Something close to them than 1,600 listed stocks. After launched as the "Canon Cat" in less than a second 's delay, a March 9th 1987. Its innovative interface recorded voice would speak the attracted some interest, but the latest bid-ask and last sale data. machine wasn't a commercial The service could handle as success. Jef (Jeff) Raskin many as 400,000 telephone Born: March 9, 1943; inquiries per day – an increase of 60% over the old service. New York City Died: Feb. 26, 2005 Each spoken message was automatically composed from Raskin helped persuade the pre-recorded words. The voice Apple team to transform the Lisa belonged to Robert Rew, a 31- [Jan 19] from a text-based year-old senior associate computer to one incorporating engineer at IBM. graphics features similar to those he'd seen at Xerox PARC Rew and his wife, Lois, a [July 1]. phoneticist, had worked on the system together. The Rews had Raskin also founded the tried assigning the speaking role Macintosh project, although his to IBM secretaries but the vision for the Mac was very results had been disappointing. different from what Steve Jobs’ Finally, Mrs. Rew convinced her team finally produced [Jan 24]. husband to audition, and later Raskin wanted a simple Jef Raskin holding a model of the remarked: “Phonetically “information appliance," selling Canon Cat. Photo by Aza Raskin. speaking, his easy-to- for about $1,000. The machine CC BY 2.5. understand Midwest accent got was to be similar in power to the him the job.” Apple II [June 5] but include a 9- Raskin was a former conductor inch black-and-white character of the San Francisco Chamber display built into the case along Opera Society, and could play with a floppy disk drive. It would several instruments. He also Zilog Z80 be command line driven, as curated several art shows Raskin disliked a mouse, or including one featuring his March 9, 1976 anything else, that might take collection of unusual toys. He his hands off the keyboard. The 8-bit Zilog Z80 chip was changed his name from “Jeff” to designed by Federico Faggin In Sept. 1979, he hired his “Jef” after meeting Jon Collins. [Dec 1] and Masatoshi Shima former student Bill Atkinson A quote: “Imagine if every [Aug 22] after they left Intel to [April 27] from UCSD, along with Thursday your shoes exploded if form Zilog with Ralph Andy Hertzfeld [April 6] and you tied them the usual way. Ungermann at the end of 1974. Burrell Smith [Dec 16] from the This happens to us all the time The first version became Apple Service Department with computers, and nobody operational on this day, and the product was officially Jobs wasn’t involved for the first thinks of complaining.” announced in July. year, but he took control of the project on Jan. 20, 1981 after Faggin and Shima deliberately he'd been removed from the Lisa NYSE Gets a Voice designed the instruction set to project by Apple CEO Michael be binary compatible with the Scott. March 9, 1965 Intel 8080 [April 18] so that most code, notably the CP/M Raskin disliked Job’s managerial The New York Stock Exchange's [June 22] OS, would run style, and complained in writing (NYSE) first large real-time unmodified. The Z80 also on Feb. 19, 1981. The result was system was the IBM-based improved on the 8080 in many Raskin departure on an Market Data System (MDS), ways: there were 80 additional extended leave of absence (just which integrated its stock instructions, more registers, before Apple’s Black Wednesday indexing and clearing more interrupts, and the chip [Feb 25]), and he quit the Mac operations. Development had only needed a single 5V source. team permanently in the begun in 1962, and the system summer. Raskin’s opinion of became fully operational on Dec. The Z80 became the most Steve Jobs: “He would have 20 1966, although parts of it, commonly used CPU of the early made an excellent King of such as the Quotation Service, 1980's, and, along with the MOS France.” went live on this day, the 6502 [Sept 16], dominated the previous year. home computer market. It Raskin left Apple in Feb. 1982, helped that both were very two years before the Macintosh Subscribing organizations could cheap – around $25 each. went on sale. However, his Mac dial a four-digit number to get concepts didn’t disappear. information on any of the more 1 Zilog still makes the Z80, which System V like so: “The divide Another contender for first remains popular for embedded was roughly between longhairs graphical Web browser was systems. Nowadays they cost and shorthairs; programmers Erwise, also for UNIX, released around $2 each (and even less and technical people tended to on [April 15], 1992. However, when purchased in bulk). line up with Berkeley and BSD, neither Erwise or ViolaWWW more business-oriented types were the first UNIX browser; with AT&T and System V.” that title belongs to Nicola Pellow’s Line Mode Browser The final Berkeley BSD release BSD Begins [Aug 6] which was text-based. was in 1995, but the nature of its March 9, 1978 license meant that the software lived on as the basis for many The first Berkeley Software other open source versions of Distribution (BSD) was a version Zip Drives Ship UNIX, such as FreeBSD [Nov 1], of UNIX [Oct 15] developed by NetBSD [May 19], and OpenBSD March 9, 1995 the Computer Systems Research [May 18]. Parts of BSD were also Group (CSRG) at the University The first Iomega Zip drives could used by Apple in OS X [March of California, Berkeley (which read 3.5" Zip disks capable of 24] and iOS [Jan 9]. may well explain the name). holding 100 MB. Each disk cost An open question is why Linux around $20, which was BSD originated when Ken became so much more incredible value for money at a Thompson [Feb 4] took a successful than BSD? Some time when a 3.5″ floppy disk sabbatical from Bell Labs [Jan 1] historians believe that the more could store 1.44 MB and cost $2. in 1975 and joined Berkeley as a loosely organized use of Within two years, Iomega had visiting professor. He helped volunteer developers by Linux sold ten million Zip drives. install UNIX Version 6 on a PDP may be the reason, compared to 11/70 [Jan 5], and started the rather centralized group working on a Pascal compiler. of programmers involved Eventually graduate students with BSD. This difference is Chuck Haley and Bill Joy [Nov 8] often cited as an example of took over Thompson’s Pascal, Raymond’s “The Cathedral and found time to implement an and the Bazaar” [May 27] improved text editor (ex), and models of software several other tools. Several engineering. universities asked for a copy of the enhanced software, so Joy started packaging it up as a distribution. The Second Berkeley Software ViolaWWW The Iomega ZIP-100 Drive. Photo Distribution (2BSD), released in by Morn. CC BY-SA 3.0. May 1979, included some Released notable updates. Both the vi text Later drives offered an even editor (a visual version of ex) March 9, 1992 better dollar/MB ratio, and were and the C shell were written by able to store 250 MB and 750 Joy. Also, in the early 1980's, ViolaWWW was probably the MB. BSD became the first OS to first graphical Web browser for include support for Internet UNIX machines, and very The only hiccup were reports of protocols such as TCP/IP [Jan 1]. popular until the arrival of NCSA a “click of death” affecting some Mosaic [Sept 28] in 1993. drives [Jan 30]. However, what Meanwhile, AT&T (formerly really torpedoed sales at the end Bell) had decided to ViolaWWW was the first of the 1990's, was the falling commercialize their UNIX, while browser to support embedded cost of CD-R [Sept 1] and CD-RW BSD remained proudly open scriptable objects, style sheets, discs [March 10]; the arrival of source. As a result, BSD document inserts (a bit like USB drives [Jan 15] was the final programmers slowly rewrote frames), and tables. It even straw. the OS'es code to separate it received a glowing review from from AT&T’s clutches, which Tim Berners-Lee [June 8]. Along the way, Iomega bravely was mostly completed by the launched several new disk It was implemented by Pei-Yuan formats, such as Jaz, PocketZip, BSD Net/2 release in June 1991. Wei, a student at the University Amazingly, this was the only free and Rev, but they failed to of California, Berkeley, on top of recapture the Zip magic. UNIX for several years, until a scripting language called Viola version 1 of the Linux kernel that Wei also developed. Viola In 2006, PC World magazine came along on [March 14] 1994. stood for “Visually Interactive rated the Zip drive as the 15th Eric S. Raymond [Dec 4] Object-oriented Language and worst technology product of all summarized the differences Application”, and was inspired time. However, in 2007, the between BSD and AT&T's by HyperCard [Aug 11]. same magazine rated it the 23rd best technology of all time. 2 Zip drives are still used by retro- day some 20,000 volunteers had sustained injuries, ranging computing enthusiasts since helped to wire up 20% of the from friction burns and blisters, they utilize the SCSI interface state's schools. to minor lacerations as the [March 3] beloved by older result of rapidly rotating the President Bill Clinton and Vice platforms, such as the controller’s analogue stick.