also a tic-tac-toe player, but Squee owed an intellectual debt running on a general-purpose to a series of robots developed August 25th computer, the EDSAC [May 6]. by British neuroscientist William Grey Walter [Feb 19] in 1948-49. He called his two Bertie the Brain robots ‘turtles’, or sometimes Squee the Squirrel "Machina speculatrix", but Aug. 25 – Sept. 9, Aug. 25 – Sept. 3. mostly used their nicknamed, 1950 Elmer and Elsie. 1951 A noted descendent of Squee "Bertie the Brain" was a four- Squee, the Robot Squirrel, was was Timothy Turtle [April 00]. meter tall computer built for the designed by Edmund Berkeley 1950 Canadian National [Feb 22], and featured on the Exhibition (CNE) held in cover of the Dec. 1951 issue of Toronto. It let attendees play a Radio Electronics. However, it Elvis Costello game of tic-tac-toe at various was built by one of Berkeley’s (stage name of Declan Patrick difficulty levels. At the highest assistants, Jack Koff. MacManus, OBE) setting, Bertie could not be beaten. Born: Aug. 25, 1954; Paddington, London The player entered a move on a lit three-by-three keypad grid, Elvis Costello is an English and the game play was displayed singer-songwriter who has won on a similar grid of lights on multiple awards, including another panel. A pair of signs Grammy Awards in 1999 and alternately lit up with 2020, and was inducted into the “Electronic Brain” assigned to X, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in and “Human Brain” to O, to 2003. indicate whose turn it was. He first came to prominence in 1977 for his debut album "My Bertie was built by Josef Kates Squee: The Robot Squirrel. Aim Is True", as part of the (1921 – 2018) to showcase his Photo by Mark Richards. British punk and new wave additron tube, which performed Courtesy of Gordon and Gwen binary addition, and did the movements. Bell. same job as about ten ordinary He's included here for his early vacuum tubes. At the time, Kates Squee’s mission was to hunt for life, in particular for his job as a was working on the memory and data entry clerk at "Elizabeth control systems for Canada’s a “nut”, which had to be illuminated with a steady light. Arden" in Liverpool, which first computer, the UTEC inspired the lyrics for "I'm Not (University of Toronto After scooping up the “nut” it dropped it off back at its “nest”, Angry" on his first album, and Electronic Computer). In 1954, also as a computer operator at Kates went on to design which was illuminated with a flashing light, and then started the Midland Bank computer Toronto’s automated traffic center in Bootle. signaling system – the first in the over. Its hardware consisted of world. four sensors (two phototubes, British banking was in a state of two contact switches), three flux at the time, due to A well-known picture shows actuators (a drive motor, a decimalization (which occurred comedian and actor Danny Kaye steering motor, and a motor for on Feb. 15 1971), and the winning against the machine. a scoop), and processing introduction of bank encoding What wasn’t shown was that implemented using half a dozen on cheques with magnetic ink, Bertie had beaten Kaye several relays. The implementation was which required new hardware. times earlier until Kates had explained in the Feb. 1952 issue The Midland Bank, like many lowered the difficulty level (to of Radio Electronics. others, was using Burroughs which setting is unknown). Squee had made his first public B5500s [Feb 18] and the totally Kates remarked later that Kaye revised B6500, which was still did a “dance of joy because he appearance at the Minnesota State Fair back in 1951. Koff was quite buggy. Cheque encoding beat the first arcade game in the was handled by the Burroughs world.” given the job of exhibiting Squee and Berkeley’s Simon [May 18], P6000, which had a reputation Kaye may be overstating matters which were a great success, for breakdowns. a little – the first computer game although Squee would only work was probably the Nimatron for 15-20 minutes on a given set [Sept 24], put on display at the of batteries. Over the ten days of New York’s World’s Fair in April the fair, 50,000 people probably 1940. Another contender for saw the devices. first graphical computer game is Sandy Douglas’ OXO [May 21], 1 The Apollo Torvalds Posts Guidance Microsoft’s UNIX Aug. 25, 1991 Computer Aug. 25, 1980 Linus Torvalds [Dec 28], then a second year computer science Aug. 25, 1966 Microsoft [Aug 12] announced student at the University of that it would be making its Helsinki, posted a message to The Apollo Guidance Computer version of UNIX [Oct 15], known the comp.os.minix newsgroup (AGC) was installed in every as Xenix, available for the 16-bit with the subject line “What Apollo Command Module (CM) microcomputer market. would you like to see most in and Lunar Module (LM). Around Microsoft had purchased a minix?” 75 AGCs were built, of which 25 license for UNIX version 7 from The first paragraph read: “I’m flew in space. AT&T in 1978, but couldn’t use doing a (free) operating system the UNIX name for legal reasons. Astronauts communicated with (just a hobby, won’t be big and For a long period during the an AGC using a numeric display professional like gnu) for 1980's, the highest-volume and keyboard called the DSKY 386(486) AT clones. This has purchaser of AT&T UNIX (DiSplay&KeYboard, been brewing since April, and is licenses was Microsoft. pronounced ‘DISS-key’). During starting to get ready. I’d like any a trip to the Moon, the feedback on things people astronauts might have to enter like/dislike in minix, as my OS more than 10,000 commands. resembles it somewhat (same In Aug. 1961, NASA asked physical layout of the file-system Charles Stark Draper (an expert (due to practical reasons) in ballistic weapon guidance among other things).” systems) to lead the AGC team; This was the first public he chose to build using announcement that Torvalds integrated circuits, barely three was working on an OS that years after their invention. would shortly become Linux Margaret Hamilton [Aug 17] led [Sept 17]. the team that developed the AGC's software. In contrast to the Air Force’s Online Newspaper Minuteman II computer [Aug 5], IBM/Microsoft Xenix 1.00 on which used over twenty types of 5.25-inch floppy disk. Photo Aug. 25, 1994 ICs, the AGC used one type, the by Ringbang. CC BY-SA 3.0. NOR3, made up of just three "Aftonbladet" became the first transistors and four resistors. Swedish newspaper to be The IC was designed by Fairchild published on the Web, and Microsoft didn’t sell Xenix Semiconductor [Oct 1], and perhaps the first ever Web- directly to end users, but Philco-Ford manufactured them, based newspaper. There's some licensed it to OEMs such as IBM, selling them for about $25.00 uncertainty since the earliest Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) [Jan each. Each AGC used around page from aftonbladet.se 00], and Tandy who ported it to 4000 chips, and NASA’s large preserved by the Internet their own architectures; there purchases eventually made the Archive is dated Oct. 23, 1996. was even a version for the Apple cost of the chips drop, making Lisa [Jan 19]. In 1987, SCO "Aftonbladet" wasn’t the first similar technology affordable to ported Xenix to the Intel 386 newspaper online; that honor the commercial and consumer [Oct 17], making it the first 32- belongs to The Columbus markets. bit OS for the x86. Dispatch which debuted on The first mission to use the ACG, CompuServe [Sept 24], then still In the mid 1980’s, Microsoft Apollo-Saturn 202 (or Flight AS- a dial-up service, on July 1, 1980. signed an agreement with IBM 202), was launched on this day. At the time, CompuServe had to develop OS/2 [Oct 11]. When This ACG version (called Block I) about 3,600 subscribers. it was released in 1987, was also employed during the Microsoft transferred ownership The Columbus Dispatch was unmanned Apollo 4 and 6 of Xenix to SCO, but kept a 25% joined in early 1982 by several flights. ownership in the company. That Associated Press (AP) The Block II ACG retained the marked the end of any further newspapers, including The basic architecture, but increased Xenix investment at Microsoft, Washington Post, The New York the amount of memory, used I/O and the group was left to slowly Times, and The Los Angeles channels, and had a larger atrophy, and was closed down in Times. However, the instruction set. The Block II was 1989. CompuServe/AP collaboration the one that flew to the moon was short-lived, over by the end [July 20]. of 1982. According to an editor 2 involved in the project, the enrollment in a Business website over to EC2 and AWS in readership during that time was Management course at the Nov. 2010. a low 5% of total CompuServe University of Nottingham. Not surprisingly, the word system usage. Newspaper The page consisted of a million ‘cloud’ has a longer pedigree in executives were also quoted as pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 computing than EC2. For saying that the distribution grid, which were sold for $1 per example, it turns up in diagrams method was too expensive — CompuServe charged $5 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks.