Today in Tech History – April 10

1710 – The Statue of Anne entered into force in Great Britain. The statute ended the practice of copyright being enforced by the Stationer’s Guide under the licensing act and for the first time granted copyright to authors.

1943 - ENIAC Project Started

                 Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania begin work on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer(ENIAC) , which when completed, will become the first general-purpose fully electronic computer, capable of making calculations one thousand times faster than any other prior computer. The work will be carried out in secret since the computer is intended for military purposes, though it won’t actually be completed until after World War II ended. ENIAC will be unveiled to the public in February 1946.

1981 – Shuttle Launch Delayed
            During preparations for the maiden voyage of the Columbia space shuttle, NASA engineers were monitoring a glitch in launch on April 12 proceeded with no further setbacks. Columbia landed safely at Edwards Air Force the shuttle’s computer system. Synchronization between the main and backup AP-101 flight control computers was found to be the culprit behind the bug. Two gears were discovered to be out-of-sync – and repair would take at least a day to resolve the problem. Liftoff was re-scheduled for two days later, and countdown and Base in Mojave Desert after orbiting Earth 34 times. NASA’s five space shuttle each housed 4 IBM AP-101s were built around transistor-transistor logic (TTL) semiconductor circuits and used the same architecture as the IBM System/360 family of computers. An earlier version of the AP-101 was first announced by IBM in 1966 as the 4Pi computer.

2003 – British Airways and Air France announced the retirement of all Concorde supersonic jets. After a quarter century of supersonic speed, passengers in the 21^st century would go slower than those who flew in the late 20^th century.

2003 – First Blu-Ray Player
              Sony Blu-Ray players hit store shelves for the first time. The BDZ-S77 was the first model, but didn’t sell too well because of the $3800 price tag attached to it. Add to it no movies available in the Blu-Ray format just yet. In fact, the first Blu-Ray movies didn’t hit shelves until June 20, 2006. 50 First Dates, the Fifth Element, Hitch, Terminator and Charlies Angles: Full Throttle was the first titles to be released.

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