HP41c Programmable CalculatorHewlett Packard came out with their first Programmable calculator in 1979. The HP-41c was the first to give alphanumeric display capabilities. It would actually tell you what to do (ex. “ENTER RADIUS”) instead of leaving your wondering. It also had four ports that could be used to expand memory, install a Thermal printer, magnetic reader or bar code scanner.
2011 – Apple Announces the iPhone 4s, with retina display and Siri functionality. The 4s contains the A5 chipset and would be on sale October 10th. Apple also announced iOS5 update, which would be available on October 12th.
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for October 4
May 13, 1987: Turbo-C Programming Language Released
1987 – Version 1.0 of the Turbo C programming language is released. It offers the first integrated edit-compile-run development environment for the C programming language for IBM-compatible personal computers. Turbo C was developed by Bob Jervis as “Wizard C”. It runs on just 384KB of memory and is capable of inline assembly with full access to C symbolic names and structures.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 12
1967 – Video game developer Ralph Baer plays the first two-player video game. Fox and Hounds was a game where the fox (a red dot) was chased by the hounds (white dots). The controller were two knobs – horizontal and vertical. You would see how long you could avoid the hounds.
From his own website: 7 May 1967 – Played first two-player video game (I lost!)
This was part of a series of more complex video games including shooting games, handball and Ping Pong. Ultimately leading to the Magnavox Odyssey TV game system in 1972.
Baer passed away on December 8, 2014.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 7
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
May 13, 1987: Turbo-C Programming Language Released
2013 – Jeff Bezos announced Amazon has started their own internal currency called “Amazon Coin”. The virtual currency will be available for Kindle Fire tablet users and as a gift Amazon gave all Fire owners 500 coin – or $5 in credit. Coin could be redeemed in the Amazon app store.
1987 – Version 1.0 of the Turbo C programming language is released. It offers the first integrated edit-compile-run development environment for the C programming language for IBM-compatible personal computers. Turbo C was developed by Bob Jervis as “Wizard C”. It runs on just 384KB of memory and is capable of inline assembly with full access to C symbolic names and structures.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 12
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
1993 – The first Pentium processors get shipped out. The 80586, invented y Vinod Dahm, ran at 60 and 66 MHz clock speeds. 3.1 million transistors and 4 GB of addressable memory. It was fabricated in a 0.8 µm BiCMOS process. It was replaced by the P54C.