This Day in Computer History: October 5

2008-10-05

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This Day in Computer History

1982

Sony releases a series of pocket televisions featuring small screens, two-inch diagonal.

1991

Twenty-one year old Linus Torvalds announced the first official release of the Linux kernel, version 0.02, on the comp.os.minix Usenet channel. In an invitation to hackers to join his project, Torvalds wrote, “Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?” The first release was composed of 10,239 lines of code. Several weeks later, Torvalds released version 0.11 of the kernel, which was the first version to be self-hosted. Because the GNU Hurd kernal was incomplete and BSD was not, as of yet, wholly open-source, Linux rapidly drew a large development community as the major open-source system on the market.

1992

IBM introduces the ThinkPad line of laptops, including the model 700, 700C, and 700T. They feature, with slight variations between the three models: the Microsoft Windows 3.1 operating system, a 25 MHz 386SLC processor, the first 10.4-inch TFT color display, an 80 or 120 MB hard drive, and 4 MB RAM. Price: $4,350

1997

The pentagon-ai.army.mil webpage is anonymously hacked.

1998

Netscape Communicator 4.07 was released.

Security software firm Veritas Software Corporation announced plans to acquire the network and storage software developer Seagate Software for roughly $1.6 billion in stock.

1999

Advanced Micro Devices first announced the specifications of its new 64-bit x86 architecture and its new system bus, the Lightning Data Transport. The two technologies will be combined in the company’s eighth-generation processors. The new processors were backward-compatible with the 32-bit x86 processors of the time. Code-name: Sledgehammer

Apple Computer unveiled a new line of iMac computers that featured version 9 of the new Macintosh operating system. The line, which will start at prices as low as $999, will include a new iMac, iMac DV, and iMac DV Special Edition, all housed in graphite-tinted cases. The operating system will also be available separately for $99.

Yahoo! launched the Yahoo! Wallet ecommerce service.

2000

Microsoft publicly accused the Federal government of attempting to “short-circuit the appellate process” as Microsoft sought out more time to appeal the Federal ruling that would have split the company to prevent its anti-competitive practices.

2002

IBM announced that, in the ten years since it introduced the ThinkPad line of laptops, IBM has sold over fifteen million units.

2005

ATI introduced the new Radeon X1000 series of graphics cards. The line is the first to feature the Radeon R520 core “Ultra Threaded Dispatch Processor.”

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.