February 19

1971
The first warrant to search a computer is issued in San Jose, California. The search will ultimately lead to a conviction for theft of trade secrets.

1974
Nolan Bushnell is issued a patent for a video image positioning control system for his Pong home video game system. (US No. 3,793,483) Read more about Pong. View the patent at Google.

1981
The iAPX432 ProcessorAt the International Solid State Circuits Conference, Intel introduces the iAPX432 processor, the company’s first 32-bit processor, and begins shipping evaluation sets. The processor is a set of three chips, which incorporate over two hundred thousand transistors. Intel claims the processor should perform at two million instructions per second (MIPS). Visit the official Intel website.

1986
Activision, an American computer and video game developer, makes a deal to acquire Infocom, an American software company, for US$7.5 million in cash and stock. Visit the official Activision website.

1987
Apple Computer registers internet domain Apple.com. It is one of the first one hundred companies to register a .com domain. Visit the official website of Apple Computer.

1990
Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, wrote a program that would create images on the Macintosh Plus. At the time it was in Greyscale, but his brother John Knoll (who worked for Industrial Light and Magic) caught wind of the program and they both worked on turning it into a full imaging program. After extensive research and a 6 month sabbatical to finish the product, then a few meetings with Adobe, the Adobe Photoshop 1.0 was born.

1991
American Video Entertainment accuses Nintendo of secretly making technical changes to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to make competitors’ game cartridges unplayable. Nintendo claims that the changes are part of an ongoing effort to stop worldwide game counterfeiting. Visit the official Nintendo website.

1994
Mike Godwin publishes an article entitled When Copying Isn’t Theft: How the Government Stumbled in a ‘Hacker’ Case in the January-February issue of the magazine Internet World. The article comments on some of the issues involved in the Craig Neidorf case. Read a transcript of the Craig Neidorf trial at the Temple of the Screaming Electron.

1996
Apple Computer announces that Motorola’s Computer Group has licensed the Mac OS. Motorola will be able to sub-license the Mac OS to other manufacturers who purchase PowerPC motherboards from Motorola. Visit the official Motorola website.

1997
Heidi Roizen, Vice President of developer relations, resigns from Apple Computer>Apple Computer in order to spend more time with her family. Visit the official website of Apple Computer.

The US federal government announces a severe crackdown on Internet-based scams in which users are lured to free software which covertly dials international toll numbers after being run.


2001
Apple Computer announces that it has begun shipping its new 733MHz Power Mac G4, which is the first system to feature the SuperDrive, a combination CD-RW/DVD-R drive is able to read and write CD as well as DVD media.

2002
Paul Puzyrev and Sergei Larionov releases the miniBB under a GNU General Public License. It’s a PHP-based threaded discussion board designed to be user-friendly and easily installed by amateur web masters. MiniBB stands for mini bulletin board. Visit the official miniBB website.

2003
Microsoft announces that it has acquired Connectix, a developer of virtualization software. Visit the official Microsoft website.

Version 2.3a2 of the Python programming language is released. Visit the official Python website.

2004
A Louisiana man is arrested by the FBI for releasing the 911 Worm to WebTV users in July 2002. David Jeansonne, 43, of Metairie, Louisiana allegedly sent an e-mail to WebTV users that included a worm which reprogrammed their computers to dial 911″ (the US emergency services number) instead of a local Internet access telephone number. On February 14, 2005, Jeansonne will plead guilty to intentionally damaging protected computers and causing a threat to public safety (including losses of over five thousand dollars).

Yahoo!discontinues the use of Google-powered search results, launching its own search algorithm. Visit the official Yahoo!website.

2008
Cellphone analog networks in the United States are shut down.

NetZero closes their Free Phone number service.

WikiLeaks – The site that posts leaked documents – was taken offline by order of a California judge. That ruling was later overturned

2009
Dell petitions the USPTO to cancel a Canadian trademark from Psion, for the word Netbook. Dell states that the company doesn’t even use the Netbook monicre.

2014
Facebook acquires messanger app WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash, stock and Facebook shares.