Historical events

So it’s this month that the NE555 really has its 55th birthday – but still going strong! Happy birthday 555! Look this video: Check also older 555 post https://www.epanorama.net/blog/2011/02/07/555-timer-design-contest/ →

In the ever-dynamic and fast-moving world of semiconductors, why do some old transistors like 2N3904 and BC547 keep on going for decades? The 2N3904 and BC 547 transistor is still available as a newly manufactured device after 60 years of their introduction. The construction of the 2N3904 and 2N3906 in the mid.1960s represented a significant →

Congratulations to the Shure Company, celebrating their 100th anniversary on April 25, 2025. S.N. Shure founds the Shure Radio Company in Chicago, Illinois, marking the beginning of a legacy in audio innovation. The name Shure has long been associated with quality, innovation, and a deep understanding of sound. Shure is best known of their microphones →

Microsoft is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025. The company was started in 1975. To mark the occasion, founder Bill Gates has released the original code that launched the entire technology company — the Altair BASIC interpreter. According to Gates, it was “the coolest code I’ve ever written.” The source code is now available at →

Happy birthday to Basic, possibly the most important programming language of all time! The Easy-to-use language that drove Apple, TRS-80, IBM, and Commodore PCs debuted in 1964. The BASIC programming language turns 60 article says: “Sixty years ago, on May 1, 1964, at 4 am in the morning, a quiet revolution in computing began at →

Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is 60 years old this year based on the following article (Wikipedia claims this happened already in 2023). TTL became the foundation of computers and other digital electronics. TTL integrated circuits (ICs) were widely used in applications such as computers, industrial controls, test equipment and instrumentation, consumer electronics, and synthesizers. The 7400 →

TCP/IP was born in this day 50 years ago when the editors of IEEE Transactions on Communications received a manuscript from Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn which described a method for sending packets across networks. Exactly which day Cerf and Kahn’s manuscript was received by the IEEE editors is not clear (it was either November →

IT’S A HUMBLE ‘SCOPE, BUT IT CHANGED OUR WORLD https://hackaday.com/2023/07/06/its-a-humble-scope-but-it-changed-our-world/ Now anyone seeking a connection with both Pong and the Apple II can have one of their very own if they have enough money because [Al Alcorn]’s Tektronix 465 oscilloscope is for sale. He’s the designer of the original Pong and used the instrument in →

FreeBSD Celebrating Its 30th Anniversary https://www.phoronix.com/news/FreeBSD-30th-Birthday It was on 19 June 1993 that the FreeBSD name was chosen for the project born out of 386BSD. The first official release of FreeBSD though wasn’t until November 1993. https://www.freebsd.org/ FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms. It is derived from →

50 years ago, Robert Metcalfe (who was working at Xerox PARC in 1973), wrote the first memo (titled “Alto Ethernet”) outlining what would become the ubiquitous Ethernet protocol! The idea was first documented in a memo that Metcalfe wrote on May 22, 1973. In 1979 he started a little company called 3com. Ethernet was commercially →