history

Features

• CIO Blast from the Past: 60 years of Hamming codes

  By Rodney Gedda | 25 November, 2010 14:09

  In 1950 Bell Labs researcher, Richard W Hamming, made a discovery that would lay an important foundation for the entire modern computing and communications industries. He had invented a code for correcting errors in communication and the Hamming code was born. CIO Blast from the Past takes a journey through 60 years of information theory and discovers how the Hamming code legacy lives on today.

• CIO Blast from the Past: 40 years of Multics, 1969-2009

  By Rodney Gedda | 11 November, 2009 09:56

  October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used for information management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this edition of Blast from the Past we talk to Fernando Corbato on the early days of Multics, why it was so influential, open source and software development practices, and how cloud computing is a modern incarnation of Multics’ time-sharing philosophy.

• SLIDESHOW: CIO Blast from the Past - 40 years of Multics

  By Rodney Gedda | 11 November, 2009 09:38

  2009 marks 40 years since the first release of Multics, the groundbreaking operating system that pioneered time-sharing and paved the way for the development of Unix. In October 1969 the first production Multics system began operations at MIT. Take a tour of the past four decades of Multics with CIO.

• SLIDESHOW: CIO Blast from the Past - 60 years of cryptography

  By Rodney Gedda | 18 September, 2009 15:07

  2009 marks 60 years since the advent of modern cryptography. In October 1949 Claude Shannon published a paper on the mathematical basis of cryptography and since then electronic communications has strived towards more security. Take a tour of the past six decades with CIO.

• SLIDESHOW: CIO Blast from the Past -- 110 Years of IBM technology

  By CIO Staff | 17 September, 2009 12:02

  A visual tour of IBM technology from the original 1899 Moneyweight Scale to Roadrunner, the first system to break the petaflop barrier, and everything in between. How many of these systems have you used during your career in IT?

• 15 events that changed technology history

  By Neil McAllister | 24 December, 2008 09:00

  There are certain key points that have shaped the way technology is today. We've rounded up the 15 most important milestones and explained why they changed the course of the industry.

• Slideshow -- Tech of Yesteryear: Where Old Computers Find Their Final Resting Place

  By Howard Dahdah | 24 November, 2008 12:44

  Max Burnet has turned his home in the leafy suburbs of Sydney into arguably Australia’s largest private computer museum. Since retiring as director of Digital Equipment Corporation a decade ago, Burnet has converted his interest in the computing industry into an invaluable snapshot of computer history. Every available space from his basement to the top floor of his two-storey home is covered with relics from the past. His collection is vast, from a 1920s Julius Totalisator, the first UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, Apple’s Lisa, MITS Altair 8800, numerous punch cards and over 6000 computer reference books. And more. He happily opened his doors for CIO to take a look.