Jan. 3Rd 20863 Stevens Creek Blvd., Richard (Dick) (Building 3, Suite C) in Manning Karp Cupertino

Jobs’ parent’s garage to the company’s first official address: Jan. 3rd 20863 Stevens Creek Blvd., Richard (Dick) (Building 3, Suite C) in Manning Karp Cupertino. Gordon Earle The move came after Mike Born: Jan. 3, 1935; Markkula [Feb 11] had come out Moore Boston, Massachusetts of retirement to become Apple’s Born: Jan. 3, 1929; Karp introduced the now first chairman. In particular, he San Francisco, California standard technique for proving invested $92,000 to secure a problems to be NP-complete. He $250,000 line of credit from Moore co-founded Intel with also popularized the use of Bank of America to finance the Robert Noyce [Dec 12] on [July randomized behavior in the company. He brought in Michael 1] 1968, and was the author of design and analysis of Scott as the first president and Moore’s Law: [April 19] the algorithms. In the early 1990's, CEO, then took the job himself observation that the number of he became interested in from 1981 to 1983 after Scott transistors in an integrated computational molecular resigned. Scott had brought an circuit doubles every two years. biology. element of professional management and corporate From 1956 to 1957 he worked His name pops up in many parts infrastructure to Apple which with William Shockley [Feb 13], of computing: the Edmonds- naturally led to clashes with and helped start Fairchild Karp algorithm, the Hopcroft- Jobs, especially over the Semiconductor [Oct 1] as one of Karp algorithm [Oct 7], the development of the Lisa [Jan 19]. the so-called “Traitorous Eight” Karp-Lipton theorem, and the [Sept 18]. Rabin-Karp string search Apple’s IPO would take place algorithm [Sept 1]. three years later [Dec 12].

Peter Pin-Shan Time Selects the Chen PC Born: Jan. 3 1947; Jan. 3 1983 Taichung, Taiwan Ray Cave, Time’s managing Chen developed the entity- editor, selected the PC as the relationship (ER) model which “Machine of the Year” for 1982, went on to become the in place of their usual “Man of foundation for many systems the Year”. He noted that the PC analysis and design was 1982’s “greatest influence methodologies, and computer- for good or evil.” aided software engineering Somewhat ironically, the cover Gordon Moore (1970). Photo by (CASE) tools. story, “The Computer Moves In”, the Intel Free Press. CC BY-SA Chen’s 1976 paper is usually had been written by Otto 2.0. cited as the definitive reference Friedrich on a 15-year-old Royal on ER modeling although the 440 typewriter. However, Time Moore comes from one of the somewhat similar concept of publisher John A. Meyers had oldest Anglo-American families object relationship had been promised that the magazine’s in California. His great- introduced a year earlier by newsroom would upgrade to grandfather settled in California Hans A. Schmid and J. Richard word processors within a year in 1847, and his father was the Swenson. or so. sheriff of Pescadero in San The PC beat out several human Mateo County. contenders, including Ronald A quote: “If the automobile Apple Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and industry had moved as fast as Menachem Begin. Steve Jobs the semiconductor industry, Incorporated [Feb 24] was particularly upset: your car would travel “They FedExed me the magazine comfortably at several million Jan. 3, 1977 and I remember opening the miles per hour, get roughly a package, thoroughly expecting million miles to the gallon, and it Prev: [July 00] Next: [April 15] to see my mug on the cover, and would be cheaper to throw away Steve Jobs [Feb 24] and Steve it was this computer sculpture your Rolls Royce and get a new Wozniak [Aug 11] filed papers to thing. I thought ‘Huh?’” one than it would be to park it incorporate Apple Computer, To further compound the insult, downtown for the evening.” and the company moved from the magazine included an article

about Jobs written by Michael Superhighway Summit” on Jan. Moritz which Jobs didn’t much 11, 1994, and claimed to have GIMPS Begins like: “it was so awful that I coined the phrase some 15 years Jan. 3 (??), 1996 actually cried.” Moritz wasn’t earlier. This was a reference to a happy either: “I was distraught meeting he had with computer- The Great Internet Mersenne by the way material I had industry folk in 1978 to Prime Search (GIMPS) is a arduously gathered was celebrate the efforts of his collaborative project dedicated siphoned, filtered, and poisoned father, Senator Albert Gore Sr., to finding Mersenne prime with gossipy benzene by an in establishing the interstate numbers. These have the form editor in New York whose highway system in the 1950's. 2p - 1, where p is a prime, regular task was to chronicle the Incidentally, some say the although a prime exponent wayward world of rock-and-roll meeting took place in 1981, or doesn’t necessarily guarantee music.” 1983, or even 1986. that the number itself is prime. It's true that the first four A quick tally shows that Jobs has Mersenne numbers are prime: 3 appeared on the cover of Time (22-1), 7 (23-1), 31 (25-1), and eight times: 127 (27-1), but 211-1 is 2047  “Striking It Rich", Feb. 15, which has factors 23 and 89. 1982 (before the Man of the The numbers are named after Year issue); Marin Mersenne, a French friar  “Steve’s Job: Restart Apple", and mathematician, who studied Aug. 18, 1997 (note the time them in the early 17th Century. gap from 1982); The GIMPS project was founded  “Apple and Pixar: Steve’s Two by George Woltman, who also Jobs", Oct. 18, 1999; wrote the popular software for automating the search, Prime95  “Apple’s New Core", Jan. 14, and MPrime. The project’s name 2002; came from Luther Welsh, the Sultry Al Gore (Early discoverer of the 29th Mersenne  “How Apple Does It", Oct. 16, 1980s). Photo by the US prime. 2005; Senate Historical Office. Since it began, the project has  “The Time 100", Apr. 20, 2007 found 17 new Mersenne (below a much larger Barack The OED’s earliest citation isn't numbers, 15 of which were the Obama); from Gore, but from today’s largest known primes at the edition of Newsweek magazine: time. The current largest is  “The iPad Launch: Can Steve “Two information 282,589,933−1 discovered on Dec. 7 Jobs Do It Again?" Apr. 1, superhighways being built of 2018 by Patrick Laroche, after 2010; fiber-optic cable will link twelve days of processing; it Boston, New York, Philadelphia,  “Mourning Technology’s Great consists of 23,249,425 decimal and Washington, D. C.” Reinventor”, Oct. 5, 2011. digits. The source article, “The Dazzle However, Bill Gates [Oct 28] GIMPS wasn’t the first system of Lasers,” was written by holds the current record for for tracking down Mersenne William D. Marbach. number of cover shoots: eleven. primes. The first new ones of the Also, a computer first graced The earliest use of computing age were discovered Time’s cover on [Jan 23] 1950. “superhighway” (minus the by Derrick Lehmer [Feb 23] "information" bit) in the sense of using the SWAC [Aug 17] on [Jan communication is probably in 30] 1952. Manfred Brotherton's 1964 Information book, “Masers and Lasers; How Superhighway They Work, What They Do”. Motorola StarTAC Jan. 3, 1983 A useful anagram of “Information Superhighway” is Released Vice-President Al Gore [Dec 9] “Hi-ho! Yow! I’m surfing became linked with the Arpanet” [Oct 29]. For the origin Jan. 3, 1996 "Information Superhighway" of the phrase “Surfing the The Motorola [Sept 25] StarTAC phrase during the 1990's, and internet”, see [Feb 25]. wasn’t the first clamshell phone the Oxford English Dictionary For more Gore, see [Dec 9]. (it was probably the third), but it (OED) gives three citations for it, was the first to become popular, two of which originate with and even iconic. Approximately Gore. sixty million units were sold It all began after the VP gave the during its lifetime, and PC World opening speech at “The magazine put it at number 6 in

its “The 50 Greatest Gadgets of Bitcoins aren’t issued by a the Past 50 Years” list in 2005. government but are “mined” by Spectre and computers connected to the It was beaten to market by Internet. The protocol dictates Meltdown made Motorola’s first clamshell design, that only 21 million bitcoins can the MicroTAC, in 1989 (which Public ever be created, and about 18 some argue is only a semi- million have been extracted so Jan. 3, 2018 clamshell design), but first place far. However, some estimates went to the General Telephone & claim that 3 to 4 million are Meltdown and Spectre are Electronics (GTE) Flip-Phone those have been lost. hardware bugs that allow which came out in 1978. GTE malicious programs to steal data owns the trademark for “flip- Bitcoin’s main problem is that from other programs. They are phone”, which is why the the financial value of a bitcoin is classed as “catastrophic” “clamshell” name was invented. highly volatile. A single bitcoin’s vulnerabilities. value passed $1,000 on Jan. 1, 2017, topped $19,000 in Dec. Both problems arise from the 2017, and then lost about 50% way most modern processors of its value during the first part rely on “speculative execution,” of 2018. At the end of 2020, its a technique for increasing value skyrocketed for no performance. A chip tries to discernable reason, and passed predict the instructions it’s $40,000 in Dec. going to be asked to carry out next, and then executes them Bitcoin was invented by ahead of time so they’ll finish someone calling themself sooner. Satoshi Nakamoto, but his true Of course, there are times when Movistar-branded Motorola identity is still shrouded in the processor guesses wrongly, StarTac 130. CC BY 4.0. mystery. On Oct. 31, 2008, Nakamoto published an article and has to undo the actions taken by the speculative code. The StarTAC was the world’s about bitcoins on a cryptography mailing list, and To speed things up, the chip may smallest and lightest mobile not completely roll back every phone at the time, and closely released open-source software for managing it on this day. In aborted change, thereby leaving resembled Star Trek’s bits of possibly private data Communicator [Sept 8]. 2010, he handed over control of the code to various members of lying around which might be Incidentally, that prop was built accessible by hackers. by Wah Chang, a Chinese- the bitcoin community, and American designer, who was disappeared back into the Affected hardware vendors had responsible for many of the shadows. been told privately about these show's other famous gadgets, Nakamoto claimed to be a 37- speculative execution bugs back such as the tricorder and Vulcan year-old man living in Japan, but in June 2017. Indeed, the specific harp. the occasional use of British problems exploited by Meltdown were first described During the StarTAC's launch, English spelling and terminology (such as the phrase “bloody in a paper dating from May some of the magazine ads 1995. included a full-size printed hard”) in code comments and cardboard copy that could be forum postings led some to Spectre is so named because “it pulled out, and marveled at. believe he might be British. will haunt us for quite some Also, the very first bitcoin, that time.” Also, SPECTRE (SPecial could only have been mined by Executive for Satoshi himself, contained the Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Bitcoin encoded text “The Times Revenge, and Extortion) is an 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on international criminal Jan. 3, 2009 brink of second bailout for organization featured in the banks” which implies that Bitcoin is a decentralized digital James Bond movies [May 22; Satoshi was reading the UK's currency unsuported by a May 28] and novels. It used to be The Times newspaper at the central bank or single based at 136 Boulevard time. administrator. Owners remain Haussmann in Paris. anonymous since bitcoin buyers and sellers interact through encrypted keys instead of by using names, tax IDs, or social security numbers. Transactions are verified and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain [Aug 19].