2011 – Eric Schmidt shows off the new Google Chrome OS but with an added feature as he introduced Google Chromebook – a personal computer with the Google Chrome OS built-in. The device loads straight to the browser where you can install applications for functionality on your Chromebook. The first Chromebook would begin selling on June 15, 2011.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 11
2001 – TAT-14, the Transatlantic cable begins commercial service. A dual, bi-directional ring configuration using Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplex (DWDM) – Sixteen wavelengths of STM-64 per fiber pair. It carried 640 Gbps, and connectedGermany, the UK, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands with the US.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 10
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.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 3
1964– John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz run the first BASIC program at 4 AM in Dartmouth. The duo used a General Electric 225 mainframe computer and ran a simple compiler program. The duo created different programming languages since 1956, including Darsimco (Dartmouth Simplified Code), Dope (Dartmouth Oversimplified Programming Experiment). It wasn’t until BASIC (Begginer’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) that became a success.
The first code ran at 4 A.M on May 1st. BASIC was easy to learn, could go past mainframes (as Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapted it for personal computers in 1975), and also allowed for batch processing.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 1
1896 – Henry Ford gets ready to test drive the first Quadricycle (a.k.a. Car). Only one problem – They didn’t make the garage door big enough. Out comes the Ax – A couple chops and a wider door was created. The car ran 2 speed, but could not go in reverse.
2003 – Palm board of directors announce they have unanimously approved an agreement for Pam to purchase Handspring – one of its rivals in the PDA market. The deal is all stock realted where Handspring stockholders would get .09 cents of a share of Palm and no shares of PalmSource (Palm shares were at $13.89 and Handspring were at $1.27). The deal would be worth $169 million.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 4
2008 – The Mozilla foundation made an interesting statement – They want to be in the Guinness book of world records as the most downloaded browser with Firefox 3.0. Download day was June 17th. After a problematic start, they hit their record over 8 million. Enough to make the Guinness book of World Records.Mozilla broke off of Netscape and created Firefox on November 9, 2004. Mozilla is currently the #3 browser, behind Internet Explorer and Google Chrome. Mozilla 12 is the current revision. Firefox uses the Gecko engine, and is open source, so it can be customized. It can be downloaded at Mozilla.org, and also comes included in certain Linux distributions.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 30
May 29, 2002: Netflix initiated Public Offering at $15/share
2002– Netflix, the rental movie-by-mail service, initiated their Public offering. They sold 5,500,000 starting at $15 a share. They sold an additional 825,000 the next day. Of course, the Netflix stock has fluctuated over the years, including 2011, when CEO Reed Hastings tried to split their online and DVD rentals, then announced Qwikster – with hopes to sell that side of the company. Of course, he retracted that statement, but not before loosing 2/3 of stock price (was at $291 in 2011, now at $70 / share).
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 29
2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
Microsoft Released Windows 286 and Windows 386 on May 27, 1988
1988 – In competition to IBM OS/2, Microsoft releases 2 versions of Windows 2.1x – One version for x286 computers (aka Windows 286) and one for x386 computers (aka Windows 386). Windows 2/x386 introduced the protected code Kernal – applications would run as a virtual 8086 mode, and MS-DOS programs could run in parallel. Windows 2/x386 also provided EMS emulation, which would give Windows memory management features. System RAM beyond 640k could be used, and felt like banked memory. Finally, it has a Presentation Manager mode, to compete with OS/2
Windows updated this software to 2.11. It was finally retired when Windows 3.0 was released in 1990.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 27
Windows 386 full video. Linda needs to save the client, so she loads Windows 386 with Presentation Manager
This was the promo video for Windows 386. It starred Victoria Carver (as Linda) as an executive who had to save a client. She was given a task to make a presentation by 5 pm. She decided to load and use Windows 386 to build this presentation. Using the “Mission Impossible” theme throughout, Linda is confronted by a fellow employee – Mike the mainframe guy. He wants to help Linda out, but Linda knows that the mainframe subroutines simply take too long to write. He then spots Windows 386.
“You are not suppose to be running OS/2 – we haven’t finished evaluating it” Said Mike, the mainframe guy.
“It’s not OS/2. It’s Microsoft Windows 386. It has the same interface as the OS/2 Presentation Manager. So, when OS/2 is recommended, I’ll be ahead of the learning curve.”
“As usual. What else does it do, besides look like OS/2?”
At this point, Linda shows Mike the interface. Of course, Linda then creates the presentation and keeps the client. The video is written like a cheesy 80’s soap opera, and goes on for twelve minutes.
Other Events in the Day in Technology History
Wang introduces: Wang Personal computer
Batman Debuts in Detective comics #27
Google gives away 4,000 Android phones at Google I/O
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