episode “Whither Canada?” The IBM 1403 series would run for forty-five Oct. 5th Oct. 5, 1959 episodes over four series. It was conceived, written, and The IBM 1403 line printer was performed Graham Chapman, IBM 1401 introduced at the same time as John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric the IBM 1401 [previous entry]. Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Oct. 5, 1959 The original could print 600 Palin. lines per minute, but the Model The term “spam” in reference to The IBM 1401 was the first 3 could manage a blazingly fast bulk, unsolicited email [March machine in the highly successful 1400 lines per minute. IBM 1400 series. IBM was 31] is derived from the show’s pleasantly surprised (perhaps It was the first printer to offer a “Spam” sketch which premiered even shocked) to receive 5,200 width of 132 columns, which on Dec. 15, 1970. “Spam” is orders in just five weeks after its was subsequently adapted by uttered at least 132 times. announcement – more than had many others devices, such as the The Python language [Feb 20] is been predicted for the entire Centronics 101 (1970), the named after the troupe, and lifetime of the device. Indeed, DECwriter II ([Sept 24]1975), Monty Python references are the number of installed and the Epson MX-80 ([Oct 00] often found in sample code. For machines peaked at over 10,000 1980). One historian believes instance, many Python coders in the mid-1960s, and accounted this unusual number of columns like to use spam, ham, and eggs for nearly half of all the derives from the spacing used by as variables, instead of the more computer systems in the world IBM’s pre-1928 punch cards traditional foo [March 10], bar, at the time. [July 20]. Also, the complex and baz. alignment between the The default Python IDE is named 1403’s chain and IDLE, and an alternative is called print hammers eric, both in honor of Eric Idle. meant that a line width divisible A 2001 April Fool’s Day joke by by 3 (such as Guido van Rossum [Jan 31] and 132) worked out Larry Wall [Sept 27] involved best. the merger of Python with Perl [Dec 18] to create “Parrot,” The 1403’s named after the Python's "Dead overstrike feature was capable Parrot" sketch. IBM 1401 System. From the left: of generating grey-scale pixel 1402 Card Read-Punch, 1401 equivalents, which meant that Processing Unit, 1403 Printer images could be reproduced; "La (1961). Photo by Gobierno de los Gioconda" was a popular choice. Mostek MK 4096 Estados Unidos. The 1403 was a noisy machine, , Released and hackers soon discovered Crucially, the 1401 cost no more patterns of text that generated Oct. 5, 1973 than a couple of IBM’s large particular frequencies. Favorite Although the Mostek MK 4096 calculators, but offered 1403 tunes included “She‘ll Be wasn't the first DRAM chip (that programmability. Originally this Comin’‘ Round the Mountain” was the Intel 1103 [Oct 1]), the meant writing machine code or and “Ode to Joy.” using Gary Mokotoff's SPS 4096 and its successors became (Symbolic Programming The 1403 was the subject of Part the best-selling version , at one System) assembler, but it 2 of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s album point achieving greater than eventually got a high-level “IBM 1401, A User’s Manual” 85% worldwide market share. [Oct 30]. language, FARGO (Fourteen-o- The secret was its use of a one Automatic Report A 1403 made a cameo circuitry trick called address Generation Operation), a appearance in Stanley Kubrick’s multiplexing, invented by precursor to RPG [Jan 00]. [April 2] movie “Dr. Strangelove” Mostek [Nov 15] co-founder The 1401 was the subject of (1964), serving as a hiding place Robert Proebsting. It meant that Jóhann Jóhannsson’s album for a portable radio. the chip only required 16 pins, whereas its competitors made “IBM 1401, A User’s Manual” [Oct 30]. by Texas Instruments, Intel, and Motorola needed 22. Original Python Oct. 5, 1969 The comedy series "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" premiered on the BBC with the 1 emphasizing user-generated ThinkPads PawSense content, ease of use, and Oct. 5, 1992 Oct. 5, 2000 interoperability for end users. Tim Berners-Lee [June 8] was IBM introduced the ThinkPad Chris Niswander won the 2000 less complementary, describing line, including the 700, 700C, Ig Nobel prize in Computer it as jargon: “Nobody really and 700T. The series is perhaps Science for his PawSense knows what it means… If Web best remembered for their red software which detects when a 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, TrackPoint, a mini variation on cat is walking across your then that is people to people. But the joystick, located in the keyboard. that was what the Web was middle of the keyboard. supposed to be all along…” It uses momentum and timing The original design was patterns to detect the cat, developed by Richard Sapper in disables the keyboard, displays 1990, who characterized it as a the message “CAT-LIKE TYPING The Keyboard simple, black cigar box that DETECTED”, and begins playing offered a ‘surprise’ when the Gasping Harmonica Concerto Monument opened. However, the notebooks (or a loud hissing noise). were built at IBM's Yamato Oct. 5, 2005 The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded Facility in Japan, led by Arimasa each year to celebrate unusual The Keyboard Monument is a Naitoh, who is now dubbed the achievements in scientific sculpture of a QWERTY “father” of the ThinkPad. The research. Several winners have keyboard [June 23] located in series went on to collect more utilized computers in their work. the Russian city of Ekaterinburg. than 300 awards for design and For instance, the Southern It was created by Anatoly manufacturing quality. Baptist Church of Alabama won Vyatkin and installed on this The “ThinkPad” name was an lg for Mathematics in 1994 by day. suggested by IBMer Denny employing one to estimate how It depicts an IBM PC compatible Wainwright, who had a “THINK” many Alabama citizens would go Cyrillic keyboard at 30:1 scale, notepad in his pocket [Feb 14] at to hell if they didn’t repent. with 104 concrete keys. Each the time. It was opposed by Jan Pablo Davila, a financial one weighs 180 pounds, but the IBM's corporate naming futures trader from Chile, won space bar is 1,000 pounds. committee initially as IBM the lg for Economies in 1994 for computers were traditionally losing an amount baptized with a number. equal to 5% of his country’s GNP when he Slashdot Founded accidentally instructed his Oct. 5, 1997 laptop to “buy” when he meant Slashdot (sometimes “sell” . abbreviated as /.) is a social news website that billed itself as For Bow-Lingual, “News for Nerds. Stuff that which won the Ig for Peace in Ekaterinburg Sysadmin Day [July 26] Matters”. It was founded by Rob 2002, see [Oct 3]. at the Keyboard Monument in 2011. Malda (aka “CmdrTaco”) and Jeff Photo by Karelina96. CC BY-SA 4.0. Bates (aka “Hemos”). The site's name came from Web 2.0 Malda’s desire to call it Rumor has it that if you “type” something that was both “silly Oct. 5-7, 2004 your wish on the keyboard and and unpronounceable” – just try then jump on Enter, it will come The "Web 2.0" term finally saying “h-t-t-p-colon-slash- true. If you want to reboot your caught on after a heavy-duty slash-slashdot-dot-org”. life, press Ctrl+Alt+Del [Jan 4]. popularization effort by Tim The phrase “Slashdot effect”, O’Reilly [June 6] and Dale “Keyboard Subbotniks” are held refers to how a Slashdot article Dougherty [Aug 19] at the at the end of April to clean and linked to a website, can cause a O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 re-paint the device. massive increase in traffic to Conference in San Francisco. that site. However, the phrase had been coined by Darcy DiNucci back in Jan. 1999 in her article, AlphaGo Wins “Fragmented Future” in Print magazine. Oct. 5-9, 2015 Web 2.0 isn't about technical DeepMind’s AlphaGo beat Fan specifications, instead Hui, the European Go champion, 2 five times out of five under tournament conditions. After AI's conquest of chess [May 11], Go was chosen as the next battleground because of its greater complexity. The rules seem to be relatively simple: gain the most territory by placing and capturing black and white stones on a 19×19 grid. However, the average 150-move game contains more board configurations — 10170 — than there are atoms in the Universe. Also, recognizing winning and losing positions is much harder than in chess because the stones have equal values and can influence outcomes far across the board. AlphaGo prepared for the tournament by using neural networks to study 30 million positions employed in expert games. Then it played Go against itself across 50 computers, seeking to improve with each match. Fan described the resulting system as “very strong and stable, it seems like a wall. … I know AlphaGo is a computer, but if no one told me, maybe I would think the player was a little strange, but a very strong player, a real person.” On [May 23], 2017, AlphaGo beat the then current world No. 1 ranking Go player, Ke Jie. For more gaming defeats of humans by computers, see [Jan 11], [Feb 10], [April 29]. 3 .