Tech Time Warp is a weekly feature that looks back at interesting moments and milestones in tech history.
Tag: Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Morris worm exposes Internet security issues
Tech Time Warp: Morris worm exposes Internet security issues
The morning of Nov. 3, 1988, the Internet discovered stranger danger thanks to a 24-year-old grad student whose intellectual curiosity got out of hand. The Morris worm was the creation of Cornell University student Robert Tappan Morris Jr. and provided...
Tech Time Warp: The ARPANET crash of 1980
Tech Time Warp: The ARPANET crash of 1980
A network-wide crash equals one of the worst work days ever, right? Hopefully you won’t be faced with one anytime soon, but if you are, take solace in the knowledge that they’ve always been a problem. On Oct. 27, 1980,...
Tech Time Warp: Tennis for Two, the World’s First Video Game
Tech Time Warp: Tennis for Two, the World’s First Video Game
Today’s gaming vloggers owe a lot to a nuclear physicist. On Oct. 18, 1958, during Brookhaven National Laboratory’s annual visitors’ day, attendees played “Tennis for Two,” considered by many to be the world’s first video game. Brookhaven physicist William Higinbotham...
Tech Time Warp: Steve Jobs’ NeXT Move
Tech Time Warp: Steve Jobs’ NeXT Move
If someone tells you the NeXT computer was “Steve Jobs’ biggest failure,” consider that person uninformed (or a purveyor of clickbait). After all, if you’re reading this blog post on an Apple device, you’re benefiting from Jobs’ NeXT-level thinking. Like...
Tech Time Warp: Happy Birthday to Microsoft Word
Tech Time Warp: Happy Birthday to Microsoft Word
Microsoft Word is so synonymous with office life it’s hard to consider it groundbreaking. But next time you’re plodding through TPS reports, think back to October 1983, when word processing wasn’t quite so easy. A lucky few had access to...
Tech Time Warp: Copyright protection for computer code
Tech Time Warp: Copyright protection for computer code
Sept. 22, 1986, marked a milestone in a protracted legal battle between Intel and NEC Corp. over copyright protection of computer code. As they fought for control of the microprocessor market, the two semiconductor companies—Intel American, and NEC Corp. Japanese—found...
Tech Time Warp: CryptoLocker takes ransomware mainstream
Tech Time Warp: CryptoLocker takes ransomware mainstream
These days, every MSP is well aware of the risks of ransomware (and hopefully using cloud backup to protect against it). But back in September 2013, the concept of malware that encrypted your files and demanded payment within a 72-hour...
Tech Time Warp: Grace Hopper’s Computer Bug
Tech Time Warp: Grace Hopper’s Computer Bug
“It must have a bug” is the easy way to explain away technology troubles, but few of us have pondered why we say that. Turns out computer pioneer Grace Hopper plays a role in the etymology (not entomology) of the...
Tech Time Warp: W3 Catalog Makes the Internet Searchable
Tech Time Warp: W3 Catalog Makes the Internet Searchable
“Let me Google that for you.” A few of us still remember life before Google. Turns out that even before there was an Excite or a Lycos, there was a W3 Catalog. Making its debut on Sept. 2, 1993, the...
Tech Time Warp: Linus Torvalds Introduces Linux
Tech Time Warp: Linus Torvalds Introduces Linux
They say hindsight is 20/20, which is why Linus Torvalds’ Aug. 25, 1991, message to a MINIX newsgroup is so humorous now: “I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) … it...
