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Category Archives: This day in information
First Photograph of a Solar Eclipse
Today in 1854, William and Frederick Langenheim made eight sequential photographs of the first total eclipse of the sun visible in North America since the invention of photography. Although six other daguerreotypists and one calotypist are known to have documented … Continue reading
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First WWW Conference
Today in 1994, the First International WWW Conference was held at CERN, Geneva. Tim Berners-Lee in Weaving the Web: “It was the first time the people who were developing the Web were brought together with all sorts of people who were using it … Continue reading
First University Museum
Today in 1683, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, the world’s first university museum, opened in Oxford, England. The present Ashmolean was created in 1908 by combining two ancient Oxford institutions: the University Art Collection and the original Ashmolean Museum.
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Mickey Mouse speaks!
Today on 1929, the Walt Disney Studio released the animated short film The Karnival Kid, the first in which Mickey Mouse speaks. During his first eight appearances Mickey whistled, laughed, cried and otherwise vocally expressed himself. Mickey’s first spoken words … Continue reading
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Pac-Man Released
Today in 1980, the arcade game Pac-Man was first released in Japan. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games, and an icon of … Continue reading
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From the Archives: 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,” (from Internet Collapses) at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). As Metcalfe explained to Scott Kirsner years later in … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, This day in information
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50 Years of Memory Management
50 years ago today, one of the first software patent applications is filed by the British Petroleum Company. It proposes to “solve automatically a linear programming problem by means of an iterative algorithm whereby it (a) transfers data representations from the … Continue reading
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 Emerson Pugh … Continue reading
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From the Archives: Moving Pictures by Phone
Today in 1924, AT&T demonstrated long distance telephotography, now known as fax, with the transmission of pictures over telephone wires between Cleveland and New York. Commercial service began in a handful of cities the following year. For many decades, telephotography … Continue reading
Posted in Imaging, Photography, Telephone, This day in information
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Sound Recording Milestones
Today in 1888, Emile Berliner demonstrated the flat gramophone disc and its reproduction at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. F. W. Wile: “Emile Berliner took human sound, whether uttered in speech or song, and reproduced it, not as a parody as in the tinfoil phonograph, or in the … Continue reading
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