Amiga 1000: Ten years ahead of its time

Amiga 1000: Ten years ahead of its time

On this day, 39 years ago, on July 23, 1985, Commodore introduced its Amiga 1000 computer. And let’s just say the world wasn’t ready for it yet. Dave Haynie, a Commodore engineer who worked on the later models, has said there was no such thing as a 1980s computer. There were 1970s computers and 1990s computers, and it was the Amiga that dragged the rest of the industry into the 1990s.

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The MCI Worldcom merger, bankruptcy, and scandal

The MCI Worldcom merger, bankruptcy, and scandal

On November 4th, 1997, MCI and Worldcom merged in a deal worth $37 billion. This was an attempt by two large telecommunications companies to to combine and rival AT&T, but instead it turned into one of the biggest scandals and bankruptcies of its era. On July 21, 2002, the combined company went bankrupt, setting a record at the time as the largest bankruptcy in history.

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Intel founded July 18, 1968

Intel founded July 18, 1968

Intel was founded July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore (of Moore’s law fame) and Robert Noyce and investor Arthur Rock. Intel’s employee #3 was Andrew Grove. Moore, Noyce, and Grove had all worked together at Fairchild Semiconductor in the mid 1960s.

The name “Intel” means INTegrated ELectronics. Moore and Noyce didn’t want to name the company after themselves, as it would sound like “more noise.” With noise being an undesired property in electronics, they initially chose the name NM Electronics, using their initials, but changed the name to Intel less than two weeks after its founding. Intel was already a trademark of a hotel chain, so the young company bought the rights to the name.

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Retro emojis: We had ’em in the 80s and 90s

Retro emojis: We had ’em in the 80s and 90s

It’s world emoji day, which makes today the perfect day to look back at retro emojis from the 80s and 90s. It might surprise you to hear we had emojis that long ago. We’ve had them since 1982, to be precise. The first known use was on a bulletin board by Scott Fahlman, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor, on September 19, 1982. They didn’t stop there. Whether we called them emojis, emoticons, smileys, or just faces, they proliferated throughout online life in the 80s and 90s.

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Reasons for Escom’s bankruptcy

Reasons for Escom’s bankruptcy

On July 15, 1996, German PC manufacturer Escom declared bankruptcy. But Escom wasn’t necessarily just an ordinary PC manufacturer. Escom went bankrupt less than 2 years after acquiring the Commodore and Amiga brand names and starting to use their technology. Were Commodore and Amiga cursed? Or was there something else going on that led to Escom’s bankruptcy?

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Gary Kildall’s death investigation

Gary Kildall’s death investigation

Gary Kildall’s death investigation, or the seeming lack thereof, has taken on mythical proportions. Gary Kildall’s story seems to have that effect on people. Just like the story of Kildall allegedly going flying instead of meeting with IBM, the story of Gary Kildall’s death on July 11, 1994 spiraled out of control.

While Gary Kildall died under unclear circumstances, his death was less unusual than early accounts made it seem. That’s why the investigation seemed to fizzle out with less fanfare than it deserved.

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Ray Kassar, former Atari CEO

Ray Kassar, former Atari CEO

Raymond Edward Kassar was born January 2, 1928 and died December 10, 2017, aged 89, in Vero Beach, Florida. Ray Kassar was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983. Atari’s parent company, Warner Bros, hired him as president of Atari’s consumer division in February 1978 after he spent 26 years at Burlington Industries, a textile maker.

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Why IBM bought Lotus

Why IBM bought Lotus

30 years ago this week, on July 6, 1995, IBM bought Lotus Development for $3.5 billion. Lotus had once been the second largest software publisher in the world and was worth $5.5 billion at its IPO. Lotus wasn’t trending in the right direction, but IBM had plans and thought Lotus fit into them.

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Compute!’s Gazette magazine, 1983-1995

Compute!’s Gazette magazine, 1983-1995

In July 1983, one of my personal favorite Commodore computer magazines of all time, Compute!’s Gazette, was born. An offshoot of the general computer magazine Compute!, Gazette’s first issue was dated July 1983 and quickly proved successful, closely following the trajectory of the Commodore 8-bit computers it covered.

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Jack Tramiel and Atari

Jack Tramiel and Atari

On July 2, 1984, Atari got a new owner. After a disastrous 1983, its owner, Warner Communications, wanted out, just a year and a half after Atari had $2 billion in sales. It went from being called the greatest acquisition in history in the New York Times to a toxic asset in about 18 months. Warner found a buyer in Jack Tramiel, the exiled founder of Commodore.

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