Anniversaries
posted at 3:30 pm on December 19, 2008 by Ed Morrissey
Today brings us a couple of notable anniversaries. The one everyone probably already knows is that today is the tenth anniversary of the second impeachment of an American president. The House officially impeached Bill Clinton on December 19th, 1998:
Afterwards, the Senate declined to convict Clinton on the impeachment and remove him from office. The impeachment carries a historical stain on Clinton’s term of office, but in reality it has done little to hinder him. He had to forego his law license, but has made tens of millions of dollars on the speaking circuit and his wife came close to winning the Democratic nomination for her own shot at the presidency. In the end, impeachment did little to change history, and this anniversary has become more or less an answer to a trivia question.
The only other American president to be impeached, Andrew Johnson, also recovered politically, but had less time to enjoy it. After leaving office in the normal manner in 1868, he tried to return to Congress in 1868 and 1872 without success. In 1874, however, the Tennessee legislature elected him as Senator, and he was warmly received in his return to Washington. He died less than five months later.
On the positive side, a much more obscure anniversary today had a much greater impact on the world. In fact, you might not be reading this today if MITS had not launched the Altair 8800 personal-computer kit on this day in December 1974. Popular Mechanics wrote a cover story on the launch, and that changed the lives of four key people:
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold off Jobs’ VW van and Wozniak’s scientific calculator in order to get the funds to start building their own computers — a company that became Apple Computer. Paul Allen showed the magazine to his friend Bill Gates, who promptly dropped out of Harvard to start writing software for computers, which became Microsoft. When Apple and IBM started producing complete personal computer solutions, it put unprecedented power into the hands of the public.
One man almost thwarted history. Bill Gates’ proctor at Harvard tried to stop him from leaving school before he got his degree, and reached out to a friend to help convince Gates to stay put. Bill Bennett relates the story in his new book The American Patriot’s Almanac: Daily Readings on America that he told Gates, “I think it’s a mistake,” but that Gates remained unmoved.
Blowback
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and it’s my birthday :)
jonkk on December 19, 2008 at 3:39 PM
OT: DNA tests confirm remains are Caylee Anthony
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on December 19, 2008 at 3:46 PM
My first computer was a Heathkit H8. I stuffed circuit boards, did the soldering myself.
I’ve been falling further behind every day since.
Skandia Recluse on December 19, 2008 at 3:48 PM
I sold my VW van and my calculator as well, but invested in Boones Farm and bell bottoms.
faraway on December 19, 2008 at 3:51 PM
Pirates of Silicon Valley was an awesome movie.
MadisonConservative on December 19, 2008 at 3:53 PM
In the near term, the impeachment of Clinton hasn’t had and won’t have much effect. It’s hard to rein in the behavior of someone immune to shame. However, “impeachment is forever.” Acquittal in the Senate doesn’t remove that. That Clinton wears it as a badge of honor, his moment of “defending” the Constitution rather than being brought to account for his abuse of it, will last only as long as he and his cronies draw breath. More objective historians will draw more reliable conclusions in the longterm.
Compare Andrew Jackson, who was censured, and who did his damnedest to erase that blight on his character, with Clinton, who though Censure was a fine idea, and those idiots who tossed around “Censure Plus” and “not proven” (thanks, Arlen). Such things only matter if they matter to the one targeted. There’s no way for Clinton to remove the stain of impeachment, so he tries to redefine it (as he does with “is” and “sex” and “alone”).
Time will tell. Even ten years after the fact, he’s best known for his intern-humidor and for pounding lecterns with fervent and (barely) convincing lies.
sulla on December 19, 2008 at 3:55 PM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
_______________________________________________________________
Who knew that 10 years later Clinton would be working back at the white house.
christene on December 19, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Hmmm, mixed feelings about that. On one hand, Gates has done a lot of good. On the other hand, his creation has resulted in the horror of Windows Vista … aaaaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.
thirteen28 on December 19, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Several posts in a row about men that can’t control their sexual urges. What a day.
faraway on December 19, 2008 at 4:00 PM
Hooray for the Altair 8800 and the S100 bus! It changed the lives of everyone: gasoline would be much more expensive today without computers for engineering and exploration.
My step-dad used this computer to curve-fit temperature/pressure curves for pressure vessels used in gasoline plants. The software used 8 inch diskettes that held 160k (that’s kilobytes) of data. Anybody remember a kilo?
When he had it ‘perfect’ he leased the software to companies that wanted to design/build gasoline plants.
It took this software 12-16 hours to build the curves for one given pressure vessel. (At the time, this replaced 3 engineers with slide rules and 3-4 weeks to perform the calculations)
Now the software would be used to design pressure vessels to clean up pollution, and the curve functions would run in a fraction of a second on our multi-gigahertz machines.
I learned Wordstar on this computer when he was not using it to perform calcs.
Pioneers like my step-dad added a LOT of wealth to our nation – 1-man firms that revolutionized engineering back in the 1970s and 1980s.
There are lots of netrepreneurs (like myself even) today whose, Dads, mentors, big brothers, uncles or even themselves got their start with machines like this.
ElRonaldo on December 19, 2008 at 4:01 PM
I remember watching C-Span that morning, going out for a hike, and then returning home to find that the House and voted for impeachment. I thought, “Holy cow, they went through with it.”
Bigfoot on December 19, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Nit pick time!
Andrew Johnson left office on March 4th, 1869, not in 1868. And his unsuccessful runs for congress would have been in 1870 and 1872.
Tuning Spork on December 19, 2008 at 4:02 PM
Who knew that 10 years later Clinton would be working back at the white house
Only if by “working” you mean “scouting out new conquests while Hillary is otherwise occupied”.
Master Shake on December 19, 2008 at 4:05 PM
LMAO…yep, I was too busy partying and chasing skirt, a youth mispent…naw!!
Liberty or Death on December 19, 2008 at 4:10 PM
The man who started MITS [which developed the Altair 8800], who gave that job to Bill Gates, and who is known as “The Father of the Personal Computer” is Ed Roberts -
A GRADUATE OF OKLAHOMA STATE UNIVERSITY!
Hey, Berkeley and MIT, et al.,
SCREW YOU.
OhEssYouCowboys on December 19, 2008 at 4:10 PM
Hey, you forgot to mention the what we affectionately called the TRASH-80!
Done That on December 19, 2008 at 4:11 PM
Gates kept talking about “high school friends”. That would be The Lakeside School in Seattle – a VERY expensive, top quality private school. That’s why Microsoft is in Redmond and not still in Albuquerque or Silicon Valley.
JeffWeimer on December 19, 2008 at 4:12 PM
cnn video player sucks! It plays for a tenth of a second, then buffers for 10 minutes.
This aint cnn.
I always refer to billyjeff as impeached president billyjeff.
rightside on December 19, 2008 at 4:13 PM
Not so fast, there. Anybody remember Digital Research DOS (DR-DOS)? Had Bill Gates not been there, IBM would have bought DOS from DR and history would have gone on without the Wunderkind of Redmond. In fact, had it not been for Gates’ greed and ambition, the computer industry would be a lot further along. I was using a PC Operating System in 1994 that in most ways, was technologically superior to even today’s Windows Vista. Nobody wrote applications for it, however, and it died a quiet death a few years later.
Kafir on December 19, 2008 at 4:15 PM
The value of multi-tasking cigars?
Entelechy on December 19, 2008 at 4:20 PM
No kidding – I was just explaining Zork and what a TRS-80 was to my older kids last night. I know it wasn’t THE first but it was one of the first home type computers. My brother worked at Radio Shack during college and bought one for himself and I can remember loading games like Zork, Backgammon, Checkers, etc. with the cassette tape drive.
Good times…
Candy Slice on December 19, 2008 at 4:21 PM
Wow, I hadn’t thought of Wordstar in years.
irishspy on December 19, 2008 at 4:26 PM
I was just thinking………….. if Bill Clinton actually was forced to step down, then maybe politicians of all stripes would have to been forced to realize that actions do have consequences……..
…….. just think of all the graft, greed, and corruption that infests our government at all levels, while we go about our daily lives following the rules, paying our taxes, trying to earn an honest living and these politicians just seem to get away with it day after day.
In the middle of one of the greatest financial crisis in our country’s history that was caused by these same politicians………. what do they do?
…………….. they vote themselves a pay raise.
Yeah, Bill Clinton should have been forced out…….. we are either a nation of laws or we are not. Look what happens when we are not……..
Seven Percent Solution on December 19, 2008 at 4:35 PM
No Altair, no Microsoft?
TexasDude on December 19, 2008 at 4:41 PM
It’s funny how at one time IBM was the big, bad evil corporation and now Microsoft is considered that.
And, all throughout, Apple has been the one who, while being innovative, kept their systems closed only until recently.
TexasDude on December 19, 2008 at 4:44 PM
Oh man, you two are really bringing back memories alright! The fact I know of what you speak (Wordstar and Zork) and that I too worked with Wordstar played Zork are making me feel like a relic, just like the Altair, Commodore 64, etc all are! Man I’m getting old!
In the early 80′s I worked at a software distributing company in Northern California (one of the first) first called Interactive Tele-Marketing (ITM) and then changed its name to One Point. I remember all the green screen computers, having to type DOS commands, the 8″ floppy disks, etc.
It was at One Point that I met Bill Gates, he flew in on a helicopter once in front of our facility, then another time he drove to our facility in his Porsche, I don’t remember what Porsche it was but I do remember it was a really ugly lime green color.
That was back when Bill was just rich, before he became what he is now, butt-stinkin’ rich! Ah the memories, it was so long ago but it seems like just yesterday I was typing in code to make “sprites” and now look at how far the computer has come!
Liberty or Death on December 19, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Mine too.
Happy Birthday.
Esthier on December 19, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Oh, you naughty girl.
Happy happy!
I’ll be sure to hoist one (at least) for each of you.
hillbillyjim on December 19, 2008 at 5:09 PM
The Senate didn’t so much ‘decline to convict’ Clinton as they declined even to try him, contenting themselves with sharing a parental eye-roll with the press over those impetuous kids in the House.
PersonFromPorlock on December 19, 2008 at 5:11 PM
My first computer was a Commodore 64, but I love my Mac today.
Bob's Kid on December 19, 2008 at 5:12 PM
I completely disagree, Ed. I think this was a political stunt pulled by the Republicans in an effort to embarrass Clinton. All it did was rally the troops on the Left, and ensure that the Democrats would get wound up tight-as-a-clock.
It is my opinion that if the Republicans had simply demanded censure before Congress, then the Democrats would have happily gone along, and nothing more would have come of it. But they insisted on impeachment, and the Democrats got pissed. As a result, the fiasco in Florida in 2000 gave Dems every excuse in the world to vent their spleen and happily split the country in two. As a result, we have a President Bush who is unfairly characterized by the press and the Left as a buffoon who has gotten us into wars for empire/oil/industry, etc, rather than our tireless President, who is working night and day to protect us from savages bent on our destruction.
Bush isn’t perfect, and G-d knows, it’s impossible to be perfect with that job, but I’ve liked him on a personal level. And I believe many of his decisions and actions have been made and taken in good faith.
The poison tossed at him on an ongoing basis has been reprehensible. And the Leftoids are ultimately responsible for their actions. However, I remain firmly convinced that they would not have had nearly the platform and power they have today, if it had not been for the enormous blunder by the Republicans in Congress in ’98.
The repercussions of which we will feel for many years to come.
nukemhill on December 19, 2008 at 5:14 PM
Kafir on December 19, 2008 at 4:15 PM
In 1994 – was it OS/2?
juanito on December 19, 2008 at 5:21 PM
My first computer was the VIC-20. It had 4024 bytes of memory as I recall. Had a small rom based basic in it. Another interesting computer of the time was the Sinclair.
I also had a Motorola 6800 kit that had a hex-keyboard to enter instructions in machine language. It had a little led display to show the answer also in hex. I finally got rid of that a couple years ago. LOL
Dasher on December 19, 2008 at 5:22 PM
Liberty or Death on December 19, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Dunno if he still has it, but many years ago I read that Gates had a brand-new 959 sitting in a warehouse, never driven.
———
Dasher on December 19, 2008 at 5:22 PM
When I finally got the 8K/Expanded Basic Cart for the VIC I was in heaven!
I can’t see/hear/think about 8″ floppies without the Wargames WOPR voice in my head say “Shall we play a game?”
innominatus on December 19, 2008 at 5:31 PM
War Games — we still watch that on occasion. WOPR – Did Burger King steal that?
Don’t have a 8″ floppy drive, but still have a 5 1/4 (not hooked up) — you never know when you might need it. :-)
Dasher on December 19, 2008 at 5:41 PM
My Imac doesn’t care.
Apologetic California on December 19, 2008 at 5:47 PM
Yeah. OS/2 Warp specifically. And he’s full of it :P
Microsoft wasn’t nearly powerful or popular enough that it was unassailable by a company like IBM. OS/2 failed for some pretty standard reasons – technological problems, difficulties in developing for it, “OS/2 lacked device drivers for many common devices such as printers, particularly non-IBM hardware”, it was expensive, the list goes on and on. Hell, it was a failure while Microsoft was still developing it.
So a little bit of historical revisionism there, to go with this historical day. The truth is – without Bill Gates greed an ambition computers would not nearly be as far along today as they are. Windows and games (many of which utilized DirectX, another greedy and unscrupulous advancement) helped drive hardware sales, and by extension, hardware R&D.
So yeah.
apollyonbob on December 19, 2008 at 5:57 PM
To be explicit: Microsoft helped IBM develop OS/2, until it became clear that Windows was kicking its ass.
apollyonbob on December 19, 2008 at 5:58 PM
I’d have to respectfully disagree with Ed re. Clinton’s impeachment being “trivial”. First of all, he was in fact the first *elected* President to be impeached, as Johnson was never elected President. In addition, he and his allies made IMHO an error by not having him resign a la Nixon. More about that later.
If the Democrats had done what the Republicans had done in 1974, and convinced Clinton to resign “for the good of the country”, incumbent President Algore would have easily won election in his own right in 2000, and possibly have won re-election in 2004, depending on how he had reacted to 9/11. bin Laden was quoted as saying he in fact wanted those attacks to happen on Clinton’s watch, because he despised the man, but Mohammed Atta told him they needed more time to train.
Since when is holding someone accountable for their actions (in this case, a felony) a “political stunt”? Clinton committed felony perjury to a Federal Grand Jury. Earlier in his Administration, his own Justice Department had in fact successfully prosecuted a (female) Federal employee for…lying about sex under oath. But when he was accused of the exact same thing, his defenders said he was above the law.
Del Dolemonte on December 19, 2008 at 6:13 PM
I hugged my PC and got a 404 error…
What does that mean?
JetBoy on December 19, 2008 at 6:18 PM
The Democrats in the Senate didn’t even examine the 18 boxes of evidence against Clinton that the evil Ken Starr had assembled. That’s no “trial”, it’s a joke.
Del Dolemonte on December 19, 2008 at 6:22 PM
My Dad’s computer was a TRS 80 (Trash 80).
I remember when he boldly and proudly told me that he had upgraded to 16K of RAM!
Bootingn the computer was loading a cassette tape into a player and waiting 15 minutes as the loading went on.
My Mom tells me of the time when she heard Dad, using my brother’s and my old bedroom as the computer room, would softly say “Oh, no…”.
No auto save, no CTRL-Z.
And when Windows came out, Dad was an MS-DOS guy. No Windows for him!
Dad died in 1993. Mom and I are clear that if had gotten on the internet and with some of the software now available (think $500 for software that was 1/50 of what it is today), Mom would never see Dad again. He’d be on the computer.
Amendment X on December 19, 2008 at 6:22 PM
BTW Ed, you missed yesterday’s 10th anniversay-to divert attention away from his impending impeachment, Clinton attacked Iraq.
Del Dolemonte on December 19, 2008 at 6:23 PM
Glad i was born on such an awesome day; I am a Mac-only computer programmer and lifelong conservative Republican. W00t!
Neo on December 19, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Wasn’t it Libya?
apollyonbob on December 19, 2008 at 6:49 PM
Send a love letter to AlGore for his invention anniversary. I know he is too modest to claim he invented the personal computer but the facts are the facts.
I also liked the line that Bill Gates dropped out of college ‘to write software’. Some people may have been under the impression that Bill Gates dropped out of college to reverse engineer Apple Computers and rename his computer code, Windows. But let sleeping anniversaries lie.
eaglewingz08 on December 19, 2008 at 7:09 PM
I’m probably the only person here who used to program on an Atari 800-XL, 1985 edition… :(
Califemme on December 19, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Thats why I don’t move out of the Wasteland.
Everything eventually comes back to here!
I LOVE it here!
-Wasteland Man.
WastelandMan on December 19, 2008 at 7:46 PM
I’ll hug my Mac. I love it, I do I do.
fireweednectar on December 19, 2008 at 8:18 PM
As a keeper of things… I have a copy of DR-DOS 6.0 on three disks, and the manual. Man! Can’t I throw anything away.
Dasher on December 19, 2008 at 9:39 PM
Personally, I thought OS/2 rocked. Granted I was running OS/2 in an IBM environment and the only other brand hardware on our network was HP (mass spectrometers, gas chromatographs, etc.). My experience with OS/2 in this context was that it was blazing fast compared to MS and most important, STABLE! Yes, even more stable than Vista.
I think IBM never realized the value of having a hardware AND software focus like apple did. They certainly saw it on their business side, but they just never “got it” enough to market the value of OS/2 on IBM machines on the personal side. Yeah, IBM was more expensive, much more, still is to some extent today, but their stuff was bulletproof. Heck, I’ve got modern machines today that for serious writing I still use a IBM model M keyboard.
But for marketing, Apple and MS would be a minor players and IBM would be MS and Apple combined today.
IBM and HP still make the most reliable hardware today IMHO.
Jason Coleman on December 19, 2008 at 10:16 PM
Califemme,
I have to say, the 800XL ~looked~ like a sexy beast compared to the Atari 400/800 skin jobs. On the downside, it had a feeble 6502, and that stunk worse than even intels CPUs. ‘orrible little 1MHz, memory intensive, toy thingy it was.
FierceGuppy on December 19, 2008 at 10:29 PM
Of course, Real Men cut their teeth on an Amiga 1000.
FierceGuppy on December 19, 2008 at 10:31 PM
and it’s my birthday :)
jonkk on December 19, 2008 at 3:39 PM
Happy Birthday! I will do a shot of Tequila in your honor…..as soon as I submit this post!
sheebe on December 19, 2008 at 10:45 PM
Glad i was born on such an awesome day; I am a Mac-only computer programmer and lifelong conservative Republican. W00t!
Neo on December 19, 2008 at 6:30 PM
Another Happy Birthday! Another shot then………. Pleasee no more birthday greetings. Am feeling buzzzzzzzzedddddddd
sheebe on December 19, 2008 at 10:48 PM
Mine too.
Happy Birthday.
Esthier on December 19, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Holy smokes! Happy Birthday again……….another shot……….
sheebe on December 19, 2008 at 10:51 PM
I remember the first modem I ever used. My friends dad worked for Bell and he had something my friend showed me one day in 1980. It was some computer box from which ran a cable at the end of which was a rubber boot receptacle into which you insert the telephone receiver. My friend dialed a number and put the phone into this rubber contraption. Then a dot matrix printer started printing. Supposedly the printer could talk to some remote location through the phone. It was an oddity his work required. I saw no real use for this thing.
keep the change on December 19, 2008 at 11:09 PM
It was a stunt because they damn well knew they weren’t going to get a conviction. They were guaranteed that by the Dems from the very beginning. But the Republicans put on a show trial anyway, to demonstrate how morally superior they were and to do everything they could to publicly humiliate the President. They should have realized that 1) President Clinton was beyond humiliating, and 2) they were putting a target on their backs, with the Dems holding the biggest gun in the political world–revenge.
It was a stupid, short-sighted blunder on their part. Period. And all because Billy Jeff was getting a fracking blow-job! Yes, it pissed me off that he lied about it. But for the love of everything, the Republicans. weren’t. going. to. win.
Get that through your head. It was a stupid, stupid, stupid power-play, and they lost.
And so did we. In a monumental, epochal, potentially nation-shattering way.
nukemhill on December 19, 2008 at 11:33 PM
keep the change,
That would be an Acoustic Coupler Modem.
FierceGuppy on December 20, 2008 at 12:10 AM
I know I came way late to this conversation. So, before the thread dies… :-)
My Dad’s friend had a Trash 80. I was a Sophomore in high school taking a class in basic. I spent one weekend at their house typing in a football game in basic, and then troubleshooting it. I was thrilled that on Sunday afternoon I was able to play the game. It was all text. “1st and 10. Choose your play.” “Screen pass good for 15 yards to the 43. 1st Down..” etc.
I high school we had a teletype in a walk in closet and we would take turns entering our programs that were then run on the computer in Oregon City 10 miles away. (this was 1978) It was a time share, so we had limited time. For the final, I wrote a hangman game that actually worked! I should have gone into computers instead of broadcasting. Maybe it’s not too late. :-)
Ordinary1 on December 20, 2008 at 9:04 AM
That’s true but I never said it was because of Microsoft’s power. IBM didn’t have the foggiest idea how to market a better product.
,
Bullshit. It was no more difficult to develop for than was Windoze. The development environment is nearly identical. OS/2′s biggest failing technologically is the Single Input Queue which was a design point insisted on by Microsoft to make it even more like Windows. Device drivers are the responsibility of device manufacturers, not the OS vendor. When you need a device driver for Winblows, where do you go, microsoft.com or the web site of the company that made the device? Now, IBM also had no idea how to court developers, but that is not a fault of the product.
It was only expensive when compared to getting it “free” on your PC. That’s a red herring. OS/2′s failure came as a result of IBM’s bungling but also Microsoft’s treachery. Bill Gates told all his competitors to develop for OS/2 but then went back and told his developers to work on Windows only. Ever wonder why Windows 3.0 didn’t look anything like Windows V2 but it looked a lot like OS/2 V1.1?
You’re so deep in the woods you have no idea. I kept my hardware that was running OS/2 for ten years and it performed as well in the tenth year as it did in the first, even though I upgraded the OS several times. Meanwhile, my Windows-running friends had to reinvest in new hardware every two or three years.
This is going on even today. Do you know why every PC today ships with lots of USB ports but you would be hard pressed to find one with a Firewire port? This is because Firewire devices are intelligent in and of themselves while USB devices are dumb and toss the workload back on the CPU in your computer. So, the more USB devices you attach to your computer, the more computer you end up needing.
The bottom line is that Microsoft and Intel have worked the market into a buy-use-buy again scenario that has made Gates the richest man on the planet and we all happily go along with it not knowing there’s a better way.
Kafir on December 20, 2008 at 10:43 AM
Both of Gates’ parents were lawyers.
QED
landlines on December 20, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Sorry to hear that bit of news.
SC.Charlie on December 20, 2008 at 6:26 PM
Having had a Mac Plus for 10+ years, a G4 tower for several years and several, still running, Apple laptops of various types I’ll stick with Apple. I always did, and still do, chuckle at the slogan, “Windows 95 = Mac ’89″.
As for Lakeside, they told my parents way back when that because I stuttered as a child I needed special attention that was beyond them so admission denied. Now this PhD no longer stutters thanks to the nuns at the Catholic school I attended instead. Solution: public speaking on a regular basis. My math teacher was a little nun about four-foot-nothing who, I swear, landed with the marines at Tarawa. She could probably out drink and and out fight most marines! She taught you math and how to shut up when someone is speaking to you and she could spot a promising student a mile away in the dark during a hurricane and know how to push him to succeed. Gotta love those gals in the funky hats!!
If Lakeside were a person, I wouldn’t piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire!
Bubba Redneck on December 21, 2008 at 12:11 AM