Category Archives: Uncategorized
Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of February 29, 2016
February 29, 1939 The klystron vacuum tube, the first significantly powerful source of radio waves in the microwave range, is set up at the Boston airport and a plane successfully blind-lands before a group of top military officials. The klystron, … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Radar, Telegraph, Uncategorized, World Wide Web
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Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of January 25, 2016
January 25, 1839 William Henry Fox Talbot displays his five-year old pictures at the Royal Society, 18 days after the Daguerreotype process was presented before the French Academy. In 1844, Talbot published the first book with photographic illustrations, The Pencil … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Uncategorized
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Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of January 18, 2016
January 19, 1983 Apple introduces Lisa, a $9,995 PC for business users. Many of its innovations such as the graphical user interface, a mouse, and document-centric computing, were taken from the Alto computer developed at Xerox PARC, introduced as the … Continue reading
Super Bowl 1985: Typewriters, Fax Machines and Steve Jobs
Long before Levi’s Stadium’s modern-day luxury suites, exclusive wine tastings and mobile app to watch video replays, there was Stanford Stadium, a huge and forlorn crater of a place with gangling weeds poking through splintered wooden bleachers. In 1985, for … Continue reading
Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of January 11, 2016
January 11, 1994 The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA’s Royce Hall. It was the “first public conference bringing together all of the major industry, government and academic leaders in the field [and] also began the national dialogue about the … Continue reading
Posted in Internet, Radio, Telephone, Uncategorized, Wearables, World Wide Web
Tagged al gore, information superhighway
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Milestones in Tech History: Week of January 4, 2016
January 4, 1972 The HP-35 is introduced. The world’s first handheld-sized scientific calculator, ultimately made the slide rule, which had previously been used by generations of engineers and scientists, obsolete. Named for its 35 keys, it performed all the functions … Continue reading
Posted in Photography, Uncategorized
Tagged Daguerreotype, HP-35, IBM, Metropolitan Museum
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The Tech Boom of the 1880s
Vaclav Smil in IEEE Spectrum: According to the worshippers of the e-world, the late 20th century brought us an unprecedented number of profound inventions. But that is a categorical misunderstanding, as most recent advances have been variations on the microprocessor … Continue reading
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First Book Dust Jacket
From Biblio Blog: “Prior to the 1820s, most books were issued as unbound sheets or with disposable board covers. Customers would buy the text-blocks and commission bindings themselves–often to match the other titles in their library. For this reason, dust … Continue reading
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The Story of Information 