Computer History aka Tech Time Travelers

On April 9, 1999 the Domain Controllers for the redmond.corp.microsoft.com Windows NT4-based domain were upgraded to a pre-release version of Windows 2000 Server and thus became the world’s first production Active Directory domain:

We’re kicking things off in the new year with a returning guest, Mr. Bil Herd. He was the principal engineer on the Commodore Plus/4, C16/116, C264, C364, and the Commodore 128. Come join us at our usual location, the Alderwood United Church, 44 Delma Dr., Etobicoke ON, M8W 4N6, Canada.

The meeting takes place on Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 7:30PM ET. If you’re unable to attend in person, please join us online via the Zoom link below. Thanks for attending!

Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88059151457?pwd=RTEzUWM5bnc4cFpjVjZBYXNEMElEZz09

Meeting ID: 880 5915 1457 Passcode: 274933

Microsoft Ships Internet Explorer 2.0 November 27, 1995

Microsoft Corp. shipped Internet Explorer 2.0, starting a browser war with the popular Netscape Navigator. Netscape Communications Corp. had had a virtual monopoly on World Wide Web browsers since the infancy of the web. The Netscape Navigator and Communicator browsers serve as a format for viewing and creating World Wide Web pages, as well as participating in newsgroups and sending e-mail. Microsoft promotes its Internet Explorer with specific mention of its privacy and encryption.

Excel is practically synonymous with the word "spreadsheet" today, and has attained near ubiquity in the workplace and home. But it wasn't always the reigning champion of the spreadsheet market.

In fact, Excel started out as a Macintosh exclusive, with Gates and Microsoft hoping that Excel could build a commanding position on the Macintosh, and then use that as a foothold to attack the dominant spreadsheet champion of the 1980s, Lotus 1-2-3. The Macintosh was in dire need of a killer app that could do for it, what VisiCalc had done for the Apple II years prior.

But could Excel be that app?

This is the story of how the world's most dominant spreadsheet was developed for the flailing Macintosh, a computer with a fraction of the market share of the then standard MS-DOS PC, from which humble position Excel began its long climb to total dominance.

#spreadsheet #excel #documentary

"I got sucked into researching the origins of the 3.5in floppy disk after looking into one of my recent HP drives. That sent me on a long quest to better understand the format and finding out some very interesting things I didn't even know existed!"

-- Tech Tangents

Chapters: 0:00 Intro
0:43 Precursor History
2:05 3.5in Disk Creation
3:50 Why So Tall?
4:21 The ANSI Competition
7:23 Gaining Market Share
9:41 Who Was First to Use it?
12:27 WHO!?
15:23 The 3.5in Endures
16:28 Outro

Microsoft introduced "Patch Tuesday" in October 2003 to reduce the cost of distributing patches after the Blaster worm.[10] This system accumulates security patches over a month, and dispatches them all on the second Tuesday of each month, an event for which system administrators may prepare. The following day, informally known as "Exploit Wednesday",[11] marks the time when exploits may appear in the wild which take advantage on unpatched machines of the newly announced vulnerabilities.

Tuesday was chosen as the optimal day of the week to distribute software patches. This is done to maximize the amount of time available before the upcoming weekend to correct any issues that might arise with those patches, while leaving Monday free to address other unexpected issues that might have arisen over the preceding weekend[citation needed].

A long time ago – at the turn of the century, as kids would call it now – my first job was at a dialup internet service provider. Officially, I was hired to be a sort of errand-boy. Instead, the role was more interesting: a front seat for one of the great meltdowns of our time.

Here’s how it went down...

Jeff Schaap joins June from Nybbles and Bytes and Bil Herd to talk about the new documentary I Adore My 64