In 1887, Gray developed the at a special conference on Telautograph, which mathematics and computing. August 2nd transmitted hand-writing as Sadly, his machine schematics electrical impulses, and a pen were later lost, so the only attached to the receiving device record of his ideas are his 1909 converted the signals back into paper, and a very brief account writing. The Telautograph published in 1914. Born: Aug. 2, 1835; became quite popular in banks Brian Randell wrote “One must Barnesville, Ohio for sending signatures. wonder just how much more he Died: January 21, 1901 might have achieved, if he had Gray is considered by some had but a modest fraction of the historians to be the true Percy Edwin resources available to Babbage, inventor of the , and had not succumbed to despite losing out to Alexander Ludgate pneumonia at such a tragically Graham Bell for its patent [Feb Born: Aug. 2, 1883; early age.” 14]. Skibbereen, Republic of Ireland Died: October 16, 1922 Mina Spiegel Rees Ludgate designed his first “analytical machine” knowing Born: Aug. 2, 1902; nothing of Charles Babbage's Cleveland, Ohio earlier work [Dec 23]. For Died: October 25, 1997 example, it used multiplication as its base mechanism unlike Rees was the first female Babbage’s Analytical Engine President of the American which was based on repeated Association for the addition. This approach would Advancement of Science. later be termed “Irish Earlier in her career, from logarithms” due to Ludgate's 1945-1951, she had been the involvement. Also, while head of the mathematics Babbage used columns of department of the US Office of toothed discs to store numbers Naval Research (ONR). During Ludgate opted for a simpler that time, she was instrumental shuttle mechanism. in developing projects on Elisha Gray. Portrait from However, after Ludgate became mathematical and computing Popular Science Monthly, familiar with Babbage’s efforts, algorithms, helped to sponsor Volume 14 (1878). he freely admitted that he was the Moore School Lectures [July “greatly assisted in the more 8], and funded programmes to advanced stages of the problem build computers, including the Gray gave the first public by, and [received] valuable IAS [June 10] at Princeton and demonstration of his invention suggestions from, the writings of Project Whirlwind [April 20]. at his local church on Dec. 29, that accomplished scholar.” Rees was an early proponent of 1874, transmitting “familiar Another thing he shared with core memory [Oct 21], melodies through telegraph Babbage was that his machine transistors, and visual displays, wire” according to a newspaper never left the design stage. and wrote an influential article report. The “Musical Telegraph” for Science in Dec. 1950: “The used electromagnets to oscillate Ludgate's machine would have federal computing machine steel reeds, an approach that has been capable of storing 192 program” , which stressed the caused Gray to be also called the numbers, each consisting of 20 growing importance of father of the music synthesizer decimal digits, and could computers. She even managed to [May 23]. perform all of the basic arithmetic operations. It was to reference the Steve Canyon On April 2, 1877, he staged a work automatically under the cartoon strip by by Milton Caniff ‘Telephone concert’ at Steinway control of a perforated tape, or in the piece – the “Mechanical Hall on East 14th Street in NYC. be controlled manually from a Brain” which had first run in The pianist, Frederick Boscovitz, keyboard. It would be powered April. It featured a “Comrade 'played' a 16-note version of the by an electrical motor, and the Smrnsk” , Russia’s greatest Musical Telegraph located in the complete device would be mathematician and computer Western Union office in "portable", occupying only a expert. Philadelphia, and the audio was mere 8 cubic feet of space. transmitted via the telegraph into the hall for the edification of In April 1909 he presented the an astonished New York details to the Royal Dublin audience. Society, and in 1914 he lectured about the machine in Edinburgh

1

CD-ROM Adapter even though particular, this means they can John Maurice Sony was generally uninterested work with both a stylus or a McClean Pinkerton in the gaming market. His efforts finger resulted in a device called the Born: Aug. 2, 1919; “Play Station”, a console that Bath, UK could run both Super NES games Why Big Blue? Died: December 22, 1997 and software released in the new SuperDisc format. Pinkerton, helped by David Aug. 2, 1972 Caminer, designed the UK's first There are no definite answers as business computer, the LEO, for to why IBM is nicknamed “Big J. Lyons and Co. It ran its first Blue”. Some say its an allusion to program on [Sept 5] 1951. the blue panels that IBM put on Pinkerton copied Maurice its mainframes in the 1960s, or a Wilkes’ EDSAC design [May 6], reference to the dark blue suits but improved its reliability by once worn religiously by IBM’s identifying common points of salesmen. failure (notably the valves) and Most commentators think it developed test procedures to stems from the makeover to detect pending problems. IBM’s logo by Paul Rand [Aug Lyons saw the potential in 15] in 1972. The revised version building computers for other depicts the three IBM letters as companies, and set up a eight bold horizontal stripes, that are often colored blue. subsidiary, LEO Computers Ltd, Ken Kutaragi at the Game in 1955 with Pinkerton as Developers Choice Awards It's also unclear when the logo technical director. He was 2014. was officially adopted, but responsible for the development several photos of System/370 of the LEO II and LEO III. About Eventually, the partnership [June 30] models sport the 8-bar 80 LEO III's were sold: a between Sony and Nintendo logo, and Model 158 was considerable number for the soured due to licensing issues, announced on this day. time. but Sony continued to develop Another likely first date for the their own console, which Unfortunately by 1961 it had phrase would be when it was became the PlayStation that we become clear that Lyons didn’t first used in a publication. That know today. Kutaragi was have the resources to maintain occurred in a letter sent to directly responsible for its their computer business, and the ComputerWorld by Richard J graphics rendering chip, and operation was sold to English August, which appeared in the was later appointed head of the Electric, with Pinkerton Aug. 27, 1975 issue on p.12. This division in charge of the appointed head of research at predates a more commonly PlayStation at Sony Computer the company. English Electric known “first publication of 'Big Entertainment. went through a series of Blue' in an article" in the June 8, mergers, eventually becoming 1981 issue of BusinessWeek. part of ICL on [July 9] 1968.

In retirement Pinkerton became Capacitive one of the first members of the Weird Science Worshipful Company of TouchScreen Information Technologists [Jan Aug. 2, 1966 Released 7] Eric A. Johnson, of the Royal Aug. 2, 1985 Radar Establishment in Malvern, UK, published his work on Weird Science was a 1985 teen Ken Kutaragi capacitive touchscreens in a sci-fi comedy written and short article in Electronics directed by John Hughes, and Born: Aug. 2, 1950; Letters in October 1965. He filed starring Anthony Michael Hall, Tokyo, Japan a patent for his invention on this Ilan Mitchell-Smith, and Kelly Le Brock. It was very loosely based Kutaragi is often called the day, which was later granted as on Al Feldstein’s story “Made of father of the PlayStation [Dec 3], US 3482241. the Future” that first appeared including the PlayStation 2 Although capacitive in the fifth issue of the EC comic [March 4], PlayStation Portable, touchscreens were very popular “Weird Science” in October and the PlayStation 3 [Nov 11]. for a while, they were eventually 1950. In the late 1980’s Kutaragi eclipsed by resistive Two high schoolers attempt to managed to persuade Sony to touchscreens [Oct 7], which create a virtual girl using their fund his work on building a respond to pressure rather than home computer. After hooking Nintendo Super NES [Nov 21] electrical conductivity. In

2 electrodes to a doll and hacking as Sprint and MCI [Sept 23], and into a Pentagon computer CIX gradually took on the role of system, a power surge creates a trade association. Lisa (Kelly Le Brock), a woman with seemingly endless superpowers. Mighty Mouse The machine used as the boys' computer was a Memotech MTX Controversy 512, which was technically similar to the MSX computers of Aug. 2, 2005 the time [June 16], although The Apple "Mighty Mouse" was neither was capable of "virtual the first since the one attached girl creation". to the Apple Lisa [Jan 19] 22 That lack of functionality wasn't years previously that had multi- why Memotech, a UK company, button functionality. It broke went into receivership in 1985. with Apple tradition by having It was mostly due to the two buttons, and a miniature substantial investment trackball for scrolling. However, Memotech had made in the really serious controversy producing enough MTXs for was over its name. 64,000 schools in the USSR, a Apple had thought it had every deal which fell through. base covered by obtaining a As a result of Memotech’s license from Viacom and CBS, bankruptcy, the UK government owners of the "Mighty Mouse" also withdraw its financial cartoon series. However, support from all the other UK another company – “Man and computer manufacturers, Machine” – had a trademark for including Sinclair [July 30] and the name from 2004.To make Acorn [Dec 5]. matters worse, another scrolling mouse device called the “Mighty

Mouse” had been developed by NTT Japan and ETH Zürich in CIX 1985. Indeed, it had a strong claim to being the first scrolling Aug. 2, 1991 mouse, although the wheel was The Commercial on the side of the device. The eXchange (CIX, pronounced first top-mounted scrolling “kicks” not "sicks" [July 8]), an wheel was developed in 1987 by Internet connection point for Jack McCauley for gaming commercial traffic, was applications. incorporated on this day. Apple's next mouse, a CIX marked the beginning of the device, was released on Oct. 20, Internet's transition into a 2009, and was called the “Magic commercial enterprise, away Mouse”. from purely research, education, The “Mighty Mouse” cartoon government, and military roles character was originally called (e.g. as typified by the ARPANET “Super Mouse” (as a parody of [Oct 29], MILNET [April 4], and Superman), and made his debut NSFNET [July 16]). in the Oct. 1942 short The Mouse The first partners in CIX were of Tomorrow. The name was UUNET [May 12], PSINet, and changed in his eighth film after it CERFnet, and CIX initially was discovered that there was a consisted of just a single router comic book character with that that connected those three name, who had also debuted in networks. The other big Oct. 1942 in Coo Coo Comics. commercial network of that time was ANSNET [Nov 00], and for a while wouldn’t talk to each other, but eventually made up. CIX pioneered a business model that was soon followed by other Internet Service Providers, such

3