Tech History Today – April 15, 2013

In 1452 – Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest artist, inventor and engineer in history, was born near the Tuscan town of Vinci.

In 1892 – The Edison General Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Company merged to form the General Electric Company, manufacturer of dynamos and electric lights.

In 1977 – The first West Coast Computer Faire took place in Palo Alto. The star of the show would turn out to be the Apple II. The computer featured a built-in keyboard, 16 kilobytes of memory, BASIC, and eight expansion slots all for $1,300.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

2 Responses to “Tech History Today – April 15, 2013”

  1. Warren Foley

    Tom Merritt, what about the concept of wanting to build a watch is hard to understand? Question – Do you wear a wrist watch? Do you own a Swill Made high quality watch? Do you workout? Do you use a watch to workout? I ask these questions because you fail to understand that there are people who love wristwatches. So many that collectively they command a multibillion dollar industry. Watch technology is just as cutting edge as chip design. It really depends on what you are willing to invest to acquire a product. Example, Seiko currently makes a GPS/atomic clock sync’d high quality watch that retails around $6000. Good luck getting one for that price. Why? The supply is limited and watch collectors around the world want one. I personally own over $50,000 in high quality mechanical swiss made watches. I workout with a Garmin 405 GPS/heart monitor enables training device. And yes I own a bunch of Timex watches…..There is money in watches. Try to acquire a Louis Vuitton timepiece, you will need 5 figures to get one. Hopefully, this will help you understand why tech companies are looking at making watches. What ever they make will have to be unique and out perform anything coming from Switzerland. Otherwise, it will fail.