The Day in Technology History is a podcast detailing what happened in Tech. This is a daily podcast, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We look at stories of the Information Age, dates of artifacts, creation of Silicon Valley and the history of companies like Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Commodore, Facebook, Twitter and more. It’s a Computer museum in a podcast.
1980 – Otherwise known as “The 24th Man” (to join Microsoft, that is), Steve Ballmer came on as Microsoft’s first Business Manager. He made only $50k and stock options. Of course 30 years later, Steve succeeded Bill Gates as CEO of the Redmond based software company.
1998 – Seiko introduces the world’s first wearable PC watch called the Ruputer. It was marketed under the OnHand PC name. The Ruputer had a 3.6 MHz processor and 2 MB of non-volitile storage. The 102×64 monochrome LCD could display data or play games. a joystick with six function buttons were on the Ruputer. This watch could download pictures and had three applications that ran on Windows 95. Ruputer cost $285
June 9, 1986: Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center opens
1986 – The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center opens. It links 5 supercomputer centers together – Princeton, San Diego, Illinois, and Cornell University. PSC is a leading partner in the TeraGrid, the National Science Foundation’s cyberinfrastructure program.
2001 – To compete with AOL, Internet Service Providers NetZero and Juno Online Services announce they will merge to become United Online. The company would eventually acquire other assets to keep afloat, including the purchase of the FTD group in 2008.
Of course, NetZero had changed their business model to a Wireless plan in 2012 and operates a broadband and dial up service nation-wide.
1975 – Sony releases the first home videocassette recorder in the US. Japan first saw the Betamax on May 10, 1975, which was not uncommon. The magnetic tape media was the first to be on the market, as VHS didn’t come around until 1976.
Many believed Betamax was the better of the two in quality. Many TV and professional recording companies used the format almost til the end of their lifetime. Of course, in 1984, the players were under major fire for copyright infringement from Universal. However, it was ruled that although they could record the content, it was not their responsibility if someone used it for illegal activity.
Sony finally stopped producing the player and tapes on August, 2002.
June 6, 2011 Steve Jobs gave his last keynote for Apple
2005 – Steve Jobs spoke in front of the masses at the WWDC announcing that Apple will switch their processors from PowerPC to Intel. He then showed off the Mac OS X running on aPentium 4 CPU. The reasoning was that PowerPC chips took too much power to run and also ran hotter than an Intel chip.
1983 – Coleco announced at the Consumer Electronics Show the Coleco Adam. It was their first attempt at a computer hybrid system – gaming and desktop computing. The $725 price tag didn’t hurt, either.
With a Zilog Z80 processor and 80 kB RAM with 16 kB video RAM, the Adam could do what you needed. Also available was a printer, tape drive, and spots for 3 expansion cards.
Unfortunately, the computer didn’t do as well as the company wanted. They expected a half-million sold by December, but didn’t reach that goal. Ultimately, the Coleco Adam was discontinued in 1985.
1896 – Henry Ford gets ready to test drive the first Quadricycle (a.k.a. Car). Only one problem – They didn’t make the garage door big enough. Out comes the Ax – A couple chops and a wider door was created. The car ran 2 speed, but could not go in reverse.