Today in Tech History – August 30

1885 – Gottieb Daimler received patent for adding an internal combustion engine to a bicycle to make the first gasoline-driven motorcycle.

1907 – John Mauchly Born

           This date marks the birth of John Mauchly who, with J. Presper Eckert built the ENIAC, the first large-scale, electronic calculator. Mauchly received his PhD in physics at Johns Hopkins University and took a position teaching physics at Ursinus College. Because his meteorological work required extensive calculations, he began to experiment with alternatives to mechanical equipment. In 1941 he went to summer course at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was asked to stay as an instructor, which he did. That year Mauchly wrote a report outlining his ideas for a machine to calculate ballistics tables for war effort – a report that helped the Moore School win a contract for the ENIAC. Mauchly worked on the successor to the ENIAC, the EDVAC, and the commercial UNIVAC 1. He died January 8, 1980.

1963 – A direct line of communication between the leaders of the USA and USSR, dubbed “The Hotline” began operation.

1969 – First Building Block of the Internet

           The first Interface Message Processor (IMP) is delivered to Leonard Kleinrock’s research group at UCLA. The IMP was the device that would interconnect networks between research facilities on the developing ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. As a packet-switching device, the IMP can be considered the first generation of what we now call network routers. The second IMP was delivered to the Stanford Research Institute on October1, 1969 and the first message between the two IMPs was sent on October 29, 1969, which is now considered the first message ever sent on the Internet.

m

1982 – A copyright was issued to 16-year-old V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai for a computer program he called “EMAIL,” short for “electronic mail.” While Ayyadurai may not be considered the inventor of email he definitely deserves credit for establishing the name.

1995 – Microsoft Office 95 Released

           Just a few days after the launch of Windows95, Microsoft puts out the newest version of Office software. Technically, it’s called “Office 7.0”, bu Microsoft wanted to brand it as a companion to the newest operating system. Therefore, it became “Office 95”. The newest version included Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Mail software. This new version ran in 32 bit, so Windows 95 could utilize it to the best of its ability.

If you like this post kindly comment below and do share your response. Thanks for reading.