1983 Silicon Valley It was another startup in the Valley with a fancy idea: graphical user interfaces for future computers, but they got nowhere fast. They started over, and went simpler. In July 1984, hired a product person. A month later, the product guy wrote a 2 page note about "overhead projection". Back then, people made transparencies of images, projected on a film-screen by a machine that was a big lamp. Apple invested. 3 years later, the software was ready. The problem was a legal ch...

1983 Washington D.C. An upstart fought a giant which had one network to rule them all. The upstart, born in 1963, was nicknamed the "law firm with an antenna", because of its lawsuits. They battled with AT&T in the courts so they could sell their microwave-based service, as "Microwave Communications Inc", "MCI". David vs Goliath, "Ma Bell". “David” had a new idea, inspired by companies famed for telegram messages, money orders, and the first FCC licensed network to connect business computers,...

1983 In December 1983, David retired as Creative Head of the firm he reinvented. He was an Oxford scholarship dropout, an apprentice chef in Paris, a stove salesman, intelligence officer and farmer. His biggest success came from being one thing: a writer. His brother Francis helped David get a job as a salesman for a stove company which Francis' firm represented. Francis was an ad man. He became a top salesman of stoves, and wrote a sales manual based on his experiences. He was hired by ...

1987 West Berlin, Before the Fall of the Wall After living and working in the United States for eight years, he wanted to leave. Wim Wenders went back to "West Germany", after almost 10 years as a director in the U.S. He needed to go home. He wanted to plug back into one of his favorite plates, West Berlin. One other project was years away from completion, so he drew on a muse, Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke's poetry inspired images of angels, and the cemeteries around Berlin were filled with...

1980 NYC 1963, Frederick is from Long Beach, New York, his dad, a shoe wholesaler and mom, a housewife. In high school, he learns guitar and song-writing from the "AV" director. He starts a band with friends and they do shows in garages and school dances. A teacher helps him get into punk music. They do 2 songs at CBGB, there is ejection for a fight with trolls in the crowd. The fight is a setup to get publicity. His dad wears police uniform to “shut down” the show. Senior year, he starts a r...

1981 NYC They were an experimental punk group, played CBGBs, and closing night at Max's Kansas City. Michael, Jeremy, John and Kate. They were the fine "Young Aborigines". The lineup, name and genre changed. It became Michael, Adam, and Adam, "Mike D", "MCA", "AdRock” (and for a little longer, Kate). It was time to reinvent. It was time for some laughs. 1983 “Cooky Puss", inspired by a prank - a crank phone call to a Carvel's ice cream. A comedy hip hop single opened the door. They ...

1981 Cupertino September 1981, InfoWorld magazine announced the IBM PC, and then mentioned 3 machines were coming from Apple Computer. One was designed to compete with Xerox's PC, the "Star". Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center ("PARC") was humanizing the experience of computing. Xerox was designing the future of computing. In 1979, Steve Jobs paid Apple company stock to Xerox for 2 visits by his people to see demos. He wanted to build the future too. What the Apple team saw was enoug...

1980 The Nasdaq They were fooling around with “blue boxes” playing phone phreak games, getting free long distance phone calls. The 16 y/o was great at building machines. The 21 y/o, was great at stories. He hustled and sold 200 of them for $150 each, and split the money. They were like brothers on an adventure. They hung out at a club, and saw homemade machines, small versions of large expensive machines for business and government. The younger brother made one, on paper. He couldn’t afford a...

1986 Baker Beach, California On the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, a sculptor had an annual bonfire ritual. She turned it over to a boyfriend of a friend. On June 21, 1986, he wanted to go further: "radical self-expression". They collected scrap wood and made sculptures of a man and his dog. 8 foot tall. That evening, they set it on fire. The first "Burning Man" was born. Next year, the wooden sculpture was twice as big, 15+ feet tall. The next year, it was doubled again, to 30...

1983 In December 1983, David retired as Creative Head of the firm he reinvented. He was an Oxford scholarship dropout, an apprentice chef in Paris, a stove salesman, intelligence officer and farmer. His biggest success came from being one thing: a writer. His brother Francis helped David get a job as a salesman for a stove company which Francis' firm represented. Francis was an ad man. He became a top salesman of stoves, and wrote a sales manual based on his experiences. He was hired by ...

1986 Baker Beach, California On the longest day of the year, the summer solstice, a sculptor had an annual bonfire ritual. She turned it over to a boyfriend of a friend. On June 21, 1986, he wanted to go further: "radical self-expression". They collected scrap wood and made sculptures of a man and his dog. 8 foot tall. That evening, they set it on fire. The first "Burning Man" was born. Next year, the wooden sculpture was twice as big, 15+ feet tall. The next year, it was doubled again, to 30...

1981 Cupertino September 1981, InfoWorld magazine announced the IBM PC, and then mentioned 3 machines were coming from Apple Computer. One was designed to compete with Xerox's PC, the "Star". Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center ("PARC") was humanizing the experience of computing. Xerox was designing the future of computing. In 1979, Steve Jobs paid Apple company stock to Xerox for 2 visits by his people to see demos. He wanted to build the future too. What the Apple team saw was enoug...

1983 Silicon Valley It was another startup in the Valley with a fancy idea: graphical user interfaces for future computers, but they got nowhere fast. They started over, and went simpler. In July 1984, hired a product person. A month later, the product guy wrote a 2 page note about "overhead projection". Back then, people made transparencies of images, projected on a film-screen by a machine that was a big lamp. Apple invested. 3 years later, the software was ready. The problem was a legal ch...

1980 NYC 1963, Frederick is from Long Beach, New York, his dad, a shoe wholesaler and mom, a housewife. In high school, he learns guitar and song-writing from the "AV" director. He starts a band with friends and they do shows in garages and school dances. A teacher helps him get into punk music. They do 2 songs at CBGB, there is ejection for a fight with trolls in the crowd. The fight is a setup to get publicity. His dad wears police uniform to “shut down” the show. Senior year, he starts a r...

1987 West Berlin, Before the Fall of the Wall After living and working in the United States for eight years, he wanted to leave. Wim Wenders went back to "West Germany", after almost 10 years as a director in the U.S. He needed to go home. He wanted to plug back into one of his favorite plates, West Berlin. One other project was years away from completion, so he drew on a muse, Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke's poetry inspired images of angels, and the cemeteries around Berlin were filled with...

1983 Washington D.C. An upstart fought a giant which had one network to rule them all. The upstart, born in 1963, was nicknamed the "law firm with an antenna", because of its lawsuits. They battled with AT&T in the courts so they could sell their microwave-based service, as "Microwave Communications Inc", "MCI". David vs Goliath, "Ma Bell". “David” had a new idea, inspired by companies famed for telegram messages, money orders, and the first FCC licensed network to connect business computers,...

1981 NYC They were an experimental punk group, played CBGBs, and closing night at Max's Kansas City. Michael, Jeremy, John and Kate. They were the fine "Young Aborigines". The lineup, name and genre changed. It became Michael, Adam, and Adam, "Mike D", "MCA", "AdRock” (and for a little longer, Kate). It was time to reinvent. It was time for some laughs. 1983 “Cooky Puss", inspired by a prank - a crank phone call to a Carvel's ice cream. A comedy hip hop single opened the door. They ...

1980 The Nasdaq They were fooling around with “blue boxes” playing phone phreak games, getting free long distance phone calls. The 16 y/o was great at building machines. The 21 y/o, was great at stories. He hustled and sold 200 of them for $150 each, and split the money. They were like brothers on an adventure. They hung out at a club, and saw homemade machines, small versions of large expensive machines for business and government. The younger brother made one, on paper. He couldn’t afford a...

1985 London, Wembley Stadium The BBC reported a horror unfolding in real-time. One story was of a nurse, surrounded by tens of thousands of starving people, forced to choose which children got food from dwindling supplies. The report was broadcast in the U.S., a rare event in a pre-internet world. Bob Geldof, of the band Boomtown Rats, reached out to a friend, Midge Ure. In 1981, they raised money together for a benefit. Geldof wanted to do it again. They assembled "Band Aid", an ensemble of ...

1985 London, Wembley Stadium The BBC reported a horror unfolding in real-time. One story was of a nurse, surrounded by tens of thousands of starving people, forced to choose which children got food from dwindling supplies. The report was broadcast in the U.S., a rare event in a pre-internet world. Bob Geldof, of the band Boomtown Rats, reached out to a friend, Midge Ure. In 1981, they raised money together for a benefit. Geldof wanted to do it again. They assembled "Band Aid", an ensemble of ...

1980s The Nasdaq National Market It was born in 1971. The SEC told the National Association of Securities Dealers to build an electronic market for price information for “Over-the-Counter” (OTC) securities, not listed on the exchanges. Market makers for OTC used to deal by phone. They never had a "pit" in the first place, it was "open architecture" before "open" was the thing. A stream of data flowed for everyone on this network. Everybody could see the same information at the same time. Then...

1980s The Nasdaq National Market It was born in 1971. The SEC told the National Association of Securities Dealers to build an electronic market for price information for “Over-the-Counter” (OTC) securities, not listed on the exchanges. Market makers for OTC used to deal by phone. They never had a "pit" in the first place, it was "open architecture" before "open" was the thing. A stream of data flowed for everyone on this network. Everybody could see the same information at the same time. Then...

1986 LucaArts In the beginning, the original specification was for a single generic male and female character, they were without form and character. But the makers looked upon the face of this world, and allowed for changes, there could be different heights, possessions, and a 100+ different heads. And they saw that it was good. It was so good, in fact, that the ‘heads’ were sold in "vending machines", and as rewards for players for successful quests. There was that and barter, and life and d...

1986 LucaArts In the beginning, the original specification was for a single generic male and female character, they were without form and character. But the makers looked upon the face of this world, and allowed for changes, there could be different heights, possessions, and a 100+ different heads. And they saw that it was good. It was so good, in fact, that the ‘heads’ were sold in "vending machines", and as rewards for players for successful quests. There was that and barter, and life and d...