Organize | Wang Qilong
Through "the present in history", the future can be seen from the past, and the future can be changed from the present.
Today, April 8, 2022, on this day in 2008, EMC announced the acquisition of Iomega, a U.S. provider of storage and network security systems, for $213 million. After this acquisition, EMC originally intended to formally enter the consumer market, but after fierce competition, Michael Dell, MSD Partners (Michael's family company), and Silver Lake spent $67 billion to merge with EMC, becoming the largest merger in the technology industry after fierce competition. Looking back at April 8 in computer history, what other high-impact key events occurred on that day?
April 8, 1917: Computer scientist Winifred Asprey is born
Source: Wikipedia
Winifred "Tim" Alice Asprey was born on April 8, 1917, an American mathematician and computer scientist, and in the 1940s she was one of only 200 women to receive a Doctorate in Mathematics from an American university, a time when women were grossly underrepresented in mathematics. Aspre was later involved in the close connection between the Vasa Academy and IBM, which led to the establishment of Vasa's first computer science laboratory.
Born in Sioux City, Iowa, Asprey attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1938. There, Aspre met Grace Hopper, the "first lady of computers" who was teaching mathematics at the time. After graduating, Aspre taught at several private schools in New York City and Chicago, before receiving her master's and doctorates from the University of Iowa in 1942 and 1945, respectively. Her doctoral supervisor was topologist Edward Wilson Chittenden.
Later, Aspre returned to Vassar College as a professor. By then, her mentor, Grace Herbert, had moved to Philadelphia to work on the UNIVAC (General Purpose Automated Computer) project; Aspre became interested in computing and visited Herbert's unit to learn about the basics of computer architecture. Aspre believes computers will be an important part of education. At Vaasa College, Aspre taught mathematics and computer science for 38 years, serving as chair of the Department of Mathematics from 1957 to his retirement in 1982. She created her first computer science course in Vaasa, and to fund the college's first computer, she made Vaasa the second college in the United States to receive ibm system/360 computers in 1967. Aspre has since been in contact with researchers at IBM and other research centers, and in 1989, thanks to her contributions, the computer center she founded was renamed the Aspre Advanced Computing Laboratory.
Source: Wikipedia
April 8, 1983: John Sculley becomes CEO of Apple
I think you're like Woz and Marcuola, you're like one of the founders of the company. They started the company, but you and I are creating the future.
In 1984, during a rehearsal of how to introduce the Macintosh computer to the company's top brass, Jobs said this to Sculley
At the height of macintosh success, Apple tried to transfer unsold Lisa computer inventory by renaming another product of the same period, the Lisa computer, to "Macintosh XL" and positioning it as the top professional Macintosh model. At this point, the power struggle between Steve Jobs and John Sculley intensified: Jobs began to plunge the company and the department into endless overtime and meetings, and Sculley had little control over the Macintosh division, of which Jobs was general manager. Apple's board instructed Sculley to "contain" Jobs and limit his ability to make expensive attempts at untested products.
Jobs naturally did not sit still, and instead of following Sculley's instructions, he tried to oust Sculley from his leadership position at Apple. Sculley became aware of the incident and convened a board meeting at which Apple's board of directors supported Sculley and removed Jobs from his management position. Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Computers in the same year. Sculley said in 2015 that Jobs never forgave him and that their friendship was never repaired. After Jobs left, Sculley was named president.
Shortly after Jobs's departure, the company took a turn for the worse in 1986; a reporter said of Sculley: "Ever since Sculley joined the company... A lot of things have changed", and his "strategy worked". Wozniak even credited Sculley for the Macintosh's initial success, saying he "struggled to build the Macintosh market when the Apple II disappeared." Apple introduced faster microprocessors and renamed "Macintosh Office" to "Desktop Publishing." In 1991, Apple introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the operating system that added color to the interface and introduced new networking features; System 7 was the architectural foundation of Mac OS until 2001, when the classic Mac OS was replaced by Mac OS X. The magazine MacAddict refers to the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Macintosh. Under Sculley's leadership, Apple's sales grew from $982 million in 1983 to $7.9 billion in 1993.
Rival Microsoft saw this and naturally couldn't hold back; Microsoft threatened to stop using Microsoft Office on the Macintosh if Apple did not license part of the Macintosh graphical user interface to be used in the Windows operating system. Under pressure, Sculley agreed, a decision that later affected the lawsuit between Apple and Microsoft. Around that time, Sculley coined the term Personal Digital Assistant (PDA); the term was used in Apple's new product, Apple Newton, one of the world's first PDAs.
On December 5, 1992, as Chairman, CEO, and Chief Technology Officer of Apple, Sculley gave a groundbreaking talk on the future of the Internet, titled "The Dawn of the $3.5 Trillion Communications Mega Industry: Information Access, Processing, and Distribution in the Digital World." But his behavior nearly took Apple off that track: In the early 1990s, Sculley led Apple to port its operating system to run on a new microprocessor, the PowerPC; Sculley later admitted that such behavior was his biggest mistake because he should have targeted the dominant Intel architecture. In 1993, amid a personal computer price war and internal tensions over the direction the company was headed, Apple's board forced Sculley to leave. He resigned on October 15, 1993, and was succeeded by Germany-born Michael Spindler. Three years later, Spindler was also ousted and Jobs returned.
Source: Wikipedia, Baidu Encyclopedia
April 8, 2014: The Windows XP operating system is officially retired
Image source: CSDN Downloaded from The Oriental IC
April 8, 2014 is the last day of "service" for Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. After that, Microsoft officially stopped the security updates for Windows XP systems and no longer patched the security vulnerabilities of XP systems. Windows XP is the major version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 2000 for professional users and Windows Me for home users. It began production on August 24, 2001, followed by retail on October 25, 2001.
Windows XP has been used for 13 years and is the longest-lived operating system in Microsoft's history. Relying on this operating system, Microsoft has strengthened its "hegemonic" position in the field of desktop operating systems. At the same time, It also makes Windows XP a classic in the hearts of many Chinese users. However, with the introduction of a newer version of the operating system by Microsoft, Microsoft's support for the Windows XP operating system has been decreasing. On June 30, 2008, Microsoft stopped selling Windows XP; on April 14, 2009, Microsoft stopped technical support for Windows XP, including new Microsoft services such as IE, DirectX, and MSN, which cannot be used on Windows XP; in November 2013, Microsoft released a Windows XP operating system "Death Countdown Tool" for calculating Windows XP from April 8, 2014 How much time is left to terminate the service. On December 30, 2013, Microsoft announced that 99 days later, that is, April 8, 2014, the support service for Windows XP was terminated, so Windows XP was officially retired.
【Welcome to contribute】Taking history as a mirror, you can know the rise and fall. Computer science development so far, there are many crucial events, people, welcome all friends to build together to build "today in history", submission email: [email protected].
END
"New Programmer 001-004" is fully listed, talking to world-class masters and reporting on innovations and creations in China's IT industry
Achieve 100 million technical people