Bell Receives Patent for Telephone
March 7, 1876
Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent (US No. 174,465) for an “Improvement in Telegraphy,” which will later come to be known as the variable resistance telephone.
NASA Launches Kepler
March 6, 2009
Kepler, the first planet seeking space telescope is launched by NASA on a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral. While intended for a three-and-a-half year mission, Kepler stayed operational for 9 years until it ran out of fuel in 2018. Kepler discovered more than 2,600 planets outside our solar system.
SCO Sues IBM; Threatens Linux Users
March 6, 2003
The SCO Group, formerly known as Caldera, files a $1 Billion lawsuit against IBM for allegedly “devaluing” its version of UNIX. SCO claimed that IBM had contributed SCO’s proprietary code to the codebase of the open-source Linux, thereby making SCO’s UNIX less valuable. A couple of months later in May, SCO sent letters to many major corporations warning them of the possibility of liability if they used Linux. SCO eventually even threatened individual Linux users who did not license SCO UNIX.
Among some Linux fans, the lawsuit was a threat to the Open Source movement. However most saw the lawsuit as simply legal maneuvering by SCO to try to capitalize on Linux as it had changed the competitive landscape of the UNIX marketplace. Long story short, through a series of claims and counter-claims involving SCO, IBM, Red Hat, and Novell most of SCO’s claims were dismissed and SCO went bankrupt. However, the original lawsuit did not finally come to resolution until November of 2021!
Michelangelo Strikes
March 6, 1992
The Michelangelo virus, so-named because it activates on March 6, the birthday of Michelangelo, begins infecting computers. The virus will also make news in 1993. It was one of the earliest viruses to receive widespread media attention and also one of the first to prompt widespread hysteria. The irony of the name of the virus was that nothing in the virus’ code referenced Michelangelo. It is possible the virus author, who was never identified, did not know March 6th was Michelangelo’s birthday!
Yahoo! Officially Launches
March 5, 1995
The Yahoo! search engine officially launches on the Internet. 13 months later, Yahoo! will hold its IPO at a price of $13 per share. Yahoo!’s stock will peak at $475 in January 2000, and fall to $8.02 in September 2001.
Sinclair ZX81 Launched
March 5, 1981
The Sinclair ZX81, the successor to the ZX80, is launched in England. Designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing, the ZX81 was the first personal computer to be later sold in the United States for under $150. More than 1.5 million units were sold worldwide and created a lasting legacy among nascent programmers and early personal computer users.
Homebrew Computer Club Holds First Meeting
The invitation to the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
March 5, 1975
The Homebrew Computer Club holds its first meeting. Many people who played an important part in the early years of personal computing attended meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club during its history. Perhaps no meeting was more important than the one that took place almost exactly one year after the first: Steve Wozniak brought his design for what eventually becomes the Apple I computer.
The World’s First Internet Election
March 4, 2007
The 2007 Parliamentary elections held on Estonia on this day were the world’s first nationwide election where voting was allowed over the Internet. A little over 30,000 out of 940,000 registered Estonian voters participated in Internet voting that year, which was conducted from February 26-28 prior to the election. Voters had to use their state-issued ID and enter two passwords to cast their votes online. From the 3.4% of voters who voted over the Internet in 2007, nearly 44% of Estonian voters did so in their 2019 elections.
Japan Goes Crazy for Playstation 2!
March 4, 2000
Sony released the Playstation 2, the follow-up to their wildly successful original Playstation, in Japan to a waiting crowd of 10,000 people, many of whom had started waiting four days earlier. Sony promptly sold out of all 1 million Playstation 2 launch units in a single weekend. Interestingly, because there were only 11 launch title games available, the fact that the PS2 could play DVDs at a significantly lower price than most standalone DVD players of the time drove much of the early demand.
First Cray Supercomputer Shipped
March 4, 1977
The first Cray-1 supercomputer is shipped to the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. This supercomputer, which cost nineteen million dollars, will be used to design sophisticated weapons systems. The system is a cylindrical tower seven feet tall, nine feet in diameter, and weighs about 5.5 tons. The machine produced so much heat that it required a built-in freon-based refrigeration system. It required its own electrical substation to power it, at a cost of about US$35,000 a month.