Non-Profit

The Software History Center is dedicated to preserving the history of the software industry, one of the largest and most influential industries in the world today. The industry originated with the entrepreneurial computer software and services companies of the 1950s and 1960s, grew dramatically through the 1970s and 1980s to become a market force rivaling that of the computer hardware companies, and by the 1990s had become the supplier of technical know-how that transformed the way people worked, played and communicated every day of their lives.

The PDP Unix Preservation Society (PUPS), part of The Unix Heritage Society, is devoted to the preservation of all information related to the versions of Unix that ran on Digital PDPs. If you have something that you think should be preserved, or if you have any experience with PDP Unix, please let us know! Much of the information we are trying to preserve is protected by copyright or by licensing. We strive to abide by these conditions.

According to the Net.Legends FAQ, Usenet's collective memory lasts about a fortnight. Thus most people know little or nothing about where Usenet came from or how it got where it currently is. Given the seemingly never ending stream of new users, and the drop out or burn out of older readers, the earlier years of Usenet are starting to take on mythological qualities. Yet Usenet can only understand where it is going unless it knows where its been. This history deals with events immediately before the Great Renaming and ends with the death of the Backbone Cabal, and hopes to tell what really happen during Usenet's more traumatic experiences.

Silicon Valley, CA and Route 128, MA are two of the premiere technological concentrations, not only in the United States, but in the world . These are regions that since World War II have been devoted to the creation of new information technology. Comparing the two regions enables us to observe the different means by which an economic areal unit can attain success in the information revolution and indicates which strategies are most conducive to long-term success.

Until recently modern thinkers believed rubber originated in 19th century Europe. According to a Tech Talk article published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday, July 14, 1999, Professor Dorothy Hosler, Assistant Professor Sandra Burkett and an undergraduate named Michael Tarkanian learned that the Mayan people in ancient Mesoamerica made and used rubber as long ago as 1600 BCE.

Timeline: Beginning with the Age of Discovery, this resource lists events chronologically and provides an excellent overview and context for events occuring in the nuclear age.

The history of particle accelerators for ion beams is often described in association with the development of cyclotrons, primarily due to their wide-spread use in the medical field. However, what is often not acknowledged is that ion linear accelerators (“linacs”) were developed in parallel with the cyclotron and other circular accelerators. While Lawrence and Livingston designed the first small cyclotron in 1930, R. Wideröe had already published a paper in 1928 on his results from an rf powered linear accelerator for ions.

Interest in and use of the World Wide Web has been expanding at a phenomenal rate. As the Web grows, so must its vehicle of communication, HTML. The HTML 2.0 specification is dated November, 1995. Since then, the HTML 3.0 draft specification expired on September 28, 1995, without becoming recommended, and HTML 3.2 became a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Recommendation on January 14, 1997. Now we have the public draft for HTML 4.0, announced on July 8, 1997. This draft is almost certain to undergo changes before being accepted by the W3C as a Proposed Recommendation--if it does, indeed, ever become a recommendation.

Welcome to Computer Chronicles: From Stone to Silicon! This page is designed to inform people young and old about how the computers that we use today came into being. The voyage starts in about 3000 BC, with the invention of the abacus in ancient China. It proceeds through the development of vacuum tubes, transistors, integrated circuits, microprocessors and countless other inventions until the computer of today.

The ABACUS II, designed and built by Texas Instruments, was the first practical automated production machine for the assembly of integrated circuits. Using heat and pressure, it bonded fine gold wire to microscopic contacts on the silicon chip and pin connections on the package. The ABACUS II could maintain a positioning accuracy of ± 0.00025 inch while bonding up to 375 devices an hour. Following the success of this prototype, almost 1,000 ABACUS II wire bonders were built, making the economical mass production of integrated circuits a reality.