David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Your LG TV knows where you live. The spy in your living room may or may not know your name. But it can find your home on a map. It knows the name of your wifi network, and all your neighbors’ wifi networks, so pinpointing you on a map isn’t hard. Your wifi network name may or may not be unique but the combination in your neighborhood probably is. It knows what’s on your home network too.
It knows what you watch, too. Even if you aren’t using their apps to watch.
The Atari 2600 was first released on September 11, 1977, along with nine titles. It wasn’t the first home video game console to connect to a TV and it wasn’t even the first one to use cartridges, but it was the first one to gain widespread success, selling 30 million units over its long lifetime. Let’s take a look at the nine Atari 2600 launch titles.
On September 8, 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America started suing individuals for pirating MP3 files. One of the people caught up in a lawsuit was a 12-year-old honors student who lived in public housing.
In 1986, it seemed like everyone was talking about VCRs, especially VHS VCRs. But this was an example of it taking years to become an overnight sensation. The first VHS VCR, the JVC HR-3300, was announced September 9, 1976. JVC started selling it in Japan on October 31, 1976.
Compuserve was an online service for dialup modems from the 1970s to the 1990s. It was a way of getting online and communicating with others before the Internet was generally available to individuals. Later, it became a primary way for individuals to connect to the Internet, turning itself into an Internet Service Provider. But over time, it faded away into history. Here’s what happened to Compuserve.
On September 6, 2001, HP announced its intention to acquire Compaq for $25 billion. It was a stunning end for what still seemed to be one of the rising stars of the PC industry. I also think it proved that bigger isn’t always better. The HP-Compaq merger arguably made sense at the time, but both companies had alternatives that would have suited them better. On May 23, 2012, HP announced the end of the Compaq brand, a stunning end for what had been the largest technology merger in history.
We’re now 33 years into Eternal September. You have to be older than about 52 to know what I’m talking about. But if you started college before the fall of 1993, especially if you were studying computer science, you know all about the September that never ended. And no, it’s not some kind of followup to that Beach Boys’ compilation album called Endless Summer. It doesn’t have anything to do with that Green Day song either. Instead, it’s a phase of the life of the Internet.
The phrase “the September that never ended” originated in a Usenet post on alt.folklore.computers by Dave Fischer, dated January 26, 1994.
On September 3, 2025, Microsoft released version 1.1 of its 6502 Basic as open source. This code formed the basis for Applesoft Basic on the Apple II series as well as Commodore Basic on all of Commodore’s 8-bit computers, including the C-64. It was the same code that Jack Tramiel licensed for a flat $25,000 and then included in more than 15 million computers.
The code could be built into ROM or it could load from tape or disk and execute from RAM. One of the reasons this code proved so influential was because millions of Commodore computers booted straight into it from ROM.
What did the original Amiga design team do after the Amiga went to market and Commodore wasted the opportunity? Jay Miner went back to designing medical devices, but three other members of the team designed the first color handheld game console, which, ironically, became the Atari Lynx. The Lynx reached the market September 1, 1989.
On September 1, 1982, the Commodore 64 launched. Its name referred to the amount of memory it had on board: 64 kilobytes. And it was the first computer with 64K of memory to sell for under $600.