Internet Explorer 4 (PCGH-Retro, April 8)

…1953: ‘Man in the Dark’ is the first 3D film from a major studio to hit cinemas. Columbia Pictures beat the film ‘House of Wax’ (Warner Bros.) by two days. The latter was already shot in color. 3D films from smaller publishers also existed before, for example ‘The Power of Love’ (1922) or a Russian version of Robinson Crusoe (1947).

…1991: A project group from Sun Microsystems secretly begins development of the ‘Oak’ project. The result will later be widely distributed under the name Java, and not only through Internet applications.

…1997: The first browser war is far from decided, and Microsoft is fighting its big competitor Netscape with ever heavier bandages. On April 8, Microsoft will launch Internet Explorer 4, which uses the home advantage of the Windows platform and is fully integrated into the operating system for the first time. But it also brings some new functions and components with it, including the Outlook Express mail client and the Frontpage Express HTML editor. The web should be everywhere in the future: With Active Desktop, entire websites can be displayed with the channels, specific information such as a news ticker on the desktop background. However, the channel system did not catch on and was abandoned years later in favor of similar RSS technology – a development by Netscape.

…2012: Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore, who created one of the most successful home computers in history with the C64, dies on April 8th. The computer industry remembers Jack Tramiel: while Commodore was launching a new, powerful home computer called the Amiga after the C64 and Tramiel’s departure, he took care of another company: In July 1984 he took over the ailing console and home computer manufacturer Atari to have the ST developed there by former Commodore engineers. This makes Tramiel’s new company the biggest competitor for his old one.