By Arpanet, Activision, Ati and Geforce Titanium (PCGH-Retro, October 01)

… 1969: The forerunner of the Internet is taking shape on October 1st: The IMP #2 is being installed at the Stanford Research Institute, the second “Interface Message Processor” and thus the hub of the Arpanet – the experimental computer network from which the Internet will later develop. The first IMP has been at the University of California in Los Angeles since September 1st. However, it will be a week before the first message is sent via this computer connection.

… 1979: Video games are developed by the companies that also make the consoles – most notably Atari. That all changed on October 1, 1979, when some former Atari employees founded Activision, the first independent “third party” developer. They felt they were being treated unfairly at Atari – they were being paid like assembly line workers while their products made millions. From now on, they should collect these profits themselves; Activision brings some very successful titles for Ataris 2600 on the market, later also for other consoles and for various computer systems. And the success continues; In 2007, Activision announced the merger with Vivendi Games to form Activision-Blizzard, making it the world’s largest game publisher.

… 2001: Nvidia is introducing three new graphics chips with the suffix “Titanium”: Geforce 3 Ti 500 and Ti 200 replace the “old” Geforce 3 with DirectX 8 technology, the Geforce 2 Ti is the successor to the Geforce 2 variants GTS, Pro and Ultra (DX7). Nothing changes in the functions, there are only small changes in the clock frequencies. The abbreviation “Ti” was revived in early 2011 with the Geforce GTX 560 Ti and upgraded Nvidia’s mid-range product series from then on.

… 2001: Ati releases two new entry-level graphics cards, the Radeon 7000 and 7200. The 7000 model is basically just a rebranded Radeon VE that doesn’t have a T&L feature and therefore doesn’t meet the requirements for “DirectX 7 compliance” (not “compatibility “) fulfilled – differently than the name would suggest. The Radeon 7200 is not much more than old wine in new bottles, but it has the full functionality of the Radeon.