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Switchback Railway

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January 20, 1885: the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway Patent

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Switchback Railway
Switchback Railway

1885 – Sounding like anything but a roller coaster, the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway was the first American designed amusement coaster designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson.

Only 5 cents to ride, the Switchback was a simple coaster that took you about 600 feet to the next tower at six miles per hour. It had a height of 50 feet and a drop of 43 feet.

It opened on June 16, 1884 and eventually was replaced. But on this day, the roller coaster saw one of its first patents from this ride.

Learn more about Patents: Ingenious Inventions, How they work and How they came to be from Amazon

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  • Robert and Carleen Thomas (Amature Action BBS) were raided
  • Microsoft market value surpasses IBM for the first time to $26.78 Billion
  • Microsoft sells all shares of Comcast
Apple Lisa

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January 19, 1983: Apple Lisa is Introduced

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Apple Lisa
Apple Lisa

Happy Birthday to me.

1983 – at an introductory price of $9995, Apple introduces the Lisa computer – the first computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The computer featured a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor, dual 5.25″ 860 KB floppy drives, a 5 MB hard drive and more. 

Lisa cost Apple Computer US$50 million to develop. The software for it cost Apple Computer US$100 million to develop.“Lisa” is an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture.

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  • I Love Lucy gave birth on TV
  • First IBM PC virus was “the Brain”
  • MegaUpload was Closed
  • New York sets up 911 to accept photos from cell phones.
Jerry_Yang

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January 17, 2012: Jerry Yang Resignes from Yahoo!

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Jerry Yang
Jerry Yang

2012 – Yahoo! had some turbulent times from 2007 when founder Jerry Yang was CEO. Of course the big debacle being the Microsoft bid, which took over 9 months to settle with Carl Icahn being a major instigator.

Add to that the 2007 incident of the arrest of Shi Tao and Yahoo’s stance. Tao was arrested for divulging trade secrets and Yang put out a statement saying “We have to comply with Chinese Law”.

During this whole time, Yahoo shares were declining. Yang was replaced in 2009 by Carol Bartz, but remained on the board until 2012 when Yang fully resigned from all positions in the company.

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Other Historical Events in Technology

  • The infamous “Apple Ad” shows up in movie theatres
  • IBM charged with the Sherman Antitrust Act
  • Apple reaches an “out of court” settlement with NeXT
  • In protest to SOPA, many websites blacked out their web pages.
The Batman TV Show

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January 12, 1966: Batman on ABC

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The Batman TV Show
The Batman TV Show

1966 – Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson entered our lives via ABC on Wednesdays. The television series “Batman” debuted with the episode Hi Diddle Riddle. Each half hour episode contained either part 1 or part 2 of the dynamic duo’s fight against the criminal of the week.

Get Batman: The Complete Television Series (Limited Edition) [Blu-ray] at Amazon

Of course, the show offered some high-tech video work, including angled cameras and inserted “BAM”, “SMACK” and “POW!!” graphics. Each episode did more than conquer a bad guy – it was also a chance to learn about the importance of doing your homework, using seatbelts and drinking your milk.

The show lasted three seasons before getting cancelled in 1968. There was one movie that also was produced in 1966.

Of course, we cannot ever forget “the Batman” dance move…

Batman Dance Move
Batman Dance Move

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  • Sinclair 16/32 bit Quantum Leap
  • (fictional) Activation of HAL 9000
  • UNIX is introduced
  • ICANN opens up registraton for new top-level domains. Registration fee is $185,000
Dave Winer

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January 11, 2001: Podcasting is Technically Created

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Dave Weiner
Dave Weiner adds enclosure to RSS 0.92

2001– Dave Weiner added a new functionality to the RSS feed called “Enclosure“. It was defined as passing any audio file (mp3, wav, ogg, etc), video file (mpg, mp4, avi, mov, etc), PDF, or ePub (electronic publication) into the syndicated feed. Weiner demonstrated by enclosing a Grateful Dead song in his website at Scripting News. This was an idea that was proposed by Tristan Louis.

It wasn’t until Adam Curry and crew started iPodderX and in  February 2004 the name “Podcasting” was coined by Ben Hammersley. But its roots all come back to this day when RSS 0.92 was demonstrated.

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TI-83 Graphing Calculator

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January 10, 1996: TI-83 Graphing Calculator

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TI-83 Graphing Calculator
TI-83 Graphing Calculator

1996 – Texas Instruments announced it would release the TI-83 and became one of the most popular calculators. The TI-83 had many graphing modes including polar, parametric, sequence and function graphs. It could also run statistics, trigonometry and algebraic functions.

The TI-83 was replaced by the 83 Plus in 1999 which added flashable memory for upgrades. This calculator is still available today and you can get the Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus Graphing Calculator on Amazon.

The TI-83 had a Zilog Z80 processor at 6 MHz and 32 kb of RAM. You could use 4 AAA batteries or the power supply to run. Price was $125

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  • Apple releases the Macintosh Plus
  • Microsoft settles with Caldera
  • A court rules against Rambus due to their “Spoliation” of documents
iTunes

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January 9, 2001: Mac OSX, iTunes Media Platform Announced

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iTunes
iTunes

At MacWorld 2001, Steve Jobs announced Mac OSX – the base OS for Apple for the next couple decades. With Darwin, an open source BSD Unix service, 2D (Quartz), 3D (OpenGL) and Quicktime (QT5). The programming language of Classic, Carbon and Cocoa allowed programs from OS9 to run. Cocoa is an object oriented API for new apps.

OSX became available on March 24, 2001 for $129

Jobs also announced the PowerMac G4 with “Power to Burn”. Based on the PowerPC G4 chip at 733 MHz. Four models coming with CD-RW and Superdrive, 133 MHz system and memory bus, AGP 4x graphics and nVidia graphics.

Finally, Jobs announced iTunes – Their interface was simple and powerful. Create playlists and burn CDs in one window. You can also take an MP3 player and connect to iTunes to drag and drop titles. Finally, iTunes has an internet radio function to listen to all your favorite stations.

Below is the keynote from 2001 also showing off iDVD, iMusic, and the Powerbook G4 Titanium.

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Nikola Tesla

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January 7, 1943: Nikola Tesla Passed Away

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Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla

Born in 1856, Nikola Tesla was the inventor of alternating current. Tesla even worked for Edison from 1882 to 1886. He then started the Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing company in where he worked more on AC electricity.

This started the “War of Currents”, which we talked about on January 3rd when Edison electrocuted Topsy, the Elephant.

Tesla was also known for many patents and inventions, including the Tesla coil, Electro-magnetic motor, incandescent electric light, electric railway system and many more. He was known for X-Rays, radio, the remote control and wireless communications.

Learn more about Nikola through Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age book at Amazon

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