better known 1896 The Mailüfterl was around 4 demonstration [Dec 11]. For meters wide, 2.5 meters tall and Jan. 1st even more candidates for first half a meter deep, and employed public radio broadcast, see [Jan around 3,000 transistors, kindly 13]; [Oct 6]. donated by Philips. Telegraph Trapped There were other early forms of Other early transistorized “wireless communication”, such computers include the TRADIC Tawell as Alexander Graham Bell [March 14], the Harwell CADET Jan. 1, 1845 [March 7] and Charles Sumner [Feb 00], and the TX-0 [Nov 20]. Tainter's photophone of 1880 Probably the first was the John Tawell was the first person which employed beams of light, Manchester TC [Nov 16]. to be arrested as the result of and Amos Dolbear’s 1884 Zemanek worked at the telecommunications technology. “electrostatic telephone”. Viennese Institut fur On this day, his mistress was Nevertheless, the town of Niederfrequenztechnik which found dead through poisoning at Murray promotes itself as the produced two other wonderfully her house in Slough, England. “birthplace of radio”, and named machines in the late The police learnt that a man in Stubblefield as the “father of 1950's: the distinctive Quaker clothing had broadcasting”. "Universalrelaisrechenmaschine left the house earlier and caught 1" (URR-1) and the a train heading to Paddington Logistischerelaisrechenmaschin Station in London. They used the e 1) (LRR-1). newly installed telegraph to Heinz Zemanek send a message to the station to Zemanek joined IBM in 1961, detain him, including the Born: Jan. 1, 1920; and became the first director of description: ‘He is in the garb of Vienna, Austria its influential Vienna Lab. He a Kwaker,’ There was no ‘Q’ in Died: July 16, 2014 played a significant role in the definition of PL/I [June 25], the transmitter's alphabet, but Zemanek built the first employing the "Vienna ‘Kwaker’ was understood. completely transistorized Definition Language". Later, the Tawell was caught, convicted, European computer between lab embraced denotational and hanged on March 28, 1845. May 1956 and 1958: the semantics, and its "Vienna Mailüfterl – German for “May The transmitter and receiver are Development Method" became Breeze” – a reference to MIT’s preserved in the Science popular in industry and inspired Whirlwind [April 20], which was Museum in London. several other formalisms for mearly a vacuum tube device. defining systems. Actually, Mailüfterl was only the First Public Radio machine's nickname; its full title was the “Binär dezimaler Formed Broadcast Volltransistor-Rechenautomat”. Jan. 1, 1925 Jan. 1, 1902 The roots of Bell Labs (now Nathan Stubbleford of Murray, known as Nokia Bell Labs) Kentucky sent his friends a New originate in the American Year’s greeting using a battery- Telephone and Telegraph operated wireless telephone of Company (AT&T), which was his own design. The message founded by Alexander Graham was received at several houses Bell [March 7] in 1874 as the and offices by similar devices, Bell Patent Association. and it was reported that music, songs, and whispered AT&T's research efforts had conversations could be heard grown so large by the early with perfect ease. 1920's that they were split off into a new subsidiary, Bell Arguments arise over the Telephone Labs Inc., on this day. technology since Stubbleford Heinz Zemanek (2007). Photo utilized conduction and by Christian Wirth (Wirthi). CC Until the 1940's, the lab’s inductive fields rather than BY-SA 3.0. principal location was in electromagnetic radiation, and Manhattan’s West Village, in a so the broadcast wasn’t building described by Vannevar technically “radio”. Bush [March 11] as “a warren of Consequently, the first wireless testing labs for phones, cables, transmission is usually assigned switches, cords, coils, and a to Oliver Lodge on [Aug 14], nearly uncountable assortment 1894. This was over a year of other essential parts.” In before Guglielmo Marconi’s 1967, the headquarters

1 relocated to Murray Hill, New Jersey. Donald Lester Hewlett and Bell Labs was responsible for an Bitzer Packard Toss a amazing range of technologies, including: radio astronomy; the Born: Jan. 1, 1934; Coin laser; information theory [April Illinois Jan. 1, 1939 30]; the CNC [Jan 8], bombes Bitzer is the father of PLATO [Sept 4]; the TRADIC [March 14], (Programmed Logic for Bill Hewlett [May 20] and Dave modems [June 26]; the CARDIAC Automatic Teaching Packard [Sept 7] decided to [July 00]; UNIX [Oct 15], Plan 9 Operations), not to be confused name their company after [July 16]; C [July 21], AWK [Aug with the father of Plato, the themselves, and chose the order 9], and C++ [Dec 30]. Greek philosopher, who was with a coin toss. The result was Eight Nobel Prizes have been named Ariston. Hewlett-Packard (HP). Packard awarded to lab members proved to be an expert including for the invention of the administrator and Hewlett an transistor [Dec 16], and the astute technical innovator. The charge-coupled device (CCD [Oct company grew into a 17]). Its researchers have won powerhouse producer of the four times: calculators [Jan 4], computers [Dec 00]; [Oct 4]; [Nov 00], and  1968: Richard Hamming [Feb laser [May 5] and ink jet 11] printers.  1983: [Feb 4] HP's first corporate HQ was in and [Sept 9]’ Packard’s Palo Alto garage [May 17], which is now honored as  1986: [April 30] the “birthplace of Silicon Valley”. with [Oct 7]; The $538 used to start the  2018: Yann LeCun and Yoshua business was borrowed from Bengio shared the award with Fred Terman [June 7], a radio [Dec 6]. engineering professor at Perhaps less well known is the Stanford, who supported many lab's pioneering work on A PLATO V terminal in 1981. fledging tech. companies in this computer art (A. Michael Noll Photo by Mtnman79. CC BY 3.0. way. [Aug 29]), animation (Edward E. The company's first product, the PLATO was the first general- Zajac [Jan 8], Frank Sinden, and HP 200A Audio Oscillator, purposed computer-assisted Kenneth C. Knowlton [Feb 28]), became a popular piece of instruction system, which and music (Max V. Mathews testing gear. Rumor has it that Blitzer had begun developing at [Nov 13] and John R. Pierce “200” was chosen as a way to the start of the 1960's [Aug 22]. [March 27]). disguise the fact that it was the PLATO IV [July 00] was the first business’s first piece of After the Jan. 1 1984 break-up of version to combine graphics and merchandise. AT&T, Bell Labs became AT&T touch-sensitive screens. Bell Labs, and went into In 1940 Walt Disney Pictures In 1964 Bitzer co-invented the something of a decline. After the ordered eight of the 200B's for flat plasma display panel with H. deregulation of US Telecoms in testing the speaker systems Gene Slottow and Robert 1996, AT&T Bell Labs was split installed at twelve theatres Willson, originally as an again, into AT&T Labs and showing “Fantasia”. Lucent Technologies Bell Labs. educational aid for PLATO Bell Labs continued to lose students. The screens were easy Also in 1940, the company left manpower due to layoffs and to spot since they displayed their garage, moving to grander spin-offs, and Peter Salus everything in monochromatic rented accommodation. HP was announced the closure of the orange. In Oct. 2002, the group incorporated on Aug. 18, 1947, department responsible for was awarded an Emmy for their and went public on Nov. 6, 1957. UNIX on [Aug 16] 2005. efforts. Bitzer holds patents for several other inventions, including the Brian Wilson binary-weighted solenoid. Kernighan Born: Jan. 1, 1942; Toronto, Ontario Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie [Sept 9] are the authors of the

2 celebrated first book on C, “The 15-30 seconds. Hint: I am not nodes, a limited distance apart, C Programming Language” wearing glasses and am much into something capable of (1978). It's usually known as better dressed than is my habit.” handling large networks. STP “K&R”, or the “White” book due increases the reliability of data Another quote: “Debugging is to its color (which is white!). delivery by letting a network twice as hard as writing the code contain redundant links which in the first place. Therefore, if act as backups if a link fails. It you write the code as cleverly as also disables links when they possible, you are, by definition, aren’t needed. not smart enough to debug it.” Later, she improved on STP with TRILL (TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Allan (Al) Alcorn Links), which allows Jan. 1, 1948; San connectivity to vary based on the optimal use of the current Francisco, California bandwidth. Alcorn is best known for Inevitably, because of these designing and implementing the contributions, she's sometimes game Pong [Nov 29] at Atari Brian Kernighan (2012). referred to as the mother of the [June 27], then owned by Nolan Photo by Ben Lowe. CC BY 2.0. Internet, a title she dislikes. Bushnell [Feb 5] and Ted Dabney [May 2]. He’d first met Kernighan has always said that As an undergraduate, Perlman the pair at Ampex before they'd developed a child-friendly he played no part in the design left that company to form Atari version of LOGO [Feb 29], called of C. He said: “UNIX is Ken (although they called it "Syzygy" TORTIS (“Toddler’s Own Thompson [Feb 4] with an assist back then). Recursive Turtle Interpreter from Dennis Ritchie. And C is System”). She said later that she Dennis with an assist from Ken.” Bushnell asked Alcorn to make a abandoned that work because However, he is the co-creator of simple version of the Magnavox “being the only woman around, I the AWK and AMPL languages Odyssey’s [May 2] tennis game, wanted to be taken seriously as and many other UNIX utilities, as part of a contract from a ‘scientist’ and was a little including a slew of document General Electric. The contract embarrassed that my project preparation tools. The “K” in later turned out to a be a involved cute little kids.” AWK stands for “Kernighan” fabrication, but Pong's success (“A” is for Aho [Aug 9], “W” for was real. Weinberger [Aug 6]), Bushnell was involved with the He almost invented the name development of many later Atari Timesharing “UNIX” [Oct 15], having products, such as the Atari 2600 suggested “Unics”. The [Oct 14], but left the business in Memo reasoning was that Multics [Nov 1981. He went on to work for a Jan. 1, 1959 30] was a large, complicated OS, think tank funded by Paul Allen but “Unics” would be small and [Jan 21], and co-founded “Hack John McCarthy [Sept 4] have at most one of anything. the Future” in 2011, a published the MIT memo, “A Someone else added the “X”. technology festival and Time Sharing Operator Program hackathon aimed at elementary for Our Projected IBM 709”. It He also coined the expression, school kids. inspired a flurry of timesharing “What You See Is All You Get” experiments, including Herbert (WYSIAYG), a sarcastic version He grew up near the corner of Teager’s aggressively sounding of “What You See Is What You Haight Ashbury in San Francisco, “time-stealing" system. Get” (WYSIWYG [Sept 17]). and claims (perhaps humorously) to have worn When McCarthy began to His interest in computing flowers in his hair throughout consult at BBN [Oct 15] in 1960, blossomed in the summer of his high school years. his ideas found especially fertile 1966, when he worked part time ground with Ed Fredkin [Oct 2] for Fernando Corbató [July 1] and Joseph Licklider [March 11]. on CTSS [May 3] in MIT's Project Fredkin developed a MAC [July 1]. This led to part- Radia Joy Perlman demonstration timesharing time jobs at Bell Labs [Jan 1], system using one of the first and eventually a 30-year career Born: Jan. 1, 1951; PDP-1's [Nov 00], and Licklider with the company. Portsmouth, Virginia was inspired to write his famous Kernighan is a former black belt Perlman's invention of the “Man-Computer Symbiosis” and a movie extra, appearing in spanning-tree protocol (STP) paper. “A Beautiful Mind” (2001). allowed the Ethernet protocol However, the first full-scale Kernighan recalled the [May 22] to move beyond being timesharing OS was CTSS [May occasion: “I was on screen for able to cope with a couple of 3], developed by a MIT group led

3 by Fernando Corbató [July 1] in and Industry on this day, and Nov. 1961. subsequently revised in 1983, 1990, and 1997. Although McCarthy’s memo was IEEE Computer influential, it probably wasn’t A year after the standard the first to describe timesharing. Society debuted, disturbing reports [Dec 3] may have started appearing of 63 kanji pipped him to the post with a Jan. 1, 1971 characters that could not be talk he gave in 1952. However, The "IEEE Computer Group" found in conventional the exact meaning of changed its name to the "IEEE dictionaries. They came to be “timesharing” was rather fluid Computer Society" on this day, known as "ghost" characters back then, and some authors but versions of the organization (幽霊文字, yūrei moji). may only have meant a had been running since 1946 In 1997 a vigorous investigation switching between programs when it was known as the rather than users. This was unveiled to reveal where American Institute of Electrical they had come from. It is distinction led Corbató to credit Engineers (AIEE [May 13]) Christopher Strachey [Nov 16] completely untrue that all the subcommittee on Large-Scale members of the team of with originating the timesharing Computing Devices. idea. detectives disappeared without trace. In 1951, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) formed its Professional Group on Electronic UNIX/Epoch Time Computers (PGEC), which by the ARPANET Loves Begins end of the 1950’s had become IRE’s largest subgroup, with 19 TCP/IP Jan. 1, 1970 chapters and 8,874 members. Jan. 1, 1983 The AIEE and IRE merged in UNIX [Oct 15] time (aka POSIX 1963 to become the Institute of [?? 1988] time or Epoch time) is Prev: [Sept 1] Electrical and Electronics the number of seconds that have All computers on the ARPANET elapsed since 00:00:00 UTC Engineers (IEEE), and the IEEE Computer Group inherited a lot [Oct 29] were required to have (GMT) on Thursday Jan. 1, 1970. of its organization from the adopted TCP/IP (Transmission If you have a UNIX/Linux box PGEC. Control Protocol / Internet handy, you can found out the Protocol) [May 5], by this day, current epoch time in seconds In July 1966, the first issue of the replacing the out-moded NCP by typing: bimonthly "Computer Group (Network Control Protocol). As date +%s News" appeared. It was such, today is often marked as renamed Computer in 1972, the start of the Internet. The standard UNIX time becoming a monthly publication datatype (time_t) was a 32- in 1973, and significantly TCP/IP’s main advantage over signed integer for many years increased its tutorial-oriented NCP is that it was designed to which meant that it only covered content. support the interconnection of a span of some 136 years. The different packet-switching earliest representable day was The IEEE is one of the of networks (e.g. see [Nov 27]). Friday Dec. 13, 1901 (by using professional societies that Also TCP provides its own error negative epoch values), and the computing professionals tend to recovery and end-to-end last was Tuesday [Jan 19] 2038. join, the others being the SIAM reliability checks. [April 30] and ACM [Sept 15]. One drawback of NCP was that Thoughtfully, the datatype has been increased to 64 in its message routing functionality recent times, which expands the only used 8-bit addresses, which time range by approximately Kanji Ghosts allowed a machine to talk to at 293 billion years in both most 256 others. TCP/IP directions. This should be Jan. 1, 1978 employed 32-bit addresses, enough for anyone (perhaps JIS X 0208 is a two-byte allowing for approximately 4 paraphrasing Bill Gates [Jan 24]) character set standard billion hosts. (Of course, this as it's over twenty times the containing 6879 kanji symbols would later prove to be way too expected age of the universe. for writing Japanese. Its official small as well, prompting a switch to IPv6 [Dec 00]). UNIX enthusiasts have been designation is JIS C 6226-1978, known to host “time_t parties” the Code of Japanese Graphic The change-over had been to celebrate significant epoch Character Set for Information announced back in Nov. 1981 in time values. For example, see Interchange RFC 801 written by Jon Postel [Jan 26]; [Feb 13]; [Sept 9]; [Sept (情報交換用漢字符号系, Jōhō [Aug 6], where he gently 13]. For more on time overflows Kōkan'yō Kanji Fugōkei). suggested that people should start working on the transition see [Jan 4]; [Jan 19]; [Feb 7]; It was released by the Japanese by Jan. 1982. Fortunately, the [Feb 7]; [Nov 17]; [Dec 31]. Minister of International Trade

4 incentive to switch was greatly Wurtzel, who spent 13 years as all people throughout the increased in March 1982 when a CEO before retiring in 1986, world”. ISOC currently has over US military directive stated that went on to write “Good to Great 70,000 members, and supports TCP/IP would be mandatory for to Gone: the 60 Year Rise and over 120 chapters based on DoD communications networks. Fall of Circuit City” in 2012. geographical location or special interests. It's also the proud Another company featured in parent of the Internet Collins’ book was “Fannie Mae”, Engineering Task Force (IETF which became infamous during [Jan 16]), and established the the US mortgage crisis of 2007. "Internet Hall of Fame" in 2012 during its 20th anniversary. ISOC should not be confused Oldest Domain with the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), Name the political arm of the Thai military. A TCP Transition button. Photo Jan. 1, 1985

by . The Domain Name System (DNS [Nov 18]) allows Internet users Dan Lynch at the Information to connect to remote machines Dante Enters the Sciences Institute (ISI) at the by name without having to University of Southern California specify a network path, or use a Inferno handled most of the difficult-to-remember numerical Jan. 1, 1993 troublesome logistics involved address. in the change-over. UCLA An eight-legged robot named student David Smallberg also RFC 920, published in Oct. 1984, Dante, built by a team from documented the transition in no created seven generic top level Carnegie Mellon, climbed into less then 15 RFC documents, domains (gTLDs) for Antarctica’s Mount Erebus RFC 842 – RFC 876. corporations, schools, volcano. Dante was 9.8-feet long, government bodies, and the 5.6-feet wide, weighed almost For such an important event, the military. 1,000 pounds, and moved at a only souvenir created at the The first domain name, maximum speed of 6.6 feet a time was an “I survived the minute. It employed a laser TCP/IP switchover” button. Nordu.net, was registered on this day to a Scandinavian range-finder with a 350-degree research group, and is still in field of view to help guide its use. It consists of several Nordic descent. Circuit City research and education During most of its descent, it Jan. 1, 1984 networks, including SUNET of was operated via satellite from Sweden, UNINETT of Norway, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight "Circuit City" was listed on the FUNET of Finland, Center, with a deliberate time New York Stock Exchange on Forskningsnettet of Denmark, lag of 2.5 seconds, similar to the this day, although it had been and RHnet of Iceland. actual delay when operating a around since 1949, although as Symbolics.com became the first robot on the Moon. NASA hoped the company Wards. During its registered “.com” domain on that Dante's performance would heyday in the 1980's and 1990's, [March 15] 1985. give it some tips on how to "Circuit City" was the second- successfully operate robots on largest US electronics retailer the Moon and other planets. after "Best Buy" with more than It managed to collect a small 100 outlets. Such was its success The Internet amount of data before its that it was included as one of the communications tether failed. 11 exemplary companies in Jim Society Founded Collins’ bestselling 2001 book, The robot was named in honor “Good to Great”. Jan. 1, 1992 of “The Divine Comedy,” by Dante Alegheri, which recounts This must have tempted the The Internet Society (ISOC) was the poet's journey into the fates since following several founded by Vint Cerf [June 23] underworld, which includes poor business decisions in the and [Dec 23] in order “to promote the open passing through Erebus, the mist early 2000’s, the company that obscures the entry to hell. declared bankruptcy in 2008 development, evolution and use and closed in 2009. Alan of the Internet for the benefit of

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A detail of Domenico di Michelino's fresco in the Duomo in Florence showing Dante holding a copy of the Divine Comedy. Photo by Jastrow.

The project's Dante allusions were numerous. For instance, the cart used to carry the robot was called Geryon, after a flying demon who gives Dante a lift. Also, early plans included a transport robot named Virgil; in the poem Virgil guides Dante during his journey. For more Dante, see [July 16].

Screen Tax Jan. 1, 1995 The Brussels city council approved a 1,000 Belgian franc tax per year on all computer screens used by businesses. The city expected to raise $900,000 per year from the levy. The Brussels regional government considered this idea so bad for business investment, and for the image of the region, that it offered money to the boroughs to not impose the tax. In 2007, the mayor of Sint- Lambrechts-Woluwe, one of Brussel's municipalities, announced plans to tax all “antennas for the transmission of data”.

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