Today in History – February 14, 1946 – ENIAC, the world’s first digital electronic computer, is unveiled. ENIAC – Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer – the world’s first operational, general purpose, electronic digital computer, developed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania. The ENIAC and the invention of the [...]

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Today in History – February 14, 1990 -  First photo of the solar system is taken and dubbed the “family portrait” of our solar system as seen from outside.
Voyager 1 was launched on September 5, 1977 and it passed Saturn in November 1980. It continued a trajectory that took it out of the solar system, [...]

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Today in History – February 13, 1959 – the first Barbie doll goes on sale. Barbie’s inventor, Ruth Handler, was inspired by seeing that her daughter, Barbie, and her girl friends enjoyed playing with adult female dolls, but most dolls at the time were baby dolls. Handler created 3D models of dolls that she thought [...]

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Today in History – February 6, 1959 - Kilby patents the integrated circuit.
Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at the small Fairchild Semiconductor start-up company were both working on the concept of an integrated circuit in 1958. Prior to this invention, only parts of a circuit – such as the transistor [...]

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Today in History – February 1, 1972 – First scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, introduced for $395. I was an undergraduate in engineering when the HP-35 was released. I couldn’t afford to buy one and stuck with my slide rule. But the next year, I gave in and bought the next model, the HP-45 [...]

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