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Computer History on 13th February

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Everyday of the year is filled with one of the greatest events in Computer History. 13 th February is one such that and lead to the development of the current state of computing. You should feel lucky to witness this day.

Major events in Computer History that took place on 13th February are:

  • 2001: Google's first acquisition (Deaj.com's Usenet Service)
  • 1966: Mark Pincus was born (Founder of Zynga)
  • 1925: Robert Barton was born (Designer of Burroughs B5000)
  • 1910: William Shockley was born (Inventor of Transistor)

We will go through each event in detail:

2001: Google's first acquisition (Deaj.com's Usenet Service)

Google is a technology gaint today but in the early 2000s, it was just starting off. On this day (13th February 2001), Google made its first acquisition where is acquired the Usenet service of a company namde deaj.com.

Usenets are a distribution system made for online discussion. With this acquisition, Google launched its new product under the name "Google Groups" which is widely used even till this day. Deaj's product was launched in 1995.

Deaj was an archieved version of Usenet forums and its features changed the path of online discussions. This is a major event as it marked the starting of acquisitions of Google over the next 2 decades through which it will become a major player in the Technology field.

You know that today Google made its first acquisition and it was focused on improving online discussions.

1966: Mark Pincus was born (Founder of Zynga)

Mark Pincus was born on this day (13 th February 1966) and is widely known for being the founder of Zynga. Zynga is widely considered to have changed the social gaming ecosystem.

He has founded other successful companies as well:

  • Tribe Network (a social network)
  • Support.com (a technical support service)

His education qualification includes:

  • Bachelor of Science at University of Pennsylvania
  • M.B.A at Harvard University

Some of the notable awards he received are:

  • CEO of the year (2007) at The Crunchies technology awards
  • Founder of the year (2010) at The Crunchies technology awards

1925: Robert Barton was born (Designer of Burroughs B5000)

Robert Barton was born on this day (13 th February 1925) and is widely known for:

  • Main designer of Burroughs B5000 (one of the first commerical computer)
  • Inventor of dataflow
  • considered as an inspiration to Alan Kay, the man behind OOP

Burroughs B5000 was an important milestone as it reflects the development of commercial computers suited for any high level programming language.

Major awards he received are:

  • IEEE W. Wallace McDowell Award
  • IEEE-ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award
  • IEEE Computer Pioneer Award

1910: William Shockley was born (Inventor of Transistor)

William Shockley was born on this day (13th February 1910) and was an Inventor and Physicist. He is credited with the development of Transistor which is a central component of early computers which made computing possible. He has been named in 100 most influential people of the 20th century by TIME.

He is widely known for:

  • Inventor of Transistor
  • Winner of Nobel Prize in 1956
  • Man responsible for Atomic bombs on Japan

In 1945, he submitted a report to the War Department which influenced United States to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to suppress Germany.

Ober the years, he worked for several large companies like:

  • Bell labs
  • War department
  • Various universities like Stanford University

We won several notable awards such as:

  • Nobel Prize in 1956 in Physics
  • IEEE Medal of Honor in 1980 by IEEE
  • 100 most influential people of the 20th century by TIME

If you are born on this day (13 February), you should be proud and happy as such great people in Computer Science like Mark Pincus, Robert Barton and William Shockley were born.

Ue Kiao, PhD

Ue Kiao, PhD

Ue Kiao is a Technical Author and Software Developer with B. Sc in Computer Science at National Taiwan University and PhD in Algorithms at Tokyo Institute of Technology | Researcher at TaoBao

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Computer History on 13th February
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