computer

AltaVista-2[1]

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December 15, 1983: AltaVista Launches

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AltaVista
AltaVista

1995 – At the turn of the Internet age, researchers at Digital Equipment Corporation, led by Paul Flaherty, Louis Monier and Michael Burrows, created a web crawler and indexer algorithm. The web program was launched on December 15th and called “AltaVista”. The name was chosen because of the surrounds of their company in Palo Alto, CA.

The original name was altavista.digital.com and used a multi-threaded crawler (Scooter). The back-end was running on advanced hardware, therefore it could gather information faster than any other web crawling software out there.

AltaVista was one of the top search engines out there until Google overtook them all. Ultimately, in 2003 AltaVista was purchased by Yahoo! who continued to run it until 2013 when it was shut down.

1984 Apple Superbowl Commercial
1984 Apple Superbowl Commercial

1983 – There is some debate whether this happened on Dec. 15h or 31st. If you were a citizen of Twin Falls, Idaho and up at 1 AM watching<a href="http://www.KMVT.com/”> KMVT channel 11, then you got a treat. You saw an ad that changed the Superbowl. You saw an ad that changed a computer company.That’s right. You were the first to see the famous 1984 Superbowl Advertisement for Apple Macintosh. The Chiat/Day advertising company pre-ran ads to make sure they would be acceptable for a big release. Therefore, 1 AM on Thursday, December 15th – chances of people catching the ad are slim.

Of course, the ad went on to be one of the most influential ads of the 20th century and turned Superbowl commercials into a hot commodity. Interesting note: Apple didn’t put a commercial in the 2012 Superbowl.

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  • ISO C90 is released
  • Fortran 95 is released
  • Twitter rival <a class="zem_slink" title="Pownce” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pownce” rel=”wikipedia”>Pownce closes down after sale to Six Apart
Apple Superbowl ad 1984
Apple Superbowl ad 1984
Richard Wexelblat - History of Programming Languages

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December 5, 1965: First Computer Science Degree: Richard Wexelblat

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Richard Wexelblat - History of Programming Languages
Richard Wexelblat – History of Programming Languages

1965 – Richard Wexelblat was the first candidate to complete his doctoral dissertation, hence giving him a degree in “Computer Science“. It was presented at the University of Pennsylvania – Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Richard went on to write the “History of Programming Languages” (ISBN:0-12-745040-8)

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  • Today is the official birth of the Transistor
  • Amazon Crashes
  • HD Support for YouTube
IBM-7090

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November 30, 1959: $2.9 Million IBM 7090 Mainframe

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IBM-7090
IBM-7090

1959 – Want to see a 2.9 million dollar computer? That was the IBM 7090 – a transistorized mainframe computer that was designed for scientific research and tech applications. It replaced the 709 series, which used vacuum tubes. The first two were delivered – one of the 7090’s would be used for the Mercury and Gemini space missions. Check out more on the IBM 7090

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Depth-bomb

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November 19, 1993: Don’t Post Bomb Instructions Online

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Bomb

1993 – The Ionizer – Otherwise known as Michael Elanky, recieved 28 months in prison for posting bomb-making instructions on his BBS. There have been other instances of this throughout history, but Elansky was a member of the International Information Retrieval Guild, a computer group very much concerned with freedom of speech and freedom of information. Like the group with which he was affiliated, Michael felt strongly about our First Amendment rights.Therefore, he posted on his BBS – called the Warehouse – instructions on making bombs.

Michael was arrested back in July 1993 and couldn’t post the $500,000 bail. Therefore he spent 4 months in jail. The instructions were originally written by “Deth Vegetable”.

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  • Micropolis files for bankruptcy
  • Wildcat BBS sold to Snatronics Software
  • Guns N Roses announce their album will be on MySpace 1 week before release
comdex

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November 14: Computer Dealer Exhibition – COMDEX

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Comdex

During the 80’s and 90’s, there was a little show called COMDEX. It stood for Computer Dealer Exhibition. For a while, there were 2 versions: The Spring COMDEX (Alternating for a while between Altanta and Chicago) and the Fall COMDEX (Las Vegas). The show was attended by many and there were vendors galore. I remember seeing Bill Gates at the 1998 Comdex for the Blue screen error when they plugged in a scanner. I also saw President William Clinton give a keynote.COMDEX finally fell in 2003. Nonetheless, a lot of History falls between this time and about April from the show. Therefore, the next few days there will be a lot of “At the COMDEX Show”.

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  • Mosaic becomes Netscape
  • Power PC CHRP
  • Ubuntu on ARM
Windows 1.0

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November 10, 1983: Microsoft Windows 1.0

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Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0

1983 – Windows 1.o was announced at the Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York City. It was one of the most elaborate product introductions to date. Gates says Windows 1.0 will officially release in 1984, yet it didn’t release until June, 1985.

Atari
Atari

1986 – Back in that day, Comdex was the big computer show. There were two versions: one that was held in Chicago in the spring and the other in Las Vegas mid-November. At this time, Atari was the big dog on the block. Jack Tramiel was putting all efforts in this years Comdex after seeing a small dip in the shares.So they set up a 65 booth display with different 3rd party developers that would show off what the Atari could do. The big innovation that year – the SX212 1200 baud modem for $99.95. They also showed off the Atari 2600jr and the Atari 7800, and because of that impressive show, Atari boasted a $25 million profit that year.

Of course, the company went well for a few more years, merged with JTS, which was then bought by Hasbro in 1998. The company still is survived in a way to this day, but not in the glory that it was back then.

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  • IBM introduces Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) Heads
  • The first Apple iPod is shipped
  • Circuit City files for Chapter 11 protection
  • Bill Gates introduces Windows for IBM PC
Subliminal-Brain

October 26, 1998: First Computer by Thought

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Subliminal-Brain
Subliminal-Brain

1998 – A Georgia man became the first person that ran a computer controlled by thought. The subject (known as J.R.) was paralyzed due to stroke. Dr Roy Bakay and Dr. Phillip Kennedy implanted a glass cone into J.R’s brain, which would allow him to mentally control the PC.

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  • Sig Hartmann resigns from Commodore
  • Sony introduced the PS2 in the United States
  • Facebook releases Scribe
  • JVC announced U-format video recorders
Intel 80386DX

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October 17, 1985: Intel 80386DX Processor Released

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Intel 80386DX
Intel 80386DX released October 17,1985

1985– Intel released the 80386 DX processor. The 275,000 transistor chip was a big jump from the 20 MHz 286. It contained the ability to address up to 4 GB of memory and had a bigger instruction set.  The chip would be released, but most people wouldn’t see the processor until Spring of 1986Interesting enough – the 386 chip was finally discontinued in the Fall of 2007. The chip was used after personal computer days to power many embedded systems.

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  • Texas Instruments “afternoon with TI management”
  • IMDB is formed (sort of)
  • Apple released Mac OS 8.5
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