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Hi,
In the past I assembled some text about the history of computing on my old atomasoft web site, here I paste the text again since it's a good information and funny to read:
1623 First mechanical calculator
German inventor Wilhelm Schickard invents the first mechanical calculator. Records detailing the machine's workings were lost during the Thirty Years' War.
1642 Pascal's machine
Nineteen-year-old Blaise Pascal of Rouen, France, begins work on a digital adding machine to help his father, a local administrator, calculate taxes. When completed two years later, the machine can add and subtract numbers up to eight digits long. Pascal later becomes an esteemed mathematician and philosopher.
1673 Liebniz builds calculator
German philosopher and mathematician Gottfriend Liebniz builds a working model of a calculating machine using gears and rods. His machine, called the Stepped Reckoner, can multiply, divide, and calculate square roots.
1914 Watson joins IBM
Thomas Watson Sr. joins the Tabulating Machine Company, which he reorganizes and reinvents as IBM. His son, Thomas Watson Jr., will succeed him as IBM chairman in 1956 and successfully shift the company's focus to computers.
1939 Hewlett-Packard founded
Stanford classmates David Packard and William Hewlett start a company in Hewlett's Palo Alto garage. The company builds a wide range of electronic measurement instruments. The company's handheld electronic calculator, introduced in 1972, is a bestseller. The company will become a major supplier of personal computers and laser printers. Hewlett's garage is later declared a registered historical landmark.
1939-1942 Atanasoff-Berry Computer
John Atanasoff, a physics professor at Iowa State University, and graduate student Clifford Berry begin building the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. Work on the computer continues from 1939 to 1942. In 1941, Atanasoff shows the computer to John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who are constructing an electronic digital computer at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School. In a controversial decision decades later, the Supreme Court will decide that Atanasoff, not Mauchly and Eckert, was the true inventor of the electronic computer.
1940 Stibitz develops electronic computer
George Stibitz of Bell Labs develops an early digital calculator to speed up his work computing relay switching. He devises an electronic adding machine, using dry cell batteries, metal strips from a tobacco can, and flashlight bulbs. The adding machine, called the Model I Complex Calculator, is used at Bell for the next nine years.
1943 Colossus computer built in England
A team of English engineers completes the Colossus, an electronic digital computer developed to break codes generated by German code-writing machines. The Colossus and earlier code-breaking machines are largely based on the theoretical work of English mathematician Alan Turing. Turing is best known for his work in artificial intelligence, including the Turing Test, which measures a machine's capacity for human thought.
1944 Harvard engineers complete work on the Mark I
In February, Howard Aiken and a team of Harvard engineers complete the Mark I computer after five years of work. The Mark I is fifty-one feet long and eight feet high, weighs thirty-five tons, and contains about five hundred miles of wire. Programmed with paper tape punched with coded instructions, the machine can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The machine is used by the Navy for ballistics.
1945 Grace Hopper finds a bug in the Mark I
Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and mathematician working for the Navy, finds an actual moth in a vacuum tube inside the Mark I. Although the term bug has been used to describe mechanical and electronic glitches for decades, this is the first documented occasion of a bug being caused by an actual bug. Hopper, who taught mathematics until World War II broke out, later develops the Flow-Matic compiler. Her pioneering work in compilers and computer code paves the way for increasingly sophisticated computer languages. In 1991, she becomes the first woman to win the prestigious National Medal of Technology.
Von Neumann and EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Calculator)
After visiting the Moore School and observing the development of the Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), esteemed scientist John Von Neumann, best known for his work on the Manhattan Project, circulates a report proposing the addition of storage memory to the machine. He calls the modified machine he proposes EDVAC. This memo, called "Report on EDVAC," details the engineering behind ENIAC, and helps raise awareness of electronic computing throughout the country.
Vannevar Bush publishes influential essay
The Atlantic publishes an essay titled "As We May Think," by Vannevar Bush, inventor and Manhattan Project scientist. This essay, about the evolution of computers into tools that can facilitate human thought, significantly influences Doug Engelbart years later. Inspired by Bush, Engelbart will develop the first graphical user interface using icons, windows, and a mouse, which he demonstrates at a computer conference in 1968.
1946 Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
One of the world's first electronic computers is delivered to the U.S. Army. The computer, developed by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School, was commissioned to compute ballistics firing tables used in World War II but was not completed until several months after the war ended.
1947 Transistor invented
Will Shockley, Walter Braitton, and John Bardeen of Bell Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor, initiating the era of modern electronics. The tiny transistor soon replaces the cumbersome vacuum tubes previously used in electronic equipment. The trio will win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956.
1948 UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)
John Mauchly and Presper Eckert found the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, which will manufacturer the world's first commercially available electronic digital computer, UNIVAC. The U.S. Census Bureau uses UNIVAC to calculate the 1950 census results.
1949 An Wang invents memory core
Twenty-eight-year-old, Shanghai-born An Wang invents the magnetic memory core and founds Wang Laboratories three years later. The magnetic memory core serves as the basis for all computer memory until the invention of the microchip. Wang's company becomes a successful calculator and computer manufacturer, and Wang will later break ground in word processing systems.
1949 English scientists develop first computer with memory
The Ferranti Mark I, designed by Frederic Williams and Thomas Kilburn at Manchester University, and the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) become the first stored-program computers.
1949 Jay Forrester develops magnetic computer memory
Jay Forrester, founder of the Digital Computer Lab at M.I.T., devises the first random-access magnetic memory. The Digital Computer Lab had developed the Whirlwind I, a digital computer, several years earlier under Forrester's leadership.
1952 IBM accused of computer monopoly
The Justice Department files suit against IBM for allegedly monopolistic practices in its computer business. IBM will be plagued by antitrust litigation for the next thirty years.
1957 Digital Equipment Corp. founded
Kenneth Olsen, a member of the M.I.T. team that built the Whirlwind in 1951, founds Digital Equipment Corp. Olsen starts the company in an old textile mill with seventy thousand dollars from George Doriot, who started the first non-family-owned venture capital firm in the United States. The company becomes the world's second-largest computer company by the 1970s but loses ground in the 1990s. In 1998, Compaq buys the company.
1957 ARPA proposed (November)
Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy proposes the creation of a defense department research agency, later known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In the late 1960s, ARPA will commission the construction of a distributed computer network called ARPANET, which will become the foundation for the Internet.
1958 ARPA chartered
The U.S. government approves McElroy's proposal to develop an advanced research agency at the Department of Defense. Government funding for science and research flows freely after the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, threw U.S. officials into a panic.
1958 Integrated circuit invented
Jack St. Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments builds an integrated circuit that includes multiple components on a tiny silicon chip. Robert Noyce, of Fairchild Semiconductor and future cofounder of Intel, independently develops an integrated circuit early in 1959.
1963 Douglas Engelbart patents the mouse
Doug Engelbart, a researcher at Stanford Research Institute, working on a grant from ARPA, develops and patents the mouse. Heavily influenced by a 1945 essay written by Vannevar Bush about human-computer interaction, Engelbart hopes to develop computers that can help people think more fluidly.
1964 Moore's law
Gordon Moore, future Intel cofounder, suggests integrated circuits will double in complexity every year. Moore's law proves true as computer chips become faster and faster.
1964 IBM System 360 released
With the introduction of the System 360 family of computers, all IBM machines can now use the same software. Previously, all IBM machines were individually programmed. The company takes a major risk in releasing System 360 because the series renders all existing IBM systems obsolete. The risk, however, will pay off and send IBM's profits skyrocketing.
1964 Paul Baran publishes paper on package switching networks
Paul Baran, of Rand Corp., proposes a design for a communications network capable of surviving a nuclear attack. He publishes a paper describing a network that replaces a few vulnerable hubs with a labyrinth of computer connections. Every message is broken into data "packets," which are routed throughout the network then reassembled at the destination computer. Although Baran stops work on the project in 1965, his papers and personal input inform Larry Roberts' design of ARPANET.
1966 Robert Taylor becomes director of IPTO
Computer scientist Robert Taylor becomes director of ARPA's Information Processing and Techniques Office (IPTO). His first priority is to deal with the demands of universities and research institutions clamoring for supercomputers. He theorizes that by linking computers together electronically, universities will be able to reduce redundancy in their work, and his department can save money by funding fewer grants for computers.
1966 Larry Roberts joins IPTO (December)
Taylor hires Larry Roberts to oversee his cost-cutting network program. Taylor guides the development of ARPANET.
1967 Larry Roberts presents ARPANET paper
At a computer conference in Tennessee, Larry Roberts presents a paper outlining the basics of ARPANET, a computer network that lacks a central hub. ARPANET becomes the foundation for the Internet and World Wide Web.
1968 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore leave Fairchild Semiconductor to create their own semiconductor company, Intel.
1968 Douglas Engelbart demonstrates the mouse (May)
Stanford Research Institute's Douglas Engelbart presents a computer system with a point-and-click interface and a mouse at the Joint Computer Conference. The first computer with a mouse will not be introduced to the market for another thirteen years.
1968 ARPA requests proposals for network (July)
In July, ARPA sends out a request for proposals to build machines that will act as switchboards for the proposed ARPANET. In September, Cambridge-based BBN (Bolt, Baranek and Newman) submits a proposal to build Interface Message Processors, computers that will serve as ARPANET's backbone. When the company wins the contract, the staff receives a message from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, congratulating them on promoting religious tolerance with their "Interfaith" Message Processor.
1969 Compu-Serv founded
Compu-Serv, which later becomes online service CompuServe, is founded to sell and coordinate time-sharing on supercomputers.
1969 ARPANET officially commissioned (January)
BBN's contract to build a series of Interface Message Processors-computers to serve as the backbone for ARPANET-commences.
1969 UCLA receives first IMP (August)
The first Interface Message Processor (IMP) arrives at the University of California-Los Angeles. Its installation creates the first ARPANET node. Three more of the refrigerator-sized computers are installed by the end of the year, at Stanford Research Institute, University of California-Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah, and ARPANET is launched.
1970 ALOHANET goes online
Developed by Norman Abramson at the University of Hawaii, ALOHANET launches. The computer network transmits data using small radios. When two computers try to send data at the same time, the computers are instructed to send the data again after a short pause. This simple system becomes the basis for Robert Metcalfe's Ethernet.
1970 Xerox PARC
Xerox forms an advanced research center, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Robert Taylor, former head of ARPA, who launched the ARPANET initiative, is hired as head of the computer science division. Under Taylor, PARC recruits an elite corps of leading scientists, who do much of the early thinking about graphical user interfaces (GUI) and other advanced personal computing issues. Robert Metcalfe will invent Ethernet at PARC, and the GUI and mouse system used on a PARC workstation will inspire Steve Jobs to build a computer with a point-and-click interface.
1971 Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn commissioned to extend ARPANET
Vinton Cerf, head of the International Network Working Group, and Robert Kahn are commissioned by the government to extend ARPANET for military and government use. The two begin to research ways to connect ARPANET and other networks. By 1974, the pair will release a paper describing Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which will allow networks to communicate with each other. In 1978, Cerf helps develop Internet Protocol (IP), which will help govern the way messages are sent through the network. In 1983, ARPANET will switch to TCP/IP and becomes a public network.
1971 Intel markets CPU
Intel markets its first central processing unit (CPU), a 4-bit, 108-kHz 4004 chip.
1972 Email invented
Ray Tomlinson of BBN develops a program to send messages across ARPANET. His program uses the "@" sign to separate email users' names from their machines.
1972 Cray Research founded
Seymour Cray founds Cray Research, which later becomes the leader in supercomputers costing $5-40 million. Demand for supercomputers declines after the Cold War ends, however, and Cray's second company, Cray Computer Corp., goes bankrupt in 1995.
1972 First electronic calculator
Hewlett-Packard introduces the world's first electronic calculator. The calculator is a phenomenal success, and Hewlett-Packard proves adept at adjusting the company to new technological trends. In the coming years, the company will become a leading personal computer and printer supplier.
1973 Xerox PARC creates Alto
Alto, a workstation using a mouse, graphics, and a point-and-click interface, is completed in February. Despite the machine's popularity within Xerox, the Alto is never marketed commercially. Some of its features appear in the Xerox STAR workstation, released in 1981; but with a sixteen-thousand-dollar price tag, the machine does not become a commercial success. After seeing a demonstration of Alto in 1979, Steve Jobs and a team of Apple engineers add many of its features to the Apple Lisa, released in 1983, and the Macintosh, released in 1984.
1973 Ethernet
Robert Metcalfe of Xerox PARC develops Ethernet, a way to connect several computers together. Ethernet will become the de facto standard for linking computers, printers, and other electronic devices. Metcalfe describes Ethernet, inspired by ALOHANET, in his doctoral thesis for Harvard.
1973 Norway and England connect to ARPANET
Norway and England both log on to ARPANET, creating the first international connection.
1974 TCP design published
Cerf and Kahn publish specifications for a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The program will essentially transform the closed ARPANET network into the open, public Internet by allowing different networks to communicate with each other.
1974 Gary Kildall develops CP/M
Gary Kildall writes an operating system called CP/M (control program/monitor) for small computers using Intel chips. The operating system serves as the model for Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, which later licenses its system to Microsoft. Q-DOS (under its new name, MS-DOS) becomes the operating system for the IBM PC and all its clones, ensuring Microsoft a steady cash flow to fund the corporation's growth.
1974 MITS Altair launched
MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems), a company owned by Ed Roberts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, introduces a microcomputer kit for about $500 that lets hobbyists build their own machine. When the Altair appears on the cover of Popular Electronics, orders flood in, even though the computer does more than blink some red lights. The Popular Electronics, issue featuring Altair, however, inspires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to start a company producing software for the machine. Gates drops out of Harvard in 1975, and the two moved to Albuquerque to form their own company, Micro-soft (later, Microsoft).
1975 First electronic discussion group
Steve Walker, an ARPA program manager at the Pentagon's Information Processing and Techniques Office (IPTO), starts the first electronic discussion group for network programmers regarding email protocols.
1975 Microsoft founded
Bill Gates and Paul Allen move to Albuquerque to build software for the newly developed MITS Altair computer. Allen takes a day job at MITS and helps Gates start Microsoft.
1975 Homebrew Computer Club founded (March)
A new computer hobbyist club meets in a garage in Menlo Park, California. Steven Wozniak, future Apple cofounder, is one of about thirty attendees. The group sees a demonstration of an Altair personal computer.
1976 Apple I (March)
Steven Wozniak and Steve Jobs finish work on a computer circuit board, the Apple I, to display at a Homebrew Computer Club meeting. The two found Apple Corp. the following month.
1977 Apple II demonstrated (April)
Apple introduces the Apple II computer at the West Coast Computer Fair. The computer includes a keyboard and color monitor.
1978 Apple adds a floppy drive
Apple adds a floppy disk drive to its Apple II computer. The drive, which uses 5.25-inch floppy disks, costs $495.
1979 Emoticons first used
Kevin MacKenzie jokes to an electronic discussion group that new punctuation should be developed to inject humor and emotions into email. Although strongly criticized at the time, emoticons are now pervasive.
1979 Robert Metcalfe forms 3Com
Robert Metcalfe, Ethernet developer at Xerox PARC, founds 3Com to sell commercial Ethernet applications to businesses. The company makes Metcalfe a multimillionaire. He later leaves the company and becomes a syndicated technology columnist.
1979 Apple team visits Xerox PARC
A team of Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, visits Xerox PARC and sees a demonstration of the Alto computer, which uses a mouse, icons, and color graphics. Jobs returns to Apple and adds a graphic user interface and mouse to the Lisa and Macintosh computers, which Apple was then developing.
1979 Microsoft moves to Seattle
Gates and Allen decide to move their fledgling software company from Albuquerque to Seattle, where they both grew up.
1979 The Source goes online (June)
Entrepreneur Bill Von Meister launches The Source, the first commercial online service for the average consumer.
1979 VisiCalc hits the market (October)
VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, hits the market. The phenomenally useful program soon interests companies in personal computers, which at the time were largely regarded as hobbyist toys. By 1980, Apple estimates that one-fifth of all its Apple II sales are driven by VisiCalc.
1980 Xerox publishes Ethernet specifications
Ethernet specifications for linking different devices are released to the public. Ethernet, developed by Xerox PARC researcher Robert Metcalfe, will become the de facto standard for linking computers, printers, and other electronic devices.
1980 Hewlett-Packard computer
Hewlett-Packard introduces its first personal computer. As it had done with its electronic calculator, Hewlett-Packard once again demonstrates flexibility. The company, which originally made scientific measurement instruments, is one of the few to keep ahead of the rapid pace of technological change. Hewlett-Packard becomes a leading computer provider and later develops a strong reputation for printers and related peripherals.
1980 Enquire Within Upon Everything
Working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, Tim Berners-Lee develops a primitive hypertext program for his personal use, which stores information using random associations and links. He calls this program Enquire Within Upon Everything, based on the title of an encyclopedia that fascinated him as a child. Enquire gives him the idea for the World Wide Web, which he creates ten years later.
1981 BITNET founded
New computer networks that are based on ARPANET's technology launch around the country. BITNET (Because It's Time), a cooperative network at the City University of New York, provides email and other network communication functions to IBM mainframes. CSNET, the Computer Science Network, is set up by the University of Delaware, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and other institutions to link computer science researchers. Individual networks like these will soon begin to communicate with each other via TCP/IP.
1981 Jim Clark founds Silicon Graphics
Clark, a computer science professor at Stanford University, leaves academia to start Silicon Graphics. The company makes high-end graphics machines, which change the design processes of everything from airplanes to Hollywood movies. The company that Clark starts with $25,000 borrowed from a friend will earn $40 million a year by 1986. Clark later helps form high-profile Internet start-ups Netscape and Healtheon.
1981 Xerox releases Star
The Star 8010 is the first commercial computer with a mouse and point-and-click interface. It also boasts a laser printer and other advanced features developed at Xerox PARC. The system, priced at $16,000-17,000 is too expensive to become a commercial success.
1981 IBM PC released (April)
IBM introduces its first personal computer, the IBM PC. The computer quickly outsells market leaders Apple, Atari, Commodore, and Radio Shack to become the top-selling personal computer in the country. However, within a few years, IBM loses market share to manufacturers producing IBM clones.
1982 Compaq clones the IBM PC
With the introduction of Compaq's IBM clone, the so-called Clone Wars begin. Soon, many manufacturers can offer the same quality and engineering as the IBM PC at a lower price. IBM's market share begins to decline.
1983 Lotus 1-2-3 released
Lotus 1-2-3, the first spreadsheet developed for the IBM PC, is released. Lotus 1-2-3 proves to be a "killer app," driving IBM PC sales and turning the machine into a best-selling business computer. The first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was introduced for the Apple II in 1979, but the IBM was slow to adapt that program to its hardware.
1983 ARPANET adopts TCP/IP
ARPANET switches to the TCP/IP communication protocols, a simple system for directing information across the network. The change drastically extends ARPANET's network capabilities by linking it to other existing computer networks.
1983 Microsoft introduces the Microsoft mouse for $200
Microsoft introduces its version of the mouse. Xerox and Apple have already released computers with graphical user interfaces, and Microsoft hopes to supply the necessarily hardware. However, the mouse takes several years to catch on.
1983 Apple Lisa introduced (January)
Apple releases Lisa, the company's first commercial computer with a graphic user interface and a mouse. The computer, priced at more than $12,000, fails commercially. However, many of its features are preserved in the Macintosh, introduced in 1984.
1983 Personal computer named Time's Man of the Year (January)
Time magazine names the personal computer Man of the Year in its January issue. At the time, Intel's 286 chip is the most powerful processor on the market, and the Macintosh has not yet been invented.
1984 Dell Computer Corp. founded
Nineteen-year-old Michael Dell founds Dell Computer Corp. in his dorm room at the University of Texas in Austin. He assembles machines from surplus parts and sells them directly to customers. Eight years later, at the age of twenty-seven, Dell becomes the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company. By 1999, Dell generates about $18 billion a year in revenue annually and employs 25,000 people.
1984 Neuromancer published
William Gibson's science fiction classic is published. The book envisions an age in which humans interface seamlessly with data networks. This is one of the first fictional representations of a computer network.
1984 Macintosh introduced (January)
The Macintosh is introduced to the world in what may be the most famous television commercial of all time. The commercial will air just once, during the Superbowl. The ad depicts an athletic woman flinging a mallet through a Big Brother-like screen.
1985 Windows 1.0 released
Microsoft ships Windows 1.0, nearly a year later than expected. The interface allows rudimentary pointing and clicking. Although several companies had raced to develop point-and-click interfaces, in the end, they cede the victory to Microsoft. However, Windows doesn't catch on widely until the introduction of Windows 3.1 in March 1992.
1985 Aldus releases Pagemaker
Pagemaker drives the success of the Macintosh. The page layout software launches the desktop publishing industry virtually overnight.
1985 Control Video changes name to Quantum Computer Services
An online gaming company changes its name to Quantum Computer Services. Quantum creates online services for Apple, Commodore, and other computer manufacturers. In 1989, the company will change its name again, this time to America Online.
1985 Microsoft announces Excel
Microsoft unveils plans for a new spreadsheet program designed for the Apple Macintosh. The new product, called Excel, gives the Apple a badly needed business application.
1985 The WELL launches
The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), a California-based online company owned by Whole Earth Catalog publisher Steward Brand, launches. The service provides bulletin boards for online discussions and attracts a hip, intellectual crowd. The discussion group later provides Internet services to its members. Salon.com, an online magazine, will buy the discussion group portion of the company in the mid-1990s.
1985 The first domain names are registered
Symbolics.com becomes the first registered domain and is quickly followed by cmu.edu, purdue.edu, ucl.edu, and others.
1985 Quantum launches Q-Link
Quantum Computer Services launches Q-Link, an online service for users of Commodore's Amiga computers. The company also develops AppleLink, a network for Apple users. Quantum will later change its name to America Online.
1985 Intel makes the 386
Processor speed increases with the introduction of Intel's 386 chip.
1987 Prodigy founded by Sears and IBM
Sears and IBM plan to launch a national online service, dubbed Prodigy in 1987. Prodigy becomes one of the three leading online services before it loses ground to the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s. The company is bought out by its management in 1996 and becomes an Internet service provider.
1987 Microsoft's initial public offering (March)
Microsoft goes public. On its first day, it jumps seven dollars to trade at twenty-eight dollars.
1988 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority established
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is established by the government. Based in Marina del Rey, California, and headed by influential Internet pioneer Jonathan Postel, the group will manage the registration of domain names for the next decade.
1988 Internet Relay Chat invented
Finnish student Jarkko Oikarinen develops Internet Relay Chat, which will grow into a major Internet application, attracting millions of people to communicate in real time. Notably, Internet Relay Chat will be used to send real-time information during the Gulf War and other crises during the 1990s.
1988 Worm plagues Internet
When a malicious program called a worm affects some six thousand computers, ARPA forms the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).
1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposes a global hypertext project
British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Lab, proposes a hypertext project to make it easier to search and retrieve information. Based on his Enquire Within Upon Everything program, developed in 1980, the project will let people work together over the Internet on hypertext documents. His project will become the World Wide Web.
1989 ARPANET turned off (August)
With the successful introduction of TCP/IP, which allows different computer networks to communicate with each other, ARPANET is becoming obsolete, and ARPA decides to decommission the network. By the summer of 1989, all of ARPANET's sites are transferred to the faster NSFNET, and ARPANET is turned off for good.
1989 Quantum Computer Services names online service America Online (October)
Quantum Computer Services in Vienna, Virginia, names its online service America Online. The company had developed a network with Apple, called AppleLink, but when the two companies part ways, Quantum changes the name of the service to America Online. Later, the entire company becomes America Online.
1990 Electronic Frontier Foundation founded
Mitch Kapor, Lotus founder, starts this watchdog group to protect freedom of speech on the Internet.
1990 First Internet service provider
The World becomes the first commercial provider of dial-up Internet access.
1990 World Wide Web invented
Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Geneva dubs his hypertext project the World Wide Web. He develops a Web server and browser and posts them at CERN.
1991 Linus Benedict Torvalds and the creation of Linux
Linus start hacking a kernel as a personal project, inspired by his interest in Minix, a small UNIX system developed by Andy Tanenbaum. On October 5, 1991, Linus announced the first "official" version of Linux, version 0.02. A community is created.
1991 CERN seminar on WWW
CERN holds a seminar on the newly developed World Wide Web. With input gathered at conferences and online discussion, the Web continues to evolve.
1991 E*trade founded
E*trade, an online investment company, starts offering electronic trading through online services in 1992. The company launches its Web site in 1996 and goes public in 1997 as the Web's first online public offering.
1992 CERN says it will not charge fees for the Web
CERN announces it will not charge fees for Web use. The move helps shape the future of the Web as an open and free communication area.
1992 Microsoft ships Windows 3.1 (March)
Microsoft ships Windows 3.1, which will become the most popular version of Windows until the release of Windows 95. Windows 3.1 is viewed as a major improvement over earlier versions of Windows, originally released in 1985.
1992 AOL goes public (March)
On March 19, 1992, AOL goes public on NASDAQ, offering two million shares for $11.50. By mid-1999, the stock is trading at $175.
1993 InterNIC created
InterNIC is founded by the National Science Foundation to provide registration and directory services.
1993 White House goes online
President Clinton and Vice President Gore get email addresses at the White House. This is the first time the White House has been online. Clinton and Gore used email extensively in their 1992 presidential campaign.
1993 Mosaic released
University of Illinois undergraduate Marc Andreesen and a team of programmers release a free Web browser called Mosaic. World Wide Web usage grows at a phenomenal rate. In 1994, Andreesen will team up with Silicon Graphics founder James Clark to launch Netscape.
1993 Wired magazine launches (January)
Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe launch the first issue of Wired. The magazine features jarring colors and graphic design, and a hip, irreverent style that soon comes to be identified with cyber-culture.
1993 Former FCC chairman named head of Hearst New Media (March)
Alfred Sikes, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is named the head of Hearst's New Media division. Like many other old media companies, including Time-Warner, Hearst is eager to adapt to changing technology and develop interactive products. Among the company's interactive offerings is the popular Hearst HomeArts, a Web site offering articles and content from a variety of Hearst publications.
1993 Adobe Acrobat put on the market (June)
Adobe ships Acrobat, an electronic document system designed to make it easier to distribute identical copies of electronic documents. In 1995, IBM and Netscape both agree to support Adobe Acrobat, making it a widely accepted format for viewing documents.
1993 Stephen King publishes story on Internet (September)
Stephen King releases a story from his upcoming Nightmares and Dreamscapes short story collection on the Internet.
1993 VaLinux created
The world's first Linux systems company is created.
1994 First Internet bank opens
First Virtual, the first online bank, is launched.
1994 Netscape founded
Marc Andreesen, a recent University of Illinois graduate, and Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, team up to form Netscape. The pair initially call the company Mosaic Communications, after the free Web browser that Andreesen helped write and distribute over the Internet in 1993, but change the name based on legal objections. The company goes public in August 1995 and will be purchased by America Online in 1999.
1994 Yahoo launched
Stanford University doctoral students Jerry Yang and David Filo begin compiling an online database of Web sites as a personal hobby. They post the database on a Stanford Web server. By 1995, heavy traffic forces them to relocate the site to servers at Netscape. The company goes public in 1996.
1994 Apple launches eWorld (January)
Apple launches its own short-lived online service, called eWorld. The company shuts down the system in 1996 when it, like other online services, loses customers to the World Wide Web.
1994 Gary Kildall killed in a brawl (July)
On July 6, Gary Kildall, inventor of an early personal computer operating system, is killed in a brawl at a biker bar in Monterey. Before the development of the IBM PC and the dominance of MS-DOS, almost all personal computers ran on CP/M, Kildall's operating system. In 1980 Kildall rejected an offer from IBM to license his operating system to run the new IBM PC. Instead, IBM bought a simple operating system from Bill Gates for $50,000, ensuring Microsoft's future prosperity.
1994 The New York Times publishes help-wanted ads on the Web (September)
The New York Times joins the race to turn old media companies into new media by launching a six-month test, allowing computer users to read help wanted ads online. In 1995, the Times collaborates with Knight-Ridder, Times-Mirror and the Washington Post to launch CareerPath, an online job-seekers site. In 1996, the New York Times launches its own Web site.
1994 Time Warner launches Pathfinder (October)
Time Warner launches Pathfinder, an ambitious Web site that publishes online versions of many of the company's magazines, including Time, Sports Illustrated, and Entertainment Weekly. The site is one of the first large-scale sites to be launched by a major publisher. Time Warner considers charging a membership fee for Pathfinder but, like many other sites, ultimately determines that users would be reluctant to pay for information on the Web.
1994 World Wide Web Consortium founded (December)
The newly formed World Wide Web Consortium holds its first meeting at M.I.T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group, which chooses Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee as its first director, is an international association to promote common protocols on the Web.
1995 Hacker Kevin Mitnick arrested
Kevin Mitnick is arrested on suspicion of stealing twenty thousand credit card numbers from Internet service provider Netcom. Authorities accuse Mitnick of exploiting a security hole that allowed him to enter Netcom's computer system. Mitnick will serve a year in prison after his 1988 conviction for stealing $1 million in software from Digital Equipment Corp
1995 Microsoft Network launches
Microsoft's online service, the Microsoft Network, launches in the fall of 1995. The service touts specially developed Web "shows," but users prove more interested in surfing the Internet than in perusing Microsoft's content. The service is later reinvented as an Internet service provider.
1995 Network Solutions protects trademarks
Network Solutions refuses to register copyrighted names as URL's to parties who do not hold the copyright. Domain name pirates had been registering corporation names, then trying to sell them back to the company.
1995 The Wall Street Journal launches site
The Wall Street Journal launches a Web site called Money and Investing Update. The site, which provides frequently updated business news and statistics, is the Journal's first step toward launching its popular interactive edition, which becomes one of the few Web publications to successfully charge a subscription fee.
1995 RealAudio launched
RealNetworks launches the popular RealAudio streaming audio program. The launch of streaming technologies on the Web promises to give users faster access to audio and video. Microsoft buys 10 percent of the company in 1997 and agrees to support RealAudio in its Internet Explorer browser.
1995 Sun develops Java
Sun Microsystems develops Java, a platform-independent programming language. Because Java programs can theoretically run on any operating system, the language has the potential to dethrone Microsoft Windows 95. Sun and Microsoft lock horns over Java several times in the next few years: Microsoft licenses the technology, but Sun alleges the company has developed its own version that makes programs run better in conjunction with Microsoft software.
1995 Time Warner sells ads on Pathfinder (April)
Time Warner becomes one of the first companies to sell advertising on the Web when it offers space on its Pathfinder site. Sponsors like AT&T and General Motors Corp. pay $30,000 a quarter to advertise. Although initial ads are met with criticism by the Web counterculture, Internet advertising soon becomes a multimillion-dollar industry.
1995 Windows 95 released (August)
Buyers line up on August 23 to buy the first copies of Windows 95, Microsoft's newest operating system. Windows 95 offers a much-improved graphical user interface, the ability to multitask, and impressive speed. Within six weeks, the product will sell seven million copies.
1995 Amazon.com sells its first book (September)
Amazon.com sells its first book online. By 1996, the site is attracting more than 2,000 visitors a day. By 1997, that number will increase to 50,000 a day. From $511,000 in 1995, sales will grow to some $147 million in 1997. The company will go public in 1997 at eighteen dollars, and by the summer of 1999, stock will be selling for more than $100 a share.
1995 Bill Gates embraces the Web (December)
Bill Gates announces that Microsoft will shift its entire business focus to the Internet. He says Miscrosoft Network (MSN), the company's newly launched online service, will move all of its content to the Web. Despite the company's ambitious content plans, many of its Web content ventures are scrapped just a few years later.
1995 AltaVista launches online Web database (December)
Search engine AltaVista launches. The search engine is developed at Digital Equipment Corp.'s (DEC) research laboratory. Compaq Computer Corp. acquires AltaVista in 1998 when it buys DEC but later sells a majority interest to venture capital firm CMGI, Inc..
1996 Slate launched
Microsoft launches an ambitious political commentary magazine on the Web called Slate , edited by Michael Kinsley, former editor of the New Republic . This is just one of several online content ventures that Microsoft launches in the mid-1990s. However, by 1998, the company cuts back on its content investments in favor of e-commerce sites.
1996 IBM launches World Avenue, a Web shopping mall
IBM launches an online shopping mall that allows online vendors to rent virtual storefronts. However, the online mall concept fails to catch on, and IBM closes World Avenue a year later.
1996 Cable modems
Both @Home and Time Warner announce high-speed, cable-modem ventures in an attempt to meet consumers' growing demand for higher bandwidth.
1996 The New York Times launches Web site (January)
The New York Times , which previously offered its content through America Online, announces that it has launched its own Web page. As consumers move from proprietary services to the Web throughout late 1995 and 1996, proprietary services began to lose customers, and many publishers begin migrating their content to the Web.
1996 GE sells Genie online service (January)
General Electric (GE) sells its Genie online service. GE was one of many corporations to try to enter the online service game in the early 1990s. However, the rise of the Web draws customers away from online services, and many ventures, like Genie, are sold and turned into Internet service providers.
1996 Pointcast launched (February)
Pointcast, a little-known company in Cupertino, California, announces a beta version of its Pointcast software. The service, which grabs information from the Web and displays it on the user's screen, kicks off a year of industry hype about "push" technologies. The hype fades after a year or so when consumers fail to embrace push over active Web browsing.
1996 Search engines go public (March, April)
In March and April, Lycos, Excite, and Yahoo go public. All three perform strongly.
1996 MSNBC (July)
Microsoft and NBC launch an all-news cable channel and Web site called MSNBC.
1996 Microsoft releases Internet Explorer (August)
Microsoft releases its Internet Explorer browser on August 11, 1996, to compete with Netscape's Navigator software. The two companies engage in a rapid series of upgrades and promotional offers to win market share.
1996 Prodigy becomes an Internet access provider (October)
Prodigy, once one of the top three online service providers, relaunches itself as an Internet access provider. Sears and IBM had launched the joint venture in the late 1980s but sold it in 1996 as online service customers migrated to the Web. Although Prodigy continues to provide a proprietary online service, the company's management say that Internet access will become the company's main focus. Prodigy goes public in 1998.
1997 Jobs returns to Apple
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who had left the company in 1985 to found Next Software and later became president of Pixar, returns to Apple as interim CEO. Two years later, he's still in the "interim" position.
1997 Social Security retirement benefits posted online
The Social Security administration posts retirement and benefit information on the Web, but ceases temporarily in April due to privacy concerns. Publication resumes in September.
1997 Sun sues Microsoft over Java
Sun files a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of undermining Sun's Java programming language. Sun alleges that Microsoft has tried to disrupt Java development by distributing a version of Java not compatible with that used by the rest of the industry.
1997 Amazon.com IPO
Amazon.com goes public in May. The day before the IPO, Barnes and Noble sues Amazon for allegedly falsely advertised itself as "the world's largest bookstore." Nevertheless, the online bookseller closes at 30 percent above its opening price. The lawsuit is settled later in the year.
1997 AOL purchases CompuServe
America Online buys its onetime rival, CompuServe. Rather than merging it into its own online offerings, AOL leaves CompuServe as a separate service.
1997 Sidewalk launches (April)
Microsoft launches Seattle Sidewalk, the first of its local entertainment guides, offering reviews of restaurants, concerts, and other events. By 1998, Microsoft has launched Sidewalks in nine cities, but by late 1998, the company redesigns the struggling Sidewalk to focus on Internet shopping.
1997 Microsoft buys WebTV (April)
Microsoft buys Web TV Networks. The company's technology allows users to read e-mail and surf the Web on their television sets. The $425 million purchase is Microsoft's largest Internet-related acquisition to date.
1997 Deep Blue defeats Kasparov (May)
IBM's computer "Deep Blue" beats world chess champion Gary Kasparov. This is the first time a computer defeats a reigning human grandmaster.
1997 Communications Decency Act overturned (June)
The Supreme Court rejects the Communications Decency Act. Part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the act made it a felony to distribute "indecent material" on the Internet. The court unanimously rules that the law violates the First Amendment.
1998 Ebay IPO
Auction site eBay, started as a location where founder Pierre Omidyar's girlfriend could swap Pez dispensers with other collectors, launches a spectacular IPO. The company's stock price soars 163 percent on its first day of trading.
1998 URL registration privatized
The U.S. government decides to privatize the registration of Internet addresses. Government contractor Network Solutions had enjoyed an exclusive government contract for six years, registering some two million names at seventy dollars apiece. The government creates the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN) to help privatize the business.
1998 Apple ships iMac (August)
Apple unveils a new personal computer, the iMac. The machine, made of brightly colored translucent plastic, becomes an overnight success, selling some 800,000 units in its first four months on the market. The iMac's success boosts Apple's dwindling market share to 5 percent.
1998 Antitrust suit against Microsoft starts (October)
The Justice Department's long-awaited antitrust suit launches. The government alleges that Microsoft engaged in predatory and anti-competitive business practices regarding its operating system. The case drags on for more than a year.
1998 Clinton signs Digital Millennium Copyright Act (October)
President Clinton signs a law imposing new safeguards for copyrighted materials on the Internet. The legislation also bars technologies that can crack copyright protection devices.
1998 San Jose Tech Museum opens (November)
The San Jose Tech Museum opens in the heart of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley technology firms largely fund the $96 million hands-on science museum.
1998 AOL buys Netscape (November)
America Online rocks the online world when it announces it will buy Netscape Communications. Some industry analysts say the move will make AOL powerful enough to challenge Microsoft's dominance in the technology industry.
1999 Disney and Infoseek launch the Go Network (January)
Disney and Infoseek create the Go Network and launch an aggressive advertising campaign to drive traffic to the site. In July, Disney buys a majority stake in Infoseek.
1999 Prodigy Classic online service folds (January)
Citing Y2K computer problems, Prodigy announces it will shut down its Prodigy Classic online service. The company had focused on its Internet service provider business for several years, but maintained the online service, which still had about 208,000 customers.
1999 Gates increases philanthropic efforts (August)
Bill Gates merges his two charitable foundations, the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, into one organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The merger created the country's richest charitable foundation, worth $17.1 billion. The foundation committed $750 million over the next five years to buy vaccines for more than 25 million children in nearly seventy poor countries.
In the past I assembled some text about the history of computing on my old atomasoft web site, here I paste the text again since it's a good information and funny to read:
1623 First mechanical calculator
German inventor Wilhelm Schickard invents the first mechanical calculator. Records detailing the machine's workings were lost during the Thirty Years' War.
1642 Pascal's machine
Nineteen-year-old Blaise Pascal of Rouen, France, begins work on a digital adding machine to help his father, a local administrator, calculate taxes. When completed two years later, the machine can add and subtract numbers up to eight digits long. Pascal later becomes an esteemed mathematician and philosopher.
1673 Liebniz builds calculator
German philosopher and mathematician Gottfriend Liebniz builds a working model of a calculating machine using gears and rods. His machine, called the Stepped Reckoner, can multiply, divide, and calculate square roots.
1914 Watson joins IBM
Thomas Watson Sr. joins the Tabulating Machine Company, which he reorganizes and reinvents as IBM. His son, Thomas Watson Jr., will succeed him as IBM chairman in 1956 and successfully shift the company's focus to computers.
1939 Hewlett-Packard founded
Stanford classmates David Packard and William Hewlett start a company in Hewlett's Palo Alto garage. The company builds a wide range of electronic measurement instruments. The company's handheld electronic calculator, introduced in 1972, is a bestseller. The company will become a major supplier of personal computers and laser printers. Hewlett's garage is later declared a registered historical landmark.
1939-1942 Atanasoff-Berry Computer
John Atanasoff, a physics professor at Iowa State University, and graduate student Clifford Berry begin building the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. Work on the computer continues from 1939 to 1942. In 1941, Atanasoff shows the computer to John Mauchly and Presper Eckert, who are constructing an electronic digital computer at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School. In a controversial decision decades later, the Supreme Court will decide that Atanasoff, not Mauchly and Eckert, was the true inventor of the electronic computer.
1940 Stibitz develops electronic computer
George Stibitz of Bell Labs develops an early digital calculator to speed up his work computing relay switching. He devises an electronic adding machine, using dry cell batteries, metal strips from a tobacco can, and flashlight bulbs. The adding machine, called the Model I Complex Calculator, is used at Bell for the next nine years.
1943 Colossus computer built in England
A team of English engineers completes the Colossus, an electronic digital computer developed to break codes generated by German code-writing machines. The Colossus and earlier code-breaking machines are largely based on the theoretical work of English mathematician Alan Turing. Turing is best known for his work in artificial intelligence, including the Turing Test, which measures a machine's capacity for human thought.
1944 Harvard engineers complete work on the Mark I
In February, Howard Aiken and a team of Harvard engineers complete the Mark I computer after five years of work. The Mark I is fifty-one feet long and eight feet high, weighs thirty-five tons, and contains about five hundred miles of wire. Programmed with paper tape punched with coded instructions, the machine can add, subtract, multiply, and divide. The machine is used by the Navy for ballistics.
1945 Grace Hopper finds a bug in the Mark I
Grace Hopper, a computer scientist and mathematician working for the Navy, finds an actual moth in a vacuum tube inside the Mark I. Although the term bug has been used to describe mechanical and electronic glitches for decades, this is the first documented occasion of a bug being caused by an actual bug. Hopper, who taught mathematics until World War II broke out, later develops the Flow-Matic compiler. Her pioneering work in compilers and computer code paves the way for increasingly sophisticated computer languages. In 1991, she becomes the first woman to win the prestigious National Medal of Technology.
Von Neumann and EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Calculator)
After visiting the Moore School and observing the development of the Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), esteemed scientist John Von Neumann, best known for his work on the Manhattan Project, circulates a report proposing the addition of storage memory to the machine. He calls the modified machine he proposes EDVAC. This memo, called "Report on EDVAC," details the engineering behind ENIAC, and helps raise awareness of electronic computing throughout the country.
Vannevar Bush publishes influential essay
The Atlantic publishes an essay titled "As We May Think," by Vannevar Bush, inventor and Manhattan Project scientist. This essay, about the evolution of computers into tools that can facilitate human thought, significantly influences Doug Engelbart years later. Inspired by Bush, Engelbart will develop the first graphical user interface using icons, windows, and a mouse, which he demonstrates at a computer conference in 1968.
1946 Electronic Numeric Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
One of the world's first electronic computers is delivered to the U.S. Army. The computer, developed by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert of the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School, was commissioned to compute ballistics firing tables used in World War II but was not completed until several months after the war ended.
1947 Transistor invented
Will Shockley, Walter Braitton, and John Bardeen of Bell Telephone Laboratories invent the transistor, initiating the era of modern electronics. The tiny transistor soon replaces the cumbersome vacuum tubes previously used in electronic equipment. The trio will win the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1956.
1948 UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)
John Mauchly and Presper Eckert found the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Company, which will manufacturer the world's first commercially available electronic digital computer, UNIVAC. The U.S. Census Bureau uses UNIVAC to calculate the 1950 census results.
1949 An Wang invents memory core
Twenty-eight-year-old, Shanghai-born An Wang invents the magnetic memory core and founds Wang Laboratories three years later. The magnetic memory core serves as the basis for all computer memory until the invention of the microchip. Wang's company becomes a successful calculator and computer manufacturer, and Wang will later break ground in word processing systems.
1949 English scientists develop first computer with memory
The Ferranti Mark I, designed by Frederic Williams and Thomas Kilburn at Manchester University, and the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) become the first stored-program computers.
1949 Jay Forrester develops magnetic computer memory
Jay Forrester, founder of the Digital Computer Lab at M.I.T., devises the first random-access magnetic memory. The Digital Computer Lab had developed the Whirlwind I, a digital computer, several years earlier under Forrester's leadership.
1952 IBM accused of computer monopoly
The Justice Department files suit against IBM for allegedly monopolistic practices in its computer business. IBM will be plagued by antitrust litigation for the next thirty years.
1957 Digital Equipment Corp. founded
Kenneth Olsen, a member of the M.I.T. team that built the Whirlwind in 1951, founds Digital Equipment Corp. Olsen starts the company in an old textile mill with seventy thousand dollars from George Doriot, who started the first non-family-owned venture capital firm in the United States. The company becomes the world's second-largest computer company by the 1970s but loses ground in the 1990s. In 1998, Compaq buys the company.
1957 ARPA proposed (November)
Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy proposes the creation of a defense department research agency, later known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). In the late 1960s, ARPA will commission the construction of a distributed computer network called ARPANET, which will become the foundation for the Internet.
1958 ARPA chartered
The U.S. government approves McElroy's proposal to develop an advanced research agency at the Department of Defense. Government funding for science and research flows freely after the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, threw U.S. officials into a panic.
1958 Integrated circuit invented
Jack St. Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments builds an integrated circuit that includes multiple components on a tiny silicon chip. Robert Noyce, of Fairchild Semiconductor and future cofounder of Intel, independently develops an integrated circuit early in 1959.
1963 Douglas Engelbart patents the mouse
Doug Engelbart, a researcher at Stanford Research Institute, working on a grant from ARPA, develops and patents the mouse. Heavily influenced by a 1945 essay written by Vannevar Bush about human-computer interaction, Engelbart hopes to develop computers that can help people think more fluidly.
1964 Moore's law
Gordon Moore, future Intel cofounder, suggests integrated circuits will double in complexity every year. Moore's law proves true as computer chips become faster and faster.
1964 IBM System 360 released
With the introduction of the System 360 family of computers, all IBM machines can now use the same software. Previously, all IBM machines were individually programmed. The company takes a major risk in releasing System 360 because the series renders all existing IBM systems obsolete. The risk, however, will pay off and send IBM's profits skyrocketing.
1964 Paul Baran publishes paper on package switching networks
Paul Baran, of Rand Corp., proposes a design for a communications network capable of surviving a nuclear attack. He publishes a paper describing a network that replaces a few vulnerable hubs with a labyrinth of computer connections. Every message is broken into data "packets," which are routed throughout the network then reassembled at the destination computer. Although Baran stops work on the project in 1965, his papers and personal input inform Larry Roberts' design of ARPANET.
1966 Robert Taylor becomes director of IPTO
Computer scientist Robert Taylor becomes director of ARPA's Information Processing and Techniques Office (IPTO). His first priority is to deal with the demands of universities and research institutions clamoring for supercomputers. He theorizes that by linking computers together electronically, universities will be able to reduce redundancy in their work, and his department can save money by funding fewer grants for computers.
1966 Larry Roberts joins IPTO (December)
Taylor hires Larry Roberts to oversee his cost-cutting network program. Taylor guides the development of ARPANET.
1967 Larry Roberts presents ARPANET paper
At a computer conference in Tennessee, Larry Roberts presents a paper outlining the basics of ARPANET, a computer network that lacks a central hub. ARPANET becomes the foundation for the Internet and World Wide Web.
1968 Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore found Intel
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore leave Fairchild Semiconductor to create their own semiconductor company, Intel.
1968 Douglas Engelbart demonstrates the mouse (May)
Stanford Research Institute's Douglas Engelbart presents a computer system with a point-and-click interface and a mouse at the Joint Computer Conference. The first computer with a mouse will not be introduced to the market for another thirteen years.
1968 ARPA requests proposals for network (July)
In July, ARPA sends out a request for proposals to build machines that will act as switchboards for the proposed ARPANET. In September, Cambridge-based BBN (Bolt, Baranek and Newman) submits a proposal to build Interface Message Processors, computers that will serve as ARPANET's backbone. When the company wins the contract, the staff receives a message from Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, congratulating them on promoting religious tolerance with their "Interfaith" Message Processor.
1969 Compu-Serv founded
Compu-Serv, which later becomes online service CompuServe, is founded to sell and coordinate time-sharing on supercomputers.
1969 ARPANET officially commissioned (January)
BBN's contract to build a series of Interface Message Processors-computers to serve as the backbone for ARPANET-commences.
1969 UCLA receives first IMP (August)
The first Interface Message Processor (IMP) arrives at the University of California-Los Angeles. Its installation creates the first ARPANET node. Three more of the refrigerator-sized computers are installed by the end of the year, at Stanford Research Institute, University of California-Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah, and ARPANET is launched.
1970 ALOHANET goes online
Developed by Norman Abramson at the University of Hawaii, ALOHANET launches. The computer network transmits data using small radios. When two computers try to send data at the same time, the computers are instructed to send the data again after a short pause. This simple system becomes the basis for Robert Metcalfe's Ethernet.
1970 Xerox PARC
Xerox forms an advanced research center, the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Robert Taylor, former head of ARPA, who launched the ARPANET initiative, is hired as head of the computer science division. Under Taylor, PARC recruits an elite corps of leading scientists, who do much of the early thinking about graphical user interfaces (GUI) and other advanced personal computing issues. Robert Metcalfe will invent Ethernet at PARC, and the GUI and mouse system used on a PARC workstation will inspire Steve Jobs to build a computer with a point-and-click interface.
1971 Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn commissioned to extend ARPANET
Vinton Cerf, head of the International Network Working Group, and Robert Kahn are commissioned by the government to extend ARPANET for military and government use. The two begin to research ways to connect ARPANET and other networks. By 1974, the pair will release a paper describing Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which will allow networks to communicate with each other. In 1978, Cerf helps develop Internet Protocol (IP), which will help govern the way messages are sent through the network. In 1983, ARPANET will switch to TCP/IP and becomes a public network.
1971 Intel markets CPU
Intel markets its first central processing unit (CPU), a 4-bit, 108-kHz 4004 chip.
1972 Email invented
Ray Tomlinson of BBN develops a program to send messages across ARPANET. His program uses the "@" sign to separate email users' names from their machines.
1972 Cray Research founded
Seymour Cray founds Cray Research, which later becomes the leader in supercomputers costing $5-40 million. Demand for supercomputers declines after the Cold War ends, however, and Cray's second company, Cray Computer Corp., goes bankrupt in 1995.
1972 First electronic calculator
Hewlett-Packard introduces the world's first electronic calculator. The calculator is a phenomenal success, and Hewlett-Packard proves adept at adjusting the company to new technological trends. In the coming years, the company will become a leading personal computer and printer supplier.
1973 Xerox PARC creates Alto
Alto, a workstation using a mouse, graphics, and a point-and-click interface, is completed in February. Despite the machine's popularity within Xerox, the Alto is never marketed commercially. Some of its features appear in the Xerox STAR workstation, released in 1981; but with a sixteen-thousand-dollar price tag, the machine does not become a commercial success. After seeing a demonstration of Alto in 1979, Steve Jobs and a team of Apple engineers add many of its features to the Apple Lisa, released in 1983, and the Macintosh, released in 1984.
1973 Ethernet
Robert Metcalfe of Xerox PARC develops Ethernet, a way to connect several computers together. Ethernet will become the de facto standard for linking computers, printers, and other electronic devices. Metcalfe describes Ethernet, inspired by ALOHANET, in his doctoral thesis for Harvard.
1973 Norway and England connect to ARPANET
Norway and England both log on to ARPANET, creating the first international connection.
1974 TCP design published
Cerf and Kahn publish specifications for a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The program will essentially transform the closed ARPANET network into the open, public Internet by allowing different networks to communicate with each other.
1974 Gary Kildall develops CP/M
Gary Kildall writes an operating system called CP/M (control program/monitor) for small computers using Intel chips. The operating system serves as the model for Q-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, which later licenses its system to Microsoft. Q-DOS (under its new name, MS-DOS) becomes the operating system for the IBM PC and all its clones, ensuring Microsoft a steady cash flow to fund the corporation's growth.
1974 MITS Altair launched
MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems), a company owned by Ed Roberts of Albuquerque, New Mexico, introduces a microcomputer kit for about $500 that lets hobbyists build their own machine. When the Altair appears on the cover of Popular Electronics, orders flood in, even though the computer does more than blink some red lights. The Popular Electronics, issue featuring Altair, however, inspires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to start a company producing software for the machine. Gates drops out of Harvard in 1975, and the two moved to Albuquerque to form their own company, Micro-soft (later, Microsoft).
1975 First electronic discussion group
Steve Walker, an ARPA program manager at the Pentagon's Information Processing and Techniques Office (IPTO), starts the first electronic discussion group for network programmers regarding email protocols.
1975 Microsoft founded
Bill Gates and Paul Allen move to Albuquerque to build software for the newly developed MITS Altair computer. Allen takes a day job at MITS and helps Gates start Microsoft.
1975 Homebrew Computer Club founded (March)
A new computer hobbyist club meets in a garage in Menlo Park, California. Steven Wozniak, future Apple cofounder, is one of about thirty attendees. The group sees a demonstration of an Altair personal computer.
1976 Apple I (March)
Steven Wozniak and Steve Jobs finish work on a computer circuit board, the Apple I, to display at a Homebrew Computer Club meeting. The two found Apple Corp. the following month.
1977 Apple II demonstrated (April)
Apple introduces the Apple II computer at the West Coast Computer Fair. The computer includes a keyboard and color monitor.
1978 Apple adds a floppy drive
Apple adds a floppy disk drive to its Apple II computer. The drive, which uses 5.25-inch floppy disks, costs $495.
1979 Emoticons first used
Kevin MacKenzie jokes to an electronic discussion group that new punctuation should be developed to inject humor and emotions into email. Although strongly criticized at the time, emoticons are now pervasive.
1979 Robert Metcalfe forms 3Com
Robert Metcalfe, Ethernet developer at Xerox PARC, founds 3Com to sell commercial Ethernet applications to businesses. The company makes Metcalfe a multimillionaire. He later leaves the company and becomes a syndicated technology columnist.
1979 Apple team visits Xerox PARC
A team of Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, visits Xerox PARC and sees a demonstration of the Alto computer, which uses a mouse, icons, and color graphics. Jobs returns to Apple and adds a graphic user interface and mouse to the Lisa and Macintosh computers, which Apple was then developing.
1979 Microsoft moves to Seattle
Gates and Allen decide to move their fledgling software company from Albuquerque to Seattle, where they both grew up.
1979 The Source goes online (June)
Entrepreneur Bill Von Meister launches The Source, the first commercial online service for the average consumer.
1979 VisiCalc hits the market (October)
VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, hits the market. The phenomenally useful program soon interests companies in personal computers, which at the time were largely regarded as hobbyist toys. By 1980, Apple estimates that one-fifth of all its Apple II sales are driven by VisiCalc.
1980 Xerox publishes Ethernet specifications
Ethernet specifications for linking different devices are released to the public. Ethernet, developed by Xerox PARC researcher Robert Metcalfe, will become the de facto standard for linking computers, printers, and other electronic devices.
1980 Hewlett-Packard computer
Hewlett-Packard introduces its first personal computer. As it had done with its electronic calculator, Hewlett-Packard once again demonstrates flexibility. The company, which originally made scientific measurement instruments, is one of the few to keep ahead of the rapid pace of technological change. Hewlett-Packard becomes a leading computer provider and later develops a strong reputation for printers and related peripherals.
1980 Enquire Within Upon Everything
Working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, Tim Berners-Lee develops a primitive hypertext program for his personal use, which stores information using random associations and links. He calls this program Enquire Within Upon Everything, based on the title of an encyclopedia that fascinated him as a child. Enquire gives him the idea for the World Wide Web, which he creates ten years later.
1981 BITNET founded
New computer networks that are based on ARPANET's technology launch around the country. BITNET (Because It's Time), a cooperative network at the City University of New York, provides email and other network communication functions to IBM mainframes. CSNET, the Computer Science Network, is set up by the University of Delaware, Purdue University, the University of Wisconsin, and other institutions to link computer science researchers. Individual networks like these will soon begin to communicate with each other via TCP/IP.
1981 Jim Clark founds Silicon Graphics
Clark, a computer science professor at Stanford University, leaves academia to start Silicon Graphics. The company makes high-end graphics machines, which change the design processes of everything from airplanes to Hollywood movies. The company that Clark starts with $25,000 borrowed from a friend will earn $40 million a year by 1986. Clark later helps form high-profile Internet start-ups Netscape and Healtheon.
1981 Xerox releases Star
The Star 8010 is the first commercial computer with a mouse and point-and-click interface. It also boasts a laser printer and other advanced features developed at Xerox PARC. The system, priced at $16,000-17,000 is too expensive to become a commercial success.
1981 IBM PC released (April)
IBM introduces its first personal computer, the IBM PC. The computer quickly outsells market leaders Apple, Atari, Commodore, and Radio Shack to become the top-selling personal computer in the country. However, within a few years, IBM loses market share to manufacturers producing IBM clones.
1982 Compaq clones the IBM PC
With the introduction of Compaq's IBM clone, the so-called Clone Wars begin. Soon, many manufacturers can offer the same quality and engineering as the IBM PC at a lower price. IBM's market share begins to decline.
1983 Lotus 1-2-3 released
Lotus 1-2-3, the first spreadsheet developed for the IBM PC, is released. Lotus 1-2-3 proves to be a "killer app," driving IBM PC sales and turning the machine into a best-selling business computer. The first spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was introduced for the Apple II in 1979, but the IBM was slow to adapt that program to its hardware.
1983 ARPANET adopts TCP/IP
ARPANET switches to the TCP/IP communication protocols, a simple system for directing information across the network. The change drastically extends ARPANET's network capabilities by linking it to other existing computer networks.
1983 Microsoft introduces the Microsoft mouse for $200
Microsoft introduces its version of the mouse. Xerox and Apple have already released computers with graphical user interfaces, and Microsoft hopes to supply the necessarily hardware. However, the mouse takes several years to catch on.
1983 Apple Lisa introduced (January)
Apple releases Lisa, the company's first commercial computer with a graphic user interface and a mouse. The computer, priced at more than $12,000, fails commercially. However, many of its features are preserved in the Macintosh, introduced in 1984.
1983 Personal computer named Time's Man of the Year (January)
Time magazine names the personal computer Man of the Year in its January issue. At the time, Intel's 286 chip is the most powerful processor on the market, and the Macintosh has not yet been invented.
1984 Dell Computer Corp. founded
Nineteen-year-old Michael Dell founds Dell Computer Corp. in his dorm room at the University of Texas in Austin. He assembles machines from surplus parts and sells them directly to customers. Eight years later, at the age of twenty-seven, Dell becomes the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company. By 1999, Dell generates about $18 billion a year in revenue annually and employs 25,000 people.
1984 Neuromancer published
William Gibson's science fiction classic is published. The book envisions an age in which humans interface seamlessly with data networks. This is one of the first fictional representations of a computer network.
1984 Macintosh introduced (January)
The Macintosh is introduced to the world in what may be the most famous television commercial of all time. The commercial will air just once, during the Superbowl. The ad depicts an athletic woman flinging a mallet through a Big Brother-like screen.
1985 Windows 1.0 released
Microsoft ships Windows 1.0, nearly a year later than expected. The interface allows rudimentary pointing and clicking. Although several companies had raced to develop point-and-click interfaces, in the end, they cede the victory to Microsoft. However, Windows doesn't catch on widely until the introduction of Windows 3.1 in March 1992.
1985 Aldus releases Pagemaker
Pagemaker drives the success of the Macintosh. The page layout software launches the desktop publishing industry virtually overnight.
1985 Control Video changes name to Quantum Computer Services
An online gaming company changes its name to Quantum Computer Services. Quantum creates online services for Apple, Commodore, and other computer manufacturers. In 1989, the company will change its name again, this time to America Online.
1985 Microsoft announces Excel
Microsoft unveils plans for a new spreadsheet program designed for the Apple Macintosh. The new product, called Excel, gives the Apple a badly needed business application.
1985 The WELL launches
The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), a California-based online company owned by Whole Earth Catalog publisher Steward Brand, launches. The service provides bulletin boards for online discussions and attracts a hip, intellectual crowd. The discussion group later provides Internet services to its members. Salon.com, an online magazine, will buy the discussion group portion of the company in the mid-1990s.
1985 The first domain names are registered
Symbolics.com becomes the first registered domain and is quickly followed by cmu.edu, purdue.edu, ucl.edu, and others.
1985 Quantum launches Q-Link
Quantum Computer Services launches Q-Link, an online service for users of Commodore's Amiga computers. The company also develops AppleLink, a network for Apple users. Quantum will later change its name to America Online.
1985 Intel makes the 386
Processor speed increases with the introduction of Intel's 386 chip.
1987 Prodigy founded by Sears and IBM
Sears and IBM plan to launch a national online service, dubbed Prodigy in 1987. Prodigy becomes one of the three leading online services before it loses ground to the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s. The company is bought out by its management in 1996 and becomes an Internet service provider.
1987 Microsoft's initial public offering (March)
Microsoft goes public. On its first day, it jumps seven dollars to trade at twenty-eight dollars.
1988 Internet Assigned Numbers Authority established
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority is established by the government. Based in Marina del Rey, California, and headed by influential Internet pioneer Jonathan Postel, the group will manage the registration of domain names for the next decade.
1988 Internet Relay Chat invented
Finnish student Jarkko Oikarinen develops Internet Relay Chat, which will grow into a major Internet application, attracting millions of people to communicate in real time. Notably, Internet Relay Chat will be used to send real-time information during the Gulf War and other crises during the 1990s.
1988 Worm plagues Internet
When a malicious program called a worm affects some six thousand computers, ARPA forms the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT).
1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposes a global hypertext project
British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Lab, proposes a hypertext project to make it easier to search and retrieve information. Based on his Enquire Within Upon Everything program, developed in 1980, the project will let people work together over the Internet on hypertext documents. His project will become the World Wide Web.
1989 ARPANET turned off (August)
With the successful introduction of TCP/IP, which allows different computer networks to communicate with each other, ARPANET is becoming obsolete, and ARPA decides to decommission the network. By the summer of 1989, all of ARPANET's sites are transferred to the faster NSFNET, and ARPANET is turned off for good.
1989 Quantum Computer Services names online service America Online (October)
Quantum Computer Services in Vienna, Virginia, names its online service America Online. The company had developed a network with Apple, called AppleLink, but when the two companies part ways, Quantum changes the name of the service to America Online. Later, the entire company becomes America Online.
1990 Electronic Frontier Foundation founded
Mitch Kapor, Lotus founder, starts this watchdog group to protect freedom of speech on the Internet.
1990 First Internet service provider
The World becomes the first commercial provider of dial-up Internet access.
1990 World Wide Web invented
Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory, in Geneva dubs his hypertext project the World Wide Web. He develops a Web server and browser and posts them at CERN.
1991 Linus Benedict Torvalds and the creation of Linux
Linus start hacking a kernel as a personal project, inspired by his interest in Minix, a small UNIX system developed by Andy Tanenbaum. On October 5, 1991, Linus announced the first "official" version of Linux, version 0.02. A community is created.
1991 CERN seminar on WWW
CERN holds a seminar on the newly developed World Wide Web. With input gathered at conferences and online discussion, the Web continues to evolve.
1991 E*trade founded
E*trade, an online investment company, starts offering electronic trading through online services in 1992. The company launches its Web site in 1996 and goes public in 1997 as the Web's first online public offering.
1992 CERN says it will not charge fees for the Web
CERN announces it will not charge fees for Web use. The move helps shape the future of the Web as an open and free communication area.
1992 Microsoft ships Windows 3.1 (March)
Microsoft ships Windows 3.1, which will become the most popular version of Windows until the release of Windows 95. Windows 3.1 is viewed as a major improvement over earlier versions of Windows, originally released in 1985.
1992 AOL goes public (March)
On March 19, 1992, AOL goes public on NASDAQ, offering two million shares for $11.50. By mid-1999, the stock is trading at $175.
1993 InterNIC created
InterNIC is founded by the National Science Foundation to provide registration and directory services.
1993 White House goes online
President Clinton and Vice President Gore get email addresses at the White House. This is the first time the White House has been online. Clinton and Gore used email extensively in their 1992 presidential campaign.
1993 Mosaic released
University of Illinois undergraduate Marc Andreesen and a team of programmers release a free Web browser called Mosaic. World Wide Web usage grows at a phenomenal rate. In 1994, Andreesen will team up with Silicon Graphics founder James Clark to launch Netscape.
1993 Wired magazine launches (January)
Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe launch the first issue of Wired. The magazine features jarring colors and graphic design, and a hip, irreverent style that soon comes to be identified with cyber-culture.
1993 Former FCC chairman named head of Hearst New Media (March)
Alfred Sikes, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, is named the head of Hearst's New Media division. Like many other old media companies, including Time-Warner, Hearst is eager to adapt to changing technology and develop interactive products. Among the company's interactive offerings is the popular Hearst HomeArts, a Web site offering articles and content from a variety of Hearst publications.
1993 Adobe Acrobat put on the market (June)
Adobe ships Acrobat, an electronic document system designed to make it easier to distribute identical copies of electronic documents. In 1995, IBM and Netscape both agree to support Adobe Acrobat, making it a widely accepted format for viewing documents.
1993 Stephen King publishes story on Internet (September)
Stephen King releases a story from his upcoming Nightmares and Dreamscapes short story collection on the Internet.
1993 VaLinux created
The world's first Linux systems company is created.
1994 First Internet bank opens
First Virtual, the first online bank, is launched.
1994 Netscape founded
Marc Andreesen, a recent University of Illinois graduate, and Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, team up to form Netscape. The pair initially call the company Mosaic Communications, after the free Web browser that Andreesen helped write and distribute over the Internet in 1993, but change the name based on legal objections. The company goes public in August 1995 and will be purchased by America Online in 1999.
1994 Yahoo launched
Stanford University doctoral students Jerry Yang and David Filo begin compiling an online database of Web sites as a personal hobby. They post the database on a Stanford Web server. By 1995, heavy traffic forces them to relocate the site to servers at Netscape. The company goes public in 1996.
1994 Apple launches eWorld (January)
Apple launches its own short-lived online service, called eWorld. The company shuts down the system in 1996 when it, like other online services, loses customers to the World Wide Web.
1994 Gary Kildall killed in a brawl (July)
On July 6, Gary Kildall, inventor of an early personal computer operating system, is killed in a brawl at a biker bar in Monterey. Before the development of the IBM PC and the dominance of MS-DOS, almost all personal computers ran on CP/M, Kildall's operating system. In 1980 Kildall rejected an offer from IBM to license his operating system to run the new IBM PC. Instead, IBM bought a simple operating system from Bill Gates for $50,000, ensuring Microsoft's future prosperity.
1994 The New York Times publishes help-wanted ads on the Web (September)
The New York Times joins the race to turn old media companies into new media by launching a six-month test, allowing computer users to read help wanted ads online. In 1995, the Times collaborates with Knight-Ridder, Times-Mirror and the Washington Post to launch CareerPath, an online job-seekers site. In 1996, the New York Times launches its own Web site.
1994 Time Warner launches Pathfinder (October)
Time Warner launches Pathfinder, an ambitious Web site that publishes online versions of many of the company's magazines, including Time, Sports Illustrated, and Entertainment Weekly. The site is one of the first large-scale sites to be launched by a major publisher. Time Warner considers charging a membership fee for Pathfinder but, like many other sites, ultimately determines that users would be reluctant to pay for information on the Web.
1994 World Wide Web Consortium founded (December)
The newly formed World Wide Web Consortium holds its first meeting at M.I.T. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group, which chooses Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee as its first director, is an international association to promote common protocols on the Web.
1995 Hacker Kevin Mitnick arrested
Kevin Mitnick is arrested on suspicion of stealing twenty thousand credit card numbers from Internet service provider Netcom. Authorities accuse Mitnick of exploiting a security hole that allowed him to enter Netcom's computer system. Mitnick will serve a year in prison after his 1988 conviction for stealing $1 million in software from Digital Equipment Corp
1995 Microsoft Network launches
Microsoft's online service, the Microsoft Network, launches in the fall of 1995. The service touts specially developed Web "shows," but users prove more interested in surfing the Internet than in perusing Microsoft's content. The service is later reinvented as an Internet service provider.
1995 Network Solutions protects trademarks
Network Solutions refuses to register copyrighted names as URL's to parties who do not hold the copyright. Domain name pirates had been registering corporation names, then trying to sell them back to the company.
1995 The Wall Street Journal launches site
The Wall Street Journal launches a Web site called Money and Investing Update. The site, which provides frequently updated business news and statistics, is the Journal's first step toward launching its popular interactive edition, which becomes one of the few Web publications to successfully charge a subscription fee.
1995 RealAudio launched
RealNetworks launches the popular RealAudio streaming audio program. The launch of streaming technologies on the Web promises to give users faster access to audio and video. Microsoft buys 10 percent of the company in 1997 and agrees to support RealAudio in its Internet Explorer browser.
1995 Sun develops Java
Sun Microsystems develops Java, a platform-independent programming language. Because Java programs can theoretically run on any operating system, the language has the potential to dethrone Microsoft Windows 95. Sun and Microsoft lock horns over Java several times in the next few years: Microsoft licenses the technology, but Sun alleges the company has developed its own version that makes programs run better in conjunction with Microsoft software.
1995 Time Warner sells ads on Pathfinder (April)
Time Warner becomes one of the first companies to sell advertising on the Web when it offers space on its Pathfinder site. Sponsors like AT&T and General Motors Corp. pay $30,000 a quarter to advertise. Although initial ads are met with criticism by the Web counterculture, Internet advertising soon becomes a multimillion-dollar industry.
1995 Windows 95 released (August)
Buyers line up on August 23 to buy the first copies of Windows 95, Microsoft's newest operating system. Windows 95 offers a much-improved graphical user interface, the ability to multitask, and impressive speed. Within six weeks, the product will sell seven million copies.
1995 Amazon.com sells its first book (September)
Amazon.com sells its first book online. By 1996, the site is attracting more than 2,000 visitors a day. By 1997, that number will increase to 50,000 a day. From $511,000 in 1995, sales will grow to some $147 million in 1997. The company will go public in 1997 at eighteen dollars, and by the summer of 1999, stock will be selling for more than $100 a share.
1995 Bill Gates embraces the Web (December)
Bill Gates announces that Microsoft will shift its entire business focus to the Internet. He says Miscrosoft Network (MSN), the company's newly launched online service, will move all of its content to the Web. Despite the company's ambitious content plans, many of its Web content ventures are scrapped just a few years later.
1995 AltaVista launches online Web database (December)
Search engine AltaVista launches. The search engine is developed at Digital Equipment Corp.'s (DEC) research laboratory. Compaq Computer Corp. acquires AltaVista in 1998 when it buys DEC but later sells a majority interest to venture capital firm CMGI, Inc..
1996 Slate launched
Microsoft launches an ambitious political commentary magazine on the Web called Slate , edited by Michael Kinsley, former editor of the New Republic . This is just one of several online content ventures that Microsoft launches in the mid-1990s. However, by 1998, the company cuts back on its content investments in favor of e-commerce sites.
1996 IBM launches World Avenue, a Web shopping mall
IBM launches an online shopping mall that allows online vendors to rent virtual storefronts. However, the online mall concept fails to catch on, and IBM closes World Avenue a year later.
1996 Cable modems
Both @Home and Time Warner announce high-speed, cable-modem ventures in an attempt to meet consumers' growing demand for higher bandwidth.
1996 The New York Times launches Web site (January)
The New York Times , which previously offered its content through America Online, announces that it has launched its own Web page. As consumers move from proprietary services to the Web throughout late 1995 and 1996, proprietary services began to lose customers, and many publishers begin migrating their content to the Web.
1996 GE sells Genie online service (January)
General Electric (GE) sells its Genie online service. GE was one of many corporations to try to enter the online service game in the early 1990s. However, the rise of the Web draws customers away from online services, and many ventures, like Genie, are sold and turned into Internet service providers.
1996 Pointcast launched (February)
Pointcast, a little-known company in Cupertino, California, announces a beta version of its Pointcast software. The service, which grabs information from the Web and displays it on the user's screen, kicks off a year of industry hype about "push" technologies. The hype fades after a year or so when consumers fail to embrace push over active Web browsing.
1996 Search engines go public (March, April)
In March and April, Lycos, Excite, and Yahoo go public. All three perform strongly.
1996 MSNBC (July)
Microsoft and NBC launch an all-news cable channel and Web site called MSNBC.
1996 Microsoft releases Internet Explorer (August)
Microsoft releases its Internet Explorer browser on August 11, 1996, to compete with Netscape's Navigator software. The two companies engage in a rapid series of upgrades and promotional offers to win market share.
1996 Prodigy becomes an Internet access provider (October)
Prodigy, once one of the top three online service providers, relaunches itself as an Internet access provider. Sears and IBM had launched the joint venture in the late 1980s but sold it in 1996 as online service customers migrated to the Web. Although Prodigy continues to provide a proprietary online service, the company's management say that Internet access will become the company's main focus. Prodigy goes public in 1998.
1997 Jobs returns to Apple
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who had left the company in 1985 to found Next Software and later became president of Pixar, returns to Apple as interim CEO. Two years later, he's still in the "interim" position.
1997 Social Security retirement benefits posted online
The Social Security administration posts retirement and benefit information on the Web, but ceases temporarily in April due to privacy concerns. Publication resumes in September.
1997 Sun sues Microsoft over Java
Sun files a lawsuit against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of undermining Sun's Java programming language. Sun alleges that Microsoft has tried to disrupt Java development by distributing a version of Java not compatible with that used by the rest of the industry.
1997 Amazon.com IPO
Amazon.com goes public in May. The day before the IPO, Barnes and Noble sues Amazon for allegedly falsely advertised itself as "the world's largest bookstore." Nevertheless, the online bookseller closes at 30 percent above its opening price. The lawsuit is settled later in the year.
1997 AOL purchases CompuServe
America Online buys its onetime rival, CompuServe. Rather than merging it into its own online offerings, AOL leaves CompuServe as a separate service.
1997 Sidewalk launches (April)
Microsoft launches Seattle Sidewalk, the first of its local entertainment guides, offering reviews of restaurants, concerts, and other events. By 1998, Microsoft has launched Sidewalks in nine cities, but by late 1998, the company redesigns the struggling Sidewalk to focus on Internet shopping.
1997 Microsoft buys WebTV (April)
Microsoft buys Web TV Networks. The company's technology allows users to read e-mail and surf the Web on their television sets. The $425 million purchase is Microsoft's largest Internet-related acquisition to date.
1997 Deep Blue defeats Kasparov (May)
IBM's computer "Deep Blue" beats world chess champion Gary Kasparov. This is the first time a computer defeats a reigning human grandmaster.
1997 Communications Decency Act overturned (June)
The Supreme Court rejects the Communications Decency Act. Part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the act made it a felony to distribute "indecent material" on the Internet. The court unanimously rules that the law violates the First Amendment.
1998 Ebay IPO
Auction site eBay, started as a location where founder Pierre Omidyar's girlfriend could swap Pez dispensers with other collectors, launches a spectacular IPO. The company's stock price soars 163 percent on its first day of trading.
1998 URL registration privatized
The U.S. government decides to privatize the registration of Internet addresses. Government contractor Network Solutions had enjoyed an exclusive government contract for six years, registering some two million names at seventy dollars apiece. The government creates the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN) to help privatize the business.
1998 Apple ships iMac (August)
Apple unveils a new personal computer, the iMac. The machine, made of brightly colored translucent plastic, becomes an overnight success, selling some 800,000 units in its first four months on the market. The iMac's success boosts Apple's dwindling market share to 5 percent.
1998 Antitrust suit against Microsoft starts (October)
The Justice Department's long-awaited antitrust suit launches. The government alleges that Microsoft engaged in predatory and anti-competitive business practices regarding its operating system. The case drags on for more than a year.
1998 Clinton signs Digital Millennium Copyright Act (October)
President Clinton signs a law imposing new safeguards for copyrighted materials on the Internet. The legislation also bars technologies that can crack copyright protection devices.
1998 San Jose Tech Museum opens (November)
The San Jose Tech Museum opens in the heart of Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley technology firms largely fund the $96 million hands-on science museum.
1998 AOL buys Netscape (November)
America Online rocks the online world when it announces it will buy Netscape Communications. Some industry analysts say the move will make AOL powerful enough to challenge Microsoft's dominance in the technology industry.
1999 Disney and Infoseek launch the Go Network (January)
Disney and Infoseek create the Go Network and launch an aggressive advertising campaign to drive traffic to the site. In July, Disney buys a majority stake in Infoseek.
1999 Prodigy Classic online service folds (January)
Citing Y2K computer problems, Prodigy announces it will shut down its Prodigy Classic online service. The company had focused on its Internet service provider business for several years, but maintained the online service, which still had about 208,000 customers.
1999 Gates increases philanthropic efforts (August)
Bill Gates merges his two charitable foundations, the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, into one organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The merger created the country's richest charitable foundation, worth $17.1 billion. The foundation committed $750 million over the next five years to buy vaccines for more than 25 million children in nearly seventy poor countries.
