Today in Tech History – October 26

1861 – Pony Express Goes Bye-Bye

             Only two days after the Transcontinental Telegraph line opened, the Pony Express ceases operation. Prior to the opening of the cross-country telegraph line, the Pony Express was the fastest way to send communication between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Franscisco, California.

1936 – The first electric generator went into full operation at Hoover Dam, about a month after President Roosevelt had dedicated the dam and tried to encourage people to call it the Boulder Dam.

1961 – Saga, a Silent Shoot-Em-Up Western Playlet, Made on the TX-0 Computer with Help from Douglas Ross

              MIT’s TX-0, a very early general purpose transistorized computer, is used to write the program for Saga, and was comprised of 4,096 words of magnetic core storage. The Western play let was run on a CBS special for MIT’s 100^th anniversary, and in the film, 13,000 lines of code choreographed the movements of each object. A line of direction was written for each action, which were as granular as the movement of each actor’s hand, even if it went wrong. For example, at one point in the show, the sheriff put his gun in the holster of the robber which resulted in a never ending loop. Computers are commonplace in filmmaking today, but Saga was one of the earliest films to implement computer code in its production and writing.

1992 – Software deployment issue in CAD, the new ambulance dispatch system in London, caused 30-45 deaths. Poor training, a memory leak and no lead testing contributed to the failure.

1998 – First Computer Run by Using Thought

              A Georgia man became the first person that ran a computer controlled by thought. The subject (known as J.R.) was paralyzed due to stroke. Dr Roy Bakay and Dr. Philip Kennedy implanted a glass cone into J.R’s brain, which would allow him to mentally control the PC.

2004 – Apple debuted the iPod photo, capable of displaying digital photographs and album art on a built-in color screen.

2012 – Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system went on sale, with its tile-based start screen.

2016 – Microsoft announced the Surface Studio, an all-in-one desktop PC with a touchscreen that could fold down almost flat on a desk. It worked with the new Surface Dial input device and sold for $2,999.

 

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