Technology History Facts

Fact 1: The first hard drive by IBM

The first hard drive was made by IBM in 1956 and was called IBM Model 350 Disk File. The first-generation storage unit was huge, with a cabinet the size of a cupboard that held 50 24-inch disks and held an impressive 5MB of data.

Fact 2: RadioShack

RadioShack was one of the first companies to start the PC revolution in the mid 70′s with its TRS-80.

What most people don’t know is that RadioShack used to be called “Tandy Radio Shack & Leather” after it was acquired by Tandy, a leather goods company, in 1963.

Fact 3: The first palmtop computer

The Atari Portfolio was released in 1989 and was the world’s first palmtop computer. Two years later it appeared in the film Terminator 2, where it was used by John Connor to hack an ATM and retrieve the key to the vault in the Cyberdyne lab.

Fact 4: The first mouse

Many think the first mouse was invented in 1970 at Xerox PARC. However, the first mouse was invented by Douglas Engelbart in 1963. It was a wooden shell with two metal wheels.

This fact was suggested by Tiarnan Branson.

Fact 5: The digital circuit

Claude Shannon, the “Father of information theory”, invented the digital circuit when he was only 21, during his master’s degree.
Shannon loved inventions – check out his “Ultimate Machine“. When you turn on the switch, an arm pops out and turns it back off.

Fact 6: The Apolo 11 computers

How powerful were the computers that took us to the moon? Turns out that the Apolo 11 computers had less processing power than a modern cellphone!