and 25 years hard-labor as home video gaming until the director of the MIT AI Lab [Sept crash of 1983 [July 1]. 00] (now part of MIT’s CSAIL Feb. 5th In 1976, Bushnell turned down Lab) from 1972 to 1997. His an offer to invest in Apple: a current research includes the mere $50,000 for a third of the promotion of a new field, GTS Time Signal company. Steve Jobs [Feb 24] Computational Politics Feb. 5, 1924; 9:30pm and Steve Wozniak [Aug 11] had His Ph.D. supervisor was Marvin worked at Atari on the game The Greenwich Time Signal Minsky [Aug 9] who Winston "Breakout" [May 13]. (GTS), popularly known as "the recalled seeing three times: To expand Atari’s business, pips" in the UK, is a series of six “Once to give him a proposal, Bushnell needed investment, short tones transmitted at one- once to see if I was doing and persuaded Warner second intervals by BBC radio anything useful, and once to Communications to buy the stations. Their broadcasting hand him my thesis.” company in Aug. 1977. Warner began on this day, originally Winston succeeded Minsky as and Bushnell didn’t work well controlled by two clocks located the director of the AI Lab, who together, and he was forced out at the Royal Greenwich left to help found the Media Lab in Nov 1978. Observatory; two were used in [Dec 1]. case of a breakdown. An online version of Winston's They were the idea of Frank AI course is among the top-ten Hope-Jones, a well-known most visited subjects offered by amateur radio enthusiast; the MIT’s OpenCourseWare [April Astronomer Royal, Sir Frank 26]. Watson Dyson; and the head of the BBC, John Reith. The pips replaced a time signal played before the news at 7pm and 9pm Nolan Kay since the BBC started in 1922. The signal initially took the form Bushnell of the announcer playing "Westminster Chimes" on a Born: Feb. 5, 1943; piano, but was replaced by a set Clearfield, Utah of bells which required less Bushnell is one of the fathers of innate musical talent. the video game industry; the Nolan Bushnell (2013). On Feb. 5 1990 (the pips' 66th inventor of Pong [Nov 29], and Photo by Tech Cocktail. CC anniversary), the BBC began founder of Atari [June 27]. BY-SA 2.0. employing its own atomic clock Bushnell fell in love with located in the basement of His most recent company is Spacewar! [May 17] at the Broadcasting House, BrainRush, which applies video University of Utah, and he and synchronized with the National game technology to educational Ted Dabney [May 2] formed Physical Lab’s [Oct 1] clock and software. He's also on the Syzygy in 1969 with the the GPS time signal [Feb 22]. advisory board of Anti- intention of producing a AgingGames.com, but apart from When a leap second needs to be Spacewar! clone. The result, Atari, he's probably best known included, it's heard as a seventh "Computer Space" ([Oct 15] for founding the “Chuck E. pip, which often leads to 1971), had sales exceeding $3 Cheese” restaurant chain. confusion and complaints from million. distraught listeners. A more Bushnell’s Law: “Games which Bushnell and Dabney decided to modern solution, utilized by are easy to learn and difficult to incorporate Syzygy in 1972, but Google servers, is to implement master are the most rewarding.” discovered, amazingly, that the a leap “smear”, which extends name was already taken; they A quote: “Everyone who has the lengths of a few seconds. quickly switched to Atari. ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out Bushnell was responsible for of the shower, dries off, and does Patrick Henry hiring Al Alcorn [Jan 1], and as a something about it that makes a training exercise had him work difference.” up a simple game called Pong. Winston The resulting arcade machine In fact, Bushnell seems to prefer Born: Feb. 5, 1943; was a great success, but the hot tubs to showers: Al Alcorn Peoria, Illinois home console version sold remembers Bushnell holding spectacularly. It sparked the Atari meetings in a hot tub setup Winston's long career in AI, beginning of the video game in his office. includes an influential early industry with Atari becoming textbook on the topic (1977), the leader in both arcade and

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receiving a call from high-school research as tended to reduce her William Richard friend Andy Hertzfeld [April 6]. role, unfortunately. (Rich) Stevens She created the Chicago, Geneva, New York, Cairo, and Monaco Born: Feb. 5, 1951; fonts, the dog that became MapQuest Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia Clarus the Dogcow [Oct 15], the Died: Sept. 1, 1999 Happy Mac (the smiling Launched Stevens was the author of a computer icon that welcomed Feb. 5, 1996 seminal series of books on UNIX users at startup) [Aug 23], and [Oct 15] and TCP/IP [Sept 9] the Command key symbol on the MapQuest was the first giant of written during the 1990's. His keyboard (based on a Swedish Internet mapping. It began in three volume work, “TCP/IP campground sign meaning 1967 as the cartographic Illustrated”, was so authoritative “interesting feature”). services division of R.R. that it was used as a reference Donnelley & Sons, which by members of the Internet produced road maps for gas Engineering Task Force (IETF stations. The division became [Jan 16]). more computer-oriented under the leadership of Barry Glick, He once commented, “I really and was spun off in the early- believe that my background is 1990's as an independent fundamental to the success of company, GeoSystems Global ‘UNIX Network Programming’ Corp. On this day, it launched and my other books. That is, I MapQuest.com, and the future was not one of the developers at looked bright. Berkeley [March 9] or AT&T, so the writing of UNP was not a MapQuest was acquired in 2000 ‘memory dump.’ Everything that Mac typefaces designed c.1983–84 by America Online [Oct 2], but is in the book I had to dig out of by Susan Kare. Prepared by its ubiquity in the map domain somewhere and understand Chmod007. CC BY-SA 3.0. was short-lived. Google Maps myself.” debuted on [Feb 8] 2005, followed by similar ventures by Stevens background was in other large tech companies – aerospace, not computer In 2015 the Museum of Modern Apple [Sept 19], Nokia, and science, and he was a part-time Art in NYC acquired her sketch Microsoft. flight instructor during the notebooks for the Mac icons. 1970's. He also had long careers As of May 2015, when it was She once remarked that “bitmap in astronomy and health-care purchased by Verizon graphics are like mosaics and software. Communications [July 28], needlepoint and other pseudo- MapQuest still had the second- In “Wayne’s World 2” (1993), digital art forms, all of which I highest share of the US online Garth’s girlfriend is seen had practiced before going to mapping market, behind Google carrying a copy of “UNIX Apple.” Maps [Feb 8], but this only Network Programming.” Stevens amounted to a 25% share. discovered this himself when he After leaving Apple, her projects took his 13-year-old son to see at Microsoft included the card the movie. His son grabbed his deck for Windows 3.0 Solitaire arm and said, “Dad, that’s your [May 18], and various design Victoria’s Secret book!” However, Garth only elements for the OS [May 22]. identifies the book as: “That’s a Many of her icons, such as those Webcast UNIX book. Cool.” for Notepad and several Control Panels, remained essentially Feb. 5, 1999 unchanged until Windows XP [Oct 25]. Of her "crossing of For the first time, the lingerie Susan Kare enemy lines", she has merely company, "Victoria’s Secret," said: “It was just fun to work in broadcast their annual fashion Born: Feb. 5, 1954; color.” show as a webcast. It wasn’t the lthaca, NY first webcast [July 17], but it was Kale has sometimes been called the first major one, attracting Kare was the primary designer the “Betsy Ross of the PC”. Ross around 1.5 million views from of the user interface graphics, is best known for the story that 90 countries. The event was bitmap fonts, icons, and she convinced George organized by Ken Weil marketing materials for the Washington to change the shape (management) and Tim Plzak original Apple Mac [Jan 24]; her of the stars on the first American (IT), and lasted 18 exciting business card read “HI flag. She suggested that it was minutes. Macintosh Artist”. She had easier and speedier to cut out joined Apple in 1982 after five-pointed stars than six- Despite the name, the webcast pointed ones. Recent historical was very far from secret – large

2 ads had been run in The Wall Several similar lawsuits were Street Journal, The New York filed during the early 2000's, Times, and other upstanding often attached to GTA III or publications. However, it was “GTA: Vice City”, but failed due the commercial shown during to the games being labeled the 1999 Super bowl that caused “Mature” under the ESRB [Sept the most frenzy. Within minutes, 16] ratings scheme. a million people logged onto the For more GTA problems, see "Victoria’s Secret" website – [June 9] and [Aug 4]. causing it to crash. An example of performance anxiety perhaps? Some reviewers were unhappy with the show since the network congestion meant that the images were rather jerky, which wasn’t what the viewers were after, apparently. It was inevitable really since Broadcast.com’s servers could only handle between 250,000 and 500,000 simultaneous users. The show returned to network TV in 2001.

Game NTensity Feb. 5, 2004 The “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” episode called “Game” was televised for the first time on this day. It was written by Patrick Harbinson and directed by David Platt. Two teenagers run over a women in their car, rob her, then beat her to death, imitating a scene in their favorite video game called “Ntensity.” When caught, the two miscreants use video game addiction as their defense. There's no such game in the real world, but it was a pretty obvious stand-in for “Grand Theft Auto III” [Oct 21]. However, the episode missed a trick since it debuted before the “Hot Coffee” [June 9] debacle of 2005. Probably the inspiration for the storyline came from a sickening real incident in June 2003 when two teens decided to start shooting at passing vehicles after playing GTA III. One person was killed, and another seriously injured. A group of families filed a $246 million lawsuit against Sony, Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar Games, and Wal-Mart.

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