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Category Archives: Computer history
Bob Metcalfe Gave Birth to the Ethernet 40 Years Ago
Forty years ago today (May 22, 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,” as he recalled in Internet Collapses, at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Computer Networks, Innovation
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The IBM 701 and Software-as-a-Service
Today in 1952, 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 Emerson Pugh in Building … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, IBM
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A Very Short History of Information Technology (IT)
If you were asked to name the top three events in the history of computer technology (or the history of what came to be known as the IT industry), which ones would you choose? Here’s my very short list: June … Continue reading
AIEE (IEEE) Established
Today in 1884, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) was established in New York. The small group of men participating in the first meeting, a cross section of the electrical experts of the era, were responding to Nathaniel S. Keith’s call to organize … Continue reading
The Day Software Started to Eat the World
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. “… a thin ribbon of paper containing the program [to print a table of the squares of the … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Software
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Son of the Souls of a New Machine
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
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The First Real-Time Computer
Today in 1951, MIT’s Whirlwind computer first came online. It was the first computer that operated in real time and used video displays (cathode-ray tubes) for output. In the 1950s, Whirlwind became the prototype for a series of computers that enabled the air force … Continue reading
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A Very Short History of IT
If you were asked to name the top three events in the history of computer technology (or the history of what came to be known as the IT industry), which ones would you choose? Here’s my very short list: June … Continue reading
Disk Drive Manufacturers: And Then There Were Three…
storagenewsletter.com has assembled a list of 218 manufacturers of hard disk drives (HDD) that have entered this market since the disk drive was introduced by IBM in 1956. Today, only three remain: Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital.
Netscape Launched
Today in 1994, Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen founded Mosaic Communications Corporation. Their mission was “to be the premier provider of open software that enables people and companies to exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global networks.” The … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, World Wide Web
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The Story of Information 