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Category Archives: This day in information
Standardizing Information Transmission: The Uniform Penny Post Established
Today in 1840, the Uniform Penny Post was established throughout the UK, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap conveyance of letters.“At this time I did not stand very well with the dominant interest at the General Post Office. My old friend Colonel Maberly had … Continue reading
The First Cloud: First Battery-Operated Switchboard Installed
Today in 1894, New England Telephone and Telegraph installed the first battery-operated switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts. With what became to be known as the “common battery” (replacing the local battery attached to the telephone), the subscriber could signal the operator simply by … Continue reading
Machine of the Year, Thirty Years Ago
Today in 1983, Time magazine put on its cover the PC, calling it “machine of the year.” Roger Rosenblatt wrote:“Inventions arise when they’re needed. This here screen and keyboard might have come along any old decade, but it happened to pop up when it … Continue reading
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The Penguin Takes Off
Today in 1935, the first ten Penguin Books, paperback reprints of titles previously published as hardbacks, are issued by publisher Allen Lane. Each title costs only sixpence each, the price of a pack of cigarettes, and all the titles feature the Penguin … Continue reading
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The Integrated Circuit: Bringing Mass Production to the Computer Industry
Today in 1958, Jack Kilby sketched a rough design of the first integrated circuit in his notebook. By the early 1960s, some computers had more than 200,000 individual electronic components–transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors–and connecting all of the components was becoming increasingly … Continue reading
The Rise and Fall of Typewriters
Today in 1829, William Austin Burt, a surveyor from Mount Vernon, Michigan, received a patent for the typographer, the earliest forerunner of the typewriter. Fifty-one years ago this month (July 31), IBM introduced the IBM Selectric, replacing typebars and the moving carriage with a spherical … Continue reading
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A Robot in Every Home?
Today in 1984, a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan, crushed a 34 year-old worker in the first ever robot-related death in the United States. The robot thus violated Issac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics, “A robot may not injure a human being or, … Continue reading
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From the Archives: Storage Bottleneck Born
Today in 1945, John von Neumann published “A First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC.” Campbell-Kelly and Aspray call it in Computer: The History of the Information Machine “the technological basis for the worldwide computer industry.” In A History of Modern Computing, Paul … Continue reading
The 5-year-old iPhone
Today in 2007, the first iPhone was released.
Posted in Apple, Infographics, Telephone, This day in information
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From the Archives: First Classical Music Recording
Today in 1888, Edison’s foreign sales agent, Colonel George Gouraud, made a wax cylinder recording in the Crystal Palace, London, of a 3016-person choir performing Handel’s Israel in Egypt at a distance of more than one hundred yards from the phonograph. It was … Continue reading
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The Story of Information 