Today in Tech History – March 24, 2018

1802 – Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane of Camborne Parish in the County of Cornwall, enrolled a patent for a steam engine that could power a full-sized road locomotive. He had previously demonstrated it by driving up a hill in a car he called the “Puffing Devil”.

http://books.google.com/books?id=P6L2tXEwVDEC&pg=PA269&lpg=PA269&dq=Richard+Trevithick+patent+issued+1802&source=bl&ots=vqxN-pfHQ-&sig=6gkCDPjiQju1QURj-9bar4FMjPk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=rw9VT-mNNqb-iQKf8_m0Bg&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Richard%20Trevithick%20patent%20issued%201802&f=false/

1896 – A. S. Popov made the first radio transmission in human history. Popov is said to have transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building to another on the campus of St. Petersburg University, though the assertion was not published until years later because of the need for military secrecy.

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Aleksandr_Popov

2001 – Apple released its new operating system Mac OS X, code named Cheetah, with a retail price of $130.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/03/21Mac-OS-X-Hits-Stores-This-Weekend.html

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