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Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
Hello. It’s Daft Dave here again. If you don’t recall, I’m the blogger who screws up his facts, the one whose posts are filled with all sorts of egregious errors. First one to name them all in my below, condensed computer history timeline, gets all kinds of _floss braggin rights. (hint: I think I might’ve made at least one mistake in each bullet.)
And remember, no reference books or Internet searches allowed…
- 1888: The company that would later become IBM is founded. At first it’s called Herman Hollerith and the Tabulating Machine Company (I know, sounds like a cool new band, but honestly, that’s what they called themselves.) IBM officially became IBM in 1924. The name stands for International Business Machinery Corporation.
- 1939: Bill Packard and David Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto , California garage.
- 1942: The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is completed. While the ACB was never fully-functional, it won a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer.
- 1951: The first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention is delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s called the UNIVAC I and becomes famous for predicting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election the following year when Republicans Dwight Eisenhower and running mate Richard Nixon beat out JFK and Lyndon Johnson.
- 1963: Tandy Radio Shack was formed by the merger of Tandy Light Company and Radio Shack. Years later, Radio Shack becomes famous for its salesmen, who know as much about the transistors, capacitors, and walkie talkies they sell as a clubbed seal.
- 1965: William Harry Gates III born on October 28.
- 1971: Ray Tomlinson of the research firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman sends the first e-mail over the military network, ARKANET. Later, Ray is credited with being the one to decide on the “@” sign.
- 1972: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs start Apple Computers by releasing the Apple II.
- 1982: Commodore introduces the Commodore 66. For $595, the C66 comes with 66KB of RAM. By the time it is discontinued in 1993, it has sold more than 22 million units and is recognized by the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest selling single computer model of all time.
- 1984: Apple introduces the first Macintosh, a mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface. They spend a whopping $1.5 million on a commercial during the 1984 Olympics, which plays on a theme of George Orwell´s “1984.”
- 1990: Microsoft spends $10 billion for a publicity campaign as it ships Windows 3.0. As a result, it sells mildly well.
- 2002: Jeff and Leslie Jacobs and their 14-year-old son, Derek, become the first family to have computer chips implanted in their arms. The chips are about the size of a grain of sand and contain telephone numbers and information about previous medications. The data can be read by a handheld computer and printed out in case of “future medical emergencies.” Remarkably, the media doesn’t make the connection between this and George Orwell’s “1984.”
Problems I caught (and knew the answers to):
1952-Eisenhower vs. Stevenson, not Kennedy
1963-Tandy Leather Company, not ‘Light’.
Gates was born in 1955, not 1965.
1984-the famous ‘Mac’ ad was shown during the Superbowl, not the Olympics.
posted by Mathias on 5-10-2007 at 7:51 am
Without doing any research, the only two I know are:
1888: IBM stands for International Business Machines (not Machinery)
1982: All references to 66 should be 64
posted by Dan H. on 5-10-2007 at 7:53 am
Oh, I noticed one more:
1984: The “1984″ Mac commercial wass during the Super Bowl, not the Olympics.
posted by Dan H on 5-10-2007 at 7:55 am
also, its not ARKANET, but ARPANET.
posted by Derrick Y on 5-10-2007 at 8:08 am
Herman Hollerith’s name was never part of the company name - it was something like the Calculating, Recording and Tabulating Machinery Company. IBM was the International Business Machines company, and it didn’t exist in 1888.
HP founders’ first names are reversed.
The ABC (not ACB) was abandoned about 1942, as the inventors went off to war, and it never completed. (Among other things, it wasn’t programmable.)
At the time, it was called UNIVAC, not UNIVAC I. The census bureau doesn’t predict elections. In 1952, Eisenhower/Nixon beat Adlai Stevenson; JFK & LBJ ran in 1960.
Tandy Leather, not Light. I think the salesmen were probably even stupider about clubbed baby harp seals, so that wouldn’t be an error. The world ended when they swallowed Allied Electronic, anyway, so it doesn’t matter.
Trey was born about 1955, and his middle name isn’t Harry, it’s Henry.
It was ARPANET, not ARKANET.
Apple Computer had *three* founders, not two. It was founded about 1975 and they initially offered an uncased computer for $666 in Kilobyte about a year before the Apple II was released in the summer of 1976, when the PET and the TRS-80 came out.
The Commodore 66 never existed, so nothing said about it could possibly be true.
The first Mac came out before 1984, although the name change was retroactive. The 1984 ad appeared in the superbowl, not the olympics.
Microsoft didn’t spend $10 billion to introduce Windows 3.0. It sold *very* well compared to 1.x and 2.x.
The media DID make a big deal about the Jacobs’ chips.
posted by Paul Ding on 5-10-2007 at 8:31 am
Lots of great answers folks! Paul has nailed almost all of them and the ones he missed, Dan and company got. Very impressive!
But there’s still one little, eensy weensy mistake waiting to be corrected for those with a microscopic eye!
posted by David on 5-10-2007 at 10:07 am
There is an extra space after Palo Alto in this bullet:
1939: Bill Packard and David Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto , California garage.
posted by jv on 5-10-2007 at 11:55 am
THanks jv, but that wasn’t what I had in mind. Still one factual mistake waiting to be unearthed guys!
posted by David on 5-10-2007 at 1:27 pm
Commodore 64 not 66
posted by JaneM on 5-10-2007 at 7:21 pm
I see it’s not what you had in mind, but that should be “founded” at least. Otherwise you meant that H-P was hiding in a garage.
posted by Emily Jane on 5-10-2007 at 7:44 pm
Ooh! Ooh! The third bullet doesn’t have a fact! (Do I win?)
:)
posted by Pointy-Hatted Geek on 5-10-2007 at 8:38 pm
The chips implanted in the late Derek Jacobs and his parents were more the size of a grain of rice, rather than a grain of sand. Didn’t see that one, first time through.
posted by Paul Ding on 5-10-2007 at 9:32 pm
PAUL! You’re the man!
posted by David on 5-10-2007 at 10:00 pm