After a bad first quarter in 1993, operating. It was first booted up Apple’s board forced Sculley out, in Autumn 1978 at Essex April 6th and he was replaced by German- University on a DEC PDP-10 born Michael Spindler. [Nov 00]. It was originally coded in MACRO-10 assembly by Roy John Sculley III Trubshaw. Born: April 6, 1939; Andy Hertzfeld The MUD name is a tribute to the Dungeon variant of Zork NYC Born: April 6, 1953; [May 27] which Trubshaw loved Sculley was president of Pepsi- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania playing at the time. Of course, Cola for six years until Steve Zork was itself inspired by Hertzfeld was a member of the Jobs [Feb 24] lured him away to Colossal Cave Adventure [March Apple Mac [Jan 24] development become Apple CEO on April 8, 11]. team who wrote large portions 1983 with the legendary pitch: of the system software, On this day, Trubshaw finished “Do you want to sell sugared including much of the ROM code, re-coding MUD version 3 in water for the rest of your life? Or the multitasking Switcher BCPL [July 21] (the predecessor do you want to come with me program, the User Interface of C), primarily to make the and change the world?” Toolbox, and several GUI tools program easier to maintain. One The move was also backed by such as the Control Panel and of his innovations was to write a Apple’s then president, Mike Scrapbook. BCPL interpreter for a game Markkula [Feb 11], who believed language he invented, called that Jobs lacked the discipline to MUDDL (Multi User Dungeon run Apple himself. Definition Language). Sculley quickly applied his Richard Bartle, a fellow Essex marketing experience to keeping student, also worked on the the aging Apple II [April 24] game, and introduced many of popular, and helped Jobs launch the beloved locations and the Mac [Jan 24] by running a puzzles. After Trubshaw vigorous marketing campaign graduated, he handed MUD over [Jan 22]. to Bartle, who continued developing it. The split between the pair began after the Apple board instructed Essex was connected to the Sculley to limit Jobs' expensive ARPANET in 1980, and soon dalliances with untested Andy Hertzfeld (1985). after the first few non-local products. Jobs' response was to Photo by Tony Wills. CC BY- players logged in. The game's attempt to oust Sculley, but at a SA 3.0. popularity also increased after tense board meeting, the it was referenced in an article directors sided with Sculley and Hertzfeld and others would later about Zork in the Dec. 1980 striped Jobs of his managerial describe their job as issue of BYTE magazine. duties instead; Jobs resigned on “shoehorning” the Lisa's [Jan 19] [Sept 16] 1985. user interface into a smaller, affordable machine. Also during Sculley’s tenure, First Microsoft Apple introduced the Hertzfeld’s business card since PowerBook [Oct 21], and his Apple days lists his job as Commercial completed a major upgrade to “Software Wizard.” In 1990, the the Mac OS, System 7 [May 13]. wizard became a co-founder of April 6, 1992 The magazine MacAddict later General Magic [May 00]. Despite the success of Apple’s called this period between 1989 “1984” Super Bowl TV and 1991 the “first golden age” A quote: “[Programming is] the only job I can think of where I commercial [Jan 22], Microsoft's of the Macintosh. But it also first TV campaign (as opposed to included Apple's porting of its get to be both an engineer and an artist.” promotional videos) only OS to the PowerPC [Oct 2], debuted today, aimed at selling which was perhaps a misstep in Windows 3.1 [April 6]. retrospect. Sculley later said he should have targeted an Intel Playing in the The 40-second ad features an architecture instead. elderly secretary discovering the MUD joys of using Windows with a Sculley was responsible for mouse during her first day at a coining the term "PDA" during a April 6, 1980 new job. Sadly, the secretary is keynote speech at CES on [Jan 7] neither wearing running gear 1992; at the time Apple was MUD (“Multi-User Dungeon”) is nor carrying a hammer. developing the Newton the oldest multi-user text-based MessagePad [Aug 3]. virtual world that's still 1 Microsoft’s best known It added a control panel and Misra at the request of the advertising campaign is registry (the latter was perhaps producers. probably their Windows 95 [Aug not such a great idea), let some 24] 60-second TV spot featured MS-DOS [Aug 12] programs be the Rolling Stones’ hit “Start Me controlled with the mouse, Up,” which successfully lent a debuted Object Linking and hip (but elderly) ambience to the Embedding (OLE), and the product. Microsoft supposedly “three finger salute” (the paid The Stones around $10 Control-Alt-Delete command million for the tune, but [Jan 4]). Microsoft has said that number Windows 3.1 didn’t include any was just a rumor spread by the networking software, but could band. use MS-DOS based networks My personal Microsoft ad such as Novel Netware [June favorite is a humorous Steve 30]. A later update, “Windows Ballmer [March 24] video from 3.11 for Workgroups” fixed that 1985, filmed for staff involved oversight with bundled network Mike Judge (2011). with the launch of Windows 1.0 software. Photo by Gage Skidmore. [Nov 20]. He channels his inner CC BY-SA 3.0. Version 3.1 was over three infomercial pitchman to exclaim repeatedly: “That’s right! It’s million lines of code, which used Various other real-world techies just 11 MB of disk space when $99! It’s an incredible value, but have advised the show, installed. It could be purchased it’s TRUE!” including Marc Andreessen [July as six floppies or a single new- 9], Sheryl Sandberg [Aug 28], fangled CD-ROM [Sept 1]. and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman [May 5]. Windows 3.1 Three million copies were sold in the first two months, and it Co-creator Mike Judge worked in Released became the first widely used a Silicon Valley startup called version of Windows. Parallax early in his career. April 6, 1992 One of the best magazine Judge quit after less than three months, claiming that “The Prev: [May 22] Next: [July 27] headlines of the time was “Windows Upgrade Crashes Less people I met were like Stepford One improvement in Windows Often,” which applauded 3.1's Wives.” 3.1 was the dropping of improved stability. Windows 3.0's “real mode” which only allowed one program to run at a time; it had been forced upon the OS so it could Silicon Valley support the Intel 8086 [June 8]. Unfortunately, the downside of Debuts Windows 3.1. being able to run April 6, 2014 multiple programs at once was that the hardware had to be at "Silicon Valley" is an HBO least a 80286 PC [Feb 1] with 1 comedy series created by Mike MB of RAM. Judge, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky, which focuses on five The other big change was guys and their startup. scalable TrueType fonts [May 13], which made everything look The first series (there are six much better. Previously, a user altogether) concerns the had to resort to third-party font company’s development of an technologies, such as Adobe application called Pied Piper Type Manager [Oct 6], to get which employs a revolutionary Windows to look decent. data compression algorithm, and TrueType was developed by its competition with a Apple, which licensed the multinational corporation called technology to Microsoft for free, Hooli which develops a copycat in order to undermine Adobe’s product called Nucleus. grip on the digital type market. The show uses the “Weissman Windows 3.1 also had better score” to compare the multimedia support: MIDI [Aug compression rates of the two 19], CD Audio, Super VGA (800 x apps, which was created by real- 600), [April 2] and the ability to life Stanford professor Tsachy handle faster modems. Weissman and student Vinith 2 .