In 1959 – Luna 1, the first spacecraft to reach the Moon, was launched by the USSR.
In 1979 – Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston incorporated Software Arts for the purpose of developing VisiCalc, the world’s first spreadsheet program.
In 2004 – NASA’s Stardust spacecraft successfully flew past Comet Wild 2, collecting samples it brought back to Earth two years later.
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In 1939 – In a garage in Palo Alto, California, William Hewlett and David Packard founded Hewlett-Packard a little company that made audio oscillators– and later TouchPads.
In 1983 – A new Internet and Transmission Control Protocol (Yep called IP/TCP by some at the time, weird I know) went into effect on the ARPANet, replacing the Network Control Protocol. The result was a new ARPA Internet combining ARPA hosts of the time.
In 1985 – The Nordic Research Network NORDUnet registered the first domain name NORDU.NET.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
The DTNS team members make their best guesses at what will happen in tech in 2016.
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If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
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In 1923 – The chimes of Big Ben were broadcast on radio for the first time by the BBC, beginning a new year’s tradition.
In 1938 – Cops in Indianapolis put Indiana University professor Rolla Harger’s drunkometer to its first practical New Year’s Eve test as a breath analyzer. Suspected drunks blew into a balloon and the air was mixed with a chemical solution that turned darker the more alcohol was present. The more portable Breathalyzer replaced the drunkometer in 1958.
In 2001 – Microsoft provided its last day of support for Windows 95 making it officially “obsolete” according to the Microsoft Lifecycle policy, after only six years.
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We review predictions by Tom Merritt, Justin Young, Patrick Beja and Jennie Josephson from last year to see how well we did. Hint: Not very well. But that’s all part of the fun.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
In 1873 – A number of gentlemen in New York City founded the American Metrological Society, feeling that a change to the Metric System was needed by civilized nations. More than 100 years later they’re defunct and gallons, miles, and Fahrenheit rule the US.
In 1913 – Dr William David Coolidge received his patent for improvements in tungsten and methods for making filaments in incandescent lights. It made light bulbs last a lot longer. Too bad that in 1928, GE got a court to declare the patent was not an invention.
In 1924 – Astronomer Edwin Hubble announced that he had found stars in the spiral nebula Andromeda, and using Leavitt’s formula measured them as 860,000 light years away proving Andromeda was a separate galaxy. He would go on to find a dozen more galaxies.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
We chat with a few listeners from our audience about why they like tech and what they do with it.
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Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
In 1949 – TV station KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut became the first ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.
In 1952 – The first hearing aid using a junction transistor went on sale, the model 1010 was manufactured by the Sonotone Corporation in Elmsford, New York, US.
In 1959 – Physicist Richard Feynman gave a talk called “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom”, in which he suggested it should be possible to make nanoscale machines that can arrange atoms the way we want.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.
We chat with some of our top Patreon supporters about how DTNS is doing and where it’s headed in 2016.
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
In 1886 – Josephine Garis Cochrane of Shelbyville, Illinois received the first US patent for a commercially successful dishwasher. Dishes fit in compartments in a wheel that turned inside a copper boiler. Her company eventually became KitchenAid.
In 1895 – The first commercial presentation of the famous Lumière Cinématographe took place at the Salon Indien of the Grand Café in Paris. Invited payees got to see ten films.
In 1969 – In Helsinki, Finland Nils and Anna Torvalds gave birth to their son Linus. He would start out dabbling on his grandfather’s Commodore Vic-20 and end up developing the open source Linux operating system.
In 2005 – The European Space Agency and the Galileo Joint launched GIOVE-A the first test-bed satellite for the Galileo geo-location system.
Like Tech History? Get the illustrated Year in Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.