This Month in IT history: December

As the year comes to a close, it's time toconsider the significance of new beginnings, such as the first general purposecomputer, the first demonstration of hypertext or the first occasion TimeMagazine named the personal computer the first non-human winner of its Manof the Year award. Let's explore these and other critical moments in techhistory:

December9, 1968 The Mother of All Demos

On this day DouglasEngelbart gave a 90-minute presentation at the 1968 Fall Joint ComputerConference in San Francisco that in the decades since has come to be known asthe mother of all demos. His team at the Stanford Research Institute hadspent six years creating its oN-Line System (NLS), which was intended to showhow computers could augment human abilities and intelligence.

Before thepresentation, some called Engelbart a crank. Then he proceeded to demonstratethe building blocks of modern computing: the mouse, hyperlinks, videoconferencing, collaborative live editing of documents and more. All of thesefeel familiar to us today, but seeing these concepts in action within a singlesystem in 1968 shook the computing community. Engelbart was said to be dealinglightning with both hands.

Immediate changesdidn't come it took decades for his system design principles to find theirway into commercial products. The Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows builton his graphical user interface ideas in the 1980s, hyperlinks strung togetherthe web in the 1990s, while real-time document collaboration has only recentlystarted to change workplaces. Engelbart, who died in 2013, lived to see his storieddemo become the reality of modern work.

December22, 1882 The First Electric Christmas Lights

Christmas trees usedto be lit with wax candles, but in 1882, Edward Hibberd Johnson decided tostring his tree with electric lights. He worked for Thomas Edison'sIllumination Company and would later become its vice president. Johnson wired80 red, white and blue bulbs by hand along a single cord. The spectacle drew passersbyto Johnson's window, as well as press attention, but Christmas lights wouldn'tbecome common for a few more decades for a few reasons.

For one, people stilldistrusted electric light. It was considered a fire hazard. The lights werealso expensive a set of 12 cost about $350 in 1900. And if you could affordthem, you also needed to hire an electrician to set them up. By the 1930s, theseconcerns had been addressed, and Christmas lights went mainstream. Today,they're still a way to mark technological advancement: incandescent bulbs havebeen largely replaced with LEDs driven by electronic circuits, and the lightscan be controlled with a smart home system. Sadly, a technology to keep thestrings untangled remains the stuff of dreams.

December26, 1982 Time Magazine Names the PersonalComputer Machine of the Year

For the first timesince it began its Man of the Year award in 1927, Time Magazine honoured a non-human in 1982: the personal computer. Thecover story surveyed the many facets of computing, including how it wouldchange the world of work. A poll conducted for the story found 73 percent ofrespondents believed the computer revolution would enable more people to workat home. There would be computerized electronic message systems that couldeventually make paper obsolete, and wall-sized, two-way TV teleconferencescreens that will obviate traveling to meetings.

Staff writer OttoFriedrich noted that this change in the workplace was in its infancy: just 10percent of typewriters in the 500 largest companies had been replaced. Friedrichhimself wrote the story on a Royal 440 typewriter, and continued to use it withspecial permission from Time longafter the magazine had shifted its workflow to computers.

December26, 1791 Charles Babbage is Born

Charles Babbage isbest known for designing mechanical computers. His Difference Engine calculatedmathematical tables, while his Analytical Engine was a general purpose devicethat included the elements of modern computers. It was instruction-based, and intended to beprogrammed with punch cards, directly inspired by the loom-programming cards createdby Joseph-Marie Jacquard (who we metin July).

Babbage haddifficulty funding the construction of his engines, and completed neither inhis lifetime. In 1991, the London Science Museum completed a device based onhis designs for his Difference Engine No. 2. It has 4,000 parts, weighs overthree metric tons and it works. A separate project is underway to build theAnalytical Engine, with an eye to completing it by 2021. It will be the size ofa small steam train, and run at a clock speed of 7Hz. For comparison's sake,Sinclair's ZX81, released in 1981, had a clock speed of 3.2MHz.

December29, 1952 The First Transistor-based Hearing Aid Goes on Sale

The Sonotone 1010 wasthe first hearing aid with a transistor, and interestingly, the first commercialapplication of the transistor of any kind. It weighed 88 grams and cost $229.50at the time about $3,000 today. Transistors allowed for less distortion,better battery life and a smaller size than the vacuum tube hearing aids thathad been in use since the 1920s. For these reasons, they quickly replaced theold technology.

Today, some hearingaids can connect to iPhones and stream phone calls, music and podcasts. Thelines between assistive, consumer and business technology are beginning to bluras Apple AirPods can also be used to join business calls hands-free. The LiveListen feature uses the microphone in an iPhone or iPad to stream sound toAirPods or compatible hearing aids, making it easier to hear in noisyenvironments. This brings convenience to the hearing-impaired community, andadvances in hearing technology and digital processing to everyone.