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.
1972 – Magnavox begins the production of the Odyssey Video game system. The final release date was not until May. It was a very primitive system with no processors and the cartridges are jumpered configurations. The system will be on the market for a year before being discontinued.
1983 – The Lotus Development Corporation releases Lotus 1-2-3 for IBM computers. Mitchell Kapor, founder and friend of the developers to VisiCalc, developed this program that will soon outsell their friends program by the end of the year. The design was awfully close to VisiCalc, but the program seemed to be – for the most part – bug free. It was truely the next step in business programs.
2003 – 5:30 AM. SQL Slammer worm caused a DDOS, infecting 75,000 within ten minutes. Christopher J. Rouland, the CTO of ISS, named it Slammer. The worm exploited a buffer overflow bug in Microsoft‘s SQL Server and Desktop Engine database products.
RemoteAccess BBS is a DOS Bulletin Board System. It’s software was written by Andrew Milner. RemoteAccess was released as shareware and did a crude version of Multitasking.
The final version of RA was released in 1996 (with a Y2K fix in 2000). At that time BBS were being switched to Internet protocol systems like online forums.
1994 – Apple released the Macintosh computer. Marketed as Mac, Steve Jobs brought it in with an Amazing Superbowl commercial behind it. The Macintosh 128K brought the graphical user interface and mouse into home and business computing.
1983 – In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn’t commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune.If you have a problem…
1984 – Apple created the opportunity of a lifetime with the Macintosh. It was the first mouse-driven computer and Graphical User Interface (GUI) machine. The machine would have a release date of Jan 24, and held a 8 MHz Motorola 68000 microprocessor. It had 128 KB DRAM and came with a 9″ black-and-white CRT with resolution of 512×342. The price of the machine was $2495But what was key to this computer launch was the ad. This ad ran Nationally only once – If you missed the Superbowl, you would have missed the Ad – that is, unless you watched the news the next day. The ad appeared in the 3rd Quarter of the game.
By the way: Superbowl XVIII pitted the LA Raiders vs. the Washington Redskins. Raiders won 38-9. The average cost for ad space: $368,000. Apple’s budget on the commercial – $900,000. Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) directed it. The Board of Directors did not like the Spot, but Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did. Woz even stated that if the board was to reject the commercial, he would pay for the spot out of his own pocket.
2000 – Kevin Mitnick, who was imprisoned for 5 Years in hacking IBM, Motorola and DEC; then a big chase with the FBI, was released from prision. He was still ordered to not log onto a computer.2003 – Kevin Mitnick finally logs back onto the Internet after the 3 year probation. He fought the prohibition from the Internet and got it reduced to 3 years. No word as to where he went on his first login.
1985 – When you hear “Apple Superbowl commercial“, you instantly think a woman running down a hall with a sledgehammer ready to destroy oppression. But there was another commercial. The Yang to the Macintosh Ying.The Lemmings commercial was aired for Super Bowl XIX. It was a commercial for Macintosh Office. Blindfolded businessmen marched off the edge of a cliff to a dark rendition of “Hi Ho”. The last guy in line – realizing his blind mouse wasn’t in front of him anymore, peeked to see what happened – only to find he was one step away from oblivion; Another line of Blind mice coming up behind him.
The big difference in this commercial is that it was a horrific failure. The consumer felt insulted more than enlightened. If that commercial would have aired the year before for Macintosh, Apple would have been done. What a difference a year makes, eh?