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Windows 1.0 Ships
November 20, 1985 Two years after initially being announced, Microsoft finally ships the first version of Windows. Originally slated to be shipped in April of 1984, the long delay caused skeptics to began to accuse Windows of being “vaporware”. Due to the relatively high demands of then-current PC technology, Windows 1.0 was generally considered too…
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Amazon Ignites the Kindle
November 19, 2007 Amazon introduces their Kindle e-book reader. Where other companies had released e-book readers in previous years with limited success, the Kindle’s integration with Amazon’s industry leading book distribution system helped catapult the e-reader into the the mainstream consciousness. The Kindle sold out within five hours of its debut. Amazon Ignites the Kindle…
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Telephones Get a Push
A push-button TouchTone phone from 1963. Note the missing * and # keys. They were not introduced until 1968. November 18, 1963 Bell Telephone offers the first electronic push-button telephones to customers in Carnegie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) technology (Touch-Tone) was also introduced on the same day in order to accommodate the new…
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Computer Mouse Patented
November 17, 1970 Douglas Engelbart receives US patent 3,541,541 for his “X-Y Position Indicator For A Display System”, more commonly known as the computer mouse. Engelbart called his device a “mouse” because the cord looked like a tail. The mouse was first prototyped in 1964, but wasn’t demoed until 1968, and was not included with a commercial…
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Steve Jobs Writes a Letter
A Macintosh by any other name … November 16, 1982 Steve Jobs writes a letter to McIntosh Labs asking for rights to use “Macintosh” as the brand name of Apple’s still-in-development computer. McIntosh Labs makes high-end stereo equipment, and while Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh project, intentionally spelled the name with a letter “a”…
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The Dawn of the Microprocessor
November 15, 1971 An advertisement in the magazine Electronic News announces the Intel 4004, the first commercially available microprocessor. The 4004 was primarily used in calculators, the first being the Busicom 141-PF. In fact, it was Busicom that actually developed the design of what would become the Intel 4004. Busicom approached Intel to help them…
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Microsoft Introduces Zune
November 14, 2006 Knock-knock Who’s there? Microsoft Zune. Microsoft Zune who? Exactly. Microsoft releases their Zune media player, intended to compete with Apple’s iPod. Hailed by some as an “iPod-killer”, the only killing done was by Microsoft less than 5 years later when they ended production of the Zune brand. Otherwise known as simply another…
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First Underwater Telegraph Cable
November 13, 1851 Laid by British telegraphic engineer John Watkins Brett and his brother Jacob Brett, the world’s first operational underwater telegraph cable opens for business. Connecting the English city of Dover to the French city of Calais, the cable was ran at the narrowest point of the English channel. With this link, communication between London…
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Microsoft Declares Tablets Are the Future
November 12, 2000 Bill Gates demonstrates a functional prototype of a Tablet PC. Microsoft claims “the Tablet PC will represent the next major evolution in PC design and functionality.” However, the Tablet PC initiative never really takes off and it isn’t until Apple introduces the iPad in 2010 that tablet computing is widely adopted. In…
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Ethernet is Born
Robert Metcalfe’s Original Ethernet Concept November 11, 1973 As invented by Robert Metcalfe and David Boggs, an Ethernet network functions for the first time. From it’s humble beginnings as a research project at Xerox PARC, Ethernet has developed into the de facto standard for business and home networking. Ethernet is Born is original content of…