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This Week in Tech History: Apple Computer is Born

We’re looking back at the first US weather satellite, the birth of a tech giant and the launch of one of the most popular e-mail services… It all happened This Week in Tech History.

This week in 1797 – Nathaniel Briggs of New Hampshire patented an early form of washing machine for clothes, called the “box mangler.” It had a heavy frame containing a large box filled with rocks, on a series of wooden rollers. Two people were required, to move the box back and forth in order to clean the clothes.

1960 – The first U.S. weather satellite was launched. “TIROS I” was put into orbit. The TIROS-1 satellite transmitted the first television picture from space and meteorologists saw the first pictures of a midlatitude cyclone over the northeastern United States.

1976 – Apple Computer was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne — in a garage in Cupertino, CA. Just two weeks later, Ronald Wayne sold his 10% stake in Apple for $800. That stake today, would be worth 75.5 Billion dollars.


1981 – The Osborne 1, the first successful portable computer, is unveiled at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco.

2004 – Google announced a new service to the public. A project that up until then was known by the code name, Caribou. The project’s real name was Gmail, and it quickly became one of the most popular e-mail services around.



And this week in 2010 – Apple Inc. released the first generation iPad, which quickly became to most popular tablet computer.

Written by Chris Graveline

Chris has covered consumer technology for over 20 years. He is the host of This Week in Tech History as well as a regular co-host on "Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline" and our Technical Director.

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