The development of computers
The development of computers
THE FIRST HOME COMPUTER
In July of 1980, IBM representatives met for the first time with Microsoft's Bill Gates to talk about writing an operating system or IBM's new home computer. IBM had already made one attempt to crack the market with their IBM 5100. The secret plans were referred to as "Project Chess". The code name for the new computer was "Acorn". Twelve engineers, led by William C. On August 12, 1981, IBM released their new computer, re-named the IBM PC. The "PC" stood for "personal computer" making IBM responsible for popularising the term "PC".
The first IBM PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor. The PC came equipped with 16 kilobytes of memory, expandable to 256k. The PC came with one or two 160k floppy dick drives and an optional colour monitor. The Intel chip was chosen because IBM had already obtained the rights to manufacture the Intel chips. IBM had used the Intel 8086 for use in its DisplayWriter Intelligent Typewriter in exchange for giving Intel the rights to IBM's bubble memory technology.
Less than four months after IBM introduced the PC, Time Magazine named the computer "man of the year"
In 1980, IBM first approached Bill Gates and Microsoft, to discuss the state of home computers and Microsoft products. Gates gave IBM a few ideas on what would make a great home computer, among them to have Basic written into the ROM chip.
As for an operating system (OS) for the new computers, since Microsoft had never written an operating system before, Gates had suggested that IBM investigate an OS called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers), written by Gary Kildall of Digital Research. Kindall had his Ph.D. in computers and had written the most successful operating system of the time, selling over 600,000 copies of CP/M, his OS set the standard at that time.
IBM tried to contact Kildall for a meeting, executives met with Mrs. Kildall who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement. IBM soon returned to Bill Gates and gave Microsoft the contract to write the new operating system, one that would eventually wipe Kildall's CP/M out of common use.
The "Microsoft Disk Operating System" or MS-DOS was based on QDOS, the "Quick and Dirty Operating System" written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, for their prototype Intel 8086 based computer.
QDOS was based on Gary Kildall's CP/M, Paterson had bought a CP/M manual and used it as the basis to write his operating system in six weeks, QDOS was different enough from CP/M to be considered legal.
Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer Products.
Gates then talked IBM into letting Microsoft retain the rights, to market MS DOS separate from the IBM C project, Gates proceeded to make a fortune from the licensing of MS-DOS.
In 1981, Tim Paterson quit Seattle Computer Products and found employment at Microsoft
THE APPLE MACINTOSH
In December, 1983, Apple Computers ran its' famous "1984" Macintosh television commercial, on a small unknown station solely to make the commercial eligible for awards during 1984. The commercial cost 1.5 million and only ran once in 1983, but news and talk shows everywhere replayed it, making TV history. The next month, Apple Computer ran the same ad during the NFL Super Bowl, and millions of viewers saw their first glimpse of the Macintosh computer. Ridley Scott directed the commercial, and the Orwellian scene depicted the IBM world being destroyed by a new machine, the "Macintosh".
Specifications
Macintosh 128K
CPU:
MC68000
CPU speed:
8 Mhz
FPU:
None
RAM:
28k Dram not expandable
ROM:
64k
Serial Ports:
2
Floppy:
3.5" 400k
Monitor:
9" 512x384 square pixels built-in B/W
Power:
60 Watts
Weight:
6.5 lbs.
Dimensions:
3.6" H x 9.6" W x 10.9" D
System Software:
Mac OS 1.0
Production:
January 1984 to October 1985
Cost:
$2,495
Note: The early Mac team members ...
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Specifications
Macintosh 128K
CPU:
MC68000
CPU speed:
8 Mhz
FPU:
None
RAM:
28k Dram not expandable
ROM:
64k
Serial Ports:
2
Floppy:
3.5" 400k
Monitor:
9" 512x384 square pixels built-in B/W
Power:
60 Watts
Weight:
6.5 lbs.
Dimensions:
3.6" H x 9.6" W x 10.9" D
System Software:
Mac OS 1.0
Production:
January 1984 to October 1985
Cost:
$2,495
Note: The early Mac team members (1979) consisted of Jeff Raskin, Brian Howard, Marc LeBrun, and Burrell Smith. Joanna Hoffman and Bud Tribble. Others began working on the Mac at later dates.
Seventy-four days after the introduction of the "Macintosh", 50,000 units had been sold, not that strong a show. Apple refused to license the OS or the hardware, the 128k memory was not enough and a single floppy was difficult to use.
In 1985, the "Macintosh" computer line received a big sales boost with the introduction of the LaserWriter printer and Aldus PageMaker, home desktop publishing was now possible. But 1985 was also the year when the original founders of Apple left the company.
Steve Wozniak returned to college and Steve Jobs was fired, his difficulties with John Sculley coming to a head. Jobs had decided, to regain control of the company away from Sculley, he scheduled a business meeting in China for Sculley and planned for a corporate take-over, when Sculley would be absent. Information about Jobs' true motives, reached Sculley before the China trip, he confronted Jobs and asked Apple's Board of Directors to vote on the issue. Everyone voted for Sculley and Jobs quit, in lieu of being fired.
And then, there was "Windows"
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and multitasking environment for IBM computers. Microsoft promised that the new program would be on the shelf by April 1984. It might have been released under the original name of Interface Manager if Microsoft's marketing whiz, Rowland Hanson, had not convinced Microsoft founder Bill Gates that Windows was the better name.
That same November, Bill Gates showed a beta version of Windows to IBM's head honchos. Their response was lackluster, perhaps because IBM was also working on its own product called Top View. They did not give Microsoft the same encouragement for Windows that they gave MS-DOS in 1981, the first highly successful operating system that Microsoft wrote for the IMB PC.
Top View was released in February 1985, as a DOS-based multitasking program manager without any GUI features. IBM promised that future versions of Top View would have a GUI. The promise was never kept, and the program was discontinued barely two years later.
No doubt, Bill Gates realized how profitable a successful GUI for IBM computers would be. Both Apple computers came with a stunning graphical user interface.
Early MS-DOS diehards liked to refer to MacOS as 'WIMP' - the Windows, Icons, Mice and Pointers interface.
Microsoft Windows faced potential competition from IBM's own Top View, and there were others. VisiCorp's short-lived VisiOn, released in October 1983, was the official first PC-based GUI. The second was GEM (Graphics Environment Manager), released by Digital Research in early 1985. Both GEM and VisiOn lacked support from the all-important third-party developers--and, if nobody wanted to write software programs for an operating system, nobody would want to buy it.
Microsoft finally shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, almost two years past the initially promised release date.
Windows 1.0 was considered buggy, crude and slow. This rough start was made worse by a threatened lawsuit from Apple Computer. In September 1985, Apple lawyers warned Bill Gates that they felt Windows 1.0 infringed on Apple copyrights and patents, and that his corporation might have stolen Apple trade secrets. (Windows had similar drop-down menus, tiled windows and mouse support.)
Bill Gates and his head counsel, Bill Neukom, decided to make an offer to license Apple's operating-system features. Apple agreed, and a contract was drawn up. Here's the clincher: Microsoft wrote the licensing agreement to include use of Apple features in Windows 1.0 and all future Microsoft software programs. As it turned out, this move by Bill Gates was as brilliant as his decision to buy QDOS from Seattle Computer Products and his convincing IBM to let Microsoft keep the licensing rights to MS-DOS. (You can read all about those smooth moves in our feature on MS-DOS.)
Windows 1.0 floundered on the market until January 1987, when a Windows-compatible program called Aldus PageMaker 1.0 was released. PageMaker was the first WYSIWYG desktop-publishing program for the PC. Later that year, Microsoft released a Windows-compatible Spreadsheet called Excel. Other popular and useful software like Microsoft Word and Corel Draw helped promote Windows, but Microsoft realized the product still needed further development.
On December 9, 1987, Microsoft released a much-improved Windows 2.0 that made a PC look a bit more like a MacIntosh Computer. Windows 2.0 had icons to represent programs and files, improved support for expanded-memory hardware and windows that could overlap. Apple Computer saw a resemblance and filed a 1988 lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that they had broken the 1985 licensing agreement.
In their defence, Microsoft claimed that the licensing agreement actually gave them the right to use Apple features. After a four-year court case, Microsoft won. Apple claimed that Microsoft had infringed on 170 of their copyrights. The courts said that the licensing agreement gave Microsoft the rights to use all but nine of the copyrights, and Microsoft later convinced the courts that copyright law should not cover the remaining copyrights. Bill Gates claimed that Apple had taken some of its ideas from the graphical user interface developed by Xerox for Xerox's Alto and Star computers.
6/1/93: Microsoft announces that Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court of Northern California ruled today in Microsoft's favour in the Apple vs. Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard copyright suit. The judge granted Microsoft's and Hewlett-Packard's motions to dismiss the last remaining copyright infringement claims against Microsoft Windows 2.03 and 3.0, as well as, the HP NewWave. -From the Microsoft Timeline
What would have happened if Microsoft had lost the lawsuit? Microsoft Windows might never have become the dominant operating system that it is today.
"Microsoft become the top software vendor in 1988 and never looked back..."
On May 22, 1990, the critically accepted Windows 3.0 was released. Windows 3.0 had an improved program manager and icon system, a new file manager, support for sixteen colours, and improved speed and reliability. Most important, Windows 3.0 gained widespread third-party support. Programmers started writing Windows-compatible software, giving end users a reason to buy Windows 3.0. Three million copies were sold the first year, and Windows finally came of age.
On April 6, 1992, Windows 3.1 was released. Three million copies were sold in the first two months. TrueType scalable font support was added, along with multimedia capability, object linking and embedding (OLE), application reboot capability, and more. Windows 3.x became the number one operating system installed in PCs until 1997, when Windows 95 took over.
On August 24, 1995, Windows 95 was released in a buying fever so great that even consumers without home computers bought copies of the program. Code-named Chicago, Windows 95 was considered very user-friendly. It included an integrated TCP/IP stack, dial-up networking, and long filename support. It was also the first version of Windows that did not require MS-DOS to be installed beforehand.
On June 25, 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98. It was the last version of Windows based on the MS-DOS kernel. Windows 98 has Microsoft's Internet browser "Internet Explorer 4" built in and supports the new input devices like USB.
Windows 2000 was based on Microsoft's NT technology, and Microsoft offered automatic software updates over the Internet. We can expect to see a greater user of speech and facial recognition in future versions of Windows. Computer users will soon control their computers without even touching a keyboard or mouse.
In 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a computer that was built in 1694. It could add, and, after changing some things around, multiply. While Thomas of Colmar was developing the desktop calculator, a series of very interesting developments in computers was taking place in Cambridge, England, by Charles Babbage , a mathematics professor. With financial help from the British government, Babbage started fabrication of a difference engine in 1823. It was intended to be steam powered and fully automatic, including the printing of the resulting tables, and commanded by a fixed instruction program. Babbage continued to work on it for the next 10 years, but in 1833 he lost interest because he thought he had a better idea -- the construction of what would now be called a general purpose, fully program-controlled, automatic mechanical digital computer. Babbage called this idea an Analytical Engine. The plans for this engine required an identical decimal computer operating on numbers of 50 decimal digits (or words) and having a storage capacity (memory) of 1,000 such digits. The machine was supposed to operate automatically, by steam power, and require only one person there.
Year
Event
2000
Many experts, governments and businesses feared that January 1st 2000 could cause serious issues with the date stamp on computers. The belief was that because many old computers relied off of the last two digits of a year such as 99 for 1999, when the year 2000 came 2000 would set the computers to 00 causing the computer to think it was 1900. Called the Year 2000 bug many individuals feared for the worst however because of preparation Year 2000 only caused a few glitches, however no catastrophes.
2000
Microsoft Bill Gates relinquishes his title as CEO to MS President Steve Ballmer on January 13, 2000.
2000
CNR is introduced by Intel February 07, 2000
2000
Microsoft Windows 2000 is released February of 2000.
2000
U.S. Judge Thomas Penfield announced today after over 2-years in the court that Microsoft be split into two companies although will remain intact until the appeals process is exhausted.
2000
ATI introduces their Radeon product line on April 24, 2000.
2000
On June 24, 2000 U.S. President Bill Clinton makes the first ever-Presidential webcast among the announcements President Bill Clinton announces a new web site that will be able to search all government resources.
2000
Jack Kilby is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
2000
ATA-5 is approved by ANSI.
2000
Microsoft releases Windows ME.
2000
Microsoft release DirectX 8, November 9, 2000.
2001
January 02, 2001 - Intel announced that it would recall its 1.13 GHz Pentium III processors due to a glitch. Users with these processors should contact their vendors for additional information about the recall.
2001
January 1, 2001 - Microsoft announces Windows 95 is now a legacy item and will no longer be sold or shipped to any more customers.
2001
Bill Gates unveils the Xbox on January 7th 2001.
2001
The man who practically invented the Silicon Valley success story, Hewlett-Packard Co. co-founder William Hewlett, dies at his home, he was 87.
2001
Chip-making giant Intel Corp. Has agreed to acquire Xircom Inc, a maker of mobile computing gear, for about $748 million.
2001
Claude Elwood Shannon, the mathematician who laid the foundation of modern information theory while working at Bell Labs in the 1940s, died on February 24, 2001. He was 85.
2001
March 08, AOL membership surpasses 28 Million.
2001
March 09, MacAfee releases first handheld virus protection software.
2001
March 31, After 21 years of selling hard drives, Quantum on Friday formally left the business to turn its full attention to higher-level storage products and services.
2001
April 20, Dell computers becomes the largest PC maker.
2001
June 5, 2001, Nevada becomes the first U.S. state to vote to legalize online gambling.
2001
Airlines begin to implement methods of gaining Internet access while flying.
2001
USB 2.0 is introduced.
2001
Microsoft announces April 11, 2001 that it will no longer include Clippy with future releases of Microsoft Office.
2001
July 20, 2001 - PC shipments worst since 1986, as only Dell grows.
2001
Egghead files for Bankruptcy protection on August 18, 2001.
2001
SATA 1.0 is introduced in August 2001.
2001
Hewlett Packard announces plans to buy Compaq on September sixth.
2001
Microsoft Windows XP home and professional editions are released October 25, 2001.
2001
Microsoft release DirectX 9, November 8, 2001.
2002
Excite@Home, one of the largest ISP's files for bankruptcy and closes its doors March 02, 2002.
2002
Approximately 1 billion PCs have been shipped worldwide since the mid-'70s, according to a study released by consulting firm Gartner.
2002
WorldCom the Number 2 long-distance telephone and data service company files for bankruptcy June 21, 2002.
2002
Edsger Dijkstra passes away August 6, 2002.
2002
Cartoon turtle named "Dewie" introduced to help promote Internet safety and security.
2002
Microsoft release DirectX 9, December 19, 2002.
2003
Eugene Kleiner passes away November 20, 2003.
2004
Lindows changes its name to Linspire April 14, 2004.
