1973 – Lexis launched Computerized Legal Searching. It was limited to searching the full text of cases in Ohio and New York.
1978 – The patent expired on Swiss inventor George de Mestral’s invention of a hook and loop fastener he called Velcro. Soon children everywhere no longer had to learn to tie shoes quite so early in life.
1980 – Microsoft’s First Hardware Product
Microsoft announces its first hardware product, the Z80 SoftCard. The SoftCard is a microprocessor that plugs into the Apple II personal computer allowing it to run programs written for the CP/M operating system. CP/M was a very popular OS for early personal computers along with much of the software written for it. In particular, the word processor WordStar is so popular that people will purchase the SoftCard and a companion “80-column card” just to run it on the Apple II. At one point, the SoftCard product will bring in about half of Microsoft’s total revenue. It will be discontinued in 1986 as CP/M’w popularity waned.
1987 – IBM PS/2 Released
IBM releases a flurry of new items on this day. The most notable was the IBM PS/2 – Their first 80386 system using a 3.5 floppy (720kb or 1.44 MB discs), MFM hard drive, PC-DOS and OS/2. Multiple models were released, including the Model 60 (10MHz 386 processor). Hard drives went up to 115 MB and would cost you $6,995 for the basic model, to $10,995.
IBM also introduced the VGA in Model 50, the Multicolor Graphics Array (MCGA), high resolution graphics card for up to 1024x765 in 256 colors – Called the 8541/A and it’s Micro Channel Architecture (MCA). IBM released PC-DOS 3.3 and their Operating System of OS/2.
2014 – Amazon announced Fire TV, it’s set-top TV box to deliver streaming TV shows and video games. It also including voice commands spoken into a Bluetooth remote control.
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