1982 – The first completely computer animated video wins an Academy Award for best animated short film. “Tin Toy” by Pixar (now a division of Disney) was an animated short film about a toy named Tinny – a one man band – who was being played by an infant named Billy. The short film lasted 5 minutes and cost $300,000 to make.
The short film also won awards at the Seattle International Film Festival, World Animation Celebration, and National Film Registry.
A sequel was in the works, but Tinny was not a popular toy for the kids. Therefore, the film was not made as Pixar concentrated on the movie “Toy Story”.
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1981 – The first vinyl video record, a.k.a. the videodisc, hit stores in the U.S. The “Capacitance Electronic Disc” looked just like any other vinyl record protected in a plastic caddy and held 60 minutes of NTSC video. That is approximately 27,000 frames per second.
However, the CED players did not make the impact RCA had hoped. Only 100,000 were sold by the end of the year. The “BetaMax vs. VHS” war was in full swing and the tapes were considerably smaller than the discs. Laserdisc was also available to the public, which led to a lot of confusion of formats.
The RCA Selectavision was retired in 1984 with the last discs released in 1986
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First Pentium Processor
The first laser was patented to Bell Telephone Laboratories
2000 – Apple concluded their iMac trade dress infringement against Daewoo and eMachines. The two companies made machines too similar to the iconic iMac look – the eMachines eOne computer and the Daewoo E-Power.
Apple was granted an injunction for the two machines. Daewoo didn’t even get their unibody computer form out to the public. eMachines took out all color, making it a single grey computer, which allowed them to continue with sales.
Apple changed the look of the iMac with the introduction of a flat panel in the iMac G4, ultimately discontinuing the G3 CRT computer in March of 2003.
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Sierra and Broderbund announce the merge to Sierra-Broderbund
1999 – AMD releases the AMD K6-III Processor in speeds of 400 and 450 MHz. It would feature a 64KB Level 1 cache and a 256KB Level 2 cache. The 3DNow! graphics instructions would be supported, along with Direct X 6.0. There were 21.3 million transistors on the 0.25 micron process wafer.
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1997 – Dolly the Sheep was cloned on July 5, 1996 in Edinburgh. However, scientists didn’t acknowledge Dolly’s existance until Feb 22, 1997. Dolly was the first successful animal to be cloned from an adult cell.
Dolly had a full life, giving birth to 6 other lambs. She died on February 14, 2003 due to progressive lung disease and severe arthritis.
Dolly gave way to cloning of other animals such as pigs, horses and more.
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2007 – Apple stores open for the hundreds of people standing in line to get the 1st generation iPhone (aka iPhone EDGE). It was the first Smartphone with a multi-touch interface. 4 GB and 8 GB models on AT&T’s network running EDGE. Jobs later stated he didn’t put 3G into the phone because it took way too much battery life to run. The phone had an ARM1176JZF at 620 MHz and 128 MB of RAM.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 29
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Compuserve acquires TheSource, a major competitor
Gigabit Ethernet standard is set
Max Butler pleads guilty to stealing 2 million credit cards
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.
1979 – Daniel Bricklin and Robert Frankston demonstrate the spreadsheet program “Visicalc”. Of course, it will become the “killer app” for PC’s. 100 cells could be calculated in 20 seconds. By the first year, sales will hit on hundred thousand and seven hundred thousand in six years. VisiCalc will fall to clones and ultimately to products like Lotus 1-2-3 and Microsoft Excel
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 11
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May 7, 1997: Intel releases the Pentium II – Slot 1 processor
1997 – Intel changes the processor game a bit with the Pentium II processor. Starting at speed of 200 MHz / 66 MHz bus, the proc had a new design. What was called “Slot 1” processor, Intel got away from the pin architecture to a card slot. You would insert the PII to the slot just like you would memory, an ISA or PCI card.
What was Code-named Klamath, the processor incorporated 7.5 million transistors using 0.35 micron process technology, contained a 512kB Level-2 external cache, performs at 613 MIPS (300 MHz), and is able to address 64GB of memory. MMX instruction was included on the processor. Prices started at $636 for 233 MHz, $775 for 266 MHz and US$1981 for 300 MHz).
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 7
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