December 16, 2004
Previous: 1973 / Next: 1975
Intro and links to the other years in the timeline

TECHNOLOGY

  • A commercial version of ARPANET, called Telenet, is offered through the Bolt, Beranek and Newman company. It is through services such as Telenet, and later Tymnet, that computer database vender services such as BRS can be accessed.
  • A scientific paper called “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication” is written by Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. This paper leads to the common internet protocol TCP/IP. Cerf and Kahn are sometimes refered to as the “fathers of the Internet” for implementing the common protocol TCP/IP. (One of the first reports on the theoretical possibilities of packet switching was written by Len Kleinrock in the early 1960s. Kleinrock played an instrumental role in the creation of the ARPANET at UCLA.)
  • July 1974 — Jonathan Titus describes his homemade Intel 8008-based minicomputer in a four page article for the computer hobbyist magazine Radio-Electronics. For $5.50 you can send away for his forty-eight page instruction manual and learn how to build your own Mark-8.
  • Beginning in the early 1970s, computer hobbyists design and experiment with microprocessor-based personal computers. Informal computer clubs and groups form around the country to share technical information.

THE MEDIA

  • Part of The Wall Street Journal eastern edition is successfully transmitted by satellite from Massachusetts to New Jersey. This is one of the first successful newspaper and satellite tests.
  • An early version of the
    Dow Jones News/Retrieval database is marketed to brokers and investors. The regular online service will be available in 1977.
  • The British teletext service Ceefax is launched on Sept. 23, 1974. (See also: “Ceefax marks 30 years of service.” BBC, Sept. 22, 2004.)
  • “Pages Of Ceefax.” Posted on YouTube.
  • Dec. 1974 — The New York Times begins adding computer terminals to their newsroom. (Source: New York Times Timeline.)
    Also in 1974 the Times offers a commercial version of its Information Bank (Infobank) abstract service via the BRS database system.
  • News Example:
    Aug. 9, 1974 —
    Nixon Resigns“,
    New York Times.
    (Abstract available from
    the Infobank database service.)
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