- Musca (Latin for ‘“the fly”’) is a small constellation in the deep southern sky. It was one of 12 constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman, and it first appeared on a celestial globe 35 cm (14 in) in diameter published in 1597 (or 1598) in Amsterdam by Plancius and Jodocus Hondius. The first depiction of this constellation in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer’s Uranometria of 1603. It was also known as Apis (Latin for ‘“the bee”’) for 200 years. Musca remains below the horizon for most Northern Hemisphere observers.
- 2-The Apple-1 (apple2history.org)
t the Homebrew Computer club in Palo Alto, California (in Silicon Valley), Steve Wozniak, a 26 year old employee of Hewlett-Packard and a long-time digital electronics hacker, had been wanting to build a computer of his own for a long time. For years he had designed many on paper, and even written FORTRAN compilers and BASIC interpreters for these theoretical machines, but a lack of money kept him from carrying out his desire. He looked at the Intel 8080 chip (the heart of the Altair), but at $179 decided he couldn’t afford it. A decision to not use the 8080 was considered foolhardy by other members of the club…
