David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
The Apple Disk II, first released in June 1978 about a year after the Apple II computer, is a great story of a genius inventor outsmarting The Man to deliver affordable disk-based storage to the masses, liberating them from the tyranny of slow and cumbersome linear cassette-based storage. It’s a great story. Some of it is even true.
On June 16, 1987, the GIF file format made its debut. That’s right, GIF predates the modern Internet. The first web browsers supported GIF because it was already very popular in the early 1990s and well supported.
On June 13, 1994, a mathematics professor discovered a bug in Intel’s then-new Pentium CPU. Intel’s new CPU was fast, but it couldn’t divide correctly. The bug became known as the Pentium FDIV bug. It resulted in Intel recalling 60 and 66 MHz Pentium CPUs in stepping levels prior to D1, and 75, 90, and 100 MHz Pentium CPUs in steppings prior to B5. The recall cost Intel $475 million and might have caused reputational damage if more viable competitors had been available at the time. Collectors prize a surviving Pentium CPU with the FDIV bug today.
On June 12, 1997, 3Com and US Robotics merged at a cost of $8.5 billion. At the time, it was the merger of the two biggest names in their respective fields, and it seemed poised to become a telecommunications giant. Instead, it ended up being the beginning of the end for one storied brand and the beginning of a sharp decline for the other. In this blog post, we will look at what went wrong. Read more
My first experience with a computer wasn’t with a desktop machine or a game console. It was with an orange handheld device called a Texas Instruments Speak and Spell. Many Gen Xers born in the early 70s can probably say the same thing. Texas Instruments announced Speak & Spell on June 11, 1978.
On June 10, 1977, Apple launched the Apple II, one of the first pre-built desktop computers. It went on to sell about 6 million units over the course of the next 17 years, making it the longest lived and most successful of the three micro computers that arrived on the market in 1977. Some people say June 5, 1977 was the Apple II’s introduction date, but June 5 was the Commodore PET. The Apple II was just a few days after.
In its original configuration, it sold for $1,295 with 4 KB of RAM, and it plugged into a household cassette tape recorder for storage. Apple did not sell monitors until 1983, so you could either acquire a composite monitor or a third-party RF modulator that allowed you to use it with a television.
When it comes to 80s computer brands, few flew as high as Eagle Computer flew in 1983. The aptly named company was selling 12,000 computers a month and had been doubling sales every quarter under the leadership of a talented CEO. Then Eagle lost its CEO, Dennis Barnhart, in a crashed Ferrari on the day of its IPO, June 8, 1983. In this blog post, we’ll explore the reasons Eagle Computer fell, because there was more to it than just the tragic story involving its CEO.
On June 5, 1977, at the summer Consumer Electronics Show, Commodore had its PET 2001 personal computer on display after showing a prototype at the January 1977 show. Chuck Peddle said Commodore took its first distributor order on that day, giving Commodore a case for being the first of the 1977 Trinity to sell a prebuilt personal computer, or at the very least, the first to demonstrate a working unit, having done so in January. It cost $495, quickly raised to $595.
On June 4, 1995, AMD released its DX4 CPU, about six months after Intel released its DX4 CPUs. The AMD CPUs weren’t quite as fast as Intel’s DX4s, but they proved very popular because of their value for money. While I didn’t see AMD’s DX4 in many name-brand PCs, smaller manufacturers, especially local clone shops, sold them extensively. In the June 5, 1995 issue of Infoworld, an unnamed AMD spokesperson said they expected to sell 12 million 486-class chips by the end of 1995.
The GE Widescreen 1000 was a big time TV for big time budgets in an era of excess, with the tagline “This is GE Performance Television.” Introduced in June 1978, it cost about 3/4 as much as a family sedan at the time. But middle class families weren’t the target audience for this set.
The General Electric Widescreen 1000 (WS1000) cost $2,800. For the money you got a 45-inch screen, hardwood veneer paneling, two speakers, and a spot to plant a matching VCR.