Theory.”) was supervised by paw print is visible on the inside Alonzo Church [June 14]. of the Amiga 1000, alongside the signatures of the other May 31st In an April 1955 Scientific engineers. American article, “Man Viewed as a Machine,” Kemeny John George summarized lectures von Neumann had given on the Kemeny question “What could a machine (Kemény János György) do as well as, or better than, a Born: May 31, 1926; man?” Budapest, Hungary. In the late 1960's, Kemeny He became a US citizen in 1945. owned the vanity license plate Died: Dec. 26, 1992 “BASIC”. Mitchy's paw print. Photo by Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz Steve Heal. CC BY 2.5. [Feb 22] developed the Dartmouth College of the Jay Glenn Miner Dartmouth Time-Sharing System During this time, Miner also (DTSS) and BASIC [May 1]. Born: May 31, 1932; designed a microprocessor- In 1962, Kurtz approached Prescott, Arizona based cardiac pacemaker; the Kemeny, then chairman of the Died: June 20, 1994 chip was called the Lazarus. math department, with what Miner is probably best known as Kemeny later humorously the “father of the Amiga” [July termed an “outrageous 23], but one of his first successes ENIAC Begins suggestion that every in the late 1970's was the TIA Dartmouth student should learn (Television Interface Adaptor) May 31, 1943 to use a computer.” In fact, [Oct 14] – a single chip that Kemeny was a firm believer in managed the display hardware Prev: [April 8] Next: [May 00] the use of computers for college for the Atari 2600 [Oct 14], J. Presper Eckert [April 9] and education. For example, after replacing an entire breadboard John Mauchly [Aug 30] began Dartmouth acquired its first of components. work on the classified “Project computer in 1959, a Royal His follow-up multimedia chip PX” at the University of McBee LGP-30 [Sept 00], it was Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Kemeny that argued that it sets, the ANTIC and CTIA/GTIA, were employed by the Atari 8- Electrical Engineering in should be available to all Philadelphia. undergraduate students. bit family (the Atari 400 and 800 models [Nov 00]) and the Atari Eckert and Mauchly were the During WWII, he had worked on 5200. lead designers, under the the Manhattan Project at Los In the early 1980's, Miner, along supervision of John Brainerd Alamos, calculating numerical (the head of the school) [Aug 7], solutions to differential with many other Atari staff, became very disillusioned with with Herman Goldstine [Sept 13] equations; his was Richard as the army’s liaison officer. The Feynman [May 2]. The crews in the company’s management. Larry Kaplan, and a half-dozen three other principal designers the “computing center” were Arthur W. Burks [Oct 13], organized by John von Neumann of his team, left to start Activision on [April 25] 1980. Thomas Kite Sharpless, and [Dec 28] worked on desktop Robert F. Shaw. calculators in three eight-hour Miner and David Morse [April shifts, 24 hours a day. It typically 15] set up “Hi Toro” in Sept. The formal contract between the took two or three weeks to 1982, which became Amiga army and the school was signed produce a single result. Corp. on June 5, and at around this Miner began the development of time the machine was named the Kemeny would later joke that a Electronic Numerical Integrator year’s worth of work by a Los a new Motorola 68000-based [Sept 26] games console, and Computer (ENIAC [Feb 15]). Alamos number-crunching team It would become the first ever of 20 people could be done in a codenamed Lorraine (after Morse’s wife), which ultimately electronic and general purpose single afternoon by a Dartmouth computer. sophomore on the school’s time- became the Amiga 1000 [July sharing system. 23]. Miner recalled the project: “my goal was to design a low After the war, Kemeny returned cost computer that could do to Princeton, and became Albert good flying aeroplane Einstein’s research assistant at simulations.” the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), helping the great man While Miner worked at Atari, his with his math homework. His dog “Mitchy” (a cockapoo) had doctorate (“Type-Theory vs. Set- her own ID badge, and Mitchy’s

1

Jobs was removed from all of his BELONG TO US," and the game's Fallout Shelter duties as a division manager, but background music becomes given the new job description of aggressively techno. Tested “global thinker”. Masahiro Yuge, a game May 31, 1982 He was left with few developer who worked for InfoWorld magazine ran a responsibilities, and his new at the time, believes the review of the Apple II [June 5] office, located in a small building "Zero Wing" translation was application, “Fallout Shelter (Bandley 6) that was almost carried out by the person in Design,” the brainchild of Bob empty, was dubbed “Siberia” by charge of exports at Toaplan Karcher; the reviewers called it Apple insiders. whose English was rather poor. the “VisiCalc [Oct 19] of the On April Fool’s Day 2003 [April Atomic Age”. 1], the meme entered the Karcher's program computed a All Your Base Are mainstream after local police in person's exposure to radiation Sturgis, Michigan saw signs based on the size of a Belong To Us bearing the words billposted hypothetical nuclear blast, and May 31, 1991 around town, and naturally their distance from it. It could decided their peaceful also recommend how thick to Toaplan Co. released an English community was under attack. build the walls of that person's language version of “Zero Wing”, Police chief Eugene Alli mused fallout shelter. a scrolling shooter for the that the signs could be “a Genesis [Oct 29]. It was based on borderline terrorist threat At the time, Karcher worked as a a popular Japanese depending on what someone designer of nuclear protection from 1989, with an added interprets it to mean.” systems for Rockwell introductory scene to expand International. In the InfoWorld For more Internet memes [Nov the plot. review, he admitted that he 15], see [April 21], [Aug 00], [Jan hadn’t built his own fallout The text was poorly translated 5], [July 27]. shelter yet, but was giving it due to the rush to get the game “serious consideration.” to market. For example, a villain named Cats remarks scathingly: “How are you gentlemen. All Steve in Siberia your base are belong to us!! You are on the way to destruction. May 31, 1985 You have no chance to survive make your time.” Next: [Sept 16] Macintosh [Jan 24] sales had been dismal during Christmas 1984, causing Apple to publish their first quarterly loss, and fire a fifth of their staff. During a two-day board meeting on April 10 and 11, Apple’s CEO John Sculley [April 6] demanded that Steve Jobs [Feb 24] be relieved of his position as vice Screenshot from the Sega game president and general manager "Zero Wing". of the Mac division. In response, Jobs tried to have Sculley fired. On Feb. 15, 2001, a Flash Sculley told the board: “I’m animation [Jan 6] of the scene asking Steve to step down and was posted to several Internet you can back me on it and then I forums. The video used the take responsibility for running original graphics, but was the company, or we can do dubbed with a monotone, nothing and you’re going to find machine-generated speech yourselves a new CEO.” reading of each phrase. On this day, the board After 30 seconds or so, the announced a corporate original visuals fade to black, a restructuring plan that low-resolution image of Earth eliminated both its Apple II appears, and the robo-voice [June 5] and Mac divisions. screams "ALL YOUR BASE, BASE, B-BASE, ALL YOUR BASE, ARE

2