02/07/2023 at 00:01 by Henner Schröder – From Wozniak’s crash and the cell processor – that happened on February 7th. Every day, PC Games Hardware takes a look back at the young but eventful history of the computer.
…1981: As co-founder of Apple and developer of the computer of the same name, Steve Wozniak has become a rich man. But “Woz” doesn’t know what to do with his millions, and he no longer feels comfortable in the rapidly growing company. To distract himself, he buys a small plane, which he uses on February 7, 1981 for a sightseeing flight. But the plane crashes on takeoff and Wozniak is taken to the hospital with serious injuries. He doesn’t suffer any long-term damage, but he loses his short-term memory for about a month. On his sickbed, Wozniak has time to think about his future – and decides to leave Apple for a while.
…2005: On February 7th, 2005, Sony, IBM and Toshiba presented the specifications of the Cell processor. It is said to consist of a 64-bit IBM power processor, which acts as the control unit, and eight arithmetic units (“Synergistic Processing Elements”, SPEs for short) and achieve clock frequencies of up to 4 GHz. The Cell is initially used in blade servers from IBM, later Sony uses the chips in the Playstation 3 – there, however, with only seven activated computing units.
Further information
• The End of Lisa (PCGH Retro)
• Playstation 3 vs. PS3 Slim
