
The history of technology in Oct sees the dawn of the age of the personal automobile, the unintended beginnings associated with video gaming, the particular release from the classic MP3 player that changed everything, and even the formal definition of the internet. Read on for all the details.
October 1, 1908: Ford Model T Goes On Sale

Today, it’s hard to imagine a world without personal vehicles. But, at the start of the 20th century, most people still got around by foot, horse, boat, buggy, or train. And even though manufacturers had been producing automobiles since the 1880s, and Ford itself have been making them since 1903, the Ford Model T was the first personal motorcar to be affordable to middle-class Americans.
The Model T was also the particular first car Ford mass-produced on the moving assembly line , an innovation unto itself. However , the company didn’t incorporate the production process until 1913. Once implemented, the assembly line reduced Model T manufacturing time from over 12 hours to just an hour and a half, with a Model T rolling off the line every three minutes. The particular moving set up line manufacturing process became the standard for the vast majority of the particular automobile industry.
With more than 15 million cars produced between 1908 and 1927, the Design T was an immense commercial success. It also normalized the concept of a personal-use vehicle for regular people. It was the most-sold car in history until 1972, when the German-made Volkswagen Beetle eclipsed it. In 1999 the particular Model To won the Car of the Century award by the particular Global Automotive Elections Foundation.
October 1, 1982: Sony Releases First CD Player
Optical media may seem like retro tech today, but in the early ’80s, it was cutting-edge stuff. When Sony released the first CD player, the Sony CDP-101 , in 1982, no CDs existed to play on it. The same day, Billy Joel’s album 52nd Street was reissued on compact disc, making it the very first commercially released music album in that format.
The launch associated with the CDP-101 was the Japan-only release because their Western business partner, Philips, couldn’t meet the deadline. The Dutch company launched the Philips CD-100 just a month later. But neither product would reach U. S. store shelves till early 1983. The devices sold at about $1, 000, plus at 1st, only about 20 albums were available to play on all of them.
Adoption of the new technology was slow in first. But by 1988, CDs were outselling vinyl records, and by 1991 had eclipsed cassette tape sales. The CD format might remain the top format with regard to music consumption until 2005 when the iPod and the iTunes Music Store dethroned this.
October 8, 1992: Apple Settles Second Lawsuit with ‘The Beatles’

Throughout its history, Apple company has been involved in many high-profile lawsuits. One of its long-standing legal adversaries was Apple Corps , the holding company formed by The particular Beatles . In 1978 Apple Corps filed suit against the computer company regarding trademark infringement. The companies settled out of court in 1981, with Apple company Computer agreeing not to enter into the music business, plus Apple Records (Apple Corps music division) would stay out associated with the pc market.
Nevertheless , the truce didn’t last long. In 1986, Apple Computer built a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) and audio-recording components into their own Mac personal computer line. According to Apple Corps, this violated the particular 1981 agreement and sued Apple Pc again in 1989. The businesses settled from court again in Oct 1991, along with Apple Personal computer paying Apple company Corps 26. 5 mil dollars plus promising never to sell or distribute physical musical press.
The 1991 agreement endured the rest of the 20th hundred years. But , the particular launch of the i-tunes Music Shop changed everything in 2003. Apple Corps alleged that the computer company selling digital music was a breach associated with contract. This time the battle wouldn’t be settled outside the courtroom. After three years, an English judge ruled that Apple Computer did not violate the 1991 settlement.
It wouldn’t become until 2010 that Apple company Corps would allow The Beatles ‘ music library to become sold through the iTunes Music Store.
October 12, 1988: Steve Jobs Introduces NeXT Computer

When Steve Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985, he did not waste any time before establishing a new computer organization: NeXT. With funding from the future U. S. presidential candidate Ross Perot, Jobs led the development of the NeXT Computer, the high-end workstation aimed from the higher-education market.
Within his typical fashion, Work made the launch from the NeXT Computer a multimedia event. However , the Following Introduction served not only as a launching pad for a new computer but also as a triumphal re-entry onto the public stage for Careers. In his own words with the proto-Stevenote, “It’s great to end up being back. ”
The NeXT Pc never achieved the enormous sales numbers as Job’s crowning achievement, the Macintosh. This is likely due to its astronomical price tag of $6, 500–the equivalent associated with $14, 000 in 2021. But it do serve several critical roles. Chief among them was the NeXT machine used as the world’s very first web serve r at CERN.
Unfortunately, the following Computer couldn’t keep Jobs’s new business in the particular hardware company. The firm shifted the focus in order to software in 1993 and developed the NeXT operating system for porting to third-party software. Apple company acquired NeXT four many years later, seeing Jobs return to the firm he founded in 1976.
October 18, 1958: World’s First Video Game
When William Higinbotham designed Tennis for Two , he didn’t know he was building the world’s first video game. Higinbotham intended to entertain the particular attendees of the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s annual public exhibition. Most exhibit items had been for scientific instruments like a pulse height analyzer plus electronic counters. Higinbotham later on said he wanted to “liven up the place” with a game intended for people to try out.
Higinbotham designed the game within just the few hrs after learning that this laboratory’s Donner Model 30 analog computer could simulate an object’s trajectory along with wind resistance. He spent the next 3 weeks with technician Robert V. Dvorak building the particular game’s bodily components, which consisted of an oscilloscope for the display and two aluminum controllers. The game consisted of a simple horizontal collection representing the tennis courtroom with a vertical range in the center for that net. The ball would be paddled back and forth between the players, using the particular controller’s knob to angle the shot and the button to hit the ball.
Tennis to get Two was obviously a smash hit at the event, particularly upon the day time designated pertaining to high school students. The particular line to play the first computer game reached into the hundreds. It had been so popular the laboratory upgraded Tennis for 2 for the particular following year’s exhibition. The game received a larger screen, and simulations that will incorporated the gravity associated with the Moon and Jupiter were added.
The sport didn’t receive any accolades away from display at the time. This wasn’t until nearly 20 years afterwards that lawyers discovered plus used it as a defense in a video game patent lawsuit. The particular press surrounding the case led to its recognition while the initial video game produced solely for entertainment purposes.
Oct 23, 2001: iPod Released

Apple is rarely the particular first in order to market along with new technology. What the corporation does well is to develop existing technology into a form that dominates the market. Such will be the situation with the iPod. MP3 players experienced been a common part of the electronic landscape for years before Apple announced the particular iPod within 2001. Yet Steve Work opportunities found the existing technology lacking and ordered his engineering chief to hire Tony Fadell, who got been pitching an improved Music player in order to various technologies companies such as Sony and Philips.
Working as a good independent contractor, Fadell recruited former coworkers from his previous employers, General Magic and Philips, to help him build the iPod. Within eight months, Fadell plus crew acquired a prototype to show Apple. The first iPod had 5GB of hard drive storage capacity, a monochrome LCD screen, and its click wheel has been raised with physical buttons. A far cry through where the particular iPod ended in 2022 like a smartphone-style device along with up to 256GB of storage, a four-inch multi-touch display, as well as the ability to run apps just like the iPhone.
Whenever Steve Job opportunities announced the iPod at a special Apple company event in October i b?rjan p? tv?tusentalet, it revolutionized how the particular world consumed music. The particular company sold 125, 500 units from the MP3 gamer by the end associated with the year. It took two yrs for your company to ship a million iPods. But growth was exponential after that. By 2007 Apple sold more than 100 million iPods.
Of course, after the introduction of the iPhone, iPod product sales began to dwindle because people didn’t need a separate MP3 participant and a smartphone. Nevertheless, the line continued on since the iPod touch until 2022 .
October 24, 1995: ‘Internet’ Defined
In the days of the first internet, the United States government had to cope with multiple world-changing technologies springing up on once. Several federal agencies, including Defense Department, Energy Department, Nationwide Science Basis, and NASA, informally established the Federal Networking Council as the forum meant for network collaborations. And to help the companies meet their particular research, education, and operational mission goals. As well as bridge the particular
The National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Computing, Information, and Communications (CCIC) formally chartered the group on September 20th, 1995. In one of their first acts as an official organization, the council unanimously passed a resolution defining the term “Internet” designed for federal firms.
According to the particular resolution, “Internet” refers to the global information system that:
- (i) is logically linked together by the globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or the subsequent extensions/follow-ons;
- (ii) is usually able to support communications using the Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent
extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; plus - (iii) provides, uses or even makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high
level services layered on the marketing communications and related infrastructure
described herein. ”
The internet definition had been the Federal government Networking Council’s only claim to fame. When the organization’s charter came up for review inside 1997, it had been disbanded, as well as duties were handed off to other government bureaucracies.
October 30th, 1938: Orson Wells Broadcasts The War of The Worlds

Alien invasions have been a staple of science fiction for as long as the particular genre has existed. However, there weren’t as many sci-fi fans within the late 1930s as there are today. When Orson Wells broadcast their radio adaptation from the classic H. G. Wells novel, The particular War associated with the Worlds , the general public did not know it was all pretend.
Whenever the legendary filmmaker announced at the top of the program that will what was in order to come has been just the radio drama, many listeners would miss it because they had been tuned in to The Mercury Theater on the Air upon another network.
Wells formatted the radio adaptation associated with The Battle of the Words to sound as though it was an actual news broadcast, depicting a Martian invasion from the small town of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. There was mass panic when the public heard the particular reports of military engagements with giant Martian war machines. Historians dispute the extent of the panic . Nevertheless, it was bad enough that CBS purchased this program interrupted to reassure the audience that it was a fictional presentation.