I love tech history. I enjoy how we evolved from computers that fill a room to computers we wear on our bodies. I have put a full archive of tech history together at Wikazine. You can also talk history at Google +. I am also a podcaster and V-caster at Geekazine and a Podcast Coach at How to Record Podcasts. You can also sign up for a Helpout
2008 – Santa Claus is spotted on Google Earth. Of course the story of St. Nicholas is an interesting one that doesn’t really involve religion. But now we know where he resides, thanks to Google! Of course, watching Santa’s route is big for children, who know they should be going to sleep before he gets there. Otherwise, coal will be in their stockings…
1845 – Today, we’re travelling to the Geek side of things. It’s not everyday that I get to talk about my other passion – Music. The Euphonium – often mistaken for a Tuba – was created. It was also coined in later years as “P.T. Barnums’ Euphonium. The word itself comes from the Greek word Euphonos – or Sweet voiced.
The Euphonium is pitched in concert B♭. Although a 3 valve instrument, professional Euphoniums have a 4th valve for compensation.
2000 – President Bill Clinton signs the Child Internet Protection Act into law. The law is implemented to set rules for the web to expose them to pornography and sexual content. In 2003 the law will be challenged, but will be upheld.
COPA required websites with “material harmful to minors” to restrict their sites access with proof of age. “Material harmful to minors” was defined as material. This included sexual acts or nudity.
2000 – Up until May 1, all GPS signals were scrambled for protection. President Bill Clinton announced they would be turning off the Selective Availability (SA) because it didn’t propose a greater threat. But it also gave geeks something new to play with. But what to do?
Dave Ulmer ultimately started the GeoCaching phenomenon. He hid a bunch of trinkets out in the woods of Portland, Oregon. He then went to the USENET group sci.geo.satellite-nav and stated “If you take something, leave something”.
The Usenet message:
From: Dave ([email protected])
Subject: The Great American GPS Stash Hunt!
Newsgroups: sci.geo.satellite-nav
Date: 2000/05/03
—
The Great American GPS Stash Hunt !!
—
Now that SA is off we can start a worldwide Stash Game!! With
Non-SA accuracy it should be easy to find a stash from waypoint
information. Waypoints of secret stashes could be shared on the
Internet, people could navigate to the stashes and get some
stuff. The only rule for stashes is: Get some Stuff, Leave some
Stuff!! The more valuable the stuff the more stashes will be
started.
I’m thinking of half burying a five gallon plastic bucket with
lid at the stash point. Putting in some stuff. Adding a logbook
and pencil so visitors can record their find. The log should
contain: Date, Time, What you got, and What you put in. Scanning
the log book should give you a quick inventory of the stash.
I’ll look for a place near a road where few people would
normally go… Put in some cash, an old digital camera, and some
antique silverware!! I will come up with a cool name for my
stash and post coordinates soon!!!
Make your own stash in a unique location, put in some stuff and
a log book. Post the location on the Internet. Soon we will have
thousands of stashes all over the world to go searching for.
Have Fun!!
Dave…
He also made a video, which has the container and contents.
1965 – Intelsat I, a.k.a. Early Bird, went into service. This geosynchronous satellite sent the first signal between nine different countries. A “One Hour TV Spectacular” was broadcast to Europe from the US, Canada, and Mexico.
Intelsat I went up in space on April 6, 1965 and had only 240 voice circuits, so it could only transmit one TV channel at a time. Early Bird was one of three satellites that broadcast the first landing on the moon in 1969.
1964– John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz run the first BASIC program at 4 AM in Dartmouth. The duo used a General Electric 225 mainframe computer and ran a simple compiler program. The duo created different programming languages since 1956, including Darsimco (Dartmouth Simplified Code), Dope (Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment). It wasn’t until BASIC (Begginer’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) that became a success.
The first code ran at 4 A.M on May 1st. BASIC was easy to learn, could go past mainframes (as Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapted it for personal computers in 1975), and also allowed for batch processing.
1993 – You may see www, but it’s true meaning is World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee wrote WorldWideWeb during the 1990, while working for CERN. He did it on a NeXT Computer and developed it for the NeXTSTep platform (which Apple bought and turned into Mac OS X). But it was today that was most momentous, as the World Wide Web entered in the public domain. That meant anyone could access without license fees. Now a person could apply style sheets or post media on the web. The initial web browser was also the web editor.
2004 – Google files the S-1 form with SEC for their IPO. They said they wanted to raise US$2,718,281,828; a Mathematical algorithm based on the day they filed. The form can be found at SEC.gov
The stock finally started trading on August 19, 2004 at $85 a share in a unique online auction.