Today in the 70′s
1978 – Breakout
Breakout was originally an arcade game relased in 1976. It was then ported to the Atari 2600 in 1978. In the game, a layer of bricks lines the top third of the screen. A ball travels across the screen, bouncing off the top and side walls of the screen. When a brick is hit, the ball bounces away and the brick is destroyed. The player loses a turn when the ball touches the bottom of the screen. To prevent this from happening, the player has a movable paddle to bounce the ball upward, keeping it in play.
Today in the 80′s
1984 – Movies
The Natural is released
The best there was. That was the tagline for this all-time baseball classic.
The Bat that batboy Bobby Savoy gives Roy is called the “Savoy Special”. Savoy Special was a brand of beer in the 1930s and was made by the United States Brewing Co.
Hobbs breaking the scoreboard clock with a home run was inspired by Bama Rowell of the Boston Braves doubling off the Ebbets Field scoreboard clock on May 30, 1946, showering Dixie Walker with glass. Though he’d been promised a free watch by Bulova for hitting the company’s scoreboard sign, Rowell had to wait until 1987 to receive it.
Today in the 80′s
IBM releases PC DOS 1.1
PC-DOS is a freeware DOS operating system for the IBM Personal Computer, sold throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The original 1981 arrangement between IBM and Microsoft was that Microsoft would provide the base product and that both firms would work on developing different parts of it into a more powerful and robust system, and then share the resultant code. MS-DOS and PC-DOS were to be marketed separately: IBM selling to itself for the IBM PC, and Microsoft selling to the open market. However, at no time did IBM acquire the ownership of the source code of the operating system for its own PCs.
So, IBM improved the product, shared it with Microsoft, yet only sold it to itself while Microsoft sold it to everyone else? Bill gates was a freaking genius.
Today in the 90′s
Happy Birthday Chunnel!
The channel tunnel, aka Chunnel, was opened on this day in 1994. The Chunnel is a 31.4 mile tunnel underneath the English Channel linking France and England.
Today in the 60′s
Alan Shephard is the first American in space
The Mercury spacecraft, named Freedom 7, performed a suborbital flight. It was piloted by astronaut Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space as a result of this mission. The flight lasted less than 16 minutes and attained an altitude of just over 187 km.
Shepard did not orbit the earth, but simply went up and down, which requires a less powerful rocket and simpler guidance. He did, however, become the first astronaut to safely return to Earth inside his vehicle.
Today in the 80′s
Activision Boxing
Released in 1980, Boxing shows a top-down view of two boxers, one white and one black. When close enough, a boxer can hit his opponent with a punch. This causes his opponent to reel back slightly. Long punches score one point, while closer punches score two. There are no knockdowns or rounds. A match is completed either when one player lands 100 punches (a “knockout”) or two minutes have elapsed (a “decision”). In the case of a decision, the player with the most landed punches is the winner. Ties are possible.
Glass-bottom observation deck?? No thanks!!!
Chicago’s Sears Tower will be opening a glass-bottomed observation deck in June. These enclosures will extend 4.3 feet out from the building giving people a 103 story view straight down with just an inch and a half of glass in between. The attraction will be called ‘The Ledge’.
