1980 Sinclair
Producing everything from electric cars to home computers, Clive Sinclair was the 19805 embodiment of English eccentric genius. While America's kids wiled away their time on Atari and Commodore boxes, a whole generation of future programmers proudly turned to England's alternative -the Sinclair.
It all kicked off with the ZX80, designed for hobbyists in kit form, or ready-built for just £99 a groundbreaking price point for the time. This bought you a paltry 1Kb of RAM, a 3.25MHz NEC processor and a 24 x 32 line mono character display - that's right, not even any graphics. This was followed up a year later with the similar ZX81, which was expandable to up to 64Kb of RAM, but the best was yet to come.
1982 saw the arrival of the UK's most influential computer, the ZX Spectrum. It had 48Kb of RAM, a sleek black shell with grey rubber keys and up to eight glorious colours at a resolution of 256 x 192. A whole generation of home gammers and programmers was born, and is possibly the reason we have so many programmers in the UK. It didn't have the Commodore 64's accurate graphics, coloured sprites or complex sound, but we loved it all the same.
top>>
1980 the first 3.5" floppy disk
Modern floppy drives and diskettes have evolved to a
much smaller size with larger capacities as well. In 1980, the 3.5 inch floppy
drive and diskette was introduced by Sony. During the early 1980's many
competing formats were tried to compete with the 3.5 inch drives. From various
companies there were 2.0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.25, and 4.0 inch formats! Fortunately
for us, over time the industry settled on the 3.5 inch format which is now
standardized and manufactured by many companies. Today's standard 3.5 inch
diskettes hold a formatted capacity of about 1.5 megabytes while still using the
same basic technology of the second generation 8 inch drives
top>>
1980
SuperCalc Spreadsheet
The first spreadsheet program was developed in 1978 (See
above) by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston to run on the
Apple II computer. They called the program VisiCalc because it was a
"visible calculator." It required 64K of RAM memory to run. Later versions would be
produced to run on the Radio Shack TR-80 and the IBM PC. For each computer model, the developers had to recreate the programs because each had a
different language, processor and other hardware.
The next spreadsheet to appear was called SuperCalc because it was
felt superior to VisiCalc.
It was developed by a company called Sorcim (which is "micros" spelled backwards). Rather than
designing it to work on a particular model of computer, SuperCalc was designed to work with any computer
running the most popular operating system of the time, CP/M. The most popular CP/M computer - the Osborne I owes a large part of its popularity to the fact that it included a free copy of
SuperCalc
with every computer. After CP/M declined in popularity, versions of Supercalc for MS-DOS and Apple-DOS
appeared on the market. Sorcim was one of several software companies that merged to form
Computer Associates
top>>
The Apple III was announced in June 1980. It contained a Synertek 8-bit 6502A processor which could run at speeds up to 2 MHz. It contained 128K of RAM and a 4K ROM. It could run most Apple II programs through emulation, and came with a sophisticated new operating system. It was the first Apple to include a built-in 5.25" disk drive, and hi-res graphics built-in to the motherboard. It was designed to be Apple's business offering, but sold very poorly. It sold initially for between $4,340 and $7,800, depending on the configuration. The original Apple III had many problems, and was replaced by a revised model in mid 1981, which featured 256K RAM, updated system software, and a lower price ($3495). A 5 MB external hard disk was also made available. The Apple III sold very poorly and was replaced by the Apple IIIplus ($2995) in Late 1983. The Apple IIIplus was discontinued in 1985
1981 IBM PC
In July of 1980, IBM
representatives met for the first time with
Microsoft's Bill Gates
to talk about writing an
operating system for IBM's new hush-hush "personal" computer. IBM had been
observing the growing personal computer market for some time. They had already
made one dismal attempt to crack the market with their
IBM 5100.
At one point, IBM considered buying the fledgling game company Atari to commandeer Atari's early line of
personal computers. However, IBM decided to stick with making their own personal computer line and
developed a brand new operating system to go with. The secret plans were referred to as "Project
Chess". The code name for the new computer was "Acorn". Twelve engineers, led by William C. Lowe,
assembled in Boca Raton, Florida, to design and build the "Acorn". On August 12, 1981,
IBM released their new computer, re-named the IBM PC. The "PC" stood for "personal computer"
making IBM responsible for popularizing the term "PC".
By Mary Bellis. More
IBM history
can be found here>>
and here>>
top>>
1981 MS DOS
On August 12, 1981, IBM introduced its new revolution in a box, the
"Personal Computer" complete with a brand new operating system from
Microsoft and a 16-bit computer operating system called MS-DOS 1.0.
The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on QDOS,
the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products,
for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer. QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M, Paterson had bought
a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks,
QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal.
Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer
Products.
Gates then talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights, to market MS DOS separate from the IBM PC project, Gates proceeded to
make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.
In 1981, Tim Paterson quit Seattle Computer Products and found employment at Microsoft.
Again this article and many more excellent ones by Mary Bellis
to be found
here>> Also a history of DOS list
can be found here on this site.
1981 Xerox invents WIMPS
The first concept of a windowing (or WIMP - windows, icons, menus and pointers)
system appeared in the Xerox 8010 ('Star') system in 1981. This idea was then
used by Apple in 1984 as they developed the MacOS operating system for use on
their Apple Macintosh, and later by Microsoft who wrote the first version of
Windows in 1985. Windows was a GUI (graphic user interface) for their own
operating system (MS-DOS) that had been shipped with IBM PC and compatible
computers since 1981. Windows was designed to look a bit like MacOS but
unfortunately it was so similar that Apple decided to take Microsoft to court
over it .. a court case that was to run for many years.
1981 ctrl+alt+del
Every time a software program locks up and you want to start over, every time you need to change your password or log on or off your computer, you can thank David J. Bradley.
"It was not a memorable event," said Bradley, a long-time IBM employee, speaking of that day in 1980 or '81 when he discovered control-alt-delete.
"It wasn't intended as something we were going to tell the customers about," he says. "Then it turned out that this reset was a problem-solver for people who were writing the programs and writing the instruction manuals."
The original idea was simply to reset early PCs without turning them off. Microsoft adopted control-alt-delete to help ensure people powered down correctly, then to handle "administrative functions" such as the vital "end task" feature for computer software that crashes or otherwise gets stuck.
Bradley chose the control and alt keys because he needed two shift keys to make the operation work, and he chose the delete key because it was on the opposite side of the keyboard. He didn't want people to hit control-alt-delete by accident.
This simple combination of keystrokes has been the life saver for literally millions of computer users
around the world. "Hats off to David Bradley"
1982 Commodore 64
In 1982, the new Commodore
64 became the best selling computer of all time. Like its predecessor the Vic 20, the 64
came without a monitor, but had 64K RAM, and featured a sound synthesizer chip.
Commodore in a price war with Texas Instruments, reduced the prices of the C-64
as low as $260. outselling any other computer in history.
1982 Lotus is formed giving
1-2-3
The market for electronic spreadsheet software was growing
rapidly in the early 1980s and VisiCalc stakeholders were slow to respond to the
introduction of the IBM PC that used an Intel computer chip.
Mitch Kapor developed Lotus
and his spreadsheet program quickly became the new industry spreadsheet
standard.
Lotus 1-2-3 made it easier to use spreadsheets and it added
integrated charting, plotting and database capabilities. Lotus 1-2-3 established
spreadsheet software as a major data presentation package as well as a complex
calculation tool. Lotus was also the first spreadsheet vendor to introduce
naming cells, cell ranges and spreadsheet macros.
Kapor was the VisiCalc product
manager at Personal Software for about six months in 1980; he also designed and
programmed Visiplot / Visitrend which he sold to Personal Software (VisiCorp) for
$1 million.
Part of that money along with funds from venture capitalist Ben
Rosen were used to start Lotus Development Corporation in 1982. Kapor cofounded
Lotus Development Corporation with Jonathan Sachs. Before he confounded Lotus,
Kapor disclosed and offered Personal Software (VisiCorp) his initial Lotus
program. Supposedly VisiCorp executives declined the offer because Lotus 1-2-3's
functionality was "too limited". Lotus 1-2-3 is still one of the all-time best
selling application software packages in the world (see email from
Mitch Kapor, 04/15/1999).
In 1984, Lotus tripled in revenue to $156 Million. The number
of employees at Lotus grew to over a thousand by 1985. This rapid growth led to
a shakeout in the spreadsheet segment of the personal computer software
industry.
In 1985, Lotus Development
acquired Software Arts and discontinued the VisiCalc program. A Lotus
spokeperson indicated at that time that "1-2-3 and Symphony are much better
products so Visicalc is no longer necessary."
Thank you to the
DSS Resources
history pages for this excellent article.
Top>>
1982 Hercules Graphics
1983 Apple Lisa 1
1984 Amstrad PCW
A graphics display system for PCs developed by Van Suwannukul, founder of Hercules Computer Technology. Suwannukul developed the system so that he could produce his doctoral thesis on PC equipment using his native Thai alphabet.
First offered in 1982, the original Hercules system filled a void left by IBM's MDA ( monochrome display adapter ) system. MDA produces high-resolution monochrome text but cannot generate graphics. Hercules systems generate both high-resolution text and graphics for monochrome monitors. The resolution is 720 by 348.
Hercules has been supplanted by other standards, such as VGA, and is now obsolete.
Top>>
1983 LCD and laptops
The development of the LCD can be tracked back to 1888, when Austrian
botanist Friedrich Reinitzer discovered the liquid crystal, but it wasn't
until 1968 that scientists at the RCA group developed the first display
using the technology. Billions of pounds in investment over the next 30
years aided advances in brightness, contrast, colour, viewing angle,
response time and cost. However, after years of use in watches and
calculators, one implementation in particular captured the minds of
computing enthusiasts. A history of the floppy disk can
be found here>>
top>>
Named for one of its designer's daughters, the Lisa was
supposed to be the Next Big Thing. It was the first personal computer to use a
Graphical User Interface (GUI).
Aimed mainly at large
businesses, Apple said the Lisa would increase productivity by making computers
easier to work with. The Lisa had a Motorola 68000 Processor running at 5 Mhz., 1
MB of RAM two 5.25" 871k floppy drives, an external 5 MB hard drive, and a built
in 12" 720 x 360 monochrome monitor.
When the Macintosh came out in 1984 it eroded the Lisa's credibility further. Realizing
this, Apple released the Lisa 2 at the same time as the
Mac. The Lisa 2 cost half as much as the original, replaced the two 5.25" drives
with a single 400k 3.5" drive, and offered configurations with up to 2 MB of
RAM, and a 10 MB hard drive. In January 1985, the Lisa 2/10 was renamed the
Macintosh XL, and outfitted with MacWorks, an emulator that allowed the Lisa to
run the Mac OS. The XL was discontinued later that year.
The first model was the PCW8256, and this was succeeded by the
8512, the 9256 and the 9512. Information on these machines can be found by
searching through these links. In 1994, there was a
massive demand for the PCW, but because the machine was a decade old, components
were scarce and hard to buy.
They all operated round the same processor, the good old Z80. The original PCWs
operate under CP/M while programs such as LocoSript, MicroDesign and Protext
have become famous.
Amstrad decided to make a new machine, which would
not only feature new hardware but a new word-processor as well. This was because
the older PCWs' word-processors were looking out of date, and Amstrad wanted one
that printed out exactly what was seen on screen. And so the PCW 16 was
born!
top>>
1984 The 9600 modem
The introduction of the 9.6 Bd modem made it possible to send and receive data from one computer to another over voice-grade
analogue telephone lines. The telephone modem enabled the PC to become a powerful communication
device that was just as essential as the telephone. For several years the transmission speed, called baud rate, of the telephone modem was far less
than the maximum capacity of the telephone lines (2400 baud).
top>>
1984 Adobe Post Script
Although Adobe was ignored by most of the PC industry, it did attract the
attention of Apple Computers.
Adobe launched PostScript in 1984, it supported two different types of fonts:
so-called PostScript type 1 and PostScript type 3 fonts. Of these two, Type 1
was the more sophisticated format. It supported hinting, a technique to improve
the output quality on lower resolution devices or at smaller font sizes and it
also supported a more efficient compression algorithm of font data. The Type 3
specs offered some functionality that was not present in Type 1 but it was
clearly a less sophisticated format.
Apple was in the process of developing a new laser printer for its Macintosh
PC.
see here for more detail
top>>
1984 Voyetra Sequencer
Voyetra realized that the
Personal Computer would revolutionise the music industry. The company developed
Sequencer Plus—the world's first professional-grade MIDI software for the PC
platform. With this new tool, musicians could compose and edit music with great
detail and hear their compositions played by an array of MIDI synthesizers. With
over one million copies shipped worldwide, Sequencer Plus remains one of the
most popular music programs of all time.
1984 Psion organiser
The Psion Organiser may seem limited by today's standards
but was revolutionary when it was launched at £99 in 1984. A 14cm by 9cm
brick-like unit with an alphabetic keyboard and sliding cover, it boasted 2K of
RAM, 4K of applications in ROM and a free 8K datapak which had to be specially
reformatted using ultraviolet light when the time came to erase it. It claimed a
battery life of six months on a single 9 Volt PP3 battery - impressive by any
standards.
The most striking thing about the Organiser, when compared to modern day
palmtops, is its incredible robustness. With almost no moving parts, many of the
units are still working 15 years later, and the only worry you might have when
dropping the solid Organiser was whether the thing you were dropping it onto
might be damaged.
1984 HP Inkjet launch
Although inkjet printers have become widespread only in
the past few years, the technology had been under development for decades.
Inkjet recorders appeared as early as 1950 and inkjet typewriters as early as
the 1960’s. But the big research started in the 1970’s when
virtually every major printer manufacturer invested in lengthy and mostly
unsuccessful inkjet development programs, driven by the vision that inkjet was
destined to replace impact (matrix) technology.
The Achilles Heel of
inkjet technology has always been twofold: reliability and print quality. It is
very difficult to control the ink flow, and to prevent the ink from drying and
clogging the print head. The print quality depends heavily on the complex
relationship between ink, print head and receiver material (paper, film). By the
end of the 1980’s, Canon and Hewlett-Packard mastered both the ink chemistry and
the hydrodynamics required to produce a reliable, good quality inkjet
printer.
In 1998 the total narrow format coated inkjet media market was
good for approximately 360 million square meters. The estimates for the future
are that this market will still continue to grow heavily in the coming
years.
Released with much fanfare in January of 1984, the Macintosh 128 was the first
affordable computer to include a Graphical User Interface. It was built around
the new Motorola 68000 chip, which was significantly faster than previous
processors, running at 8 MHz. The Mac came in a small beige case with a black
and white monitor built in. It came with a keyboard and mouse, and had a floppy
drive that took 400k 3.5" disks--the first personal computer to do so.
Introduced in September of 1984, The Mac 512k was a Mac
128k with 384k more RAM. It was replaced in April 1986 with the 512ke, which
included an 800k floppy drive, and a 128k ROM. It was discontinued later that
year.
1984 IBM AT-286
The IBM 5170 PC/AT was the third generation in the PC series released in 1984
and introduced a new processor to the market -- the 286. Offered in 6 and 8mhz
speeds, it still doesn't make them much of a scorcher, but with a 16/24 bit
processor, 16-bit ISA bus, Power-supply and HDD lights mounted on the front
console and 1.2mb Floppy drive it sure as hell sounds alot more modern. This was the first generation of the
PS/2 models had specifications similar to the AT and used alot of the same
hardware.
1984 Microsoft Excel
The Microsoft Excel spreadsheet was
originally written for the 512K Apple Macintosh in 1984-1985. Excel was one of
the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus and a
point and click capability using a mouse pointing device. The Excel spreadsheet
with a graphical user interface was easier for most people to use than the
command line interface of PC-DOS spreadsheet products. Many people bought Apple
Macintoshes so that they could use Bill Gates' Excel spreadsheet program.
There
is some controversy about whether a graphical version of Microsoft Excel was
released in a DOS version. Microsoft documents show the launch of Excel 2.0 for
MS-DOS version 3.0 on 10/31/87.
When Microsoft launched the Windows 2 operating system in 1987,
Excel was one of the first application products released for it. When Windows
finally gained wide acceptance with Version 3.0 in late 1989 Excel was
Microsoft's flagship product.
For nearly 3 years, Excel remained the only
Windows spreadsheet program and it has only received competition from other
spreadsheet products since the summer of 1992.
By the late 1980s many companies had introduced spreadsheet
products. Spreadsheet products and the spreadsheet software industry were
maturing. Microsoft and Bill Gates had joined the fray with the innovative Excel
spreadsheet.
Thank you to the
DSS Resources
history pages for this excellent article.
top>>
1985 The first virus
The first PC virus was created. Known as the brain
Brain virus which
was written in Pakistan. The Brain
virus was a boot-sector virus, which means it only infected the boot records of
360K floppy disks, but not hard drives. It would occupy unused space on the disk
so that it could not be used. It was also the first "stealth" virus, meaning it
tried to hide itself from detection. If a computer user tried to view the
infected space on the disk, Brain would display the original, uninfected boot
sector. Also try these two excellent sites.
Robert M Slade's
History and
Viru-Scan's history
1985 Windows 1
Promised an easy-to-use graphical interface, device-independent
graphics and multitasking support.
The development was delayed several times, however, and the Windows 1.0
hit the store shelves in November 1985. The selection of applications was
sparse, however, and Windows sales were modest.
Also see Windows Special here>>
top>>
1985 Tandy TRS-80
In 1985 Tandy launched the TRS-80 (nicknamed the Trash-80) Model 100, a
portable computer which featured an eight-row by 40-column reflective LCD
screen and is regarded by many as the first mainstream notebook.
top>>
1985 NEC JC-1401PJA CRT monitor
The CRT was invented way back in 1897 and provided the obvious -and
probably only -display technology to accommodate the computer revolution.
Early tubes were monochrome and low resolution, with slow but sure
improvements in colour, brightness and focus allowing the CRT to become the
visual tool it is today.
However, it was a breakthrough in the mechanics of the
monitor that can be viewed as the landmark that enabled computer displays to
contribute to modern-day computing.
In 1985, NEC released the JC- 1401P3A, a 14in monitor
that was aesthetically unremarkable but remembered as the first computer
display to support multiple frequencies from the computer. Until then
monitors only accepted one frequency, therefore operating at a single
resolution and refresh rate. It also meant that displays had to be matched
with a graphics card that provided the correct frequency.
Most monitor makers followed NEC's lead, producing
displays that support the selection of resolutions and refresh rates offered
by modern graphics cards.
top>>
1985 CD-ROM
is launched by Sony
and Phillips combined. See the CD-ROM
and DVD timeline here>>
1985 Aldus Pagemaker
Desktop publishing or (DTP) has one main
function page layout, the creation of attractive pages of text and graphics, for
print magazines, posters, newsletters etc. all created on a
computer.
In 1984, the "Apple Macintosh" was introduced, a personal computer which used a GUI or graphical
user interface, so anyone could use a computer by pointing and clicking a computer mouse on
pictures (icons) or menus. The next year in 1985, "Microsoft Windows" was introduced, a graphical user interface created for IBM
computers.
The first desktop publishing program was created by Paul Brainard and a company called Aldus, the program called "Aldus
Pagemaker 1.0" was released in July, 1985 for the "Macintosh" and in December, 1986, for the "IBM".
top>>
1985 Atari ST
Atari introduced an all new line of computers called the Atari ST
line. These new computers would use the Motorola 68000 processor, come with
512K of memory, use 3.5" disk drives, RGB monitors and a graphics user
environment based on CP/M 68K and Digital Research GEM. Originally the
processor for this new line of computers was to be the National 32032, however
its availability was in doubt, so the MC68000 was chosen.
Atari would, over the course of 8 years improve upon its ST line of
computers with such lines as the Mega ST, STe, Mega STe, TT030 and Falcon030
line of computers. Atari also introduced a laptop called the STacy and had in
the works an under 5 lb. laptop called the STBook as its replacement. A pen
based touch tablet version of the ST had been shown in prototype form but was
never sold. Atari introduced an assortment of peripherals from disk drives to
laser printers for its line of ST computers.
1986 US Robotics HST Modems.
U.S. Robotics introduce HST (High Speed Technology) modems.
Until the recent surge of V.32 modems, the U.S. Robotics HST was the de
facto standard in the PC-based BBS community. U.S. Robotics introduced the
Courier HST modem in 1986 and pioneered the market for high-speed modems in the
IBM PC environment. The immense popularity of the HST modems was partly due to
the generous discount program U.S. Robotics offered to the BBS Sysops (SYStem
OPerators). Many modem manufacturers have implemented similar Sysop discount
programs, but most BBS sysops remain loyal to the U.S. Robotics modems.
The original Courier HST modem ran at 9600 bps. U.S. Robotics later improved
the speed of the Courier HST to 14400 bps. Although U.S. Robotics remains committed to the HST modems, there are now
three different high-speed Courier modems available: the Courier HST (which only
supports the HST protocol), the Courier V.32bis (which only supports V.32bis)
and the Courier HST Dual Standard (which supports both the HST and the V.32bis
protocols).
See also the Modem tutorial for all you need to know about modems here>>.
Top>>
1986 Amstrad PC1512
1986 SCSI Interface
1986 IBM SQL standard set
JPEG stands for the Joint Photographic Experts group but is more widely
known as the JPEG compression of photographs. JPEG is designed for compressing either full-colour or
grey-scale images
of natural, real-world scenes. It works well on photographs, naturalistic
artwork, and similar material; not so well on lettering, simple cartoons,
or line drawings. JPEG handles only still images, but there is a related
standard called MPEG for motion pictures.
1987 Windows 2
1987 VGA
1987 True Type introduced 1989 The World Wide Web 1989 Open GL 1989 Microsoft Word for
Windows 1
1989 Rabbit starts the Wi-Fi revolution
The Commodore Amiga 1000 was the first computer to use more than 16 colour output as a
standard feature (4096 colours / HAM6 [Hold And Modify]). It was also the
first computer with pre-emptive multitasking OS. It already had 4 channel digital
stereo sound and the first computer to ship with a mouse as a standard.
The kick-start was loaded from floppy.
It only had one external expansion slot because Commodore wanted to keep
costs down.
The Amiga 1000 was launched in the USA in 1985 and finally launched in the UK. in 1986.
At the same time the team began working on a new
amiga model. They wanted it to be more expandable, with a lot of slots and they wanted the slots to be
Auto-Configurable. Two prototypes of the new model were developed. One in the Los Gatos (USA)
and one in Braunschweig (Germany). Commodore also wanted IBM compatibility, so both teams tried to do the
best to emulate an IBM 8088. Jay Miner didn't like the idea.
Finally, the emulator came out from Germany. The emulator was a $1000
product, basically an IBM XT without a keyboard that was plugged into the
side of an Amiga 1000. The product that Los Gatos was producing it was a
$200 accelerator, for an IBM PC software emulator. Los Gatos helped the German team
a lot with the emulator's software.
The Los Gatos began working on a new "dream machine", but no one knew
exactly what at that point.
Amstrad may only be remembered for misfired innovations like the Em@iler
and home computers like the CPC464, but if it wasn't for Amstrad we might
not have the widespread PC industry we've got now.
The PC roost was previously ruled by IBM's XT, and definitions of IBM or
PC-compatible fluctuated to say the least. You bought an IBM for business,
and a home computer like the Spectrum for leisure.
But by 1986, Amstrad saw the gap for an affordable PC that was IBM-
compatible and could be used at home - the PCI512 was born. It may be basic
by today's specifications, but it was way ahead of IBM machines at the time.
The PCI512 had an 8MHz 8086 processor compared to IBM's 4.77MHz 8088, and
with most of the ports integrated as standard, you were left with three
eight. bit ISA slots for upgrading.
There was 512Kb of RAM, which you could upgrade to 640Kb using chips on
the motherboard, and you got a joystick port and even a games bundle on some
machines. Up to four colours at 320 x 200 could be displayed with the CGA
graphics adaptor, which usually consisted of cyan, magenta, black and white,
making games look primitive next to the Amiga, but it was a start.
Affordability was the key here, and still a standard today. All new
versions 1990 just £399 bought you the basic mono versio, with 512k ram, 10
megabyte hard disk and a 360k 5.25 inch flooppy drive.
top>>
What we currently know of as the SCSI interface had its beginnings back in
1979. Shugart Associates, led by storage industry pioneer Alan Shugart (who was
a leader in the development of the floppy disk, and later founded Seagate
Technology) created the Shugart Associates Systems Interface (SASI).
This very early predecessor of SCSI was very rudimentary in
terms of its capabilities, supporting only a limited set of commands compared to
even fairly early "true" SCSI, and rather slow signaling speeds of 1.5
Mbytes/second. For its time, SASI was a great idea, since it was the first
attempt to define an intelligent storage interface for small computers.
The
limitations must be considered in light of the era: we are talking about a time
when 8" floppy drives were still being commonly used.
Shugart wanted to get SASI made into an ANSI standard, presumably to make it
more widely-accepted in the industry. In 1981, Shugart Associates teamed up with
NCR Corporation, and convinced ANSI to set up a committee to standardize the
interface. In 1982, the X3T9.2 technical committee was formed to work on
standardizing SASI. A number of changes were made to the interface to widen the
command set and improve performance. The name was also changed to SCSI; I don't
know the official reason for this, but I suspect that having Shugart Associates'
name on the interface would have implied that it was proprietary and not an
industry standard. The first "true" SCSI interface standard was published in
1986, and evolutionary changes to the interface have been occurring since
that time.
The full story is here
The father of relational databases, and thus SQL, is Dr. E.F. "Ted" Codd who
worked for IBM. After Codd described a relational model for databases in 1970,
IBM spent a lot of time and money researching how to implement his ideas. IBM
came to market with a product named System/R in 1978.
Other companies had formed and created relational database products before IBM
was ready to release System/R. The first to market was Relational Software's
product named Oracle and the second was Relational Technology's Ingres.
IBM then
released improved products in 1982 named SQL/DS and DB2. Oracle (now from Oracle
Inc.) and DB2 are still available today in nth generation forms while the Ingres
technology was bought by Computer Associates.
SQL is a standard, open language without corporate ownership.
The commercial acceptance of SQL was precipitated by the
formation of SQL Standards committees by the American National Standards
Institute and the International Standards Organization in 1986 and 1987. Two
years later they published a specification known as SQL-89. An improvement and
expansion (to some 600 pages) to the standard gave the world SQL-92. We now have
the third generation standard, SQL 99. The existence of standards is important
for the general portability of SQL statements.
The Amiga 2000 was launched in the UK for £3200 pounds (later £3150 pounds). The
boot up was finally in ROM. The Amiga 2000 was a base for other Amiga's,
being released on various world markets, as the A1500 [A2000 with
two 3 1/2" drives], A2000HD, A2500/20, A2500/30, A2000HDA/100, A1500 plus and A2000Plus.
Later the same year, the Amiga 500 was launched (£359.90 pounds in
the UK). It was the same as the Amiga 2000, with a compact
design (keyboard and CPU in the same box) and no internal slots. Both the
machines had a new graphics mode, the EHB (Extra Half Bright),
that gives 64 colours on screen.
The operating system was 1.2. The Amiga 500 was the first really affordable
machine. For more information on the
Amiga story visit Amiga
University here>>
This first version of Windows wasn't very powerful and so not incredibly
popular. Microsoft Windows 2 came out in 1987, and was a bit more popular that
the original version. The first really popular version of Windows was version
3.0, released in 1990. This benefited from the improved graphics available on
PCs by this time, and also from the 80386 processor which allowed 'true'
multitasking of the Windows applications. This made it more efficient and more
reliable when running more than one piece of software at a time. It would even
allow you to run and multitask older MS-DOS based software. Windows 3 made the
IBM PC a serious piece of competition for the Apple Mac. Various improvements -
Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11 were released, although they didn't really provide
many significant improvements to the way windows looked or worked.
Also available at a similar time to Windows 3 was IBM's OS/2 (which was
actually written in partnership with Microsoft). OS/2 Warp was also released
which was a full 32 bit operating system - it came out long before Windows 95,
and boasted many similar features. Unfortunately IBM failed to market it
successfully enough and it didn't catch on.
Also see Windows Special here>>
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It may not seem like much now, but the ability to display 256 colours at
up to 640 x 480 was big news back in the late 1980's.
VGA (video graphics array) meant you could realistically look at photos
on screen, have the latest games with the right c
olours.
It also made windows look pretty.
The PC had been lagging behind on the graphics front for quite a while,
mainly because it was viewed as a business machine. Many early PCs were
monochrome and text-only, and CGA {Colour Graphics Adaptor) was a
disappointment.
By 1985, EGA {Enhanced Graphics Adaptor) had addressed
the colour and resolution issues and, with up to 16 colours at 640 x 350 and
64 colours at 320 x 200, it was a big step forward, but you only had to take
one look at the Amiga, with its maximum of 4,096 colours, to see that the PC
still had a long way to go.
It wasn't until 1987 that IBM introduced us to VGA with
its PS/2 range of PCs.
Amstrad was soon to follow with the 2086. The PC suddenly looked serious
to business and home users alike.
Anyone who had a CGA PC at home in the Amiga and Atari
ST heyday will remember the frustration of all their games coming out in
purple and black, while their friends' computers had luxuries like blue sky
and green grass. VGA was the final bridge needed to make PC graphics
respectable and is still a standard today. All new versions of Windows will
still run at 640X480, and you could even run it on a ten year old VGA
monitor if you wanted
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1987 PC Audio
PC
users had to endure the frustrating noise of the PC speaker bleep for years
before it was addressed. Even the Spectrum had a more sophisticated sound
system, and, with often no way to disable it or turn it down, the PC speaker
ruined the atmosphere of games (unless you liked your gun sounding like a
telephone). You could forget music packages.
The first step forward was the original Adlib card, introduced by the
Canadian company of the same name in 1987. It was a basic FM MIDI
Synthesizer that, unless programmed properly, sounded like a cheap keyboard,
but it was leagues ahead of the PC speaker. The drum sounds were awful and a
lot of the voices sounded remarkably similar, but PC sequencing was now
possible.
The first Sound Blaster was released in 1989 and offered Adlib
compatibility, putting a stop to the Adlib monopoly, and by 1991 the Sound
Blaster Pro was out. This was a major leap forward, offering simultaneous FM
MIDI and audio wave playback. Digitised speech and effects were possible in
games at the same time as music -fantastic for X-Wing -and you could even do
your own eight-bit sampling if your hard disk was up to it.
Despite coming on a 16-bit ISA card, the Sound Blaster Pro could only
sample at up to eight-bit, so another advance was needed to bring the PC up
to 16-bit CD quality. Enter the Sound Blaster 16 in June 1992, which is
still available in PCI format.
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Apple had been developing what was to become TrueType from late 1987. At that
time there were many competing font scaling technologies, and several would have
been suitable for the Macintosh. It was by no means certain, according to lead
engineer Sampo Kaasila, that Apple would adopt TrueType. In the end though, it
proved itself on performance and rendering quality (at high and low resolution)
against the others. Kaasila completed his work on TrueType, though it didn't yet
have that name, in August 1989. The following month Apple and Microsoft
announced their strategic alliance against Adobe, where Apple would do the font
system, Microsoft the printing engine. Apple released TrueType to the world in
March 1991 - the core engine in much the same form that Kaasila left it back in
1989.
Microsoft introduced TrueType into Windows with version 3.1 in early 1992.
Working with Monotype, they had created the superb core set of fonts - TrueType
versions of Times New Roman, Arial and Courier. These fonts showed, just as
Apple's TrueTypes had, that scalable fonts could generate bitmaps virtually as
though each size had been designed by hand.
Thanks to
"true type typography" for
this segment. More
information here>>
top>>
Tim Berners-Lee having a background of system design in real-time communications and text
processing software development, in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia
initiative for global information sharing. while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory.
He wrote the first web client (browser-editor)
and server in 1990.
The first web browser - or browser-editor rather - was called WorldWideWeb as, after all,
when it was written in 1990 it was the only way to see the web.
Much later it was renamed Nexus in order to save confusion between the program and the abstract
information space (which is now spelled World Wide Web with spaces).
Tim wrote the program using a NeXT computer. This had the advantage that there
were some great tools available -it was a great computing environment in
general. In fact, what could be done in a couple of months would take more like a
year on other platforms, because on the NeXT, a lot of it was done already.
There was an application builder to make all the menus as quickly as you could dream them up.
there were all the software parts to make a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get)
in other words direct manipulation of text on screen as on the printed - or browsed page.
All that needed adding was hypertext.
An in-depth history of the internet is
here>> courtesy of
About-The-Web.com. An in depth
special on Tim Berners-Lee is
here>>
1989 Internet Porn!
A quick search (risking, of course, immediate sacking for breach of
contract) for the first Internet porn site reveals dozens claming to be the
original XXX site, so to put a date on the medium is tricky. Suffice to say
that pornography is perhaps the oldest profession on the Net.
While the chief execs of the Internet blue chips would deny it, porn
sold the Web in a way that no marketing campaign possibly could have. All
the moral outrage did little more than publicise the fact that anyone with a
computer and a modem could see pictures of naked women (or men) on the Net.
The Web propagated a sub- generation of computer users that are cross-eyed
as well as square-eyed.
Porn sites also boosted the uptake and acceptability of e-commerce. By
extension, the porn movement also boosted sales of peripherals, particularly
the Web cam.
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OpenGL has been proposed as a graphics standard to bring 3D graphics programming
into the mainstream of applications programming. The OpenGL graphics
system is a powerful software interface for graphics hardware that allows
graphics programmers to produce high-quality colour images of 2D and 3D objects.
The technology was developed by Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) and is the result
of ten years of experience designing production software interfaces for a full
spectrum of graphics hardware.
Microsoft launch Word for Windows 1.0. This was in
direct competition to Wordperfect 5.1 which was at its peak and at that time
dominating the word processing market.
Near the endof 1984 Ray Ozzie founded Iris Associates Inc., under
contract and funded by Lotus. This was in order to develop the first version
of Lotus Notes. In January 1985 Tim Halvorsen and Len Kawell joinet Ozzie,
followed soon after by Steven Beckhardt. They all brought extensive
knowledge ands vision to the company as well as career long interest in
collaboration and messaging software.
They modelled Lotus Notes after
"Plato Notes" but expanded it to include many more powerful features.
Alan Eldridge joined from Digital Equipment Corporation contributing to the
database and security features.
The first release of Notes shipped in 1989 and sold more than 35,000
copies in its first year. Notes client required either DOS 3.1 or OS/2 and
the server required DOS 3.1, 4.0 or OS/2.
A great site that gives the full history of Notes is here>>
In 1989 Rabbit was one of four location-specific phone services given licences in
Britain. The others were Phonepoint, Mercury Callpoint and Zonephone. Subscribers to the service, backed by Hutchison Whampoa, could make mobile
calls when they were within 100 metres of a Rabbit transmitter.
Mobile phone services that let people roam were taking off at the same time and proved more popular.