed the Franklin Ace 1200 computer. The main feature of this computer (like the other Franklin computers before) was the fact they copied Apple’s ROM and operating system code. The Ace 1200 came with a Zilog Z80 processor a 1 MHz, 48K RAM, 16K ROM,2 – 5.25 Floppy disks and four expansion slots. The computer was announced here but didn’t come out until 1984. It cost the consumer $2,200 At that same show, Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80 Model 12 for $3,200 Stac Electronics sues Microsoft for Patent infringement NewsCorp and MySpace...

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Day in Tech History / Science

January 16, 2019

January 17, 2012: Jerry Yang Resignes from Yahoo!

2012 – Yahoo! had some turbulent times from 2007 when founder Jerry Yang was CEO. Of course the big debacle being the Microsoft bid, which took over 9 months to settle with Carl Icahn being a major instigator. Add to that the 2007 incident of the arrest of Shi Tao and Yahoo’s stance. Tao was arrested for divulging trade secrets and Yang put out a statement saying “We have to comply with Chinese Law”. During this whole time, Yahoo shares were declining. Yang was replaced in 2009 by Carol Bartz, but remained on the board until 2012 when Yang fully resigned from...

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SAGE - Semi-Automatic Ground Environment

Computer / Day in Tech History

January 15, 2019

January 16, 1956: Semi-Automatic Ground Environment – SAGE Disclosed to Public

1956 – The U.S. Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was disclosed to the public. SAGE is a computer that connected hundreds of radar stations in the US and Canada as a one-stop monitoring of the sky. SAGE was commissioned and developed by MIT. The project started in 1950 and SAGE became fully operational on June 26, 1958 (DC-01). By 1980, many SAGE sites were fully dismantled as other airborne detection systems took its place. Burger King De-Friend promotion on Facebook Patrick Spence hands the Renegade BBS to Jeff Herrings Lotus v. Borland Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe! Apple Podcasts...

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Day in Tech History / Geek

January 14, 2019

January 15, 1990: AT&T Reboots

1990 – AT&T suffers the oddest outage nationwide. A switch in New York crashed, then rebooted. This caused the other switches linked to the New York switch to also reboot. The cascade continued on until all 114 switches were rebooting on 6 second intervals. The continued failure lasted for 9 hours, leaving 60,000 customers without long distance calling. The problem was resolved when engineers found a bug in the latest update dealing with 4ESS long distance switches. They applied a patch which stopped the crash-reboot cycle. Intel acquires Xircom Wikipedia is launched Coveritlive and Twitter goes down for Steve Jobs Keynote...

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Day in Tech History / Music

January 13, 2019

January 14, 1973: Live Via Satellite – Elvis!

1973 – Elvis is broadcast via satellite to over 1 billion viewers in over 40 countries. That is, except for the U.S. because Superbowl VII was being played. The U.S. finally got to see the concert on April 4, 1973 on NBC. The show, entitled “Aloha from Hawaii via Satellite”, cost $2.5 million to produce. Presley taped a backup two days prior in case any problems arose. Presley performed many of his hits such as “Burning Love”, “My Way”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Hound Dog”, “Suspicious Minds”, and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”. Elvis’ famous jumpsuit from that night can be seen...

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Day in Tech History / Microsoft

January 12, 2019

January 13, 2000: Steve Ballmer Takes the Reins

2000 – Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announces he will be stepping down from his role but remain on the Board and embrace a new role as Chief software architect. Steve Ballmer will take over the CEO role and also remain president. Love him or hate him, Ballmer kept Microsoft running and helped raise annual revenues. Ballmer would remain CEO of Microsoft until February 2014, then take over as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Bill Gates continued on the board. In 2014 he stepped down to Technology Advisor. Gates is also co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation Carol Bartz...

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Apple / Day in Tech History

January 11, 2019

January 12, 1966: The Batman on TV

1966 – Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson entered our lives via ABC on Wednesdays. The television series “Batman” debuted with the episode Hi Diddle Riddle. Each half hour episode contained either part 1 or part 2 of the dynamic duo’s fight against the criminal of the week. Get Batman: The Complete Television Series (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] at Amazon Of course, the show offered some high-tech video work, including angled cameras and inserted “BAM”, “SMACK” and “POW!!” graphics. Each episode did more than conquer a bad guy – it was also a chance to learn about the importance of doing your homework,...

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