The Silicon Underground

TEAC founded in 1953, sort of

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:00:52 +0000

On August 29, 1953, the Tokyo Television Acoustic Company was founded. Later in the decade it merged with the Tokyo Electro-Acoustic Company, and the combined company took the name TEAC. The combined company specialized in designing and manufacturing tape recorders.

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Digg v4 and lessons not learned

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Digg was a high flying news aggregation site from the early web 2.0 era that still exists today, but really in name only. It serves as a cautionary too for why high profile websites tend not to make major changes

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Linux first announced August 25, 1991

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:00:05 +0000

On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds wrote a message that changed the world. He didn’t expect that when he wrote it, that’s clear from the message and some of the replies. He had something he wanted to share with his

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Windows 95 released August 24, 1995

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 11:00:58 +0000

It was on August 24, 1995 that Windows 95 was released, amidst much anticipation. It was the most widely anticipated Windows release of all time, and the runner up really isn’t close. The idea of people lining up for blocks

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Microsoft QuickBasic remembered

Dave Farquhar — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:00:40 +0000

Microsoft QuickBasic was a commercially available programming language for MS-DOS, initially released August 18, 1985. Qbasic, the Basic interpreter included with MS-DOS versions 5 and 6, was a cut-down version of QuickBasic. Most notably, the bundled version lacked the ability

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Adobe Systems IPO August 20, 1986

Dave Farquhar — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 11:00:07 +0000

On August 20, 1986, Adobe Systems held its initial public offering. Priced at around $11 per share, Adobe has split its stock six times since. Adobe: The sleeper tech stock of 1986 1986 was a good year for tech stocks.

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Chuck Peddle joins MOS Technology, August 19, 1974

Dave Farquhar — Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:00:53 +0000

On August 19, 1974, Chuck Peddle, Bill Mensch, Rod Orgill, Harry Bawcom, Ray Hirt, Terry Holdt, Wil Mathys, and Mike Janes quit their jobs at Motorola to venture out on their own, joining MOS Technology. The eight had worked on

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What happened to Egghead Software

Dave Farquhar — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 11:00:36 +0000

Egghead Software was a US retail store that sold computer software from 1984 to 2001. It declared bankruptcy 25 years ago this week, on August 18, 2001, after an attempted reinvention as a dotcom selling online failed. Why did Egghead

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When the Internet reached half of US households

Dave Farquhar — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:00:21 +0000

August 17, 2000 was a major milestone for the Internet. You could argue it’s the day the Internet went mainstream, completing the transition from something computer science students used in college to something their parents would use to buy books

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IBM PC Compact Printer model 5181

Dave Farquhar — Sat, 15 Aug 2026 13:03:49 +0000

The IBM PC Compact Printer is a bit of a misnomer, as it was really intended for the PCjr. But it ended up working with a bunch of other computers as well as part of its second act. Here’s the

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