This Day in Computer History: October 30

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This Day in Computer History

1946

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) hosted the world’s first academic conference on digital computing. The conference, which was sponsored by the United States National Research Council, was notable for having been attended by the team that later build the grandfather of all digital computers, the Whirlwind, which was the first computer system to feature a video display or to operate in real time, rather than in input/output cycles with punchcards.

RCA demonstrates it color television innovations publicly for the first time ever.

1983

AT&T and Knight-Ridder launched the first videotext services, Viewtron, in collaboration with the Assocated Press and the Miami Herald. Viewtron offered both banking and news services as one of the forerunners of the internet.

1986

The first fibre-optic cable to be laid across the English Channel goes into service.

1995

Borland International, Intuit, Lotus Development, Macromedia, and Spyglass make headlines when they jointly announce plans to license the Java software platform at the Internet World Conference in Boston, Massachusetts.

Oracle announced the release of its WebSystem, a software suite the included a Java-compatible browser.

1996

Carsten Haitzler first released the free open source window manager Enlightenment for an X Window System running on a desktop system such as GNOME or KDE.

1998

IBM introduced the 300 MHz Aptiva E Series model D1N economy system, which would be released to retailers in November. Price: US $599.

Microsoft re-released Service Release 2 for its Office 97 suite one month after its initial distribution. It’s first release was suspended due to reports of failed installations.

The North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) corrects a much-publicized software “glitch” that would incorrectly send multiple email responses to those who had reported fraudulent stock offers they had received as spam using the agency’s website.

2000

Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Buzz Index website, a service that allowed webmasters to explore the most popular terms searched for on Yahoo’s search engine.

2001

Microsoft released the Works Suite 2002 software package, including: Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2002, Money 2002 Standard, Picture It! Photo 2002, Streets & Trips 2002, Word 2002, and Works 6.0. Price: US $109.

Netscape released version 6.2 of its web browser.

This post is part of the series: A Chronology of Computer History for the Month of October: This Day in Computer History

This series provides a daily account of what happened on this day in the history of computing and technology. It discusses developments, breaking news, new releases and global implications that occurred as a result of these ground breaking events.

  1. This Day in Computer History: October 4
  2. This Day in Computer History: October 5
  3. This Day in Computer History: October 6
  4. This Day in Computer History: October 7
  5. This Day in Computer History: October 8
  6. This Day in Computer History: October 9
  7. This Day in Computer History: October 10
  8. This Day in Computer History: October 11
  9. This Day in Computer History: October 12
  10. This Day in Computer History: October 13
  11. This Day in Computer History: October 14
  12. This Day in Computer History: October 15
  13. This Day in Computer History: October 16
  14. This Day in Computer History: October 17
  15. This Day in Computer History: October 18
  16. This Day in Computer History: October 19
  17. This Day in Computer History: October 20
  18. This Day in Computer History: October 21
  19. This Day in Computer History: October 22
  20. This Day in Computer History: October 23
  21. This Day in Computer History: October 24
  22. This Day in Computer History: October 25
  23. This Day in Computer History: October 26
  24. This Day in Computer History: October 27
  25. This Day in Computer History: October 28
  26. This Day in Computer History: October 29
  27. This Day in Computer History: October 30
  28. This Day in Computer History: October 31