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IBM System 360 Changes the Industry Forever
April 7, 1964 IBM launches the System 360 mainframe architecture, which comprised six compatible models complete with 40 peripherals. The line, dubbed the “360″ because it addressed all types and sizes of customer, cost IBM over five billion dollars to develop, and it is widely considered one of the riskiest business gambles of all time.…
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Windows 3.1 Released
April 6, 1992 Microsoft releases Windows 3.1, priced at $ 149.00, selling three million copies over the next two months. Windows 3.1 added multimedia extensions allowing support for sound cards, MIDI, and CD Audio, Super VGA (800 x 600) monitors, and increased the speed of modem it would support to 9600 bps. For many of us that…
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Could it be … SATAN?
April 5, 1995 Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema release to the Internet the Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks, known by its acronym, SATAN. SATAN is a network scanner for investigating the vulnerability of remote systems. Designed for use by network administrators, the program will soon generate controversy over the ethics of freely releasing powerful security tools to the…
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Netscape Born
April 4, 1994 Ironically, 19 years to the day after Microsoft was formed, Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark create the Mosaic Communications Corporation, which will later be renamed Netscape Communications Corporation. Andreessen had developed the Mosaic web browser while working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois. The post…
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The First Cell Phone Call
April 3, 1973 Martin Cooper, considered the “father of the cellular phone”, makes the first cell phone call on a New York City street. The post The First Cell Phone Call 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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Microsoft’s First Hardware Product
April 2, 1980 Microsoft announces its first hardware product, the Z80 SoftCard. The SoftCard is a microprocessor that plugs into the Apple II personal computer allowing it to run programs written for the CP/M operating system. CP/M was a very popular OS for early personal computers along with much of the software written for it. In…
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Gmail Launched
April 1, 2004 The now ubiquitous Gmail service is launched as an invitation-only beta service. At first met with skepticism due to it being launched on April Fool’s Day, the ease of use and speed that Gmail offered for a web-based e-mail service quickly won converts. The fact that Gmail was invitiation-only for a long…
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Free … Your … Mind
March 31, 1999 The hugely successful motion picture, The Matrix, is released on this day. Many call it a classic (ok, that’s me), many call it influential (ok, me again), but no one can deny that the impact it had on many aspects of our society from the emerging tech culture, to the movie industry,…
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UNIVAC Unveiled
March 30, 1951 The first commercial computer, UNIVAC, is received by the US Census Bureau. Interestingly enough, the Census Bureau had driven the development of devices that eventually led to computers since the 1890’s and Herman Hollerith’s Punch Card Calculator. The post UNIVAC Unveiled appeared first on This Day in Tech History. This Day in Tech…
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TRS-80 Model 100 Introduced
March 29, 1983 Radio Shack introduces the TRS-80 Model 100, one of the first portable computers in a notebook-style form factor. The portability, simplicity, and built-in modem of the Model 100 made it very popular with journalists who could write stories in the field and transmit them back to their offices. Incidentally, in the early…