Research

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the microprocessor, measured from November 15, 1971--the day an advertisement for the Intel 4004 first appeared in Electronic News Magazine. However, acknowledges its "inventor," Dr. Marcian E. (Ted) Hoff Jr., the development of what many see as the heart of the computer revolution wasn't so much an invention as it was an evolution. "Going back as far as 1958, there had been lots of literature talking about building a monolithic computer using vacuum tubes," he said, "but by the mid to late 60's, although many of us were trying to figure out how to build a computer on a chip, the yield from the semiconductor manufacturing process was still too low for it to be practical."

Y2K At the same time that the dotcoms were booming, another factor contributed to a dramatic increase in software revenues: the Y2K phenomenon. "Y2K" was an abbreviation for "Year 2000".

The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, deskside (pedestal) and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems.

Sun's logo with interleaved copies of the word sun, was designed by Stanford University professor Vaughan Pratt. The initial version of the logo with sides oriented horizontally/vertically was later changed to the box appearing to stand on one corner.

The idea of any time line is to present developments in a particular field as a continuum, a cascade of inevitability leading up to the present. A closer look at our highlights from computer history will show this long and winding road to have been traveled in fits and starts. What if Pascal hadn't gotten religion and retreated from science? Or if Babbage had completed his Analytical Engine? Or if Konrad Zuse had been able to get all the spare parts he needed? We'll never know whether the flow of computer developments would have been greatly accelerated. The course of computer history does, after all, seem inevitable.

INTRODUCTION Power. Speed. Capacity. Connectivity. At the beginning of the 21st century, these are the major areas of focus for most users of computing devices, whether desktop, laptop, or handheld. Does it have the ability to run the applications that I need? Can it run them well? With reliability? With security? With access to my data from multiple locations? And, of course, robust ability to communicate with other computers via the Internet is essential. Sometimes, even the question, "Does it look cool?" is important.

This document is an attempt to bring various published sources together to present a timeline about Personal Computers. This web document is a sneak peek at a book project of mine. Since 1994, I have browsed over 1000 sources for date information related to personal computers. This brief summary includes many of the essential happenings that shaped the industry. The full text contains over to 5000 entries. I have tried to keep it open-minded and unbiased, but the annoying fact is that "the winners write the history books".

Development of MSDOS/PCDOS began in October 1980, when IBM began searching the market for an operating system for the yet-to-be-introduced IBM PC. IBM had originally intended to use Digital Research's (actually, they had the somewhat pretentious name of "Intergalactic Digital Research" at the time) CP/M was then the industry standard operating system - you either ran a BASIC with disk functions, someone's proprietary OS, or CP/M.

Over the years I have been very interested in the development and history of computers. Recently there was an excellent television program spanning five weeks called "the triumph of the nerds". It covered the early years of the modern PC. "the seventies and eighties, Covering the rise and fall of companies like Apple Amstrad and Altair, and the rise and rise of Microsoft, All this development has only spanned 25 years, which astounded me. 1982 saw the first IBM desktop PC and I saw it launched in Newcastle, UK. I was also at a similar show that launched the Apple II, and the Amstrad PC1512. This prompted me to look for information on this fascinating subject and add it to my web page as a special feature. As anyone arriving to my site must have used a computer to do so it should be interesting to you.

The Digital Futures Institute (DFI) is host to a range of research activities in computing and aims to achieve a balance between generic research topics and the development of new technologies.