Like images of entertainingly archaic technology-related ads, magazine covers, and other bits of the past? If so, you’ll love Technologizer contributor Benj Edwards’ fifth-anniversary celebration of his “Retro Scan of the Week” feature over at his Vintage Computing and Gaming site.
Tag Archives | Nostalgia
Taking Stock of Apple
The news that Steve Jobs will take another medical leave inspired scads of Apple-history timelines. This one by Marketplace’s Matt Berger, which plots major Apple product rollouts alongside the company’s stock price over the past thirty years, is one of the best.
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Goodbye, AltaVista. I Loved You Once, But I'm Happy to See You Die
If you were going to compose a list of the ten greatest technology products ever, it would be a plausible contender. If you were compiling a list of the ten greatest Web services and didn’t include it, I’d tell you your list was wrong.
It’s AltaVista–the first great search engine. Probably still the second greatest one ever, after you know who. And as Liz Gannes of All Things Digital is reporting, it’s apparently going away due to downsizing at its current owner, Yahoo. (Other victims of Yahoo’s death panel include the once-great Delicious and AllTheWeb, the bland Digg clone Yahoo Buzz, the could-have-been-neat MyBlogLog, and stuff I can’t identify, such as Yahoo Picks.)
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Nothing Is Forever: Tech Products I’ll Never Buy Again
[NOTE: Here’s a story from our most recent Technologizer’s T-Week newsletter–go here to sign up to receive it each Friday. You’ll get original stuff that won’t show up on the site until later, if at all.]
I can tell you when I bought my first computer. (1982–it was an Atari 400 with a tape drive, which I bought at a Service Merchandise in New Hampshire.) I can tell you when I got my first VCR (1985–a cheesy Sharp model with a wired remote; I think I bought it at the late, lamented Boston electronics retailer Lechmere). Same thing for cell phones (a Nokia I still miss), MP3 players, and sorts of other gadgets.
Countless technology products have meant a lot to me. Few have meant a lot for more than a few years, though–they tend to either break or be rendered obsolete by something even more exciting. And even entire classes of products which I thought I couldn’t live without eventually become dispensable.
Herewith, a few categories of gear I’ve owned, and my best guess as to whether I’m done with them yet.
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A Guided Tour of Computing History
Steve Wozniak with George Stibitz's one-bit computer from 1936
On January 13th, the seven-year-old Computer History Museum will open its first truly full-blown permanent exhibit:, the 25,000-square-foot, $19 million “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing.” It’s been a long time in the making: It features a spectacular collection of computers and related apparatus begun by DEC founder Ken Olsen and computing legend Gordon Bell back in the mid-1970s, which spent some time at Boston’s now-defunct Computer Museum before making its way to its current home in Mountain View, California, within walking distance of the Googleplex.
The museum invited reporters for a sneak peek of the new exhibit this morning, and while it’s a work in progress–we saw mainframes still wrapped, Christo-style, in protective plastic wrap–it was a remarkable experience. Part of what made it remarkable was our guide, Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak.
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The Greatest Computer Books of All Time
Writing about music, a famous, impossible-to-properly-attribute saying goes, is like dancing about architecture. In 2010, anyone who dares write a book about computers runs the risk of facing a variant of this conundrum. The Web is so good at conveying information about technology that it’s hard to recall an age when the default medium for any discussion of computers more ambitious than a magazine article was a static, difficult-to-update, not-necessarily-illustrated printed volume.
But that era existed. The best books about computers were enormously successful, and many of them were really good. They deserve to be celebrated.
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The Secret Origin of Windows
[A NOTE FROM HARRY: Windows 1.0 shipped on November 20th, 1985, which means that Microsoft’s operating system turns 25 today. Let’s celebrate by revisiting this fascinating look at Windows’ beginnings by Microsoft veteran Tandy Trower, which we originally published earlier this year.]
Few people understand Microsoft better than Tandy Trower, who worked at the company from 1981-2009. Trower was the product manager who ultimately shipped Windows 1.0, an endeavor that some advised him was a path toward a ruined career. Four product managers had already tried and failed to ship Windows before him, and he initially thought that he was being assigned an impossible task. In this follow-up to yesterday’s story on the future of Windows, Trower recounts the inside story of his experience in transforming Windows from vaporware into a product that has left an unmistakable imprint on the world, 25 years after it was first released.
Thanks to GUIdebook for letting us borrow many of the Windows images in this story.
–David Worthington
Microsoft staffers talk MS-DOS 2.0 with the editors of PC World in late 1982 or early 1983. Windows 1.0 wouldn’t ship for almost another two years. From left: Microsoft’s Chris Larson, PC World’s Steve Cook, Bill Gates, Tandy Trower, and founding PC World editor Andrew Fluegelman.
Continue Reading →
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What an Odd, Odd Operating System
Pssst: A certain operating system has a birthday coming up on Saturday. It may or may not want us to make a big fuss, but it’s a big one and–oh, let’s just say it: Microsoft shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20th, 1985. For its first five years, it wasn’t very popular. And then it pretty much took over the world.
As is our wont when major products mark major anniversaries, we’re celebrating by investigating Windows’ odder aspects. Benj Edwards has compiled a look at the first quarter century of Windows offshoots, obscurities, and ephemera. Betcha there’s a lot more to come, too.
View Windows Oddities slideshow.
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Windows Oddities: 25 Years of Microsoftian Weirdness
Contrary to popular belief, Windows is far from boring. Dig below the surface, and you’ll discover a stranger side to the world’s most popular operating system. It’s filled with twisted homages, forgotten platforms, and dead ends. In a word, it’s full of oddities.
On the eve of Windows’ 25th birthday–version 1.0 shipped on November 20th, 1985–let’s explore this underground. When we’re done, tell us about the Windows oddities you’ve encountered.
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Hey, I See What They Mean About Apple Computers Being Pricey
Christie's Apple-1
British auction house Christie’s has a precious heirloom up for bid: an original 1976 Apple-1, the first Apple computer. It says its estimated value is $161,600 -$242,400. That’s nearly ten times higher than the Apple-1 market value of $15,000-$25,000 I came up with when I wrote a story on collectible computers back in 2007. But this sounds like one of the best examples of the machine you’re likely to find, with the original box, cassette interface, documentation, BASIC on cassette, and a letter from Steve Jobs.
Christie’s listing says that the Apple-1 was a landmark personal computer because it was the first sold in assembled form rather than as a kit that required the buyer to solder components onto a motherboard. This seems inaccurate to me. For one thing, as this photo shows, Apple shipped the Apple-1 as a board without a case, keyboard, or video interface; it was still more of a nerdy hobbyist project more than anything else. (1977’s Apple II, Radio Shack’s TRS-80, and Commodore’s PET 2001, were the first major ready-to-use consumer PCs.) And the Apple-1 wasn’t the first non-kit computer, either: 1975’s MITS Altair was best known as a kit, but was also available in pre-assembled form.