What Happened Today, August 31st

Aldus Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. finalized their merger. The two companies hoped to combine forces in creating powerful desktop publishing software, building on the field Aldus founder Paul Brainerd had created in 1985 with his PageMaker software. Pagemaker was one of three components to the desktop publishing revolution. The other two were the invention of Postscript by Adobe and the LaserWriter laser printer from Apple. All three were necessary to create a desktop publishing environment.

Thanks to possibly the largest product launch campaign in history, Windows 95's sales exceeded all predictions. Strangely, it was two years to the day that Apple lost its look and feel copyright infringement suit against Microsoft, a suit whose main arguments centered around many features now found on Windows 95.

Netscape Communications Corp. announced it had created a software company to enter an alliance with IBM, Oracle, and four Japanese electronics companies: Sony, Nintendo, Sega, and NEC. The new company, Navio Corp., is intended to compete with Microsoft Corp. in creating a new operating system. Netscape and Microsoft remain locked in a bitter battle over Microsoft's linking of its Internet Explorer World Wide Web browser with its Windows operating system, taking customers away from Netscape's Navigator browser. Netscape hoped the new company would develop a variety of computer applications, including video game systems, televisions, and network computers that would use its cheaper technology rather than Microsoft applications.

Miss Manners confronts a new realm of etiquette in her August 26 column as she responded to a reader's concern about typing personal correspondence on a personal computer. The concerned individual said that using the computer was more convenient but that they were worried about the poor quality of her dot-matrix printer and about copying parts of one letter into another.

Miss Manners replied that computers, like typewriters, generally are inappropriate for personal correspondence. In the event a word processor is used, she warned, the recipient may confuse the letter for a sweepstakes entry. And, she noted, if any one of your friends ever sees that your letter to another contains identical ingredients, you have will no further correspondence problems.

Compaq Computer Corp. announced its Presario family of personal computers, intended to be user friendly and cheap. For $1,399, the Presario included a monitor, modem, and software to access the recently popularized online world through Prodigy and America Online.

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6, "Snow Leopard," Apple discontinued its support for the AppleTalk local area networking system. Introduced in 1985 as a quick way to connect Apple computers and peripherals to each other, AppleTalk was a low-cost, medium performance network, perfect for homes and many offices.

The basic AppleTalk hardware was built into every Mac computer so networks could be established without any prior setup or need for a centralized router or server. Apple Talk networks could also be connected to each other, forming internets, or use a variety of physical media like Ethernet, Token Ring or Apple’s own LocalTalk.

AppleTalk was ultimately displaced by TCP/IP-based systems, but for most of the 1980s and ‘90s was Apple's main networking technology.

One of the earliest laws anywhere designed to address computer fraud, the Act resulted from a long debate in the 1980s over failed prosecutions of hackers -- in one well-publicized case, two men hacked into a British Telecom computer leaving messages in the Duke of Edinburgh's private mailbox.

This date marks the birth of John Mauchly who, with J. Presper Eckert built the ENIAC, the first large-scale, electronic calculator. Mauchly received his PhD in physics at Johns Hopkins University and took a position teaching physics at Ursinus College. Because his meteorological work required extensive calculations, he began to experiment with alternatives to mechanical equipment. In 1941 he went to summer course at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He was asked to stay as an instructor, which he did. That year Mauchly wrote a report outlining his ideas for a machine to calculate ballistics tables for the war effort -- a report that helped the Moore School win a contract for the ENIAC. Mauchly worked on the successor to the ENIAC, the EDVAC, and the commercial UNIVAC 1. He died January 8, 1980.

Aldus Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. finalized their merger. The two companies hoped to combine forces in creating powerful desktop publishing software, building on the field Aldus founder Paul Brainerd had created in 1985 with his PageMaker software. Pagemaker was one of three components to the desktop publishing revolution. The other two were the invention of Postscript by Adobe and the LaserWriter laser printer from Apple. All three were necessary to create a desktop publishing environment.