Day in Tech History

2008 Dan Kaminsky announced he has been in contact with Microsoft over a flaw in the DNS naming system. At this time, there were no other details as to keep this issue as secret as possible while th

1993 The graphics software labs at AT&T closed down and relocated to the AT&T Multimedia Software Solutions. The division focused on software products that included 3D vector based graphic programs

1982 The first completely computer animated video wins an Academy Award for best animated short film. Tin Toy by Pixar (now a division of Disney) was an animated short film about atoy named Tinny

1979 At 4 PM EST, the nuclear reactors in Middletown, PA (Dauphin County) experienced a partial meltdown. The incident was officially rated a 5-of-7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale: Acciden

1982 Recorded in 1981, the song Pac-Man fever was a song by (Jerry ) Buckner & (Gary) Garcia. Each song on the album was about a different video game and was released via album, cassette, 8-track a

1976 The First Annual World Altair Computer Convention is held at the Airport Marina Hotel near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill Gatesopens the convention with his position on software piracy. Of cour

1994 Microsoft released Excel 4.0. It included an Easter egg animation of the Excel logo crushing the numbers 1-2-3. Other Day in Tech History items: AOL and eBay cross marketing agreement Excel 4.0

1802 A patent for the first steam engine was issued to Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane. The machine was called the Puffing Devil or Puffer. The engine could produce 145 psi to push the car

2001 Its called the Deorbit Space Station Mir was a controlled re-entry into the Earths atmosphere. Ultimately, the space station burned up over the ocean by New Zeland. Some parts of Mir coul

1981 The first vinyl video record, a.k.a. the videodisc, hit stores in the U.S. The Capacitance Electronic Disc looked just like any other vinyl record protected in a plastic caddy and held 60 min

2006 Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass launch Twitter (a.k.a.Twttr) with Jacks first Tweet. Just setting up my Twttr went across the network of only a few followers. Similar t

1916 Albert Einstein sent a paper off to Annelen Der Physik. The paper was called Die Grundlage der Allgemeinen Relativitatstheorie translated as The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativ

1997 Toshiba a member of the DVD consortium put out the first consumer DVD player on November 1, 1996 in Japan as the SD-3000. After some initial changes (and having to change the DVD region cod

2008 The free peer-to-peer file sharing program who was under major fire decided to set up a fully legal DRM music store. With over 500,000 MP3s from artists who are not on any major labels, the st

Happy St. Patricks Day! 1988 The Graphical User Interface (GUI) is what we use daily to open up email, our web browser and even those apps on your smartphone or tablet. With the first real GUI came

1926 Robert Goddard became the first man to launchliquid-fueled rocket. The liquid oxygen and gasoline mixture launched the 10 foot rocket, travelling at 60 MPH, to an altitude of 41 feet. The rock

1989 Antic Software publishes the first issue of Amiga Plus Magazine. It was the April/May edition and included an AMIGA Plus disk, which included the graphic programs created. Articles included eve

1994 Apple computer released a new line of MacIntosh computers in the Power Macintosh 6100. With a 60-66 MHz PowerPC 601 RISC processor the first time Apple used this processor line up to 32 MB

2014 Mark Zuckerberg told the press he called President Barak Obama to bring his concerns to the table. The Facebook post talked about trust on the Internet, keeping it a shared space and how we sho

1998 TheFCC announcedthey have come to a finalization on the video programming rating system and have fulfilled all requirements for the proposed V-Chip. Along with NAB, NCTA and MPAA, the chip

2007 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 ammended Daylight savings time 3 weeks . The theory was to move clocks forward 1 hour 3 weeks earlier than usual and Fall back in the first week of November (inste

2003The Sony Cli PEG-NR70 and PEG-NR70V handheld computers were released. These were 66 MHz PDA units running the Motorola Dragonball SuperVZ processor with a 16-bit color screen and runningPalm

2008 SXSW Interactive keynote, Mark Zuckerberg was being interviewed by journalist Sarah Lacy. There was a lot of anticipation for the event, but things went south quickly (no pun intended). During

2000Apple concluded their iMac trade dress infringement against Daewoo and eMachines. The two companies made machines too similar to the iconic iMac look the eMachines eOne computer and the Daewo

1996 Even though Pluto was first seen in 1930, we didnt havethe ability to take a decent picture of the furthest planet er dwarf planet er (dang you Neil deGrasse Tyson!!!). The Hubble telesco

EDITOR NOTE: I received documentation that shows this event actually happened on March 5th. This will be corrected on Wikazine.com and changed for next year. 1986 Fremont, California police set up

1981 The successor to the Sinclair ZX80, Britains most popular home computer the Sinclair ZX81 was launched by Sinclair Research a Timex Corporation. It was a popular computer mostly because of

2000 The Playstation 2 was released in Japan to rival Segas Dreamcast system and Nintendo Game Cube. The Playstation 2 had an Emotion Engine processor at 294 MHz (later 299 MHz with 128 bit capab

1972 NASA launched the Pioneer 10 (a.k.a. Pioneer F) from Cape Canaveral, FL. This was the first spacecraft to traverse an astroid belt. The craft collected the environmental information around Jupi

1995 Programming language Delphi was released by Borland. Delphi is an object oriented derivative of the Pascal programming language meant for Windos and Mac OS in 32-bit and 64-bit. It was the succ

1990 The secret service and Austin TX police raided Steve Jackson Games, along with the home of Loyd Blankenship, writer of GURPS Cyberpunk. Four computers, two laser printers and all of the compani

February 28, 1966: FCC creates Right to Privacy[/caption] During non-leap years, this Day in Tech History episode will be for the 28th and 29th. 1966 (Feb 28) With all these ways to listen in on a c

February 27, 1998: Apple Newton is discontinued[/caption] 1998 After Steve Jobs takes the role of Acting CEO (After the firing of Gil Amelio) he decides to trim some of the product fat. In result, t

February 26, 1991: Sir Tim Berners Lee Shows the WorldWideWeb via Browser[/caption] 1991 Sir Tim Berners-Lee showed everyone the first web browser and WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML edi

February 25, 1999 hacker Gigabyte hacks C# language[/caption] 1999 Microsofts newest programming language at the time C# (pronounced C-Sharp) was hacked on this day. The perpetrator was a sev

February 24, 1997 Disney and Pixar 5 movie agreement[/caption] 1997 Walt Disney and Pixar enter into a 5 movie agreement in 10 months. They would share costs, profit and logo credits. The two woul

February 23, 1896 Tootsie Roll is introduced in US[/caption] 1896 A little Geeky knowledge for ya The Tootsie roll is introduced. AustrianimmigrantLeo Hishfield took the idea to a New York sto

February 22, 1999 AMD released K6-III[/caption] 1999 AMD releases the AMD K6-III Processor in speeds of 400 and 450 MHz. It would feature a 64KB Level 1 cache and a 256KB Level 2 cache. The 3DNow!

Feb 21, 2001 Apple released iMac Special Edition[/caption] 2001 At Macworld Expo in Tokyo, Japan,AppleComputer introduced the iMac Special Edition. It would be available in Flower Power, Dalmati

1986 The first piece of the Mir Space Station is launched. With 6 docking ports and labs for research, the Space Station was expected to push us into the stars. The term Mir is Russian for Peace

1990 Thomas Knoll was a student at the University of Michigan when he decided to write a program for his Macintosh Plus. The program was a simple image viewer, but when his brother John Knoll ca

1979 for the first and only time in recorded history, it snowed in the Sahara Desert. It was in Southern Algeria and the storm only lasted a half hour. The snow melted off quickly. Corel ships WordP

February 17, 2000: Microsoft released Windows 2000[/caption] 2000 Microsoft released the next version of the Windows Operating system in Windows 2000. Also known at Windows NT 5.0, it was thebegin

1978 The first computer bulletin board system was created in Chicago, Illinois by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess. The Computerized Bulletin Board System (CBBS) came together in 30 days, where it w

1946 J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly debut the Electronic NumericalIntegratorand Computer (ENIAC). 17,468 vacuum tubes at 100,000 pulses/second. It was part of a $400,000 contract from the U.S.

HappyValentines Day! 2005 YouTube, the popular video sharing website, is established by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. The website was registered on February 14th, and didnt officially l

February 13, 1996: JTS merges with Atari[/caption] 1996 Atari Corporation announces the merger with Jugi Tandon Storage (JTS). Atari extended a bridge loan of $25 Million so JTS can still build driv

2001 Jan de Wit a.k.a. OnTheFly sends out an email stating that it is a picture of the famous tennis player. Of course it turned out to be a a Worm that takes down tens of thousands of computers.

2012 Apple began the lawsuits in the US of Samsung made Galaxy Nexus citing patent violations back in April 15, 2011. This would span across the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G and Galaxy Tab. A lawsu

1992 Comp.os.minix was the location for famous thread Linux is Dead. 73 Posts went back and forthe before Bill Mitchell closes it. Andy Tanenbaum (MINIX) started the thread and Linus Torvolds sho