Computers Timeline
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Computing History: http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/
Computing History: http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/timeline.html
IBM History (1952-1957): http://www.thocp.net/timeline/1952.htm
1815 Dec 10,
Ada Lovelace (d. Nov 27, 1852), Lord Byron's daughter and the
inventor of computer language, was born. In 1998 the sci-fi film,
"Conceiving Ada," was directed by Lynn
Hershman-1815 Dec 10, Ada
Lovelace (d. Nov 27, 1852), Lord Byron's daughter and the inventor
of computer language, was born. In 1998 the sci-fi film, "Conceiving
Ada," was directed by Lynn Hershman-Leeson.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D7)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.E1)
1852 Nov 27, Ada Lovelace
(b.1815), Lord Byron's daughter and the inventor of computer
language, was bled to death by physicians at age 36. She had helped
Charles Babbage develop his "Analytical Engine," that performed
mathematical calculations through the use of punched cards.
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.D7)(SFC, 4/30/98, p.E1)
1871 Oct 18, Charles Babbage
(b.1792), English mathematician and inventor of a calculating
machine, died. In 2001 Doron Swade authored “The Difference Engine:
Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer.”
(www.thocp.net/biographies/babbage_charles.html)(WSJ, 3/7/09, p.W8)
1874 Feb 17, Thomas J. Watson
Sr. (d.1956), U.S. industrialist, was born in upstate New York. In
1914 he began running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a
predecessor to IBM. He converted the financially ailing
manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.
(WUD, 1994, p.1614)(HN, 2/17/99)(WSJ, 5/15/03,
p.A1)
1890 Mar 11, Vannevar Bush was
born. He developed the 1st electronic analogue computer.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1890 Jun 1, The U.S. census
stood at 62,622,250. The US government used the Jean Baptiste Pacard
card punch to tabulate the results of the census. Herman Hollerith
designed a system that used a machine with a sorter.
(DTnet, 6/1/97)(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A20)(WSJ,
10/15/01, p.R23)
1914 Thomas J. Watson Sr.
(1874-1956) began running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a
predecessor to IBM. He converted the financially ailing
manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.
(WUD, 1994, p.1614)(HN, 2/17/99)(WSJ, 5/15/03,
p.A1)
1924 Mar 5,
Computing-Tabulating-Recording Corp became IBM.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1937 Alan Turing published a
paper showing that a universal machine could be designed to perform
the functions and do the work of any device designed for
problem-solving. More important, his paper showed that a digital
computer could theoretically be designed to do the work of any
analog computer. He is considered the founder of artificial
intelligence.
(V.D.-H.K.p.349)
1937 The 1st special purpose
digital computer with regenerative memory was invented by John
Vincent Atanasoff at Iowa State College.
(SFC, 12/12/01, p.A27)
1939 John Atanasoff created the
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) in the basement of the physics
building at Iowa State College, which did not file patents. Physics
Prof. John Mauchly took many of his ideas and filed a patent on over
100 ideas revolving around the computer in 1947. The patent, granted
in 1964, claimed the Mauchly had invented the computer. This was
disproved in 1973, following a 2-year court battle. In 2010 Jane
Smiley authored “”The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography
of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer.”
(SSFC, 10/24/10, p.F3)
1939 Richard Bloch (21) taught
programming to Grace Hopper (43), who later invented COBOL. Bloch
(d.2000 at 78), as chief operations officer at Harvard's Computation
Laboratory, played a key role in the development of the Mark I
digital computer and invented the parity check for automatic error
detection.
(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A26)
1941 Dec, Cecil Green (d.2003
at 102), Eugene McDermott, J. Eric Jonsson and H. Bates Peacock
purchased Geophysical Service Inc. in Dallas, Texas. In 1951 the
name was changed to Texas Instruments.
(SFC, 4/17/03, p.A22)
1943 British scientists led by
Tommy Flowers developed Colossus, the world's first large electronic
valve programmable logic calculator, in order to break the German
communication's code. Colossus is considered by many to be the
world's first digital, programmable electronic computer. Its
existence was only made public in 1989!
(Wired, 10/96, p.78)(HNQ, 8/16/00)
1945 Sep 9, The 1st "bug" in a
computer program was discovered by Grace Hopper. A moth was removed
with tweezers from a relay and taped into the log.
(MC, 9/9/01)
1946 Feb 1, A press conference
for what is considered the first computer, the Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC), was held at the University of
Pennsylvania. The machine took up an entire room, weighed 30 tons
and used more than 18,000 vacuum tubes to perform functions such as
counting to 5,000 in one second. ENIAC, costing $450,000, was
designed by the U.S. Army during World War II to make artillery
calculations. The development of ENIAC paved the way for modern
computer technology--but even today's average calculator possesses
more computing power than ENIAC did. John Mauchley and John "Pres"
Eckert supervised the project. In 1999 Scott McCartney published
"ENIAC: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the World's First Computer."
(HN, 2/2/99)(WSJ, 6/30/99, p.A24)(SFEC, 8/29/99,
BR p.5)
1946 Feb 15, The ENIAC,
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, had its official
unveiling. It was created by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert. The
first test problem it solved was concerned with the trajectory of a
155-millimeter shell. The problem was programmed by Jean Bartik and
Betty Holberton who were part of an all-woman team that had
performed the calculations by hand. The US Army had chosen 6 women,
including Frances Holberton (d.2001 at 84), to program Eniac. Ms.
Holberton later created the C-10 instruction code for the Univac
using keyboard commands rather than dials and switches.
(WSJ, 11/15/96,
p.B1)(www.thocp.net/hardware/eniac.htm)(SFC, 12/12/01, p.A27)
1946 John Tukey, statistician
at Bell Labs, coined the term "bit "for binary digit..
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A21)
1946 A patent dispute with the
Univ. Pennsylvania drove John Presper Eckert (d.1995) and John
Mauchley (d.1980) to move out on their own. The Electronic Control
or Eckert-Mauchly computer was developed at 1215 Walnut St. In
Philadelphia. By 1952 it was being sold as the Univac with a clock
rate of 2.25 megahertz.
(SJM, 5/1/01, p.10C)
1947 Aug 18, The
Hewlett-Packard Company was incorporated and reported revenues of
$1.5 million. The 111 employees recorded sales of $679,000. In 2007
Michael S. Malone authored “Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard
Built the World’s Greatest Company.”
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFC, 1/13/01, p.A15)(SSFC,
4/22/07, p.M3)
1947 Dec 16, The point-contact
transistor was invented at Bell Labs.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)
1947 Dec 23, John Bardeen and
Walter Brattain of AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey,
unveiled what was soon to be called the transistor, short for the
electrical property known as trans-resistance, which paved the way
to a new era of miniaturized electronics. The device was improved by
William Schockley as a junction transistor. All 3 received a Nobel
Prize in 1956. The events are described in the 1997 book by Michael
Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson: "Crystal Fire: The Birth of the
Information Age."
(WSJ, 9/22/95, p.A-7)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(AP,
12/23/97)
1948 Jun 30, Bell Labs
introduced the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on
p.46 as a replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it
secret for six months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William
Shockley demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first
time. John Pierce (d.2002) proposed the name. [see Dec 23, 1947]
(SFE, 10/1/95, p.D-5)(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A1)(WSJ,
2/13/98, p.A13)(HNQ, 12/23/99)(HN, 6/30/01)(SFC, 4/9/02, p.A18)(MC,
6/30/02)
1948 Claude Shannon, the father
of coding theory, published a paper which showed the maximum
theoretical rate at which information can be transmitted without
error. By 2004 real codes began approaching Shannon’s theoretical
limit.
(Econ, 7/3/04, p.65)
1948 Richard Bolt and Leo
Beranek, professors at MIT, established a small acoustics consulting
firm and soon added a former student of Bolt’s, Robert Newman. In
1949 BBN won its first major consulting contract, designing the
acoustics for the UN General Assembly Hall.
(www.bbn.com/about/timeline/)
1950 Joseph Glickauf, engineer
for Arthur Anderson & Co., constructed the "Glickiac" computer,
which allowed the firm to help General Electric automate its
payroll.
(WSJ, 6/7/02, p.A6)
1950s The Electronic Recording
Method of Accounting (ERMA) was created and installed into the
banking system under the oversight of Alfred R. Zipf (d.2000 at 82),
executive VP for Bank of America.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A19)
1951 May 11, Jay Forrester
patented computer core memory.
(MC, 5/11/02)
1951 Jun 14, UNIVAC, the first
computer built for commercial purposes, was demonstrated in
Philadelphia by Dr. John W. Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert, Jr.
(HN, 6/14/98)(SFC, 6/15/01, p.B3)
1951 Jun 15, 1st commercial
electronic computer was dedicated in Philadelphia. [see Jun 14]
(MC, 6/15/02)
1952 Nov 4, Dwight D.
Eisenhower (Ike) was elected president the 34th president, defeating
Democrat Adlai Stevenson in presidential elections. The Republicans
took over for the first time in 20 years. A Univac computer in
Philadelphia predicted the results based on early returns.
(TMC, 1994, p.1952)(AP, 11/4/97)(HN,
11/4/98)(SJM, 5/1/01, p.1C)
1952 Stanford asked Prof. John
Herriot (d.2003 at 87) to lead a new Computation Center following
the acquisition of its 1st computer, an IBM Card Programmed
Calculator.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.A1)
1952 IBM first moved to the Bay
Area to take advantage of the engineers graduating from UC and
Stanford. It opened the Almaden Research Center.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.E1)
1953 Remington-Rand developed
the 1st high-speed printer for use on the Univac mainframe computer.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1954 Sep 20, The 1st FORTRAN
computer program was executed.
(MC, 9/20/01)
1954 The Semiautomatic Ground
Environment (SAGE) program was established by the US Air Force. It
was an air defense network of the time using the largest computer
ever built. SAGE machines contained 55,000 vacuum tubes, weighed 275
tons and occupied half an acre of floorspace.
(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.R23)(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey
p.33)
1954 IBM rolled out its models
704 and 705 computers.
(http://www.thocp.net/timeline/1952.htm)
1954 The Rand corp. built the
Johnniac computer. Bill Gunning (1916-2006), computing pioneer,
helped build the device, one of 17 designed around the computing
architecture suggested by John von Neumann. Gunning went on to help
develop Ethernet (1972) at Xerox’s PARC.
(SFC, 11/8/06, p.B13)
1955 Feb 24, Steven Jobs,
co-founder (Apple Computer), was born.
(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A10)
1955 Prof. John Herriot (d.2003
at 87) began teaching Stanford's 1st programming course, Math 139:
Theory and Operation of Computing Machines.
(SFC, 4/14/03, p.A1)
1955 William Shockley founded
Shockley Semiconductor in Palo Alto.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1956 Sep 13, IBM introduced the
Model 305 computer capable of storing 20 megabytes of data. Reynold
B. Johnson (d.1998 at 92), IBM lab leader, developed a way to store
computer data on a metal disk instead of on tape or drum. The first
commercial disk drive, called RAMAC (random access method of
accounting and control), was developed by IBM and sold for $50,000.
It used 50 disk platters, each 2-feet in diameter. Together they
held 5 megabytes of data. His Random Access Method of Accounting
Control began the disk drive industry.
(http://tinyurl.com/k3rzf)(SFC, 9/21/98,
p.A21)(WSJ, 8/22/06, p.B3)
1956 Walter Brattain, John
Bardeen and William Shockley were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics
for the invention of the transistor. The trio invented the
transistor in 1948 at the Bell Laboratories. William Schockley,
co-developer of the transistor, founded Schockley Semiconductor
Laboratory in Palo Alto. Two of his hires, Robert Noyce and Gordon
Moore, later went on to start Intel Corp. Tim Jackson in 1998
published "Inside Intel."
(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.4)(WSJ, 2/13/98, p.A13)(HNQ,
12/23/99)
1956 The Fortran computer
language was developed.
(TL, 1988, p.115)
1956 The computer mouse was
invented at SRI Int’l. by Doug Engelbart and Bill English. It was
patented in 1963.
(Hem., 1/96, p.11)
1956 Thomas J. Watson Sr.
(b.1874), founder of IBM, died. In 2003 Kevin Maney authored "The
Maverick and His Machine," a biography of Watson.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(WSJ, 5/15/03, p.D8)
1957 Sep 19, Eight engineers,
who had recently left Shockley Semiconductor, signed papers to form
Fairchild Semiconductor in Santa Clara County. Jean A. Hoerni
(1925-1997) was one of the "Fairchild Eight." He was credited with
building the bridge from the transistor to the integrated circuit.
Eugene Kleiner (d.2003), another co-founder, helped found the
Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers venture capital firm in 1972. The
other engineers included Julius Blank (1925-2011), Jay Last, Victor
Grinich (d.2000 at 75), Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and Sheldon
Roberts. NYC bankers Arthur Rock and Bud Coyle helped the engineers
start Fairchild Semiconductor.
(SFC, 11/11/00, p.A26)(SFC, 11/26/03, p.D1)(SSFC,
9/30/07, p.F1)(SFC, 9/24/11, p.C3)
1957 Ken Olson, a former MIT
engineer, received $70,000 from American Research & Development
(ARD) to develop Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) in return for a 70%
stake.
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A17)
1957 The Hewlett-Packard Corp.
went public and began operating its new site at Stanford Research
Park.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1958 Jul 24, Jack Kilby
(1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating
the 1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12 he
made a working prototype.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 6/22/05, p.A5)(Econ,
7/25/05, p.75)
1958 An anti-trust court case
forced AT&T to license its non-telephone related technology to
anyone who asked.
(Econ, 6/12/04, p.38)
1958 John Tukey (d.2000 at 85),
statistician, became the 1st person to define the programs on which
electronic calculators ran as "software."
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A21)
1959 Feb 1, Texas Instruments
requested a patent for the IC (Integrated Circuit).
(MC, 2/1/02)
1959 Robert Noyce (1927-1990)
of Fairchild Semiconductor constructed an integrated circuit. Both
Texas Instruments and Fairchild claimed independent discovery of the
IC. Noyce went on to found Intel Corp. Jack Kilby of Texas
Instruments had made a working prototype in 1958.
(WSJ, 9/22/98, p.B3)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)
1960 IBM Pres. Thomas J. Watson
committed $5 billion to develop the System/360 new computer line. It
became the most profitable series of machines ever made.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.R23)
1960 The PDP-1 was the 1st
mini-computer built by the Digital Computer Corp. The 1st video
game, Space War! Was written for it.
(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.R23)
1960 Bob Bemer, programmer at
IBM, created the software "escape sequence" that allowed computers
to break from one alphabet to another. He later led efforts to
establish the universal character set called ASCII, named the COBOL
programming language, and helped develop the standard for the 8 bit
byte.
(WSJ, 6/20/97, p.B1)
1960 Hans Freudenthal, Dutch
mathematician, designed the Lincos artificial language. It was
designed to communicate with aliens.
(Wired, 8/96, p.88)
1960 James Cooke Brown designed
Loglan, an artificial language to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
that language influences the thoughts of the speaker. The Lojban
language later grew out of Loglan for the purpose of studying
artificial intelligence. It used the same grammar but a completely
different vocabulary.
(Wired, 8/96, p.88)
1961 Apr 25, Robert Noyce
patented the integrated circuit.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1962 Aug, The first recorded
description of the social interactions that could be enabled through
networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT
discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally
interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly
access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was
very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head
of the computer research program at DARPA, 4 starting in October
1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA, Ivan
Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of
the importance of this networking concept.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, Z1
p.3)(www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#Origins)
1962 Charles Molnar (1935-1996)
and Wesley A. Clark led a team that developed a machine widely
considered as the first personal computer. They made the Laboratory
Instrument Computer (LINC) intended for doctors and medical
researchers. It was self-contained with a simple operating system.
It has a small display and used magnetic tape for storing programs.
(SFC, 12/16/96, p.A24)
1962 Steve Russell at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology created "Spacewar!", one of
the earliest video games for a digital computer.
(AFP, 10/20/06)
1962 Ross Perot founded
Electronic Data Systems (EDS). The company pioneered the business of
outsourced data management. In 1984 Perot sold the firm to General
Motors. GM spun it off in 1996. In 2008 Hewlett-Packard acquired EDS
for $13.9 billion.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.78)
1964 Apr 7, IBM introduced its
innovative System/360, the company's first line of compatible
mainframe computers that gave customers the option of upgrading from
lower-cost models to more powerful, expensive ones.
(AP, 4/7/04)
1964 May 1, The 1st BASIC
program ran on a computer at Dartmouth.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1965 Feb 15, Raymond Kurzweil,
a diffident but self-possessed high school student, appeared as a
guest on a game show called I've Got a Secret. He was introduced by
the host, Steve Allen, and then played a short musical composition
on a piano that was composed by a computer that he had built. By
2011 Kurzweil believed that we're approaching a moment when
computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more
intelligent than humans. He believed that this moment was not only
inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of
human civilization as we know it would take place about 2045.
(AP, 2/11/11)
1965 Apr 19, An article in
Electronics magazine by Gordon Moore, later Intel Chairman, noted
that chips seem to double in power every 18 months. Thus was born
Moore's Law. Moore later asserted that his claim was that the number
of components that can be packed on a computer chip doubles every 2
years. In 2005 Intel offered $10,000 for a pristine copy of the
magazine.
(SFEC, 12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC,
4/12/05, p.A1)(SFC, 4/18/05, p.E1)
1965 Mar, In this issue of
American Scientist Henry David Block showed how easy it was to build
a computer that learns using just dixie cups and cardboard. Block
called his computer G-1 (G is for Golem, the robot slave of Jewish
legend). He used the game of Nim to illustrate his subject.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.204)
1966 Charles Rosen (d.2002)
helped create and directed the Artificial Intelligence Center at
Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
(SFC, 12/20/02, p.A33)
1966 Texas Instruments
introduced its 1st hand-held calculator based on the integrated
circuit developed by Jack Kilby in 1958.
(Econ, 7/25/05, p.75)
1966 Hewlett-Packard introduced
its first computer, the HP 2116A. The 9,000 person company had sales
of around $200 million.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1966 In South Korea the Korean
Productivity Center purchased the country’s first computer.
(LSA, Spring, 2009, p.17)
1967 Jan 12, HAL, the
Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer, from the 1968 Arthur
C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick movie/book, became operational at the
HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois. The book "HAL's Legacy: 2001's
Computer as Dream and Reality" was published in 1997 by MIT Press.
The birthday in the movie was 1/12/92.
(SFEC, 1/12/97, p.C14)(SFC, 1/25/97,
p.E1)(SFEC, 3/16/97, Par p.31)(WSJ, 10/3/97, p.A8)
1967 IBM opened a plant in
Austin, Texas, to make Selectric typewriters. The plant moved on to
make mainframe circuit boards, terminals and eventually personal
computers.
(Econ, 9/23/06, p.74)
1967 Syukuro Manabe and Richard
Wetherald of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab. in Princeton, New
Jersey, performed one of the first serious computer analysis of the
climate using computers. Later GCMs (global circulation models)
reached wide use.
(NOHY, 3/90, p.59)
1967 Simon Sze and Dawon Kahng,
researchers at Bell Labs in New Jersey, devised a new semiconductor
memory device in which information could be stored and updated, and
which was non-volatile. It retained its contents even after it was
turned off.
(Econ, 3/11/06, Survey p.26)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded.
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to
form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson
published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s
Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove joined Intel in this year and
became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name
Intel from Intelco fro $15,000.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC,
10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)
1968 Jul 18, Intel
incorporated. [see Jul 15]
(MC, 7/18/02)
1968 Dec 9, Doug Engelbart and
researchers at Stanford Research Institute first demonstrated in SF
the computer mouse along with a graphical user interface (gui),
display editing, integrated text and graphics, hyper documents and
2-way video-conferencing with shared work spaces. In 2001 Thierry
Bardini authored "Bootstrapping: Douglas Engelbart, Coevolution, and
the Origins of Personal Computing."
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)(SSFC, 1/21/01, BR p.6)(SFC,
12/8/08, p.A1)
1968 Dec, The Cambridge company
Bolt Beranek and Newman won a Dept. of Defense ARPA (Advanced
Research Projects Agency) contract to develop packet switches called
Interface Message Processors (IMP). The project was led by Frank
Heart and Robert Kahn. The first internode was to installed at the
Univ. of California at Los Angeles.
(SFEC, 3/16/97, z1 p.3)(SFC,10/24/97, p.E5)
1968 Jul 15, Intel was founded.
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore had left Fairchild Semiconductor to
form NM Electronics in Mountain View, Ca. In 1997 Tim Jackson
published "Inside Intel: Andrew Grove and the Rise of the World’s
Most Powerful Chip Company." Grove joined Intel in this year and
became its president in 1979. They bought the rights to the name
Intel from Intelco fro $15,000.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR p.3)(SFEC,12/21/97, p.A2)(SFC,
10/11/00, p.A6)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)
1968 Jul 18, Intel was
incorporated as N M Electronics (the letters standing for Noyce and
Moore), but quickly changed its name to Intel, formed from the first
syllables of the words integrated and electronics.
(http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_2004/ai_n19123399)
1968 Barbara Liskov received a
doctorate from Stanford Univ. in computer science, the first such
degree ever awarded to a woman in the US. In 2009 she won the
$250,000 Turing computing award from the Association for Computing
Machinery for her work in organizing complex programs and efforts to
make software more resistant to errors and hacking.
(SFC, 3/13/09, p.C3)
1969 Sep 2, The first Internet
message was a packet switch delivered to UCLA from BBN Corp. (Bolt
Beranek and Newman). The 1st 2 machines of ARPANET were connected at
Prof. Len Kleinrock's lab at UCLA. The US Dept. of Defense’s
Advanced Research and Projects Agency (ARPANET) launched a
self-healing computer network with TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol / Internet Protocol). By the early 1980’s the military
component became a separate network and the true birth of today’s
Internet is marked. By 2007 some university researchers with the
federal government's blessing want to scrap the Internet and start
over.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_hi_te/rebuilding_the_internet_8)(SFEC,
3/16/97, z1 p.3)(CompuServe Mag., 6/95, p.18)(SFC, 8/30/99,
p.C10)(SFC, 9/3/99, p.C1)
1969 Ken Thompson (b.1943),
computer scientist at Bell Labs, wrote the first version of the UNIX
operating system on a PDP-7, a $72,000 closet sized DEC computer
that arranged memory in 8,192 18-bit words. UNIX programming
language was created by Bell labs in 1970. Dennis Ritchie
(1941-2011) and others helped develop Unix. Ritchie later invented
the C programming language (1969-1973. Dr. Thompson wrote C’s
predecessor, known as B.
(www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/thompsonbio.html)(SFEC,
1/12/97, p.B6)(Econ, 6/12/04, p.37)(SFC, 10/14/11, p.D4)
1969 Intel's 1st product
was a random access memory chip. Marcian Hoff Jr., Stanley Mazor and
Federico Faggin of Intel developed the 4004 chip for a Japanese
customer, Busicom, a calculator manufacturer. Intel acquired the
rights to the chip for $60,000. The 3 men were later inducted into
the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio, in Sept. 1996.
The 4004 packed 2300 transistors onto a single silicon chip.
(SJSVB, 7/8/96, p.12)(TAR, 1996, p.19)(WSJ,
9/22/98, p.B3)(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)
1969 Instinet was founded and
later became owned by Reuters PLC. It became the biggest of the
electronic trading systems for institutional traders.
(Wired, 2/98, p.96)
1969 Honeywell marketed its
kitchen computer for $10,600 in a Niemann-Marcus catalog. Units were
sold to universities as the Honeywell 316.
(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.R23)
1969 Manugistics was founded as
a mainframe time-sharing company. In the 1980s it emerged as leader
in software for managing factories and inventory.
(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.B6)
1969 Max Palevsky (d.2010 at
85) sold Scientific Data Systems, founded in 1961, to Xerox for $1
billion. He used the money to fund then-startup chip maker Intel
becoming a director in the company.
(SFC, 5/8/10,
p.C4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Data_Systems)
1970 Jun 30, IBM announced the
System 370 computer.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_370)
1970 Aug, The first
all-computer championship was held in New York and won by CHESS 3.0
(CDC 6400), a program written by Slate, Atkin and Gorlen at
Northwestern University. Six programs had entered the first
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) North American Computer
Championships. The event was organized by Monty Newborn. The other
programs were DALY CP, J Brit, COKO III, SCHACH, and the Marsland
CP.
(http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lab/7378/comphis.htm)
1970 Oct 19, Amdahl
Corp., a manufacturer of IBM mainframe compatible products, was
formed at Sunnyvale, California by Dr. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM
employee. In 1997 it became a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu.
(www.wordiq.com/definition/Amdahl)
1970 The Palo Alto Research
Center (PARC) of Xerox opened on the outskirts of Palo Alto. George
Pake (1924-2004) ran the center until 1978. It was founded by Dr.
Jacob Goldman.
(www.mit-forum.org.il/2000events/tenyears_eng.htm)(SFC, 10/25/00,
p.D1)(SFC, 3/11/04, p.C5)
1970 Intel Corp. brought out
the 1103 DRAM, the world's first commercially produced memory chip
and launched the personal-computer revolution.
(SFEC,10/26/97, BR
p.3)(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa100898.htm)
1970 The first electronic
editing terminals were used by newspapers.
(SFC, 1/29/00, p.E3)
1970-1980 CAT Scan (Computer Assisted Tomography)
technology was developed.
(MT, 10/94, D. Swanbrow, p.9)
1970s The Dynabook was a CD-ROM
based electronic book. Alan Kay suggested elements of the dynabook
in his 1969 doctoral dissertation at Utah Univ.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1971 Jan, Intel Corp. created
the first microprocessor. The 4004, the world's first
microprocessor, is signed with the initials F.F., for Federico
Faggin, its designer. The 4004 was released in 16-pin CERDIP
packaging on November 15, 1971.
(www.intel4004.com/)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004)
1971 Nov 15, Intel first
advertised its 4004 microprocessor in Electronic News.
(www.intel.com/museum/archives/4004.htm)(SFC,
10/18/96, C9)
1971 Jun, T. Vincent Learson
(1912-1996) became CEO of IBM. He had helped develop the IBM
System/360, one of the first commercially available business
computers.
(SFC, 11/5/96, p.A22)
1971 Alan Kay led a team
working on smalltalk, a pioneering object-oriented language at PARC.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1971 The 1st laser printer was
made at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, Ca.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.F4)
1971 Ray Tomlinson, computer
engineer, put the @ sign into the first e-mail message sent from one
machine to another at BBN, a computer consulting firm,
tomlinson@bbn-tenexa.
(SFC, 10/23/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 11/16/99, p.A1)
1972 Feb 1, Hewlett-Packard
introduced the 1st scientific hand-held calculator, the HP-35, for
$395.
(www.hp-collection.org/calculators/35a.html)(SFC,
8/31/09, p.D1)
1972 Jul, Robert Metcalf at
Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) combined packet switching
from the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the foundations
for computer networks. This system was called Ethernet and marked
the first Internet message. The IEEE committee 802.3 later defined
the ethernet standard.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(SFEC, 3/28/99, Z1
p.8)(Econ, 6/12/04, p.26)
1972 The term hypervisor
originated in IBM's CP-370 reimplementation of CP-67 for the
System/370, released this year as VM/370. The term hypervisor call
referred to the paravirtualization interface, by which a "guest"
operating system could access services directly from the
(higher-level) control program – analogous to making a "supervisor
call" to the (same level) operating system.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor)
1972 Atari was founded by Nolan
Bushnell, 2 years after he built the first videogame, Computer
Space. He conceived Pong and it was built by Al Alcorn.
(Wired, 10/96, p.168)
1972 Vinton Cerf,
hearing-impaired since birth, developed e-mail-like text messaging
protocols for the Arpanet.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1972 Gary Starkweather at PARC
completed a prototype of the 1st laser printer.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1972 Seymour Cray left Control
Data Corp. and co-founded Cray Research Inc. There he built the
Cray-1 and Cray-2 supercomputers. They were used to help the defense
system create sophisticated weapons systems and the oil industry to
construct geologic models for predicting mineral deposits.
(SFC, 9/24/96, p.A6)
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the first scientific handheld calculator, the HP-35, which made the
slide-rule obsolete.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1972 Intel Corp. brought out
the 8008 microprocessor, the first to use 8-bit addressing. it had
3,500 transistors.
(TAR, 1996, p.21)
1972 SAP, a German business
software company based in Walldorf, Baden-Wurttemberg, was founded
by Hasso Plattner and 4 other dissidents from IBM.
(Econ, 5/20/06, p.73)(Econ, 10/28/06, p.78)
1972-1994 A computer error miscalculated payments
to 695,000 Social Security recipients to a total of $850 million in
retirement benefits over this period.
(SFC, 10/4/96, p.A3)
1973 May 22, Robert Metcalf
(b.1946), at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), circulated a
memo about his Ethernet ideas to PARC colleagues. He later fixed
this day as the birthdate of Ethernet. Metcalf had combined packet
switching from the Arpanet and single wire broadcasting to lay the
foundations for computer networks. Bob Metcalf described ethernet
for the 1st time in a patent memo.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.23)(SFC, 10/25/00, p.A16)
1973 Nick Sheridan, a
researcher at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) created the
first electronic letter in history: an X, for Xerox.
(WSJ, 1/4/00, p.B1)
1973 Alto, the 1st complete
computer with a graphical interphase, mouse and ethernet networking,
went live at PARC.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1974 Ted Nelson authored his
manifesto “Computer Lib / Dream Machines,” in which he announced
that computing should be available to all without complication or
human servility being required.
(SSFC, 4/23/05, p.B4)
1974 Josef Raviv (d.1999 at 65)
co-authored the paper: "Optimal Decoding of Linear Codes for
Minimizing Symbol Error Rate." This was the basis for the algorithm
known as backward/forward algorithm, which helped computers
understand a human's natural language.
(SFC, 10/30/99, p.C2)
1974 Intel Corp. introduced the
8080 microprocessor. It became the heart of the first microcomputer,
the 1975 MITS Altair.
(TAR, 1996, p.21)(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R10)
1974 Motorola helped launch the
smartcard market by building the first smartcard chip with Groupe
Bull of France.
(FT, 3/4/98, p.21)
1974 Tandem Computers was
founded.
(SFEM,11/2/97, p.15)
1974 Ronald Aurel Lesea
(1940-2004), violinist and inventor, developed the 1st hand-held
translator. It turned 9 foreign languages into English. His
inventions also included the 1st call-forwarding device for a
telephone.
(SFC, 12/6/04, p.B3)
1974 Charles Simonyi at PARC
completed Bravo, the 1st WYSIWYG word processor for Alto.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1975 Mar 5, The Homebrew
Computer Club, founded by peace activist Fred Moore, held its first
meeting in Menlo Park, Ca. It was an outgrowth of the store-front
based People’s Computer Co. The meeting inspired Steve Wozniak (24)
to design and build the first Apple computer.
(SSFC, 4/23/05, p.B1)(Reuters, 9/27/06)
1975 Sep, Byte Magazine began
publishing with the birth of the PC. It was regarded as the most
technically minded of the new computer magazines. Publication was
suspended in 1998.
(WSJ, 5/28/98,
p.B4)(www.vintage-computer.com/byte.shtml)
1975 Gary Kildall, working as a
consultant to Intel, was asked to design and develop a language
called PL/M for the 8080 chip. He wrote a primitive operating system
for it which he called CP/M.
(http://museum.sysun.com/museum/cpmhist.html)
1975 Paul Allen and Bill Gates
began working on the first computer language for personal computers.
Allen became a minority owner with a 35% stake.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 1/22/04, p.A1)
1975 Kurzweil Computer Products
created the Kurzweil Reading machine and the 1st multifont optical
character recognition (OCR) technology.
(SFC, 7/26/00, p.D3)
1975 Dr. Henry Edward Roberts
(1941-2010), American engineer and medical doctor, developed and
introduced the MITS Altair 8800. His Micro Instrumentation &
Telemetry Systems of Albuquerque, N.M., sold the build-it-yourself
kit by mail-order. Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed the first
software program for it.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_%28computers%29)(WSJ,
11/16/98, p.R10)(SFC, 4/2/10, p.C7)
1975 PARC engineers
demonstrated an improved user interface using icons and the 1st use
of pop-up menus.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1976 Apr 1, Stephen Wozniak and
Steven Jobs founded Apple Computer. They incorporated Jan 3, 1977.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer)
1976 Joseph Weizenbaum wrote
"Computer Power and Human Reason." He described here his program
called ELIZA that demonstrated a conversation between a patient and
a computer posing as a psychiatrist.
(I&I, Penzias, p.144)
1976 Jim Goodnight co-founded
software-maker SAS on the campus of the Univ. of North Carolina. By
2007 the company was a leader in business intelligence software and
the world’s largest privately owned software maker.
(Econ, 12/1/07, p.84)
1976 Intel Corp. began
construction of a plant in Hillsboro, Oregon.
(SFC, 3/12/02, p.B10)
1976 The 6502 microprocessor by
MOS Technologies was introduced and later used in the Apple II
personal computer.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1976 Gary Kildall separated out
the parts of CP/M version 1 that addressed the specific format of
the diskettes, and placed them in a separate module he called the
BIOS, for Basic Input/Output System. That way, the system could
easily be adapted to new hardware without having to rewrite or even
revise the complex heart of the software.
(http://museum.sysun.com/museum/cpmhist.html)
1976 The 1st CRAY-1
supercomputer was installed at Los Alamos Laboratories in New Mexico
for a 6-month trial.
(www.cisl.ucar.edu/computers/gallery/cray/cray1.jsp)(WSJ, 3/2/00,
p.B8)
1977 Jan 3, Apple Computers
incorporated under Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak. They produced the
first pre-assembled, mass-produced PC.
(I&I, Penzias, p.182)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R42)(MC, 1/3/02)
1977 Apr 14, Computer
enthusiasts gathered for the 1st West Coast Computer Faire at the SF
Civic Auditorium. An estimated 20-30 thousand American homes had
computers.
(SFC, 4/12/02, p.G6)
1977 May, Larry Ellison and
Robert Miner founded Oracle Corp. in Belmont, Ca., after they
persuaded the CIA to let them pick up a lapsed contract for a
special database program.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.A13)
1977 Jan 3, Apple Computers
incorporated under Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak. In March Apple
produced the Apple II, the first pre-assembled, mass-produced PC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer)(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R42)
1977 Jun 5, The first Apple II
personal computers went on sale.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II)
1977 Jun 10, Apple Computer
shipped its 1st Apple II.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1977 Jul 11, The CRAY 1-A was
delivered to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
This was Cray Research's first official customer, paying US$8.86
million ($7.9 million plus $1 million for the disks).
(www.cisl.ucar.edu/computers/gallery/cray/cray1.jsp)
1977 Aug 3, Radio Shack issued
a press release introducing the TRS-80 computer. 25 existed and
within weeks thousands were ordered.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80)
1977 CP/M version 2.2 added
expanded disk formatting tables which could allow access to up to 8
(eight) megabytes per drive in up to 8 (eight) total drives. It was
version 2.2 that became the megahit that dominated microcomputing
almost from its outset.
(http://museum.sysun.com/museum/cpmhist.html)
1977 Microsoft was formed as a
partnership.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1977 John Young succeeded
William Hewlett as President and became CEO in 1978.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1977 Innovations made on the
NASDAQ stock exchange were incorporated into Canada's CATS, Computer
Assisted Trading System. After Canada electronic trading moved to
the Paris Bourse and other exchanges such as Brussels and Madrid.
(Hem, 8/95, p.78)
1977 Xerox PARC in Palo Alto
held a "Futures Day" and demonstrated their Alto personal computer
and mouse.
(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A24)
1977 Xerox launched its laser
printer.
(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A24)
1978 Feb 14, G. W. Boone and
M.J. Cochran of Texas Instruments received a patent for their
Variable Function Programmed Calculator.
(www.patents4technologies.com/Historical.htm)
1978 Feb 16, The 1st Computer
Bulletin Board System was Ward & Randy's CBBS in Chicago.
(www.historyoftheinternet.com/chap3.html)
1978 Late Feb, Computers made
the cover of Time.
(TMC, 1994, p.1978)
1978 Jun, Intel introduced the
8086 16-bit HMOS chip.
(SFC, 7/16/03, p.B1)
1978 The "Space Invaders"
computer game became the first video game mega-hit and spurred sales
of the Atari 2600.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1978 Micron Technology was
founded in Boise, Idaho, by 4 engineers: Ward Parkinson, Joe
Parkinson, Dennis Wilson and Doug Pitman. Startup funding to produce
memory chips was provided by Idaho billionaire J.R. Simplot.
(www.micron.com)
1978 Microsoft annual sales
topped $1 million.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1978 Robert Miner of Oracle
Corp. developed the world's 1st relational database program using
IBM's Structured Query Language.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.A13)
1979 May 8, Radio Shack
released TRSDOS 2.3.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-DOS)
1979 Sep 24, CompuServe began
operation as the 1st computer information service.
(www.businesshistorybooks.com/Computers.htm)
1979 Nov, The first annual
COMDEX trade show opened in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand. It was a
trade show for business related computer hardware and software. The
acronym used to stand for Computer Dealer Expo, but since 1984, the
D has stood for Distribution.
(Hem, Nov.'95,
p.138)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMDEX)
1979 Gwen Bell founded the
Computer Museum in Boston. It originally used space in Marlborough,
Mass., and moved to Boston in 1982 when it became a public,
nonprofit educational foundation.
(SFC, 10/18/96, C9)
1979 Jim Ellis (d.2001 at 45)
and Tom Truscott, Duke graduate students, linked computers to share
information and created the Usenet electronic bulletin board.
(SFC, 6/29/01, p.D5)
1979 Steve Jobs and team of
Apple staff visited PARC. They incorporated many of the ideas they
saw into their Lisa and Macintosh computers.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1979 Robert Metcalf of Xerox
Corp. started 3Com Corp. The company specialized in connecting
computers using the Ethernet system, which he helped develop. The
early Ethernet adapters sold for $5000. In 1994 they sold for $100.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)
1979 Samuel Maslak founded
Acuson Corp. The company was based on the use of ultrasound, which
shoots sound waves into the body, and then converts the echoes to
visible images.
(WSJ, 5/13/96, p.B-3)
1979 Sue Rugge established
Information on Demand in Berkeley, a pioneering full service
information company. It was later acquired by Robert Maxwell and
managed through Pergamon Press. She later authored "The Information
Broker's Handbook."
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.B4)
1979 IBM Corp. adopted the
Intel 8088 microprocessor for its new personal computer (PC), which
launched in 1981. DOS, Lotus 1-2-3, and other new software were
based on the 8088.
(TAR, 1996, p.25)
1979 The Motorola 68000
microprocessor made its debut. It was chosen to be used in the
Macintosh Computer, which introduced the first graphical user
interface.
(TAR, 1996, p.26)
1979 Seagate Corp., a
manufacturer of disk drives, was founded by Alan Shugart and Finis
Conner. Shugart was credited with leading an IBM team that invented
the floppy disk.
(SFC, 11/15/99, p.A6)
1979 Teradata, a software
company, was founded to develop and sell relational database
management system with the same name.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradata)
1979 Roy Trubshow and Richard
Bartle, Univ. of Essex students, created the 1st text-only MUD
(Multi-User Dungeon).
(NW, 11/25/02, p.48)
1980 Apr, Commodore president
Jack Tramiel ordered the development of a computer that could sell
for under $300 US. What had been an oversupply of parts became the
VIC-20.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20)
1980 May 22, The computer game
Pac-Man was first released in Japan. Pac-Man, with its characters:
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, epitomized the arcade games of the
1980s.
(SFC, 7/5/97,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man)
1980 Jun 25, The Associated
Press chose 11 major newspapers to launch a cooperative experiment
to deliver news electronically to computer-equipped homes.
(SFC, 6/24/05, p.F2)
1980 Jul, Tim Paterson of
Seattle Computer Products completed version 0.10 of QDOS.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Paterson)
1980 Oct 9, 1st consumer use of
home banking by computer at Knoxville, Ten.
(MC, 10/9/01)
1980 Oct, Hambrecht & Quist
took public Apple and Genentech Corp.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.D1)
1980 Dec 1, IBM delivered its
1st prototype PC to Microsoft. IBM selected Microsoft to create
MS-DOS, the operating system for its first PC. Steve Ballmer arrived
from Proctor & Gamble as an assistant to Gates. Paul Allen
bought the QDOS operating system (Quick and Dirty Operating System)
from a rival company for $50,000. It was renamed MS-DOS and licensed
to IBM. The IBM 5150 PC standardized the marketplace.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(SFEC, 4/16/00, p.B1)
1980 Dec 11, Massachusetts Sec.
of State Michael Connolly banned the sale of Apple Computer stock
arguing that the $22 price per share was too high.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1980 Dec 12, US copyright law
was amended to include computer programs.
(MC, 12/12/01)
1980 Dec 12, Hambrecht &
Quist took Apple Corp. public with 4.6 million shares at $22 per
share, which closed at $29 per share.
(www.macworld.com/2006/03/features/30timeline/index.php)(SFC,
1/24/04, p.A12)
1980 Dec, Microsoft bought a
QDOS license. 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.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(WSJ, 1/22/04,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QDOS)
1980 Hewlett-Packard introduced
its first personal computer, the HP-85. Company sales topped $3
billion and employees numbered 57,000.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1980 IBM went to Digital
Research to license the ubiquitous CP/M for the new IBM-PC, but
failed to reach an agreement with Gary Kildall. IBM soon struck a
deal with Microsoft.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QDOS#Reasons_for_QDOS)
1980 The Ctrl-Alt-Delete reboot
command was created by David Bradley, an IBM engineer.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.B3)
1980 Informix was founded by
Roger Sippl. It was taken over by Phil White in 1989. The company
suffered accounting fraud and illegal insider trading charges in
1997 following problems with a new multimedia database product.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.A5)
1980 Iomega, was founded. It
designed and manufactured computer memory storage devices. The
company became public in 1983.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.B6)
1980 Tim Paterson wrote QDOS
(Quick and Dirty Operating System), a 16-bit operating system for an
Intel 8086-based computer kit sold by Seattle Computer Products.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm)
1980 J.R. Simplot, Idaho potato
tycoon, began serving on the board of startup Micron Technology. He
invested several million dollars into the company, which made memory
chips.
(WSJ, 10/7/04, p.A12)(www.micron.com)
1980 United Telecommunications
under Paul Henson (d. 1997 at 71) began laying the 23,000 mile,
first optical fiber communications network.
(SFC, 4/16/97, p.A21)
1980 Xerox with Intel and
Digital Equipment licensed Ethernet for a nominal fee. It became and
remained an industry standard.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1980 Dr. Fujio Masuoka, a
researcher at Toshiba, filed a patent for a variation on
floating-gate memory. His invention was dubbed flash memory because
it allowed entire sections of memory to be erased quickly.
(Econ, 3/11/06, Survey p.28)
1980s Herwart Holland-Moritz
(d.2001) and other early hackers formed the Chaos Computer Club
(CCC).
(SFC, 8/2/01, p.C2)
1981 Apr 24, The IBM Personal
Computer was introduced. IBM had developed a personal computer with
a technical specification other manufacturers could copy. The
operating system was licensed from Microsoft and the microprocessor
circuitry from Intel.
(HN, 4/24/98)(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R10)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R42)
1981 Apr, Osborne Computer
Corp., founded by Adam Osborne (1939-2003), launched the 24-pound
portable Osborne 1 for $1,795.
(SFC, 3/28/03,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Osborne)
1981 Apr, Tim Paterson, who
wrote QDOS in 1980, quit Seattle Computer Products and began working
at Microsoft in May. He became best known as the original author of
the popular MS-DOS operating system (1981).
(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm)
1981 Aug 12, IBM introduced the
IBM 5150, better known as the PC, along with PC-DOS version 1.0. The
beige box with 16 kilobytes of memory was priced at $1,565.
(http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm)(Econ,
7/29/06, p.57)
1981 Tracy Kidder published
"The Soul of a New Machine."
(WSJ, 3/4/99, p.A12)
1981 LSI Logic of Milpitas,
Ca., helped create the market for custom chips used for specific
chores.
(WSJ, 9/4/02, p.B9)
1981 In San Jose, Ca., water
supply wells were found to be contaminated due to leaks from
Fairchild and IBM storage tanks used for toxic solvents.
(SFC, 1/30/04, p.E6)
1981 In India N.R. Narayana
Murthy co-founded Infosys Technologies with 6 other software writers
including S. Gopalakrishnan with some 10,000 rupees (about $1000)
pooled from household money. In 1999 it became the first Indian
company to list its shares in the US. Chairman Murthy retired in
2006 with Infosys employing 58,000 people. His 5.9% stake was valued
at $1.2 billion.
(WSJ, 8/21/06, p.B7)(Econ, 10/7/06, Survey
p.9)(SSFC, 6/29/08, p.C1)
1981 In Japan Masayoshi Son
(b.1957), US educated entrepreneur, set up Softbank as a software
distributor.
(Econ, 11/27/10,
p.71)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masayoshi_Son)
1982 Jul, The Timex Sinclair
1000 (TS1000), the first computer produced by Timex Sinclair, a
joint-venture between Timex Corporation and Sinclair Research, was
launched.
(http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html)
1982 Aug, Commodore Business
Machines (CBM) released the Commodore 64 for $595.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64)
1982 Sep, 3Com under Robert
Metcalf started shipping EtherLink adaptor cards for IBM’s new
personal computer.
(Econ, 12/12/09, TQ p.24)
1982 Dec 26, TIME magazine's
Man of the Year was a computer.
(MC, 12/26/01)
1982 John Walker founded
Autodesk. His AutoCAD computer aided design software was introduced
and shipped.
(http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=3235534)
1982 John Warnock and Charles
Geschke founded Adobe Corp., a software company that developed tools
for desktop publishing. In 1993 Adobe introduce the Acrobat software
that allowed documents to appear on computer screen exactly as you
would see them on paper.
(SFC, 5/16/96, p.B1)(Econ, 4/16/05, p.58)
1982 Commodore’s VIC-20,
criticized in print as being underpowered, became the first computer
to sell more than 1 million units and was the best-selling computer
of 1982.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20)
1982 Compaq Computer was
founded by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto. They designed the
company's product at a local House of Pies.
(SSFC, 10/6/02, p.G1)
1982 Control Video Corp. was
founded as an online video game company. It transformed to Quantum
Computer Services, a private online service for Apple and IBM, and
then became America Online (AOL) in 1989. In 1998 Kara Swisher wrote
"aol.com: How Steve Case beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and
Made Millions in the War for the Web.
(SFEC, 8/2/98, BR p.1,8)
1982 Intel introduced the 286
microprocessor, the first to support general protection and virtual
memory. It ran at speeds of 8-12 Mhz and was 6 times more powerful
than the 8086. IBM used the 286 in its fledgling PC and bought a
12%, $250 million stake in Intel to keep it afloat.
(TAR, 1996, p.26)(SFC, 7/18/08, p.C1)
1982 Microsoft was a company in
one building with about 100 employees.
(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A16)
1982 Silicon Graphics was
founded by Stanford engineering professor James Clark. It made
sophisticated computers for modeling. Its first product, the IRIS
graphics terminal ,was released in 1983. The company went public in
1986. Clark left the company in 1994 to start Netscape. In 2006 the
company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In 2009 the company again
filed for Bankruptcy and sold itself to Rackable systems from $25
million.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.58)(WSJ, 4/2/09, p.B7)(WSJ,
4/2/09, p.B7)
1982 Sun Microsystems was
founded by tech whiz Andreas Bechtolsheim, CEO Scott McNeally,
entrepreneur Vinod Khosla, and software inventor Bill Joy. The Sun
slogan was "the network is the computer." Khosla later made a
fortune as a partner at the Kleiner Perkins venture capital firm.
(WSJ, 8/11/95, p.B-10)(WSJ, 3/19/97, p.B1)(Econ,
3/25/06, p.72)
1982 John Hopfield, Bell Labs
physicist, reawakened scientific interest in neural networks by
finding a resemblance between their neighbor-pulling-neighbor
structure and the behavior of magnetized atoms in some kinds of
crystals..
(I&I, Penzias, p.107)
1982 The computer game "Raiders
of the Lost Arc" was designed for the Atari 2600 platform.
(SFC, 3/11/03, p.D5)
1982 The computer game "Donkey
Kong" by Nintendo became a hit in America. Nintendo also introduced
the overweight plumber named "Mario."
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1982 Flight Simulator 1.0 hit
the market from Microsoft. It was the first flight simulator game.
(USAT, 3/24/99, p.10E)
1982 Rich Skrenta (b.1967), a
freshman in Pennsylvania, developed Elk Cloner as a practical joke.
It was the 1st virus to hit computers worldwide and later became
known as a "boot sector" virus. When it boots, or starts up, an
infected disk places a copy of the virus in the computer's memory.
Whenever someone inserts a clean disk into the machine and types the
command "catalog" for a list of files, a copy gets written onto that
disk as well. The newly infected disk is passed on to other people,
other machines and other locations.
(AP, 9/1/07)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.C3)
1983 Jan 1, TCP/IP became the
standard for Internet protocol.
(SFC, 8/30/99, p.C10)
1983 Jan 19, Apple’s Lisa
computer went on sale for $1400. It was pulled from the market after
2 years.
(SFC, 8/25/11,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa)
1983 Feb 18, Paul Allen,
co-founder of Microsoft, left the company but kept his stake in the
business. Allen was forced to resign from Microsoft after being
diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease which was successfully treated by
several months of radiation therapy.
(http://tinyurl.com/62v8hh9)(Econ, 4/30/11,
p.90)(www.thocp.net/biographies/allen_paul.htm)
1983 Mar 8, IBM released PC DOS
version 2.0.
(http://www.e-articles.info/e/a/title/DOS-Versions/)
1983 Oct 20, IBM-PC DOS Version
2.1 was released.
(www.e-articles.info/e/a/title/DOS-Versions/)
1983 Nov 30, Radio Shack
announced the Tandy Model 2000 computer (80186 chip).
(www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/6757/t2kfaq.txt)
1983 Jim and Marie Petcoff
founded the Computer Museum of America at La Mesa in San Diego
County. It was later relocated to Coleman College.
(SFC, 8/5/97, p.A20)
1983 Betty Holberton led a
committee to establish standards for COBOL, the Common Business
Oriented Language for computers.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A12)
1983 Compaq unveiled its 1st
portable computer.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.B1)
1983 IBM unveiled its PCJr home
computer.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.B1)
1983 The Windows operating
system was first introduced.
(NW, 8/6/01, p.8)
1983 Richard Stallman of MIT
launched the GNU Project (GNU's Not Unix) to create a free version
of the UNIX operating system.
(SFEC, 8/13/00, p.D4)
1983 Optical fibers began to
replace copper cables for transmitting information.
(WSJ, 8/1/97, p.A9C)
1983 John Sculley was recruited
from Pepsico to reorganize Apple Computer Corp.
(I&I, Penzias, p.183)
1983 Fred Cohen, graduate
student, released (in a controlled experiment) the world's first
computer virus. Cohen is generally credited with having coined the
term "computer virus." He later became the security guru at Sandia
National Laboratories in Livermore, Ca.
(Wired, 8/95, p.117)(SSFC, 2/10/02, p.A4)
1983 Mitch Kapor’s Lotus 1-2-3
spreadsheet lured non-techies buy personal computers.
(WSJ, 1/13/06, p.P8)
1983 Paul Mochapetris, an
Internet address system researcher, grouped computers into groups.
"Thus .edu signified a university, .gov indicated a government
agency. Corporations got .com."
(WSJ, 10/11/99, p.B1)
1984 Jan 24, Apple Computer Inc
unveiled its Macintosh personal computer. It included sound-sampling
technology that could play recorded sounds. The CPU had a speed of 8
MHz and 128k of RAM. It sold for $2,495.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(SFC,
1/24/04, p.A12)
1984 Apr 1, Stewart Brand and
Larry Brilliant launched the Well (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) in
Sausalito. In La Jolla, Ca., Larry Brilliant, physician and head of
Network Technologies Int'l. in Michigan, pitched the idea for a
public computer conferencing system to Stewart Brand, publisher of
the Whole Earth Catalog. Their meeting led to the 1985 founding of
"The Well" online service that operated as a collection of
conferences. It used the PicoSpan conferencing software. In 2001
Katie Hafner authored "The Well: A Story of Love, Death and Real
Life in the Seminal Online Community."
(Wired, 5/97, p.100)(SSFC, 5/27/01, DB p.69)
1984 Aug 14, IBM released PC
DOS version 3.0.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/today/814.htm)
1984 Jeremy Bernstein wrote a
book on Bell Labs titled: "Three Degrees Above Zero." Here he
described the computerized chess program know as Belle.
(I&I, Penzias, p.151)
1984 Michael Moritz authored
“The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer.”
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.F1)
1984 Tim Berners-Lee, a
researcher at CERN, envisioned a computer system for researchers to
share documents and databases. This grew to become the World Wide
Web.
(WSJ, 10/1/99, p.W6)
1984 Doug Lenat founded Cycorp
to develop the Cyc database in an effort to teach a computer common
sense. In 2002 a web link was established to gather data from the
public: www.cyc.com.
(SFC, 6/10/02, p.E1)
1984 Crazy Eddie Inc. went
public. The retail electronics chain grew rapidly and then burned
out in 1989 in a scandal of missing inventory, stolen cash and bogus
merchandise bookings. In 1990 assets were frozen and founder Eddie
Antar disappeared under charges of bilking investors out of $74 mil.
He was nabbed in Israel in 1992 and sent to a US prison.
(WSJ, 6/13/96, p.A1,8)
1984 The Dallas Semiconductor
Corp. began operations under Vin Prothro (d.2000 at 58).
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.A24)
1984 Michael Dell (19), a
student at the Univ. of Texas, founded Dell Computer in Austin,
Texas.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.B9)(SSFC, 4/13/03, p.I1)
1984 John Lasseter left his
animation job at Disney to join George Lucas’ special effects
computer group. The division was purchased in 1986 by Steve Jobs and
became Pixar.
(SFC, 1/25/06, p.C1)
1984 Ray Ozzie left Lotus
Development and founded Iris Associates, which created Lotus Notes,
a collaborative software program. Iris was acquired by Lotus in 1994
and Lotus was acquired by IBM in 1995. In 2006 Bill Gates named
Ozzie to succeed him as Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Ozzie)
1984 Ted Waitt started Gateway
Computer at his grandmother’s Iowa farmhouse.
(SFC, 5/20/05, p.C2)
1984 Hewlett-Packard introduced
the HP Laser-Jet printer. Company sales passed $6 billion and the
number of workers approached 85,000. HP also introduced a printer
using its ground-breaking thermal inkjet printing technology.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)(SFC, 2/22/06, p.C1)
1984 Prodigy was founded as a
joint venture of CBS, IBM and Sears. CBS dropped out in 1986, two
years before the first service called Trintex went online. Its name
was changed to Prodigy in 1989 and went national in 1990. In 1996 it
was sold for less than $200 million to its management, a private
group with backing by the Mexican firm Grupo Carso.
(SFC, 5/13/96, p.A4)(WSJ, 1/22/98, p.B14)
1984 In Russia Alexander
Pajitnov, a computer programmer at the Moscow Academy of Science,
invented the game "Tetris" on an old Electronica 60 computer. He
gave up the rights to the game to the State for ten years. In 1996
rights for the game reverted back to Pajitnov. He and Henk Rogers
soon founded Blue Planet Software to manage the Tetris rights.
(SFC, 7/7/96, C5)(SFC, 6/3/09, p.C5)
1985 Feb, Steve Wozniak left
Apple Corp. to start his own company making home video products.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1985 Mar, The Well online
conferencing service went live from Sausalito, Ca., with a VAX
computer, 6 modems and 6 phone lines.
(WSJ, 8/5/96, p.B5)(Wired, 5/97, p.106)
1985 Sep, Steven Jobs left
Apple Computer Corp. after losing control over the Macintosh
division to Jean-Louis Gasee, appointed by John Sculley. Jobs went
on to start NeXt.
(I&I, Penzias, p.185)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1985 Oct 16, Intel introduced
its 32-bit 80386 microcomputer chip.
(www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/micropro/proc1980.htm)
1985 Dec, IBM-PC DOS Version
3.2 was released.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-DOS)
1985 Autodesk went public. The
IPO of 1.6 million shares was at $11.00 per share.
(http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=3235534)
1985 Raymond Portwood Jr.
(d.2000 at 66) co-created the Carmen Sandiego computer game for
learning academic subjects.
(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.C12)
1985 The multi-media Amiga
computer was introduced. Commodore sold some 5 million before it
filed for bankruptcy in 1994. A German PC maker bought the company
and went bankrupt. Gateway acquired it in 1997 and sold it in 1999.
(WSJ, 1/3/00, p.A12)
1985 Ted Waitt co-founded
Gateway Computer in an Iowa farmhouse.
(WSJ, 3/1/00, p.A1)
1985 IBM pulled its PCJr
computer from the market.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.B1)
1985 Navigation Technologies
(NavTech) was started by Russell Shields. It grew to become one of
the premier suppliers of digital-map databases in the world.
(Wired, Dec., '95, p.96)
1985 Nintendo Co. of Japan
launched its first home video game console: the Nintendo
Entertainment System.
(Hem, 4/96, p.29)
1985 Parametric Technology, an
industrial design software firm, was founded by Samuel Geisberg, a
former mathematics professor at Leningrad State Univ.
(WSJ, 5/27/97, pB6)
1985 Steve Case founded Quantum
Computer Services, the predecessor to America Online (AOL).
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.B1)
1986 Jan, The first PC virus,
called Brain, was discovered in the wild. Though it achieved fame
because it was the first of its type, the virus was not widespread
as it could only travel by hitching a ride on floppy disks swapped
between users. The first virus to hit computers running a Microsoft
Corp.'s operating system (DOS) came when two brothers in Pakistan
wrote a boot sector program now dubbed "Brain," purportedly to
punish people who spread pirated software.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4630910.stm)(AP, 9/1/07)
1986 Mar 13, Microsoft Corp.,
an 11-year-old company, went public with 2.5 million shares and rose
from $21 to $28 on opening day. Its revenues for the year were $197
million and it employed 1,153 people.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1986 Mar, Oracle Corp. sold 1
million shares in its 1st public stock offering. Sales this year
reached $55.4 million.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.A13)
1986 The US Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act was created. Under the act the release of a computer virus
was illegal, but the construction of such viruses was not.
(WSJ, 3/31/05, p.B1)
1986 Beny Alagem, a former
Israeli tank driver, founded Packard Bell Electronics, a small
computer manufacturer. He bought the old Packard Bell name and
marketed his computers under the old name.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-1)
1986 Finis Connor left Seagate
and founded Connor Peripherals.
(WSJ, 1/20/02, p.B4)
1986 Phillip W. Katz (d.2000 at
37) founded PKWare, a maker of compression software later known as
PKZip.
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A1)
1986 Steve Jobs founded NeXT
Inc. and purchased the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm for
$10 million and started his own company called Pixar.
(SFC, 1/25/06, p.C1)(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A10)
1986 Dr. Nathan Myhrvold,
founder and president of Dynamical Systems, sold his software firm
to Microsoft and joined Microsoft, where he spent the next 14 years.
(Econ, 10/22/05, Survey p.9)
1986 Microsoft, and Novell
Corporations went public. At its debut Microsoft was worth $519 mil.
with just over $85 mil. in revenue for the prior six months.
(WSJ, 8/9/95, p.C-1)
1987 Mar 2, The Macintosh II
computer was introduced. The 1st color Mac had a CPU speed of 16 MHz
and sold for $3,898.
(SFC, 1/24/04,
p.A12)(www.applematters.com/index.php/section/history/2006/03/02/)
1987 Apr 2, IBM announced the
upcoming release of the PS/2 and OS/2 computers featuring the
Microsoft MS OS/2 and Windows 2.0 computer operating systems.
(Wired, 12/98,
p.196)(http://pages.prodigy.net/michaln/history/pr/87apr_m3592.html)
1987 Apr 17, President Reagan
slapped $300 million in punitive duties on imported Japanese
computers, television sets and power tools, in retaliation for
Japan's alleged violation of a computer chip trade agreement.
(AP, 4/17/97)
1987 Apr, PeopleSoft Corp., a
personnel-management software firm, was founded by David A. Duffield
and 7 former employees of Integral Systems, which Duffield had
founded in 1972. PeopleSoft went public in 1992. In 1995 it
established its headquarters in Pleasanton. CEO Craig Conway was
fired in 2004 and a takeover by Oracle seemed imminent.
(SFC, 11/18/99, p.A14)(SFC, 10/2/04, p.C1)
1987 Jul 30, Microsoft acquired
Forethought, the developer of PowerPoint, for $14 million. Microsoft
created its own version 3 years later. Robert Gaskins had engaged
Dennis Austin to do the initial programming for PowerPoint 1.0 for
Macs.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)(WSJ, 6/20/07, p.B1)
1987 Sep 8, Microsoft shipped
its first CD ROM application, MS Bookshelf.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1987 Oct 6, Microsoft announced
its first Windows application, Excel.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1987 Oct, NEC contacted all its
customers about a potential problem in a disk controller that
occurred during multitasking. Potential consequences included loss
of data.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.B5)
1987 M.I.T. Press published "A
Few Good Men from Univac." It was a history of the computer.
(WSJ, 11/22/96, p.A12)
1987 Dr. Fujio Masuoka, a
researcher at Toshiba, invented another type of flash memory that
could be produced more cheaply and in denser arrays. This came to be
called NAND flash.
(Econ, 3/11/06, Survey p.28)
1987 Tera Computer was founded
by Jim Rottsolk and Burton Smith.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1988 Mar 17, Apple filed suit
against Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement in the Windows
GUI.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1988 Apr, Microsoft surpassed
Lotus to become the number one computer software vendor.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1988 Nov 2, A computer worm,
named Morris, unleashed by a Cornell University graduate student
began replicating, clogging thousands of computers around the
country, but causing no real damage. The virus infected an estimated
6,000 university and military computers over the Internet.
(AP, 11/2/98)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.C3)
1988 Microsoft revenues rose to
$590 million with 2,793 employees.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1988 In Canada Claude Comair, a
Lebanese-born, computer animation specialist, founded the DigiPen
Institute of Technology in Vancouver. It taught students
fundamentals of video game development and in 1996 moved to Seattle.
(WSJ, 10/13/98, p.A1)
1988 Linksys was founded to
provide networking for homes and small offices. It was purchased by
Cisco in 2003.
(WSJ, 1/21/02, p.A1)
1988 Nintendo of Japan launched
its Nintendo Power magazine aimed at boys 8-15 years old. It claims
a subscription based circulation of 1 million.
(Hem, 4/96, p.30)
1988 Mauritius formed a
National Computer Board to spur technology.
(SFC, 10/28/02, p.E6)
1989 Mar, The first versions of
HTML that launched the Web appeared. Tim Berners-Lee invented the
World Wide Web.
(SFEC, 3/15/98, p.W26)(SFEC, 5/30/99, Z1 p.4)
1989 Jun 5, Microsoft created
its Multimedia Division.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1989 Sep 18, The NeXT computer
with NeXTSTEP 1.0 software was released. The computer was priced at
$6,500.
(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A10)
1989 Nov 6, Word Perfect 5.1
was released.
(www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/chronology.html)
1989 Nov 13, IBM and Microsoft
expanded their partnership and agreed to develop software for
MS-DOS, MS OS/2, and MS LAN.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1989 Cliff Stoll authored “The
Cuckoo’s Egg,” an account of a computer break-in at the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.F1)
1989 The National Computer
Security Association (NCSA) was founded.
(Wired, 10/96, p.88)
1989 Seymour Cray formed a new
supercomputer company, Cray Computer Corp.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1989 Creative Labs introduced
the SoundBlaster sound card that became a standard in personal
computers. Sim Wong Hoo was the founder of Creative Tech. He later
authored "Chaotic Thoughts from the Old Millennium."
(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.B1)
1989 Jeff Hawkins developed
software for the GridPad, the first computer was a pen-based
interface.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.31)
1989 Hewlett-Packard acquired
Apollo Computer and moved into the workstation market.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1989 Intel shipped the first
486 microprocessor, an enhanced version of the 386. It held more
than 1 million transistors and included a built-in floating point
unit and 8K of internal RAM.
(TAR, 1996, p.28)
1989 Nintendo Co. of Japan
launched its Game Boy product, a portable, hand-held game system
with interchangeable game packs. The game was designed by Gunpei
Yokoi (d.1997 at 56).
(Hem, 4/96, p.29)(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A19)
1989 Ralph Merkle, computer
scientist at Xerox PARC, evaluated intellectual processing power 3
different ways. An average of his methods indicated that the brain
runs about 1 quadrillion operations per second. With computing power
doubling every 18 months, he reasoned that hardware would catch up
with brainpower around 2020.
(Wired, 8/96, p.204)
1989 Jack Jewell at Bell Labs
figured out how to make vertical cavity surface emitting lasers
practical. They were first described by Prof. Kenichi Iga at the
Tokyo Institute of Tech. in the late 1970s. They became fabricated
like computer chips were capable of transmitting data at 6 Gbps.
(Wired, 2/98, p.77)
1989 The Univ. of Phoenix
enrolled 8 students in the world's first online campus.
(http://www.uopphx.edu/online).
(LT, 9/30/96, p.76)
1989 IBM scientists used 35
xenon atoms to spell out the company name on a nickel surface. This
demonstrated the possibility of the positional control of atoms and
the future road of nanotechnology.
(SFC, 7/19/99, p.A8)
1989 In Israel Dov Moran
founded M-Systems, the original maker of USB flash drives (1999). He
sold the business to SanDisk in 2006 for $1.6 billion.
(www.twst.com/notes/articles/lzt068.html)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Systems)
1990 May 22, Microsoft released
Windows 3.0.
(www.guidebookgallery.org/guis/windows/win30)
1990 Jun 3, Robert Noyce
(b.1927), co-inventor of the integrated circuit, co-founder and 1st
CEO of Intel Corp. (1968), died at age 62. In 2005 Leslie Berlin
authored “The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the
Invention of Silicon Valley.
(www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/legacies/noyce.html)(SSFC,
7/10/05, p.E1)
1990 Jun, The FTC launched a
probe into possible collusion between Microsoft and IBM.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1990 Oct, At the 13th National
Computer Security Conference in Washington, DC, Dorothy Demming
presented her paper "Concerning Hackers Who Break into Computers."
In 1995 she published a postscript denounced the group.
(Wired, 9/96, p.221)
1990 John Hennessey, the
founder of MIPS Computer Systems, authored the textbook "Computer
Architecture: A Quantitative Approach."
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A13)
1990 The Joshi computer virus
began forcing users of infected machines to type "Happy Birthday
Joshi" to recapture control of their machines.
(Sp., 5/96, p.70)
1990 Lawrence G. Lawler (d.1997
at 56) was awarded the President's Award for Outstanding Service to
the US. He was an FBI agent and helped create the National Crime
Information Center, a computer system that linked law enforcement
agencies.
(SFC, 3/26/97, p.C3)
1990 Fore Systems Inc. of
Warrendale, Pa. introduced the first ATM (asynchronous transfer
mode) hardware for computer networks. It allowed data to be
transferred at 2.5 billion bits per second. It was already being
adopted by the phone companies and cable-TV operators. It was
founded by 4 teachers and researchers and went public in 1994.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R27)(WSJ, 5/14/97, p.A1)
1990 Microsoft revenues hit
$1.183 billion with 5,635 employees.
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1990 Prof. David Patterson
began writing about IRAM, intelligent random access memory, the
possibility of including memory into the design of microprocessors.
He originated the concept of RISC, reduced instruction set
computing.
(WSJ, 8/28/98, p.B1)
1990 Computers used to store
files for the World Wide Web were given the prefix "www."
(WSJ, 10/11/99, p.B1)
1990 A digital method for
transmitting TV pictures was invented.
(WSJ, 4/10/00, p.B2)
1990 Hugh Loebner agreed with
The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies to underwrite a contest
designed to implement the Turing Test. Dr. Loebner pledged a Grand
Prize of $100,000 and a Gold Medal for the first computer whose
responses were indistinguishable from a human's. Robert Epstein
co-founded the prize with Hugh Loebner. The first competition was
held in November, 1991.
(http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html)(Econ, 5/7/11,
p.92)
1990 ARM Holdings PLC, a
multinational semiconductor and software company, was founded. It is
headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The acronym ARM, first
used in 1983, originally stood for "Acorn RISC Machine." However,
when the company was incorporated in 1990, the acronym was changed
to stand for "Advanced RISC Machines" in the company name "Advanced
RISC Machines Holdings." Then, at the time of the IPO in 1998, the
company name was changed to "ARM Holdings"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Holdings)
c1990 Paul Mockapetris created
the domain-name system of the Web.
(WSJ, 1/08/00, p.B1)
1990s In the early 1990s
truckloads of foreign waste computer equipment began to be trucked
in to Guiyu, China. Salvaging operations soon caused fish to
disappear and the drinking water to go foul.
(SFC, 3/1/02, p.B3)
1991 Jan 9, Microsoft announced
Excel 3.0
(Wired, 12/98, p.197)
1991 Feb 28, NCR Corporation
acquired the Ohio-based Teradata Company specializing in data
warehousing and analytic applications.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradata)
1991 Apr 22, Intel released
486SX chip.
(MC, 4/22/02)
1991 May 13, Apple
released Macintosh System 7.0.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 Jun 11, Microsoft released
MS DOS 5.0.
(http://tinyurl.com/rkbnf)
1991 Jul 3, Former corporate
enemies Apple Computer and IBM publicly joined forces in a broad
pact to swap technologies and develop new machines. Plans eventually
led to the PowerPC processors.
(AP, 7/3/01)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1991 Aug, James Gossling
developed his new computer language called Oak. It was to be the
progenitor of the new Java software for the Internet by Sun
Microsystems.
(Wired, Dec. '95, p.238)
1991 Gordon Bell, architect of
DEC's VAX minicomputer, authored "High Tech Ventures: The Guide to
Entrepreneurial Success."
(SFC, 9/10/98, p.B3)
1991 John Detwiler, brokerage
executive, founded Computers for Schools in San Diego.
(SFC, 11/14/96, p.B1)
1991 Al Gore as US Senator held
hearings that led to the passage of the National High-Performance
Computer Technology Act. It boosted federal support of the Internet
by about $1 billion a year.
(Wired, Dec. '95, p.154)
1991 The FTC began to
investigate claims that Microsoft had monopolized the market for PC
operating systems.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1991 Cambridge Univ. scientists
set up a video to monitor their coffee pot in the Trojan Room and
spawned the Web cam revolution. In 2001 Spiegel Online paid $4,750
for the $70 coffee pot.
(SFC, 8/15/01, p.B3)
1991 Bruce Katz, the founder of
Rockport Shoes, bought half of the Sausalito online community called
the Well.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.B1)
1991 The computer game
character Sonic, the hedgehog, was introduced by Sega.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1991 Microsoft introduced its
Windows 3.1 operating system.
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R10)
1991 Quantum Computer Services
changed its name to America Online.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.B1)
1991 Digital Lightwave was
founded by MIT researcher Brian Zwan. The company went public in
1997.
(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A14)
1992 Jan 12, HAL, the
Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer, from the 1968 Arthur
C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick movie and book, “became operational” at
the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois. [1997 article claimed 1/12/97 as
birthdate] The book "HAL’s Legacy: 2001’s Computer as Dream and
Reality" was published in 1997 by MIT Press. The birthday in the
movie was 1/12/92.
1992 Mar 6, Personal computer
users braced for a virus known as "Michelangelo," set to trigger on
March 6, but only scattered cases of lost files were reported. The
Michelangelo computer virus threatened computer systems around the
world. It was designed to lodge itself into a corner of the system
and infect any floppies put into the system, and to eventually
mangle the hard drive.
(Sp., 5/96, p.68)(AP, 3/6/02)
1992 Apr 6, Microsoft released
Windows 3.1.
(www.microsoft.com/presspass/legal/poole.mspx)
1992 Apr 15, Court threw out
Apple's lawsuit against Microsoft.
(www.abo.fi/~adeheer/students/itlekt1e.)
1992 David Gelernter, computer
professor at Yale, authored “Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts
the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will
Mean.” Today's small scale software programs are about to be joined
by vast public software works that will revolutionize computing and
transform society as a whole.
(Econ, 11/6/10, SR
p.3)(http://tinyurl.com/26tnnfb)
1992 Neal Stephenson published
"Snow Crash." It focused on new technology and depicted a virtual
bar for Avatars and an all-knowing Librarian that answers all spoken
questions with educated, plain-English answers.
(WSJ, 11/16/98, p.R12)
1992 Carol Bartz (48) became
chairwoman of the board and CEO of Autodesk, a company that
pioneered the market for computer-aided design.
(Econ, 6/3/06,
p.64)(www.thetech.org/revolutionaries/bartz/)
1992 Network Solutions won a
government contract to be the exclusive registrar of Internet
addresses.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.B5)
1992 Jeff Hawkins and Donna
Dubinsky launched a company to produce a hand-held computer they
called the Palm, which began sales in 1996.
(WSJ, 8/8/00, p.A1)
1992 Lewis Platt was named
president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1992 America Online (AOL), a
popular Internet company, went public.
(WSJ, 5/24/99, p.R8)
1992 The Moving Picture Experts
Group finalized a standard for squeezing audio into relatively small
computer files. It was called MPEG-1 Layer 3 and became known as
MP3.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1993 Jan 19, IBM announced a
$4.97 billion loss for 1992, which was at that time the largest
single-year corporate loss in United States history.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibm)
1993 Jan, Wired Magazine in SF
published its first issue under Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalf as a
bimonthly with 12 employees. The 1st issue featured a cover story on
the military's use of computer war simulations and sold 100,000
copies. In 1998 the monthly magazine was sold to S.I. Newhouse's
Advance Publications for $90 million. Before the end of the year it
became a monthly. In 2003 Gary Wolf authored "Wired: A Romance," the
story of Wired and its 1996 IPO.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.C1)(SFEC, 5/10/98, p.B1)(SFC,
6/7/99, p.E1)(WSJ, 7/9/03, p.D8)
1993 Feb, Apple shipped its 10
millionth Mac computer.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 Apr, Louis Gerstner became
the CEO of IBM. In 2001 Gerstner received British knighthood
(K.B.E.), Knight of the British Empire.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.B1)
1993 Mar 22, Intel introduced
its Pentium processor (80586): 64 bits-60 MHz-100+ MIPS.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm#pentium)
1993 Mar 22, Microsoft began
shipping its Encarta encyclopedia on CD-ROM. It had licensed content
from Funk & Wagnalls after being rebuffed by Britannica.
(Wired, 12/98, p.198)(WSJ, 3/18/09, p.A13)
1993 May 24, Microsoft launched
Windows NT.
(Wired, 12/98, p.198)
1993 Jun, Michael Spindler
replaced John Sculley as CEO of Apple Comp.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 Aug 21, The US Justice
Dept. took over the FTC investigation into the business practices of
Microsoft Corp.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A30)
1993 Sep 30, MS Dos 6.2 was
released.
(MC, 9/30/01)
1993 Oct, John Sculley left
Apple Corp. A.C. Markkula became chairman.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 John Hennessey, the
founder of MIPS Computer Systems, authored the textbook "Computer
Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface."
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A13)
1993 Guillermo Gaede, an Intel
engineer, used his computer to tap into plans for the Pentium &
486 chip manufacturing process and video taped the information. He
sent the info his former employer Advanced Micro Devices who
notified federal authorities. He claimed to have been double-crossed
by the FBI and also to have passed info from AMD to Cuba, China,
North Korea and Iran. He was arrested in Phoenix on Sep 23, 1995.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A23)
1993 The computer game "Mortal
Combat" sparked a controversy in Congress over video game violence.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1993 The computer game "Myst"
swept the US with its eerie puzzle plot.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E1)
1993 Mark Weiser (d.1999 at 46)
performed as a drummer with the band "Severe Tire Damage." The group
was made up of computer researchers and the band was the first to
perform live over the Internet. Weiser was called "the father of
ubiquitous computing" for spreading his belief that computer
technology could be incorporated unobtrusively into all facets of
everyday life.
(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A17)
1993 Microsoft Windows users
topped 25 million.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1993 Apple Chairman John
Sculley introduced the Newton MessagePad, the first personal digital
assistant. The device was terminated in 1998.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.D1)
1993 The graphics chip company
nVidea (Nvidia) was founded in Santa Clara, Ca.
(WSJ, 3/17/03, p.B1)(SFC, 12/2/06, p.C2)
1993 Arthur Hair received a
patent titled "Method for Transmitting a Desired Digital Video or
Audio Signal." He and Scott Sander then launched Sightsound.com to
build a market for transmitting music and video over the internet.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.B1)
1993 Joseph Paul Jernigan, a
convicted murderer, was executed in Huntsville, Texas. He donated
his body to medical research and it was quick frozen, sliced,
photographed and computer enhanced and used to make the 1997 CD Body
Voyage.
(SFEC, 3/30/97, BR. p.9)
1994 Mar, Apple Corp.
introduced the Power Macintosh. It used the PowerPC chip
co-developed with IBM. It was able to run both Apple and Microsoft
software.
(Hem, Mar. 95, p.89)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1994 Apr 4, Jim Clark and Marc
Andreeson founded Mosaic Communications Corp., the predecessor of
Netscape Communications.
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)
1994 Apr, Charles H. Ferguson
started Vermeer Technologies. It developed Front Page, the first
software program to allow people to develop a Web site without
mastering a programming language. He sold the company to Microsoft
after 20 months for $133 million.
(WSJ, 12/15/99, p.A20)
1994 Spring, David Filo and
Jerry Yang, graduates students of Stanford Univ., started a guide to
their favorite sites on the Internet: Jerry and David's Guide to the
World Wide Web." They later named the site Yahoo: "Yet Another
Hierarchical Officious Oracle."
(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.B1)(SFC, 7/18/00, p.A8)
1994 Jul 11, Gary Kildall (52),
pioneer software writer, died in Monterey, Ca.
(www.maxframe.com/kildallr.htm)
1994 Jul 15, Microsoft Corp.
reached a settlement with the Justice Department, promising to end
practices it used to corner the market for personal computer
software programs. In a consent decree with the Justice Dept.
Microsoft agreed to change contracts with PC makers and other
software companies ending the government's antitrust investigation.
(AP, 7/15/99)(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1994 Aug 31, In the London
Intel Speed Chess Grand Prix a Pentium computer beat world chess
champ Gari Kasparov.
(www.correspondencechess.com/campbell/apctcol/c9411.htm)
1994 Sep, Apple Corp. announced
that it would allow other companies clone the Mac.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1994 Nov 28, Mosaic changed its
name to Netscape Communications.
(WSJ, 4/21/99, A1)
1994 Dec 12, IBM stopped
shipments of personal computers with Intel's flawed Pentium chip,
saying the processor's problems were worse than earlier believed.
(AP, 12/12/99)
1994 Dec 20, Intel announced it
would replace all flawed Pentium computer chips.
(AP, 12/20/04)
1994 Dec, Power Computer of
Milpitas, Ca., announced plans to build Mac clones.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1994 Rob Glaser, a former
Microsoft executive, founded RealNetworks.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.C2)
1994 Richard Lipton, Princeton
computer scientist, published a paper on molecular computing titled:
"Speeding to Computation via Molecular Biology."
(Wired, 8/95, p.166)
1994 Marvin Minsky wrote in a
Scientific American article that: "In the end we will find ways to
replace every part of the body and brain and thus repair all the
defects and injuries that make our lives so brief."
(Hem., 2/96, p.95)
1994 Vincent Connare designed
the Comic Sans typeface while working for Microsoft, which included
it in the Miscosoft Windows operating system.
(WSJ, 4/16/09, p.A10)
1994 Lou Montulli, computer
programmer at Netscape, invented "cookies" to help enable purchasing
products from a Web site.
(WSJ, 2/28/00, p.B1)
1994 Scientists at Carnegie
Mellon Univ. created a search engine. Rights were bought by CMGI
Inc., an Internet venture fund, and Lycos was formed in 1995.
(SFC, 3/29/00, p.D3)
1994 The first Internet stock
trade was completed by K. Aufhauser & Co., later part of
Ameritrade Holding Corp.
(WSJ, 6/2/99, p.C1)
1994 Compaq became No. 1 in PC
sales.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.B1)
1994 Bruce Katz, the founder of
Rockport Shoes, bought the 2nd half of the Sausalito online
community called the Well for a reported $1 million.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.B1)
1994 Britannica posted a web
site for its reference work.
(WSJ, 4/22/99, A1)
1995 Jan, Jed Katz and Phil
Marcus founded Rent Net, a computerized listing of available rental
units across the US. Its web address was:
http://www.rentfacts.com
(SFC, 5/12/96, p.E-6)
1995 Apr 1, Aaron, a
computer-driven robot will begin painting a new 25 sq. ft canvas on
a daily basis. It is designed and programmed by Harold Cohen, a San
Diego computer scientist. The event is scheduled to start in Boston
at 300 Congress St. and go to May 29.
(WSJ, 3/28/95, p.A-24)
1995 Apr, Progressive Networks
unveiled RealAudio software to stream music bit by bit over the WWW.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1995 Aug 9, Netscape
Communications went public and was valued at $2.2 billion. In 1999
Jim Clark and Owen Edwards authored "Netscape Time: The Making of
the Billion-Dollar Start-Up That Took on Microsoft."
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)(SFEC, 6/27/99, BR p.6)
1995 Aug 24, Microsoft
Corporation began selling its highly publicized Windows 95 personal
computer software. The Windows 95 operating system was priced at $89
for an upgrade.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)(AP, 8/24/00)
1995 Sep 13, The FBI made at
least a dozen arrests, capping a nationwide two-year investigation
of pedophiles and pornographers using the America Online computer
network.
(AP, 9/13/00)
1995 Sep 23, Guillermo Gaede,
an Intel engineer, was arrested in Phoenix. He had used his computer
to tap into plans for the Pentium & 486 chip manufacturing
process and video taped the information in May 1993. He sent the
info to his former employer Advanced Micro Devices who notified
federal authorities. He claimed to have been double-crossed by the
FBI and also to have passed info from AMD to Cuba, China, North
Korea and Iran.
(SFC, 6/25/96, p.A23)
1995 Sep, The US government
came up with a new proposal security in computer communications,
dubbed by critics as Clipper II.
(Wired, 9/96, p.224)
1995 Nov 20, Salon produced its
1st online issue. Salon.com was founded in SF as an online publisher
by former staffers of the SF Examiner. The company purchased the
Sausalito online community Well in 1999 from Bruce Katz, the founder
of Rockport Shoes. In June 1999 it became a public corporation with
an IPO at $10/share.
(SFC, 4/8/99, p.B1)(SFEC, 6/27/99, p.B1)(SFC,
7/28/00, p.A19)
1995 Nov, Microsoft released
Internet Explorer 3.0 and gave it away for free in a challenge to
Netscape's Navigator browser.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1995 Dec 7, Bill Gates
announced Microsoft's Internet counterattack [on Netscape and the
browser market].
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)
1995 Bill Gates, head of
Microsoft Corp., authored “The Road Ahead.”
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.78)
1995 David Packard authored his
treatisse "The HP Way."
(SFC, 3/3/99, p.A11)
1995 The first Electronic
Entertainment Expo for the computer and video game industry was
held.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.B1)
1995 The Knowledge Universe
company, a conglomerate of educational companies, was founded in
Menlo Park with some $750 million from investment banker Michael
Milken, his brother Lowell and Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.E1)
1995 Pierre Omidyar founded
eBay as a site for auctioning items. It also helped his
fiancée trade her Pez dispensers. In 2002 Adam Cohen authored
"The Perfect Store," a chronicle of the rise of eBay.
(WSJ, 6/25/02, p.D9)
1995 Michael Wood of Orinda
founded Leapfrog Enterprises. In 1997 it came under the wing of
Knowledge Universe.
(SSFC, 8/5/01, p.E1)
1995 Cray Computer filed for
Chapter 11.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1995 IBM acquired Lotus and its
corporate groupware for $3.5 billion.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.E3)
1995 Intel unveiled the
universal serial bus (USB) technology.
(SFC, 12/13/99, p.B3)
1995 Samsung bought AST. They
sold it for a loss in 1999.
(WSJ, 12/6/04, p.B1)
1995 US Robotics bought Palm
Inc.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
1995 VocalTec, an Israeli
company, was the first company to release commercial PC-to-PC
calling software, which it called Internet Phone. However, many
competitors soon followed. In 2010 VocalTec merged with YMax Corp,
maker of magicJack, an Internet phone gadget.
(AP, 8/14/10)
1995-1997 In Brazil Rodrigo Baggio organized
efforts to provide computer education to the children of Rio's
slums. He formed the Committee for Computer Science Democratization,
which had opened schools in 32 Rio slums over the last 2 years.
(SFC, 7/7/97, p.A8)
1996 Feb 2, Gil Amelio
(b.1943), CEO of National Semiconductor from 27 May 1991 to 2
February 1996, took over as chairman and CEO of Apple
Computer. Markkula became vice-chairman and Michael Spindler
left the company. Amelio lasted until 1997 when Steve Jobs came back
to the company. In 1998 Amelio published "On the Firing Line: My 500
Days at Apple," written with William L. Simon.
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)(SFC, 1/24/04,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Amelio)
1996 Feb 10, World chess
champion Garry Kasparov lost the first game of a match in
Philadelphia against an I-B-M computer dubbed "Deep Blue."
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Feb 17, World chess
champion Garry Kasparov beat IBM supercomputer "Deep Blue," winning
a six-game match in Philadelphia.
(AP, 2/17/98)
1996 Feb, Kevin Mitnick,
33-year-old computer wizard, was arrested in Raleigh, N.C. with the
help of computer security expert Tsutomu Shimomura. Mitnick was
accused of breaking into the systems of software companies and
attacking the computers of Internet service providers (ISPs). In
1999 he admitted breaking in to computer systems at Sun Microsystems
and Motorola where he stole software and installed programs that
caused millions of dollars in damage. He was ordered to pay token
restitution of $4,125 and was prohibited from any access to
computers and the Internet for 3 years following his release.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A3)(SFC, 8/10/99, p.A3)
1996 Mar 26, David Packard,
co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Co., died. In a 1988 letter to his
children he declared that the David & Lucille Packard
Foundation's highest priority must be to reduce world-wide
population growth.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 3/6/98, p.)
1996 Spring, Yahoo went public
at $13 per share and quickly rose to $33 in its 1st day of trading.
(WSJ, 3/6/00, p.B1)
1996 Apr, The web site DJ.com
launched RealAudio's technology to broadcast 24 channels of music
over the web. The site was later renamed Spinner.com.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1996 May 25, In the US Pastors
for Peace called off a hunger strike after reaching a deal with the
Treasury Dept over 395 impounded old computers that were destined
for medical clinics in Cuba. The computers were given over to the
General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church.
The board agreed not to ship the computers without a license, and
that if no license could be issued to donate the computers for
charitable purposes in the US.
(SFC, 5/26/96, p.A-10)
1996 May, The government
released a draft proposal on computer security that was dubbed
Clipper III.
(Wired, 9/96, p.226)
1996 Jun 10, Intel released its
200 Mhz Pentium chip.
(www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm)
1996 Jul 4, Hot Mail, a free
internet E-mail service began.
(Maggio)
1996 Aug 13, Microsoft released
Internet Explorer 3.0.
(http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release33.html)
1996 Aug 20, In Germany
officials arrested 2 businessmen suspected of smuggling computer
technology to Libya that could be used to make lethal nerve gas.
(WSJ, 8/20/96, p.A1)
1996 Sep 5, Computer scientists
found the largest known prime number while testing a Cray T94
computer system. It has 378,632 digits and can be expressed as two
to the 1,257,787th power minus 1.
(WSJ, 9/5/96, p.A6)
1996 Dec 13, Trade ministers
from 28 countries meeting in Singapore endorsed a U.S.-crafted trade
pact to abolish import duties on computers, software and other
high-tech products.
(AP internet 12/13/97)
1996 Dec 16, Intel announced
the world's fastest computer capable of 1 trillion operations per
second.
(SFC, 12/17/96, p.C1)
1996 Dec, Apple Comp. hired
co-founder Steve Jobs as a consultant and purchased his NeXt
Software Inc. for $430 million.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1996 Andy Grove, head of Intel
Corp., authored "Only the Paranoid Survive."
(www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew-Grove/dp/0385482582)
1996 Super Mario 64 showed the
capabilities of the new Nintendo 64 computer game machine.
(SFC, 7/5/97, p.E3)
1996 The $1.6 billion FLAG
project (Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe) was completed for
transmission of data from Europe to the Far East. Neil Tagare pushed
the project with financial assistance from Nynex.
(SFC, 3/15/99, p.B7)
1996 David Warthen founded Ask
Jeeves Inc., a company devoted to scouring the Net for data based on
simple questions. www.ask.com
(WSJ, 4/8/99, p.B9)
1996 NEC bought Packard Bell.
It later exited the US retail PC market.
(WSJ, 12/6/04, p.B1)
1996 Toshiba Corp. invested $3
million in Lexar Media under the premise of supplying flash cards
for Lexar’s high-speed controller.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.B3)
1997 Mar 2, Saudi Arab
billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal acquired 5% of Apple.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1997 Mar, Apple Corp. announced
it would lay off 4,100 workers.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Apr 8, Microsoft Corp
released Internet Explorer 4.0.
(http://tinyurl.com/dax6p)
1997 Jul, Apple released its
newest Mac operating system, OS 8.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Aug 6, Ending years of
impassioned rivalry, Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share
technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple's survival.
Microsoft announced that it would buy $150 million in non-voting
Apple stock.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)
1997 Sep, IBM announced copper
connections on silicon transistors instead of aluminum.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.E3)
1997 Sep, Steve Jobs was named
interim CEO of Apple Corp. Jobs dropped the term interim in 2000.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.80)
1997 Oct 20, The US government
alleged that Microsoft's bundling of its browser into the operating
system violates a 1995 consent decree.
(WSJ, 11/25/98, p.B1)
1997 Nov 20, It was reported
that Lucent Tech.'s Bell Labs has developed a new tiny transistor
that is 5 times faster and 1/4th the size of commercially available
transistors.
(WSJ, 11/20/97, p.B4)
1997 Dec 11, A US federal judge
ordered Microsoft not to bundle IE4 in Windows.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1997 Dec 31, Intel cut the
price of Pentium II-233 MHz from $401 to $268.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1997 Dec 31, Microsoft bought
the Hotmail E-mail service.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1997 Dec, Michael Robertson
launched a web site called MP3.com as a repository for music in the
MP3 format.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1997 Scott Kurnit founded
About.com, a web site for information originally known as the Mining
Company.
(WSJ, 7/7/99, p.A23)
1997 Acer bought the PC unit of
Texas Instruments. It later exited the US retail PC market.
(WSJ, 12/6/04, p.B1)
1997 Silicon Graphics bought
Cray Research.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1997 3Com bought US Robotics.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
1997 Seymour Cray (71) died
from injuries from a car accident.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
1998 Jan 22, Microsoft under
court pressure signed an agreement giving PC makers the freedom to
install Windows 95 without an Internet Explorer icon.
(WSJ, 11/8/99, p.A30)
1998 Mar 19-25, CeBIT, the
world's largest exhibition for information and communications, was
held in Hanover, Germany. 600,000 visitors were expected.
(FT, 3/4/98, p.IT4)
1998 May, Federal and state
regulators filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft accusing it of
using illegal actions to destroy competition.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1998 May, Apple Corp.
introduced the iMac. The $1,300 computer housed in translucent
plastic had a 233 MHz G3 processor.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1998 Jun, An appeals court
panel ruled in favor of Microsoft and considered Internet Explorer
and Windows and integrated product.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1998 Jun, Microsoft released
Windows 98 with an upgrade price of $109.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1998 Aug 23, Retailers began
marketing computers with the new 450 MHz Intel Pentium II.
(SFC, 8/25/98, p.D3)
1998 Aug, F. Thomson Leighton
and Daniel Lewin founded Akamai based on technology they had
developed at MIT in 1995. Their main product, FreeFlow - a system
that routed Internet traffic - began selling in April 1999. Lewin
(31) was aboard AA Flight 11 on Sep 11, 2001, and died when
hijackers crashed the plane into the WTC.
(WSJ, 12/8/99, p.C28)(SFC, 9/14/01, p.A29)
1998 Sep, Diamond Multimedia
introduced the Rio, a Walkman-like portable player for MP3 files.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1998 Oct, The US Congress
passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in an effort to
protect writers and artists from piracy in the free-for-all world of
Net music.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)(SFC, 8/13/01, p.D1)
1998 Oct, The board of
directors for ICANN was seated. The Clinton administration created
ICANN, the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers. It had
been run by Jon Postel (d.1998), director of the Computer Networks
Division at Information Sciences Institute at the Univ. of Southern
Calif.
(WSJ, 11/5/99, p.B5)(SFEC, 7/30/00, p.B6)
1998 Nov 13, The globe.com,
founded by Tod Krizelman and Stephen Paternot, went public and
leaped from $9 to $97 a share. In 2001 Paternot authored "A Very
Public Offering."
(WSJ, 5/2/01, p.A17)(WSJ, 8/27/01, p.A13)
1998 Nov 21, Isao Okawa,
chairman of CSK Corp., and Sega Enterprises, donated $27 million to
MIT for the creation of a center for children founded on the belief
that new digital technology will drive fundamental changes in
education.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A5)
1998 Nov 23, Nintendo began
distributing its video game "Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time." It
was designed for the new 64-bit Nintendo player and quickly sold
out.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.E1)(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.B1)
1998 Nov 23, It was reported
that American Online planned to purchase Netscape Communication for
about $4 billion in stock.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A1)
1998 Nov, IBM unveiled a disk
drive capable of holding 25 gigabytes of data.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.E1)
1998 Dec 3, Digital MP3
file-squishing technology was reported as a threat to recording
industry.
(SFC, 12/3/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 3, In Vienna 33
nations signed the Wassenaar Arrangement limiting arms exports. The
agreement included export controls on the most powerful
data-scrambling technologies.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.B2)
1998 Dec 4, The first PC for
the car, made by Clarion Co., went on sale for $1,299. It use a
Microsoft operating system and responded to voice commands to change
radio stations and CDs, check e-mail, and use global positioning.
(SFC, 12/5/98, p.D1)
1998 Dec 7, South Carolina
ended its participation in the antitrust case against Microsoft.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A3)
1998 Dec 18, The new electronic
Rocket Book by NuvoMedia weighed 22 ounces and stored 10 books.
(WSJ, 12/18/98, p.W15)
1998 Sergey Brin, a Russian
immigrant, and Larry Page of Stanford Univ. raised $1 million and
launched the Google search engine in Menlo Park, Ca. By 2003 over
200 million searches were logged daily. In 2004 Google filed for
IPO. Google's core search technology patent, owned by Stanford, was
set to expire in 2011.
(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.I1)(WSJ, 4/30/04, p.A1)
1998 Michael Dell (33) of the
Dell Computer Company recorded personal holdings of $7.22 billion.
(SFEC, 3/7/99, p.B9)
1998 Jeff Hawkins, Donna
Dubinsky and Ed Colligan left Palm, a unit of 3Com, to create
Handspring.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
1998 VMware was founded by
Mendel Rosenblum with assistance by his wife Diane Greene, who later
became chief executive. The company developed computer
virtualization software that allowed multiple servers to be
consolidated into a single machine. It accomplished this be
developing a small program called a hypervisor, which controls how
access to a computer’s processors and memory is shared. In 2004 it
was later acquired by EMC.
(Econ, 1/19/08,
p.74)(www.vmware.com/company/)(Econ, 7/5/08, p.78)
1998 A brain implant let a
paralyzed stroke victim move a cursor on a computer screen to point
out simple phrases. [see Apr 13, 2004]
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
1998 Cybernetics Prof. Kevin
Warwick had a chip implanted into his arm for 9 days to monitor his
body's electrical signals and transmit results to a computer. He
followed up with a more sophisticated chip in 2000.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.E16)
1999 Jan, Shawn Fanning (18), a
computer science student at Boston's Northeastern Univ., wrote
Napster, a software program to share music files over the Internet.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A7)
1999 Feb 22, IBM planned to
unveil a new microchip that included both logic functions and memory
functions.
(SFC, 2/22/99, p.B2)
1999 Feb 22, 3Com planned to
unveil 2 new PalmPilot devices. The Palm V weighed in at 4 oz, and
the Palm IIIx personal display assistant (PDA) was a upgrade to the
Palm III with more memory and better display.
(SFC, 2/22/99, p.B3)
1999 Feb 25, The FCC ruled that
connecting to the internet constitutes a long-distance call.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.B3)
1999 Feb 26, Intel's new
Pentium III began appearing in low priced PCs.
(WSJ, 2/26/99, p.B3)
1999 Mar 18, The 3rd annual
Webbies was held at the Herbst Theater under the direction of
Tiffany Schlain (28).
(SFC, 3/13/99, p.A17)
1999 Mar 29, The Melissa
computer virus, first reported Mar 26, was spreading and infecting
E-mail in tens of thousands of computers. In Dec. David L. Smith, a
New Jersey programmer, pleaded guilty to creating the virus and
spreading it through a sex Web site. It was reported to have caused
$80 million in damage.
(SFC, 3/29/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/10/99, p.B1)
1999 Mar, Pokemon Blue and
Pokemon Red from Nintendo of America were the top selling video
games.
(USAT, 3/24/99, p.10E)
1999 Apr, The film "Pi" became
the first film sold by download from Sightsound.com.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.B1)
1999 May 6, A US appeals court
ruled that government restrictions on the export of encryption
software violated free speech.
(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 6, The
Worm.Explore.Zip virus was first detected in Israel. The virus was
disguised a an e-mail attachment and destroyed files when opened.
(SFEC, 6/13/99, p.A6)
1999 Jun 11, The FBI was
seeking the creator of Worm.Explore.Zip, a file-destroying computer
virus which had hit some of the nation's biggest corporations.
(AP, 6/11/00)
1999 Jun 15, The US Senate
passed legislation protecting companies from lawsuits stemming from
Year 2000 computer problems.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun 23, House Republicans
unveiled their "e-Contract," a pitch to the high-tech community that
included a promise to keep the Internet free.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A1)
1999 Jun, Microsoft annual
revenues hit $19.75 billion.
(WSJ, 4/4/00, p.A16)
1999 Jul 19, Carleton "Carly"
Fiorina (44) was named the new president and CEO of Hewlett Packard
Co. She was brought over from Lucent Tech. and became the 3rd woman
running a Fortune 500 company. In 2003 George Anders authored
"Perfect Enough," a look at HP and Fiorina's efforts. In 2003 Peter
Burrows authored "Backfire," a look at Fiorina's past work.
(SFC, 7/20/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 2/7/03, p.W12)
1999 Jul, Apple corp.
introduced a mobile Macintosh, the iBook. The laptop was priced at
$1,599 and had a 233 MHz G3 processor.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1999 Aug 18, Ramos Horta of
Indonesia, 1996 Nobel Prize winner, warned the government that
computer hackers would wreak electronic mayhem on the country if
voting in the East Timor referendum is hampered.
(SFC, 8/18/99, p.D10)
1999 Sep 16, The White House
said it would allow US firms to export computer encryption
technology.
(SFC, 9/17/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 6, SanDisk issued a
press release announcing plans to jointly manufacture flash memory
chips with Toshiba Corp.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.B3)
1999 Oct 6, Jon Lech Johansen
(15) of Norway released DeCSS, a program that allows users to copy
DVDs onto computer hard disks.
(WSJ, 10/13/05,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS)
1999 Oct 25, Intel introduced
its code-named Coppermine chip as the new Pentium III with speeds up
to 500 megahertz. The internal circuitry was squeezed to .18 micron.
(SFC, 10/25/99, p.B1)
1999 Nov 5, US Judge Thomas
Penfield Jackson ruled in a finding of fact that Microsoft Corp. is
a monopoly and has wielded its power to stifle competition.
(SFC, 11/6/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 11, The computer virus
dubbed Bubbleboy was reported to spread through electronic mail
without attachments.
(WSJ, 11/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 21, Organizers called
for a "Jam Echelon Day," an effort to overload US National Security
Agency (NSA) supercomputers with e-mail containing words such as
"bomb." Echelon was a worldwide surveillance network run by the NSA
and partners in Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A7)
1999 Nov 29, A company called
C3D planned to demonstrate discs holding 140 gigabytes of data, over
200 times the capacity of a CD-ROM.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.C1)
1999 Nov 30, It was reported
that the EU passed the Electronic Signature Directive, a law that
gave legal status to digital signatures.
(WSJ, 12/1/99, p.A24B15)
1999 Dec 6, AT&T agreed in
principle to give competing Internet providers access to its
high-speed cable lines.
(SFC, 12/6/99, p.A3)
1999 Dec, The recording
industry filed a copyright infringement suit against Napster.
(WSJ, 6/20/00, p.B1)
1999 Tim Berners-Lee, inventor
of the World Wide Web, authored "Weaving the Web."
(WSJ, 10/1/99, p. W6)
1999 Po Bronson authored "The
Nudist on the Late Shift: and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley."
(SFC, 7/2/99, p.C1)
1999 The book "Dealers of
Lightning: Xerox Park and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael
Hiltzik was about the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
(WSJ, 3/16/99, p.A24)(SFEC, 8/1/99, BR p.9)
1999 David A. Kaplan authored
"The Silicon Boys," a history of the companies and characters who
began Silicon Valley.
(WSJ, 7/1/99, p.A21)
1999 Michael Lewis authored
"The New New Thing," a book about Silicon Valley as well as a
character study of Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape
and Healtheon.
(SFC, 10/27/99, p.B1)
1999 Michael S. Malone authored
"Infinite Loop: How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Computer
Company Went Insane."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.9)
1999 The book "The Visionary
Position" by Fred Moody" was about the development of virtual
reality in Seattle in the mid 1990s. It focused on the Human
Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT) founded by Tom Furness.
(WSJ, 3/4/99, p.A12)
1999 Anthony B. and Michael C.
Perkins authored "The Internet Bubble." The founding editors of Red
Herring and Red Herring Online believed that Internet stocks were
overvalued.
(WSJ, 11/1/99, p.A52)
1999 Gary Rivlin authored "The
Plot To Get Bill Gates: An Irreverent Investigation of the World's
Richest Man… and the People Who Hate Him."
(SFEC, 8/15/99, BR p.6)
1999 Jerre Stead, CEO of Ingram
Micro, authored "Soaring with the Phoenix: Renewing the Vision,
Reviving the Spirit and RE-Creating the Success of Your Company."
Ingram was the largest distributor of computer products and services
and a new CEO was sought to replace Stead later in the year.
(WSJ, 9/9/99, p.A1)
1999 William Bennett, former US
education secretary under Pres. Reagan, began opening cyber charter
schools.
(SSFC, 8/31/03, p.A23)
1999 CollabNet launched
Subversion, a collaborative platform for programmers.
(Econ, 3/8/08, TQ p.19)
1999 IBM abandoned the retail
PC business.
(WSJ, 1/9/02, p.B1)
1999 Nokia, Matsushita,
Motorola and Psion PLC formed a joint venture named Symbian to
devise a new operating system called Epoc to run on cellular phones.
Microsoft countered with a joint venture with Ericsson of Sweden.
(WSJ, 12/9/99, p.A3)
1999 Pyra software company
released Blogger for free. It allowed users to set up a Weblog, a
simple personal web site program. By 2002 some 500,000 weblogs were
on the Internet.
(NW, 8/26/02, p.42)
1999 In Russia legislation was
passed that created SORM-2, a Russian acronym for the system of
Operative and Investigative procedures. It required every Internet
service provider to install monitoring equipment that allowed access
by Russian security agencies.
(SFC, 3/11/00, p.A1)
1999 South Korea initiated OPEN
(Online Procedures Enhancement for Civil Applications), an
Internet-based anti-graft program.
(SFC, 11/23/01, p.D6)
2000 Jan 1, In California the
Uniform Electronic Transactions Act became law. It validated all
transactions formed, transmitted and recorded electronically, with
certain exemptions.
(SFEC, 1/2/00, p.B1)
2000 Jan 7, Pres. Clinton
announced a $91 million program to protect computer security as part
of the 2001 fiscal budget.
(SFC, 1/800, p.A1)
2000 Jan 13, Bill Gates stepped
down as CEO of Microsoft and handed the leadership over to Steve
Ballmer.
(SFC, 1/14/00, p.A1)
2000 Jan 19, Transmeta Corp.
leaders unveiled a pair of new microprocessors named Crusoe designed
for hand-held Internet-access devices.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.B2)
2000 Jan 20, It was reported
that the number of Internet users in China had more than doubled
over the last 6 months from 4 to 8.9 million, most of them young
single men.
(SFC, 1/20/00, p.C16)
2000 Jan 24, A torrent of data
to the US National Security Agency brought the system to a crashing
halt that lasted 3½ days.
(Econ, 2/27/10,
p.18)(http://intellit.muskingum.edu/nsa_folder/nsa00.html)
2000 Jan 26, In China the State
Bureau of Secrecy issued a 20-article circular that banned
discussion of state secrets on the Internet, in e-mail, and in chat
rooms or bulletin boards. Content and service providers were also
required to undergo a "security certification" prior to operation.
(SFC, 1/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 3, The Ford Motor Co.
said it would provide new PCs and a printer with Internet access to
its 300,000 employees at $5 per month over 3 years.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 4, Delta Air Lines
said it would provide new PCs and Internet access to its 72,000
employees at $12 per month over 3 years.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 4, The Sims, a new
game from SimCity creator Will Wright, was released to retail sales.
(SFC, 2/5/00, p.B1)
2000 Feb 7, An apparent team of
computer hackers shut the Yahoo web site down with a
"denial-of-service" attack that mimicked millions of phantom users.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A1)
2000 Feb 8, Net hackers shut
down at least 4 popular Web sites including Amazon.com, eBay,
CNN.com and buy.com with "denial of service attacks."
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.A1)(AP, 2/8/01)
2000 Mar 2, Gov. Angus King
announced that he would like to give every 7th grader in Maine
(17,000 students) a laptop computer, regardless of whether they have
a computer at home.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A2)
2000 Mar 3, It was reported
that student use of Napster software to download music files from
the Internet was clogging up university networks and causing
officials to block or limit access to the site.
(SFC, 3/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar 27, Cisco Systems
passed Microsoft as the most valuable company in the world.
(SFC, 3/28/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar, Palm separated from
3Com with an IPO offering.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
2000 Mar, Tera Computer bought
the Cray Research business from Silicon Graphics and changed its
name to Cray Inc.
(WSJ, 3/2/00, p.B8)
2000 Apr 3, It was reported
that 6 prestigious int'l. universities and cultural institutions
planned to sell knowledge and education over the Internet via the
Fathom Web site.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A5)
2000 Apr 3, Judge Thomas
Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft violated the Sherman Act by
tying its Internet browser to its operating system. The Nasdaq
plunged 349 points while the Dow rose 300.
(SFC, 4/4/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 5, The Netscape 6
browser was introduced.
(WSJ, 4/5/00, p.B1)
2000 Apr 14, Phillip W. Katz,
founder of compression software PKWare, died at age 37 from chronic
alcoholism.
(WSJ, 6/19/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 28, The US Justice
Dept. and 17 states filed to split Microsoft Corp. into 2
corporations.
(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A1)
2000 May 4, The e-mail virus "I
Love You" bug hit millions of computers around the world. It was
considered the most virulent, most damaging ($2.6 bil), most costly
and most rapidly spread virus to date.
(SFC, 5/5/00, p.A1)(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A1)
2000 May 18, Another computer
virus, described as a complex polymorph, began to spread around the
world.
(SFC, 5/19/00, p.A1)
2000 May 26, The "Killer
Resume" computer virus began to circulate.
(SFC, 5/27/00, p.A1)
2000 May 28, Donald W. Davies,
who helped pioneer packet switching, died in London at age 75.
(WSJ, 6/1/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun 4, It was reported
that IBM planned to build the "Blue Gene" computer over the next
five years to model the way human proteins fold into shapes that
give them unique biological properties.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 5, Computer rebels
planned to launch a data haven, an independent colony in cyberspace,
based on the island of Sealand, a WW II military fortress 6 miles
off the coast of England.
(SFEC, 6/4/00, p.A4)
2000 Jun 9, The FBI began
discussions on the "Serbian Badman Trojan: computer virus disguised
as a movie clip and embedded in some 2000 commercial and home
computers.
(SFC, 6/9/00, p.A7)
2000 Jun 10, The
single-elimination contest for battling robots, Battlebots San
Francisco, was held at the Festival Pavilion of Fort Mason in SF.
(SFEC, 6/11/00, p.D1)
2000 Jun 16, The US Senate
passed a bill to allow e-signatures for online contracts. Pres.
Clinton said he would sign the bill.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A3)
2000 Jun 30, Pres. Clinton
signed legislation for "digital signatures."
(WSJ, 7/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Jun, Handspring went
public.
(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
2000 Jul 21, It was reported
that computers at Los Alamos simulated a nuclear blast in 3
dimensions for the 1st time.
(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 26, Napster Inc. was
hit with a preliminary injunction to halt all illegal song swapping
over the Internet.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.A1)
2000 Oct 10, The Nobel Prize in
physics was awarded to Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments, co-inventor
of the computer chip, Herbert Kroemer (72) of UC Santa Barbara and
Zhores Alferov (70) of Russia for work in high-speed transistors and
tiny lasers.
(SFC, 10/11/00, p.A1,6)
2000 Nov 20, Intel planned to
introduce the Pentium 4 microprocessor with speeds of 1.4 and 1.5
GHz.
(SFC, 11/18/00, p.D1)
2000 Dec 8, Richard Clarke, top
cyberspace official of the US National Security Council, warned that
several nations had already created information-warfare units for
disrupting computer networks.
(SFC, 12/9/00, p.A3)
2000 Luis von Ahn, computer
scientist at Carnegie Mellon, together with Manuel Blum, Nicholas J.
Hopper and John Langford coined the term CAPTCHA (completely
automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) in
a joint paper. This led to the use of mangled text to verify human
users of computer software over the Internet. The Recaptcha system
was launched in 2007 and used words that machines could not read.
(Econ, 9/5/09, TQ p.16)
2000 Peter Wayner authored
"Free For All: How Linux and the Free Software Movement Undercut the
High-Tech Titans."
(WSJ, 7/26/00, p.A24)
2000 Data centers consumed .6%
of the world’s electricity. By 2005 this reached 1%.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.19)
2000 The government of Estonia
decided to go paperless and conduct as much business as possible
online.
(NW, 5/13/02, p.72)
2001 Jan 8, Advanced Micro
Devices announced its new 850 MHz Duron chip.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.B7)
2001 Mar 19, Palm unveiled its
m500 line but wasn't able to ship in volume until May.
(WSJ, 9/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar, Apple Corp.
introduced the Mac OS X.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2001 May 29, Intel unveiled its
new 64-bit processor, the Itanium, previously known under the code
name Merced. A 2nd generation of the chip, code-named McKinley, was
planned for 2002. The project was a joint venture with HP.
(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A1)(Econ, 2/28/04, p.63)
2001 May 31, Microsoft released
its new Office XP for Windows software.
(SFC, 5/31/01, p.C1)
2001 May, Apple Corp. announced
plans to open 25 retail stores.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2001 Jun 11, It was reported
that Intel researchers had developed tiny silicon transistors that
would allow production of chips with 1 billion transistors by 2007.
(SFC, 6/11/01, p.D1)
2001 Jun 28, A US federal
appeals court reversed the order to breakup Microsoft Corp. into two
parts.
(SFC, 6/29/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 19, The Code Red
computer worm began hitting Internet-connected computers, exploiting
a flaw in Microsoft software. This was among the first network worms
to spread rapidly because it required only a network connection, not
a human opening an attachment.
(SFC, 7/30/01, p.D1)(SFC, 9/3/07, p.C3)
2001 Jul 23, The US Pentagon
shut down public access to its web sites due to a computer worm
called the Code Red worm. It defaced web sites with the words
"Hacked by Chinese."
(SFC, 7/24/01, p.A2)
2001 Jul 30, Intel rolled out
its new Pentium III-M processor based on .13 micron chip technology.
(SFC, 7/31/01, p.E3)
2001 Aug 2, Houston launched
SimHouston, a program to provide each of its 1.8 million residents
with free e-mail accounts and access to word processing software.
(SFC, 8/21/01, p.C1)
2001 Aug 26, IBM computer
scientists reported that they had constructed a working logic
circuit within a single molecule of carbon fiber known as a carbon
nanotube.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.A20)(SFC, 8/27/01, p.D1)
2001 Aug 27, Intel unveiled a
2-GHz Pentium 4 chip.
(SFC, 8/27/01, p.D1)
2001 Aug 27, Michael Dertouzos,
MIT computer scientist, died at age 64. His books included ""The
Unfinished Revolution: Human Centered Computers and What They Can Do
For Us." He also helped drive the creation of the WWW Consortium to
ensure uniformity on the Web.
(SFC, 8/31/01, p.A24)
2001 Aug 28, Gateway, the
nation's No. 4 manufacturer of personal computers, said it was
laying off 4,700 employees, 25% of its global work force, because of
an increasingly bleak market.
(AP, 8/28/02)
2001 Sep 3, Hewlett-Packard
announced plans to buy Compaq Computer in a $25 billion stock swap.
The bid was expected to eliminate as many as 15,000 jobs.
(SFC, 9/4/01, p.A1)(SFC, 9/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 6, The US Justice
Dept. and 18 states dropped efforts to breakup Microsoft Corp.
(SFC, 9/7/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 18, The new computer
worm, W32.Nimda, struck the Internet.
(SFC, 9/19/01, p.D1)
2001 Sep, Larry Ellison of
Oracle Corp. advocated a national ID card system and said Oracle
software could be used.
(SFC, 5/20/02, p.A13)
2001 Oct 3, Apple introduced
the iPod, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000
CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits
in your pocket, at a cost of $399.
(www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23ipod.html)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.14)
2001 Oct 9, Pres. Bush
appointed Richard Clarke as special adviser for cyberspace security.
(SFC, 10/10/01, p.A4)
2001 Oct 17, Researchers at
Lucent's Bell Labs reported the development of a tiny new transistor
made of a simple cluster of organic molecules.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.D2)
2001 Oct 25, Microsoft
introduced its new Windows XP operating system.
(SFC, 10/26/01, p.B1)
2001 Nov 8, Scientists from
Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs issued a report on "nanotransistors,"
so tiny that 10 million could fit on the head of a pin.
(SFC, 11/9/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 14, The Microsoft
Xbox, a video game player, went on sale for $299.
(SFC, 11/14/01, p.D1)
2001 Nov, The US and some 2
dozen other nations signed a broad accord known as the Convention on
Cybercrime developed by the Council of Europe.
(WSJ, 12/3/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 4, The "Goner"
computer worm was reported spreading worldwide disguised as a screen
saver.
(SFC, 12/5/01, p.B1)
2001 Dec 8, Israeli police
arrested 3 teenagers for creating and spreading the "Goner" computer
worm.
(SSFC, 12/9/01, p.A18)
2001 Dec 11, US Federal agents
carried out dozens of raids and seized computers in some 27 cities
and 21 states suspected of pirating software over the Internet. The
"Warez" network of software pirates was targeted.
(SFC, 12/12/01, p.A3)
2001 Marc Prensky authored
“Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” in which he argued that
students are no longer the people our educational system was
designed to teach.
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.10)
2001 M. Mitchell Waldrop
authored "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution
That Made Computing Personal," a history of the personal computer.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, DB p.78)
2001 Jimmy Wales (35), a
retired futures and options trader, founded Wikipedia, an Internet
encyclopedia.
(SFC, 12/6/05, p.A10)
2002 Jan 28, Palm Inc.
introduced its $449 i705 handheld computer with wireless e-mail and
message service.
(SFC, 1/28/02, p.E1)
2002 Jan, Apple Corp.
introduced a line of iMacs with a swiveling flat screen on a
circular base containing an 800 MHz G4 processor. It was priced at
$1,799.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2002 Mar 14, It was reported
that scientists had developed a brain implant that allowed monkeys
to control a computer cursor by thought alone.
(SFC, 3/14/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 19, Carly Fiorina,
head of Hewlett-Packard, claimed victory by a slim margin in a proxy
battle to buy Compaq Computer. Some $180 million was
reportedly spent in the effort to win votes.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A1,21)
2002 Jun, Computer hackers from
around the world gathered in Odessa, Ukraine, for summit on trading
tips and setting up rules for bilking targets.
(SSFC, 10/23/11, p.F2)
2002 Nov 19, The US Dept. of
Energy awarded IBM a contract to develop a 100 teraflop computer
(ASCI Purple), the estimated speed of the human brain. This followed
the recent development of a Japanese NEC computer that was clocked
at 36.5 teraflops, trillions of floating point operations a second,
more than 4 times the fastest US computer. Completion was expected
in 2004.
(WSJ, 11/19/02, p.B1)
2002 Lou Gerstner (60), former
CEO of IBM, authored, "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance," an account
of his leadership at IBM.
(SFC, 11/18/02, p.E1)
2002 David Sheff authored
"China Dawn," a close-up look at the young men building Internet
infrastructure in China.
(WSJ, 3/12/02, p.A24)
2002 IBM stopped making desktop
computers and sold manufacturing operations to a contract
manufacturer.
(WSJ, 1/8/02, p.AB1)
2003 Jan 16, Microsoft
announced its 1st dividend along with a stock split.
(SFC, 1/17/03, p.A1)
2003 May, Munich, Germany,
ousted Microsoft from 14,000 government computers in favor of Linux.
(Econ, 9/13/03, p.59)
2003 Jun 2, PeopleSoft
announced an agreement to buy J.D. Edwards for $1.7 billion.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.D1)
2003 Apr, Apple Corp. launched
its iTunes music store to provide downloadable music for its iPod.
Downloads were offered at 99 cents per track.
(Econ, 7/8/06, p.70)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.18)
2003 Jun 4, Palm Inc. said it
would buy rival Handspring in a stock deal valued at $195 mil.
(SFC, 6/5/03, p.B1)(WSJ, 6/5/03, p.B1)
2003 Jun 6, Oracle issued a
$5.1 billion hostile takeover bid for PeopleSoft at $16 per share.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.D1)
2003 Jun 23, Apple Computer
Inc. introduced new Macintosh computers that use its "G5"
microprocessor, a design by IBM Corp. that can handle twice as much
data at once as traditional PC microchips.
(Reuters, 6/23/03)
2003 Sep 12, A climate
prediction experiment, expected to involve two million people around
the world, was launched. The program, downloaded from
(www.climateprediction.net) and ran on an ordinary desktop or laptop
computer.
(Reuters, 9/11/03)
2003 Sep 23, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) introduced 64-bit computing for PC users. The 1st new
chip is the AMD Athalon 64 Processor 3200+, which runs at 2 GHz.
(SFC, 9/23/03, p.B1)
2003 Oct, Apple Corp.
introduced a Windows version of the Mac music jukebox software,
iTunes.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2003 Nov 9, Endpcnoise.com
(http://www.endpcnoise.com), a Vancouver, Washington-based custom
outlet, was reported to specialize in creating nearly silent PCs.
These PCs can drop their noise levels to 25 or 26 decibels, while a
human's lowest hearing threshold is generally considered to be about
20 decibels. A busy road is about 80 decibels and a quiet bedroom at
night is about 30 decibels.
(Reuters, 11/9/03)
2003 Nov 20, Advanced Micro
Devices said it would build $2.4 billion chip factory in
Germany to produce microprocessors on 300-mm silicon wafers.
(SFC, 11/21/03, p.B1)
2003 Dec 18, RealNetworks filed
a federal anti-trust suit against Microsoft, alleging it has tried
to use it monopoly power in PC operating systems to unlawfully
dominate the digital media market. A settlement was reached in 2005.
(SFC, 10/12/05, p.C2)
2003 David Kushner authored
"Masters of Doom," an account of how John Carmack and John Romero
created the computer games "Doom" and "Quake."
(WSJ, 5/6/03, p.D5)
2004 Feb 9, Culturecom Holdings
Ltd. of Hong Kong unveiled a DVD player and word-processing device
built with chips developed by Chinese computer scientist Chu
Bong-foo. Chu found a way to put Asia characters in position to
command binary code.
(WSJ, 2/9/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 16, Japan's Toshiba
Corp said that Guinness World Records had certified its stamp-sized
hard disk drives (HDDs) as the smallest in the world. The 0.85-inch
HDDs, unveiled in January, have storage capacity of up to four
gigabytes and will be used in products such as cellphones and
digital camcorders.
(AP, 3/16/04)
2004 Mar 24, EU regulators
slapped a $613 million anti-trust fine against Microsoft.
(WSJ, 3/23/04, p.A3)(SFC, 3/25/04, p.C1)
2004 Apr 2, Sun Microsystems
announced that Microsoft would pay it nearly $2 billion to settle a
legal dispute. Sun also announced layoffs of 3,300 and a business
partnership with Microsoft.
(SFC, 4/3/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 3, Techies organized a
flash mob to create a supercomputer at UCSF's Koret Gym. 669
computers were hooked together, but the fastest speed, 180
gigaflops, was achieved with just 256. The world's fastest computer
was Japan's $400 million Earth Simulator running at 35 teraflops, or
35,000 gigaflops.
(SSFC, 4/4/04, p.B1)
2004 Apr 12. Microsoft reported
that it agreed to pay $440 million to settle a broad patent suit
with InterTrust. It covered the protection of digital content
against unauthorized copying.
(WSJ, 4/12/04, p.A3)
2004 Apr 13, The FDA approved a
clinical trial by Cyberkinetics on implants in humans for a
brain-computer interface.
(SFC, 4/14/04, p.C8)
2004 Jun 22, Microsoft received
patent #6,754,472 for “a method and apparatus for transmitting power
and data using the human body.”
(Econ, 7/3/04, p.66)
2004 Sep 28, IBM Corp. claimed
unofficial bragging rights as owner of the world's fastest
supercomputer. IBM said its still-unfinished BlueGene/L System,
named for its ability to model the folding of human proteins, can
sustain speeds of 360 teraflops. A teraflop is 1 trillion
calculations per second. BlueGene/L reached full capacity in 2005
(AP, 9/29/04)(SFC, 9/29/04, p.C1)(SFC, 8/29/05,
p.E1)
2004 Oct 14, Google Inc.
introduced a program that quickly scours hard drives for documents,
e-mails, instant messages and past Web searches.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2004 Dec 7, IBM and China’s
Lenovo Group planned a joint PC venture. Lenovo was expected to pay
some $2 billion for a majority share of IBM’s PC business. Lenovo
announced a $1.75 billion cash and stock deal to acquire a majority
interest in IBM’s PC business.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A3)(SFC, 12/8/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 13, Google announced
plans to digitally scan the book collections of 5 major libraries,
including the Univ. Michigan, Stanford, Harvard, NY Public Library
and Oxford, which agreed to books published before 1900.
(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 13, Oracle Corp.
raised its takeover bid for bitter rival PeopleSoft Inc. by 10
percent and sealed a $10.3 billion deal that will create the world's
second largest maker of business applications software.
(AP, 12/13/04)(SFC, 12/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 16, Symantec agreed to
acquire Veritas Software.
(SFC, 12/17/04, p.D1)
2004 A system named Red Storm
was scheduled for completion using AMD chips in a $90 million
Cray supercomputer for Sandia National Labs.
(SFC, 10/22/02, p.D1)
2004 Mark Shuttleworth of South
Africa began funding the Ubuntu project, which made a user-friendly
version of Linux, an open source operating system.
(Econ, 6/9/07, TQ p.33)
2005 Jan 1, A new California
law took effect levying a surcharge on computer sales to defray
recycling costs.
(Econ, 1/29/05, p.60)
2005 Jan 11, LeapFrog
Enterprises displayed a $99 digital pen that talks, corrects
spelling and answers math problems. Sales were to begin in the Fall.
(WSJ, 1/12/05, p.B1)
2005 Feb 1, HP researchers
introduced groundbreaking nanotechnology that could replace
traditional transistors on computer chips.
(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 1, Sun Microsystems
began selling information technology on a pay-per-use basis offering
customers access to computing power for $1 per hour.
(SFC, 2/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 7, IBM, Toshiba and
Sony disclosed the architectural design of a new, jointly developed,
multi-core processor called the Cell.
(Econ, 2/12/05,
p.77)(www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2972427392.html)
2005 Feb 14, The annual RSA
Conference opened in SF. RSA stands for Riverst, Shamir, and Adelman
-- three Israelis who played a fundamental role in developing the
PKI infrastructure. The RSA show remains a fundamental gathering for
the cryptographic community.
(IHub, 2/14/05)
2005 Feb 17, ChoicePoint Inc.,
a national provider of identification and credential verification
services, said it will send an additional 110,000 statements to
people informing them of possible identity theft after a group of
well-organized criminals was able to obtain personal information on
almost 140,000 consumers through the company. In 2006 ChoicePoint
agreed to pay $15 million to settle FTC charges that consumer
privacy rights were violated in the DB theft.
(http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/17/technology/personaltech/choicepoint/)(SFC,
1/27/06, p.D3)
2005 Feb 26, Jef Raskin (61),
computer pioneer, died in Pacifica, Ca. he led the shift to a
graphical interface with Apple’s Macintosh.
(WSJ, 3/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Mar 9, Information broker
LexisNexis reported that thieves hacked into records and stole
personal data on some 310,000 US individuals.
(SFC, 4/13/05, p.A4)
2005 Mar 24, A California jury
ordered Toshiba Corp. to pay an additional $84 million in punitive
damages to Lexar Media, Inc. one day after a 381 million award for
breach of fiduciary duty. The total damages of $465 million was the
largest IP verdict in California history.
(SSFC, 4/3/05, p.B1)
2005 Apr 29, Apple began
selling the Tiger operating system, OS X version 10.4, for the Mac
computer.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.C1)
2005 May 31, Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) introduced its 1st PC microprocessors with a dual-core
chip design, the Athlon 64 X2.
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.C4)
2005 Jun 8, Seagate introduced
a disk drive for notebook computers that stores 160 gigabytes of
data. It used new technology called perpendicular recording.
(WSJ, 6/9/05, p.B7)
2005 Jun 6, IBM and Ecole
Polytechnique of Lausanne, Switz., announced a partnership to begin
building a computer model of the human brain.
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.75)
2005 Jun 11, It was reported
that the latest flash drives can store 4 gigabytes of data.
(Econ, 6/11/05, TQ p.13)
2005 Jun 22, The IBM BlueGene/L
System at Lawrence Livermore National Lab., a computer with 62,000
microprocessors, was crowned king among supercomputers at a
conference in Germany.
(SFC, 6/22/05, p.C1)
2005 Jul 19, Computer and
printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will cut 14,500 jobs and
overhaul its retirement program in a restructuring plan designed to
save $1.9 billion annually.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Aug 29, A Connecticut man
known on the Internet as "illwill" pleaded guilty in Manhattan
federal court to charges relating to the theft of the source code to
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating software, considered among the
company's crown jewels. William Genovese, Jr. (28) admitted selling
the source code for Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0. On January 27,
2006, he was sentenced to 2 years in jail.
(AP,
8/29/05)(www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/genovesePlea.htm)
2005 Sep 7, Apple Computer Inc.
Chief Executive Steve Jobs introduced a long-anticipated
music-playing cell phone and surprised the faithful with a new
pencil-thin iPod.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Nov 22, Microsoft released
its Xbox 360 videogame console.
(WSJ, 11/22/05, p.A1)
2005 George Gilder authored
“The Silicon Eye: How a Silicon Valley Company Aims to Make All
Current Computers, Cameras, and Cell Phones Obsolete.” It was a
history of the Foveon imaging chip, which began development under
Carver mead and his associates in the 1980s with neural networks.
(WSJ, 5/3/05, p.D8)
2005 Jeffrey S. Young authored
“iCon - Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of
Business.”
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.F1)
2005 Intel planned to complete
a new $375 million chipset assembly plant in Chengdu, China.
(SFC, 5/31/05, p.C1)
2005 Microsoft released MSN
Search, powered by its own internally developed search engine. MSN
had previously relied on Yahoo for its search function.
(SFC, 2/2/08, p.C1)
2005 Microsoft acquired Groove
Networks along with its creator Ray Ozzie.
(Econ, 6/28/08, p.78)
2006 Mar 9, Microsoft Corp.
took the wraps off its mysterious Project Origami, unveiling a
computer that's about the size of a large paperback book but runs a
full version of the Windows XP operating system.
(AP, 3/9/06)
2006 Apr 5, Apple Corp.
introduced free software to allow users of its latest Mac models to
run MS Windows.
(Reuters, 4/5/06)(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 15, Bill Gates (50)
announced that he would hand over his role as chief architect of
Microsoft to Ray Ozzie (50).
(Econ, 6/24/06, p.75)
2006 Jun 29, The US government
announced it had recovered a stolen laptop computer and hard drive
with sensitive data on up to 26.5 million veterans and military
personnel.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2006 Jul 27, Intel introduced a
new line of microprocessors called Core 2 Duos. New features
included higher performance and lower power consumption.
(SFC, 7/28/06, p.D1)
2006 Jul 27, Sharman Networks
Ltd., the company behind Kazaa file-sharing software, said it will
redesign its software and pay over $115 million in penalties to
leading music and movie companies.
(SFC, 7/28/06, p.D3)
2006 Nov 14, Intel launched its
first computer chips with four processing cores.
(www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2058457,00.asp)
2006 Nov 30, Microsoft Corp.
released Windows Vista for businesses. This was the 1st major
upgrade to its operating system in 5 years. Release for retail
customers was set for Jan 30.
(SFC, 12/1/06, p.D1)
2006 Dec 11, Scientists from
IBM, Macronix and Qimonda said they developed a material that made
"phase-change" memory 500 to 1,000 times faster than the
commonly-used "flash" memory, while using half as much power.
(AFP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, Online political
groups, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution and the Christian
Alliance for Progress, demanded that Wal-Mart dump Left Behind:
Eternal Forces, a new computer game in which players must either
kill or convert non-Christians.
(SFC, 12/12/06, p.A1)
2006 Dec 12, Alan Shugart, disk
drive pioneer, died in Monterey, Ca. Shugart led a team of IBM
engineers in 1969 that developed the floppy disk and went on to
found Shugart Associates. In 1979 he co-founded Seagate Technology.
(SFC, 12/14/06, p.B5)
2006 Adam Greenfield authored
“Everywhere: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing.”
(Econ, 4/28/07, SR p.18)
2007 Jan 5, Hitachi announced
the 1st 1-terrabyte hard drive, eclipsing Seagate’s 750 gigabyte
drives.
(SFC, 1/5/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 9, Steve Jobs
introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld Expo in SF. The 4GB
version would be sold for $499. Apple dropped the word “Computer”
from its name.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.C1)
2007 Jan 22, Intel and Sun
Microsystems announced a major partnership under which Sun would
begin selling business computers running on Intel’s Xeon
microprocessors, while Intel will endorse and support sun’s Solaris
operating system.
(SFC, 1/23/07, p.D3)
2007 Jan 26, Intel said it will
begin using a new material on its next generation of chips making
them more energy efficient. IBM also announced changes in its
chip-making processes.
(SFC, 1/27/07, p.A1)
2007 Jan 30, The Windows Vista
computer operating system from Microsoft went on sale in the
consumer retail market.
(SFC, 1/30/07, p.C1)
2007 Feb 11, Intel introduced a
new super-processor at the opening of an int’l conference of chip
scientists. The processor would be able to perform over 1 trillion
mathematical calculations per second (teraflop), but commercial use
would not be available for 5 years.
(SFC, 2/12/07, p.A9)
2007 Feb 13, In Canada D-Wave
Systems, based in Burnaby near Vancouver, announced the existence of
the world’s first practical quantum computer.
(Econ, 2/17/07, p.81)
2007 Mar 17, John Backus
(b.1924), programmer, died in Oregon. His development of the Fortran
programming language in the 1950s changed how people interacted with
computers and paved the way for modern software. Fortran, short for
Formula Translation, reduced the number of programming statements
necessary to operate a machine by a factor of 20. The Association
for Computing Machinery gave Backus its 1977 Turing Award, one of
the industry's highest accolades. Backus also won a National Medal
of Science in 1975 and got the 1993 Charles Stark Draper Prize, the
top honor from the National Academy of Engineering.
(AP, 3/20/07)
2007 Mar 26, Intel Corp.
announced it will build a $2.5 billion chip factory in China, giving
the US company a bigger presence in the booming Chinese market and
boosting Beijing's efforts to attract high-tech investment. Intel
also unveiled a prototype chip that uses optical connections to
increase speed. Products using the technology were expected to
appear within 3 years.
(AP, 3/26/07)(WSJ, 3/26/07, p.B6)
2007 Apr 4, Apple updated its
desktop Mac Pro computers adding two new 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
processors, bringing 8-core processing to the Mac. The new machines
can run the 3.0GHz Intel Xeon processors and are available as build
to order options.
(www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/04/eightcore/index.php)
2007 May 30, Microsoft
introduced a computer designed like a table with a touch-screen
called Surface. It was aimed for use in hotels and casinos.
(WSJ, 5/30/07, p.B1)
2007 Aug 3, Lenovo Group Ltd.
said it will sell a basic personal computer aimed at China's vast
but poor rural market and priced as low as $199.
(AP, 8/3/07)
2007 Aug 27, In South Africa
Hewlett-Packard became the first multinational to be exempted from
selling 30 percent of its business in South Africa to black
investors. Under an agreement reached with the government, the
company will instead invest millions of dollars in a new business
institute to provide training for 1,800 students over the next six
years.
(AFP, 8/27/07)
2007 Aug 27, Taiwan's leading
computer vendor Acer Inc moved to substantially boost its market
share by acquiring US rival Gateway amid a major consolidation among
the world's top computer companies. Acer said it would pay $710
million for Gateway.
(AP, 8/27/07)(Econ, 9/1/07, p.60)
2007 Oct 1, Teradata
Corporation, a hardware and software vendor specializing in data
warehousing and analytic applications, was spun off from NCR Corp.
As of 2010 the former division of NCR is the largest company in
Dayton, Ohio, with headquarters in Miamisburg, Ohio.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teradata)
2007 Dec 6, IBM reported that
it has made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into
light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which
now requires huge machines, will be done on a single chip.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 14, Asus Technology of
Taiwan unveiled a $299 version of Eee PC, a 2-pound laptop for kids
that stores data on flash memory.
(SFC, 12/14/07, p.D1)
2007 Ian Ayres authored “Super
Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart,” a
look at how computers have enabled automatic processes to surpass
human experts in numerous fields.
(Econ, 9/15/07, p.103)
2008 Feb 4, Intel said it has
built a new chip with a record 2 billion transistors. Its new
quad-core Itanium processor will operate at frequencies up to 2
gigahertz.
(SFC, 2/5/08, p.C2)
2008 Feb 12, European Union
antitrust regulators raided Intel Corp. and computer resellers
searching for evidence that they may have broken cartel or monopoly
rules.
(AP, 2/12/08)
2008 Feb 15, It was reported
that a new computer virus called Mocmex, identified as a Trojan
Horse from China, had been discovered in digital photo frames. It
recognized and blocked antivirus software from over 100 security
vendors and collected passwords for online games.
(SFC, 2/15/08, p.C1)
2008 Feb 27, The EU fined
Microsoft Corp. $1.3 billion for charging rivals too much for
software information. The fine is the largest ever for a single
company and the first time the EU has penalized a business for
failing to obey an antitrust order.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2008 Feb 27, Germany's highest
court found that government surveillance of personal computers
violates the individual right to privacy. German investigators said
this will restrict their ability to pursue terrorists.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2008 Mar 5, Joseph Weizenbaum
(b.1923), a computer programmer who helped advance artificial
intelligence only to become a critic of the technology later in his
life, died. He was a professor at MIT when in 1966 he introduced
ELIZA, named for Eliza Doolittle, the heroine of "My Fair Lady." The
program allowed a person to "converse" with a computer, using what
the person said to create the computer's reply.
(AP, 3/13/08)(WSJ, 3/15/08, p.A6)
2008 Apr 8, IBM began shipping
high-end computers built around the Power6 processor, the fastest
chip to date.
(SFC, 4/9/08, p.C1)
2008 Apr 21,
It was reported that the 4th generation Oqo Model 02 personal
computer, which weighed one pound and clipped onto a belt, was
available for a starting price of $1,300. It had been developed over
the last 8 years in SF in a venture begun by former Apple and IBM
engineers.
(SFC, 4/21/08, p.D1)
2008 Apr 30, Scientists at
Hewlett-Packard said they have discovered a fourth basic type of
electrical circuit that could lead to a computer you never have to
boot up. The three fundamental elements of a passive circuit
included resistors, capacitors and inductors. In the 1970s Leon Chua
of the University of California at Berkeley, theorized there should
be a fourth called a memory resistor, or memristor, which remembers
the direction and the amount of charge that flows through it.
(Reuters, 5/1/08)
2008 May 30, A jury in
Syracuse, NY, found Hewlett-Packard guilty of infringing a patent
for data processing held by Cornell Univ. and ordered the company to
pay Cornell $184 million.
(SFC, 6/4/08, p.C5)
2008 Jul 13, Terry Childs (43),
a San Francisco computer engineer, was arrested on felony charges
for allegedly plotting to hijack the city’s computer system. Childs,
who continue to draw his $127,735 annual salary, refused to provide
passwords to the network system and was held in lieu of a $5 million
bail. Mayor Newsom met with Childs on July 21, who provided system
code. Cisco engineers had the system back under control by July 22.
On April 27, 2010, Childs was convicted of felony computer
tampering. On April 27, 2010, a Superior Court jury concluded that
his crime cost the city over $200,000, making him eligible for a
maximum state sentence of 5 years. On Aug 6, 2010, Childs was
sentenced to 4 years in prison.
(SFC, 7/16/08, p.B1)(SFC, 7/23/08, p.B1)(SFC,
4/28/10, p.C1)(SFC, 8/7/10, p.C2)
2008 Jul 25, Randy Pausch (47),
a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist, died at his home in
Virginia. His "last lecture" in September 2007, about facing
terminal cancer, has become an Internet sensation and a best-selling
book.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Sep 7, In London an urgent
inquiry was underway after a disc containing the personal details of
5,000 justice staff went missing in yet another embarrassing data
loss blunder. Private contractor EDS told the Prison Service in July
that the hard drive had gone astray. The missing disc was last seen
in July 2007.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 7, South Korean police
arrested four people over the theft of data on 11 million customers
of a local oil refiner in what is being called the country's
largest-ever data leak.
(AFP, 9/7/08)
2008 Sep 23, Portugal's
Socialist government began the roll-out of 500,000 ultra-cheap
laptops for school children in a program that the government said
could be extended to Venezuela. While the Magellan computer will be
assembled in Portugal by a company called JP Sa Couto, it is based
on Intel's Classmate PC, a cheap computer that has been adopted in
various formats in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia.
(Reuters, 9/23/08)
2008 Urs Gasser and John
Palfrey authored “Born Digital.”
(Econ, 3/6/10, TQ p.10)
2009 Jan 8, Dell Inc. announced
that it is moving its Irish manufacturing operations to Poland by
2010, as part of a cost cutting measure that will result in the loss
of some 1,900 Irish jobs.
(WSJ, 1/9/09, p.B4)
2009 Jan 21, Intel said it will
close several older factories displacing some 5-6 thousand workers
in reaction to a sharp drop in demand for its computer chips.
(WSJ, 1/22/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 18, IBM announced that
it was in talks to acquire Sun Microsystems for at least $6.5
billion in cash. The deal soon faltered as the companies failed to
agree on terms.
(Econ, 3/21/09, p.69)(SFC, 4/6/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 30, Intel released
Nehalem, its new superfast chip for servers.
(Econ, 4/4/09, p.73)
2009 Jun 16, The Norwegian firm
Opera Software unveiled new technology that allows it Opera 10 Web
browser to also function as a file server. A feature called Opera
Unite enables users to push content and establish communications
without the need for a 3rd party.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jun 17, It was reported
that security researchers at Finjan, a venture–funded security
company in San Jose, have identified a sophisticated online network,
called GoldenCashworld, that was used for buying and selling access
to infected PCs. The network included tools for creating malicious
code and stolen credentials for about 100,000 Web sites.
(SFC, 6/17/09, p.C1)
2009 Jul 7, Google announced
its new operating system, Google Chrome OS, which would initially
target low cost netbooks.
(SFC, 7/9/09, p.C1)
2009 Sep 18, South Korean
scientists said they had developed a new transistor which moves
faster and consumes less energy than existing semiconductors, a
technology opening the way for no-booting computers.
(AP, 9/18/09)
2009 Oct 22, The Windows 7
computer operating system went on sale.
(SFC, 10/22/09, p.C2)
2009 Nov 11, Hewlett-Packard
Co. said it will acquire 3Com Corp. in a $2.7 billion deal that
would put HP in direct competition with Cisco Systems in networking
technology.
(SFC, 11/12/09, p.A1)
2009 Dec 16, The US Federal
Trade Commission voted to sue Intel Corp. over its business
practices, saying it engaged in anti-competitive behavior by abusing
its dominant market position. Intel controlled over 80% of the CPU
market and will face an administrative law judge in September.
(SFC, 12/17/09, p.A1)
2009 Dec 22, A US federal
appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word
program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million
for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.
Toronto-based i4i Inc. sued Microsoft in 2007, saying it owned the
technology behind a tool in the popular word processing program.
(AP, 12/22/09)
2010 Jan 7, Intel CEO Paul
Otellini introduced a technology called Intel Wireless Display
(WiDi) that allows a user to beam the contents of a computer screen
to a TV.
(SFC, 1/9/10, p.D1)
2010 Jan 27, Apple Inc CEO
Steve Jobs took the wraps off a sleek tablet that it called the
iPad, pitching the new gadget at $499, a surprisingly low price, to
bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops. It will go on sale
in late March for $499-829.
(Reuters, 1/28/10)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.11)
2010 Feb 6, Ethiopia’s official
news agency said US software giant Microsoft has launched Windows
Vista in Amharic, the first operating system in its national
language. 40 scholars from the Addis Ababa University had taken part
in the translation of the software for the country of over 80
million people.
(AFP, 2/6/10)
2010 Feb 18, It was reported
that a new type of computer virus is known to have breached almost
75,000 computers in 2,500 organizations around the world. The virus,
known as "Kneber botnet," gathers login credentials to online
financial systems, social networking sites and email systems from
infested computers and reports the information back to hackers.
(Reuters, 2/18/10)
2010 Feb 18, Microsoft won
unconditional European Union approval for its planned search deal
with Yahoo Inc to challenge market leader Google.
(Reuters, 2/18/10)
2010 Apr 1, Dr. Henry Edward
Roberts (b.1941), American engineer and medical doctor, died in
Georgia. In 1975 he developed and introduced the MITS Altair 8800.
His Micro Instrumentation & Telemetry Systems of Albuquerque,
N.M., sold the build-it-yourself kit by mail-order and Bill Gates
and Paul Allen developed the first software program for it.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Roberts_%28computers%29)(SFC,
4/2/10, p.C7)
2010 Apr 3, Apple Inc. began
selling its much-anticipated iPad, drawing eager customers intent on
being among the first owners of a tablet-style device that the
company is hoping to convince more people they actually need. Some
300,000 iPads were sold the first day.
(AP, 4/3/10)(SFC, 4/6/10, p.D1)
2010 Apr 12, Neofonie, the
German maker of a new tablet PC, the WePad, was reportedly setting
out to rival Apple's iPad with the promise of even more technology
such as a bigger screen, a webcam and USB ports. When it hits stores
starting late July, it will also boast a complete open source office
package.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 15, Israel customs
officials said they already have confiscated about 10 iPads since
Israel announced new regulations this week. The iPad banned anyone
from bringing an iPad into the country until officials certify that
they are in compliance with local transmitter standards. Israel
lifted a ban on April 25.
(AP, 4/15/10)(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 28, Palm Inc. a
pioneer in the smart phone business that couldn't quite make the
comeback it needed, agreed to be bought out by Hewlett-Packard Co.
for about $1.4 billion in cash. Palm was founded in 1992 by Donna
Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins and helped originate the handheld
computing market with its Palm Pilot "personal digital assistants"
in the 1990s.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 May 31, It was reported
that Google is phasing out the internal use of Microsoft’s
ubiquitous Windows operating system because of security concerns.
(www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d2f3f04e-6ccf-11df-91c8-00144feab49a.html)
2010 Jun 10, A judge in the US
District Court for the District of Utah granted Novell's request for
declaratory judgment and ruled against SCO's claims of slander and
breach of implied covenant of good faith. He also said that SCO is
obligated to recognize Novell's waiver of SCO's claims against IBM
and other companies that use Linux. He ordered the case closed.
(PCWorld, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun, Stuxnet, computer
malware, was first detected by VirusBlokAda, a security firm in
Belarus. It was tailored for Siemens supervisory control and data
acquisition (SCADA) systems commonly used to manage water supplies,
oil rigs, power plants and other industrial facilities. It was able
to recognize a specific facility's control network and then destroy
it. The code had a technology fingerprint of the control system it
was seeking and would go into action automatically when it found its
target. In September German computer security researcher Ralph
Langner said he suspected that Stuxnet's mark was the Bushehr
nuclear facility in Iran. Unspecified problems have been blamed for
a delay in getting the facility fully operational.
(AP, 9/24/10)(Econ, 10/2/10, p.63)
2010 Jul 22, India unveiled the
prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which
it hopes to bring into production by 2011.
(AP, 7/23/10)
2010 Aug 16, Dell Inc. said
it's buying 3Par Inc., a maker of enterprise data storage equipment,
for about $1.13 billion cash or $18 per share. Hewlett Packard soon
countered with a higher bid and a bidding war ensued raising the
value of 3Par $2 billion, or $30/share. HP ended an 18-day battle
with a $33 per share offer. On Sep 2 Dell refused to continue
bidding and said it was entitled to a $72 million termination fee.
(AP, 8/16/10)(SSFC, 8/29/10, p.A9)(SFC, 9/3/10,
p.D4)
2010 Aug 19, Chipmaker Intel
announced a deal to buy security software maker McAfee Inc. for
$7.68 billion, or $48 per share, a 60% premium over the stock’s
closing price.
(SFC, 8/20/10, p.A1)
2010 Aug 27, The US military
said it is demanding to know what happened to $1.9 million worth of
computers intended for Iraqi schoolchildren. The computers were
allegedly auctioned off by Iraqi officials for less than $50,000.
(SFC, 8/28/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 30, The
Hewlett-Packard Co. agreed to pay $55 million to settle a Justice
Dept. probe on overcharges in a kickback scheme. The settlement
involved a False Claims Act lawsuit dating back to 2004.
(SFC, 8/31/10, p.D1)
2010 Sep 13, Hewlett-Packard
announced a $1.5 billion deal to buy ArcSight Inc, a provider of
computer network security.
(SFC, 9/14/10, p.D1)
2010 Oct 3, In Iran a top
official said Industrial computers infected by Stuxnet have been
cleaned and returned to their units, following reports that the
malware was mutating and wreaking havoc with equipment.
(AFP, 10/3/10)
2010 Oct 5, Iran claimed that
the Stuxnet computer worm, found on the laptops of several employees
at the country's nuclear power plant, is part of a covert Western
plot to derail its nuclear program.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 28, Nvidia Corp. said
China’s National University of Defense Technology has designed the
world’s fastest supercomputer. Its Tianhe-1A set a performance
record of 2.507 petaflops per second.
(SFC, 10/29/10, p.C5)
2010 Nov 22, Novell Inc., the
maker of Linux operating-system software, said it has agreed to be
bought by Attachmate Corp., for $2.2 billion, or about $6.10 per
share.
(SFC, 11/23/10, p.D2)
2011 Feb 9, Hewlett-Packard
unveiled its new TouchPad computer. It used Palm’s updated webOS
software.
(SFC, 2/10/11, p.D1)
2011 Feb 14, A
man-versus-machine showdown on popular US quiz show "Jeopardy!"
ended in a tie on the first day of a three-day challenge, when an
IBM computer named Watson showed off its knowledge of the Beatles,
as well as a few glitches.
(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 16, The IBM computer
named Watson beat two former Jeopardy champions, Ken Jennings and
Brad Rutter, finishing a 3-day match at the TV quiz show.
(SFC, 2/17/11, p.D4)
2011 Mar 11, Apple’s iPad2
tablet computer arrived in stores.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.D1)
2011 Apr 4, Texas Instruments
Inc announced that it is buying National Semiconductor Corp for
about $6.5 billion in cash, paying a nearly 80 percent premium in a
deal to expand its stake in analog chips used in everything from
tablets to cars.
(Reuters, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 26, Japanese
electronics and entertainment giant Sony unveiled its first tablet
computers, codenamed S1 and S2, in a direct but belated challenge to
Apple's iPad.
(AFP, 4/26/11)
2011 May 4, Intel unveiled its
new Ivy Bridge processor made with a 3-D manufacturing technique
that increases chip performance as much as 37% while using less
power.
(SFC, 5/5/11, p.D3)
2011 May 10, Microsoft
announced an $8.5 billion deal to acquire Skype, an Internet voice
and video communications company.
(SFC, 5/11/11, p.A1)
2011 Jun 1, Taiwan-based Acer
Inc, the world No. 2 PC maker, said it will take a $150 million
charge to write off inventory and doubtful payments in Europe and
will cut 300 jobs there in the latest upheaval following the sudden
departure of its CEO in March. Acer charged its former chief
executive officer, Gianfranco Lanci, with performance issues, after
he had criticized the company's resistance to globalization in
interviews with the media.
(Reuters, 6/1/11)
2011 Jun 20, RIKEN and Fujitsu
took first place on the 37th TOP500 list at the 26th International
Supercomputing Conference (ISC'11) held in Hamburg, Germany. This
ranking is based on a performance measurement of the "K
computer(1)," currently under their joint development.
(www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2011/20110620-02.html)
2011 Aug 18, Hewlett-Packard
said that it would exit the personal computer business.
(SFC, 8/19/11, p.A1)
2011 Aug 24, Silicon Valley
legend Steve Jobs resigned as chief executive of Apple Inc in a
stunning move that ended his 14-year reign at the technology giant
he co-founded in a garage.
(Reuters, 8/24/11)
2011 Sep 28, Amazon.com CEO
Jeff Beezos unveiled the new Kindle Fire tablet computer to sell for
$199, compared with $499 for Apple’s least expensive iPad.
(SFC, 9/29/11, p.A1)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc. unveiled
a faster, more powerful iPhone, the iPhone 4S, in its first major
product event in years without Steve Jobs presiding.
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc rejected
an offer from Samsung Electronics Co to settle their tablet computer
dispute in Australia, possibly killing off the commercial viability
of the South Korean firm's new Galaxy tablet in that market.
(Reuters, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 5, Steve Jobs (56),
the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes,
died. Millions of people around the world mourned digital-gadget
genius Steve Jobs as a man whose wizardry transformed their lives in
big ways and small.
(AP, 10/6/11)
2011 Oct 5, India introduced a
cheap tablet computer, saying it would deliver modern technology to
the countryside to help lift villagers out of poverty. Developer
Datawind is selling the tablets, called Aakash, or "sky" in Hindi,
to the government for about $45 each. Subsidies will reduce that to
$35 for students and teachers.
(AP, 10/5/11)
2011 Oct 7, Wired
magazine reported that a computer virus has infected networks used
by pilots who control US Air Force drones in places like Afghanistan
and Iraq. The spyware resisted efforts to remove it from computers
at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.A12)
2011 Oct 24, John McCarthy
(b.1927), computer science pioneer, died at his home on the Stanford
campus. He coined the term AI and organized the first conference on
artificial intelligence while teaching at Dartmouth. At MIT he
invented the List Processing Language (LISP), still the language of
choice for AI researchers.
(SFC, 10/29/11, p.C5)
2011 Oct 25, IBM said Virginia
Rometty (54) will succeed Sam Palmisano as chief executive officer
effective Jan 1. Rometty, currently head of sales and marketing,
will become IBM’s first female chief.
(SFC, 10/26/11, p.D3)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Computer
End of file-53pp
Apple with Steve Jobs:
1955 Feb 24, Steven Jobs,
co-founder (Apple Computer), was born.
(SFC, 8/25/11, p.A10)
1975 Mar 5, The Homebrew
Computer Club, founded by peace activist Fred Moore, held its first
meeting in Menlo Park, Ca. It was an outgrowth of the store-front
based People’s Computer Co. The meeting inspired Steve Wozniak (24)
to design and build the first Apple computer.
(SSFC, 4/23/05, p.B1)(Reuters, 9/27/06)
1976 Apr 1, Stephen Wozniak and
Steven Jobs founded Apple Computer. They incorporated Jan 3, 1977.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer)
1976 The 6502 microprocessor by
MOS Technologies was introduced and later used in the Apple II
personal computer.
(TAR, 1996, p.22)
1977 Jan 3, Apple Computers
incorporated under Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak. They produced the
first pre-assembled, mass-produced PC.
(I&I, Penzias, p.182)(WSJ, 1/11/99,
p.R42)(MC, 1/3/02)
1977 Jun 5, The first Apple II
personal computers went on sale.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II)
1977 Jun 10, Apple Computer
shipped its 1st Apple II.
(MC, 6/10/02)
1979 Steve Jobs and team of
Apple staff visited PARC. They incorporated many of the ideas they
saw into their Lisa and Macintosh computers.
(SFC, 10/25/00, p.D1)
1980 Oct, Hambrecht & Quist
took public Apple and Genentech Corp.
(SFC, 6/22/96, p.D1)
1980 Dec 11, Massachusetts Sec.
of State Michael Connolly banned the sale of Apple Computer stock
arguing that the $22 price per share was too high.
(SFC, 12/9/05, p.F6)
1980 Dec 12, Hambrecht &
Quist took Apple Corp. public with 4.6 million shares at $22 per
share, which closed at $29 per share.
(www.macworld.com/2006/03/features/30timeline/index.php)(SFC,
1/24/04, p.A12)
1983 Jan 19, Apple’s Lisa
computer went on sale for $1400. It was pulled from the market after
2 years.
(SFC, 8/25/11,
p.A10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lisa)
1983 John Sculley was recruited
from Pepsico to reorganize Apple Computer Corp.
(I&I, Penzias, p.183)
1984 Jan 24, Apple Computer Inc
unveiled its Macintosh personal computer. It included sound-sampling
technology that could play recorded sounds. The CPU had a speed of 8
MHz and 128k of RAM. It sold for $2,495.
(WSJ,11/14/94, p.R26)(WSJ, 3/4/97, p.B1)(SFC,
1/24/04, p.A12)
1984 Michael Moritz authored
“The Little Kingdom: The Private Story of Apple Computer.”
(SSFC, 5/22/05, p.F1)
1985 Feb, Steve Wozniak left
Apple Corp. to start his own company making home video products.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1985 Sep, Steven Jobs left
Apple Computer Corp. after losing control over the Macintosh
division to Jean-Louis Gasee, appointed by John Sculley. Jobs went
on to start NeXt.
(I&I, Penzias, p.185)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1987 Mar 2, The Macintosh II
computer was introduced. The 1st color Mac had a CPU speed of 16 MHz
and sold for $3,898.
(SFC, 1/24/04,
p.A12)(www.applematters.com/index.php/section/history/2006/03/02/)
1988 Mar 17, Apple filed suit
against Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement in the Windows
GUI.
(Wired, 12/98, p.196)
1991 May 13, Apple
released Macintosh System 7.0.
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1991 Jul 3, Former corporate
enemies Apple Computer and IBM publicly joined forces in a broad
pact to swap technologies and develop new machines. Plans eventually
led to the PowerPC processors.
(AP, 7/3/01)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1992 Apr 15, Court threw out
Apple's lawsuit against Microsoft.
(www.abo.fi/~adeheer/students/itlekt1e.)
1993 Feb, Apple shipped its 10
millionth Mac computer.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 Jun, Michael Spindler
replaced John Sculley as CEO of Apple Comp.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 Oct, John Sculley left
Apple Corp. A.C. Markkula became chairman.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1993 Apple Chairman John
Sculley introduced the Newton MessagePad, the first personal digital
assistant. The device was terminated in 1998.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.D1)
1994 Mar, Apple Corp.
introduced the Power Macintosh. It used the PowerPC chip
co-developed with IBM. It was able to run both Apple and Microsoft
software.
(Hem, Mar. 95, p.89)(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1994 Sep, Apple Corp. announced
that it would allow other companies clone the Mac.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1996 Feb 2, Gil Amelio
(b.1943), CEO of National Semiconductor from 27 May 1991 to 2
February 1996, took over as chairman and CEO of Apple
Computer. Markkula became vice-chairman and Michael Spindler
left the company. Amelio lasted until 1997 when Steve Jobs came back
to the company. In 1998 Amelio published "On the Firing Line: My 500
Days at Apple," written with William L. Simon.
(WSJ, 7/2/98, p.A20)(SFC, 1/24/04,
p.A12)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Amelio)
1996 Dec, Apple Comp. hired
co-founder Steve Jobs as a consultant and purchased his NeXt
Software Inc. for $430 million.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Mar 2, Saudi Arab
billionaire Prince al-Waleed bin Talal acquired 5% of Apple.
(SC, 3/2/02)
1997 Mar, Apple Corp. announced
it would lay off 4,100 workers.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Jul, Apple released its
newest Mac operating system, OS 8.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1997 Aug 6, Ending years of
impassioned rivalry, Apple Computer and Microsoft agreed to share
technology in a deal giving Microsoft a stake in Apple's survival.
Microsoft announced that it would buy $150 million in non-voting
Apple stock.
(SFC, 8/7/97, p.A1)(AP, 8/6/98)
1997 Sep, Steve Jobs was named
interim CEO of Apple Corp. Jobs dropped the term interim in 2000.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.80)
1998 May, Apple Corp.
introduced the iMac. The $1,300 computer housed in translucent
plastic had a 233 MHz G3 processor.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1999 Jul, Apple corp.
introduced a mobile Macintosh, the iBook. The laptop was priced at
$1,599 and had a 233 MHz G3 processor.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
1999 Michael S. Malone authored
"Infinite Loop: How Apple, the World's Most Insanely Great Computer
Company Went Insane."
(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR p.9)
2001 Mar, Apple Corp.
introduced the Mac OS X.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2001 May, Apple Corp. announced
plans to open 25 retail stores.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2001 Oct 3, Apple introduced
the iPod, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000
CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits
in your pocket, at a cost of $399.
(www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/oct/23ipod.html)(Econ, 10/4/08, p.14)
2002 Jan, Apple Corp.
introduced a line of iMacs with a swiveling flat screen on a
circular base containing an 800 MHz G4 processor. It was priced at
$1,799.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2003 Apr, Apple Corp. launched
its iTunes music store to provide downloadable music for its iPod.
Downloads were offered at 99 cents per track.
(Econ, 7/8/06, p.70)(Econ, 11/14/09, p.18)
2003 Jun 23, Apple Computer
Inc. introduced new Macintosh computers that use its "G5"
microprocessor, a design by IBM Corp. that can handle twice as much
data at once as traditional PC microchips.
(Reuters, 6/23/03)
2003 Oct, Apple Corp.
introduced a Windows version of the Mac music jukebox software,
iTunes.
(SFC, 1/24/04, p.A12)
2005 Apr 29, Apple began
selling the Tiger operating system, OS X version 10.4, for the Mac
computer.
(SFC, 4/30/05, p.C1)
2005 Sep 7, Apple Computer Inc.
Chief Executive Steve Jobs introduced a long-anticipated
music-playing cell phone and surprised the faithful with a new
pencil-thin iPod.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2006 Apr 5, Apple Corp.
introduced free software to allow users of its latest Mac models to
run MS Windows.
(Reuters, 4/5/06)(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.B1)
2007 Jan 9, Steve Jobs
introduced the iPhone at the annual Macworld Expo in SF. The 4GB
version would be sold for $499. Apple dropped the word “Computer”
from its name.
(SFC, 1/10/07, p.C1)(WSJ, 1/11/07, p.C1)
2007 Apr 4, Apple updated its
desktop Mac Pro computers adding two new 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
processors, bringing 8-core processing to the Mac. The new machines
can run the 3.0GHz Intel Xeon processors and are available as build
to order options.
(www.macworld.com/news/2007/04/04/eightcore/index.php)
2010 Jan 27, Apple Inc CEO
Steve Jobs took the wraps off a sleek tablet that it called the
iPad, pitching the new gadget at $499, a surprisingly low price, to
bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops. It will go on sale
in late March for $499-829.
(Reuters, 1/28/10)(Econ, 1/30/10, p.11)
2010 Apr 3, Apple Inc. began
selling its much-anticipated iPad, drawing eager customers intent on
being among the first owners of a tablet-style device that the
company is hoping to convince more people they actually need. Some
300,000 iPads were sold the first day.
(AP, 4/3/10)(SFC, 4/6/10, p.D1)
2011 Mar 11, Apple’s iPad2
tablet computer arrived in stores.
(SFC, 3/12/11, p.D1)
2011 Aug 24, Silicon Valley
legend Steve Jobs resigned as chief executive of Apple Inc in a
stunning move that ended his 14-year reign at the technology giant
he co-founded in a garage.
(Reuters, 8/24/11)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc. unveiled
a faster, more powerful iPhone, the iPhone 4S, in its first major
product event in years without Steve Jobs presiding.
(AP, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 4, Apple Inc rejected
an offer from Samsung Electronics Co to settle their tablet computer
dispute in Australia, possibly killing off the commercial viability
of the South Korean firm's new Galaxy tablet in that market.
(Reuters, 10/4/11)
2011 Oct 12, Dennis
Ritchie (b.1941), American computer scientist, died. He and others
had developed the Unix operating system. Ritchie invented the C
programming language.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Ritchie)(Econ, 10/22/11, p.22)
Go to
http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Computer