mirror with a $10 cylindrical In his spare time, Starkweather lens. was an avid model railroader. Jan. 21st Babbage’s Son IBM Antitrust Calculates Jan. 21, 1952 The US Department of Justice’s Jan. 21, 1888 (DOJ) filed an antitrust suit Charles Babbage [Dec 26] never against IBM [Feb 14], charging it constructed an Analytical Engine with unlawful restraint of trade, [Dec 23], but his youngest son, and domination of the punch Henry Prevost Babbage (1824- card industry. At the time, IBM 1918), did get around to owned more than 90% of all the building the mill portion (the tabulating machines in the US, arithmetic logic unit) from his and manufactured and sold father’s plans. about 90% of all the cards. On this day, it produced a table Gary Starkweather (2009). A consent decree was issued in of multiples of , complete to 29 Photo by Dcoetzee. CC0. 1956, instructing the company digits, arguably making it the to reduce its share of the market first successful test of a Incredibly, his work generated to a more reasonable 50%. This computer. Over twenty years almost no interest at Webster, was fortuitous timing for Tom later, in April 1910, the results and his manager actually Watson, Jr. [Jan 14] who had just were published in The Monthly threatened to sack anyone who taken over as IBM's CEO; he Notices of the Royal Astronomical 'wasted their time' on the wanted to move the company's Society, followed by errata in the project. focus away from punched card June issue. systems towards computers. On the positive side, this It was probably during this time encouraged Starkweather to IBM was hit by another antitrust that Henry assembled six small relocate to Xerox’s new Palo Alto suit on [Jan 17] 1969. demonstration sets showing the Research Center (PARC [July 1]) principles behind his father's in 1971 where his research was Difference Engine No. 1 [June somewhat better received. In Paul Gardner Allen 14]. He sent one of them to particular, Butler Lampson [Dec Harvard, where it languished 23] and Ronald Rider developed Born: Jan. 21, 1953; until discovered by Howard a control system for the , Washington Aiken [March 8] in the late machine in 1972, which was Died: Oct 15, 2018 1930's, At the time, he was renamed the EARS printer putting together a funding (Ethernet, Alto, Research Allen and Bill Gates [Oct 28 proposal [Jan 17] for his character generator, Scanned founded Traf-O-Data [July 00], Automatic Sequence Controlled laser output terminal). It became and the somewhat better known Calculator (ASCC) [April 17], and an important component of the Micro-soft [April 4]. Their he later wrote that ‘he felt that Alto system [March 1]. partnership had begun at the Babbage was addressing him Lakeside prep school in In 1974 the laser printer personally from the past’. Washington state, when Allen, concept 'escaped' from PARC aged 14, had befriended Gates, when a small group of two years younger, because of researchers led by John Ellenby their shared enthusiasm for Gary Keith [Nov 10] began buying used computers. Xerox copiers and installing Starkweather laser heads inside them. Perhaps Allen later recalled, “The event several dozen "Dover' printers that started everything for us Born: Jan. 21, 1938; were built and distributed business-wise was when I found Michigan within Xerox and to outside an article in a 1971 electronics Died: Dec. 26, 2019 universities. magazine about Intel’s 4004 chip, which was the world’s first Starkweather invented the laser EARS was finally converted into microprocessor. It made me printer at the Xerox Webster a commercial product in June realize that computing was Research Center in 1967 – the 1977, as the Xerox 9700, but going to be a lot cheaper than it Scanned Laser Output Terminal only after IBM had released their had ever been and that a lot (SLOT). Aside from controlling own laser printer, the IBM 3800 more people would have access the laser by computer, he also [April 15] in 1975. Xerox to computers.” found a way to replace the estimated that it would sell 600 copier's $20,000 spinning units at most; the actual number This quote probably refers to was closer to 10,000. the Intel 4004 ad that appeared

1 in Electronic News on [Nov 15] Allen played rhythm guitar, and IBM RS/6000 and the PowerPC 1971. Another important in 2013 released the album [Oct 2]. motivation [Jan 2] for the pair "Everywhere at Once" by Paul was the announcement of the Allen and the Underthinkers. Altair 8800 in the Jan. 1975 issue of Popular Electronics [Dec Digital Be-In 19]. Reed-Solomon Jan. 21, 1989 Allen stopped working at Inspired by the 1967 “Human Microsoft on [Feb 18] 1983 after Code Be-In” held in , the being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s first “Digital Be-In” was disease. He recovered, but later Jan. 21 1959 sponsored by Verbum, a digital discovered that he had non- Irving S. Reed and Gustave arts magazine. Verbum Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which he Solomon's five-page paper president, Michael Gosney, also beat. marked the beginning of coding argued (rather unpersuasively) In the meantime, Allen became a theory as a major area of that digital media and desktop noted philanthropist, donating computing research. The paper, publishing were a continuation more than $2 billion towards “Polynomial Codes over Certain of the countercultural ideas that projects in science, education, Finite Fields,” introduced ideas had spawned the "Summer of wildlife conservation, and the that now form the core of error- Love". arts. His computer-related correcting techniques for Verbum went on to produce ten commitments include the "Allen everything from hard disk “Digital Be-In”s until 1998, Institute for Brain Science" drives, QR Codes [March 14], to organized to coincide with the (2003), and the "Allen Institute DVD players. The scheme groups annual Macworld conference. for Artificial Intelligence" (AI2), collections of bits, which makes Although the first few were which he founded in 2013. it particularly good for dealing with “bursts” of errors. mainly an excuse for a party, Some of his brain science they gradually became more ventures include the "Allen Reed and Solomon focused on serious. For instance, they Mouse Brain Atlas" and the how to encode data, and it was helped kick off the EFF’s [July 6] "Allen Human Brain Atlas". only in 1970 that Elwyn “Blue Ribbon Campaign” for free "Project Aristo" (not "Allen") Berlekamp invented an efficient speech online, and promoted from AI2 aims to build an AI decoding algorithm, and thus John Barlow’s “Declaration of capable of passing an 8th grade made Reed-Solomon codes Human Rights in Cyberspace” science exam (something many practical for digital [Feb 8]. 8th graders have trouble transmission. Gosney also managed to unearth achieving). key figures from the 1960's His “Living Computer Museum + “Human Be-In” such as Timothy Labs” in Seattle showcases some IBM 6150 RT Leary [May 00], Ken Kesey [Dec beautiful vintage machines, 14], and "Wavy Gravy" (The many of which are available for Jan. 21, 1986 Grateful Dead's [Oct 3] official public use. The IBM RT (or IBM 6150) was clown). It was quite surprising built around the 32-bit ROMP how many of them were still Allen has a fly named after him, alive. Verbum also helped in recognition of his processor, which some people label as the first commercial organize the early Burning Man contribution to dipterology [May festivals [March 30]. 15]. RISC chip [Sept 22], [Nov 16]. One of its novel aspects was the A “Human Be-In 50th use of a microkernel, the Virtual Anniversary celebration” was Resource Manager (VRM), which held in San Francisco on Jan. 14, allowed multiple OSes to be 2017. booted at the same time, including Pick [Nov 30] and AIX. AIX (Advanced Interactive Intel's ATPO/FPO eXecutive) was IBM’s second foray into UNIX territory (after Jan. 21, 1999 PC/IX [Jan 12]). However, Intel announced that it would lackluster support, plus some stamp unique serial numbers on odd changes from standard its processors to help facilitate UNIX, meant it never became e-commerce, prevent fraud, and popular. promote digital content The IBM RT wasn’t a great protection. Paul Allen and guitar (2013). success either, but it was Photo by Jameswlarsenjr. CC followed by the more popular BY-SA 3.0. 2

Boing Boing began a website in For more , see [Dec 1995, and became web-only the 24]. following year. Frauenfelder relaunched it as a blog on this day, along with the motto: “Brain candy for happy mutants,” and was later joined by four co-editors: Cory Doctorow, David Pescovitz, Xeni Jardin, and Rob Beschizza Boing Boing's name owes a debt to Frauenfelder’s wife’s grandfather, who often stayed A Core i7-8700 Intel Chip. (c) out late, drinking at a club in LA. Intel. When he came home less than sober, his wife pelted him with Each CPU has an APTO rolled-up socks, yelling “Boing!” (Assembly Test Process Order) every time one hit him on the serial number and a FPO head. (Finished Process Order) batch number. The APTO appears twice – as five digits and as a QR Code on the processor's edge. The FPO is printed near the Jan. 21 2008 middle, and is fairly easy to decode. For example, A “Message to Scientology” video "L825D011" means: was uploaded to YouTube [Feb 14]. A robotic voice informs the  1st letter or digit = “leaders of Scientology” that manufacturing plant code: (L “For the good of your followers, means Malaysia); for the good of mankind – for the  2nd digit = Year of production: laughs – we shall expel you from (2018; the Core i7-8700 was the .” launched in Oct. 2017); At the same time as the upload,  3rd and 4th digits = week: the hacker group “” (25th week ); launched a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack against  5th through 8th digits = lot the church. This was later number: (D011). assigned the grandiose name: Intel planned to also have this Project Chanology. data available at the OS level, but It was all in response to the after numerous complaints church’s earlier attempts to about consumer privacy, the remove an Internet video of an company backed off. However, a interview with , one considerable amount of general of its more high-profile information about a processor members. It had been uploaded has been available to OSes since to YouTube on Jan. 14 by a the early 1990's, via the CPUID prominent critic of Scientology, instruction. , and had soon gone viral. Anonymous' use of DDoS led the bOinG bOinG Blog church to start calling them “cyberterrorists” who were Jan. 21 2000 perpetrating “religious hate Boing Boing, the Journal of crimes.” Bunker also asked Energized Fun, edited by Mark Anonymous to switch to non- Frauenfelder and Carla Sinclair, destructive and legal means. first appeared in 1988. Together The group gradually changed its with Mondo 2000 [March 20], it tactics. For example, during had a major influence on 2008 and 2009, it persuaded cyberpunk [Dec 30] subculture, thousands to peacefully with a circulation of 17,500 outside Scientology churches. copies at one point.

3