SPECIAL
Happy Pi Day – On March 11th 2009, The US House of Representatives officially marked 3/14 as national Pi Day.
1978
The IBM Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 3624, a second-generation automated teller terminal.
1979
The IBM Data Processing Division (DPD) introduces the IBM 3604 Model 7 administrative terminal.
1988
Music Geek news – The song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 list.
1991
The New England Journal of Medicine reports that pregnant women who use workstations with a Video Display Terminal (VDT) are at no greater risk of miscarriage than women who use monitors that don’t emit electromagnetic fields. Read an abstract of the article at The New England Journal of Medicine website.
1994
Apple Computer introduces an upgrade card for Macintosh computers currently using a Motorola 68040 processor. The card features a PowerPC 601 processor running at either 66 or 80MHz, a Level-2 cache, and 4MB ROM. Price: US$699
Apple Computer introduces releases the Power Macintosh line of computers. The initial models include the 6100/60, 7100/66, and 8100/80, all of which feature the new PowerPC 601 processor.
The Apple Powermac 6100Apple Computer introduces the Power Macintosh 6100 computer, featuring a 60MHz PowerPC 601 processor, 68LC040 emulation ROM, 8MB RAM, 160MB hard drive, a 14-inch monitor, Ethernet, SCSI, one NuBus slot, and the System 7 operating system. Price: US$2,209
Apple Computer introduces the Power Macintosh 7100 computer, featuring a 66MHz PowerPC 601 processor, 8MB RAM, a 250MB hard drive, 1MB video RAM, 68LC040 emulation ROM, a 14-inch monitor, Ethernet, SCSI, three NuBus slots, and the System 7 operating system. Price: US$3,379
Apple Computer introduces the Power Macintosh 8100 computer, featuring a 80MHz PowerPC 601 processor, 8MB RAM, a 250MB hard drive, 2MB video RAM, a secondary external cache, 68LC040 emulation ROM, a 14-inch monitor, Ethernet, SCSI, three NuBus slots, and the System 7 operating system. Price: US$4,869
Linus Torvalds releases version 1.0.0 of the Linux Kernel. Visit the official website of the Linux Kernel.
1997
Apple Computer discontinues its Performa brand and both its OpenDoc and Open Transport project. The company also terminates 2,700 of its 11,000 full-time employees, along with 1,400 contract and temporary employees.
Intel begins shipping samples of its 300MHz Pentium II processors to computer manufacturers.
Intel files a lawsuit against AMD and Cyrix, accusing the companies of infringing Intel’s MMX trademark.
NEC announces that it will begin selling personal computers based on industry-standard Intel-architecture in Japan. Previously, all NEC computers have been based on the company’s proprietary 9800 architecture. These new systems will be manufactured by Packard Bell-NEC in the US.
2000
Philip Loranger, chief of the United States Army Command and Control Protect Division at the Army’s Information Assurance Office, announces that the Brazilian hacking group calling themselves Crime Boys, who two days earlier, had defaced the website of US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) National Training Center, have threatened to take down the Army’s main homepage. However, the page is difficult to crack because it is running on an Apple Computer WebStar server. The main [Army] site was switched to a server that was practically un- hackable, said Alex McCombie, co-founder of New World Media Inc. and one of more than 30 witnesses to the March twelfth attack on the Army’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) website.
2001
Sony announces a new version of the Clié handheld computer, featuring a 33MHz Motorola Dragonball VZ processor, 8MB RAM, a 320×320 resolution monochrome screen, the Palm OS, a Memory Stick slot, and a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. The device will be released in Japan in April and later in the US.
2002
Apple Computer introduces the Apple Remote Desktop (ARD). ARD is an application to allow administrators to remotely control computers over a network. Visit the official Apple Remote Desktop website.
Microsoft releases the Xbox video game console in Europe. The system features a 733MHz Intel processor, an 8GB hard drive, a 250 MHz NVidia XGP graphics processor, 64MB RAM, four controller ports, one controller, 3D audio support, and an Ethernet port. Games for the system come on dual-layer DVD-ROM discs that can store 9GB of data. The system can also play DVD movies, but requires an optional remote control device to do so. In England, the system costs £299, games cost £44.99, controllers cost £24.99, the DVD remote control cost £29.99, and a memory unit cost £29.99. The price of the Xbox in the rest of Europe is €479 (about US$430).
2006
Version 2.0 of the SkoleLinux operating system is released. SkoleLinux is a Debian-based Linux distribution designed for educational use. Visit the official SkoleLinux website.
2007
Hong Kong privacy commission rules there was insufficient evidence to hold Yahoo hong Kong liable under privacy regulations. This was in response to the recent issues convicting chinese journalist Shi Tao.
2008
The House of Representatives vote 213-197 to pass a bill that would protect telecom companies that violated privacy laws. President George Bush announces he will veto.
2013
Samsung announced the Galaxy S4 smartphone, with Quad-core 1.6 GHz cortex A15 & Cortex A7 chip, 13 MP camera, Android 4.2.2 with upgrades to 4.3 and 4.4 when available.
Hulu appoints Andy Forssell as CEO.