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The Breakup of Microsoft … That Never Happened
June 7, 2000 United States District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson orders the breakup of Microsoft into two companies: one that will develop operating systems and one that will develop other applications. Microsoft immediately announces that it will file an appeal of the judgment. What would have been a monumental event in the history of the technology…
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Palm Pre Released
June 6, 2009 Palm, Inc. releases the Palm Pre smartphone through Sprint in an attempt to regain marketshare, after their Treo line of smartphones is dwarfed by Apple’s iPhone. Featuring the Linux-based Palm webOS operating system, the Pre receives some praise from technical reviewers, but due to poor marketing and the rapid pace in which…
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Would You Like to Play a Game?
June 3, 1983 The science fiction film WarGames is released. Notable for bringing the hacking phenomena to the attention of the American public, it ignites a media sensation regarding the hacker sub-culture. The film’s NORAD set is the most expensive ever built at the time at a cost of $ 1 million dollars. Not widely known is…
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US Soft Lands on Moon
June 2, 1966 NASA’s lunar lander Surveyor 1 lands in Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”) on the Moon, becoming the first US spacecraft to soft-land on an extraterrestrial body. The previous Ranger program sent craft that had hard-landings (i.e. crash landings). However, the Soviet spacecraft, Luna 9, claims the honor of being the first to…
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The Day the Music Industry Changed Forever
June 1, 1999 Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker release the filesharing service Napster. The service provides a simple way for users to copy and distribute MP3 music files. It becomes an instant hit, especially among college students. Just over 6 months later, on December 7, 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) will file a lawsuit…
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All Your Base Are Belong To Us
May 31, 1991 Sega releases the video game Zero Wing for the Sega Mega Drive system in Europe. The game was never released in North America, and was relatively unknown until years later when the poorly translated opening scene was popularized on the Internet. The most famous mistranslation is the phrase “All your base are belong…
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First Automobile Accident
May 30, 1896 The first auto accident on record occurs in New York City when a Duryea Motor Wagon driven by Henry Wells collides with a bicycle ridden by Evylyn Thomas. New Yorkers probably accused Henry of being from Jersey, but he was actually from Massachusetts. First Automobile Accident is original content of This Day in Tech…
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Discovery Docks with International Space Station
May 29, 1999 The Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station (ISS). Discovery Docks with International Space Station is original content of This Day in Tech History. This Day in Tech History Tech History provided by This Day in Tech History.com
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GIF is Not Peanut Butter
May 28, 1987 CompuServe releases the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) standard as a new computer graphics file format. Due to color limitations, the GIF format is unsuitable for reproducing color photographs, but it is well-suited for more simple images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of color. This made it probably the most…
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Windows Hits Version 2.1
May 27, 1988 Microsoft releases 2 versions of Windows 2.1 – One for 286 computers and one for 386 computers. Do you remember this version of Windows? No? Not many people do. It wasn’t until version 3 that Windows had any sort of appreciable user base. Windows Hits Version 2.1 is original content of This…