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. R. Licklider’s [March 11] GNU Radio in 1998, and the “Man-Machine Symbiosis” paper, It was designed by Robert “Bob” Gnash 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. 1 industry later dubbed the S-100 The Sumerian The “Hello [Aug 28]. The card proved wildly Game World!” of successful. A full microcomputer, 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, New York 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 FORTRAN [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). version of the first part of the impressed that he broke his 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 basic 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 1970s; 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. 2 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.