Today in Tech History – June 22, 2017

1675 – Britain’s King Charles II established the observatory at Greenwich with the main purpose of determining precise longitudes to aid in navigation. This purpose led to Greenwich being marked as the prime meridian and later Greenwich Mean Time.
http://books.google.com/books?id=KXFLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA140&lpg=PA140&dq=june+22+1675+greenwich+royal+warrant&source=bl&ots=Wq9jymLyYF&sig=aIu0NBzBNBOKCLwJfhH-gS1D-Pc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=He65UYGiMeWKjALA_IDgDw&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=june%2022%201675%20greenwich%20royal%20warrant&f=false

1799 – The first definitive prototype metre bars (mètre des Archives) and kilograms were constructed in platinum.
http://www.sizes.com/units/meter.htm

1996 – Quake, the successor to the first-person shooter Doom was released by id Software with music composed by Trent Reznor. The Quake engine offered full real-time 3D rendering and had early support for 3D acceleration through OpenGL. It also added several multiplayer options.
http://rome.ro/news/2016/6/22/happy-20th-birthday-quake

1999 – The first demonstration of live rats directly controlling a robot arm with their thoughts was published by Nature Neuroscience.
http://onlineathens.com/stories/062299/new_robots.shtml

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.