Apple’s Babelfish
Babelfish was a technology part of the ill-fated Apple-IBM Taligent project in the early Nineties.
Totally unrelated to Yahoo!’s translation service but sharing the same Douglas Adams reference, Apple’s Babelfish was a network communications framework and the name was chosen because it was designed to support multiple communication protocols.
It disappeared leaving no trace: well, almost, if you don’t consider the promotional t-shirt made by the team which also shows the Taligent logo on the sleeve.
The t-shirt actually contains another tidbit of geek culture: the fish depicted isn’t an original illustration but is taken from a print by M.C. Escher.
Apple Corps Vs Apple
Ten years ago, on the 4th February of 1989 Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label Apple Records, sued Apple Computer for the second time, seeking unspecified damages, charging that Apple violated the terms of a 1981 trademark coexistence agreement.
This was the result of a 1978 lawsuit against Apple Computer which was settled three years after with US$80,000 being paid to Apple Corps: Apple Computer agreed not to enter the music business while Apple Corps was not to enter the computer business.
But in 1986 Apple added MIDI and audio-recording capabilities to its computers and the suit mentioned these capabilities present in the Mac Plus, Mac SE and MacII, the Apple IIGS and in an upgrade kit for the Apple IIe. Also mentioned as infringing were the AppleCD SC drive and Apple’s MIDI device. Although Apple maintained that it had not violated their agreement, it again decided to settle, in October 1991, paying US$26.5 millions and keeping an eye on possibile future violations since it was prohibited from using its trademark on “creative works whose principal content is music”.
(more…)