2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
1999 – A program first developed by Brigham young University for Data General minicomputers, WordPerfect was the word processing application for anyone using a computer in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember writing reports and papers using this software growing up, along with Quattro Pro for bookkeeping and printing daily reports at work. However, in 1994, WordPerfect started to gain some major competition when computers turned to GUI, and DOS was getting put on the back burner.
Corel, the owners of WordPerfect since 1996, wanted to ramp up production of not only the word processor, but also their other products in Quattro Pro, Presentations, Paradox and Corel Central. They company always said they wanted to be the “Pepsi version of MS Word (Coke)”.
Therefore, WordPerfect Office 2000 was released. It was not their first attempt of a suite (first rel. 1993), but was the first version released by Corel, and a path to their current version of the WordPerfect Office X7.
Like MS Office, WordPerfect Office can be purchased in Home and Student, Standard and Pro versions. Other features in the pack are Corel WinZip, Nuance Paperport, and NaturallySpeaking 3.
2011 – Hackers took down the Sony Playstation network on April 20th, 2011. Around 77 million accounts were comprimised and gamers couldn’t play online for over a month. On May 14, Sony started bringing the services back online on a country-by-country basis. North America was the first, and people could sign-in, play PS3 and PSP games, access rented content, play music already purchased, and use approved 3rd party apps such as Hulu and Netflix. A firmware update 3.61 was also available to update security for the users.
When it was all said and done, Sony had lost $171 million on this outage.
2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 27
1999 – A program first developed by Brigham young University for Data General minicomputers, WordPerfect was the word processing application for anyone using a computer in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember writing reports and papers using this software growing up, along with Quattro Pro for bookkeeping and printing daily reports at work. However, in 1994, WordPerfect started to gain some major competition when computers turned to GUI, and DOS was getting put on the back burner.
Corel, the owners of WordPerfect since 1996, wanted to ramp up production of not only the word processor, but also their other products in Quattro Pro, Presentations, Paradox and Corel Central. They company always said they wanted to be the “Pepsi version of MS Word (Coke)”.
Therefore, WordPerfect Office 2000 was released. It was not their first attempt of a suite (first rel. 1993), but was the first version released by Corel, and a path to their current version of the WordPerfect Office X7.
Like MS Office, WordPerfect Office can be purchased in Home and Student, Standard and Pro versions. Other features in the pack are Corel WinZip, Nuance Paperport, and NaturallySpeaking 3.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 25
2011 – Hackers took down the Sony Playstation network on April 20th, 2011. Around 77 million accounts were comprimised and gamers couldn’t play online for over a month. On May 14, Sony started bringing the services back online on a country-by-country basis. North America was the first, and people could sign-in, play PS3 and PSP games, access rented content, play music already purchased, and use approved 3rd party apps such as Hulu and Netflix. A firmware update 3.61 was also available to update security for the users.
When it was all said and done, Sony had lost $171 million on this outage.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 14
2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
Microsoft Released Windows 286 and Windows 386 on May 27, 1988
1988 – In competition to IBM OS/2, Microsoft releases 2 versions of Windows 2.1x – One version for x286 computers (aka Windows 286) and one for x386 computers (aka Windows 386). Windows 2/x386 introduced the protected code Kernal – applications would run as a virtual 8086 mode, and MS-DOS programs could run in parallel. Windows 2/x386 also provided EMS emulation, which would give Windows memory management features. System RAM beyond 640k could be used, and felt like banked memory. Finally, it has a Presentation Manager mode, to compete with OS/2
Windows updated this software to 2.11. It was finally retired when Windows 3.0 was released in 1990.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 27
Windows 386 full video. Linda needs to save the client, so she loads Windows 386 with Presentation Manager
This was the promo video for Windows 386. It starred Victoria Carver (as Linda) as an executive who had to save a client. She was given a task to make a presentation by 5 pm. She decided to load and use Windows 386 to build this presentation. Using the “Mission Impossible” theme throughout, Linda is confronted by a fellow employee – Mike the mainframe guy. He wants to help Linda out, but Linda knows that the mainframe subroutines simply take too long to write. He then spots Windows 386.
“You are not suppose to be running OS/2 – we haven’t finished evaluating it” Said Mike, the mainframe guy.
“It’s not OS/2. It’s Microsoft Windows 386. It has the same interface as the OS/2 Presentation Manager. So, when OS/2 is recommended, I’ll be ahead of the learning curve.”
“As usual. What else does it do, besides look like OS/2?”
At this point, Linda shows Mike the interface. Of course, Linda then creates the presentation and keeps the client. The video is written like a cheesy 80’s soap opera, and goes on for twelve minutes.
Other Events in the Day in Technology History
Wang introduces: Wang Personal computer
Batman Debuts in Detective comics #27
Google gives away 4,000 Android phones at Google I/O
Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope) was first released to theaters. Opening weekend sees $6 million of the $11 million budget in return, however, the longevity of the movie has grossed over $797 million (for Ep. IV only). This surpassed Jaws as the nominal highest-grossing film and remained that way until being surpassed by E.T. the Extra Terrestrial in 1983. Add to that, George Lucas was the first movie maker to keep the rights of the toy creation – netting billi0ns in revenue. The film starred Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, and Alec Guinness, among others.
Star Wars: A New Hope was followed by Empire Strikes Back, then in 1983, the Third (technically 6th) movie in the series – Return of the Jedi – was released. That had a budget of $32 million and netted $23 million opening weekend and $656 million worldwide.
Of course, George Lucas also released Episode I: the Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) and Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Happy 35th anniversary to a historic franchise!
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for May 25
0527, AOL, caption, Chief executive officer, content management systems, content management systems cms, dos programs, features system, fellow employee, geek history, Google, Google Chrome, history, IBM, IPad, Kernal, management features, manager mode, Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, million times, mission impossible, mission impossible theme, mobile solution, ms dos, os 2, parallel windows, plethora, Podcast, presentation manager, Released, released in 1990, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, stitcher, subroutines, system ram, technology history, victoria carver, Wi-Fi, Windows, Windows 2.1x, windows memory management, x386, Yahoo
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