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The Transition to Transistors Begins
June 30, 1948 Originally designed to create improvements to electromechanical relays and vacuum tubes in telephone switching equipment, Bell Labs holds a press conference in New York to publicly demonstrate the first point-contact transistor. The transistor represents a significant advance in technology. As it is developed over the next few years, it will become the…
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The Phone That Changed Everything
June 29, 2007 Nearly 6 months after it was introduced, Apple’s highly-anticipated iPhone goes on sale. Generally downplayed by Old Word Technology pundits after its introduction, the iPhone was greeted by long lines of buyers around the country on that first day. Quickly becoming an overnight phenomenon, one million iPhones were sold in only 74…
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First Commercial Communications Satellite Activates
June 28, 1965 Intelsat I, the first commercial communications satellite, is activated for service. It was nicknamed “Early Bird” after the famous proverb, and became famous for carrying the first commercial telephone call between America and Europe, as well as helping provide TV coverage of the Gemini 6 splashdown. The post First Commercial Communications Satellite…
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All Hail Atari
June 27, 1972 The iconic video game company, Atari, is founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Their first video game, Pong, was the first commercially successful video game and led to the start of the video game industry. In 1977, Atari’s Video Computer System (known as the VCS and later the Atari 2600) popularized…
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I PC, UPC …
June 26, 1974 A Universal Product Code (UPC) is used to ring up a purchase for the first time at a Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio. The first item scanned was a 10-pack of Juicy Fruit gum. Take that to your trivia contents! The post I PC, UPC … appeared first on This Day in…
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iPhone 4 Goes on Sale
June 24, 2010 After a wild lead-up involving a prototype being lost at a bar, Apple’s iPhone 4 officially went on sale. Later the iPhone 4 would then become the subject of the Antennagate controversy. With so much attention given to the phone, it was no wonder it went on to set sales records. The…
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QWERTY Typewriter Patented
June 23, 1868 The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first practical and commercially successful typewriter, is patented. Perhaps most notable in the design of the Sholes and Glidden (which would later become the Remington No. 1 typewriter) is the use of the QWERTY keyboard, which is still the most popular keyboard layout in the world.…
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SpaceShipOne – First Private Space Flight
June 21, 2004 Financed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, SpaceShipOne becomes the first spacecraft developed by the free market to enter spaceflight. Launched from a mothership named White Knight, SpaceShipOne flew just beyond the atmosphere into the threshold of space then glided back to Earth. SpaceShipOne would later win the $ 10 million Ansari X…
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SEAC Machine Dedicated
June 20, 1950 The National Bureau of Standards dedicated the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) in Washington. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and was the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units stored programming information,…
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Viking 1 Enters Mars Orbit
June 19, 1976 The Viking 1 spacecraft enters the into orbit around the planet Mars 10 months after being launched from Earth. Viking 1 would become the first US spacecraft to land on Mars and the first spacecraft overall to successfully soft land and perform a mission on Mars. The post Viking 1 Enters Mars…