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Windows Vista Released; Users Exodus
January 30, 2007 Six years after the launch of Windows XP, the infamous operating system, Windows Vista, was released to an unsuspecting public. For various reasons, the launch of Vista was marred by numerous incompatibility, stability, and otherwise onerous problems. While Microsoft actually made Vista much more palatable after 2 Service Pack upgrades, the damage…
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Tetris Sneaks Into the US
January 29, 1988 The computer game Tetris makes its first appearance in the United States as a PC game. The company that released the game was Spectrum Holobyte, which had dubious licensing rights to the game. When companies became interested in licensing Tetris for other platforms besides the PC, a series of events kicked off a…
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Radio Shack Chooses Compaq
January 28, 1998 Radio Shack partners exclusively with Compaq rather than IBM to sell PCs throughout their 7,000 stores. Six years later, IBM sold its PC division to the Chinese company Lenovo. Compaq was the exclusive PC sold in Radio Shack stores for many years. The post Radio Shack Chooses Compaq appeared first on This Day…
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Jim Clark Leaves Silicon Graphics
January 27, 1994 Silicon Graphics Inc. co-founder Jim Clark leaves the company to start Mosaic Communications, the operation that later became Netscape Communications Corp. With Netscape cofounder Marc Andreesen, Clark helped popularize the World Wide Web by distributing the company’s browser for free. The post Jim Clark Leaves Silicon Graphics appeared first on This Day…
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Compaq Purchases DEC
January 26, 1998 Compaq Computer purchases Digital Equipment Corporation for $ 9.6 billion. Digital, or DEC, was a pioneering company in the early history of computers from the 1960’s – 1980’s. Unfortunately, as was seen with many companies, they were slow to recognize the rise of the PC which ultimately led to the sell-off of…
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Opportunity Lands on Mars
January 25, 2004 Opportunity rover (MER-B) lands on surface of Mars, three weeks after its twin, Spirit (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. The post Opportunity Lands on Mars appeared first on This Day in Tech History. This Day in Tech History Tech History provided by This Day in Tech History.com
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Macintosh Launched
January 24, 1984 Apple Computer, Inc. launches the Macintosh computer with a demonstration of the computer in front of 3,000 people. While the Apple Lisa was the first commercial computer with a graphical interface, the Macintosh would bring graphical computing, and computing in general, to “the rest of us”, as Apple’s early slogan for the…
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Last Contact with Pioneer 10
January 23, 2003 The last successful contact was made with the spacecraft Pioneer 10, one of the most distant man-made objects in the universe. Pioneer 10 is heading in the direction of the star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus at roughly 2.6 AU per year. If Aldebaran had zero relative velocity, it would take Pioneer 10 about 2 million years…
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Twitter.com is Born
January 21, 2000 The domain name twitter.com was registered. However, it wasn’t until 2006 that the domain was purchased by Twitter, Inc. and took the form we know today. The post Twitter.com is Born appeared first on This Day in Tech History. This Day in Tech History Tech History provided by This Day in Tech…
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The Happy99 Worm Appears
January 20, 1999 The Happy99 worm first appeared. It invisibly attached itself to emails, displayed fireworks to hide the changes being made, and wished the user a happy New Year. It was the first of a wave of malware that struck Microsoft Windows computers over the next several years, costing businesses and individuals untold amounts…