2000 – AMD introduces the Duron Processor. This was the low cost version of their Athlon processor. Duron came in speeds of 550- 700 MHz and 3DNow! instruction. Codename: Spitfire; the processor started at $112. The spitfire was discontinued in 2006
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 19
1993 – After a 10 year run and new focus on Politics – along with a failed promise to catch up to the PC market – John Sculley was removed of his CEO role at Apple by the board of directors. They immediately hire Michael Spindler, who was instrumental in the introduction of the PowerPC. However, he eventually would get ousted and replaced by Gil Amileo, which would get ousted and replaced by Steve Jobs.
2007 – Terry Semel was under pressure by the board because of dissatisfaction of his compensation. Terry was brought in to create a partnership with Hollywood, which really didn’t happen. He handed the reigns over to Jerry Yang, who started promising revitalized talks with Microsoft. There are a few that even speculate that was when the buyout of Yahoo began. Jerry Yang stepped down in 200
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 18
2008 – Mozilla takes a new marketing step as they announce they want to break the Guinness world records for downloads in a 24 hour period of release. A grand idea, however, it was slightly hampered by the fact that the servers didn’t come up at 10 AM. The bug was fixed and they got the record of 7 million downloads. It was expected to be around 10 million if the bugs did not creep up, for some downloaded 3.0 from other sites.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 17
1977 – Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates incorporate Software Development Laboratories (SDL). Of course, SDL’s big program was Oracle. It was a codename for a CIA funded project.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 16
2009 – After much planning and a couple set backs, the Digital TV transition is completed in the US. Stations will Non-profit status or emergency bands could broadcast using analog signal. 2.8 million users were still not ready for the conversion.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 11
1887 – Herman Hollerith is a pioneer. His creations in the 19th century were detrimental in modern computing. Herman Hollerith’s creations helped the United States create a Census. On June 8th he received a patent for a punch card reader, which was used in many fashions, including school attendance, for almost 100 years.
Hollerith’s Punch card system also has been at the point of controversy – IBM was sued using the Alien Tort Claims Act because Hollerith machines were used in the 1933 census. This ultimately gave Adolf Hitler a full list of Germans and Jews in Germany. It was so useful to the Nazis, apparently a machine was set at each concentration camp.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 8
2005 – Steve Jobs spoke in front of the masses at the WWDC announcing that Apple will switch their processors from PowerPC to Intel. He then showed off the Mac OS X running on aPentium 4 CPU. The reasoning was that PowerPC chips took too much power to run and also ran hotter than an Intel chip.
2011 – It was also a sad day, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs gave what was to become his last keynote at WWDC. He introduced us to iCloud – a new service so you do not need a computer to connect your iPad or iPhone. iOS got an upgrade to version 5, and Jobs announced Mac OSX Lion. Also announced was iTunes Match, a way to keep your music in the cloud.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 6
1896 – Henry Ford gets ready to test drive the first Quadricycle (a.k.a. Car). Only one problem – They didn’t make the garage door big enough. Out comes the Ax – A couple chops and a wider door was created. The car ran 2 speed, but could not go in reverse.
2003 – Palm board of directors announce they have unanimously approved an agreement for Pam to purchase Handspring – one of its rivals in the PDA market. The deal is all stock realted where Handspring stockholders would get .09 cents of a share of Palm and no shares of PalmSource (Palm shares were at $13.89 and Handspring were at $1.27). The deal would be worth $169 million.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 4