2000 – Microsoft unveils the “.net” architecture to the public. Working with Microsoft products, the features would include a user interface, data access, database connectivity, cryptography, network communications and more. Programmers could then integrate into their own code. Further Reading: .NET
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 22
1995 – It’s the one event that brought major legal woes to the software giant. Microsoft representatives met with Netscape reps, requesting they do not compete the Netscape Navigator browser with Microsoft’sInternet Explorer. They would, in turn, get a seat on the board of directors. Co-creator Jim Clark turned down the offer, then took the matter to his lawyer. Joel Klein hears the issue and that starts the initial inquiries through the Department of Justice.Further Read: Microsoft on Antitrust
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 21
1999 – TNT television network airs “Pirates of Silicon Valley“. The story about Bill Gates (Anthony Michael Hall) and Steve Jobs (Noah Wylie). The story is based on the book “Fire in the Valley” and documents the rise of these two computer greats. Of course, it would be interesting to see the sequel – How the last 12 years have panned out… BTW – Joey Slotnick played Steve Wozniak.
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
1951 – It was the first commercial general-use computer. The UNIVAC I was unveiled in Washington DC. It was developed for the US census bureau. It stood 8 foot high and used magnetic tape at 10,000 characters a second.UNIVAC is an acronym for the Universal Automatic Computer. The computer itself was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31st, 1951. UNIVAC I was also used to predict the result of the 1952 Presidential election.
UNIVAC I cost around 1.2 million to build, which was a lot larger than their estimated price of $159,000. 46 units were built and delivered. 5,200 vacuum tubes were used to run UNIVAC I. It performed 1,905 operations per second.