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Category Archives: Computer history
Bob Metcalfe Gives Birth to the Ethernet
Today in 1973, twenty-seven-year-old Bob Metcalfe turned on his IBM Selectric, “pulled out a wad of Ko-Rec-Type, snapped on an Orator ball, and banged out the memo inventing Ethernet,” at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
From The Archives: The IBM 701 and Software-as-a-Service
Sixty years ago today, the IBM 701 was formally announced. Its official name was the Defense Calculator, “specifically selected to appeal to the patriotism of the older Watson and to avoid the use of the unacceptable word, computer,” according to … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, IBM, This day in information
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Computer Programming Born
Today in 1949, the Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer (EDSAC), the first practical stored-program computer, ran its first program and performed its first calculation.
@
Today in 1536, Florentine merchant Francesco Lapi used the @ sign for the first time in recorded history.
First Spam
Today in 1978, the first unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail was sent by Gary Thuerk, a marketing representative of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to all 393 users of ARPANET on the west coast of the United States. The e-mail is an invitation to a demonstration of … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, email, This day in information
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Son of The Souls of a New Machine Introduced
Today in 1980, Data General (DG) introduced the Eclipse MV/8000 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City. Known internally as Project Eagle, the 2-year development of the 32-bit “super-minicomputer,” the engineers working on it, and the parallel (and eventually, … Continue reading
WYSIWYG, Mouse Commercialized
Today in 1981, Xerox introduced the Xerox 8010 Star Information System, featuring a bitmapped screen, Ethernet, a computer mouse, a laser printer, the Smalltalk language, a WYSIWYG word processor, and software for combining text and graphics in the same document. It failed in … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, This day in information
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The Integrated Circuit Patented
50 years ago today, Robert Noyce was granted a patent for a “Semiconductor Device-and-Lead Structure,” a type of integrated circuit made of Silicon. Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized the world of electronics. The integration … Continue reading
Whirlwind, the First Real-Time Computer
Today in 1951, MIT’s Whirlwind computer first came online.
From Desktop Computing to the Web in Our Hands
Thirty-five years ago today, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne signed a partnership agreement that established the company that will become Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977. (Wayne left the company eleven days later, relinquishing his ten percent share … Continue reading
The Story of Information 