The Digital Research Initiative
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Altair 8800 (right) was released in 1975 as the first
so-called "minicomputer" available for personal use. It was developed by a
company known as Micro Instrumentation and Telementry Systems (MITS), and was
priced at $397, making it easily affordable for many individuals. The design and
setup of the computer, however, was not very user-friendly at all. Users had to
not only assemble the Altair themselves, but write software for it as well. In
order to help remedy this shortcoming, two young software developers decided to
write and market a software program for the Altair. Bill Gates and Paul Allen's
version of the BASIC language program for the Altair was a success, and Microsoft
Corporation was born.
After
initial success marketing the Altair, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft
Corporation in 1975. Originally headquartered in Albuquerque, New
Mexico, the
company
moved to Redmond, Washington in 1979, where it has grown into the largest, most
influential computer company in the world.
Prior to 1980,
Microsoft concentrated
primarily on selling its BASIC programming language to other computer
manufacturers. In 1980, though, IBM approached Microsoft and asked them to
develop an operating system to run on their new personal computers. Microsoft
responded by developing MS-DOS, which quickly became the dominant operating
system in the personal computer market. After partnering with IBM throughout the
1980s, Microsoft began to market its Windows software independently in the early
1990s,; it too quickly dominated the software market. Microsoft developed a
World Wide Web browsing program, Internet Explorer, in 1995, which is currently
challenging Netscape Navigator for control of the browser market. Today,
Microsoft has more than 21,000 employees and over $8 billion in annual sales.
See Microsoft at 25: A history.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer Company in 1976 after designing and
constructing a personal computer in Job's garage. They soon moved on to develop
the Apple II, the first personal computer
to feature built in programming, color
graphics, and increased memory capacity compared to the Altair. First introduced
on April 20, 1977, the Apple II was an almost immediate success, and is credited
with being a ground-breaking model for home computers.
Using 16-bit microprocessor chips from Intel, and MS-DOS operating system
from Microsoft, IBM launched a personal computer model in late 1981. Targeting
both businesses and private consumers, the IBM model was a success and helped
popularize the use of the term "PC" to denote a personal computer. The early
success of the PC helped establish IBM as a major player in the early days of
computer manufacturing.
Competitors were able to make computers which were comparable to IBM's
PC by using
"backwards technology," which is engineering a product by working from
outcome to
basics, rather than the other way around. The "PC clones" were very successful
and helped make PCs and MS-DOS the industry standard for home computing.
Other popular computers included the Tandy TRS-80, the Atari line of 8-bit computers, and the Commodore 64, which remains the best-selling personal computer in history with 25 million units sold worldwide.
Personal computing was radically changed when Apple introduced the Macintosh model in 1984, a move that helped to launch the home computing
era. With its user-friendly interfaces
and point-and-click technology, the
Macintosh was extremely popular, particularly on college campuses. Today,
Macintoshes remain the computers of choice for a number of graphical software
developers, albeit that PCs running Windows operating systems are more widely used.
On January 22nd, 1984, during the third quarter of the Super Bowl, Apple
aired its infamous 60 second commercial introducing the Macintosh. Directed
by Ridley Scott, the Orwellian scene depicted the IBM world being shattered
by a new machine. (Source: Apple History.)
Commodore launched the Amiga line of computers in 1985, which set new standards for graphics and sound capabilities. The popular Amiga 500 boasted the ability to display 4,092 colors on a screen and had the first true multitasking operating system on the market. Later, the Amiga 600, 1200 and 4000 models drove the computing industry by having the ability to display high-resolution images which contained 16.8 million colors on a screen. These graphics capabilities set a watermark for the computers of today.
Mismanagement drove several computer companies like Atari to bankruptcy. After Commodore's demise in 1994, the only two strong platforms left in today's personal computer industry are the Apple Macintosh and PCs, which run Microsoft Windows.
By the early 1980s, desktop computers were becoming fixtures in offices and, to
a lesser degree, in homes. Sales of personal computers grew to $60 billion last
year and are expected to increase by nearly 20% in 1997. For more than a
decade, the David-and-Goliath story in the personal computer industry was that
of Apple's computers versus those built on a Wintel platform -- for example
those from the #1 PC maker Compaq Computer and such market leaders as Dell
Computer, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. But in 1997, after struggling for years to
maintain its foothold, Apple finally ran out of rocks for its slingshot. Cofounder
Steve Jobs shook hands and formed an extensive marketing and development
agreement with archenemy and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Speculation about
the forces surrounding this pact continues to swirl, but what seems clear is that
the deal will help iron out the compatibility kinks between the rival systems.
IBM and Hewlett-Packard are presently running neck-and-neck as
the nation's leading peripherals vendors, each with over $10 billion
in annual sales of such items as printers and optical disk libraries.
Canon, maker of such peripherals as fax machines, color scanners,
and laser printers, also leads the pack with $7 billion in sales. Disk
maker Quantum is finding success with its hard disks and Atlas II
and Viking drives, which provide more than 9 gigabytes of storage.
Iomega's Zip drives -- affordable, portable drives for Zip disks that
hold up to 100 megabytes of information -- are also flying off the
shelves and into the book bags and briefcases of students and
professionals who need to back up and store or transfer large
amounts of data from computer to computer.
JOMC 50 IT History Continued:
Read the Story of the Netscape Browser
Much the above information is from Michael Manning's "Internet Timeline," a work for the UNC School of Journalism. The above graph was copied only for educational purposes from http://www.hoovers.com/features/feature.html
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