Tech Time Warp: Where in the world did Carmen Sandiego come from?
The same generation of schoolchildren who traveled the Oregon Trail also crisscrossed the globe in hot pursuit of one international supervillain named Carmen Sandiego. Apple’s early investment in the education market meant schools were filled with Apple IIs and children...
Tech Time Warp: The Origin of the Oregon Trail
The real Oregon Trail began in Independence, Missouri, but for generations of American schoolchildren, the trail began in a Minneapolis classroom in 1971, when three student teachers combined their penchant for history with their knowledge of BASIC.
Tech Time Warp: “A Logic Named Joe”
If you’re looking for a good tech-related read this summer — something in the genre of Black Mirror — you can’t do any better than “A Logic Named Joe,” a short story published in the March 1946 issue of Astounding Science...
Tech Time Warp: First mobile malware makes its debut
Back in the pre-smartphone days, an international group of hackers set out to prove no technology was safe from malware. In June 2004, the group 29A — 29A being the hexadecimal version of “666” — released the first virus targeting...
Tech Time Warp: Net neutrality debate heats up again and again
Life tends to slow down in early June — unless you’re involved in the net neutrality debate. A surprising number of momentous net neutrality actions have occurred over the years in the month of June, starting with the initial use...
Tech Time Warp: The slow rise of video phones
Chances are you’ve used Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime in the past week. Video-conferencing is so entrenched in modern life, it’s hard to understand why a May 30, 1996, announcement by AT&T and Intel about their new PC-based videophone left some...
Tech Time Warp: Prince Philip’s inbox gets hacked
Harry and Meghan might grab headlines for their privacy settlements and use of social media, but the younger royals are hardly breaking new ground. You might say they’re just following in the family’s footsteps. In 1985, two hackers were arrested...
Tech Time Warp: Happy Bitcoin Pizza Day!
This week, Microsoft announced Project ION, its decentralized identification (DID) verification system built on top of the bitcoin blockchain. ION (Identity Overlay Network) is the first such project by a major tech company and could revolutionize the way users log...
Tech Time Warp: Flame, the virus with a massive controlled burn
The Flame virus first achieved infamy in May 2012, shortly after the United Nations’ International Telecommunications Union asked a security company to look in to the hacking of Iranian computers. Although not widespread — only a few hundred computers are...
Tech Time Warp: Microsoft introduces the “green-eyed” mouse
Here’s a bit of trivia for your next cocktail party: The instruction manual for the first Microsoft Mouse (introduced May 2, 1983, as Microsoft’s first foray into peripherals) was a hefty 120-plus pages long. Yes, more than 120 pages. That...