january 20

January 20, 1885: the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway Patent

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine 0120, aggregator, amature, apple, BBS, blind mice, blind mouse, businessmen, carleen thomas, comcast, Geek, Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, IBM, iTunes, january 20, LaMarcus Adna Thompson, lemmings, mac, macintosh, macintosh apple, macintosh office, Microsoft, microsoft market, oblivion, oppression, rendition, roller coaster, RSS, sledgehammer, super bowl, Super Bowl advertising, superbowl, superbowl commercial, Switchback Railway 0 Comments January 19, 2020

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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/ Day in Tech History

January 20, 1885: the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway Patent

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine aggregator, amature, apple, BBS, blind mice, blind mouse, businessmen, carleen thomas, comcast, Geek, Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, IBM, iTunes, january 20, LaMarcus Adna Thompson, lemmings, mac, macintosh, macintosh apple, macintosh office, Microsoft, microsoft market, oblivion, oppression, rendition, roller coaster, RSS, sledgehammer, super bowl, Super Bowl advertising, superbowl, superbowl commercial, Switchback Railway 0 Comments January 19, 2019

Subscribe! Spotify | RSS | More

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

Subscribe to Day In Tech History:

RSS Feed - iTunes - Android - Spotify - iHeartRadio

Facebook -

- RSS Bandwidth by Cachefly Get a 14 Day Trial

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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/ Day in Tech History

January 20, 1985: Apple Lemmings Ad Flop

Jeffrey Powers @geekazine aggregator, amature, apple, BBS, blind mice, blind mouse, businessmen, carleen thomas, comcast, Geek, IBM, iTunes, january 20, lemmings, mac, macintosh, macintosh apple, macintosh office, Microsoft, microsoft market, oblivion, oppression, rendition, RSS, sledgehammer, super bowl, Super Bowl advertising, superbowl, superbowl commercial 0 Comments January 20, 2014

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1985 – When you hear “Apple Superbowl commercial“, you instantly think a woman running down a hall with a sledgehammer ready to destroy oppression. But there was another commercial. The Yang to the Macintosh Ying.The Lemmings commercial was aired for Super Bowl XIX. It was a commercial for Macintosh Office. Blindfolded businessmen marched off the edge of a cliff to a dark rendition of “Hi Ho”. The last guy in line – realizing his blind mouse wasn’t in front of him anymore, peeked to see what happened – only to find he was one step away from oblivion; Another line of Blind mice coming up behind him.

The big difference in this commercial is that it was a horrific failure. The consumer felt insulted more than enlightened. If that commercial would have aired the year before for Macintosh, Apple would have been done. What a difference a year makes, eh?

Wikazine – Full show notes for January 20

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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