1783
The first hot-air balloon ascent flies unmanned for ten minutes. It was constructed by the French brothers Joseph-Michel and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier at their home town of Annonay, France.
1833
Ada Byron, who will later become the Countess Lovelace, meets computer pioneer Charles Babbage in England. Byron will later become known for writing a description of Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine.
1924
Ernst Alexanderson transmits the first facsimile message across the Atlantic.
1938
The first machine to produce intelligible speech-like sounds is exhibited by Bell Telephone scientists Homer Dudley, Richard Riesz, and Stanley Watkins. Called “Pedro, the Voder,” it is put on display to the public at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to human voices, it can imitate the sound of various farm animals. It is basically a spectrum-synthesis device operated from a finger keyboard and a foot pedal pitch control. Its operation requires a user to be very familiar with its use.
1939
The film The Wizard of Oz is first screen tested.
1943
The US government commissions the University of Pennsylvania to conduct “research and development of an electronic numerical integrator and computer and delivery of a report thereon” on a six month contract with US$61,700 in funding from US Army Ordnance. The contract is extended nine times by 1946, and by the time the machine is completed, it will cost a total of US$486,804.22. The final product is the ENIAC computer.
1977
The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale. The Apple II featured an a 1MHz MOS 6502 processor, an integrated keyboard, a built-in BASIC programming environment, expandable memory (4K expandable to 48K), a monitor capable of color graphics, a sound card, and eight expansion slots. Most importantly, they have a total of eight expansion Slots for adding peripherals and come bundled with the first “killer app” of the business world, the VisiCalc spreadsheet program. The combination popularizes personal computers among business users. Read more an extensive history and description of the Apple II at Apple2History.org.
1978
Taito introduces the classic arcade game, Space Invaders, in Japan. It will be among the first blockbuster successes og the video games industry, and it will continue to be to one of the most influential video games for years to come.
1983
The Summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is held, in Chicago, Illinois, over several days.
At the CES, Coleco Industries announces the Coleco Adam computer, featuring a Zilog Z80A processor, 80KB RAM (64KB user RAM, 16KB video RAM), three sound channels, 16-color graphics, a ColecoVision game cartridge slot, 4 MC6801 microprocessors, which control operation of peripherals, SmartWriter word processor in ROM, a full size 75-key keyboard, CP/M compatibility, a version of BASIC compatible with Applesoft BASIC, three expansion slots, Adam net jack, two joysticks with keypads, a 256×192 graphics and 36×24 text on TV display, a 256-512KB tape-cartridge device, the Buck Rogers: The Planet of Zoom game, and a 10-15 cps 80-column daisy wheel printer. Price: US$599
At the CES, Atari introduces the Atari 600 XL, featuring a 1.79MHz 6502-C processor, 16KB RAM, 24KB ROM, and a 320×192 graphics/40×24 text TV screen. An optional CP/M module is available, as is a bundle called The Writing System, which includes AtariWriter word processor and a 20cps letter-quality printer for an additional US$600. Price: US$199
At the CES, Atari introduces the Atari 800 XL, with 64KB RAM, the Atari 1450 XL, with built-in 300 bps modem, and the Atari 1450 XLD, with built-in 300 bps modem and disk drive.
1989
UK game developer Bullfrog Productions releases Populous, one of the first commercially successful “god games”, for the Amiga, Atari ST, and PC. The game garners great deal of popularity for its originality and is often cited as the simulation game from which all others originate.
The Unknown Rebel stands in front of a column of Chinese Type 59 tanks, preventing their advance for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989. The photos and video, which are circulated globally, become some of the most iconic in history. The most famous photo of the scene (displayed below) is taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, from the sixth floor of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 m) from the scene, through a 400 mm lens. After blocking the tanks, the man climbs up onto the top of the lead tank and has a conversation with the driver. Reports of what he said to the driver vary, but the most popular versions include, “Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you.”; “Go back, turn around, and stop killing my people”; and “Go away.” Video footage shows anxious onlookers then pulling the man away and absorbing him into the crowd as the tanks continue on their way.
1991
After several years of work, software engineer Philip R. Zimmermann, sometimes known by the webhandle “PRZ”, publishes the final release of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) 1.0, a cryptographic application. Despite US prohibitions against the dissemination of free cryptography, one of Zimmermann’s friends (Kelly Goen) post PGP 1.0 across multiple BBS networks. The name of the application is an allusion to the fictional grocery store, “Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery,” featured on the radio program A Prairie Home Companion. The symmetric-key algorithm the application included is dubbed “BassOmatic” after a popular Saturday Night Live skit. Soon after its release, PGP spread to foreign countries, and in February 1993, Zimmermann will be accused by the US Government of “munitions export without a license” because, under US export regulations, cryptographic systems using keys larger than 40 bits are considered munitions. The legal battle that ensued would become the heart of the “free communications” movement that would becom one of the driving forces behind cyberpunk culture.
1994
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Tribunal” first airs. (No. 225) In it, Cardassians arrest Miles O’Brien for collaborating with the Maquis and he’s given a Cardassian trial, where the verdict is already decided, and is always guilty. Memory Alpha entry
1995
Bose-Einstein condensate, a state of matter formed by bosons cooled to temperatures very near to absolute zero, is first created.
International Business Machines (IBM) offers US$60 per share takeover bid for Lotus Development Corp.
1996
Direct X 2.0, a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms, is released for Windows 95 and NT 4.0.
1997
Electronic Arts Inc. agrees to purchase rival game company, Maxis, Inc. Maxis is well-known for their line of SimCity games.
1998
Ian Hetherington, managing director and founder of Psygnosis, resigns from his post. Reportedly, Hetherington and parent company, Sony, have not seen eye to eye since Sony’s acquisition of the company in 1993. Gary Johnson, Chief Operating Officer (COO) will assume leadership of the company.
Industry programming pioneer Jim Nitchals, who was responsible for such classic games as Asteroid Field, Bug Attack, Ring Raiders, and Star Thief for the Apple II computer dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 36. In addition to being a giant of the gaming industry, Nitchals was also a hero of the anti-spam movement.
Reuters, the Associated Press, and other news services relate the news that comedian Bob Hope has passed away over the Internet. The information turns out to be untrue.
The US Depart of Commerce (DoC) releases the Green Paper outlining its plan to privatize the Domain name system (DNS) on January 30th. This is followed up by a White Paper.
2000
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) begins shipping 600 to 700MHz Duron processors to computer manufacturers. Price: Starting at US$112
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduces 750MHz to 1GHz Athlon processors. The processors include an integrated 256kB Level 2 on-chip, full-speed exclusive cache. Code-name: Thunderbird Price: US$319 to US$990
The Magic: The Gathering expansion set Prophecy is released. The main theme and mechanic of the set is lands, specifically, whether lands are untapped or not. The set includes 143 cards: 55 common, 44 uncommon, and 44 rare.
2001
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) announces two new Athlon microprocessors, the Athlon MP, which runs at 1GHz and 1.2 GHz, as well as the AMD-760 MP.
DVD International announces the availability of two new NUON compatible games, Space Invaders XL and Iron Soldier 3.
Nevada becomes the first US state to vote to legalize online gambling. However, the passage of such legislation doesn’t immediately take effect, as online gambling is still banned under federal law. Because the Nevada legislature meets only once every two years for a session that lasts no longer than 120 days, its members feared that if guideline for online gambling weren’t passed preemptively, it might hold up future financial opportunities within the state.
Reuters news service reports that research firm Jupiter Media Metrix has released a report indicating that the combined companies of AOL Time Warner, Microsoft Corporation, Napster, and Yahoo, Inc. control just over half of all time spent online by United States computer users.
2002
After a lengthy public beta, Mozilla 1.0, Mozilla’s first public release, is made available. Mozilla is a browser that works on multiple operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows, and Solaris. The name Mozilla is a contraction of “Mosaic killer” (using the slang “killa” for killer, Moz+illa), a phrase that refers to the hope that the project will oust Mosaic as the web’s most popular web browser, while alluding to the the classic movie monster Godzilla. Visit the official Mozilla website.
2005
According to the research firm Current Analysis, sales sampling from leading electronics retailers indicates that notebooks outsold desktop computers across an entire calendar month for the first time in US history.
George Lucas is named the one hundredth “Greatest American” by the Discovery Channel.
2006
At 9am, Google launches an online Spreadsheet application that will eventually become a part of its Google Docs internet suite.
GNU Bison 2.3, a free parser generator computer program written for the GNU project, is released. Visit the official Bison webpage at the GNU Project.
NeoOffice 2.0 Alpha Intel, a version of the open source OpenOffice.org office suite that has been ported to Mac OS X, is released.
The Pirate Bay (TPB) goes down, citing database server problems that are the result of all the publicity resulting from the May 31, 2006 police raid against them. The site will be back up the next day with limited availability and fully operational within several days.
Red Hat acquired the open source middleware provider JBoss, a Java EE-based application server, and JBoss becomes a division of Red Hat.
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