September 13, 2011

Good morning! It's The Nerd's Almanac for Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

On this date in 1848, railroad worker Phineas Gage survived a construction accident that drove a three foot iron rod completely through his head. The case shed light on the brain and how its regions function.

The first computer with disk storage was released on this date in 1956. The IBM 305 RAMAC (for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control") made use of the new IBM 350 disk system, which could store five million characters. Yes, that's 5 MB.

It's the birthday today of Ed Roberts, born in Miami in 1941. He is often called the "father of the personal computer," having developed the Altair 8800 personal computer. A couple of nerds developed a BASIC interpreter for the new computer; their names were Bill Gates and Paul Allen.

Here is a quote for today...
"Ed was willing to take a chance on us – two young guys interested in computers long before they were commonplace – and we have always been grateful to him. The day our first untested software worked on his Altair was the start of a lot of great things. We will always have many fond memories of working with Ed in Albuquerque, in the MITS office right on Route 66 – where so many exciting things happened that none of us could have imagined back then."
-- Bill Gates, from a press release upon Ed Roberts' death last year.

And that's the almanac for today. Nerds of the world, we salute you!

Sources:
Wikipedia: September 13
Wikipedia: Phineas Gage
Wikipedia: IBM 305 RAMAC
Wikipedia: Ed Roberts
Wikipedia: Altair 8800
The Gates Notes: Remembering Ed Roberts