Push-button telephones make their debut, Windows is born and the video game console wars heat up… It all happened This Week in Tech History.
1866 – The rotary-crank bicycle was patented in Paris, France. The bike, incidentally, was known as the bone shaker.
1963 – The first telephone in the U.S. with push buttons instead of a rotary dial was placed in commercial service in Carnegie and Greensburg, PA.
1985 – Windows 1.0 was released by Microsoft. This first version of Windows was received poorly by critics who felt that it put too much emphasis on mouse input at a time when mouse use was not yet widespread. On December 31, 2001, more than 16 years after its release, Windows 1.0 was declared obsolete and Microsoft stopped providing support and updates for the system.
2006 – Sony Corp. launched its new PlayStation 3 in the U.S. It was the third home video game console produced by Sony and was the successor to their PlayStation 2. The PlayStation 3 competed primarily against Microsoft’s Xbox 360 as well as Nintendo’s Wii console, which was released that same week.