She first met Babbage on June 5, 1833, and two weeks later Joseph F. Ossanna Dec. 10th visited his studio to see the Born: Dec. 10, 1928, Difference Engine [June 14]. She Detroit, Michigan first heard of his ideas for an Died: Nov. 28, 1977 Augusta Ada King, Analytical Engine at a dinner party in Nov. 1834. Ossanna was behind a Bell Labs' proposal to replace an aging Countess of Babbage called her “The PDP-7 [Dec 00] with a brand Enchantress of Number”. Lovelace new PDP-11 [Jan 5] in the Patent (née Gordon, or perhaps Byron) department. Theat was all a smokescreen: the real motive Born: Dec. 10, 1815; Allan Marquand was to allow the nascent UNIX London, UK group [Oct 15] to move their OS Died: Nov. 27, 1852 Born: Dec. 10, 1853; to a more powerful machine. New York City Lovelace is remembered for her Ossanna interest in text Died: Sept. 24, 1924 involvement with Charles formatting led him to create Babbage’s [Dec 26] Analytical During 1881–1882, Marquand Nroff (“new roff”), an Engine [Dec 23], and in built a machine inspired by improvement on the roff text particular for her translation William S. Jevons’ Logic Piano formatter [Nov 6] that was able and expansion [July 10] of a [Sept 1]. It could display all the to print formatted patent paper by Luigi Federico valid implications of a logical applications. By the end of 1971, Menabrea which described a proposition using a mechanism typists were using UNIX during seminar Babbage gave on the constructed from various the day, while Ken Thompson Analytical Engine in the autumn arrangements of rods and levers, [Feb 4], Dennis Ritchie [Sept 9] catgut string, springs, and a bell. and others developed it at night. In 1885-1887, following a In 1973, Ossanna wrote troff to suggestion of Charles Peirce’s drive a Graphic Systems CAT [Sept 10], he designed a logic phototypesetter for producing machine employing electric camera-ready copy. troff stood circuits. It would have had 16 for “typesetter ’roff”, so was electromagnetic elements, with pronounced tee-roff. troff was information represented as the eventually followed by Brian magnetic state of each element. Kernighan's [Jan 1] ditroff A side-effect was his (device independent troff). development of Marquand diagrams – a visual method for simplifying Boolean expressions. Ada Lovelace (1843 or Keith G. Taft 1850). A daguerreotype by He lifted one example of the type Antoine Claudet. of problem the machine could Born: Dec. 10, 1933; have solved from Lewis Carroll’s Cut Bank, Montana of 1840. Her extra notes include “Symbolic Logic” textbook: Died: Aug. 28, 2006 what is considered the first 'program', for generating "No birds, except ostriches, are Taft was a wearable computing Bernouilli's Numbers, and the nine feet high. There are no pioneer in a very specific famous quote: “The Analytical birds in this aviary that belong domain – the creation of Engine weaves Algebraical to anyone but me; No ostrich miniscule, hidden devices to give patterns just as the Jacquard lives on mince pies; I have no him an advantage while playing loom [July 7] weaves flowers birds less than nine feet high." Blackjack in casinos. and leaves.” The device (if built) would have He was working as a chip Her reputation as the first had no trouble in drawing the designer at Raytheon in the programmer, led to the Ada conclusion, “No bird in this early 1970s when he read “Beat programming language [see aviary lives on mince pies.” the Dealer” (1962) by Edward O. entry two pages on] being Thorp [Aug 14]. He decided to Nikola Tesla also developed an named after her. apply his skills to developing a early electronic logic gate wearable computer that could Lovelace also helped Babbage in circuit, which he used to control count cards for him. several of his schemes for his Teleautomaton remote- raising money to build the controlled boat [Dec 8]. Two years later he had a 16-bit Engine. For example, they machine called "George," built considered building a tic-tac-toe around a 4-bit ALU, that machine and even a mechanical weighing around 15 lbs. when chess player. batteries were attached. It was operated by four switches: one

1 above and one below each big on the UNIVAC 1108 [Oct 00] . project supervisor and Mullaney toe, and sent instructions to him Ratliff added a query-by-form project engineer. through LED lights on the inside interface, and recoded it in Intel The finished machine contained of his glasses. The diodes were 8080 [April 18] assembly on 2700 vacuum tubes, 2400 connected to a thin wire that CP/M [June 22] for speed. crystal diodes, and employed was combed into his hair and Vulcan was named, of course, drum memory. It was originally ran down the back of his collar. after Mr. Spock’s home planet in “George” was strapped to his Star Trek [Sept 8]. In October called the ERA Atlas after the mental giant in the “Barnaby” waist with bandages, and the 1979, Ratliff placed a quarter- comic strip. bulkiness hidden by an page ad in BYTE magazine, and oversized coat. was overwhelmed by the It was delivered to the NSA in response. Dec. 1950, and in its first 500 Ken Uston, a blackjack veteran, hours only required 16 hours of heard about Taft’s invention and Ratliff joined Ashton-Tate in unscheduled maintenance, an they became partners. This led 1982 as vice president of new unheard-of level of performance to a new model called “David” technologies, and was the for the time. Its success led ERA which accepted input via a project manager, designer, and to obtain permission from the keyboard strapped to the user's lead programmer for the even Government to offer the thigh and was operated through more successful dBASE III. computer for general sale, now a hole in the trousers’ pocket. Ratliff later admitted that dBASE renamed the ERA 1101. Jack Hill However, the biggest change had made him so busy that he chose "1101" since it was the was that “David” could communicate both with the never got around to using the binary for 13, as in "Task 13". database for its original player and the leader of the After Remington Rand [Jan 25] purpose: “I’ve only had time to blackjack team via a small radio acquired ERA in 1952, it watch two or three football transmitter. The leader's continued to sell the 1101, games”. receiver was concealed in the although now as the “UNIVAC heel of one of his shoes. 1101”. Taft also developed a dental communicator which was linked ERA 1101 to the machine via wires that ran Dec. 10-12 1951 UNIMATE Robot through his mustache and beard, and an early digital camera Frank C. Mullaney presented a Dec. 10, 1954 hidden inside a belt buckle, paper on the design of the ERA The Unimate (short for called the “Belly Telly.” 1101, arguably the first reliable Universal Automation) was the stored program computer built first industrial robot, which in the US. Usually the title of first began its life on this day as a American stored program patent filed by George Devol Cecil Wayne Ratliff computer is awarded to EMCC’s [Feb 20]. Born: Dec. 10, 1946; BINAC [April 4], which was delivered to Northrop in Sept. Ironton, Ohio, Although Devol’s application 1949, but it suffered from major was the first for an industrial Ratliff helped kick start the PC reliability problems. robot arm, the first database market when he commercially available arm released Vulcan in 1978. was the PLANOBOT [March Ashton-Tate [Aug 00] 13] available from 1957 (or bought the software in 1980, perhaps 1955). renaming it dBASE II, and turned it into the most In 1958, Devol and Joseph popular database product of Engelberger founded the 1980's. Unimation, the world’s first robot manufacturing Vulcan wasn’t Ratliff’s first company. Their first Unimate database: he had previously robot was sold to General written a data management Motors in 1961, and was system called MFILE used in deployed to a car plant in NASA’s Viking lander [June The ERA ATLAS (1101), circa 1954. Ewing Township, New Jersey. It 20] project. Photo from NSA's "Center for weighed 4,000 pounds and cost $25,000, but the arm had six Ratliff wrote Vulcan primarily so Cryptologic History". that he could track his bets on fully programmable axes of motion and could handle parts football. The software was based Work on the 1101 had begun in weighing up to 500 lbs. It was on a public domain database 1947 when the Navy awarded originally used to lift hot pieces system called JPLDIS (JPL Engineering Research Associates of metal out of a die-casting Display and Information (ERA [Jan 00]) a contract called machine and stack them. This Systems) written in FORTRAN “Task 13”. Jack Hill became the was a dangerous task for human

2 workers, who could be poisoned been washed with some colored by the fumes or be seriously laundry and had turned green; Pray Mr. Babbage burnt if they were careless. The luckily Brattain had an extra Dec. 10, 1982 robot turned out to be a outfit to lend him. dedicated employee, putting in Maurice Wilkes’ [June 26] play, After the ceremony, the three of an estimated 100,000-hour shift “Pray Mr. Babbage – A character them, together with wives and before its retirement to the study in dramatic form”, was guests, held a late-night Smithsonian. performed at the DEC museum champagne-fueled party to in Marlborough, Mass. The Perhaps the most famous celebrate. They deserved it. center, located in DEC’s MR-2 Unimate appearance was on building, was the forerunner of Johnny Carson's “The Tonight today’s Computer History Show” in 1966. It successfully Museum (CHM [Sept 24]). knocked a golf ball into a cup, Ada Manual poured a beer, and directed the Dec. 10, 1980 The title is a quote from Charles band, although it also managed Babbage’s [Dec 26] to drop the baton at one point, The reference manual for the autobiography, “Passages from and waved an accordion around Ada programming language was the Life of a Philosopher” in a somewhat threatening released on the anniversary of (1864): “On two occasions I manner. Its appearance required Ada Lovelace’s birthday [prev. have been asked, —”Pray, two weeks of rehearsal. entry two pages ago], and Mr. Babbage, if you put into the assigned the number MIL-STD- machine wrong figures, will the A more up-market Unimate 1815 (the "1815" was a right answers come out?" In one found gainful employ at the reference to her year of birth). case a member of the Upper, and prestigious Biltmore Hotel in in the other a member of the Los Angeles in 1967, pouring out Ada was designed for the US Lower, House put this question. I cups of coffee. Department of Defense (DoD) by am not able rightly to apprehend a team led by Jean Ichbiah In 2005, Popular Mechanics the kind of confusion of ideas [March 25] of CII Honeywell magazine selected the Unimate that could provoke such a Bull. It was based on Pascal [Feb as one of its "Top 50 Inventions question." 15] but possessed stronger of the Past 50 Years". typing, object-oriented features, explicit concurrency, message passing, and support for non- Cisco Transistor Nobel determinism. Dec. 10, 1984 Dec. 10, 1956 It was intended to replace over 450 languages then employed by Cisco Systems, currently the Prev: [Oct 3] the DoD in various projects, and world's largest networking Ichbiah declared that within ten hardware company, was John Bardeen [May 23], Walter years, only two languages would founded by Leonard Bosack and Brattain [Feb 10], and William still be tolerated: Ada and Lisp his wife Sandy Lerner, two Shockley [Feb 13] were awarded [April 15]. It never achieved that Stanford sysadmins. the 1956 Nobel Prize for Physics level of ubiquity, but definitely for their work on the transistor Their first product was based on found a niche for writing safety at a ceremony hosted by King Stanford’s “Blue Box” router critical systems (e.g. in missile Gustav VI Adolph of Sweden. with software written by guidance, avionics, and William Yeager. Supposedly, it spacecraft navigation). For The award had been announced was the result of Lerner and example, it was used in the back on Nov 1, by which time, Bosack’s efforts to connect two Mirage 2000 fighter and the the trio no longer worked incompatible Stanford systems Boeing 777. The 80,000 lines of together. Shockley had formed so they could send romantic code found in the Ariane rocket his own company, Bardeen had messages to each other. Some included “more than 99% Ada,” taken a job at the University of three years after the product's according to the Le Monde Illinois, and only Brattain was release, Stanford decided to Informatique magazine. left at Bell Labs. officially license the software Bardeen was at home cooking On the downside, Tony Hoare and boards to the company. [Jan 11] used his Turing Award scrambled eggs, when he heard The “Cisco” name was derived [June 23] speech in 1981 to the announcement on the radio. from "San Francisco", so the criticize Ada for being overly He was so surprised he dropped company’s engineers insisted on complex. However, it does the pan on the floor. using the lower case “cisco” in possess the longest palindromic its early years. The company's When the trio were getting language name. ready for the awards ceremony, logo depicts the two towers of Bardeen realized that the vest the Golden Gate Bridge. and tie for his white suit had

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John Carmack [Aug 20] had from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10" started developing the game's The punishment refers to a engine in 1992, and it became feature in early versions of the first one to feature a fully Netscape where incorrectly used texture-mapped environment, tags would blink. The 12:10. walls joined at any angle with refers to this day, when any thickness, variable height floors and ceilings, variable Netscape Navigator version 1.0 The Cisco logo (2016). was released (although some lighting, and animated elements sources suggest it debutted on such as lava and radioactive Much needed venture capital Dec. 15). waste. The ability to create came with the appointment of a custom game levels in the form new CEO, John Morgridge, in of WAD files (“Where’s All the 1988. Apparently, the first thing Data?”) was particularly he said to Lerner was, “I hear Keyboard popular. that you’re everything that’s wrong with Cisco.” The main influences on the Damages game’s look were the movies In 1990 Lerner was fired, and Dec. 10, 1996 Aliens (1986) and "Evil Dead II" Bosack resigned in protest, and (1987). Some of the weapons In the first verdict of its kind, a the two subsequently sold their were inspired by toy guns from federal jury ordered DEC [Aug stock for $170 million. Lerner "Toys “R” Us". The game's name 23] to pay nearly $6 million to later became a respected Jane came from Tom Cruise’s "Doom" three women (two secretaries Austen scholar, and bought a pool cue in the “The Color of and a clerk) who suffered 125-year lease on Chawton Money” (1986). disabling arm and wrist injuries House, the estate where Austen that they blamed on their lived. By 1995, Doom was estimated to keyboards. However, the have been installed on more judgment was thrown out in computers than MS Windows 95 May 1997 when DEC presented We’re All Doomed [Aug 24], and one Windows 95 new evidence, and on June 17, promotional video even had Bill 1998, another federal jury Dec. 10, 1993 Gates digitally superimposed rejected similar claims by nine into the game. Microsoft Excel people, also against DEC. id Software [Feb 1] released 95 [May 2] included a Doom- Doom for MS-DOS via a FTP esque secret level as an Easter One of the lawyers, Thomas C. server at the University of egg. Siekman, noted: ‘’A hammer, if Wisconsin–Madison. Thousands improperly used, can be quite Interest in the game was connected to the site to get the dangerous.’’ rekindled in 1997, when the software, crashing it twice. engine's source code was Doom was downloaded around released. ten million times during its first two years. Nobel Prize for GMR The Book of Dec. 10, 2007 Mozilla Albert Fert and Peter Grünberg Dec. 10, 1994 received the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics for their independent The “Book of Mozilla” was an discovery of the Giant Easter egg found in the Netscape Magnetoresistive Effect (GMR) – [March 25] and early Firefox that small changes in magnetic [Nov 9] browsers, that was fields can trigger major accessed by typing the fluctuations in electrical command, about:mozilla. Screenshot of a Doom player resistance. with a chainsaw. The 'book' took the form of One consequence is that GMR passages written in the style of allows disk drives to read more Doom, like "Wolfenstein 3D" biblical apocalyptic literature. densely packed magnetic [May 5] (another id Software The first one reads: signals, making it possible to title), was a 3D FPS, but had "And the beast shall come forth shrink disk sizes and/or multiplayer support, which surrounded by a roiling cloud of increase their storage capacities. made it possible for players to vengeance. The house of the fight (and kill) each other; this However, nearly a decade unbelievers shall be razed and led to the coining of the term passed before GMR was put to they shall be scorched to the “deathmatch”. practical use – largely because earth. Their tags shall blink until the ultra-thin layered metals the end of days.

4 necessary for the effect were too expensive to produce commercially. Stuart Parkin, a researcher from IBM, was the first to come up with a cheap way to achieve GMR. By 1997, the first hard drives utilizing the phenomenon were in production.

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