What Happened Today, May 22nd

Robert Metcalfe, a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California, writes his original memo proposing an "Ethernet," a means of connecting computers together. Metcalfe described the document, typed out on an IBM Selectric typewriter, as follows: "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations -- one of which was "ETHER!" -- and with hand-drawn diagrams -- one of which showed `boosters' interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and radio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), an early all-electronic computing system, was developed and built by the US Army for its Ballistics Research Laboratory. It was the first system to use vacuum tubes rather than electromagnetic switches. Its purpose was to calculate ballistic firing tables. ENIAC was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John William Mauchly of the University of Pennsylvania. Constructed at that university’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering, when first commissioned, the computer was known as Project PX. It cost almost $500,000 at the time. Unveiled on February 14, 1946, it operated until November 9, 1946. It was then refurbished, given a memory upgrade, and transferred to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland, in 1947. On July 29th it was turned on again and ran continuously until 1955.

The US Department of Justice and twenty US states file a set of civil actions against Microsoft Corporation. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power regarding operating system and Web browser sales. The central issue was whether it was monopolistic of Microsoft to bundle Internet Explorer software with its Windows operating system. This practice was alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft's victory in the “browser wars” because every Windows user had a pre-installed copy of Internet Explorer. It was further alleged that this unfairly restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), which were slow to download over a modem or had to be purchased at a store. After a lengthy trial and amidst appeals and drawn-out legal wrangling, Microsoft ultimately avoided a breakup of its operating system and other divisions, but was subject to a consent decree that disallowed some anti-competitive business practices. Many rivals felt the agreement let Microsoft off too easily.

Apple Computer opened its second retail store in New York City. The 20,000-square foot store is situated in the underground concourse of the General Motors building at 767 Fifth Avenue. New Yorkers stood in line for hours in order to be among the first to enter. Open 24-hours a day, the shop is visible at street level through a 32-foot glass cube. It cost $9 million and was designed by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs.

Microsoft Corp. and Intuit Inc. agreed to terminate their planned merger in order to avoid a Justice Department charge of violating antitrust laws. In the intervening three years, Microsoft continued to struggle against federal investigation of its dominance in the personal computer software market. Bill Gates' company had originally agreed to acquire Intuit in October 1994 in a deal worth roughly $2 billion but abandoned the plan after the Justice Department began an investigation of whether the move would give Microsoft too much dominance in the personal finance software market.

The announcement of the IBM 701 computer was a watershed moment for IBM as it signaled that the company was entering the computer business. At the time, IBM was the world’s largest supplier of punched card equipment and supplies, so building a computer was seen as a radical departure within IBM. A major reason IBM built the 701 was that it was described to IBM’s patriotic chairman Thomas Watson, Sr. as a “Defense Calculator” that would assist the US in fighting the Korean War, which had just started. Nineteen of the machines were sold, mainly to the government, military installations and West Coast aircraft manufacturers. They rented for $8,100 per month (equivalent to $56,000 per month in 2010).

Robert Metcalfe, a researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California, writes his original memo proposing an "Ethernet," a means of connecting computers together. Metcalfe described the document, typed out on an IBM Selectric typewriter, as follows: "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations -- one of which was "ETHER!" -- and with hand-drawn diagrams -- one of which showed `boosters' interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and radio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."

Sun Microsystems Inc. formally announced its new programs, Java and HotJava at the SunWorld '95 convention. Java was described as a programming language that, combined with the HotJava World Wide Web browser, offered the best universal operating system to the online community. The concept behind the programs was to design a programming language whose applications would be available to a user with any kind of operating system, eliminating the problems of translation between Macintoshes, IBM-compatible computers, and Unix machines.