operational today (albeit after CADET was developed by Ted some serious restoration work). Cooke-Yarborough in the February division of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment (AERE) at First Car Phone Harwell in England. He had been inspired after attended Bell Feb. 1913 Labs' first symposium on the in 1951. Los Angeles inventor Earl C. Hanson became the first person Some historians think the to receive a wireless phone call CADET was beaten to ’first in his car. It was transmitted place' by the Manchester from Long Beach to his vehicle University Transistor Computer parked on Lookout mountain, ( the “Manchester TC”), a some 35 miles away. One slight prototype of which was demoed drawback was that the car had on [Nov 16] 1953. However, the to be fitted with 10 foot poles TC wasn’t completely fore and aft, supporting aerial transistorized because it still and high-voltage relied on vacuum tubes to insulators, which dangled generate a clock signal. The somewhat precariously over the The JOHNNIAC. Photo by CADET didn’t deign to use valves driver and passengers. Andrew Lih. CC BY-SA 2.0. to generate pulses, but that meant it did run rather slower. A short article about the As with von Neumann's own IAS experiment appeared in the Feb. Prior to the CADET, Cooke- machine [June 10], the 1913 issue of Popular Mechanics, Yarborough supervised the JOHNNIAC made the initial but the test may date from the production of the Harwell mistake of utilizing Selectron previous year when Hanson was , working with fellow tubes [Aug 10] for its main 19. designers Dick Barnes and memory. In March 1955, more Gurney Thomas. The ‘Harwell’ is Despite the publicity, there had reliable (and faster) core the oldest computer still running been earlier radio telephony memory [May 11] replaced the [April 00]. tests. In 1907, Cyril Frank Elwell Selectrons, and a massive 12k- had demonstrated voice word drum was added as communication between secondary storage. A transistor- Stockton and Sacramento, and based adder supplanted the Kludge Described went on to found the Federal original unit in Telegraph Company, Palo Alto’s 1956. Feb. 1962 first large industry, and first The JOHNNIAC holds several A kludge (or kluge) is a home of radio engineering. firsts – it could run reliably for workaround, or quick-and-dirty hundreds of hours at a time, it solution, that is clumsy, pioneered the use of a time- inelegant, inefficient, difficult to The JOHNNIAC sharing service (JOSS) [May 00], extend and hard to maintain. In employed the first rotating drum other words, it's a good Runs printer and possessed, for a description of lots of software. short while, the largest core The "Oxford English Dictionary" Feb. 1953 memory in the world. gives the word’s origin as RAND Corp's [Oct 1] JOHNNIAC Jackson W. Granholm’s Feb. (John von Neumann Numerical 1962 “How to Design a Kludge” Integrator and Automatic Harwell CADET article which appeared in Computer) was so named Datamation. However, the very because of its use of the von Feb. 1955 similar word, kluge, was Neumann [Dec 28] architecture. common Navy slang in WWII for It became operational early in The Harwell CADET (Transistor any piece of electronics that 1953 and was finally Electronic Digital Automatic worked well on shore but decomissioned on Feb. 11, 1966, Computer – read backwards) consistently failed at sea. making it the longest was most likely the first fully operational computer, clocking transistorized computer in For example, Agnes Nolan up over 50,000 hours. However, Europe, and perhaps the first in Underwood in her 1947 essay the oldest computer still running the world, just beating Bell Lab’s “Folklore from GI. Joe” in the (discounting long periods when TRADIC [March 14] to the title. New York Folklore Quarterly (Vol it was mothballed) is the It sported over 300 point- 3, No. 4, Winter) ends with an Harwell Dekatron [April 00], in contact , and ran its account of the shaggy dog story, service for 30 years, and still first test program some time this “Murgatroyd the Kluge Maker”. month.

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The "Jargon File" [Oct 2] . RAM chips could & Alice” may have been the believes that kludge derives be added, to offer up to a total of inspiration. from British military slang for 640 . Alice and Bob soon began the Scotish kludge or kludgie, During its development, Sinclair turning up everywhere in the meaning “a common toilet”. had been lukewarm about the cryptographical literature. This prospects for personal prompted a detailed computers, so the MK-14 project examination of their lives by Sinclair MK14 had been handed off to Chris John Gordon in an after-dinner Curry, and the kit produced by speech at an April 1984 crypto Feb. 1978 National Semiconductor. Curry conference. left Sinclair's company in 1978, Clive Sinclair’s [July 30] It appears that Bob is a to found Acorn Computers [Dec company, “Science of stockbroker, and Alice a stock 5] with Herman Hauser. Cambridge”, launched a speculator, and their favorite kit, the MK14 “Micro Men”, a BBC TV drama hobbies are trying to defraud (“MK” for “microprocessor kit”), (2009), focused on the rivalry insurance companies and based on National between Sinclair and Curry playing poker over the phone. Semiconductor’s SC/MP during this time. Sinclair has Naturally, Alice and Bob are (“Scamp”) 8- . remarked, “it was a travesty of wanted by both the tax Indeed, the entire kit was closely the truth.” The programme authorities and the secret police, derived from National features a stellar galaxy of and even Alice doesn’t entirely Semiconductor’s SC/MP Introkit, 1980’s PCs from the UK. trust Bob because of some a low-cost evaluation board. unspecified past incident. The MK14 shipped with 256 Inevitably, Alice and Bob were bytes of RAM, 512 bytes of ROM, Alice and Bob joined in their adventures by a rubbery -style others alphabetical characters. keyboard, a LED seven segment Feb. 1978 For example, in Aug. 1985, display, and a few I/O ports. Charles Bennett, Giles Brassard, The Feb. issue of the and Jean-Marc Roberts started Crucially, it was five times Communications of the ACM their paper, “How to Reduce cheaper (price: £39.95) than its (CACM) featured “A Method for Your Enemy’s Information,” with closest micro kit competitor, Obtaining Digital Signatures and a tale about Alice, Bob, and Eve, with the result that about Public-key Cryptosystems” by an eavesdropper who could 20,000 (or perhaps 50,000) Ron Rivest [May 6], Adi Shamir modify a transmission were sold during its lifetime. [July 6], and Leonard Adleman arbitrarily. This was Sinclair’s first [Dec 31]. computer product, and its wild The cast expanded dramatically The article, now reverently success paved the way for (with over five new people) in called the “RSA paper”, describes Sinclair's ZX80 [Jan 29] and the 1994 textbook, “Applied the types of communication others. Cryptography”, by Bruce possible with public key Schneier [Jan 15]. He added a cryptography, Carol but went with Trent rather although there than a Ted. had already been a less formal introduction to these concepts by IBM 5120 Martin Gardner [Oct 21] in the Feb. 1980 [Aug 00] 1977 The 5120 was the last evolution issue of Scientific of IBM’s 5100 [Sept 9] and 5110 American. Science of Cambridge's MK14 ‘portable’ series. It had the (1978). Photo by Steve Elliott. CC The RSA paper outlines different distinction of being IBM’s BY-SA 2.0. communication situations by lowest-priced computer up to referring to their effects on two that time, and also the heaviest characters, Alice and Bob. Rivest desktop device ever: a gut- The MK14's popularity was later remarked that they had wrenching 105 lbs. greatly helped by magazines and chosen the names in order to Aside from the weight, it was hobbyists coming up with maintain the traditional use of well designed, and took up less improvements and “A” and “B,” but also to make space on the desktop than the modifications to its basic design. communication scenarios easier 5100, and featured a 9-inch Expansions included a better to explain by using the pronouns monochrome monitor, which keyboard, a cassette interface, a “he” and “she.” However, some improved on the 5-inch screen text and graphics video module, people have suggested that the on the 5100. sound card, and EPROM 1969 movie, “Bob & Carol & Ted

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However, returning to the play back sequences of weight issue – the 5120 actually commands, as well as play consisted of three parts – an IBM regular audio. A built-in digital 5110 Model 3, a 5114 external clock allowed the playback of diskette unit, and a 5103 dot- commands at specified times. matrix printer. The floppy-drive The Omnibot disappeared in the cabinet could hold one or two 8- inch floppy drives, weighing 15 mid-1980's, but after the merger of Tomy and Takara in 2006, the lbs. each. This meant that the company unveiled a new total system could weigh in at Omnibot, the i-SOBOT, which 132 lbs. Nevertheless, it was was later certified by Guinness aimed at general small World Records as “the world’s businesses, not just accredited smallest humanoid robot in weightlifters. production”. The next 51xx machine would be For more robot men, see [Feb the IBM 5150, better known as 24], [March 23], [March 24], the IBM PC, released on [Aug 12] [April 16], [April 30], [July 17], 1981. [July 30], [Sept 15], [Nov 11], [Nov 30], [Dec 22]. Omnibot Unleashed TWAIN Released Feb. 1985 Feb. 1992 The Omnibot was a Japanese toy TWAIN is an API and robot manufactured by Tomy, communications protocol that with a name that proved so regulates communication popular that it was later applied between software and imaging to an entire line-up. devices, such as scanners and digital cameras. The original device was controlled via a wireless remote, The TWAIN website notes that and could be driven around a the word comes from Rudyard room, and its right arm and Kipling’s “The Ballad of East and claw-like hand could move. The West” (1889): Omnibot could even“speak” via a ‘Oh, East is East, and West is walkie-talkie interface. West, and never the twain shall meet’ This was repurposed to reflect the difficulty at the time of TWAIN's introduction of connecting scanners and PCs. From a literary point of view, this line of Kipling's has often been seen as problematic, and he's even been accused of being a racist because of it. Kipling scholars argue that later lines in the same verse actually state the opposite – that “strong men” can look past such differences and accept one another. The uppercase use of TWAIN led some computer users to believe that it was an acronym. The TWAIN group turned this into a The Omnibot 2000. Photo by contest to come up with a Rama. CC BY-SA 3.0 fr. suitable acronymic expansion, but nothing suitable was found. Early Omnibots had a cassette However, “Technology Without tape player built into the chest an Interesting Name” has been area, which could record and widely adopted.

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