It grew out of the Digital Association (DCA) August 22nd Born: Aug. 22, 1943; based in Los Angeles, which was primarily a social organization. , indeed, DCA was sometimes said Robert Allen Pease Shima was one of the co- to stand for the Drunkard’s inventors of the 4004 [Nov Computing Association. The Born: Aug. 22, 1940; 15], along with Ted Hoff [Oct association had been set up by R. Rockville, Connecticut 28], [Oct 22], and Blair Smith, a respected IBM 701 Died: June 18, 2011 [Dec 1]. sales manager [April 7]. Pease designed several “best- Shima was working at the In August 1955, SHARE’S seller” integrated circuits which Japanese “secretary pro tem,” Fletcher have remained in production for manufacturer in 1969 Jones of RAND [Oct 1], sent out decades. These include the when Intel was tasked with invitations to all 17 (or perhaps LM331 voltage-to-frequency implementing the LSI logic for a 22) organizations that owned converter, and the LM337 new calculator. Shima relocated new IBM 704s [May 17] to adjustable negative voltage to the Intel offices in Santa Clara attend SHARE's inaugural regulator. for six months to act as technical meeting. liaison with Busicon. He wrote a popular monthly By its first anniversary, SHARE’S column called “Pease Porridge” When he arrived in April 1970, membership stood at 62 in Electronic Design, and was the he discovered that no progress organizations, and because the author of eight books, including had been made since the group represented many of Troubleshooting Analog Circuits, functional specifications had IBM’s largest customers, they which became a standard bench- been finished in December. came to have a significant top reference. Busicom was so upset that Intel influence. For instance, SHARE nearly lost the contract to members participated in the Pease's office at National was [Nov 15]. development of PL/I [June 25] notorious messy, and at one as part of the “3x3” group. stage he won a messiest desk contest run by the San Jose SHARE also acted as a clearing- Mercury News. Indeed, since the house for software developed by other entries were in no way up its members. For example, in to his standard, they awarded 1959 SHARE released the him first, second, and third SHARE (SOS), prizes. originally for the IBM 709, and later ported it to the IBM 7090 [Nov 30]. SOS was one of the first examples of open-source Michael John [Feb 3] software. Aldrich Other notable user groups, in chronological order of their Masatoshi Shima (1972). Born: Aug. 22, 1941; foundation, include DECUS Courtesy of Masatoshi Shima. Welwyn Garden City, UK [March 00], USENIX [May 15], Died: 19 May 2014 the Amateur Computer Society (ACS [May 5]), the Amateur Aldrich invented online Shima was recruited by Intel in Computer Club (ACC [Dec 13]), shopping in 1979 when he Nov. 1972 to design the 8-bit the Homebrew Computer Club connected a TV to a real-time 8080 [April 18], and moved to [March 5], ACGNJ [June 13], transaction processing system in 1975 with Faggin to A.P.P.L.E. [Feb 21], and the via a telephone link. The system develop the Z80 [March 9], Chaos Computer Club (CCC) employed videotex [June 8] as a which was instruction set [Sept 12]. simple menu-driven interface. compatible with the 8080. This was followed by the 16-bit He followed this with the Z8000 in 1979. Teleputer in 1980 which linked a 14-inch color TV to a box PLATO running a version of CP/M [June Aug. 22-25, 1961 22] on a [March 9] SHARE Formed together with a Prestel chip set Aug. 22 (or 15), 1955 The first academic paper on supporting a modem, character PLATO (Programmed Logic for generator and auto-dialler. The SHARE, which offered technical Automatic Teaching Operations) Teleputer was used in the support for IBM machines, is was presented at IRE WESCON Gateshead Shopping Experiment generally considered the first in San Francisco by Donald [May 12]). computer user group. Bitzer [Jan 1], P. Braunfed, and W. Lichtenberger.

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PLATO was a computer-assisted was able to ask questions to fill instruction system developed by in other details. IBM Meets Digital Bitzer and Daniel Alpert at the A typical sample: “Once upon a University of Illinois. The first Research time George Ant lived near a version, PLATO I, was operating patch of ground. There was a Aug. 22, 1980 on the local ILLIAC I [Sept 1] some time during 1960. It used a nest in an ash tree. Wilma Bird Previous: [Aug 21]; Next: [Aug lived in the nest.” TV set as a display and a special 28] keyboard for navigating the Earlier work of this type There are conflicting stories system’s menus. included the “automatic novel about what happened when IBM writer” (1971) by Sheldon Klein PLATO II, which debuted in went to meet Digital Research’s which generated 2100-word 1961, could support two users at founder, Gary Kildall [May 19]. murder-mysteries. It was once, which arguably made it the programmed in FORTRAN V Bill Gates [Oct 28] is quoted in first time-sharing system. Bitzer [Feb 26] on a Univac 1108 [May “Fire in the Valley” as saying has long said that PLATO would 29]. Klein cited Roald Dahl’s “Gary was out flying” that day, have been granted a patent for short story “The Great but Kildall always denied the time-sharing if only the Automatic Grammatizator” implication, telling the authors University of Illinois hadn't lost (1953) as a primary influence. of “Hard Drive” that he had his paperwork for almost two flown to the Bay Area on a years. The other main contender In the 1960's, Joseph E. Grimes business trip . for first time-sharing system is was the first to apply a the Compatible Time-Sharing grammar-based approach to the Instead IBM and its lawyers met System (CTSS [May 3]) at MIT, problem, to generate folk tales with Kildall’s wife, Dorothy which became operational in which colleagues suggested he McEwen, and presented her with November 1961. call “Grimes’ Fairy Tales.” a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). On the advice of her PLATO III, running on a CDC attorney Gerry Davis, Dorothy 1604 given to the group by refused to sign it without Gary’s CDC's CEO William Norris [July approval. 14], could manage up to 20 terminals simultaneously. This In one version of the story, included a remote terminal Kildall returned in the located near the state capitol at afternoon, signed the NDA, but Springfield High School. PLATO turned down IBM’s offer to buy III also introduced the TUTOR CP/M [June 22] outright for programming language for $250,000. He preferred to designing teaching modules for license it at $10 a copy. the platform. It was developed by biology graduate student Paul However, IBM’s Jack Sams told Tenczar in 1967. the authors of “Hard Drive” that the sticking point was that IBM PLATO I, II, and III had been couldn’t get Kildall to agree to funded by small grants from the develop a 16-bit version of The Engine. From "Gulliver's military, but the National CP/M in the tight time schedule Travels" (1726) by Jonathan Science Foundation granted the IBM required. Swift. team steady funding in 1967. This led to the creation of the Whatever the reason, IBM left Computer-based Education Digital Research without an Research Laboratory (CERL) at A fictional system, "The Engine", operating system. the university, and the release of appeared in Jonathan Swift's “A another version, PLATO IV [July Voyage to Laputa” (part 3 of 00], in 1972. "Gulliver’s Travels", 1726) – a PizzaNet twenty-foot square frame for the

automatic generation of books Aug. 22, 1994 on "philosophy, poetry, politics, TALE-SPIN laws, mathematics, and In August 1994, Santa Cruz theology, without the least Operation (SCO) [Jan 00] and Aug. 22-25, 1977 assistance from genius or study.” Pizza Hut announced PizzaNet, “a pilot program that enables James R. Meehan presented For more literary shenanigans computer users, for the first TALE-SPIN at IJCAI’77, the first with , see [Feb 1; Aug time, to electronically order interactive program for writing 1; Sept 9; Sept 11; Oct 26; Dec pizza delivery from their local stories by employing rules for 25]. Pizza Hut restaurant via the defining character behavior and worldwide Internet.” a set of facts about the world. When running interactively, it PizzaNet has been called the first e-commerce application.

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The system utilized NCSA Mosaic [Sept 28] to send a pizza NIPRNET Memo order to a server at Pizza Hut Aug. 22, 1999 headquarters in Wichita. The order was then relayed via The US Department of Defense modem to an SCO Open Server (DoD) issued a memo requiring system at the customer’s nearest all US military systems to switch Pizza Hut franchise. to the NIPRNet (the Non- classified Internet Protocol The first public PizzaNet demo Router Network) by Dec. 15, was conducted on a UCSC rather than access the Internet campus patio. More than 100 directly. NIPRNet is currently media people showed up. One of the largest private network in the questions asked by the tech- the world, playing a role savvy crowd was supposedly, analogous to the 1980's MILNET “Does the pizza actually come [April 4] out of the computer?” A kindly engineer answered, “No, the NIPRNet, and its siblings, technology for that isn’t quite SIPRNet, and JWICS, were there yet.” previously part of the Defense Data Network (DDN) [April 4] During the demo, an order for 20 or so pizzas was sent SIPRNet (the Secret Internet perfectly through PizzaNet. Protocol Router Network) is for However, the delivery driver got sending classified information lost on his way to the campus, up to the “Secret” level between and a full hour went by before US military systems. NIPRNet the pizzas were delivered. and SIPRNet are referred to colloquially as nipper-net and The next night [Aug 23], SCO’s sipper-net (or simply nipper and house rock band, Deth Specula, sipper). made more history by broadcasting the world’s first JWICS (the “Joint Worldwide live Internet concert from the Intelligence Communications same campus. System”) is for even more classified information, up to the “Top Secret” level. JWICS (pronounced JAYwicks) was Chrono Trigger allegedly one of the networks Aug. 22, 1995 perused by Chelsea Manning [Nov 28]. Square released the "Chrono The separation of military Trigger" game for the SNES [Nov networking into NIPRNet, 21]. A group of adventurers SIPRNet, and JWICS is one must travel through time to reason why its not uncommon to prevent a global catastrophe. see military users with multiple Several of the game’s features computers on their desks. were revolutionary, including Indeed, the clutter can be much the possibility of different worse, since there's a wide endings, a time-based battle range of other secure system, and plot-related side communications networks quests. outside of the DoD, including FBINet, Homeland Secure Data Square dubbed the three Network, NSANet, and the developers the “Dream Team”: Department of State’s OpenNet, Hironobu Sakaguchi [Nov 25], OpenNet+, and ClassNet. I the creator of Square’s "Final wonder where the passwords Fantasy"; Yuji Horii, creator of for all those systems are safely "Dragon Quest" [May 27]; and stored? Akira Toriyama, a manga artist known for his work on "Dragon Quest" and "Dragon Ball".

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