Geek

December 25, 1998: Official Y2K Compliance

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1225, 20th century, aggregator, aol browser, birth date, bottom line, clock, compliance, compliant, compuserve, computer, computer systems, day in tech history, dec 25, explicit sites, financial institutions, Indefinite detention, merry christmas, millennium bug, netscape, nintendo wii, oversight, Podcast, president bill, Social Security, social security payment, technology history, Tikkun (magazine), turmoil, United States, wii, y2k, Year 2000 problem 0 Comments December 24, 2019

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1998 – during the last couple years of the 20th century, the race was on to fix an oversight in multiple computer systems. The problem was dubbed “Y2K” or the Millennium bug. Bottom line was that all computers worked on a 2 digit year system instead of 4. Because of this, once the clock rolled, computers would think it’s 1900 instead of 2000 and bigger issues would happen.For instance, if you were born in 1968, then you would be -68 years old in a computer calculating your birth date. If you had a bill due of $1,000 since 1998, then you might find yourself with a reverse interest, in turn causing financial institutions to go into turmoil.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton made a statement that the Social Security payment system was officially Y2K compliant.

By the way: Most people resolved the problem by not programming in a 4 digit year, but by shifting the thinking of the 2 digit year. Therefore, in 2012 (which some shifted to), they will have these issues all over again.

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Merry Christmas
Nintendo Wii with Linux installed
Compuserve blocks 200 sexually explicit sites
Netscape announces the AOL browser will be discontinued

Day in Tech History/ Geek

December 24: Watch out for Werewolves

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1224, aggregator, bristles, christmas, christmas eve, cybersquatters, day in tech history, dec 24, december 24th, Fabulous Creatures, Folklore, fox, interesting fact, Linux, linux day, Literature, Podcast, russian folklore, stitcher, Tales, technology history, tongue, twitter, Vampire, Verizon, Werewolf, Werewolves 0 Comments December 23, 2019

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An interesting fact: Russian folklore believed that December 24th was the day people could be turned into Werewolves. Any child that is born on December 24th would be considered a werewolf. There are many ways to detect a werewolf – bristles under the tongue was one way to check.

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Fox-Linux 1.0 Released
Verizon awarded $33 million against Cybersquatters

Day in Tech History/ Geek

December 23, 2008: Santa Claus via Google Earth

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1223, aggregator, Benjamin Franklin, Companies, day in tech history, earth, Geek, Google, Google Earth, IPO, Orient Express, Podcast, religion, Santa Claus, Search Engines, Searching, spyglass, st nicholas, stitcher, technology history, turkey, university of illinois 0 Comments December 22, 2019

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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…

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Priceline.com IPO
Netscape, Spyglass and the University of Illinois
Benjamin Franklin Shocked a Turkey

Day in Tech History/ Geek

December 19, 1974: Do it Yourself Altair Kit

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 1219, aggregator, altair, altair 8800, Altair BASIC, Bill Gates, computer, home computer setup, micro instrumentation and telemetry systems, Microsoft, MITS, patents, popular mechanics magazine, RIAA, samuel clemens, stitcher, suspenders, switches, technology history, Telemetry Systems, turning point 0 Comments December 18, 2019

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1974 – Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) puts out the first ever “Do it yourself” Altair 8800. You would get it through Popular Mechanics Magazine, then assemble it yourself. This is a turning point in home computer setup. The price for an Altair 8800 kit – $397 – and it included Microsoft Altair BASIC.

Samuel Clemens patents suspenders

Day in Tech History/ Geek

2000: The GeoCaching Craze

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0503, arpanet, caption, Carl Gartley, computer architecture, DECSYSTEM-20, E-mail spam, Gary Thuerk, GeoCaching, global positioning system, gotomeeting, GPS, Hobbies, iTunes, Lars Ulrich, mail message, mail spammer, product presentations, Recreation, RSS, Secret Stash, SPAM, spam mail, spammer, stitcher, system, Technology, twitter, usenet 0 Comments May 2, 2019

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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.

Dell Computer is founded
Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich produce a list of 335,000 Internet users who shared the band’s songs on Napster.
First Spam message

Day in Tech History/ Geek

1965 – The First Transatlantic Television Signal from “Early Bird” Intelsat I

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0502, button mouse, Communications satellite, Geosynchronous orbit, geosynchronous satellite, Google, gotomeeting, Intelsat, iTunes, Microsoft, microsoft mouse, mobile solution, moon, Personal computer, Podcast, radio, RSS, stitcher, tech, Television, twitter, United Kingdom 0 Comments May 2, 2019

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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.

Other Events in the Day in Technology History

Excel launches for Macintosh
Intel releases 3600MHz Pentium D processor
First Microsoft mouse

Day in Tech History/ Geek

April 26, 1983: TRS-80 Model 4

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0426, caption, cassette interface, flea flicker, Google, gotomeeting, Hardware, Hertz, Historical, IBM, mobile solution, model, ram, stitcher, Tandy, TRS-80, TRS-80 Model 100 0 Comments April 25, 2019

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1983– The Trash-80, as it was so admirably called in the day, a.k.a. the TRS-80 Model 4 is introduced. It contains a 4 MHz processor, 16 KB of RAM, a cassette interface, Keyboard and Monochrome monitor. $1000 for the base model, or $2000 if you upgraded the RAM to 64 KB and 5.25 disk drives. The first TRS-80 was released in 1977.

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IBM 7030 – the Stretch Supercomputer
Last release of the Nemesis
AOL purchases Flea-Flicker

Day in Tech History/ Geek

April 23, 1964: Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) Decommissioned

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0423, automatic computer, Browsers, carnegie mellon, CIH, cih virus, Clients, clock rate, computer, Eastern, edvac, fifteen years, Google, internet explorer, internet explorer 2, List of Ubuntu releases, logic, Podcast, seac, stitcher, ubuntu, vacuum tubes, www 0 Comments April 22, 2019

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1964– The Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) is retired after fifteen years. SEAC was the first to use all-diode logic. SEAC was bason on EDVAC. It had 747 vacuum tubes, and the clock rate was under 1 mHz.

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Internet Explorer 2.0 is released for Mac 7.0.1
Carnegie Mellon warns users of the CIH virus
Ubuntu 9.04 is released

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