1976– What a position Ronald Wayne was in. He was the 3rd co-founder of Apple Computer on April 1 with 10% share. However, after two weeks Wayne sells his share for $800 back to Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The reason why was because if the company was to go under, he would be liable for any debts incurred. While a solid reason why (Wayne had assets that couldn’t be risked in that nature), it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes as Apple is grossed in the billions. Wayne designed the original Apple logo and wrote the partnership agreement.
1997 – Apple Computer makes the acquisition of NeXT for $427 million. The OpenStep OS will be the base of Mac OS X. Steve Wozniak returns to Apple as an executive committee member. Gil Amelio – with Steve Jobs as his adviser – makes plans to restructure Apple. Finally, Bill Gates publicly states that he is very interested in continuing to work with Apple.
Today marks a very special day for “Day in Tech History” – the 2,000th episode. I started this show as “This Week in Tech History” back in 2008. On August 10, 2009 I decided to make this a daily podcast – one of only 2 podcasts out there that created content 7 days a week.
Since then, new episodes have come out every day for you to consume. We have definitely had good and bad times – from hackers to missed scheduled items. But in the end, the machine continued to work forward, getting you the daily technology history rundown.
1896 – Although he was not the only person to be working on the technology and not the first X-ray, Wilhelm Roentgen gave the first public lecture and demonstration of his device. He photographed Dr. Albert von Kolliker’s hand at the Wurzburg Physical Medical Society.
The first X-ray he ever took was of his wife’s hand (with wedding ring on). The practice is also known as Röntgen rays.
1998 – Sega releases their next generation console – the Dreamcast – in Japan. It didn’t get released in the US until Sept 9 1999, but it was one of the more successful console launches of it’s time.The Dreamcast had a 200 MHz processor with on-die 128-bit vector graphics engine. The graphics hardware is a PowerVR2 CLX2 chipset, sound was a Yamaha AICA Sound Processor and 16 MB 100 MHz RAM.
The Dreamcast was discontinued on Jan 31, 2001 as Sega announced they were getting out of the console market.
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for November 27
2009 – Microsoft released not only the Windows 7 Operating system, but also Server 2008 R2 (as mentioned on the Windows 7 team blog). Although there are many versions of Windows OS, Windows 7 stood for the 7th kernel update. It was release to Manufacturing (RTM) a few days prior – meaning the final code is sent out for people and companies to install on their desktops and notebooks. If you bought one as part of your Dell, HP, Acer or other computer, you would get an “OEM” version (Original Equipment Manufacturer), which could have add-ons that make the software work better on the computer.
“Not only is RTM an important milestone for us – it’s also an important milestone for our partners.” stated Brandon LeBlanc. “Today’s release is the result of hard work and collaboration with our partners in the industry to make Windows 7 a success. We delivered Windows 7 with a predictable feature set on a predictable timetable that allowed OEMs to focus on value and differentiation for their customers. “
There are different flavors of Windows 7: Home, professional and ultimate. Windows 7 supports computers with multiple cores and implemented more security protocols to protect people’s data.
2003 – Jeffrey Lee Parson was arrested from his home in Minneapolis MN. He was suspected to be developer of the b. variant of the Blaster virus. The virus would turn infected computers into a unit that would give windowsupdate.microsoft.com a Denial of Service by simply flooding it with requests.
The Secret Service worked by tracing this virus to the source via the information super highway. That is what wound them to Jeffrey Lee Parson.
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for August 29
In 2007, developer Dan Kaminsky found a flaw in the addressing of the Domain Name System, or DNS. DNS is found on home to commercial routers around the world. The issue was so severe, that they were not divulging the issue until a patch could be implemented on a wide scale. On March 31st, Kaminsky – along with 16 other developers – gathered at Microsoft to work on a massive patch and synchronize the release so all details could be released as well. The Patch was released in July 8th,2008. For more information, see the Explaination of the DNS Flaw
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for July 8
In 1881, a man walked into Edward Berner’s drug store in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Since it was the Sabbath, the customer couldn’t have the flavored soda water for religious reasons. As he sat at the soda fountain counter, Berner comes to a compromise. Berner put ice cream in a dish and poured chocolate syrup on top. They then named it Ice Cream Sunday. The name will become “Sundae”, the next day.