Computer hardware

July 10, 1981: Black Wednesday to Apple

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0710, apple, Apple II series, Computer hardware, macintosh, mel blanc, michael scott, steve carell, steve jobs, The Office July 10, 2024

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No, this isn’t a case of the office and this is not how Michael Scott (Steve Carell) leaves the show…

In a case that was refered as “Black Wednesday”, CEO Michael Scott felt that there was a lot of redundancy. Therefore he decided to fire 40 employees, including half of the Apple II engineering team. The move caused Apple to replace Scott almost imediately. On July 10, 1981, Scott officially resigned from Apple stating that this was a “Learning experience” for him.

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Mel Blanc, the major voice of Looney Tunes characters passes away
The “Monkey Trial” with John Scopes, takes place
Commodore resurfaces with gaming machines

Day in Tech History/ Geek

May 12, 1936: The Dvorak Keyboard Layout Patented

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0512, acquisition, alignleft, amp, AT&T, August Dvorak, boston, caption, carlos slim helu, ceo, Computer hardware, Computer keyboards, Computing, Download Festival, Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, ed bennett, founders, France, geek history, Google, history, IBM, internet access, investors, Keyboard layouts, Latin America, Mexico, Microsoft, mobile solution, Podcast, Prodigy, QWERTY, sbc, sears, sears and roebuck, stitcher, takeover, technology history, three strikes, typewriter, Typing, Words per minute, xbox360 0 Comments May 11, 2024

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1936 – When typewriters first came out, many different people worked on keyboard layouts to become the standard. QWERTY was a popular system but was not efficient. August Dvorak and William Dealey decided to create and patent an alternative to this style, the end result – the Dvorak keyboard was born.

The keyboard was more efficient, too. Key letters were together so you would “roll” words. T was next to H, N was next to S. The sub-dominant hand would take care of vowels and lesser-used consonants, while the dominant hand took care of most of the consonants. Therefore, a left-hand and right-hand Dvorak keyboard was designed.

More interesting – People would type twice as fast as with a QWERTY style (120 words per minute). However, the people were typing so fast, the hammers on the typewriter would get stuck together. With those two major issues, the Dvorak keyboard did not get accepted.

One can switch to a Dvorak keyboard, though. Simply change the keyboard settings, and don’t look down at your keyboard (because the letters will be all wrong).

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MITS receives a restraining order for Microsoft on the 8080 BASIC
XBOX360 is unveiled
France passes the Three Strikes rule

Day in Tech History/ Gaming

May 8, 2006: E3 – Playstation 3 Announced

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0508, apple, Bluetooth, building, building computers, Computer hardware, Google, HDMI, kaypro, Linear, linear systems, mobile solution, Playstation 3, powerbook 2400c, predecessors, press conference, sony computer entertainment, stitcher, Video game console 0 Comments May 7, 2024

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2006– At a press conference before E3, Sony announced the Playstation 3 gaming console. This would be for a November 17 release and would feature items like Bluetooth wireless controllers, Wi-Fi and HDMI video output, and more. The system also will contain a Blu-ray disc system and pre-installed HDD.

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JavE 6.0 is released
Citirix XenServer 5.5 released
Apple introduces the Powerbook 2400c

Computer/ Day in Tech History

January 18, 1983: The Franklin Ace 1200 PC

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0118, 9/11, aggregator, bellsouth, Chicago, Clients, computer, Computer hardware, CP/M, craig, day in tech history, Feed Readers, Franklin, Franklin Ace 1200, Franklin Electronic Publichers, girls, hacker, hard drive, history, iTunes, knight lightning, Meteorology, Microsoft, MySpace, newscorp, office administration, patent infringement, phrack, Podcast, RSS, Stac Electronics, Tampa Bay Lightning, technology history, trs, twitter, warrant, Weather Phenomena, www, Zilog Z80 0 Comments January 17, 2020

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1983 – During the CP/M Show, Franklin Electronic Publichers revealed the Franklin Ace 1200 computer. The main feature of this computer (like the other Franklin computers before) was the fact they copied Apple’s ROM and operating system code.

The Ace 1200 came with a Zilog Z80 processor a 1 MHz, 48K RAM, 16K ROM,2 – 5.25 Floppy disks and four expansion slots. The computer was announced here but didn’t come out until 1984. It cost the consumer $2,200

At that same show, Radio Shack introduced the TRS-80 Model 12 for $3,200

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Stac Electronics sues Microsoft for Patent infringement
NewsCorp and MySpace are sued because 4 girls are sexually assulted

Day in Tech History/ Microsoft

January 2, 1975: Bill Gates and Paul Allen BASIC for MITS

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0102, aggregator, apple, Apple II, Apple II series, Art, BASIC, Bill Gates, Bob Frankston, business application, coleco, Computer hardware, computer line, dan bricklin, day in tech history, emc, ghz chips, historical events, intel, iTunes, killer app, Micro Instrumentation, Micro-soft, paul allen, Podcast, software arts, spreadsheet program, technology history, Telemetry System, visicalc, VisiCorp 0 Comments January 1, 2020

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1975 – Bill Gates and Paul Allen write a letter to the Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry System (MITS) stating they have BASIC language for the Intel 8080 processor and would like to incorporate on the Altair computer in exchange for royalty payments. MITS agrees and Micro-soft was born. Later it would become Microsoft.

Coleco sells Adam
Intel recalls 1.3 GHz chips
EMC purchases SourceLabs

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Commodore/ Day in Tech History

March 15, 1989: Amiga Plus Magazine

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0315, aggregator, Amiga, AMIGA Plus Magazine, aron, cisco, communications system, Computer hardware, countdown clock, data communications, day in tech history, domain name, Geek, investments, iTunes, Lisp, Lisp machine, Nat Friedland, Podcast, registered domain, Search engine optimization, Symbolics.com, technology history, twitter, unix, unix manual page, Webex, world wide web 0 Comments March 14, 2019

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1989 – Antic Software publishes the first issue of Amiga Plus Magazine. It was the April/May edition and included an AMIGA Plus disk, which included the graphic programs created. Articles included everything from creating graphics, to your 1988 Federal Income Tax, Lattice C++ review to a Tetris review and more.

Nat Friedland was the Editor and Arnie Cachelin the assistant editor. The Magazine had a short life – closing its doors in 1991.