Rambus, 3dfx and Remote Computing anno 1940 (PCGH-Retro, September 11)

…1940: Connecting computer technology and the telephone network is an almost adventurous idea at a time when there are hardly any working computers. One of the first models is the “Complex Number Calculator” by Bell employee George Stibitz; after all, the machine already masters basic mathematical functions. And so, on September 11, Stibitz demonstrated a form of remote computing for the first time: at a demonstration in New Hampshire, he controlled the device from a teletypewriter over the telephone line, while the computer itself was in New York. The tasks flow through the line, shortly thereafter the teletypewriter issues the solution – a first step into the great future of long-distance data transmission, which culminates decades later in the development of the Internet.

…2000: 3dfx will begin shipping the Voodoo 4 4500 AGP and PCI graphics cards today, having announced them in November last year. The VSA-100 chip runs at 166 MHz, as does the 32 MiByte memory. 3dfx emphasizes the high FSAA quality of the cards, they don’t offer hardware T&L like the competing Geforce cards – but that’s just one of many reasons why the VSA-100 will remain the last completed development of the company 3dfx.

…2001: Intel presents the i845 chipset for the Pentium 4 (Northwood core), the development of which was announced in July 2000. It’s the first Intel chipset to be built at 0.18 microns, and most importantly, it offers support for cheap SDRAM – the older i850, on the other hand, only runs on expensive Rambus memory, which severely slows down the Pentium 4’s success .

… 2009: The IEEE Standards Association adopts the 802.11n standard. WLAN with multiple input and output data streams (MIMO) and a total transmission rate of up to 150 Mbit/s. is thus possible – thanks to several antennas working in parallel.