Smiley

A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram representing a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram or as a form of communication, such as emoticons. The smiley began as two dots and a parenthesis to represent eyes and a mouth.

The first known mention on the Internet was on 19 September 1982. In a posting made to a Carnegie Mellon bulletin board, Professor Scott Fahlman proposes the first known use of smiley. While the use of emoticons became widespread during the 80’s and 90’s, their origin remained unknown until September 10, 2002, when the original message was retrieved from backup tape, which is displayed below.

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman             :‌-)
From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:‌-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:‌-(

The smiley face was included in Unicode's Miscellaneous Symbols from version 1.1 (1993).
Unicode smiley characters:

☺	U+263A	Alt+1	White Smiling Face (This may appear as an emoji on some devices)
☻	U+263B	Alt+2	Black Smiling Face

Later additions to Unicode included a large number of variants expressing a range of human emotions, in particular with the addition of the "Emoticons" and "Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs blocks in Unicode versions 6.0 (2010) and 8.0 (2015), respectively.

Windows 95 Released

 

On August 24, 1995, kicking off one of the most significant product launches in technology history, Microsoft released the highly anticipated Windows 95. Thanks to this product campaign, Windows 95's sales exceeded all predictions. More than one million copies will be sold in the first four days of its release. Windows 95, the first operating system in the 9x family, is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. 

Strangely, on August 24, 1993, two years before, Apple lost a copyright infringement suit against Microsoft. Perhaps the most famous lawsuit in technology history is decided for Microsoft. Apple claimed that Microsoft’s Windows violated their copyrights on the "visual displays" of the Macintosh. The judge in the case ruled that most of the claims were covered by a 1985 licensing agreement. Other claims were not violations of copyright due to the "merger doctrine", which states that ideas can not be copyrighted. This paved the way for Microsoft to develop Windows 95, which imitated the Macintosh even more so than previous versions of Windows.

Atanasoff Berry Computer. The first electronic digital computer

 

The first special-purpose electronic computer may actually have been invented by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff, a physicist and mathematician at Iowa State College (now Iowa State University), during 1937–42. Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built a successful small prototype for the purpose of testing two ideas:

• capacitors to store data in binary form and

• electronic logic circuits to perform addition and subtraction.

In 1939, after successfully demonstrating the proof-of-concept prototype, Atanasoff-Berry receive funds to build a full-scale machine. Various components of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) were designed and built from 1939 to 1942, but development was discontinued at the onset of World War II. On 14 August 1940, John Atanasoff finishes a paper describing the ABC. The computer was designed to solve simultaneous linear equations The ABC featured about 300 vacuum tubes for control and arithmetic calculations, use of binary numbers, logic operations (instead of direct counting), memory capacitors, and punched cards as input/output units.

Atanasoff was only able to claim credit for this paper and the title of inventor of the electronic digital computer after a long court battle that ended in 1972. The case - was initiated on a charge by Honeywell Inc. that Sperry Rand. Corp. had enforced a fraudulent patent - involved lengthy testimony by Atanasoff and ENIAC inventors Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, who held the patent under review. A judge's ruling that Atanasoff was the true inventor led to the invalidation of the ENIAC patent.

John Vincent Atanasoff

IBM Introduces Personal Computer. Winner or Loser?

  On 12 August 1981, IBM introduces its first personal computer known as the IBM Model 5150, which ran with a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. 

  IBM originally intended this model to be a stop-gap computer that would allow them to quickly tap into the emerging personal computer market while taking the time to develop a “real” PC. It was developed in under a year by a team of 12 with the goal of rapid release to market. Therefore, this team was allowed to work outside of the normal IBM development process and use whatever “off-the-shelf” components allowed for the quickest development. 

  This overriding goal of developing something as quickly as possible had monumental unintended consequences for IBM and the computer industry as a whole that are still being felt to this day. By compromising quality for rapidity, the design of the IBM PC forced software programmers to resort to inelegant methods of software development, hindering the reliability and compatibility of their software. 

  This laid the groundwork for the reputation of the PC as error-prone and frustrating to use. The use of common components and the choice of Microsoft’s DOS as the PC’s operating system allowed other companies to quickly clone the IBM PC. In 1983, Compaq Computer Corp. released the first clone of the IBM PC, a machine embodying an identical copy of the PC architecture -- which IBM had made publicly available -- and beginning the gradual decline of IBM's share of the personal computer market. They also allowed Microsoft to license their DOS to other companies, giving Microsoft control of the operating system market. 

  Ultimately these choices lead to IBM’s loss of control of the platform. IBM never did really get a chance to create their “real” PC. 

  Steve Jobs was quoted in a 1985 interview, 

“If … IBM wins, my personal feeling is that we are going to enter sort of a computer Dark Ages for about 20 years.” 

  While IBM themselves didn’t win, the creation that they lost control of was the clear market winner for approximately the next 20 years. Many will argue that time was in fact a Dark Age for the home computer, but no one could have predicted that on this day in 1981.

 

Computer Worm. What is it and how does it work?

 

  On 11 August 2003, the Blaster worm, also known as MSBlast or Lovesan, begins to spread on the Internet, infecting Windows XP and Windows 2000 computers. The primary symptom of the worm was the crashing of the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service, which would trigger the computer to shut itself down and reboot as shown in the picture. 

Microsoft estimated the number of machines infected between 8 and 16 million. Damage caused by the worm was estimated at $320 million.

What is a computer worm?

  A computer worm is a type of malware that spreads copies of itself from computer to computer. A worm can replicate itself without any human interaction, and it does not need to attach itself to a software program in order to cause damage.

How do computer worms work?

  Computer worms could arrive as attachments in spam emails or instant messages (IMs). Once opened, these files could provide a link to a malicious website or automatically download the computer worm. Once it’s installed, the worm silently goes to work and infects the machine without the user’s knowledge. Unlike a computer virus, a worm does not need to attach itself to an existing program. Worms can modify and delete files, and they can even inject additional malicious software onto a computer. Sometimes a computer worm’s purpose is only to make copies of itself over and over — depleting system resources, such as hard drive space or bandwidth, by overloading a shared network. In addition to wreaking havoc on a computer’s resources, worms can also steal data, install a backdoor, and allow a hacker to gain control over a computer and its system settings.

Proactive steps

• Keep an eye on your hard drive space
• Monitor speed and performance
• Be on the lookout for missing or new files

Conclusion

  Besides the technical aspects of security, more effort should also be put into user awareness, because users lack of most basis information about the computers they use. More effort should be put on user education on using their computers correctly and develop some basic reflexes for security.