The Silicon Underground

Netscape: The IPO that went boom on its way up and down

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 11:00:25 +0000

The early star of the dot-com boom wasn’t Amazon or Ebay, it was Netscape, a company who produced a web browser of the same name. It went boom high and it went boom fast as it rose. And when it

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Why Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 06 Aug 2026 11:00:40 +0000

On August 6, 1997, Apple and Microsoft reached a truce, to the tune of $150 million. At an Apple event, the two companies announced Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple, leaving everyone wondering why. The whole event had a weird

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Ebay’s 1995 debut

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 11:00:21 +0000

The eBay domain name was registered 31 years ago today, on August 4, 1995. But the site we know today as Ebay didn’t launch until almost month later, September 3, 1995, under a different name. Auctionweb, the original name for

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Radio Shack’s TRS-80: Introduced Aug 3, 1977

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 11:00:05 +0000

When Radio Shack announced its TRS-80 Model 1 on Aug 3, 1977, designer Steve Leininger thought they could sell 50,000 units. Tandy executives didn’t believe him. But the response overwhelmed the company, and 250,000 people put their money where their

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The Caldera-SCO merger of 2000

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:02 +0000

On August 2, 2000, a second-tier Linux vendor acquired a struggling Unix vendor. The merger received some press, but if you weren’t really following Linux at the time, it would have been easy enough to miss. But the merger of

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Windows NT 4.0: Released to Manufacturing July 31, 1996

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:00:58 +0000

It was 30 years ago this week, on July 31, 1996, that Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0 to manufacturing. The workstation version appeared on store shelves a month later, with the server version following in September. In many ways, version

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When Nintendo sued Blockbuster

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:00:27 +0000

Here’s a late ’80s memory you may not have thought about in a while. Do you remember going to the video rental store to rent a video game and getting the cartridge but not getting the instruction booklet? The reason

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Clive Sinclair: a US perspective

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:00:56 +0000

Who did more than any other person in history to make computers affordable? My nomination goes to Sir Clive Sinclair, who was born July 30, 1940. And I’m an American who never used one of his computers. Clive Sinclair: King

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IBM PS/2 E: The first Energy Star computer

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:00:46 +0000

On June 29, 1993, IBM released the first energy star computer, the IBM PS/2 E. The “E” stood for energy. But while it was undeniably more efficient than other desktop PCs, arguably it was a PS/2 in name only. To

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Advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:00:38 +0000

I’ve talked a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of old milestone operating systems. But what were the advantages and disadvantages of Windows NT 3.1, first released July 27, 1993? That’s a fair question, and there are valid reasons it

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