Day in Tech History
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March 28, 1979: Meltdown of Three Mile Island
1979 – At 4 PM EST, the nuclear reactors in Middletown, PA (Dauphin County) experienced a partial meltdown. The incident was officially rated a 5-of-7 on the International Nuclear Event Scale: Accident with wider consequences.
March 27, 1982: Pac-Man Fever Hits #9
1982 – Recorded in 1981, the song Pac-Man fever was a song by (Jerry ) Buckner & (Gary) Garcia. Each song on the album was about a different video game and was released via album, cassette, 8-track and later via CD.
March 26, 1976: Altair Computer Convention
1976 – The First Annual World Altair Computer Convention is held at the Airport Marina Hotel near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Bill Gates opens the convention with his position on software piracy. Of course, it was all about the Altair 8800.
March 25, 1994: Microsoft Excel 4.0
1994 – Microsoft released Excel 4.0. It included an Easter egg animation of the Excel logo crushing the numbers 1-2-3. Other Day in Tech History items: AOL and eBay cross marketing agreement Excel 4.0 is released The first Computers Freedom and Privacy...
March 24, 1802: The Puffing Devil Steam Engine Patent
1802 – A patent for the first steam engine was issued to Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane. The machine was called the “Puffing Devil” or “Puffer”. The engine could produce 145 psi to push the car forward.
March 23, 2001: Mir Crashes Down in Deorbit
2001 – It’s called the “Deorbit” – Space Station Mir was a controlled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. Ultimately, the space station burned up over the ocean by New Zeland. Some parts of Mir could survive the re-entry process,
March 22, 1981: RCA Selectavision Videodisc
1981 – The first vinyl video record, a.k.a. the videodisc, hit stores in the U.S. The “Capacitance Electronic Disc” looked just like any other vinyl record protected in a plastic caddy and held 60 minutes of NTSC video. That is approximately 27,
March 21, 2006: The First Tweet and Twitter is Founded
2006 – Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah Glass launch Twitter (a.k.a. Twttr) with Jack’s first Tweet. “Just setting up my Twttr” went across the network of only a few followers. Similar to Alexander Graham Bell’s “Mr. Watson,
March 20, 1916: The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity
1916 – Albert Einstein sent a paper off to Annelen Der Physik. The paper was called “Die Grundlage der Allgemeinen Relativitatstheorie” – translated as “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity”. The paper included the Principle consideration...
March 19, 1997: First Consumer DVD Player Released in U.S.
1997 – Toshiba – a member of the DVD consortium – put out the first consumer DVD player on November 1, 1996 in Japan as the SD-3000. After some initial changes (and having to change the DVD region code for U.S. based DVD players),