Today in Tech History – June 11

1978 – Speak & Spell

             Texas Instruments Inc. introduced Speak & Spell, a talking learning aid for ages 7 and up. Its debut marked the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. Speak & spell utilized linear predictive coding to formulate a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample based on previous input. It transformed digital information processed through a filter into synthetic speech and could store more than 100 seconds of linguistic sounds.

1980 – Steve Ballmer Joins Microsoft

             Otherwise known as “The 24^th Man” (to join Microsoft, that is), Steve Ballmer came on as Microsoft’s first business manager. He made only 50k and stock options. Of course 30 years later, Steve succeeded Bill Gates as CEO of the Redmond based Software Company.

1998 – Compaq purchases DEC for $9 million

             DEC was acquired by Compaq, in what was at that time the largest merger in the history of the computer industry.

2007 – Apple releases Safari for Windows

             At the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference, Jobs announced Safari 3 for Mac OS X v10.5, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

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