David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
It was 28 years ago this week, on August 6, 1997, that Apple and Microsoft reached a truce, to the tune of $150 million. The whole event had a weird vibe to it and probably was just as confusing today as it is now. In this blog post, I’ll explore what was in the deal for both of them.
Thought lost for 39 years, Andy Warhol’s pioneering Amiga art resurfaced in July 2024. Andy Warhol’s birthday, August 6, is a great day to look back at his pioneering digital art and how it came to be lost and found again. Details of the reemergence help to shed light on an earlier discovery from about a decade ago. And those details come from the very person who taught Andy Warhol how to use a computer. In this blog post, I’ll put these discoveries in context, and offer some thoughts from both an art teacher and a sales engineer.
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 mouth was, paying $100 to get on a waiting list to buy one.
At the time, the median price of a Radio Shack product was $30. A TRS-80 bundled with a CRT display and tape drive cost $599 and was the most expensive product they had ever sold.
The eBay domain name was registered 30 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 Ebay, was a side project. From these humble beginnings came one of the few survivors of the dotcom era.
Colecovision was a game console released by toymaker Coleco in August 1982. In the context of its era, it was reasonably successful, selling about 2 million units before being discontinued in 1985. Colecovision’s main draw was a faithful port of the arcade hit Donkey Kong, which it licensed from Nintendo. Its original retail price was $175 and it measured 14 inches by 8 inches by 2 inches (35 cm by 20 cm by 5 cm). Adjusted for inflation, it cost $581 in 2025 dollars.
Colecovision sold well at first, selling 550,000 units in 1982 and another 500,000 units in the first quarter of 1983. Its catchphrase in its advertising was “we bring the arcade experience home.”
It was 29 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 4 was a breakthrough release for the technology. Let’s take a moment to look back at what made Windows NT 4.0 such a breakthrough.
Who did more than any other person in history to make computers affordable? My nomination goes to Sir Clive Sinclair, who was born on this day 85 years ago, July 30, 1940. And I’m an American who never used one of his computers.
Whenever I hear people complain about the save icon looking like a floppy disk and being anachronistic, I like to think about older anachronism. Bit bucket is a fun one. A modern bit bucket is a device that discards output, like /dev/null in Linux and Unix.
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 make the PS/2 E more efficient, IBM used a mashup of technology, including but not limited to borrowing technology from its Thinkpad laptops. To celebrate its green nature, IBM adorned it with a big green stripe across the front. Yes, the stripe was green, not the traditional IBM blue.
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 video stores would rent you a cartridge without instructions dates back to events that started in late July 1989, when Nintendo sued Blockbuster.