Morris wrote the program which won the game – it utilized a Friden EC-130 August clever adaptive strategy coded in just 44 instructions. Released Incidentally, Morris was also the August 1964 John Gilmore father of the author of the 1988 Morris Worm [Nov 2]. The Friden Calculating Machine Born: Aug. ??, 1955; Company was probably the first Darwin has sometimes been York, Pennsylvania to release a fully transistorized called the first software virus, desktop calculator, the EC-130. Gilmore was one of the founders but it only let its programs It sold for $2,200, about three of the Electronic Frontier ‘infect’ each other inside the times the price of comparable Foundation (EFF) [July 10]. He game. Probably, the first true electromechanical calculators of also set up the Cypherpunks virus was the Creeper [March the time. mailing list, and the USENET 15] from 1971. [Jan 29] alt.* hierarchy, which Darwin later inspired the became the home for topics that development of Core War [Aug mainstream USENET refused to 5]. handle, such as sex, drugs, and gourmet cooking. Gilmore co-authored the Bootstrap Protocol (RFC 951) The RAND Tablet with Bill Croft in 1985, which evolved into DHCP, the method Reported by which Ethernet [May 22] and August 1964 wireless networks assign an IP A Friden EC-130 at The National address to a device. The RAND Tablet was a graphical input device Museum of Computing at He worked on several GNU developed by the RAND Bletchley Park. Photo by Nigel projects, including the GNU Corporation [Oct 1], inspired by Tout. Debugger in the early 1990s, J. C. . Licklider’s [March 11] GNU Radio in 1998, and the “Man-Machine Symbiosis” paper, It was designed by Robert “Bob” Flash movie player in and coincidentally financially Appleby Ragen to use 2005. supported by Licklider as germanium diodes and Outside of GNU, he supported director of ARPA’S IPTO [Oct 1]. transistors, but employed magnetostrictive delay line EFF’s Deep Crack [Feb 23], and ARPA ended up funding the the Micropolis city building memory rather than transistors construction of about a dozen to save money. It also abjured game, which is essentially the devices which were original version of SimCity [Feb binary logic, instead plumping subsequently utilized in various for a decimal system based on 2] but with a GNU General Public ARPA projects. Each one cost License. consecutive electrical pulses, around $18,000 to build, which where the count equalled the A quote: “The Net interprets was considered a bargain- digit being represented. censorship as damage and basement price at the time. However, it was the first device routes around it” The funding also supported to use Reverse Polish Notation early research on Sketchpad [Jan (RPN), preceding the better 7], under the auspices of RAND’s known HP 9100 [Oct 4] by some Darwin Invented GRAIL Project. GRAIL stood for five years. "Graphical Input Language", and The EC-130 wasn’t the first August 1961 employed the tablet to edit and electronic calculator – that was run programs drawn as the ANITA MARK VII [Oct 2] The Darwin game was designed flowcharts. by Victor A. Vyssotsky, Robert from 1961 – but the ANITA still Morris Sr., and M. Douglas The RAND tablet wasn't the first used vacuum tubes and Nixie McIlroy [April 3], and device of this type – that was tubes, so wasn’t “solid-state”. implemented by McIlroy on an probably the Stylator [Dec 9] Even after discounting the IBM 7090 [Nov 30] at Bell Labs. from 1957. ANITA, there's still some debate The game pitted users' over whether the EC-130 was programs against each other in a the first fully transistorized survival-of-the-fittest mêlée. A desktop calculator; two other program ained to eliminate all contenders are the CS-10A the other programmed [March 00] from Japan and the opponents, while also being the IME 84rc [May 00] from Italy. most prolific replicator.

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industry later dubbed the S-100 The Sumerian The “Hello [Aug 28]. The card proved wildly Game World!” of successful. A full , the Vector August 1964 Algorithms 1, using the Z80 chip [March 9], "The Sumerian Game" is a text- August 1976 was introduced in 1977. It based strategy game of land and shipped in two case colors, resource management. It's set in The paper, “The Early green or orange (although the around 3500 BC, and the player Development of Programming latter was arguably closer to acts as the ruler of the city of Languages,” by Donald E. Knuth “rust”). A clever attempt to Lagash in Sumer over three time [Jan 10] and Luis Trabb Pardo, utilize orange circuit boards to periods with increasingly examined several of the earliest match the case went awry when complex economic problems. programming languages, the first batch of fifty came back including a comparison of how pink. It was developed as part of a well they could implement the Sales peaked in 1982, but project between the Board of same algorithm. This Trabb Cooperative Educational faltered soon afterwards. The Pardo–Knuth algorithm is introduction of the IBM PC in Services (BOCES) of Westchester sometimes termed the “Hello County, and IBM in [Aug 15] 1981 radically changed World!” of algorithms, despite the market and many smaller 1964–1966 on the use of the fact that it doesn't print that computer-based simulations in players, including Vector message; for that see [July 21]. Graphic, lost out. schools. Instead it reads in 11 numbers,

It was designed by Mabel Addis, storing them in a sequence-like then a fourth-grade teacher, and data structure. The numbers are programmed in [Feb reversed and a function applied RSA Trapdoor 26] by William McKay for the to each one. If the function call IBM 7090 [Nov 30]. Commands triggers an overflow then the August 1977 user is alerted, otherwise the were entered and results Martin Gardner's [Oct 21] final result is printed. printed on an IBM 1050 “Mathematical Games” column teleprinter. The intention is not to do in Scientific American published The first version of the game anything particularly useful, but one of its most famous articles: was played by a group of 30 rather to test a range of “A new kind of cipher that would sixth-grade students in Aug. programming features, including take millions of years to break”. arrays, indexing, functions, 1964, and a revised version It introduced RSA cryptography subroutines, I/O, conditionals featuring added audiovisual [Feb 00], by Ron Rivest [May 6], and iteration. elements was tried out on a Adi Shamir [July 6], and Leonard second group in 1966. A large number of Adleman) [Dec 31]. The RSA As a result, Addis has been implementations can be found at name was constructed from the called the first female video the "Rosetta Code" website, with last names of the three authors. the shortest being just five lines game designer. They had sent their MIT memo long, and coded in Julia (a to Gardner, who was so Doug Dyment recreated a functional language). impressed that he broke his version of the first part of the game in 1968 coded in FOCAL. usual rule of planning his This game was expanded by column several months in David H. Ahl [May 17] as Vector Graphic advance, and wrote it up for publication immediately. Hamurabi (a misspelling of August 1976 Hammurabi, the Babylonian The idea is to take two king), and appeared in his "101 Vector Graphic was an early very large prime numbers, p and Basic Computer Games" book in microcomputer company, q, and form their product n == 1973. founded in August 1976 by Lore p*q. It will be almost impossible Jerry Pournelle [Aug 7] recalled and Robert Harp and Carole Ely. to factor n, certainly in any in 1989 that "half the people I The business was mainly located reasonable amount of time. p know wrote a Hammurabi on two desks in a spare and q must be kept secret, and program back in the ; for bedroom at the Harp residence. will become the “private” key for many, it was the first program However, they tested computers decrypting a message. However, they'd ever written in their at a separate facility (the dining it’s safe to reveal n, which lives". room table) and kept packing becomes part of the "public" key. materials in a shower cubicle. Anyone wishing to send a secret

Their first product was a message encrypts it with the memory card for the MITS Altair public key, but only the person 8800's [Dec 19] 100-pin with the private key can decrypt expansion bus, which the it.

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The column offered a prize of company even existed. Vulcan's $100 to anyone who could VT100 Released development began when unscramble a message August 1978 Wayne Ratliff needed a database encrypted with a public key of application to help him make 129 digits (p and q were 64-digit The VT100 was a very popular picks for the football pools. It and 65-digit primes RS-232 [May 00] based dumb was written in Intel 8080 [April respectively). terminal, built by DEC [Aug 23]. 18] assembly, and ran on CP/M. Given the title of the column, it George Tate and Hal Lashlee was assumed that no one would licensed Vulcan from Ratliff in crack it anytime soon, but in 1981, and needed to change the 1994, a team led by Derek name, because there was Atkins, Michael Graff, Arjen already an OS called Vulcan. Hal Lenstra, and Paul Leyland, in Pawluk, who worked for their collaboration with hundreds of advertising agency, suggested volunteers online, used a “brute “dBASE”, and also that the first force” approach to break it. The release be numbered “II” so it message is: THE MAGIC WORKS would be perceived as being ARE SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE. more reliable. In 1997, it was revealed that Pawluk also came up with the Clifford Cocks, an English company’s name, by combining A DEC VT100 terminal. Photo mathematician working for the Tate’s last name with the by Jason Scott. CC BY-SA 4.0. UK intelligence agency GCHQ, fictitious Ashton surname, had developed an equivalent purportedly because “Ashton- system in 1973, but it had been One of its novelties was the Tate” was easier to pronounce kept classified. ability to draw text anywhere on than “Lashlee-Tate”. Contrary to the screen, and the keyboard a popular story, “Ashton” was included cursor keys to easily not selected because George move around the screen. Tate had a pet parrot named The COSMAC Elf Its 'graphic rendering' abilities Ashton (although he later did Aug 1976 included blinking, bold text, purchase a parrot). reverse video, and underlining. By the late 1980s, dBASE had began It also supported a box-drawing cornered nearly 70% of the PC publishing a four-part series of character set containing various database market. But dBASE IV articles by Joseph Weisbeckerd pseudo-graphics that made it proved to be slow, filled with describing how to construct the fairly easy to render dialog bugs, and within a year, it’s COSMAC Elf, one of the very first boxes and forms. market share had plummeted to single-board PCs. It was based the low 40%'s. around the RCA 1802 8-bit It was also one of the first [Sept 4]. Indeed, terminals to support ANSI In July 1991, Ashton-Tate the Elf was essentially a home- escape codes, which helped merged with Borland [two built version of RCA’s them become the de facto entries hence], which eventually demonstration board for the standard for terminal emulators. discontinued dBASE in favor of 1802. To the delight of sysadmins, the its own database products. The basic Elf lacked ROMs, so VT100's level of maintainability programs had to be entered via was excellent, and they could be toggle switches and a push mostly disassembled without Hobbyscoop button. Of course, enhanced kits the use of special tools. soon became popular, sold by Other influential terminals from Broadcasts Netronics and Electronics the days were the through ads appearing on the Teletype Model 33 ASR [April August 1981 back pages of various electronics 00], and the ADM-3A [May 19]. The idea of broadcasting magazines. software over the airwaves was In August 2006, "Nuts and Volts" pioneered in the Netherlands in magazine published a project to Ashton-Tate 1978 by the Hobbyscoop radio build the “Cosmac Elf 2000,” show. A program’s binary was based on the original Elf, with Formed transmitted as 1,200 and 2,400 some newer and easier to find Hz audio signals in a format components August 1980 based on the Kansas City Standard [Nov 7]. No special The Ashton-Tate company was equipment was needed to best known for its dBASE receive the code – just a radio database application, which was cassette recorder. first released in 1978 with the name Vulcan before the

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Hobbyscoop’s software three Danish founders retained The system had been developed broadcasting gained momentum the majority of the shares in the by Van Suwannukul, the (or perhaps increased in company. Also, Borland’s first company's founder , so he could frequency ?) in 1979 when the office in the US was situated write his thesis in Thai (his Dutch TV Academy started over an automobile repair shop, native language) on an IBM PC televising a programming course and the main development office [Aug 12]. called “ 2”. and remained in Denmark for most Hobbyscoop helped out by of the 1980’s. The HGC combined IBM’s text- only display standard with a broadcasting the show's Borland hit the jackpot with its bitmapped graphics mode, software. first US product, Turbo Pascal which meant that both high One drawback was that released on [Nov 20] 1983. Then quality text and graphics could Hobbyscoop had to transmit in [June 00] 1984, it launched be displayed at the same time. four slightly different binaries Sidekick, a very popular time For example, it was possible to for each program so that it could organizer, notebook, and draw a Lotus 1-2-3 [Jan 26] run on the popular computer calculator utility. Borland’s spreadsheet at ‘high’ resolution, systems of the day: the Tandy implementations of C [May 18] together with graphs generated TRS-80 [Aug 3], Apple II [June and C++ were the top selling from that spreadsheet. 5], Commodore PET [April 16], compilers for those languages in Such was the popularity of the and [April 20]. the late 1980s. HGC that most mainstream IBM The Hobbyscoop’s producers, By the mid 1980s the company PC programs of the time, such as Hans Janssen and Klaas Robers, was so successful that it had the Lotus 1-2-3, AutoCAD [Nov 29], solved that problem in 1980 by third largest exhibit stand at the and PageMaker [July 15], came creating BASICODE, a unified 1985 West Coast Computer with their own drivers to standard for BASIC. BASICODE Faire after IBM and AT&T. support the Hercules graphics was introduced in August 1981 mode. In September 1991, Borland on the Dutch TV show Horizon, acquired Ashton-Tate [two and regular BASICODE entries hitherto] for $440 transmissions began in 1982 on million, which proved Dutch radio. Other broadcasters Rogue in 4.2BSD disastrous. Both companies’ followed suit, including the BBC, product lines stalled and August 1983 the West German WDR, and the Ashton-Tate’s dBASE never East German Radio DDR. Rogue was a dungeon crawling successfully made the transition game coded by Michael Toy and An alternative approach for to MS Windows. Glenn Wichman in 1980 with broadcasting code was used by Kahn was ousted by Borland’s later contributions by Ken the UK TV programme ‘4 Arnold. It was developed on Computer Buffs’, which drew a board of directors in 1995 when the company was worth just UNIX as a freely-distributed pulsating patch on the TV screen one-fifteenth of its pre-merger executable, but wasn't open- [Feb 11]. valuation of $7 billion. source originally [Feb 3]. It

became extremely popular among college students in the Borland 1980s after it was included with Hercules Graphics 4.2BSD [March 9]. August 1981 Card Released An overhead ‘graphical’ view Borland Software began as the (drawn using ASCII) Danish company, Midas ApS, August 1982 distinguished it from earlier text founded by Niels Jensen, Ole The Hercules Graphics Card descriptions in games such as Henriksen, and Mogens Glad in (HGC) was released in 1982 by Colossal Cave Adventure [March 1979. The company changed its Hercules Computer Technology, 11] and the original [May name to Borland when it started and quickly became 27]. Also, the dungeon levels, operating out of Ireland, as a UK synonymous with monsters, and treasures were company. microcomputer graphics in the procedurally generated on each play through, so that no two The positive response to the 1980s. games were quite the same. company’s products at the CP/M-82 show in San Rogue inspired a number of Francisco showed them that similar games such as it needed a US presence to NetHack [July 28] and the reach the American market. “Island of ” [Dec 15]. This led to Philippe Kahn [March 16] joining the company, as the chairman, president, and CEO of An Original Hercules Graphics Borland Inc. However, the Card. © Rainer Knäpper. CC BY-SA 2.0 de.

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didn't use that term, or even continuously running, live VHDL Made Public refer to the Web, which was still website. in its infancy back then. There August 1985 For more Internet connectivity were also earlier "web cameras", firsts, see [Sept 1], [Nov 22], VHDL is used to model and such as the Trojan Room Coffee [Dec 3], [?? 1982] verify digital systems (typically Pot which began broadcasting on field-programmable gate on [Nov 22] 1993, and the arrays) before a gallant engineer FishCam [next entry]. starts the expensive and time- The Hampster consuming process of burning his designs permanently onto Dance hardware. The language is based on Ada [Dec 10], with added August 1998 support for concurrent dataflow The "Hampster Dance" website and the propagation of time and was created by Deidre LaCarte, a signal strengths. Canadian art student, during a VHDL stands for “VHSIC competition between her best friend and sister to see who Hardware Description A Connectix QuickCam. Photo could generate the most Web Language”, and VHSIC is short by macbroadcast. CC BY-SA traffic. for “Very High Speed Integrated 2.0 Circuit”. The site consisted of a single VHDL began in July 1983, when page with animated GIFs of four The Quickcam line was sold to three companies (Intermetics, hamsters, repeated in rows, and Logitech in 1998, and went on to IBM, and ) a tune that looped endlessly. It become one of the world’s most won the US DoD tender to was intended as an homage to recognizable webcam brands. In develop a new hardware her pet hamster, Hampton October 2010, it was included in description language. Hamster. Time Magazine’s Top 100 In the early 1990s, a “languages Gadgets of all Time. The 9-second audio clip was a war” raged between VHDL and sped-up sample of Roger Miller’s Verilog [Dec 19], with the “Whistle Stop”, a song from the battlegrounds being strong vs. opening credits of the 1973 weak typing, Ada-like vs. C-like The Fishcam Disney cartoon, “Robin Hood”. notation, and determinism vs. August 1994 Until March 1999, the site only non-determinism. The languages garnered some 800 visits but, eventually called a truce, and While working on the Netscape without warning, it shot up to now peacefully coexist, often browser [March 25] in 1994, approximately 60,000 views in happily working together in the Lou Montulli II [Sept 8] setup four days. Three months later, it same design process. the Fishcam, a webcam pointing broke 17 million views. It had at a fish . It became the become one of the early Internet second live webcam feed on the memes. Internet, after the Trojan Room Quickcam Coffee Pot [Nov 22]. Pressing For more memes [Nov 15], see Released Ctrl+Alt+F in the early versions [April 21], [Jan 5], [July 27]. of the Netscape browser would August 1994 open the Fishcam page. The Quickcam was developed by The original camera was an SGI Jon Garber at Connectix indycam attached to a SGI Indy Corp. [June 27] for the Mac. It workstation. It produced a 640 produced images with 16 shades by 480 pixel image, which took of gray at a resolution of nearly 20 seconds to capture, 320×240 pixels, and could overlay with text, and post to the record video at about 15 frames Web. per second. Over time, the fish tank grew Garber wanted to call it the from 40 gallons to 600, the ‘Mac-camera’, but was vetoed by camera was upgraded, and the the marketing department, who Fishcam ended up outlasting the wisely saw the possibility of it Netscape browser. After a short one day becoming a cross- break, Montulli revived the site platform product. in 2009 with a new tank (at http://www.fishcam.com). It quickly became the first The Fishcam has remained widely marketed webcam, operational since then, although its original advertising becoming the longest, nearly

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