1963
Companies
Tandy Radio Shack is founded. Tandy Radio Shack (TRS) was formed by the 1963 merger of Tandy Leather Company and Radio Shack. TRS began by selling a variety of electronic products, mainly to hobbyists. The TRS-80 Model I computer, introduced in 1977, was a major step in introducing home computers to the public. Like the Commodore PET and the Apple II, which were introduced within months of the TRS-80, the computer came assembled and ready to run.
Graphics & Games
The DAC-1 System at GM Research Labs, 1965
DAC-1 computer aided design program is released. In 1959, the General Motors Research Laboratories appointed a special research team to investigate the use of computers in designing automobiles. In 1960, IBM joined the project, producing the first commercially-available Computer Aided Design program, known as DAC-1. Out of that project came the IBM 2250 display terminal as well as many advances in computer timesharing and the use of a single processor by two or more terminals.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Rancho Arm
Researchers designed the Rancho Arm at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California as a tool for the handicapped. The Rancho Arm´s six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm. Acquired by Stanford University in 1963, it holds a place among the first artificial robotic arms to be controlled by a computer.
Software & Languages
Sketchpad document
Ivan Sutherland published Sketchpad, an interactive, real time computer drawing system, as his MIT doctoral thesis. Using a light pen and Sketchpad, a designer could draw and manipulate geometric figures on the screen.
ASCII code
ASCII — American Standard Code for Information Interchange — permitted machines from different manufacturers to exchange data. ASCII consists of 128 unique strings of ones and zeros. Each sequence represents a letter of the English alphabet, an Arabic numeral, an assortment of punctuation marks and symbols, or a function such as a carriage return.
1964
Computers
IBM System/360
IBM announced the System/360, a family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together. The initial investment of $5 billion was quickly returned as orders for the system climbed to 1,000 per month within two years. At the time IBM released the System/360, the company was making a transition from discrete transistors to integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue moved from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems.
CDC 6600
CDC´s 6600 supercomputer, designed by Seymour Cray, performed up to 3 million instructions per second — a processing speed three times faster than that of its closest competitor, the IBM Stretch. The 6600 retained the distinction of being the fastest computer in the world until surpassed by its successor, the CDC 7600, in 1968. Part of the speed came from the computer´s design, which had 10 small computers, known as peripheral processors, funneling data to a large central processing unit.
Networking
Online transaction processing made its debut in IBM´s SABRE reservation system, set up for American Airlines. Using telephone lines, SABRE linked 2,000 terminals in 65 cities to a pair of IBM 7090 computers, delivering data on any flight in less than three seconds.
JOSS configuration
JOSS (Johnniac Open Shop System) conversational time-sharing service began on Rand´s Johnniac. Time-sharing arose, in part, because the length of batch turn-around times impeded the solution of problems. Time sharing aimed to bring the user back into "contact" with the machine for online debugging and program development.
Software & Languages
BASIC manual
Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny created BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language, for their students at Dartmouth College.
1965
Companies
Commodore Business Machine founder Jack Tramiel
Commodore Business Machines (CBM) is founded. Its founder Jack Tramiel emigrated to the US after WWII where he began repairing typewriters. In 1965, he moved to Toronto and established Commodore International which also began making mechanical and electronic calculators. In 1977, Commodore released the Commodore PET computer; in 1981 the VIC-20; and, in 1982, the Commodore 64. CBM purchased competitor Amiga Corporation in 1984. Despite being the largest single supplier of computers in the world at one time, by 1984 internal disputes and market pressures led to financial problems. The company declared bankruptcy in 1994.
Computers
DEC PDP-8
Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. The PDP-8 sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
A Stanford team led by Ed Feigenbaum created DENDRAL, the first expert system, or program designed to execute the accumulated expertise of specialists. DENDRAL applied a battery of "if-then" rules in chemistry and physics to identify the molecular structure of organic compounds.
Software & Languages
Object-oriented languages got an early boost with Simula, written by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-John Dahl. Simula grouped data and instructions into blocks called objects, each representing one facet of a system intended for simulation.
1966
Computers
ILLIAC IV
The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracted with the University of Illinois to build a large parallel processing computer, the ILLIAC IV, which did not operate until 1972 at NASA´s Ames Research Center. The first large-scale array computer, the ILLIAC IV achieved a computation speed of 200 million instructions per second, about 300 million operations per second, and 1 billion bits per second of I/O transfer via a unique combination of parallel architecture and the overlapping or "pipe-lining" structure of its 64 processing elements.
This photograph shows one of the ILLIAC´s 13 Burroughs disks, the debugging computer, the central unit, and the processing unit cabinet with a processing element.
HP-2115
Hewlett-Packard entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2115 for computation, offering a computational power formerly found only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them BASIC, ALGOL, and FORTRAN.
Networking
Acoustically coupled modem
John van Geen of the Stanford Research Institute vastly improved the acoustically coupled modem. His receiver reliably detected bits of data despite background noise heard over long-distance phone lines. Inventors developed the acoustically coupled modem to connect computers to the telephone network by means of the standard telephone handset of the day.
1967
Components
MOS semiconductor
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. built the first standard metal oxide semiconductor product for data processing applications, an eight-bit arithmetic unit and accumulator. In a MOS chip, engineers treat the semiconductor material to produce either of two varieties of transistors, called n-type and p-type.
Using integrated circuits, Medtronics constructed the first internal pacemaker.
Software & Languages
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert designed LOGO as a computer language for children. Initially a drawing program, LOGO controlled the actions of a mechanical "turtle," which traced its path with pen on paper. Electronic turtles made their designs on a video display monitor.
Papert emphasized creative exploration over memorization of facts: "People give lip service to learning to learn, but if you look at curriculum in schools, most of it is about dates, fractions, and science facts; very little of it is about learning. I like to think of learning as an expertise that every one of us can acquire."
Storage
The IBM Photo Digital Storage System, code-named Cypress
IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System is delivered. In 1967, IBM delivered the first of its photo-digital storage systems to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The system could read and write up to a trillion bits of information—the first such system in the world.. The 1360 used thin strips of film which were developed with bit patterns via a photographic developing system housed in the machine. The system used sophisticated error correction and a pneumatic robot to move the film strips to and from a storage unit. Only five were built.
1968
Companies
Ivan Sutherland and David Evans, 1969
Evans & Sutherland is formed. In 1968, David Evans and Ivan Sutherland, both professors of computer science, founded a company to develop a special graphics computer known as a frame buffer. This device was a special high-speed memory used for capturing video. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, the two founders trained a generation of computer graphics pioneers—either at E&S or at the University of Utah computer science department. Sutherland left the firm in 1975, and Evans retired in the early 1990s, but E & S continues today as a major supplier of military and commercial graphics systems.
Computers
Ed deCastro and Nova
Data General Corp., started by a group of engineers that had left Digital Equipment Corp., introduced the Nova, with 32 kilobytes of memory, for $8,000.
In the photograph, Ed deCastro, president and founder of Data General, sits with a Nova minicomputer. The simple architecture of the Nova instruction set inspired Steve Wozniak´s Apple I board eight years later.
Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer made its debut orbiting the Earth on Apollo 7. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface. Astronauts communicated with the computer by punching two-digit codes and the appropriate syntactic category into the display and keyboard unit.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Tentacle Arm
Marvin Minsky developed the Tentacle Arm, which moved like an octopus. It had twelve joints designed to reach around obstacles. A PDP-6 computer controlled the arm, powered by hydraulic fluids. Mounted on a wall, it could lift the weight of a person.
Software & Languages
Edsger Dijkstra´s "GO TO considered harmful" letter, published in Communications of the ACM, fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. The ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it established a policy of no longer printing articles taking such an assertive position against a coding practice.
1969
Companies
Xerox
Xerox Corp. bought Scientific Data Systems for nearly $1 billion — 90 times the latter´s earnings. The SDS series of minicomputers in the early 1960s logged more sales than did Digital Equipment Corp. Xerox changed the series to the XDS computers but eventually closed the division and ceased to manufacture the equipment.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Stanford Arm
Victor Scheinman´s Stanford Arm made a breakthrough as the first successful electrically powered, computer-controlled robot arm. By 1974, the Stanford Arm could assemble a Ford Model T water pump, guiding itself with optical and contact sensors. The Stanford Arm led directly to commercial production. Scheinman went on to design the PUMA series of industrial robots for Unimation, robots used for automobile assembly and other industrial tasks.
Software & Languages
The RS-232-C standard for communication permitted computers and peripheral devices to transmit information serially — that is, one bit at a time. The RS-232-C protocol spelled out a purpose for a serial plug´s 25 connector pins.
UNIX "license plate"
AT&T Bell Laboratories programmers Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed the UNIX operating system on a spare DEC minicomputer. UNIX combined many of the timesharing and file management features offered by Multics, from which it took its name. (Multics, a projects of the mid-1960s, represented the first effort at creating a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system.) The UNIX operating system quickly secured a wide following, particularly among engineers and scientists.
1970
Companies
Engineers at PARC circa 1972
Xerox opens Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). In 1970, Xerox Corporation hired Dr. George Pake to lead a new research center in Palo Alto, California. PARC attracted some of the United States’ top computer scientists, and produced many groundbreaking inventions that transformed computing—most notably the personal computer graphical user interface, Ethernet, the laser printer, and object-oriented programming. Xerox was unable to market the inventions from PARC but others did, including Steve Jobs (Apple), Bob Metcalfe (3Com), as well as Charles Geschke and John Warnock (Adobe)
Networking
Citizens and Southern National Bank in Valdosta, Ga., installed the country´s first automatic teller machine.
ARPANET topology
Computer-to-computer communication expanded when the Department of Defense established four nodes on the ARPANET: the University of California Santa Barbara and UCLA, SRI International, and the University of Utah. Viewed as a comprehensive resource-sharing network, ARPANET´s designers set out with several goals: direct use of distributed hardware services; direct retrieval from remote, one-of-a-kind databases; and the sharing of software subroutines and packages not available on the users´ primary computer due to incompatibility of hardware or languages.
People & Pop Culture
Vietnam War protesters attacked university computer centers. At the University of Wisconsin, the toll was one human and four machines.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
SRI´s Shakey
SRI International´s Shakey became the first mobile robot controlled by artificial intelligence. Equipped with sensing devices and driven by a problem-solving program called STRIPS, the robot found its way around the halls of SRI by applying information about its environment to a route. Shakey used a TV camera, laser range finder, and bump sensors to collect data, which it then transmitted to a DEC PDP-10 and PDP-15. The computer radioed back commands to Shakey — who then moved at a speed of 2 meters per hour.
1971
Components
Intel 4004
The first advertisement for a microprocessor, the Intel 4004, appeared in Electronic News. Developed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator maker, the 4004 had 2250 transistors and could perform up to 90,000 operations per second in four-bit chunks. Federico Faggin led the design and Ted Hoff led the architecture.
Companies
RCA Spectra 70 advertisment
RCA sells its computer division. RCA was founded in 1919 to make vacuum tubes for radio, then a new invention. RCA began designing and selling its own computers in the early 1950s, competing with IBM and several other companies. By the 1970s, RCA, as well as other computer makers, were struggling to compete against IBM. RCA made their machines IBM-compatible, but ultimately even this strategy proved unsuccessful. RCA announced it would no longer build computers in 1971, selling its computer business to Sperry-Rand.
Computers
Kenbak-1
The Kenbak-1, the first personal computer, advertised for $750 in Scientific American. Designed by John V. Blankenbaker using standard medium-scale and small-scale integrated circuits, the Kenbak-1 relied on switches for input and lights for output from its 256-byte memory. In 1973, after selling only 40 machines, Kenbak Corp. closed its doors.
Networking
Ray Tomlinson in 2001
The first e-mail is sent. Ray Tomlinson of the research firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman sent the first e-mail when he was supposed to be working on a different project. Tomlinson, who is credited with being the one to decide on the "@" sign for use in e-mail, sent his message over a military network called ARPANET. When asked to describe the contents of the first email, Tomlinson said it was “something like "QWERTYUIOP"”
Storage
IBM 23FD 8
An IBM team, originally led by David Noble, invented the 8-inch floppy diskette. It was initially designed for use in loading microcode into the controller for the "Merlin" (IBM 3330) disk pack file. It quickly won widespread acceptance as a program and data-storage medium. Unlike hard drives, a user could easily transfer a floppy in its protective jacket from one drive to another.
1972
Components
Intel 8008
Intel´s 8008 microprocessor made its debut. A vast improvement over its predecessor, the 4004, its eight-bit word afforded 256 unique arrangements of ones and zeros. For the first time, a microprocessor could handle both uppercase and lowercase letters, all 10 numerals, punctuation marks, and a host of other symbols.
Computers
HP-35
Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule" with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer. The HP-35 distinguished itself from its competitors by its ability to perform a broad variety of logarithmic and trigonometric functions, to store more intermediate solutions for later use, and to accept and display entries in a form similar to standard scientific not
1973
Companies
IMSAI 8080 System
IMSAI is founded. In 1973, Bill Millard left his regular job in management to found the consulting firm Information Management Services or IMS. The following year, while he was working on a client’s project, he developed a small computing system using the then-new Intel 8080 microprocessor. He realized this computer might attract other buyers and so placed an advertisement in the hobbyist magazine “Popular Electronics,” offering it in kit form. The IMSAI 8080, as it was known, sold briskly and eventually about 20,000 units were shipped. The company was eventually purchased by one of its dealers and is today a division of the Fischer-Freitas Company, which still offers reproductions of the original for sale to hobbyists.
Computers
TV Typewriter
The TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text.
Micral
The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn´t require high performance. Selling for $1,750, the Micral never penetrated the U.S. market. In 1979, Truong sold Micral to Bull.
Networking
Ethernet
Robert Metcalfe devised the Ethernet method of network connection at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He wrote: "On May 22, 1973, using my Selectric typewriter ... I wrote ... "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations — one of which was "ETHER!" — and with hand-drawn diagrams — one of which showed `boosters´ interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and ratio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."
Robert M. Metcalfe, "How Ethernet Was Invented", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 16, No. 4, Winter 1994, p. 84.
1974
Computers
Xerox Alto
Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto — the first work station with a built-in mouse for input. The Alto stored several files simultaneously in windows, offered menus and icons, and could link to a local area network. Although Xerox never sold the Alto commercially, it gave a number of them to universities. Engineers later incorporated its features into work stations and personal computers.
Scelbi 8H
Scelbi advertised its 8H computer, the first commercially advertised U.S. computer based on a microprocessor, Intel´s 8008. Scelbi aimed the 8H, available both in kit form and fully assembled, at scientific, electronic, and biological applications. It had 4 kilobytes of internal memory and a cassette tape, with both teletype and oscilloscope interfaces. In 1975, Scelbi introduced the 8B version with 16 kilobytes of memory for the business market. The company sold about 200 machines, losing $500 per unit.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Silver Arm
David Silver at MIT designed the Silver Arm, a robotic arm to do small-parts assembly using feedback from delicate touch and pressure sensors. The arm´s fine movements corresponded to those of human fingers.
1975
Companies
Xerox Sigma-5
Xerox closes its computer division. After acquiring computer maker Scientific Data Systems (SDS) in 1969, Xerox redesigned SDS’s well-known Sigma line of computers. Xerox struggled against competitors like IBM and in 1975 closed the division. Most of the rights to the machines were sold to Honeywell.
Computers
MITS Altair
The January edition of Popular Electronics featured the Altair 8800 computer kit, based on Intel´s 8080 microprocessor, on its cover. Within weeks of the computer´s debut, customers inundated the manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed BASIC as the software language for the Altair. Ed Roberts invented the 8800 — which sold for $297, or $395 with a case — and coined the term "personal computer." The machine came with 256 bytes of memory (expandable to 64K) and an open 100-line bus structure that evolved into the S-100 standard. In 1977, MITS sold out to Pertec, which continued producing Altairs through 1978.
Felsenstein´s VDM
The visual display module (VDM) prototype, designed in 1975 by Lee Felsenstein, marked the first implementation of a memory-mapped alphanumeric video display for personal computers. Introduced at the Altair Convention in Albuquerque in March 1976, the visual display module allowed use of personal computers for interactive games.
Tandem-16
Tandem computers tailored its Tandem-16, the first fault-tolerant computer, for online transaction processing. The banking industry rushed to adopt the machine, built to run during repair or expansion.
Networking
Telenet, the first commercial packet-switching network and civilian equivalent of ARPANET, was born. The brainchild of Larry Roberts, Telenet linked customers in seven cities. Telenet represented the first value-added network, or VAN — so named because of the extras it offered beyond the basic service of linking computers.
1976
Components
Zilog Z-80
Intel and Zilog introduced new microprocessors. Five times faster than its predecessor, the 8008, the Intel 8080 could address four times as many bytes for a total of 64 kilobytes. The Zilog Z-80 could run any program written for the 8080 and included twice as many built-in machine instructions.
Computers
Apple I
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, a single-board computer. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at $500 each from the Byte Shop, he and Steve Jobs got their start in business. In this photograph of the Apple I board, the upper two rows are a video terminal and the lower two rows are the computer. The 6502 microprocessor in the white package sits on the lower right. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer.
Cray I
The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them.
Project started: 1972
Project completed: 1976
Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per second
Size: 58 cubic feet
Weight: 5,300 lbs.
Technology: Integrated circuit
Clock rate: 83 million cycles per second
Word length: 64-bit words
Instruction set: 128 instructions
Networking
The Queen of England sends first her e-mail. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Hirose´s Soft Gripper
Shigeo Hirose´s Soft Gripper could conform to the shape of a grasped object, such as this wine glass filled with flowers. The design Hirose created at the Tokyo Institute of Technology grew from his studies of flexible structures in nature, such as elephant trunks and snake spinal cords.
Software & Languages
CP/MCP/M
Gary Kildall developed CP/M, an operating system for personal computers. Widely adopted, CP/M made it possible for one version of a program to run on a variety of computers built around eight-bit microprocessors.
1976
Components
Zilog Z-80
Intel and Zilog introduced new microprocessors. Five times faster than its predecessor, the 8008, the Intel 8080 could address four times as many bytes for a total of 64 kilobytes. The Zilog Z-80 could run any program written for the 8080 and included twice as many built-in machine instructions.
Computers
Apple I
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, a single-board computer. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at $500 each from the Byte Shop, he and Steve Jobs got their start in business. In this photograph of the Apple I board, the upper two rows are a video terminal and the lower two rows are the computer. The 6502 microprocessor in the white package sits on the lower right. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer.
Cray I
The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them.
Project started: 1972
Project completed: 1976
Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per second
Size: 58 cubic feet
Weight: 5,300 lbs.
Technology: Integrated circuit
Clock rate: 83 million cycles per second
Word length: 64-bit words
Instruction set: 128 instructions
Networking
The Queen of England sends first her e-mail. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Hirose´s Soft Gripper
Shigeo Hirose´s Soft Gripper could conform to the shape of a grasped object, such as this wine glass filled with flowers. The design Hirose created at the Tokyo Institute of Technology grew from his studies of flexible structures in nature, such as elephant trunks and snake spinal cords.
Software & Languages
CP/MCP/M
Gary Kildall developed CP/M, an operating system for personal computers. Widely adopted, CP/M made it possible for one version of a program to run on a variety of computers built around eight-bit microprocessors.
1977
Computers
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) — the first of several personal computers released in 1977 — came fully assembled and was straightforward to operate, with either 4 or 8 kilobytes of memory, two built-in cassette drives, and a membrane "chiclet" keyboard.
Apple II
The Apple II became an instant success when released in 1977 with its printed circuit motherboard, switching power supply, keyboard, case assembly, manual, game paddles, A/C powercord, and cassette tape with the computer game "Breakout." When hooked up to a color television set, the Apple II produced brilliant color graphics.
TRS-80
In the first month after its release, Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop computer — the TRS-80 — sold 10,000 units, well more than the company´s projected sales of 3,000 units for one year. Priced at $599.95, the machine included a Z80 based microprocessor, a video display, 4 kilobytes of memory, BASIC, cassette storage, and easy-to-understand manuals that assumed no prior knowledge on the part of the consumer.
Graphics & Games
Atari VCS Prototype
Atari launches the Video Computer System game console. Atari released the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) later renamed the Atari 2600. The VCS was the first widely successful video game system, selling more than twenty million units throughout the 1980s. The VCS used the 8-bit MOS 6507 microprocessor and was designed to be connected to a home television set. When the last of Atari’s 8-bit game consoles were made in 1990, more than 900 video game titles had been released.
Software & Languages
The U.S. government adopted IBM´s data encryption standard, the key to unlocking coded messages, to protect confidentiality within its agencies. Available to the general public as well, the standard required an eight-number key for scrambling and unscrambling data. The 70 quadrillion possible combinations made breaking the code by trial and error unlikely.
1978
Computers
VAX 11/780
The VAX 11/780 from Digital Equipment Corp. featured the ability to address up to 4.3 gigabytes of virtual memory, providing hundreds of times the capacity of most minicomputers.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Speak & Spell creators
Texas Instruments Inc. introduced Speak & Spell, a talking learning aid for ages 7 and up. Its debut marked the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. Speak & Spell utilized linear predictive coding to formulate a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample based on previous input. It transformed digital information processed through a filter into synthetic speech and could store more than 100 seconds of linguistic sounds.
Shown here are the four individuals who began the Speak & Spell program: From left to right, Gene Frantz, Richard Wiggins, Paul Breedlove, and George Brantingham.
Storage
Original Shugart SA400 5 1/4
The 5 1/4" flexible disk drive and diskette were introduced by Shugart Associates in 1976. This was the result of a request by Wang Laboratories to produce a disk drive small enough to use with a desktop computer, since 8" floppy drives were considered too large for that purpose. By 1978, more than 10 manufacturers were producing 5 1/4" floppy drives.
1979
Components
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 microprocessor exhibited a processing speed far greater than its contemporaries. This high performance processor found its place in powerful work stations intended for graphics-intensive programs common in engineering.
Introduction to VLSI Systems
California Institute of Technology professor Carver Mead and Xerox Corp. computer scientist Lynn Conway wrote a manual of chip design, "Introduction to VLSI Systems." Demystifying the planning of very large scale integrated (VLSI) systems, the text expanded the ranks of engineers capable of creating such chips. The authors had observed that computer architects seldom participated in the specification of the standard integrated circuits with which they worked. The authors intended "Introduction to VLSI Systems" to fill a gap in the literature and introduce all electrical engineering and computer science students to integrated system architecture.
Computers
Advertisment for Atari 400 and 800 computers
Atari introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built with the idea that the 400 would serve primarily as a game console while the 800 would be more of a home computer. Both sold well, though they had technical and marketing problems, and faced strong competition from the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers.
Networking
The Shockwave Rider
John Shoch and Jon Hupp at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center discover the computer "worm," a short program that searches a network for idle processors. Initially designed to provide more efficient use of computers and for testing, the worm had the unintended effect of invading networked computers, creating a security threat.
Shoch took the term "worm" from the book "The Shockwave Rider," by John Brunner, in which an omnipotent "tapeworm" program runs loose through a network of computers. Brunner wrote: "No, Mr. Sullivan, we can´t stop it! There´s never been a worm with that tough a head or that long a tail! It´s building itself, don´t you understand? Already it´s passed a billion bits and it´s still growing. It´s the exact inverse of a phage — whatever it takes in, it adds to itself instead of wiping... Yes, sir! I´m quite aware that a worm of that typ
Companies
Tandy Radio Shack is founded. Tandy Radio Shack (TRS) was formed by the 1963 merger of Tandy Leather Company and Radio Shack. TRS began by selling a variety of electronic products, mainly to hobbyists. The TRS-80 Model I computer, introduced in 1977, was a major step in introducing home computers to the public. Like the Commodore PET and the Apple II, which were introduced within months of the TRS-80, the computer came assembled and ready to run.
Graphics & Games
The DAC-1 System at GM Research Labs, 1965
DAC-1 computer aided design program is released. In 1959, the General Motors Research Laboratories appointed a special research team to investigate the use of computers in designing automobiles. In 1960, IBM joined the project, producing the first commercially-available Computer Aided Design program, known as DAC-1. Out of that project came the IBM 2250 display terminal as well as many advances in computer timesharing and the use of a single processor by two or more terminals.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Rancho Arm
Researchers designed the Rancho Arm at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California as a tool for the handicapped. The Rancho Arm´s six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm. Acquired by Stanford University in 1963, it holds a place among the first artificial robotic arms to be controlled by a computer.
Software & Languages
Sketchpad document
Ivan Sutherland published Sketchpad, an interactive, real time computer drawing system, as his MIT doctoral thesis. Using a light pen and Sketchpad, a designer could draw and manipulate geometric figures on the screen.
ASCII code
ASCII — American Standard Code for Information Interchange — permitted machines from different manufacturers to exchange data. ASCII consists of 128 unique strings of ones and zeros. Each sequence represents a letter of the English alphabet, an Arabic numeral, an assortment of punctuation marks and symbols, or a function such as a carriage return.
1964
Computers
IBM System/360
IBM announced the System/360, a family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together. The initial investment of $5 billion was quickly returned as orders for the system climbed to 1,000 per month within two years. At the time IBM released the System/360, the company was making a transition from discrete transistors to integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue moved from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems.
CDC 6600
CDC´s 6600 supercomputer, designed by Seymour Cray, performed up to 3 million instructions per second — a processing speed three times faster than that of its closest competitor, the IBM Stretch. The 6600 retained the distinction of being the fastest computer in the world until surpassed by its successor, the CDC 7600, in 1968. Part of the speed came from the computer´s design, which had 10 small computers, known as peripheral processors, funneling data to a large central processing unit.
Networking
Online transaction processing made its debut in IBM´s SABRE reservation system, set up for American Airlines. Using telephone lines, SABRE linked 2,000 terminals in 65 cities to a pair of IBM 7090 computers, delivering data on any flight in less than three seconds.
JOSS configuration
JOSS (Johnniac Open Shop System) conversational time-sharing service began on Rand´s Johnniac. Time-sharing arose, in part, because the length of batch turn-around times impeded the solution of problems. Time sharing aimed to bring the user back into "contact" with the machine for online debugging and program development.
Software & Languages
BASIC manual
Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny created BASIC, an easy-to-learn programming language, for their students at Dartmouth College.
1965
Companies
Commodore Business Machine founder Jack Tramiel
Commodore Business Machines (CBM) is founded. Its founder Jack Tramiel emigrated to the US after WWII where he began repairing typewriters. In 1965, he moved to Toronto and established Commodore International which also began making mechanical and electronic calculators. In 1977, Commodore released the Commodore PET computer; in 1981 the VIC-20; and, in 1982, the Commodore 64. CBM purchased competitor Amiga Corporation in 1984. Despite being the largest single supplier of computers in the world at one time, by 1984 internal disputes and market pressures led to financial problems. The company declared bankruptcy in 1994.
Computers
DEC PDP-8
Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. The PDP-8 sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
A Stanford team led by Ed Feigenbaum created DENDRAL, the first expert system, or program designed to execute the accumulated expertise of specialists. DENDRAL applied a battery of "if-then" rules in chemistry and physics to identify the molecular structure of organic compounds.
Software & Languages
Object-oriented languages got an early boost with Simula, written by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-John Dahl. Simula grouped data and instructions into blocks called objects, each representing one facet of a system intended for simulation.
1966
Computers
ILLIAC IV
The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracted with the University of Illinois to build a large parallel processing computer, the ILLIAC IV, which did not operate until 1972 at NASA´s Ames Research Center. The first large-scale array computer, the ILLIAC IV achieved a computation speed of 200 million instructions per second, about 300 million operations per second, and 1 billion bits per second of I/O transfer via a unique combination of parallel architecture and the overlapping or "pipe-lining" structure of its 64 processing elements.
This photograph shows one of the ILLIAC´s 13 Burroughs disks, the debugging computer, the central unit, and the processing unit cabinet with a processing element.
HP-2115
Hewlett-Packard entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2115 for computation, offering a computational power formerly found only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them BASIC, ALGOL, and FORTRAN.
Networking
Acoustically coupled modem
John van Geen of the Stanford Research Institute vastly improved the acoustically coupled modem. His receiver reliably detected bits of data despite background noise heard over long-distance phone lines. Inventors developed the acoustically coupled modem to connect computers to the telephone network by means of the standard telephone handset of the day.
1967
Components
MOS semiconductor
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. built the first standard metal oxide semiconductor product for data processing applications, an eight-bit arithmetic unit and accumulator. In a MOS chip, engineers treat the semiconductor material to produce either of two varieties of transistors, called n-type and p-type.
Using integrated circuits, Medtronics constructed the first internal pacemaker.
Software & Languages
Seymour Papert
Seymour Papert designed LOGO as a computer language for children. Initially a drawing program, LOGO controlled the actions of a mechanical "turtle," which traced its path with pen on paper. Electronic turtles made their designs on a video display monitor.
Papert emphasized creative exploration over memorization of facts: "People give lip service to learning to learn, but if you look at curriculum in schools, most of it is about dates, fractions, and science facts; very little of it is about learning. I like to think of learning as an expertise that every one of us can acquire."
Storage
The IBM Photo Digital Storage System, code-named Cypress
IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System is delivered. In 1967, IBM delivered the first of its photo-digital storage systems to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The system could read and write up to a trillion bits of information—the first such system in the world.. The 1360 used thin strips of film which were developed with bit patterns via a photographic developing system housed in the machine. The system used sophisticated error correction and a pneumatic robot to move the film strips to and from a storage unit. Only five were built.
1968
Companies
Ivan Sutherland and David Evans, 1969
Evans & Sutherland is formed. In 1968, David Evans and Ivan Sutherland, both professors of computer science, founded a company to develop a special graphics computer known as a frame buffer. This device was a special high-speed memory used for capturing video. Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, the two founders trained a generation of computer graphics pioneers—either at E&S or at the University of Utah computer science department. Sutherland left the firm in 1975, and Evans retired in the early 1990s, but E & S continues today as a major supplier of military and commercial graphics systems.
Computers
Ed deCastro and Nova
Data General Corp., started by a group of engineers that had left Digital Equipment Corp., introduced the Nova, with 32 kilobytes of memory, for $8,000.
In the photograph, Ed deCastro, president and founder of Data General, sits with a Nova minicomputer. The simple architecture of the Nova instruction set inspired Steve Wozniak´s Apple I board eight years later.
Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer made its debut orbiting the Earth on Apollo 7. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface. Astronauts communicated with the computer by punching two-digit codes and the appropriate syntactic category into the display and keyboard unit.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Tentacle Arm
Marvin Minsky developed the Tentacle Arm, which moved like an octopus. It had twelve joints designed to reach around obstacles. A PDP-6 computer controlled the arm, powered by hydraulic fluids. Mounted on a wall, it could lift the weight of a person.
Software & Languages
Edsger Dijkstra´s "GO TO considered harmful" letter, published in Communications of the ACM, fired the first salvo in the structured programming wars. The ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently harmful that it established a policy of no longer printing articles taking such an assertive position against a coding practice.
1969
Companies
Xerox
Xerox Corp. bought Scientific Data Systems for nearly $1 billion — 90 times the latter´s earnings. The SDS series of minicomputers in the early 1960s logged more sales than did Digital Equipment Corp. Xerox changed the series to the XDS computers but eventually closed the division and ceased to manufacture the equipment.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Stanford Arm
Victor Scheinman´s Stanford Arm made a breakthrough as the first successful electrically powered, computer-controlled robot arm. By 1974, the Stanford Arm could assemble a Ford Model T water pump, guiding itself with optical and contact sensors. The Stanford Arm led directly to commercial production. Scheinman went on to design the PUMA series of industrial robots for Unimation, robots used for automobile assembly and other industrial tasks.
Software & Languages
The RS-232-C standard for communication permitted computers and peripheral devices to transmit information serially — that is, one bit at a time. The RS-232-C protocol spelled out a purpose for a serial plug´s 25 connector pins.
UNIX "license plate"
AT&T Bell Laboratories programmers Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed the UNIX operating system on a spare DEC minicomputer. UNIX combined many of the timesharing and file management features offered by Multics, from which it took its name. (Multics, a projects of the mid-1960s, represented the first effort at creating a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system.) The UNIX operating system quickly secured a wide following, particularly among engineers and scientists.
1970
Companies
Engineers at PARC circa 1972
Xerox opens Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). In 1970, Xerox Corporation hired Dr. George Pake to lead a new research center in Palo Alto, California. PARC attracted some of the United States’ top computer scientists, and produced many groundbreaking inventions that transformed computing—most notably the personal computer graphical user interface, Ethernet, the laser printer, and object-oriented programming. Xerox was unable to market the inventions from PARC but others did, including Steve Jobs (Apple), Bob Metcalfe (3Com), as well as Charles Geschke and John Warnock (Adobe)
Networking
Citizens and Southern National Bank in Valdosta, Ga., installed the country´s first automatic teller machine.
ARPANET topology
Computer-to-computer communication expanded when the Department of Defense established four nodes on the ARPANET: the University of California Santa Barbara and UCLA, SRI International, and the University of Utah. Viewed as a comprehensive resource-sharing network, ARPANET´s designers set out with several goals: direct use of distributed hardware services; direct retrieval from remote, one-of-a-kind databases; and the sharing of software subroutines and packages not available on the users´ primary computer due to incompatibility of hardware or languages.
People & Pop Culture
Vietnam War protesters attacked university computer centers. At the University of Wisconsin, the toll was one human and four machines.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
SRI´s Shakey
SRI International´s Shakey became the first mobile robot controlled by artificial intelligence. Equipped with sensing devices and driven by a problem-solving program called STRIPS, the robot found its way around the halls of SRI by applying information about its environment to a route. Shakey used a TV camera, laser range finder, and bump sensors to collect data, which it then transmitted to a DEC PDP-10 and PDP-15. The computer radioed back commands to Shakey — who then moved at a speed of 2 meters per hour.
1971
Components
Intel 4004
The first advertisement for a microprocessor, the Intel 4004, appeared in Electronic News. Developed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator maker, the 4004 had 2250 transistors and could perform up to 90,000 operations per second in four-bit chunks. Federico Faggin led the design and Ted Hoff led the architecture.
Companies
RCA Spectra 70 advertisment
RCA sells its computer division. RCA was founded in 1919 to make vacuum tubes for radio, then a new invention. RCA began designing and selling its own computers in the early 1950s, competing with IBM and several other companies. By the 1970s, RCA, as well as other computer makers, were struggling to compete against IBM. RCA made their machines IBM-compatible, but ultimately even this strategy proved unsuccessful. RCA announced it would no longer build computers in 1971, selling its computer business to Sperry-Rand.
Computers
Kenbak-1
The Kenbak-1, the first personal computer, advertised for $750 in Scientific American. Designed by John V. Blankenbaker using standard medium-scale and small-scale integrated circuits, the Kenbak-1 relied on switches for input and lights for output from its 256-byte memory. In 1973, after selling only 40 machines, Kenbak Corp. closed its doors.
Networking
Ray Tomlinson in 2001
The first e-mail is sent. Ray Tomlinson of the research firm Bolt, Beranek and Newman sent the first e-mail when he was supposed to be working on a different project. Tomlinson, who is credited with being the one to decide on the "@" sign for use in e-mail, sent his message over a military network called ARPANET. When asked to describe the contents of the first email, Tomlinson said it was “something like "QWERTYUIOP"”
Storage
IBM 23FD 8
An IBM team, originally led by David Noble, invented the 8-inch floppy diskette. It was initially designed for use in loading microcode into the controller for the "Merlin" (IBM 3330) disk pack file. It quickly won widespread acceptance as a program and data-storage medium. Unlike hard drives, a user could easily transfer a floppy in its protective jacket from one drive to another.
1972
Components
Intel 8008
Intel´s 8008 microprocessor made its debut. A vast improvement over its predecessor, the 4004, its eight-bit word afforded 256 unique arrangements of ones and zeros. For the first time, a microprocessor could handle both uppercase and lowercase letters, all 10 numerals, punctuation marks, and a host of other symbols.
Computers
HP-35
Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule" with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer. The HP-35 distinguished itself from its competitors by its ability to perform a broad variety of logarithmic and trigonometric functions, to store more intermediate solutions for later use, and to accept and display entries in a form similar to standard scientific not
1973
Companies
IMSAI 8080 System
IMSAI is founded. In 1973, Bill Millard left his regular job in management to found the consulting firm Information Management Services or IMS. The following year, while he was working on a client’s project, he developed a small computing system using the then-new Intel 8080 microprocessor. He realized this computer might attract other buyers and so placed an advertisement in the hobbyist magazine “Popular Electronics,” offering it in kit form. The IMSAI 8080, as it was known, sold briskly and eventually about 20,000 units were shipped. The company was eventually purchased by one of its dealers and is today a division of the Fischer-Freitas Company, which still offers reproductions of the original for sale to hobbyists.
Computers
TV Typewriter
The TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text.
Micral
The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn´t require high performance. Selling for $1,750, the Micral never penetrated the U.S. market. In 1979, Truong sold Micral to Bull.
Networking
Ethernet
Robert Metcalfe devised the Ethernet method of network connection at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. He wrote: "On May 22, 1973, using my Selectric typewriter ... I wrote ... "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations — one of which was "ETHER!" — and with hand-drawn diagrams — one of which showed `boosters´ interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and ratio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."
Robert M. Metcalfe, "How Ethernet Was Invented", IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 16, No. 4, Winter 1994, p. 84.
1974
Computers
Xerox Alto
Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto — the first work station with a built-in mouse for input. The Alto stored several files simultaneously in windows, offered menus and icons, and could link to a local area network. Although Xerox never sold the Alto commercially, it gave a number of them to universities. Engineers later incorporated its features into work stations and personal computers.
Scelbi 8H
Scelbi advertised its 8H computer, the first commercially advertised U.S. computer based on a microprocessor, Intel´s 8008. Scelbi aimed the 8H, available both in kit form and fully assembled, at scientific, electronic, and biological applications. It had 4 kilobytes of internal memory and a cassette tape, with both teletype and oscilloscope interfaces. In 1975, Scelbi introduced the 8B version with 16 kilobytes of memory for the business market. The company sold about 200 machines, losing $500 per unit.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Silver Arm
David Silver at MIT designed the Silver Arm, a robotic arm to do small-parts assembly using feedback from delicate touch and pressure sensors. The arm´s fine movements corresponded to those of human fingers.
1975
Companies
Xerox Sigma-5
Xerox closes its computer division. After acquiring computer maker Scientific Data Systems (SDS) in 1969, Xerox redesigned SDS’s well-known Sigma line of computers. Xerox struggled against competitors like IBM and in 1975 closed the division. Most of the rights to the machines were sold to Honeywell.
Computers
MITS Altair
The January edition of Popular Electronics featured the Altair 8800 computer kit, based on Intel´s 8080 microprocessor, on its cover. Within weeks of the computer´s debut, customers inundated the manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed BASIC as the software language for the Altair. Ed Roberts invented the 8800 — which sold for $297, or $395 with a case — and coined the term "personal computer." The machine came with 256 bytes of memory (expandable to 64K) and an open 100-line bus structure that evolved into the S-100 standard. In 1977, MITS sold out to Pertec, which continued producing Altairs through 1978.
Felsenstein´s VDM
The visual display module (VDM) prototype, designed in 1975 by Lee Felsenstein, marked the first implementation of a memory-mapped alphanumeric video display for personal computers. Introduced at the Altair Convention in Albuquerque in March 1976, the visual display module allowed use of personal computers for interactive games.
Tandem-16
Tandem computers tailored its Tandem-16, the first fault-tolerant computer, for online transaction processing. The banking industry rushed to adopt the machine, built to run during repair or expansion.
Networking
Telenet, the first commercial packet-switching network and civilian equivalent of ARPANET, was born. The brainchild of Larry Roberts, Telenet linked customers in seven cities. Telenet represented the first value-added network, or VAN — so named because of the extras it offered beyond the basic service of linking computers.
1976
Components
Zilog Z-80
Intel and Zilog introduced new microprocessors. Five times faster than its predecessor, the 8008, the Intel 8080 could address four times as many bytes for a total of 64 kilobytes. The Zilog Z-80 could run any program written for the 8080 and included twice as many built-in machine instructions.
Computers
Apple I
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, a single-board computer. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at $500 each from the Byte Shop, he and Steve Jobs got their start in business. In this photograph of the Apple I board, the upper two rows are a video terminal and the lower two rows are the computer. The 6502 microprocessor in the white package sits on the lower right. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer.
Cray I
The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them.
Project started: 1972
Project completed: 1976
Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per second
Size: 58 cubic feet
Weight: 5,300 lbs.
Technology: Integrated circuit
Clock rate: 83 million cycles per second
Word length: 64-bit words
Instruction set: 128 instructions
Networking
The Queen of England sends first her e-mail. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Hirose´s Soft Gripper
Shigeo Hirose´s Soft Gripper could conform to the shape of a grasped object, such as this wine glass filled with flowers. The design Hirose created at the Tokyo Institute of Technology grew from his studies of flexible structures in nature, such as elephant trunks and snake spinal cords.
Software & Languages
CP/MCP/M
Gary Kildall developed CP/M, an operating system for personal computers. Widely adopted, CP/M made it possible for one version of a program to run on a variety of computers built around eight-bit microprocessors.
1976
Components
Zilog Z-80
Intel and Zilog introduced new microprocessors. Five times faster than its predecessor, the 8008, the Intel 8080 could address four times as many bytes for a total of 64 kilobytes. The Zilog Z-80 could run any program written for the 8080 and included twice as many built-in machine instructions.
Computers
Apple I
Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, a single-board computer. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at $500 each from the Byte Shop, he and Steve Jobs got their start in business. In this photograph of the Apple I board, the upper two rows are a video terminal and the lower two rows are the computer. The 6502 microprocessor in the white package sits on the lower right. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer.
Cray I
The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them.
Project started: 1972
Project completed: 1976
Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per second
Size: 58 cubic feet
Weight: 5,300 lbs.
Technology: Integrated circuit
Clock rate: 83 million cycles per second
Word length: 64-bit words
Instruction set: 128 instructions
Networking
The Queen of England sends first her e-mail. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Hirose´s Soft Gripper
Shigeo Hirose´s Soft Gripper could conform to the shape of a grasped object, such as this wine glass filled with flowers. The design Hirose created at the Tokyo Institute of Technology grew from his studies of flexible structures in nature, such as elephant trunks and snake spinal cords.
Software & Languages
CP/MCP/M
Gary Kildall developed CP/M, an operating system for personal computers. Widely adopted, CP/M made it possible for one version of a program to run on a variety of computers built around eight-bit microprocessors.
1977
Computers
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) — the first of several personal computers released in 1977 — came fully assembled and was straightforward to operate, with either 4 or 8 kilobytes of memory, two built-in cassette drives, and a membrane "chiclet" keyboard.
Apple II
The Apple II became an instant success when released in 1977 with its printed circuit motherboard, switching power supply, keyboard, case assembly, manual, game paddles, A/C powercord, and cassette tape with the computer game "Breakout." When hooked up to a color television set, the Apple II produced brilliant color graphics.
TRS-80
In the first month after its release, Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop computer — the TRS-80 — sold 10,000 units, well more than the company´s projected sales of 3,000 units for one year. Priced at $599.95, the machine included a Z80 based microprocessor, a video display, 4 kilobytes of memory, BASIC, cassette storage, and easy-to-understand manuals that assumed no prior knowledge on the part of the consumer.
Graphics & Games
Atari VCS Prototype
Atari launches the Video Computer System game console. Atari released the Atari Video Computer System (VCS) later renamed the Atari 2600. The VCS was the first widely successful video game system, selling more than twenty million units throughout the 1980s. The VCS used the 8-bit MOS 6507 microprocessor and was designed to be connected to a home television set. When the last of Atari’s 8-bit game consoles were made in 1990, more than 900 video game titles had been released.
Software & Languages
The U.S. government adopted IBM´s data encryption standard, the key to unlocking coded messages, to protect confidentiality within its agencies. Available to the general public as well, the standard required an eight-number key for scrambling and unscrambling data. The 70 quadrillion possible combinations made breaking the code by trial and error unlikely.
1978
Computers
VAX 11/780
The VAX 11/780 from Digital Equipment Corp. featured the ability to address up to 4.3 gigabytes of virtual memory, providing hundreds of times the capacity of most minicomputers.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Speak & Spell creators
Texas Instruments Inc. introduced Speak & Spell, a talking learning aid for ages 7 and up. Its debut marked the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. Speak & Spell utilized linear predictive coding to formulate a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample based on previous input. It transformed digital information processed through a filter into synthetic speech and could store more than 100 seconds of linguistic sounds.
Shown here are the four individuals who began the Speak & Spell program: From left to right, Gene Frantz, Richard Wiggins, Paul Breedlove, and George Brantingham.
Storage
Original Shugart SA400 5 1/4
The 5 1/4" flexible disk drive and diskette were introduced by Shugart Associates in 1976. This was the result of a request by Wang Laboratories to produce a disk drive small enough to use with a desktop computer, since 8" floppy drives were considered too large for that purpose. By 1978, more than 10 manufacturers were producing 5 1/4" floppy drives.
1979
Components
Motorola 68000
The Motorola 68000 microprocessor exhibited a processing speed far greater than its contemporaries. This high performance processor found its place in powerful work stations intended for graphics-intensive programs common in engineering.
Introduction to VLSI Systems
California Institute of Technology professor Carver Mead and Xerox Corp. computer scientist Lynn Conway wrote a manual of chip design, "Introduction to VLSI Systems." Demystifying the planning of very large scale integrated (VLSI) systems, the text expanded the ranks of engineers capable of creating such chips. The authors had observed that computer architects seldom participated in the specification of the standard integrated circuits with which they worked. The authors intended "Introduction to VLSI Systems" to fill a gap in the literature and introduce all electrical engineering and computer science students to integrated system architecture.
Computers
Advertisment for Atari 400 and 800 computers
Atari introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built with the idea that the 400 would serve primarily as a game console while the 800 would be more of a home computer. Both sold well, though they had technical and marketing problems, and faced strong competition from the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers.
Networking
The Shockwave Rider
John Shoch and Jon Hupp at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center discover the computer "worm," a short program that searches a network for idle processors. Initially designed to provide more efficient use of computers and for testing, the worm had the unintended effect of invading networked computers, creating a security threat.
Shoch took the term "worm" from the book "The Shockwave Rider," by John Brunner, in which an omnipotent "tapeworm" program runs loose through a network of computers. Brunner wrote: "No, Mr. Sullivan, we can´t stop it! There´s never been a worm with that tough a head or that long a tail! It´s building itself, don´t you understand? Already it´s passed a billion bits and it´s still growing. It´s the exact inverse of a phage — whatever it takes in, it adds to itself instead of wiping... Yes, sir! I´m quite aware that a worm of that typ
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