Today in Tech History – November 27

1971 – The Soviet Union’s Mars 2 orbiter released its descent module which probably had too steep an angle of entry, and malfunctioned and crashed. But hey, it was still the first manmade object to reach the surface of Mars.

1995 – Microsoft Ships Internet Explorer 2.0

             Microsoft Corp. shipped Internet Explorer 2.0, starting a browser war with the popular Netscape Navigator. Netscape Communications Corp. had a virtual monopoly on World Wide Web browsers since the infancy of the web. The Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers serve as a format for viewing and creating World Wide Web pages, as well as participating in newsgroups and sending e-mail. Microsoft promotes its Internet Explorer with specific mention of its privacy and encryption.

1998 – Sega Dreamcast Launched in Japan

             Sega releases their next generation console – the Dreamcast – in Japan. It didn’t get released in the US until Sept 9 1999, but it was one of the more successful console launches of it’s time. The Dreamcast had 200 MHz processor with on-die 128-bit vector graphics engine.  The graphics hardware is a PowerVR2 CLX2 chipset, sound was a Yamaha AICA Sound Processor and 16 MB 100 MHz RAM.

The Dreamcast was discontinued on Jan 31, 2001 as Sega announced they were getting out of the console market.

2001 – Scientists announced they had used the Hubble telescope to detect and analyze the atmosphere on an extrasolar planet for the first time. The planet HD 209458 b, unofficially called Osiris was found to have sodium in its atmosphere.

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