On May 26,1927  Henry Ford and his son Edsel drove the final Model T out of the Ford factory. Completion of this 15 millionth Model T Ford marked the famous automobile’s official last day of production.

 

The History.com article stated

More than any other vehicle, the relatively affordable and efficient Model T was responsible for accelerating the automobile’s introduction into American society during the first quarter of the 20th century. Introduced in October 1908, the Model T—also known as the “Tin Lizzie”—weighed some 1,200 pounds, with a 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engine. It got about 13 to 21 miles per gallon of gasoline and could travel up to 45 mph. Initially selling for around $850 (around $20,000 in today’s dollars), the Model T would later sell for as little as $260 (around $6,000 today) for the basic no-extras model. …

No car in history, had the impact—both actual and mythological—of the Model T: Authors like Ernest Hemingway, E.B. White and John Steinbeck featured the Tin Lizzie in their prose, while the great filmmaker Charlie Chaplin immortalized it in satire in his 1928 film “The Circus.”

I have never driven a Model T, but have always loved seeing those old cars in real life or in pictures, faithfully restored or heavily customized. Just for fun, here is a hot rod that originally was a Model T. My guess is that nothing but the “bucket” is original equipment, but who cares? Enjoy!

Do you remember when email was mysterious, even odd?  Quite a thought while we wade through our jam packed email inboxes every day.

Thanks to i09’s “Hilarious and Awesome Computer Ads from the Golden Age of PCs.“

I have spent the week with my North American information security colleagues from Oracle, meeting on the historic Oracle/Sun Microsystems campus in Santa Clara, California.  What a delight it was to visit this beautiful campus once again as I mingled with so many friends and professional associates.  This business campus was built on the site of the former Agnews Insane Asylum.  Several of the elegant old buildings remain, suitably updated and equipped for modern use.  But I heard flitting comments today that some people think these buildings are haunted.

Back in the day, the Clock Tower building was known as the Treatment Center.  It makes you wonder what went on there … and what ghosts the “treatments” left behind.

Here are a couple of photos I took of the Clock Tower building with my iPhone this week.

 

It was interesting that a Sun Microsystems sign/monument still occupies a prominent position in the rear of the Clock Tower building, near another smaller monument honoring a Sun Microsystems leader who perished in the 9/11 bombing in 2001. What irony!

All the other signs were brightly accented with bright Oracle red – a fitting reminder about whose campus this really is.

But it has been suitably nostalgic to visit this place today.  As I participated in an hour-long conference call while sitting on the concrete bench surrounding the beautiful fountain near the rear of the Clock Tower building today, I couldn’t help but think of the many, many hours I spent on this campus during my five years with Sun Microsystems, the wonderful colleagues I worked with, and the dreams we shared together.

It was 100 years ago today that the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation was incorporated through a merger of four companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, the Computing Scale Corporation, and the Bundy Manufacturing Company.  It’s name was later changed to International Business Machines Corporation.  Today we salute IBM for its innovation and endurance, its ability to remake itself time after time, and for leading the way to the era of modern computing which we now enjoy.

I highly recommend that you read the ZDNet Article, “IBM at 100: 15 inflection points in history” and step through the accompanying photo gallery, “IBM: 100 years of THINKing big.”

I love old photos of the big panels with so many flashing lights.  And that guy probably knows what each of those lights means!