Day in Tech History

1999 – It was over 12 years that we saw Microsoft go through the Department of Justice over Monopoly issues. US district Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson issued a 207 page Findings of fact on this day. In it, he ruled that Microsoft did have a Monopoly power over the OS in the Intel market. During the week we talked about what leads up to this 207 page ruling.

• Aurora SPARC Linux is released
• Abilene network segment is upgraded to 10 Gbps
• Google drops the Yahoo – Google deal in pressure from the Justice department

1984 – Michael Dell launches his new business of IBM compatible PC’s from his dorm in Austin, TX. The idea was to sell a philosophy over a product. The philosophy was to sell direct to customize to the shopper. Of course, Dell’s award winning service throughout the years has shown this to be a good plan. Happy Anniversary, Dell!

• Firefox captures 20% market share
• Compaq announces the 12 lb portable
• UNIVAC I predicts Dwight D. Eisenhower as president

1999 – Real Networks admits to collecting data without telling users with their software program RealJukebox player. When the issue was brought up by a competitor, Real apologized and issued a patch to change the collection process. For any software to collect data, they must inform you and give you an option to opt out.

• UMax releases PowerPC Mac
• Godzilla is released
• McAfee manager arrested for laundering money

1931 – E.I. DuPont announces to the world they have come up with a new substance that is a Synthetic rubber called DuPrene. Made from Acetylene, salt and rubber, this combination would eventually be renamed NeoPrine in 1937. The announcement was made at the American Chemical Society in Akron, Ohio.

• 2001 – Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice reach terms on Antitrust
• 2002 – DeLi Linux is released
• 2007 – Lenovo removes IBM label from computers

<img width="425" height="392" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pentium-pro1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pentium-pro1.jpg 425w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/pentium-pro1-300x276.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 425px) 100vw, 425px" />

Intel announced in 1995 the next generation processor – the Pentium Pro. Unlike the Pentium, the Pentium Pro was a chip designed for 32-bit architecture, so Windows 95 and Windows NT could run true.  The processor ran between 150-200 MHz, with a bus speed of 60 MHz (for 150 or 180 MHz processor) or 66MHz (for 166 or 200 MHz processor). The processor used a .35 micron process and prices started at $974 to $1989.

• 2008 – Novell Open SUSE Community elected board
• 1996 – DEC sues AltaVista
• IBM PCjr Released
• 1983 – The IBM PCjr is released

<img width="800" height="579" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bitcoin.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="" decoding="async" srcset="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bitcoin.jpg 800w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bitcoin-300x217.jpg 300w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/bitcoin-768x556.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" />

The paper was called “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System” by Satoshi Nakamoto. It was posted to a cryptography mailing list. This was a roadmap to the creation of the crypto-currency, which officially launched on January 3, 2009.

The Abstract:

• A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they’ll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone.

The domain name “Bitcoin.org” was registered on August 18th. Since then, this premiere currency has seen some volitile transactions, jumping up to as high as $15,000.

Currently, Bitcoin is at around $8,000 USD.

• IBM OS/2 1.1 released
• First public version of Sketch
• Google privatizes Jotspot

<img width="334" height="422" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/War-of-the-worlds-tripod1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="War of the Worlds" decoding="async" srcset="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/War-of-the-worlds-tripod1.jpg 334w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/War-of-the-worlds-tripod1-237x300.jpg 237w" sizes="(max-width: 334px) 100vw, 334px" />

1938 – Orson Welles shocks the nation with radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells. A large number of listeners who tune into the program ten minutes late (because the singer on the Edgar Bergan show was not that great). Because of this, they didn’t know this was a fictional story and start to panic. The story was brought through a series of “Newscasts” that Welles portrayed the reporter on the street and how these giant machines landed and began to attack the population.This event would launch Orson Welles career. Of course, he would go on to create Citizen Kane, Othello, Don Quixote and other classic cinema pieces.

• 1986 – First Fibre-optic cable
• 1995 – Oracle announces Websystem
• 2007 – Nine Inch Nails Trent Reznor says “Take my music”

<img width="220" height="210" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/220px-IBM_350_RAMAC1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="IBM RAMAC" decoding="async" />

2013: If you grew up in the 80’s, you knew what an IBM PC was. Even in the 90’s and 00’s, the PC was what you had in the corner of the house to do homework on, surf the internet, work out expenses and more.

William C. Lowe was the man that brought that all together. He joined IBM in 1962 and left in 1991. It was in 1981 that the IBM PC debuted.

Did you know IBM was late in the PC game? In order for them to beef up a PC division, they almost bought Atari.

Instead, they decided to go with an open architecture with the PC. It took one year to develop and in the end the IBM PC could be purchased for $1,565.

We remember William C. Lowe with admiration.

1955 – Reynold Johnson brought a new idea to life. Using magnetic cylinder memory, His team put 50 platters – 24 inch disks – into a series. The end result – the first hard drive was born. The device was then produced as the IBM 350 (debuted September 4th, 1956), which was put into the IBM 305 RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control), which was debuted in September 13th, 1956 – with the IBM 355 (hard drive) and IBM 650 (RAMAC) on September 14th. It ran at 1,200 rpm and held 5 MB of data.Reynold Johnson’s prototype weighed one ton. The 350 cost $10,000 / MB.

• Maxtor DiamondMax
• Brad Silverberg leaves Microsoft
• DC Comics goes online

<img width="1500" height="2100" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/gates_print1.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="Bill Gates" decoding="async" srcset="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/gates_print1.jpg 1500w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/gates_print1-214x300.jpg 214w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/gates_print1-731x1024.jpg 731w" sizes="(max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px" />

1955 – William Gates Sr. and Mary Maxwell Gates has a son. William Gates III was born in Seattle, WA. Bill Gates, of course, went on to start Microsoft. Bill was CEO of Microsoft until he retired in 2008. In 2000, he started the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Interestingly enough, 30 years later in 1985, Bill Gates put Microsoft up for IPO. That’s a birthday present…

• Apple unveils MessagePad2000
• Digital Millennium Copyright Act goes into Law
• Palm merges Handspring – forms PalmOne

<img width="591" height="602" data-tf-not-load src="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Dell-logo.round1_.jpg" class="attachment-full size-full wp-post-image" alt="Dell" decoding="async" srcset="https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Dell-logo.round1_.jpg 591w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Dell-logo.round1_-294x300.jpg 294w, https://dayintechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Dell-logo.round1_-65x65.jpg 65w" sizes="(max-width: 591px) 100vw, 591px" />

1999 – Dataquest, a company that monitors PC sales, has shown a trend that Dell had maintained a 5% lead over Apple for 2 consecutive quarters. Therefore, Dell had become #1 in computer sales for 1999. Of course, a recent report mentioned that Apple could now buy Dell if it so inclined.

• Windows Azure launches
• Internet Explorer 4.0 releases
• The ARPANET stops functioning