Generasi Pertama
Dengan terjadinya Perang Dunia Kedua, negara-negara yang terlibat dalam
perang tersebut berusaha mengembangkan komputer untuk mengeksploit
potensi strategis yang dimiliki komputer. Hal ini meningkatkan pendanaan
pengembangan komputer serta mempercepat kemajuan teknik komputer. Pada
tahun 1941, Konrad Zuse, seorang insinyur Jerman membangun sebuah
komputer, Z3, untuk mendesain pesawat terbang dan peluru kendali.
Pihak sekutu juga membuat kemajuan lain dalam pengembangan kekuatan
komputer. Tahun 1943, pihak Inggris menyelesaikan komputer pemecah kode
rahasia yang dinamakan Colossus untuk memecahkan kode-rahasia yang
digunakan Jerman. Dampak pembuatan Colossus tidak terlalu mempengaruhi
perkembangan industri komputer dikarenakan dua alasan. Pertama, colossus
bukan merupakan komputer serbaguna (general-purpose computer), ia
hanya didesain untuk memecahkan kode rahasia. Kedua, keberadaan mesin
ini dijaga kerahasiaannya hingga satu dekade setelah perang berakhir.
Usaha yang dilakukan oleh pihak Amerika pada saat itu menghasilkan suatu
kemajuan lain. Howard H. Aiken (1900-1973), seorang insinyur Harvard
yang bekerja dengan IBM, berhasil memproduksi kalkulator elektronik
untuk US Navy. Kalkulator tersebut berukuran panjang setengah lapangan
bola kaki dan memiliki rentang kabel sepanjang 500 mil. The Harvd-IBM
Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, atau Mark I, merupakan
komputer relai elektronik. Ia menggunakan sinyal elektromagnetik untuk
menggerakkan komponen mekanik. Mesin tersebut beropreasi dengan lambat
(ia membutuhkan 3-5 detik untuk setiap perhitungan) dan tidak fleksibel
(urutan kalkulasi tidak dapat diubah). Kalkulator tersebut dapat
melakukan perhitungan aritmatik dasar dan persamaan yang lebih kompleks.
Perkembangan komputer lain pada masa kini adalah Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), yang dibuat oleh kerjasama antara
pemerintah Amerika Serikat dan University of Pennsylvania . Terdiri dari
18.000 tabung vakum, 70.000 resistor, dan 5 juta titik solder,
komputer tersebut merupakan mesin yang sangat besar yang mengkonsumsi
daya sebesar 160kW.
Komputer ini dirancang oleh John Presper Eckert (1919-1995) dn John W.
Mauchly (1907-1980), ENIAC merupakan komputer serbaguna (general purpose
computer) yang bekerja 1000 kali lebih cepat dibandingkan Mark I.
Pada pertengahan 1940-an, John von Neumann (1903-1957) bergabung dengan
tim University of Pennsylvania dalam usha membangun konsep desin
komputer yang hingga 40 tahun mendatang masih dipakai dalam teknik
komputer. Von Neumann mendesain Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic
Computer(EDVAC) pada tahun 1945 dengan sebuh memori untuk menampung baik
program ataupun data. Teknik ini memungkinkan komputer untuk berhenti
pada suatu saat dan kemudian melanjutkan pekerjaannya kembali. Kunci
utama arsitektur von Neumann adalah unit pemrosesan sentral (CPU), yang
memungkinkan seluruh fungsi komputer untuk dikoordinasikan melalui satu
sumber tunggal. Tahun 1951, UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer I)
yang dibuat oleh Remington Rand, menjadi komputer komersial pertama
yang memanfaatkan model arsitektur von Neumann tersebut.
Baik Badan Sensus Amerika Serikat dan General Electric memiliki UNIVAC.
Salah satu hasil mengesankan yang dicapai oleh UNIVAC dalah
keberhasilannya dalam memprediksi kemenangan Dwilight D. Eisenhower
dalam pemilihan presiden tahun 1952.
Komputer Generasi pertama dikarakteristik dengan fakta bahwa instruksi
operasi dibuat secara spesifik untuk suatu tugas tertentu. Setiap
komputer memiliki program kode-biner yang berbeda yang disebut “bahasa
mesin” (machine language). Hal ini menyebabkan komputer sulit untuk
diprogram dan membatasi kecepatannya. Ciri lain komputer generasi
pertama adalah penggunaan tube vakum (yang membuat komputer pada masa
tersebut berukuran sangat besar) dn silinder magnetik untuk penyimpanan
data.
Sejarah Perkembangan Komputer
500 B.C. The abacus was first used by the Babylonians as an aid to
simple arithmetic at sometime around this date. The abacus in the form
we are most familiar with was first used in China in around 1300 A.D.
1614 Scotsman John Napier (1550-1617) published a paper outlining
his discovery of the logarithm. Napier also invented an ingenious system
of moveable rods (referred to as Napier's Rods or Napier's bones).
These allowed the operator to multiply, divide and calculate square and
calculate cube roots by moving the rods around and placing them in
specially constructed boards.
1623 Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635), of Tuebingen, Wuerttemberg (now
in Germany), made a "Calculating Clock". This mechanical machine was
capable of adding and subtracting up to 6 digit numbers, and warned of
an overflow by ringing a bell. Operations were carried out by wheels,
and a complete revolution of the units wheel incremented the tens wheel
in much the same way counters on old cassette deck worked.
The machine and plans were lost and forgotten in the war that was going
on, then rediscovered in 1935, only to be lost in war again, and then
finally rediscovered in 1956 by the same man (Franz Hammer)! The machine
was reconstructed in 1960, and found to be workable. Schickard was a
friend of the astronomer Johannes Kepler since they met in the winter of
1617.
1625 William Oughtred (1575-1660) invented the slide rule.
1642 French mathematician, Blaise Pascal built a mechanical adding
machine (the "Pascaline"). Despite being more limited than Schickard's
'Calculating Clock' (see 1623), Pascal's machine became far more well
known. He was able to sell around a dozen of his machines in various
forms, coping with up to 8 digits.
1668 Sir Samuel Morland (1625-1695), of England, produces a non
decimal adding machine, suitable for use with English money. Instead of a
carry mechanism, it registers carries on auxiliary dials, from which
the user must re-enter them as addends.
1671 German mathematician, Gottfried Leibniz designed a machine to
carry out multiplication, the 'Stepped Reckoner'. It can multiple number
of up to 5 and 12 digits to give a 16 digit operand. The machine was
later lost in an attic until 1879. Leibniz was also the co-inventor of
calculus.
1775 Charles, the third Earl Stanhope, of England, makes a successful multiplying calculator similar to Leibniz's.
1776 Mathieus Hahn, somewhere in what will be Germany, also makes a
successful multiplying calculator that he started in 1770.
1786 J. H. Mueller, of the Hessian army, conceives the idea of what
came to be called a "difference engine". That's a special purpose
calculator for tabulating values of a polynomial, given the differences
between certain values so that the polynomial is uniquely specified;
it's useful for any function that can be approximated by a polynomial
over suitable intervals. Mueller's attempt to raise funds fails and the
project is forgotten.
1801 Joseph-Maire Jacuard developed an automatic loom controlled by punched cards.
1820 Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar (1785-1870), of France, makes
his "Arithmometer", the first mass-produced calculator. It does
multiplication using the same general approach as Leibniz's calculator;
with assistance from the user it can also do division. It is also the
most reliable calculator yet. Machines of this general design, large
enough to occupy most of a desktop, continue to be sold for about 90
years.
1822 Charles Babbage (1792-1871) designed his first mechanical
computer, the first prototype for the difference engine. Babbage
invented 2 machines the Analytical Engine (a general purpose
mathematical device, see 1834) and the Difference Engine (a re-invention
of Mueller's 1786 machine for solving polynomials), both machines were
too complicated to be built (although attempt was made in 1832) - but
the theories worked. The analytical engine (outlined in 1833) involved
many processes similar to the early electronic computers - notably the
use of punched cards for input.
1832 Babbage and Joseph Clement produce a prototype segment of his
difference engine, which operates on 6-digit numbers and 2nd-order
differences (i.e. can tabulate quadratic polynomials). The complete
engine, which would be room-sized, is planned to be able to operate both
on 6th-order differences with numbers of about 20 digits, and on
3rd-order differences with numbers of 30 digits. Each addition would be
done in two phases, the second one taking care of any carries generated
in the first. The output digits would be punched into a soft metal
plate, from which a plate for a printing press could be made. But there
are various difficulties, and no more than this prototype piece is ever
assembled.
1834 George Scheutz, of Stockholm, produces a small difference
engine in wood, after reading a brief description of Babbage's project.
1834 Babbage conceives, and begins to design, his "Analytical
Engine". The program was stored on read-only memory, specifically in the
form of punch cards. Babbage continues to work on the design for
years, though after about 1840 the changes are minor. The machine would
operate on 40-digit numbers; the "mill" (CPU) would have 2 main
accumulators and some auxiliary ones for specific purposes, while the
"store" (memory) would hold perhaps 100 more numbers. There would be
several punch card readers, for both programs and data; the cards would
be chained and the motion of each chain could be reversed. The machine
would be able to perform conditional jumps. There would also be a form
of microcoding: the meaning of instructions would depend on the
positioning of metal studs in a slotted barrel, called the "control
barrel". The machine would do an addition in 3 seconds and a
multiplication or division in 2-4 minutes.
1842 Babbage's difference engine project is officially cancelled.
(The cost overruns have been considerable, and Babbage is spending too
much time on redesigning the Analytical Engine.)
1843 Scheutz and his son Edvard Scheutz produce a 3rd-order
difference engine with printer, and the Swedish government agrees to
fund their next development.
1847 Babbage designs an improved, simpler difference engine, a
project which took 2 years. The machine could operate on 7th-order
differences and 31-digit numbers, but nobody is interested in paying to
have it built.
(In 1989-91, however, a team at London's Science Museum will do just
that. They will use components of modern construction, but with
tolerances no better than Clement could have provided... and, after a
bit of tinkering and detail-debugging, they will find that the machine
does indeed work.)
1848 British Mathematician George Boole devised binary algebra
(Boolean algebra) paving the way for the development of a binary
computer almost a century later. See 1939.
1853 To Babbage's delight, the Scheutzes complete the first
full-scale difference engine, which they call a Tabulating Machine. It
operates on 15-digit numbers and 4th-order differences, and produces
printed output as Babbage's would have. A second machine is later built
to the same design by the firm of Brian Donkin of London.
1858 The first Tabulating Machine (see 1853) is bought by the Dudley
Observatory in Albany, New York, and the second one by the British
government. The Albany machine is used to produce a set of astronomical
tables; but the observatory's director is then fired for this
extravagant purchase, and the machine is never seriously used again,
eventually ending up in a museum. The second machine, however, has a
long and useful life.
1871 Babbage produces a prototype section of the Analytical Engine's mill and printer.
1878 Ramon Verea, living in New York City, invents a calculator with
an internal multiplication table; this is much faster than the
shifting carriage or other digital methods. He isn't interested in
putting it into production; he just wants to show that a Spaniard can
invent as well as an American.
1879 A committee investigates the feasibility of completing the
Analytical Engine and concludes that it is impossible now that Babbage
is dead. The project is then largely forgotten, though Howard Aiken is a
notable exception.
1885 A multiplying calculator more compact than the Arithmometer
enters mass production. The design is the independent, and more or less
simultaneous, invention of Frank S. Baldwin, of the United States, and
T. Odhner, a Swede living in Russia. The fluted drums are replaced by a
"variable-toothed gear" design: a disk with radial pegs that can be
made to protrude or retract from it.
1886 Dorr E. Felt (1862-1930), of Chicago, makes his "Comptometer".
This is the first calculator where the operands are entered merely by
pressing keys rather than having to be, for example, dialled in. It is
feasible because of Felt's invention of a carry mechanism fast enough to
act while the keys return from being pressed.
1889 Felt invents the first printing desk calculator.
1890 1890 U.S. census. The 1880 census took 7 years to complete
since all processing was done by hand off of journal sheets. The
increasing population suggested that by the 1890 census the data
processing would take longer than the 10 years before the next census -
so a competition was held to try to find a better method. This was won
by a Census Department employee, Herman Hollerith - who went on to
found the Tabulating Machine Company (see 1911), later to become IBM.
Herman borrowed Babbage's idea of using the punched cards (see 1801)
from the textile industry for the data storage. This method was used in
the 1890 census, the result (62,622,250 people) was released in just 6
weeks! This storage allowed much more in-depth analysis of the data
and so, despite being more efficient, the 1890 census cost about double
(actually 198%) that of the 1880 census.
1892 William S. Burroughs (1857-1898), of St. Louis, invents a
machine similar to Felt's (see 1886) but more robust, and this is the
one that really starts the mechanical office calculator industry.
1896 IBM founded (as the Tabulating Machine Company), see 1924. Founded by Herman Hollerith (1860-1929, see also 1890).
1899 "Everything that can be invented has already been invented.", Charles H. Duell, director of the U.S. Patent Office
1906 Henry Babbage, Charles's son, with the help of the firm of R.
W. Munro, completes the mill of his father's Analytical Engine, just to
show that it would have worked. It does. The complete machine is never
produced.
1906 Electronic Tube (or Electronic Valve) developed by Lee De
Forest in America. Before this it would have been impossible to make
digital electronic computers.
1911 Merger of companies, including Herman Hollerith's Tabulating
Machine Company, to Computing - Tabulating - Recording Company - which
became IBM in 1924.
1919 W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan publish the first flip-flop circuit design.
1924 - February International Business Machines (IBM corporation)
formed after more mergers involving the Computing - Tabulating -
Recording Company - see 1911. By 1990 IBM had an income of around $69
Billion (and 373,816 employees), although in 1992 recession caused a cut
in stock dividends (for the first time in the company's history) and
the sacking of 40,000 employees.
1931-1932 E. Wynn-Williams, at Cambridge, England, uses thyratron
tubes to construct a binary digital counter for use in connection with
physics experiments.
1935 International Business Machines introduces the "IBM 601", a
punch card machine with an arithmetic unit based on relays and capable
of doing a multiplication in 1 second. The machine becomes important
both in scientific and commercial computation, and about 1500 of them
are eventually made.
1937 Alan M. Turing (1912-1954), of Cambridge University, England,
publishes a paper on "computable numbers" - the mathematical theory of
computation. This paper solves a mathematical problem, but the solution
is achieved by reasoning (as a mathematical device) about the
theoretical simplified computer known today as a Turing machine.
1937 George Stibitz (c.1910-) of the Bell Telephone Laboratories
(Bell Labs), New York City, constructs a demonstration 1-bit binary
adder using relays. This is one of the first binary computers, although
at this stage it was only a demonstration machine improvements
continued leading to the 'complex number calculator' of Jan. 1940.
1938 Claude E. Shannon (1916-) publishes a paper on the implementation of symbolic logic using relays.
1938 Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) of Berlin, with some assistance from
Helmut Schreyer, completes a prototype mechanical binary programmable
calculator, the first binary calculator it is based on Boolean Algebra
(see 1848). Originally called the "V1" but retroactively renamed "Z1"
after the war. It works with floating point numbers having a 7-bit
exponent, 16-bit mantissa, and a sign bit. The memory uses sliding metal
parts to store 16 such numbers, and works well; but the arithmetic
unit is less successful. The program is read from punched tape -- not
paper tape, but discarded 35 mm movie film. Data values can be entered
from a numeric keyboard, and outputs are displayed on electric lamps.
1939 - January 1 Hewlett-Packard formed by David Hewlett and William
Packard in a garage in California. A coin toss decided the name.
1939 - November John V. Atanasoff (1903-) and graduate student
Clifford Berry (?-1963), of Iowa State College (now the Iowa State
University), Ames, Iowa, complete a prototype 16-bit adder. This is the
first machine to calculate using vacuum tubes.
1939 Start of WWII. This spurred many improvements in technology -
and led to the development of machines such as the Colossus (see 1943).
1939 Zuse and Schreyer begin work on the "V2" (later "Z2"), which
will marry the Z1's existing mechanical memory unit to a new arithmetic
unit using relay logic. The project is interrupted for a year when Zuse
is drafted, but then released. (Zuse is a friend of Wernher von Braun,
who will later develop the *other* "V2", and after that, play a key
role in the US space program.)
1939/1940 Schreyer completes a prototype 10-bit adder using vacuum tubes, and a prototype memory using neon lamps.
1940 - January At Bell Labs, Samuel Williams and Stibitz complete a
calculator which can operate on complex numbers, and give it the
imaginative name of the "Complex Number Calculator"; it is later known
as the "Model I Relay Calculator". It uses telephone switching parts for
logic: 450 relays and 10 crossbar switches. Numbers are represented in
"plus 3 BCD"; that is, for each decimal digit, 0 is represented by
binary 0011, 1 by 0100, and so on up to 1100 for 9; this scheme requires
fewer relays than straight BCD. Rather than requiring users to come to
the machine to use it, the calculator is provided with three remote
keyboards, at various places in the building, in the form of teletypes.
Only one can be used at a time, and the output is automatically
displayed on the same one. In September 1940, a teletype is set up at a
mathematical conference in Hanover, New Hampshire, with a connection to
New York, and those attending the conference can use the machine
remotely.
1941 - Summer Atanasoff and Berry complete a special-purpose
calculator for solving systems of simultaneous linear equations, later
called the "ABC" ("Atanasoff-Berry Computer"). This has 60 50-bit words
of memory in the form of capacitors (with refresh circuits -- the first
regenerative memory) mounted on two revolving drums. The clock speed
is 60 Hz, and an addition takes 1 second. For secondary memory it uses
punch cards, moved around by the user. The holes are not actually
punched in the cards, but burned. The punch card system's error rate is
never reduced beyond 0.001%, and this isn't really good enough.
(Atanasoff will leave Iowa State after the US enters the war, and this
will end his work on digital computing machines.)
1941 - December Now working with limited backing from the DVL
(German Aero- nautical Research Institute), Zuse completes the "V3"
(later "Z3"): the first operational programmable calculator. It works
with floating point numbers having a 7-bit exponent, 14-bit mantissa
(with a "1" bit automatically prefixed unless the number is 0), and a
sign bit. The memory holds 64 of these words and therefore requires over
1400 relays; there are 1200 more in the arithmetic and control units.
The program, input, and output are implemented as described above for
the Z1. Conditional jumps are not available. The machine can do 3-4
additions per second, and takes 3-5 seconds for a multiplication. It is a
marginal decision whether to call the Z3 a prototype; with its small
memory it is certainly not very useful on the equation- solving problems
that the DVL was mostly interested in.
1943 Computers between 1943 and 1959 (or thereabouts - some say this
era did not start until UNIVAC-1 in 1951) usually regarded as 'first
generation' and are based on valves and wire circuits. The are
characterised by the use of punched cards and vacuum valves. All
programming was done in machine code. A typical machine of the era was
UNIVAC, see 1951.
1943 "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.", Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM.
1943 - January The Harvard Mark I (originally ASCC Mark I,
Harvard-IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator) was built at
Harvard University by Howard H. Aiken (1900-1973) and his team, partly
financed by IBM - it became the first program controlled calculator. The
whole machine is 51 feet long, weighs 5 tons, and incorporates 750,000
parts. It used 3304 electromechanical relays as on-off switches, had
72 accumulators (each with it's own arithmetic unit) as well as
mechanical register with a capacity of 23 digits plus sign. The
arithmetic is fixed-point, with a plugboard setting determining the
number of decimal places. I/O facilities include card readers, a card
punch, paper tape readers, and typewriters. There are 60 sets of rotary
switches, each of which can be used as a constant register - sort of
mechanical read-only memory. The program is read from one paper tape;
data can be read from the other tapes, or the card readers, or from the
constant registers. Conditional jumps are not available. However, in
later years the machine is modified to support multiple paper tape
readers for the program, with the transfer from one to another being
conditional, sort of like a conditional subroutine call. Another
addition allows the provision of plugboard-wired subroutines callable
from the tape.
Used to create ballistics tables for the US Navy.
1943 - April Max Newman, Wynn-Williams, and their team (including
Alan Turing) at the secret Government Code and Cypher School ('Station
X'), Bletchley Park, Bletchley, England, complete the "Heath Robinson".
This is a specialized machine for cipher-breaking, not a
general-purpose calculator or computer but some sort of logic device,
using a combination of electronics and relay logic. It reads data
optically at 2000 characters per second from 2 closed loops of paper
tape, each typically about 1000 characters long. It was significant
since it was the fore-runner of Colossus, see December 1943.
Newman knew Turing from Cambridge (Turing was a student of Newman's.),
and had been the first person to see a draft of Turing's 1937 paper.
Heath Robinson is the name of a British cartoonist known for drawings of
comical machines, like the American Rube Goldberg. Two later machines
in the series will be named after London stores with "Robinson" in
their names.
1943 - September Williams and Stibitz complete the "Relay
Interpolator", later called the "Model II Relay Calculator". This is a
programmable calculator; again, the program and data are read from paper
tapes. An innovative feature is that, for greater reliability, numbers
are represented in a biquinary format using 7 relays for each digit,
of which exactly 2 should be "on": 01 00001 for 0, 01 00010 for 1, and
so on up to 10 10000 for 9. Some of the later machines in this series
will use the biquinary notation for the digits of floating-point
numbers.)
1943 - December The earliest Programmable Electronic Computer first
ran (in Britain), it contained 2400 Vacuum tubes for logic, and was
called the Colossus. It was built, by Dr Thomas Flowers at The Post
Office Research Laboratories in London, to crack the German Lorenz
(SZ42) Cipher used by the 'Enigma' machines. Colossus was used at
Bletchly Park during WWII - as a successor to April's 'Robinson's. It
translated an amazing 5000 characters a second, and used punched tape
for input. Although 10 were eventually built, unfortunately they were
destroyed immediately after they had finished their work - it was so
advanced that there was to be no possibility of it's design falling into
the wrong hands (presumably the Russians). One of the early engineers
wrote an emulation on an early Pentium - that ran at 1/2 the rate!
1946 ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer): One of
the first totally electronic, valve driven, digital, computers.
Development started in 1943 and finished in 1946, at the Ballistic
Research Laboratory, USA, by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It
weighed 30 tonnes and contained 18,000 Electronic Valves, consuming
around 25kW of electrical power - widely recognised as the first
Universal Electronic Computer. It could do around 100,000 calculations a
second. It was used for calculating Ballistic trajectories and testing
theories behind the Hydrogen bomb.
1947 - end Invention of Transistor at The Bell Laboratories, USA, by
William B. Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter H. Brattain.
1948 - June 21 SSEM, Small Scale Experimental Machine or 'Baby' was
built at Manchester University (UK), It ran it's first program on this
date. Based on ideas from Jon von Neumann (a Hungarian Mathematician)
about stored program computers, it was the first computer to store both
it's programs and data in RAM, as modern computers so.
By 1949 the 'Baby' had grown, and aquired a magentic drum for more
perminant storage, and it became the Manchester Mark I. The Ferranti
MArk I was basically the same as the Manchester Mark I but faster and
made for commmercial sale.
1949 - May 6 Wilkes and a team at Cambridge University build a
stored program computer - EDSAC. It used paper tape I/O, and was the
first stored-program computer to operate a regular computing service.
1949 EDVAC (electronic discrete variable computer) - First computer
to use Magnetic Tape. This was a breakthrough as previous computers had
to be re-programmed by re-wiring them whereas EDVAC could have new
programs loaded off of the tape. Proposed by John von Neumann, it was
completed in 1952 at the Institute for Advance Study, Princeton, USA.
1949 "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.",
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science.
1950 Floppy Disk invented at the Imperial University in Tokyo by
Doctor Yoshiro Nakamats, the sales license for the disk was granted to
IBM.
1950 The British mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing
declared that one day there would be a machine that could duplicate
human intelligence in every way and prove it by passing a specialized
test. In this test, a computer and a human hidden from view would be
asked random identical questions. If the computer were successful, the
questioner would be unable to distinguish the machine from the person by
the answers.
1951 High level language compiler invented by Grace Murray Hopper.
1951 Whirlwind, the first real-time computer was built for the US Air Defence System.
1951 UNIVAC-1. The first commercially sucessful electronic computer,
UNIVAC I, was also the first general purpose computer - designed to
handle both numeric and textual information. Designed by J. Presper
Eckert and John Mauchly, whose corporation subsequently passed to
Remington Rand. The implementation of this machine marked the real
beginning of the computer era. Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC
machine to the U.S. Bureau of Census in 1951. This machine used
magentic tape for input.
1952 EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer) completed at the
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA (by Von Neumann and
others).
1953 Estimate that there are 100 computers in the world.
1953 Magnetic Core Memory developed.
1954 FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) development started by John
Backus and his team at IBM - continuing until 1957. FORTRAN is a
programming language, used for Scientific programming.
1956 First conference on Artificial Intelligence held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.
1956 Edsger Dijkstra invented an efficient algorithm for shortest
paths in graphs as a demonstration of the abilities of the ARMAC
computer.
1957 First Dot Matrix printer marketed by IBM.
1957 FORTRAN development finished. See 1954.
1957 "I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and
talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing
is a fad that won't last out the year." The editor in charge of business
books for Prentice Hall.
1958 LISP (interpreted language) developed, Finished in 1960. LISP
stands for 'LISt Processing', but some call it 'Lots of Irritating and
Stupid Parenthesis' due to the huge number of confusing nested brackets
used in LISP programs. Used in A.I. development. Developed by John
McCarthy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1958 - September 12 The integrated circuit invented by Jack St Clair
Kilby at Texas Instruments. Robert Noyce, who later set up Intel, also
worked separately on the invention. Intel later went on to invent
perfect the microprocessor. The patent was applied for in 1959 and
granted in 1964. This patent wasn't accepted by Japan so Japanese
businesses could avoid paying any fees, but in 1989 - after a 30 year
legal battle - Japan granted the patent; so all Japanese companies paid
fees up until the year 2001 - long after the patent became obsolete in
the rest of the World!
1959 Computers built between 1959 and 1964 are often regarded as
'Second Generation' computers, based on transistors and printed circuits
- resulting in much smaller computers. More powerful, the second
generation of computers could handle interpreters such as FORTRAN (for
science) or COBOL (for business), that accepting English-like commands,
and so were much more flexible in their applications.
1959 COBOL (COmmon Business-Orientated Language) was developed, the initial specifications being released in April 1960.
1960 ALGOL - first structured, procedural, language to be released.
1960 Tandy Corporation founded by Charles Tandy.
1961 APL programming language released by Kenneth Iverson at IBM.
1964 Computers built between 1964 and 1972 are often regarded as
'Third Generation' computers, they are based on the first integrated
circuits - creating even smaller machines. Typical of such machines was
the IBM 360 series mainframe, while smaller minicomputers began to open
up computing to smaller businesses.
1964 Programming language PL/1 released by IBM.
1964 Launch of IBM 360 - the first series of compatible computers.
1964 DEC PDP-8 Mini Computer. The First Minicomputer, built by Digital EquipmentCost (DEC) it cost $16,000 to buy.
1965 Moore's law published by Gordon Moore in the 35th Anniversary
edition of Electronics magazine. Originally suggesting processor
complexity every year the law was revised in 1975 to suggest a doubling
in complexity every two years.
1965 Fuzzy Logic designed by Lofti Zadeh (University of Berkeley,
California), it is used to process approximate data - such as 'about
100'.
1965 BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
developed at Dartmouth College, USA, by Thomas E. Kurtz and John Kemeny.
Not implemented on microcomputers until 1975. It is often used in
education to teach programming, and also at home by beginners.
1965 Mouse conceived by Douglas Englebart, not to become popular
until 1983 with the Apple computers and not adopted by IBM until 1987 -
although compatible computers such as the Amstrad PC 1512 were fitted
with mice before this date.
1965 The first supercomputer, the Control Data CD6600, was developed.
1967 Development on PASCAL started, to be finished in 1971. Based on
ALGOL. Developed by Niklaus Wirth. It's use exploded after the
introduction of Turbo Pascal, by Borland, in 1984 - a high speed and low
cost compiler. It is used for a wide variety of tasks, it contains
many features, is well structured and easy to learn. Borland Pascal
v7.0 included an implementation of Object-Orientated programming
(similar to C++).
1968 Intel founded by Robert Noyce and a few friends.
1968 LOGO programming language developed by Seymour Papert and team at MIT.
1968 "But what ... is it good for?" Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM commenting on the microchip.
1969 ARPANET Started by the US Dept. of Defence for research into
networking. It is the original basis for what now forms the Internet. It
was opened to non-military users later in the 1970s and many
universities and large businesses went on-line. US Vice-president
Al-Gore was the first to call it the Information superhighway.
1969 - April 7 The first RFC, RFC0001 published. The RFCs (network
working group, Request For Comment) are a series of papers which are
used to develop and define protocols for networking, originally the
basis for ARPANET there are now thousands of them applying to all
aspects of the Internet. Collectively they document everything about the
way the Internet and computers on it should behave, whether it's
TCP/IP networking or how email headers should be written there will be a
set of RFCs describing it.
1969 Introduction of RS-232 (serial interface) standard by EIA (Electronic Industries Association).
1970 First RAM chip introduced by Intel. It was called to 1103 and had a capacity of 1 K-bit, 1024 bits.
1970 Development of UNIX operating system started. It was later
released as C source code to aid portability, and subsequently versions
are obtainable for many different computers, including the IBM PC. It
and it's clones (such as Linux) are still widely used on network and
Internet servers. Originally developed by Ken Thomson and Dennis
Ritchie.
1970 'Forth' programming language developed.
1970 - June Steve Geller, Ray Holt and a team from AiResearch and
American Microsystems completed development of a flight data processor
for the US Navy's F14A `TomCat' fighter jet. This processor used LSI
chips to produce a fast and powerfull programmable computer that fitted
into the very tight space restrictions of the aircraft.
1971 - November 15 First microprocessor, the 4004, developed by
Marcian E. Hoff for Intel, was released. It contains the equivalent of
2300 transistors and was a 4 bit processor. It is capable of around
60,000 Interactions per second (0.06 MIPs), running at a clock rate of
108KHz.
1971 Development of PASCAL finished - see 1967.
1972 Atari founded (as Syzygy) by Nolan Bushnell, who designed pong (see also 1972).
1972 Pong released - widely recognised as the first popular arcade
video game. It was invented by Atari's founder, Nolan Bushnell, and
briefly became reasonably popular. However it's lack of excitement or
variation meant it never captivated players like Space Invaders (1978)
or other arcade games of the 1980s.
1972 Computers built after 1972 are often called 'fourth generation'
computers, based on LSI (Large Scale Integration) of circuits (such as
microprocessors) - typically 500 or more components on a chip. Later
developments include VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) of integrated
circuits 5 years later - typically 10,000 components. Modern circuits
may now contain millions of components. This has led to very small, yet
incredibly powerful computers. The fourth generation is generally
viewed as running right up until the present, since although computing
power has increased the basic technology has remained virtually the
same. By the late 1990s many people began to suspect that this
technology was reaching its limit, further miniaturisation could only
achieve so much. 64 megabit RAM chips have circuitry so small that it
can be measured in atoms, circuits this small pose many technical
problems - notably the heat created but they are also very susceptible
to influence by temperature or radiation. It has been argued fifth
generation computers are based on parallel processing and VLSI
integration - but are still being developed and I'd be wary of writing
the history books until the history has actually occured! Besides
computers need to be massively parallel before they give a significant
enough advantage to warrent a new generation of computing.
1972 C programming language developed at The Bell Laboratories in
the USA by Dennis Ritche (one of the inventors of the UNIX operating
system), it's predecessor was the B programming language - also from The
Bell Laboratories. It is a very popular language, especially for
systems programming - as it is flexible and fast. C++, allowing for
Object-Orientated Programming, was introduced in early 1980s.
1972 First Handheld scientific calculator released by Hewlett-Packard, the engineer's slide rule is at last obsolete.
1972 - April 1 8008 Processor released by Intel.
1972 The first international connections to ARPANET are established.
ARPANET later became the basis for what we now call the internet.
1973 Prolog developed at the University of Luminy-Marseilles in
France by Alain Colmerauer. It is often used for AI programming.
1973 Ethernet developed, this became a vero popular way of
connecting PCs and other computers together - to enable them to share
data, and devices such as printers. A group of machines connected
together in this way is known as a LAN.
1974 CLIP-4, the first computer with a parallel architecture.
1974 - April 1 Introduction of 8080. An 8 Bit Microprocessor from Intel.
1974 - December MITS Altair 8800, the first personal computer to be
available commercially released, by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry
Systems. In December 1974 an article in 'Popular Electronics' inviting
people to order kits for the computer, based on the Intel 8080 they cost
just $397 each and despite the limited memory (256 bytes) and limited
processing power around 200 were ordered on the first day.
1975 First implementation of BASIC by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, it
was written for the MITS Altair - the first personal computer - this
led to the formation of Microsoft later in the year.
1975 Unix marketed (see 1970).
1975 Formation of Microsoft by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. It is now
one of the most powerful and successful computing companies, a distinct
improvement on the pair's original company, Traf-O-Data, which made
car counters for highway departments. In just 3 years it achieved
revenues of $500,000 and employed 15 people. By 1992 this had increased
to revenues of 2.8 billion (50% of which are from exports), and over
10,000 employees - a fantastic feat for a company less than 20 years
old. Microsoft's big break was when they were asked to write the
operating system for the I.B.M. PC, released in 1981. Although
financially not as large as IBM, Microsoft has a huge amount of
influence in the Computing Industry.
1975 IBM 5100 released.
1976 Apple Computer, Inc. founded, to Market Apple I computer. Designed by Stephen Wozniak and Stephen Jobs.
1976 First laser printer introduced by IBM - the IBM 3800. The first colour versions came onto the market in 1988.
1976? Introduction of 8085.
1976 Z80 released by Zilog, and the basis for the computer boom in
the early 1980s. It was an 8 bit microprocessor. CP/M was written for
the Z80 as well as software like Wordstar and dBase II - and it formed
the basis for the Sinclair Spectrum of 1982.
1976 6502, 8 bit microprocessor developed and later chosen to equip
the Apple II computer. Also fitted in the original Acorn machine, BBC
Micro, Commodore 64 and Commodore PET.
1976 Cray 1, the first commercially developed Supercomputer, it
contained 200,000 integrated circuits and was freon-cooled. It could
perform 150 million floating point operations per second - it is now the
basis of an informal measurement of the power Supercomputers, by the
mid-1990s these had reached the 1000-'cray' mark! Supercomputers are
also measured by the number of floating point operations they can do in a
second, but this figure can be misleading as the definition of a
floating point operation is open to some debate - but these operations
are far more complicated than integer operations normally handled by
Microcomputers. In 1992 the fastest Computer was the Cray-2, which can
do around 250 million floating point operations per seconds. Cray have
continued to develop even more powerful computers, such as the Cray
Y-MP/832.
Such Supercomputers are used for weather forecasting, complex maths and physics problems, and animation in modern films.
1977 "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their
home." Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment
Corp..
1977 Historically Arpanet computers had communicated via a 'Network
Control Protocol' but this protocol was inadequate and had serious
problems, especially when dealing with busier networks. TCP was first
outlined in a paper by Bob Kahn (from Standford) and Vinton Cerf (from
DARPA) in 1974. In 1978 the IP header was split off from TCP, allowing
network routers to deal with just the (much simpler) IP protocol. On
January 1 1983 the internet is defined as the collection of computers
communicating via TCP/IP.
1977 - May Apple II computer introduced.
1978 - June 8 Introduction of 8086 by Intel, the first commercially
successful 16 bit processor. It was too expensive to implement in early
computers, so an 8 bit version was developed (the 8088), which was
chosen by IBM for the first IBM PC. This ensured the success of the x86
family of processors that succeeded the 8086 since they and their
clones are used in every IBM PC compatible computer.
The available clock frequencies are 4.77, 8 and 10 MHz. It has an
instruction set of about 300 operations. At introduction the fastest
processor was the 8 MHz version which achieved 0.8 MIPs and contained
29,000 transistors.
1978 Arcade Video game 'Space Invaders' released, starting a video
game craze that has continued ever since. In 1979 Atari's Asteroids
proved incredibly popular - one notable improvement over Space Invaders
was that it allowed the players to record hi-scores, for other players
to spend hours trying to beat. By 1982 many of the 'classics' had been
released, defender and pac-man, to name a few. The industry was worth
$5 billion a year - more than the U.S. movie industry. Although Pong,
of 1973, and similar games had been around for several years none were
really interesting enough to capture the public - Space Invaders,
however, had everything, in a fast action game that pitted you against
the computer.
1979 Language Ada introduced by Jean Ichbiah and team at Honeywell.
1979 - June 1 Introduction of 8088, a step down from the 8086 as it
contains just an 8 bit data bus - but this makes it cheaper to
implement in computers.
1979 Commodore PET released. Based on a 1 MHz 6502 processor it
displayed monochrome text on a 9" monitor and had just 8 Kb of RAM.
Programs were loaded from audio cassette. Priced £569. For £776 you
could purchase a version with 16 Kb of RAM, while for £914 you could get
a 32 Kb of RAM.
1979 compact disk was invented.
1979 The 68000 Microprocessor launched by Motorola. Used by Apple
for the Macintosh and by Atari for the ST series. Later versions of the
processor include the 68020 used in the Macintosh II.
1979 IBM saw it's computer market dominance being eaten into by the
new personal computers, such as the Apple and the Commodore PET. IBM
therefore started work on their own P.C. This computer had to be a
state-of-the-art machine in order to compete, but had to be produced
very quickly due to the amazing growth of competitors. It was therefore
decided to use many third party parts to reduce development time, and
Microsoft were commissioned to write the Operating System (see October
1980). When finished this computer was released as the IBM PC. on 12
August 1981
1980 "DOS addresses only 1 Megabyte of RAM because we cannot imagine
any applications needing more." Microsoft on the development of DOS.
1980 - October Development of MS-DOS/PC-DOS began. Microsoft (known
mainly for their programming languages) were commissioned to write the
Operating System for the PC, Digital Research failed to get the
contract (there is much legend as to the real reason for this). DR's
Operating System, CP/M-86 was later shipped but it was actually easier
to adapter older CP/M programs to DOS rather than CP/M-86, and CP/M-86
cost $495. As Microsoft didn't have an operating system to sell they
bought Seattle Computer Product's 86-DOS which had been written by Tim
Paterson earlier that year (86-DOS was also know as Q-DOS, Quick &
Dirty Operating System, it was a more-or-less 16bit version of CP/M).
The rights were actually bought in July 1981. It is reputed that IBM
found over 300 bugs in the code when they subjected the operating
system to their testing, and re-wrote much of the code.
Tim Paterson's DOS 1.0 was 4000 lines of assembler.
1980 - Early Sinclair ZX80 was released for under £100.
1981 - April The Xerox 8010 ('Star') System, the first commerical
system to use a WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointing Devices)
graphic user interface - from which all modern WIMP and Windowing
systems have evolved. Apple used these concepts when designing the
interface for the Apple Macintosh (see January 1984), and later alleged
that Microsoft copied their 'look and feel' when designing Microsoft
Windows.
The Xerox 'Star' was the commercialisation of the 'Alto', which had
available internally inside Xerox PARC since 1973. Sales of the 'Star'
were terrible and the system rapidly fell into obscurity.
1981 "640k ought to be enough for anybody.", Bill Gates
1981 Sinclair ZX81 was released, for a similar price to the ZX80 (see 1980).
1981? Introduction of 80186/80188. These are rarely used on PCs as
they incorporate a built in DMA and timer chip - and thus have register
addresses incompatible with other IBM PCs.
1981 - August 12 IBM Announced PC, the standard model was sold for
$2880. This had 64Kb of RAM, a mono display and the cassette drive was
an optional extra. Two 160Kb single sided floppy drives could be added.
The machines success was largely due to the openness of it's
specification, anyone could produce new and improved parts or models of
the computer - the original IBM PC usually had an INTEL processor,
Tandon disk drives and an operating system from Microsoft. 100,000
orders were taken by Christmas. The first one sold in the U.K. cost
£2080. An option of operating systems was actually available, but
IBM/Microsoft's PC-DOS was by far the cheapest at $39.95.
1981 - August 12 MDA (Mono Display Adapter, text only) introduced with IBM PC.
1981 - August 12 MS-DOS 1.0., PC-DOS 1.0.
Microsoft (known mainly for their programming languages) were
commissioned by IBM to write the operating system, they bought a program
called 86-DOS from Tim Paterson which was loosely based on CP/M 80.
The final program from Microsoft was marketed by IBM as PC-DOS and by
Microsoft as MS-DOS, collaboration on subsequent versions continued
until version 5.0 in 1991.
Compared to modern versions of DOS version 1 was very basic, the most
notable difference was the presence of just 1 directory, the root
directory, on each disk. Subdirectories were not supported until version
2.0 (March, 1983).
MS-DOS (and PC-DOS) was the main operating system for all IBM-PC
compatible computers until 1995 when Windows '95 began to take over the
market, and Microsoft turned its back on MS-DOS (leaving MS-DOS 6.22
from 1993 as the last version written - although the DOS Shell in
Windows '95 calls itself MS-DOS version 7.0, and has some improved
features like long filename support). According to Microsoft, in 1994,
MS-DOS was running on some 100 million computers world-wide.
1981 Pacman was written. Originally it was going to be called
Puckman, but the name was changed to reduce the damage that could be
done by changing the P to an F with a black marker.
1982 The TCP/IP Protocol established, this is the protocol that carries most of the information across the Internet.
1982 Introduction of BBC Micro. Based on the 6502 processor it was a
very popular computer for British schools up to the development of the
Acorn Archimedes (in 1987). In 1984 the government offered to pay half
the cost of such computers in an attempt to promote their use in
secondary education.
1982 - January Commodore 64 released, costing just $595.
1982 - February 1 80286 Released. It supports clock frequencies of
up to 20 MHz and implements a new mode of operation, protected mode -
allowing access to more memory (up to 16 Mbytes compared to 1 MB for the
8086. The virtual address space can appear to be up to 1 GB through
the use of virtual memory). It includes an extended instruction set to
cope with this new mode of operation.
At introduction the fastest version ran at 12.5 MHz, achieved 2.7 MIPs and contained 134,000 transistors.
1982 Compaq released their IBM PC compatible Compaq Portable.
1982 MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, (pronounced
"middy") published by International MIDI Association (IMA). The MIDI
standard allows computers to be connected to instruments like keyboards.
1982 Red Book on Audio CDs was introduced by Sony and Phillips. This
was the beginning of the Compact Disk, it was released in Japan and
then in Europe and America a year later.
1982 - March MS-DOS 1.25, PC-DOS 1.1
1982 - April The Sinclair ZX Spectrum was announced, released later
in the year. It is based on the Z80 chip from Zilog, it ran at 3.5 MHz
and had an 8 colour graphics display. You could by a 16 Kb version for
£125 or a 48 Kb version for £175 - remarkable prices when compared to
the £1000+ IBM PC.
1982 - May IBM launch the double-sided 320K floppy disk drives.
1982 - December IBM buy 12% of Intel.
1983 - January IBM PC gets European launch at Which Computer Show.
1983 - January Apple announced their 'LISA' computer in January, to
be released in June. The LISA was one of the first computers to be sold
with a GUI (graphical user interface), however it did not sell well.
The main problems were the 10 thousand dollar price tag and the slow
interface - the GUI based operating system struggled on the 5 MHz CPU.
The GUI was based on ideas gained by Steve Jobs who saw the Alto while
visting Xerox PARC.
1983 Borland Formed.
1983 - Spring IBM XT released, it was fitted with the 8086 (which
could be replaced with an NEC V20 or V30) and had room for an 8087 maths
co-processor to be installed. It also had a 10Mb hard disk, 128K of
RAM, one floppy drive, mono monitor and a printer, all for $5000.
1983 - March MS-DOS 2.0, PC-DOS 2.0
Introduced with the IBM XT this version included a UNIX style
hierarchical sub-directory structure, and altered the way in which
programs could load and access files on the disk.
1983 - May MS-DOS 2.01
1983 - October IBM released PC Junior in an attempt to get further
into the home market, it cost just $699. Cheaper alternatives from other
companies were more preferable to the home buyer, but businesses
continued to buy IBM. However this meant that the PC Jr. was not a great
sucess.
1983 - October PC-DOS 2.1 (for PC Jr). Like the PC Jr this was not a great success and quickly disappeared from the market.
1983 - October MS-DOS 2.11
1984 DNS (Domain Name Server) introduced to the Internet, which then consisted of about 1000 hosts.
1984 Turbo Pascal Introduced by Borland (see PASCAL, 1967).
1984 Hewlett-Packard release the immensely popular Laserjet printer,
by 1993 they had sold over 10 million Laserjet printers and over 20
million printers overall. HP were also pioneering inkjet technology.
1984 - January Apple Macintosh Released. Based on the 8 MHz version
of the Motorola 68000 processor. The 68000 can address 16 Mb of RAM, a
noticeable improvement over Intel's 8088/8086 family. The Apple
achieved 0.7 MIPs and originally came with just 128Kb of RAM. It was
fitted with a monochrome video adapter.
1984 IBM AT released. This incorporates a larger (16-bit) bus for
expansion slots. Unfortunately it wasn't well specified, the ISA
standard was eventually made (in 1991) to cope with this - but not until
some ATs had been produced with buses that run far quicker the 8.33
MHz laid down in the ISA standard. Some AT compatible systems designed
before the standard was introduced ran the bus at 12.5 MHz which causes
some expansion cards to run hot, therefore becoming less efficient and
slower therefore eventually 'tripping over' and violently crashing the
computer.
1984 - August MS-DOS 3.0, PC-DOS 3.0
Released for the IBM AT, it supported larger hard disks as well as High Density (1.2 MB) 5¼" floppy disks.
1984 - September Apple released a 512KB version of the Macintosh -
but there were no other major enhancements over the original (see Jan.
1984).
1984 - October Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ released. Similar
specifications to the 48 Kb version of the original ZX (see April 1982)
it cost £179.
1984 - End Compaq started the development of the IDE interface (see
also 1989). IDE = Intelligent Drive Electronics. This standard was
designed specially for the IBM PC and can achieve high data transfer
rates through a 1:1 interleave factor and caching by the actual disk
controller - the bottleneck is often the old AT bus and the drive may
read data far quicker than the bus can accept it, so the cache is used
as a buffer. Theoretically 1MB/s is possible but 700KB/s is perhaps more
typical of such drives. This standard has been adopted by many other
models of computer, such the Acorn Archimedes A4000 and above. A later
improvement was EIDE, laid down in 1989, which also removed the maximum
drive size of 528MB and increased data transfer rates.
1985 - January Postscript introduced by Adobe Systems, used in the
Apple Laserwriter printer. Adopted by IBM for their use in March 1987.
1985 Tetris was written by Russian Alexey Pazhitnov. It was later
released for various western games machines, the jewel in the crown
being it's inclusion with Nintendo's Gameboy in 1989. Alexey made
nothing from the game, since under the Communist Regime it was owned by
the people - although after the collapse of Communism he was able to
move to the USA where he now works for Microsoft.
1985 CD-ROM, invented by Phillips, produced in collaboration with Sony.
1985 EGA released.
1985 - March MS-DOS 3.1, PC-DOS 3.1
This was the first version of DOS to provide network support, and provides some new functions to handle networking.
1985 - May Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 announced, released in February 1986. See Feb. 1986.
1985 - October 17 80386 DX released. It supports clock frequencies
of up to 33 MHz and can address up to 4 GB of memory and virtual memory
of up to 64 TERABYTES! It also includes a bigger instruction set than
the 80286.
At the date of release the fastest version ran at 20 MHz and achieved 6.0 MIPs. It contained 275,000 transistors.
1985 - October Version 2.25 included support for foreign character sets, and was marketed in the Far East.
1985 - November Microsoft Windows Launched. Not really widely used
until version 3, released in 1990, Windows required DOS to run and so
was not a complete operating system (until Windows '95, released on
August 21, 1995). It merely provided a G.U.I. similar to that of the
Macintosh., in fact so similar that Apple tried to sue Microsoft for
copying the 'look and feel' of their operating system. This court case
was not dropped until August 1997.
1985 - December MS-DOS 3.2, PC-DOS 3.2 This version was the first to
support 3½" disks, although only the 720KB ones. Version 3.2 remained
the standard version until 1987 when version 3.3 was released with the
IBM PS/2.
1985 - End LIM EMS (memory standard) introduced by Lotus, Intel and Microsoft. The first version introduced was version 3.2!
1986 - January Apple released another enhanced version of the
Macintosh (the Macintosh Plus) - this one could cope with 4 Mb of RAM
and had a SCSI adapter.
1986 - February Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 released. It had 128 Kb of
RAM, but little other improvement over the original ZX (except improved
sound capabilities). Later models were produced by Amstrad - but they
showed no major advances in technology.
1986 - April Apple released another version of the Macintosh (the
Macintosh 512Ke) which was basically the same as the 512K of Sept. 1984.
1986 - September Amstrad Announced Amstrad PC 1512, a cheap and
powerful PC. Cost was just under £1000, it included a slightly enhanced
CGA graphics adapter, 512Kb RAM (upgradable to 640Kb), 8086 processor
(upgradable to NEC V30) and a 20Mb harddisk (optional). Amstrad had
previous success with the PCW. To ensure the computer was accessible
they made sure the manuals could be read by everyone, and also included
DR's GEM desktop (a WIMP system) and a mouse to try to make to machine
more user friendly. It was sold in many high street shops and was a
complete success, being bought by Business and Home users alike. N.B.
This was the author's family's first Home computer, with a Monochrome
monitor and harddisk it cost just under £1000.
1987? Introduction of Acorn Archimedes.
1987 Connection Machine, an interesting supercomputer which instead
of integration of circuits operates up to 64,000 fairly ordinary
microprocessors - using parallel architecture - at the same time, in its
most powerful form it can do somewhere in the region of 2 billion
operations per second.
1987 Microsoft Windows 2 released. It was more popular than the
original version but it was nothing special mind you, Windows 3 (see
1990) was the first really useful version.
1987 Fractal Image Compression Algorithm calculated by English
mathematician Michael F. Barnsley, allowing digital images to be
compressed and stored using fractal codes rather than normal image data.
In theory this allows more efficient storage of the images.
1987 - March 2 Macintosh II & Macintosh SE released. The SE was
still based on the 68000, but could cope with 4 Mb of RAM and had a
SCSI adapter, similar specifications to the Macintosh Plus of Jan.
1986.
The Macintosh II was based on the newer Motorola 68020, that ran at 16
MHz and achieved a much more respectable 2.6 MIPs (comparable to an
80286). It too had a SCSI adapter but was also fitted with a colour
video adapter.
1987 - April 2 PS/2 Systems introduced by IBM. The first models were
released on this date. The PS/2 Model 30 based on an 8086 processor
and an old XT bus, Models 50 and 60 based on the 80286 processor and
the Model 80 based on the 80386 processor. These used the 3 1/2"
'microfloppies', storing 1.44Mb on each (although the Model 30 could
only use the low 720Kb density). These systems (except the Model 30)
included a completely new bus, the MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) bus,
which did not catch on as it did not provide support for old-style
16-Bit AT bus expansion cards. The MCA bus did show many improvements in
design and speed over the ISA bus most PCs used, and IBM (if no-one
else) still use it in some of their machines. The PS/2 series were very
successful - selling well over 2 million machines in less than 2 years.
1987 VGA released (designed for the PS/2) by IBM.
1987 MCGA released (only for low end PS/2s, i.e. the Model 30) by IBM.
1987 The 8514/A introduced by IBM. This was a graphics card that
included it's own processor to speed up the drawing of common objects,
to take the load othe main CPU.
1987 - April MS-DOS 3.3, PC-DOS 3.3
Released with the IBM PS/2 this version included support for the High
Density (1.44MB) 3½" disks. It also supported hard disk partitions,
splitting a hard disk into 2 or more logical drives.
1987 - April OS/2 Launched by Microsoft and IBM. A later
enhancement, OS/2 Warp provided many of the 32-bit enhancements boasted
by Windows '95 - but several years earlier, yet the product failed to
dominate the market in the way Windows '95 did 8 year later.
1987 - August AD-LIB soundcard released. Not widely supported until a
software company, Taito, released several games fully supporting
AD-LIB - the word then spread how much the special sound effects and
music enhanced the games.
Adlib, a Canadian Company, had a virtual monopoly until 1989 when the SoundBlaster card was released.
1987 - October/November Compaq DOS (CPQ-DOS) v3.31 released to cope
with disk partitions >32MB. Used by some other OEMs, but not
distributed by Microsoft.
1987 - End LIM EMS v4.0
1988 First optical chip developed, it uses light instead of electricity to increase processing speed.
1988 XMS (memory standard) introduced.
1988 EISA Bus standard introduced.
1988 WORM (Write Once Read Many times) - disks marketed for first time by IBM.
1988 - June 16 80386 SX released as a cheaper alternative -to the
80386 DX. It had a narrower (16 bit) time multiplexed bus. This
reduction in pins, and the easier integration with 16 bit devices made
the cost savings.
1988 - July/August? PC-DOS 4.0, MS-DOS 4.0
Version 3.4 - 4.x are confusing due to lack of correlation between IBM
& Microsoft and also the USA & Europe. Several 'Internal Use
only' versions were also produced.
This version reflected increases in hardware capabilities, it supported
hard drives greater than 32 MB (up to 2 GB) and also EMS memory.
This version was not properly tested and was bug ridden, causing system
crashes and loss of data. The original release was IBM's, but
Microsoft's version 4.0 (in October) was no better and version 4.01 was
released (in November) to correct this, then version 4.01a (in April
1989) as a further improvement. However many people could not trust this
and reverted to version 3.3 while they waited for the complete
re-write (version 5 - 3 years later). Beta's of Microsoft's version 4.0
were apparently shipped as early as '86 & '87.
1988 - September IBM PS/2 Model 30 286 released, based on an 80286
processor and the old AT bus - IBM abandoned the MCA bus, released less
than 18 months earlier! Other IBM machines continued to use the MCA
bus.
1988 - October Common Access Method committee (CAM) formed. They
published the ATA standard on the 1st of April 1989 (IDE/ATA disks had
been around for a while but wasn't previously standardised), along with
enhancements to allow for larger disks that before.
1988 - October Macintosh IIx released. It was based on a new
processor, the Motorola 68030. It still ran at 16 MHz but now achieved
3.9 MIPs. It could now cope with 128 MB of RAM.
1988 - November MS-DOS 4.01, PC-DOS 4.01
This corrected many of the bugs seen in version 4.0, but many users
simply switched back to version 3.3 and waited for a properly re-written
and fully tested version - which did not come until version 5 in June
1991. Support for disk partitions >32Mb.
1989 World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who saw the need
for a global information exchange that would allow physicists to
collaborate on research (he was working at CERN, the European Particle
Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, at the time). The Web was a result of
the integration of hypertext and the Internet. The hyperlinked pages
not only provided information but provide transparent access to older
Internet facilities such as ftp, telnet, Gopher, WAIS and USENET. He was
awarded the Institute of Physics' 1997 Duddell Medal for this
contribution to the advancement of knowledge. The Web started as a
text-only interface, but NCSA Mosaic later presented a graphical
interface for it and it's popularity exploded as it became accessible to
the novice user. This explosion started in ernest during 1993, a year
in which web traffic over the Internet increased by 300,000%.
1989 CD-I released by Phillips and Sony.
1989 - January Macintosh SE/30 released. Like the SE of March 1987
it only had a monochrome display adapter but was fitted with the newer
68030 processor.
1989 - April 1 Command set for E-IDE drives was defined by CAM
(formed Oct. 1988). This supports drives over 528MB in size. Early
controllers often imposed a limit of 2.1GB, then later ones 8.4GB. Newer
controllers support much higher capacities. Drives greater in size
than 2.1GB must be partitioned under DOS since the drive structure
(laid down in MS-DOS 4) used by DOS and even Windows '95 prevents
partitions bigger than 2.1GB. EIDE controllers also support the ATAPI
interface that is used by most CD-ROM drives produced after it's
introduction. Newer implementations to EIDE, designed for the PCI bus,
can achieve data transfer at up to 16.67 MB/s. A later enhancement,
called UDMA, allows transfer rates of up to 33.3 MB/s.
1989 - March The Macintosh IIcx released, with the same basic capabilities of the IIx.
1989 - April 10 80486 DX released by Intel. It contains the
equivalent of about 1.2 million transistors. At the time of release the
fastest version ran at 25 MHz and achieved up to 20 MIPs.
Later versions, such as the DX/2 and DX/4 versions achieved internal clock rates of up to 100 MHz.
1989 - September Macintosh IIci released based on a faster version
of the 68030 - now running at 25 MHz, and achieved 6.3 MIPs. Macintosh
also released the portable - which went back to the original 68000
processor (but now ran it at 16 MHz to achieve 1.3 MIPs). It had a
monochrome display.
1989 - November Release of Sound Blaster Card, by Creative Labs, its
success was ensured by maintaining compatibility with the widely
supported AD-LIB soundcard of 1987.
1990 Consortium of major SVGA card manufactures (called Video
Electronic Standard Association, VESA) was formed and then introduced
VESA SVGA Standard.
1990 - March Macintosh IIfx released. Based on a 40 MHz version of
the 68030 it achieved 10 MIPs. It also featured a faster SCSI adapter,
which could transfer 3.0 Mb/sec.
1990 - May 22 Introduction of Windows 3.0 by Bill Gates &
Microsoft. It is true multitasking (or pretends to be on computers less
than an 80386, by operating in 'Real' mode) system. It maintained
compatibility with MS-DOS, on an 80386 it even allows such programs to
multitask - which they were not designed to do. This created a real
threat to the Macintosh and despite a similar product, IBM's OS/2, it
was very successful. Various improvements were made, versions 3.1, 3.11 -
but the next major step did not come until Windows '95 in 1995 which
relied much more heavily on the features of the 80386 and provided
support for 32 bit applications.
1990 - October Macintosh Classic released, an identical replacement
to the Macintosh Plus of January 1986. Also came the Macintosh IIsi
which ran a 68030 processor at 20 MHz to achieve 5.0 MIPs, and also a
256 colour video adapter.
1990 - November Macintosh LC released. This ran a 68020 processor at
16 MHz to achieve 2.6 MIPs, it had a slightly improved SCSI adapter
and a 256 colour video adapter.
1990 - November MPC (Multimedia PC) Level 1 specification published
by a council of companies including Microsoft and Creative Labs. This
specified the minimum standards for a Multimedia IBM PC. The MPC level 1
specification originally required a 80286/12 MHz PC, but this was
later increased to a 80386SX/16 MHz computer as an 80286 was realised
to be inadequate. It also required a CD-ROM drive capable of 150 KB/sec
(single speed) and also of Audio CD output. Companies can, after
paying a fee, use the MPC logo on their products.
1990 - November ATA spec. final proposal submitted to ANSI.
1991 Introduction of ISA standard, although it was simply called the
AT bus until after competing standards were launched that needed
differentiating. Although the the AT bus had been used for many years it
hadn't been properly standardised, causing all sorts of problems as
newer PCs clocked the bus at ever faster speeds.
1991 Borland took over Ashton-Tate Corporation & the Dbase program used by many businesses and individuals.
1991 - April 22 80486 SX released as cheaper alternative to 80486 DX
- the key difference being the lack of an integrated F.P.U.
1991 - May Introduction of Sound Blaster Pro.
1991 - June MS-DOS 5.0, PC-DOS 5.0
In order to promote OS/2 Bill Gates took every opportunity after it's
release to say 'DOS is dead', however the development of DOS 5.0 lead to
the permanent dropping of OS/2 development.
This version, after the mess of version 4, was properly tested through
the distribution of Beta versions to over 7,500 users. This version
included the ability to load device drivers and TSR programs above the
640KB boundary (into UMBs and the HMA), freeing more RAM for programs.
This version marked the end of collaboration between Microsoft and IBM
on DOS.
1991 - August Linux is born with the following post to the Usenet Newsgroup comp.os.minix:
Hello everybody out there using minix-
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be
big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
The post was by a Finnish college student, Linus Torvalds, and this
hobby grew from these humble beginnings into one of the most widely used
UNIX-like operating systems in the world today. It now runs on many
different types of computer, including the Sun SPARC and the Compaq
Alpha, as well as many ARM, MIPS, PowerPC and Motorola 68000 based
computers.
In 1992, the GNU project (http://www.gnu.org/) adopted the Linux kernel
for use on GNU systems while they waited for the development of their
own (Hurd) kernel to be completed. The GNU project's aim is to provide a
complete and free UNIX like operating system, combining the Linux or
Hurd platform with the a complete suite of free software to run on it.
In order to allow it to carry the GNU name, the Linux kernel copyright
was changed to the GNU Public License Agreement
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html) on the 1st of February 1992.
1992 "Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM which is more than any
application will ever need". Microsoft on the development of Windows
NT
1992 Introduction of CD-I launched by Phillips.
1992 - April Introduction of Windows 3.1
1992 - May Wolfenstein 3D released by Id Software Inc.
1992 - June Sound Blaster 16 ASP Introduced.
1993 Commercial providers were allowed to sell internet connections
to individuals. Its use exploded, especially with the new interface
provided by the World-Wide Web (see 1989) and NCSA Mosaic.
1993 Doom was released by Id Software Inc. The PC began to be
considered as a serious games playing machine. This was reinforced by
another release in 1993 - "Sam and Max Hit the Road".
1993 Novell purchased Digital Research, DR-DOS became Novell DOS.
1993 - March 22 Intel Pentium released. At the time it was only
available in 60 & 66 MHz versions which achieved up to 100 MIPs,
with over 3.1 million transistors.
1993 - May MPC Level 2 specification introduced (see November 1990).
This was designed to allow playback of a 15 fps video in a window
320x240 pixels. The key difference is the requirement of a CD-ROM drive
capable of 300KB/sec (double speed). Also with Level 2 is the
requirement for products to be tested by the MPC council, making MPC
Level 2 compatibility a stamp of certification.
1993 - December MS-DOS 6.0. This included a Hard-Disk compression
program called DoubleSpace, but a small computing company called 'Stac'
claimed that DoubleSpace was partly a copy of their Compression
Program, Stacker. After paying damages Microsoft withdrew DoubleSpace
from MS-DOS 6.2, releasing a new program - DriveSpace - with MS-DOS
version 6.22. In operation and programming interface DriveSpace remains
virtually identical to DoubleSpace. MS-DOS 6.22 remains the last
version of MS-DOS released, since Microsoft turned its efforts to
Windows '95. Windows '95 (and later) DOS shell reports itself as DOS 7 -
and includes a few enhancements, e.g. support for long filenames.
1994 - March 7 Intel Release the 90 & 100 MHz versions of the Pentium Processor.
1994 - March 14 Linus Torvalds released version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel.
1994 - September PC-DOS 6.3 Basically the same as version 5.0 this
release by IBM included more bundled software, such as Stacker (the
program that caused Microsoft so much embarrassment) and anti-virus
software.
1994 - October 10 Intel Release the 75 MHz version of the Pentium Processor.
1994 Doom II released. This reflected the rapidly increasing quality
of games available for the PC - an opinion supported by other major
releases in 1994, such as "Alone in the Dark 2", "Theme Park", "Magic
Carpet" and "Little Big Adventure" which also helped demonstrate the
diversity of games available on the platform. This success of the PC as a
games platform was partly due to and partly a cause of significantly
increased PC ownership among the 'general public' during the early/mid
1990s.
1994 Netscape 1.0 was written as an alternative browser to NCSA Mosaic.
1994 Command & Conquer released. Other (less significant
releases) for the PC included Star Trek 'The Next Generation', Full
Throttle, Descent and Terminal Velocity. The advent of 3D graphics cards
from Videologic and 3Dfx helped the platform's games status further.
1995 - March Linus released Linux Kernel v1.2.0 (Linux'95).
1995 - March 27 Intel release the 120 MHz version of the Pentium processor.
1995 - June 1 Intel release the 133 MHz version of the Pentium processor.
1995 - August 21 [poss. 23] Windows '95 was launched by Bill Gates
& Microsoft. Unlike previous versions of Windows, Windows '95 is an
entire operating system - it does not rely on MS-DOS (although some
remnants of the old operating system still exist). Windows '95 was
written specially for the 80386 and compatible computers to make 'full'
use of its 32 bit processing and multitasking capabilities, and thus is
much more similar to Windows NT than Windows 3.x. Windows 95 and NT 4
are almost indistinguishable in many respects - such as User Interface
and API. Unfortunately, in order to maintain backwards compatibility,
Windows 95 doesn't impose the same memory protection and security
measures that NT does and so suffers from much worse reliability.
Despite being remarkable similar in function to OS/2 Warp (produced by
IBM and Microsoft several years earlier, but marketed by IBM), Windows
'95 has proved very popular.
1995 - November 1 Pentium Pro released. At introduction it achieved a
clock speed of up to 200 MHz (there were also 150, 166 and 180 MHz
variants released on the same date), but is basically the same as the
Pentium in terms of instruction set and capabilities. It achieves 440
MIPs and contains 5.5 million transistors - this is nearly 2400 times as
many as the first microprocessor, the 4004 - and capable of 70,000
times as many instructions per second.
1995 - December 28 CompuServe blocked access to over 200 sexually
explicit sites, partly to avoid confrontation with the German
Government. Access to all but 5 was restored on Feb. 13 1996.
1995 - December JavaScript development announced by Netscape.
1996 Quake released - representing the dramatic increases in both
software and hardware technology since Doom, of 3 years previous. Other
notable releases included "Civilization 2", "Command & Conquer -
Red Alert", "Grand Prix 2" and "Tomb Raider". On the more controversial
front "Battle Cruiser 3000" was also released, but it's advertising
had to be censored.
1996 - January Netscape Navigator 2.0 released. First browser to support JavaScript.
1996 - January 4 Intel release the 150 & 166 MHz versions of the
Pentium Processor. They contain the equivalent of over 3.3 million
transistors.
1996 Windows '95 OSR2 (OEM System Release 2) was released - partly
to fix bugs found in release 1 - but only to computer retailers for sale
with new systems. There were actually two separated releases of
Windows 95 OSR2 before the introduction of Windows '98, the second of
which contained both USB and FAT32 support - the main selling points of
Windows '98. FAT32 is a new filing system that provides support for
disk paritions bigger than 2.1GB and is better at coping with large
disks (especially in terms of wasted space).
1996 - June 9 Linux 2.0 released. 2.0 was a significant improvement
over the earlier versions: it was the first to support multiple
architectures (originally developed for the Intel 386 processor, it now
supported the Digital Alpha and would very soon support Sun SPARC many
others). It was also the first stable kernel to support SMP, kernel
modules, and much more.
1996 - October 6 Intel release the 200 Mhz version of the Pentium Processor.
1997 Tim Berners-Lee awarded the Institute of Physics' 1997 Duddell Medal for inventing the World Wide Web (see 1989).
1997 "Grand Theft Auto", "Quake 2" and "Blade Runner" were all
released while Lara Croft returned in "Tomb Raider 2". As the standards
for graphics kept increasing, 3d graphics cards were beginning to
become mandatory for games players.
1997 - January 8 Intel released Pentium MMX (originally 166 and 200
Mhz versions), for games and multimedia enhancement. To most people MMX
is simply another 3-letter acronym and people wearing coloured suits
on Intel ads, and to programmers in meant an even further expanded
instruction set that provides, amongst other functions, enhanced 64-bit
support - but software needs to be specially written to work with the
new functions. A major rival clone, the AMD-K6-MMX containing a similar
instruction set, caused a legal challenge from Intel on the right to
use the trademarked name MMX - it was not upheld.
1997 - May 11 IBM's Deep Blue, the first computer to beat a reigning
World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov, in a full chess match. The
computer had played him previously - loosing 5/6 games in February 1996.
1997 - May 7 Intel Release their Pentium II processor (233, 266 and
300 Mhz versions). It featured, as well as an increased instruction
set, a much larger on-chip cache.
1997 - June 2 Intel release the 233 MHz Pentium MMX.
1997 - August 6 After 18 months of losses Apple were in serious
financial trouble. Microsoft invested in Apple, buying 100,000
non-voting shares worth $150 million - a decision not approved of by
many Apple owners! One of the conditions was that Apple were to drop
their long running court case - attempting to sue Microsoft for copying
the look and feel of their operating system when designing Windows.
There is some contention as to whether Apple were justified in sueing
Microsoft, given that they themselves used some of the ideas from the
XEROX 'Star' system when desiging their G.U.I. - however the
similarities between MacOS and Windows are much more pronouced than
those between the XEROX system and the Mac.
1998 - February Intel released of 333 MHz Pentium II processor.
Code-named Deschutes these processors use the new 0.25 micron
manufacturing process to run faster and generate less heat than before.
1998 - April A U.S. court has finally banned the long-running game
of buying domain names relating to trademarks and then at selling them
for extortionate prices to the companies who own the trademark. The case
was based around a man from Illinois who bought www.panavision.com in
1995 and has just tried to sell it for $13,000. The current going
commercial rate for domain name registration is around $100.
1998 - June 25 Microsoft released Windows '98. Some U.S. attorneys
tried to block it's release since the new O/S interfaces closely with
other programs such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and so effectively
closes the market of such software to other companies. Microsoft fought
back with a letter to the White House suggesting that 26 of it's
industry allies said that a delay in the release of the new O/S could
damage the U.S. economy. The main selling points of Windows '98 were
it's support for USB and it's support for disk paritions greater than
2.1GB.
1999 - Jan 25 Linux Kernel 2.2.0 Released. The number of people
running Linux is estimated at over 10million, making it an not only
important operating system in the Unix world, but an increasingly
important one in the PC world.
1999 - Feb 22 AMD release K6-III 400MHz version, 450 to OEMS. In
some tests it outperforms soon-to-be released Intel P-III. It contains
approximately 23 million transistors, and is based on 100Mhz super
socket 7 motherboards, an improvement on the 66MHz buses their previous
chips were based on. This helps its performance when compared to
Intel's Pentium II - which also uses a 100MHz bus speed.
1999 - Aug 31 Apple release the PowerMac G4. It's powered by the
PowerPC G4 chip from Apple, Motorola and IBM. Available in 400MHz,
450MHz and 500MHz versions it's claimed to be the first personal
computer to be capable of over one billion floating-point operations per
second.
1999 - Nov 29 AMD release Athlon 750MHz version.
2000 - Jan 14 US Government announce restrictions on exporting
Cryptography are relaxed (although not removed). This allows many US
Companies to stop the long running, and rather ridiculous process of
having to create US and International copies of their software.
2000 - Jan 19 Transmeta launch their new 'Crusoe' chips. Designed
for laptops these prvoide comparible performance to the mid-range
Pentium II chips, but consume a tiny fraction of the power. They are a
new and exciting competitor to Intel in the x86 market.
2000 - Feb 17 Offical Launch of Windows 2000 - Microsoft's
replacement for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT. Claimed to be faster and
more reliable than previous versions of Windows. It is actually a
descendant of the NT series, and so the trade-off for increased
reliability is that it won't run some old DOS-based games. To keep the
home market happy Microsoft have also released Windows ME, the newest
member of the 95/98 series.
2000 - March 6 AMD Release the Athlon 1GHz.
2000 - March 8 Intel release very limited supplies of the 1GHz Pentium III chip.
2000 - June 20 British Telecom (BT) claim the rights to hyperlinks
on the basis of a US patent granted in 1989. Similar patents in the rest
of the world have now expired. Their claim is widely believed to be
absurd since Ted Nelson wrote about hyperlinks in 1965, and this is
where Tim Berners Lee says he got the ideas for the World Wide Web from.
This is just another in the line of similar incredulous cases - for
example amazon.com's claim to have patented '1-click ordering'. Even
more absurb was the claim made in March 2002 by a 'til then unheard of
company "Maz Technologies" that they had, in 1998, obtained a fairly
generic patent covering encrypted storage of documents. BT's claim was
finally rejected by a judge in the US on 23 August 2002.
2000 - Sept 6 RSA Security Inc. released their RSA algorithm into
the public domain, in advance of the US patent (#4,405,829) expiring on
the 20th Sept. of the same year. Following the relaxation of the US
government restrictions earlier in the year (Jan. 14) this removed one
of the last barriers to the world-wide distribution of much software
based on cryptographic systems. It should be noted that the IDEA
algorithm is still under patent and also that government restrictions
still apply in some places.
2001 - Jan 4 Linux kernel 2.4.0 released.
2001 - March 24 Apple released MacOS X. At it's heart is `Darwin',
an Open Source operaing system on FreeBSD. Using this MacOS X finally
gives Mac users the stabilty benifits of a protected memory architecture
along many other enhancements, such as preemptive multitasking. The
BSD base also makes porting UNIX applications to MacOS easier and gives
Mac users a fully featured command line interface alongside their GUI.
2001 - October 25 Microsoft released Windows XP - the latest version
of their Windows operating system. Based on the NT series kernel, it
is intended to bring together both the NT/2000 series and the Windows
95/98/ME series into one product. Of, course, it was originally hoped
that this would happen with Windows 2000 ... so only time will tell if
Microsoft have suceeded with Windows XP.
2001 - November 15 Release of the `X' Box - Microsoft's games
console. It cost $299 (or £299 - there's fairness), and will include the
ability to connect to the internet for multiplayer gaming. The
Japanese launch was the 22nd February 2000, and the European launch
wasn't until March 14th 2002.
2002 - August 6 Edsger W. Dijkstra died. Dijkstra is known to many
people for his 'shortest path' algorithm (1956). Although this is the
main thing many people will remember Dijkstra for, he also made
important contributions to many areas of computing - imparticular he
should be remembered for his work on problems relating to concurrency,
such as the invention of the `semaphore'.
2003 - October 24 MacOS 10.3 continues to improve MacOS X, with
major updates to 'Aqua' (the user interface) as well as performance
improvements and new features.
2003 - December 17 Linux kernel 2.6.0 released. Many features from
uClinux (designed for embedded microcontrollers) have been integrated,
along with support for NUMA (used in large, multi-processor systems). an
improved scheduler and scalability improvements help ensure Linux will
maintain it's reputation for running on everything from small embedded
devices to large enterprise-class servers and even mainframes. As
always support for new classes of hardware has been significantly
improved.
2003 - December 31 Sir Tim Berners-Lee was knighted in recognition of his creation of the 'World Wide Web'.