Timeline of computing 1980-1989 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This article presents a timeline
Timeline
A timeline is a way of displaying a list of events in chronological order, sometimes described as a project artifact . It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labeled with dates alongside itself and events labeled on points where they would have happened.-Uses of timelines:Timelines...

of events in the history of computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...

from 1980 to 1989. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science

History of computer science

The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century, and hinted at in the centuries prior...

.

Computing timelines

Timeline of computing

This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computing hardware and history of computer science....

: 2400 BC–1949, 1950–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000-2009

Timeline of computing 2000-2009

This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 2000 to 2009. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science....

1980

Date	Place	Event
?	Norway Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...	Mycron Mycron Mycron was a pioneer manufacturer of microcomputers, located in Oslo, Norway. Originally named Norsk Data Industri, the company was founded in 1975 by Lars Monrad Krohn, who was also one of the founding fathers of Norsk Data.... released the first commercial 16-bit microcomputer Microcomputer A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers... , the Mycron 2000. This computer is used by Digital Research Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world... as the development platform for the CP/M-86 CP/M-86 CP/M-86 was a version of the CP/M operating system that Digital Research made for the Intel 8086 and Intel 8088. The commands are those of CP/M-80. Executable files used the relocatable .CMD file format... operating system.
June	USA	Commodore released the VIC-20 Commodore VIC-20 The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET... , which had 3.5 KB of usable memory and was based on the MOS Technology 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... processor. Magazines became available which contained the code for various utilities and games. A 5¼" disk drive Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... was available, along with a cassette storage system which used standard audio cassette tapes. Also available were a number of games, a color plotter which printed on 6 in (152 mm) wide paper tape, a graphics tablet (the KoalaPad). A TV screen served as monitor. The VIC-20 became the first computer to sell 1 million units.
July	USA	Tandy released the TRS-80 Color Computer TRS-80 Color Computer The Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer was a home computer launched in 1980. It was one of the earliest of the first generation of computers marketed for home use in English-speaking markets... , based on the Motorola 6809E processor and using Microsoft Basic as its programming language. It was the first Tandy computer to support color graphics, and also supported cartridge programs and games, attempting to bridge both the home computing and video gaming markets.
October	USA	Development of MS-DOS/PC-DOS began. Microsoft (known mainly for their programming languages) were commissioned to write the Operating System for the PC; Digital Research failed to get the contract (there is much legend as to the real reason for this). DR's Operating System, CP/M-86, was later shipped, but it was actually easier to adapt programs to DOS rather than to CP/M-86, and CP/M-86 cost $495. As Microsoft didn't have an operating system to sell, they bought Seattle Computer Product's 86-DOS which had been written by Tim Paterson Tim Paterson Tim Paterson is an American computer programmer, best known as the original author of MS-DOS, the most widely used personal computer operating system in the 1980s.... earlier that year (86-DOS was also known as QDOS, Quick & Dirty Operating System, it was a more-or-less 16 bit version of CP/M). The rights were actually bought in July 1981. It is reputed that IBM found over 300 bugs in the code when they subjected the operating system to scrutiny and re-wrote much of the code. Tim Paterson's DOS 1.0 was 4000 lines of assembler.
Early	UK	Sinclair ZX80 Sinclair ZX80 The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. . It is notable for being the first computer available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds... was released for under £100.
22 May 1980	Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...	The game Pac-Man Pac-Man is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. Immensely popular from its original release to the present day, Pac-Man is considered one of the classics of the medium, virtually synonymous with video games,... was released.

1981

Date	Place	Event
?	USA	Richard Feynman Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics... proposed quantum computer Quantum computer A quantum computer is a device for computation that makes direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from traditional computers based on transistors... s. The main application he had in mind was the simulation of quantum systems, but he also mentioned the possibility of solving other problems.
?	USA	The Xerox 8010 ('Star') System, the first commercial system to use a WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing Devices) graphic user interface. Apple incorporated many of the ideas therein in the development of the interface for the Apple Lisa Apple Lisa The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s.... (see January 1983)
?	UK	Sinclair ZX81 Sinclair ZX81 The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public... was released, for a similar price to the ZX80 (see 1980).
?	USA	Introduction of 80186/80188. These are rarely used on PCs as they incorporate a built in DMA and timer chip - and thus have register addresses incompatible with other IBM PCs.
?	USA	Symbolics Symbolics Symbolics refers to two companies: now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.The symbolics.com domain was... introduced the LM-2 workstation, a Lisp Lisp A lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp... -based workstation based on the MIT CADR architecture.
August 12	USA	IBM announced their IBM Personal Computer. 100,000 orders were taken by Christmas. The design becomes far more successful than IBM had anticipated, and becomes the basis for most of the modern personal computer industry. MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter, text only, introduced with IBM PC. MS-DOS MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating... 1.0, PC-DOS 1.0. Microsoft (known mainly for their programming languages) were commissioned by IBM to write the operating system, they bought a program called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson which was loosely based on CP/M 80. The final program from Microsoft was marketed by IBM as PC-DOS and by Microsoft as MS-DOS, collaboration on subsequent versions continued until version 5.0 in 1991. Compared to modern versions of DOS, version 1 was very basic. The most notable difference was the presence of just 1 directory, the root directory, on each disk. Subdirectories were not supported until version 2.0 (March, 1983). MS-DOS MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating... was the main operating system for all IBM-PC compatible computers until Microsoft released Windows 95. According to Microsoft, in 1994, MS-DOS was running on some 100 million computers world-wide.
September	USA	The TCP/IP protocol is established. This is the protocol that carries most of the information across the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... . [ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc793.txt RFC 793]

1982

Date	Place	Event
?	UK	Introduction of the BBC Micro BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, was a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers for the BBC Computer Literacy Project, operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation... . Based on the MOS Technology 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... processor, it was a very popular computer for British schools up to the development of the Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly... (in 1987). In 1984 the government offered to pay half the cost of such computers in an attempt to promote their use in secondary education.
January	USA	Commodore unveils the Commodore 64 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Built in just two months around the VIC-II Video Integrated Circuit and the SID Sound Interface Device chips, the C64 used the 6510 processor to access 64K of RAM plus 16K of switchable ROM. This "epitome of the 8-bit computer" sold up to 22 million units in the next decade.
February 1	USA	80286 Released. It implements a new mode of operation, protected mode - allowing access to more memory (up to 16 MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... compared to 1 MB for the 8086). At introduction the fastest version ran at 12.5 MHz, achieved 2.7 MIPS and contained 134,000 transistors.
?	USA	Compaq released their IBM PC compatible Compaq Portable.
?	USA	MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, published by International MIDI Association (IMA). The MIDI standard allows computers to be connected to instruments like keyboards through a low-bandwidth (31,250 bit Bit A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information stored by a digital device or other physical system that exists in one of two possible distinct states... /s) protocol.
?	Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...	Red Book Red Book (audio CD standard) Red Book is the standard for audio CDs . It is named after one of the Rainbow Books, a series of books that contain the technical specifications for all CD and CD-ROM formats.The first edition of the Red Book was released in 1980 by Philips and Sony; it was adopted by the Digital Audio Disc... on Audio CDs was introduced by Sony and Philips. This was the beginning of the Compact disc Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... , it was released in Japan and then in Europe and America a year later.
March	USA	MS-DOS 1.25, PC-DOS 1.1
April	UK	The Sinclair ZX Spectrum ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd... was announced, released later in the year. It is based on the Z80 Zilog Z80 The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes... microprocessor from Zilog Zilog Zilog, Inc., previously known as ZiLOG , is a manufacturer of 8-bit and 24-bit microcontrollers, and is most famous for its Intel 8080-compatible Z80 series.-History:... , running at 3.5 MHz with an 8 color graphics display. The Spectrum sold with two memory options, a 16 KB Kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Although the prefix kilo- means 1000, the term kilobyte and symbol KB have historically been used to refer to either 1024 bytes or 1000 bytes, dependent upon context, in the fields of computer science and information... version for £125 or a 48 KB version for £175.
May	USA	IBM launch the double-sided Double-sided disk In computer science, a double-sided disk is a disk of which both sides are used to store data.Early floppy disks only used one surface for recording. The term "single sided disk" was not common until the introduction of double-sided disks, which offered double the capacity in the same physical size... 320 KB floppy disk drive.
July	UK USA	Timex/Sinclair introduced the first computer touted to cost under $100 marketed in the U.S. (TS 1000). In spite of the flaws in the early versions, half million units were sold in the first 6 months alone, surpassing the sales of Apple, Tandy, and Commodore combined.
August	USA	The Commodore 64 Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595... is released, retailing at $595USD. The price rapidly dropped, creating a price war and causing the departure of numerous companies from the home computing market. Total C64 sales during its lifetime (from 1982–1994) are estimated at more than 17 million units, making it the best-selling computer model of all time.
December	USA	IBM bought 12% of Intel.

1983

Date	Place	Event
January	USA Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...	IBM PC gets European launch at Which Computer Show.
?	USA	Borland Borland Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:... Formed.
?	Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...	Epson QX-10 Epson QX-10 The Epson QX-10 is a microcomputer running CP/M or TPM-III which was introduced in 1983. It was based on a Zilog Z80 microprocessor, running at 4 MHz, provided up to 256K of RAM organized in four switchable banks, and included a separate graphics processor chip manufactured by NEC to provide... released; first Japanese computer sold in the US
?	USA	Apple Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... introduced its Lisa Apple Lisa The Apple Lisa—also known as the Lisa—is a :personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s.... . The first personal computer with a graphical user interface Graphical user interface In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and... , its development was central in the move to such systems for personal computers. The Lisa's sloth and high price ($10,000) led to its ultimate failure. The Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000 Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor... microprocessor and came equipped with 1 MB of RAM, a 12-inch black-and-white monitor, dual 5¼" floppy disk Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... drives and a 5 MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... Profile hard drive. The Xerox Star Xerox Star The Star workstation, officially known as the Xerox 8010 Information System, was introduced by Xerox Corporation in 1981. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based... -- which included a system called Smalltalk Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. Smalltalk was created as the language to underpin the "new world" of computing exemplified by "human–computer symbiosis." It was designed and created in part for educational use, more so for constructionist... that involved a mouse, windows, and pop-up menus -- inspired the Lisa's designers.
Spring	USA	IBM XT released, similar to the original IBM PC IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981... but with a hard drive. It had a 10 MB hard disk, 128 KB of RAM, one floppy drive, mono monitor and a printer, all for $5000.
March	USA	MS-DOS 2.0, PC-DOS 2.0 Introduced with the IBM XT this version included a Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... style hierarchical sub-directory structure, and altered the way in which programs could load and access files on the disk.
May	USA	MS-DOS 2.01
July	USA	David & Goliath Computers, Founded in Chappaqua, New York, by Dr Lee Konowe, assembling PC/XT clones and IBM compatible Expansion Chassis with eight slots. The PC's sold for under $1000. Upwards of 800 PCs and over 1000 Expansion Chassis were shipped.
October	USA	IBM released the IBM PCjr IBM PCjr The IBM PCjr was IBM's first attempt to enter the home computer market. The PCjr, IBM model number 4860, retained the IBM PC's 8088 CPU and BIOS interface for compatibility, but various design and implementation decisions led the PCjr to be a commercial failure.- Features :Announced November 1,... in an attempt to get further into the home market; it cost just $699. Cheaper alternatives from other companies were more preferable to the home buyer, but businesses continued to buy IBM. PC-DOS PC-DOS IBM PC DOS is a DOS system for the IBM Personal Computer and compatibles, manufactured and sold by IBM from the 1980s to the 2000s.... 2.1 (for PCjr). Like the PCjr this was not a great success and quickly disappeared from the market. MS-DOS 2.11, MS-DOS 2.25 Version 2.25 included support for foreign character sets, and was marketed in the Far East.
November	USA	Domain Name System Domain name system The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities... (DNS) introduced to the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... , which then consisted of about 1000 hosts. [ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc881.txt RFC 881] (now obsoleted by subsequent revisions)
December	Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...	Detailed schematic diagrams for build-it-yourself computer Galaksija Galaksija The Galaksija was originally a build-it-yourself computer designed by Voja Antonić. It was featured in the special edition Računari u vašoj kući of a popular eponymous science magazine, published late December 1983 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia... released in Belgrade Belgrade Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe... . Thousands were soon assembled by computer enthusiasts.

1984

Date	Place	Event
?	USA	Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal Turbo Pascal is a software development system that includes a compiler and an integrated development environment for the Pascal programming language running on CP/M, CP/M-86, and DOS, developed by Borland under Philippe Kahn's leadership... introduced by Borland Borland Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:... .
?	USA	Richard Stallman Richard Stallman Richard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"\|last= Stallman\|first= Richard\|date= N.D.\|work=Richard Stallman's homepage... quit his job at MIT in order to start the GNU project GNU GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"... , a free Free software Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do... and improved replacement for Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... , using a copyleft Copyleft Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work... license. GNU will eventually produce an editor (emacs Emacs Emacs is a class of text editors, usually characterized by their extensibility. GNU Emacs has over 1,000 commands. It also allows the user to combine these commands into macros to automate work.Development began in the mid-1970s and continues actively... ), a compiler and debugger (gcc GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain... and gdb) and a complete suite of system utilities, among many other things. Its own kernel, the GNU Hurd GNU Hurd GNU Hurd is a free software Unix-like replacement for the Unix kernel, released under the GNU General Public License. It has been under development since 1990 by the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation... , is delayed and Linux Linux kernel The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software.... is later adopted.
?	USA	Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including... release the immensely popular LaserJet LaserJet LaserJet as a brand name identifies the line of dry electrophotographic laser printers marketed by the American computer-company Hewlett-Packard . The HP LaserJet was the world's first desktop laser printer.-Technology:... printer, by 1993 they had sold over 10 million LaserJet printers and over 20 million printers overall. HP were also pioneering inkjet technology.
?	USA	Motorola Motorola Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... released the 68020 processor.
January	USA	Apple Macintosh released, based on the 8 MHz version of the Motorola 68000 Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor... processor. The 68000 can address 16 MB of RAM, a noticeable improvement over Intel's 8088/8086 family. However the Apple achieved 0.7 MIPS and originally came with just 128 KB of RAM. It came fitted with a monochrome monitor and was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a Graphical user interface Graphical user interface In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and... . The Macintosh included many of the Lisa's features at a much more affordable price: $2,500. Applications that came as part of the package included MacPaint MacPaint MacPaint was a bitmap-based graphics painting software program developed by Apple Computer and released with the original Macintosh personal computer on January 22, 1984. It was sold separately for US$195 with its word processor counterpart, MacWrite. MacPaint was notable because it could generate... , which made use of the mouse, and MacWrite MacWrite MacWrite was a word processor application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. It was the first such program that was widely available to the public to offer WYSIWYG operation, with multiple fonts and styles... , which demonstrated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing.
?	USA	IBM AT released, featuring a 6 MHz 80286 processor. This incorporates a 16-bit bus for expansion slots, which eventually became the Industry Standard Architecture Industry Standard Architecture Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor... - but not until some AT clones had been produced with buses that run far quicker the 8.33 MHz laid down in the ISA standard.
August	USA	MS-DOS 3.0, PC-DOS 3.0 Released for the IBM AT, it supported larger hard disks as well as High Density (1.2 MB) 5¼" floppy disks.
September	USA	Apple released a 512KB version of the Macintosh, known as the "Fat Mac".
End	USA	Compaq started the development of the IDE interface (see also 1989). IDE = Intelligent Drive Electronics. This standard was designed specially for the IBM PC and can achieve high data transfer rates through a 1:1 interleave factor and caching by the actual disk controller - the bottleneck is often the old AT bus and the drive may read data far quicker than the bus can accept it, so the cache is used as a buffer. Theoretically 1 MB/s is possible but 700 kB/s is perhaps more typical of such drives. This standard has been adopted by many other models of computer, such the Acorn Archimedes A4000 and above. A later improvement was EIDE, laid down in 1989, which also removed the maximum drive size of 528 MB and increased data transfer rates.

1985

Date	Place	Event
January	USA	PostScript PostScript PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging... introduced by Adobe Systems. It is a powerful page description language used in the Apple Laserwriter printer. Adopted by IBM for their use in March 1987.
?	USA	The Atari ST Atari ST The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals... , an inexpensive 8 MHz Motorola 68000 Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor... -based computer, appeared. Nicknamed the "Jackintosh", after Atari owner Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel Jack Tramiel is an American businessman, best known for founding Commodore International - manufacturer of the Commodore PET, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, and other Commodore models of home computers.-Biography:... , it featured 512 KB of memory and used GEM Graphical Environment Manager GEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors... graphical interface from Digital Research Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world... . It was priced under US$1,000.
?	USSR	Tetris Tetris Tetris is a puzzle video game originally designed and programmed by Alexey Pajitnov in the Soviet Union. It was released on June 6, 1984, while he was working for the Dorodnicyn Computing Centre of the Academy of Science of the USSR in Moscow, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic... was written by Russian Alexey Pazhitnov Alexey Pazhitnov Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov born 14 March 1956) is a Russian computer engineer, residing in the United States, who developed the popular game Tetris while working for the Computing Center of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a Soviet government-founded R&D center.Despite being the developer of... . It was later released for various western games machines, the jewel in the crown being its inclusion with Nintendo's Game Boy Game Boy The , is an 8-bit handheld video game device developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on , in North America in , and in Europe on... in 1989. Alexey made nothing from the game, since under the Communist Regime it was owned by the people - although after the collapse of Communism he was able to move to the USA where he now works for Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... .
?	Netherlands Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... Japan Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...	CD-ROM CD-ROM A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.... , invented by Philips Philips Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company.... , produced in collaboration with Sony Sony , commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues.... .
?	USA	Enhanced Graphics Adapter Enhanced Graphics Adapter The Enhanced Graphics Adapter is the IBM PC computer display standard specification which is between CGA and VGA in terms of color and space resolution. Introduced in October 1984 by IBM shortly after its new PC/AT, EGA produces a display of 16 simultaneous colors from a palette of 64 at a... released.
March	USA	MS-DOS 3.1, PC-DOS 3.1 This was the first version of DOS to provide network support, and provides some new functions to handle networking.
March	USA	Symbolics Symbolics Symbolics refers to two companies: now-defunct computer manufacturer Symbolics, Inc., and a privately held company that acquired the assets of the former company and continues to sell and maintain the Open Genera Lisp system and the Macsyma computer algebra system.The symbolics.com domain was... registered the symbolics.com domain, the first .com .com The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations... domain in the world.
April	USA	Expanded memory Expanded memory In DOS memory management, expanded memory is a system of bank switching introduced April 24, 1985 that provided additional memory to DOS programs beyond the limit of conventional memory. Expanded memory uses parts of the address space normally dedicated to communication with peripherals for program... specification, a memory paging scheme for PCs, was introduced by Lotus and Intel.
June	USA	Commodore 128 Commodore 128 The Commodore 128 home/personal computer was the last 8-bit machine commercially released by Commodore Business Machines... was released. Based on a complex multi-mode architecture, this was Commodore's last 8-bit computer. Cost: $299.95 for each of the CPU unit and accompanying 1571 disk drive.
July	USA	Commodore Commodore International Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited... released the Amiga Amiga The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities... , based on a 7.16 MHz Motorola 68000 Motorola 68000 The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit CISC microprocessor core designed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor... and a custom chipset Original Amiga chipset The Original Chip Set was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities... . It was the first home computer to feature pre-emptive multitasking operating system. It used a Macintosh-like GUI. Cost: US$1,295 for a system with a single 880 KB 3.5 in disk drive and 256 KB of RAM.
October 17	USA	80386 DX Intel 80386 The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time... released. It supports clock frequencies of up to 33 MHz and can address up to 4 GB Gigabyte The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is... of memory (and in theory virtual memory of up to 64 TB Terabyte The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes... , which was important for marketing purposes). It also includes a bigger instruction set than the 80286. At the date of release the fastest version ran at 20 MHz and achieved 6.0 MIPS. It contained 275,000 transistors.
November	USA	Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal... launched. Not really widely used until version 3, released in 1990, Windows required DOS to run and so was not a complete operating system (until Windows 95, released on August 21, 1995). It merely provided a G.U.I. similar to that of the Macintosh. It was so similar that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for copying the 'look and feel' of their operating system. This court case was not dropped until August 1997.
December	USA	MS-DOS 3.2, PC-DOS 3.2 This version was the first to support 3½" disks, although only the 720 KB ones. Version 3.2 remained the standard version until 1987 when version 3.3 was released with the IBM PS/2.

1986

Date	Place	Event
January	USA	Apple released another enhanced version of the Macintosh (the Macintosh Plus) - this one could cope with 4 MB of RAM (for the first time, upgradable via SIMM SIMM A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant... s) and it had a built-in SCSI adapter based on the NCR 5380 NCR 5380 The NCR 5380 is an early SCSI controller chip developed by NCR Microelectronics. It was popular due to its simplicity and low cost. The 5380 was used in the Macintosh Plus and in numerous SCSI cards for personal computers, including the Amiga and Atari TT... .
February	UK	Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 released. It had 128 KB of RAM, but little other improvement over the original ZX (except improved sound capabilities). Later models were produced by Amstrad Amstrad Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes.... - but they showed no major advances in technology.
April	USA	Apple released another version of the Macintosh (the Macintosh 512Ke) equipped with a double sided 3.5 inch Floppy Disk drive.
September	UK	Amstrad Amstrad Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes.... Announced Amstrad PC 1512, a cheap and powerful PC. Which included a slightly enhanced CGA graphics adapter, 512 KB RAM (upgradable to 640KB), 8086 processor (upgradable to NEC V30) and a 20 MB hard disk (optional). Amstrad had previous success with the PCW. To ensure the computer was accessible they made sure the manuals could be read by everyone, and also included DR's GEM desktop (a WIMP system) and a mouse to try to make to machine more user friendly. It was sold in many high street shops and was a complete success, being bought by Business and Home users alike.
November	USA	At Comdex Las Vegas Atari featured Gene Mosher introducing his touchscreen point of sale graphic user interface with direct manipulation widget toolkit editing, featuring the Atari ST's 12" CRT with a Microtouch capacitance touchscreen overlay, 320x200 resolution graphics and a 16-color bitmapped display.

1987

Date	Place	Event
?	UK	Introduction of Acorn Archimedes Acorn Archimedes The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly... .
?	USA	Connection Machine Connection Machine The Connection Machine was a series of supercomputers that grew out of Danny Hillis' research in the early 1980s at MIT on alternatives to the traditional von Neumann architecture of computation... , an interesting supercomputer which instead of integration of circuits operates up to 64,000 fairly ordinary microprocessors - using parallel architecture - at the same time, in its most powerful form it can do somewhere in the region of 2 billion operations per second.
?	USA	Microsoft Windows 2 Windows 2.0 Windows 2.0 is a 16-bit Microsoft Windows GUI-based operating environment that was released on December 9, 1987 and is the successor to Windows 1.0. With Windows 2.1x in 1988, Windows 2.0 was supplemented by Windows/286 and Windows/386... is released.
?	UK	Fractal Image Compression Algorithm invented by English mathematician Michael F. Barnsley Michael Barnsley Michael Fielding Barnsley is a British mathematician, researcher and an entrepreneur who has worked on fractal compression; he holds several patents on the technology. He received his Ph.D in Theoretical Chemistry from University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1972... , allowing digital images to be compressed and stored using fractal codes rather than normal image data.
?	USA	Motorola Motorola Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... released the 68030 Motorola 68030 The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorola's 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with general Motorola naming, this CPU is often referred to as the 030 .The 68030 features on-chip... processor.
March 2	USA	Macintosh II and Macintosh SE released. The SE was based on the 68000, but could cope with 4 MB of RAM and had an internal and external SCSI adapter. It offered a high performance PDS interrupt slot which provided some of the first expandability on a mac. The SE also offered the capability of displaying color with a third-party video card with its new ROM. The Macintosh II was based on the newer Motorola 68020, that ran at 16 MHz and achieved a much more respectable 2.6 MIPS (comparable to an 80286). It too had a SCSI adapter but was also fitted with a colour video adapter.
?	USA	Commodore released the Amiga 500 Amiga 500 The Amiga 500 - also known as the A500 - was the first “low-end” Commodore Amiga 16/32-bit multimedia home/personal computer. It was announced at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1987 - at the same time as the high-end Amiga 2000 - and competed directly against the Atari 520ST... and the Amiga 2000 Amiga 2000 The Amiga 2000, or A2000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in 1986. It is the successor to the Amiga 1000.-Features:Aimed at the high-end market, the original Europe-only model adds a Zorro II backplane, implemented in programmable logic, to the custom Amiga chipset used in the Amiga 1000... . The Amiga 500 was similar to the original Amiga 1000 Amiga 1000 The A1000, or Commodore Amiga 1000, was Commodore's initial Amiga personal computer, introduced on July 23, 1985 at the Lincoln Center in New York City.... , but in an all-in-one case with 512 KB of RAM and at a lower price. The Amiga 2000 was built in a large PC-style case and featured 1 MB of RAM, and included Zorro II Zorro II Zorro II is the name of the general purpose expansion bus used by the Amiga 2000 computer. The bus is mainly a buffered extension of the Motorola 68000 bus, with support for bus mastering DMA. The expansion slots use a 100-pin connector and the card form factor is the same as the IBM PC... expansion slots.
April 2	USA	PS/2 IBM Personal System/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 was IBM's third generation of personal computers. The PS/2 line, released to the public in 1987, was created by IBM in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing an advanced proprietary architecture... Systems introduced by IBM. The first 4 models were released on this date. The PS/2 Model 30 based on an 8086 processor and an old XT bus, Models 50 and 60 based on the 80286 processor and the Model 80 based on the 80386 processor. These used the 3½" floppy disk Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... s, storing 1.44 MB on each (although the Model 30 could only use the low 720KB density). These systems (except the Model 30, released in September 1998) included a completely new bus, the MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) bus, which did not catch on as it did not provide support for old-style 16 bit AT bus expansion cards. The MCA bus did show many improvements in design and speed over the ISA bus most PCs used, and IBM (if no-one else) still use it in some of their machines. The PS/2 models were very successful - selling well over 2 million machines in less than 2 years.
?	USA	VGA released (designed for the PS/2) by IBM.
?	USA	MCGA released (only for low end PS/2s, i.e. the Model 30) by IBM.
?	USA	The 8514/A introduced by IBM. This was a graphics card that included its own processor to speed up the drawing of common objects. The advantages included a reduction in CPU workload.
April	USA	MS-DOS 3.3, PC-DOS 3.3 Released with the IBM PS/2 this version included support for the High Density (1.44 MB) 3½" disks. It also supported hard disk partitions, splitting a hard disk into 2 or more logical drives.
April	USA	OS/2 OS/2 OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal... Launched by Microsoft and IBM. A later enhancement, OS/2 Warp provided many of the 32 bit enhancements boasted by Windows 95 - but several years earlier, yet the product failed to dominate the market in the way Windows 95 did 8 years later.
August	Canada Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...	AD-LIB soundcard released. Not widely supported until a software company, Taito, released several games fully supporting AD-LIB - the word then spread how much the special sound effects and music enhanced the games. Ad Lib, Inc., a Canadian Company, had a virtual monopoly until 1989 when the SoundBlaster card was released.
August	USA	LIM EMS v4.0
October– November	USA	Compaq DOS (CPQ-DOS) v3.31 released to cope with disk partitions >32Mb. Used by some other OEMs, but not Microsoft.

1988

Date	Place	Event
?	?	First optical chip developed, it uses light instead of electricity to increase processing speed.
?	?	XMS Extended memory In DOS memory management, extended memory refers to memory above the first megabyte of address space in an IBM PC or compatible with an 80286 or later processor. The term is mainly used under the DOS and Windows operating systems... Standard introduced.
?	?	EISA Extended Industry Standard Architecture The Extended Industry Standard Architecture is a bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers... Bus standard introduced.
?	USA	WORM Write Once Read Many A Write Once Read Many or WORM drive is a data storage device where information, once written, cannot be modified. On ordinary data storage devices, the number of times data can be modified is not limited, except by the rated lifespan of the device, as modification involves physical changes that... (Write Once Read Many times) - disks marketed for first time by IBM.
June 16	USA	80386SX released as a cheaper alternative to the 80386DX. It had a narrower (16 bit) time multiplexed bus. This reduction in pins, and the easier integration with 16 bit devices made the cost savings.
July– August	USA	PC-DOS 4.0, MS-DOS 4.0 Version 3.4 - 4.x are confusing due to lack of correlation between IBM and Microsoft and also the USA & Europe. Several 'Internal Use only' versions were also produced. This version reflected increases in hardware capabilities; it supported hard drives greater than 32 MB (up to 2 GB) and also EMS memory. This version was not properly tested and was bug ridden, causing system crashes and loss of data. The original release was IBM's, but Microsoft's version 4.0 (in October) was no better and version 4.01 was released (in November) to correct this, then version 4.01a (in April 1989) as a further improvement. However many people could not trust this and reverted to version 3.3 while they waited for the complete re-write (version 5 – 3 years later). Beta's of Microsoft's version 4.0 were apparently shipped as early as 1986-1987.
September	USA	IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 released, based on an 80286 processor and the old AT bus - IBM abandoned the MCA bus, released less than 18 months earlier! Other IBM machines continued to use the MCA bus.
October	?	Common Access Method committee (CAM) formed. They invented the ATA standard in March 1989.
October	USA	Macintosh IIx released. It was based on a new processor, the Motorola 68030. It still ran at 16 MHz but now achieved 3.9 MIPS. It could be expanded to 128 MB of RAM and had 6 NuBus expansions slots.
November	USA	MS-DOS 4.01 MS-DOS MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating... , PC-DOS 4.01 This corrected many of the bugs seen in version 4.0, but many users simply switched back to version 3.3 and waited for a properly re-written and fully tested version - which did not come until version 5 in June 1991. Support for disk partitions >32 MB.

1989

Date	Place	Event
?	Switzerland Switzerland Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....	World Wide Web World Wide Web The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet... , invented by Tim Berners-Lee Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web... who wanted to use hypertext to make documents and information seamlessly accessible over different kinds of computers and systems, and wherever they might be in the world. He was working in computing at CERN CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border... , the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, at the time. The Web was a result of the integration of hypertext Hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the... and networking, the best known vehicle being the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... . The hyperlinked pages not only provided static information but also transparent access to databases and to existing Internet facilities such as ftp, telnet TELNET Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection... , Gopher, WAIS Wide area information server Wide Area Information Servers or WAIS is a client–server text searching system that uses the ANSI Standard Z39.50 Information Retrieval Service Definition and Protocol Specifications for Library Applications" to search index databases on remote computers... and Usenet Usenet Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980... . He was awarded the Institute of Physics Institute of Physics The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of around 40,000.... ' 1997 Duddell Medal for this contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The first Web browser was actually an integrated browser/editor with a GUI interface, written for the sophisticated but fairly rare NeXT Computer NeXT Computer The NeXT Computer was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by Steve Jobs' company NeXT from 1988 until 1990. It ran the Unix-based NeXTSTEP operating system. The NeXT Computer was packaged in a 1-foot die-cast magnesium cube-shaped case, which led to the machine being... . Berners-Lee and his colleagues made offered a stripped down text-only browser as a downloadable demo, and asked the emerging Web community to write full GUI versions for other platforms. By early '93 there were GUI browsers for UNIX, and PC, including Erwise Erwise Erwise was a pioneering web browser, and the first commonly available with a graphical user interface.Released in April 1992, the browser was written for Unix computers running X and used the W3 common access library... , Viola Viola The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average... , Midas Midas For the legend of Gordias, a person who was taken by the people and made King, in obedience to the command of the oracle, see Gordias.Midas or King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ability to turn everything he touched into gold. This was called the Golden touch, or the... , and Cello Cello (web browser) Cello was an early shareware 16-bit multipurpose web browser for Windows 3.1 developed by Thomas R. Bruce of the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School. It was the first web browser for Microsoft Windows, and thus was among the first free winsock browsers... , Samba Samba (software) Samba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain... , and Mosaic Mosaic (web browser) Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened... ; Lynx Lynx (web browser) Lynx is a text-based web browser for use on cursor-addressable character cell terminals and is very configurable.-Usage:Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link's number. Current versions support... was an important text-only browser. None of these included the editing features of the first NeXT browser, which were more labor-intensive to implement on non-NeXT platforms. Mosaic Mosaic (web browser) Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened... , written at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) was the first browser with full time programmers and institutional support behind it. It was reliable and easy to install, and soon offered images embedded in the text rather than in separate windows. The Web's popularity exploded with Mosaic, which made it accessible to the novice user. This explosion started in earnest during 1993, a year in which Web traffic Web traffic Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit... over the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... increased by 300,000%. The bulk of the Mosaic programmers went on to found Netscape Netscape Netscape Communications is a US computer services company, best known for Netscape Navigator, its web browser. When it was an independent company, its headquarters were in Mountain View, California... .
January	USA	Apple Computer Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... Macintosh SE/30 Macintosh SE/30 The Macintosh SE/30 is a personal computer that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1989 until 1991. It was the fastest and most expandable of the original black-and-white compact Macintosh series.... released. Like the SE of March 1987 it only had a monochrome Monochrome Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white... display adapter but was fitted with the newer 68030 processor.
March	?	Command set for E-IDE disk drives was defined by CAM Cam A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion or vice-versa. It is often a part of a rotating wheel or shaft that strikes a lever at one or more points on its circular path... (formed Oct. 1988). This supports drives over 528 MB Megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage or transmission with two different values depending on context: bytes generally for computer memory; and one million bytes generally for computer storage. The IEEE Standards Board has decided that "Mega will mean 1 000... in size. Early controllers often imposed a limit of 2.1 GB Gigabyte The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is... , then later ones 8.4GB. Newer controllers support much higher capacities. Drives greater in size than 2.1GB must be partitioned under DOS DOS DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related... since the drive structure (laid down in MS-DOS 4) used by DOS and even Windows 95 Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products... prevents partitions bigger than 2.1 GB. EIDE controllers also support the ATAPI interface that is used by most CD-ROM CD-ROM A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.... drives produced after its introduction. Newer implementations to EIDE, designed for the PCI bus, can achieve data transfer at up to 16.67 MB/s. A later enhancement, called UDMA UDMA For the main article about the controller, see Parallel ATAThe Ultra DMA interface was the fastest method used to transfer data between the computer and an ATA device until Serial ATA.... , allows transfer rates of up to 33.3 MB/s.
March	USA	The Macintosh IIcx Macintosh IIcx Half a year following the release of the Macintosh IIx passed before Apple introduced the Macintosh IIcx in 1989. Despite resembling the IIx to a great extent and providing the same performance, the IIcx was quieter than its predecessor. The design was also made much more compact by reducing the... released, with the same basic capabilities of the Macintosh IIx Macintosh IIx The Macintosh IIx was introduced by Apple in 1988 as an incremental update of the original Macintosh II model. It replaced the 16 MHz Motorola 68020 CPU and 68881 FPU of the II with a 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU ; and the 800 KB floppy drive with the 1.44 MB SuperDrive... but in a more compact half-width case.
April 10	USA	80486DX released by Intel. It contains the equivalent of about 1.2 million transistors. At the time of release the fastest version ran at 25 MHz and achieved up to 20 MIPS. Later versions, such as the DX/2 and DX/4 versions achieved internal clock rates of up to 120 MHz.
September	USA	Apple Computer Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... Macintosh IIci Macintosh IIci The Apple Macintosh IIci was an improvement on the Macintosh IIcx. Sharing the same compact case design with three expansion slots, the IIci improved upon the IIcx's 16 MHz Motorola 68030 CPU and 68882 FPU, replacing them with 25 MHz versions of these chips. The IIci came with either a 40 or... released based on a faster version of the 68030 - now running at 25 MHz, and achieved 6.3 MIPS. Apple also released the Macintosh Portable Macintosh Portable The Macintosh Portable was Apple Inc.'s first attempt at making a battery-powered portable Macintosh personal computer that held the power of a desktop Macintosh... - the first notebook computer Mac, which went back to the original 68000 processor (but now ran it at 16 MHz to achieve 1.3 MIPS). It had a monochrome display.
November	Singapore Singapore Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...	Release of Sound Blaster Card, by Creative Labs, its success was ensured by maintaining compatibility with the widely supported AdLib AdLib Ad Lib, Inc. was a manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval... soundcard of 1987.

External links

A Brief History of Computing, by Stephen White. An excellent computer history site; the present article is a modified version of his timeline, used with permission.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.