A History of Computers
...be the base of all other programs, so that people would no longer have to write in "machine language." This would speed up the programming by enormous amounts, and it began the use of computers as multipurpose "engines." In 1945, three men revolutionized the world of computers. William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain, who were working towards developing a new telephone, changed the world of electronics. They developed a small, more efficient method of transferring electrical impulses. The previous way was the Vacuum tube, which was the base of all computers and electronic equipment. The transistor was more reliable, more efficient, and much smaller. This technology would give way to the Integrated Circuit, and after that, the Personal Computer Market would take off.3 The first personal computers, introduced in 1975, came as kits: The MITS Altair 8800, followed by the IMSAI 8080, an Altair clone. Both used the Intel 8080 CPU. That was also the year Zilog created the Z-80 processor and MOS Technology produced the 6502. Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a BASIC compiler for the Altair and formed Microsoft. In 1976, Apple's two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) designed the Apple I, Apple's only kit computer, around the 6502 processor. That was also the year the first word processing program (Electric Pencil) and text adventure for microcomputers (Adventure) were released. A company named Shugart introduced the 5.25" floppy drive; it would become a key component in the personal computing revolution. The young industry exploded in 1977 as Apple introduced the Apple II, a color computer with expansion slots and floppy drive support, and Radio Shack rolled out the TRS-80. Commodore tapped into the pet rock craze with their PET. Digital Research released CP/M, the 8-bit operating system that provided the template for MS-DOS, and the first ComputerLand franchise store (then Computer Shack) opened.4 Software took center stage in 1978 when Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston produced VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet. This turned the personal computer into a useful business tool, not just a game machine or replacement for the electric typewriter. WordMaster, soon to become WordStar, was released and went on to dominate the industry for years. Atari leveraged their video game experience and household name to enter the personal computing market, and Epson shipped the MX-80, the first low-cost dot matrix printer. The third important software category, the database, blasted onto the scene in 1979 with Vulcan, the predecessor of dBase II and its successors. That was also the year Hayes introduced a 300 bps modem and established telecommunication as an aspect of personal computing. Texas Instrument's poorly designed and ill-fated TI-99/4 also shipped in 1979 as the industry's first 16-bit computer, however due to manufacturing problems, it was eventually recalled and scrapped. But 1980 was the year Commodore opened the floodgates of home computing with the $299 VIC-20. Sinclair tried to one-up them with a $199 kit computer that was quite popular in Britain, but it was destined to remain a bit player in the PC industry. The same can be said of Radio Shack's fairly impressive Color Computer, which suffered primarily from complete incompatibility with their TRS-80 line. Yet another 1980 disaster was the Apple III, which shipped with 128K of memory, an internal floppy drive, and Apple II emulation. Alas, it just did not work right, forcing Apple to recall them all, fix a number of problems, and re-release the Apple III some time later with 192K of RAM. This was also Apple's first computer to support a hard drive, the 5 MB Profile. Estimates are that there were one million personal computers in the U.S. in 1980.5 In early 1981, Adam Osborne introduced the first portable computer. The Osborne 1 was about this size of a suitcase, ran CP/M, included a pair of 5.25" floppies, and had a tiny 5" display. The innovative machine was bundled with about $1,500-2,000 worth of software, and the whole package sold for $1,899. The first laptop computer also arrived in 1981, the Epson HX-20 (a.k.a. Geneva). The HX-20 was about 8.5" by 11", and maybe 1.5-2" thick, and used a microcassette to store data. It displayed 4 lines of 40 characters on an LCD screen above the keyboard. Of course, the most significant event of 1981 for the personal computing industry was the introduction of the IBM PC on August 12. This computer ran a 16-bit CPU on an 8-bit bus (the Intel 8088), had five expansion slots, included at least 16K of RAM, and had two full-height 5.25" drive bays. Buyers could get a fairly loaded machine with a floppy controller, two floppy drives, a monochrome display adapter and monitor, a color display adapter and monitor, a parallel card, a dot matrix printer, and an operating system -- with the choice of CP/M-86, the UCSD p-System, or PC-DOS (a.k.a. MS-DOS). Pretty much everything was an option, and everyone recognized that the IBM PC was based on ideas perfected in the Apple II, particularly general use expansion slots. The second most significant event of 1981 was dependent on the first: Microsoft got IBM to agree that DOS would not be an IBM exclusive. This paved the way for the clone industry, which in the end marginalized the influence of Big Blue. Time magazine called 1982 "The Year of the Computer" as the industry grew up. By 1983, the industry estimated that 10 million PCs were in use in the United States alone.7 VisiCalc met its match in 1983 when Lotus 1-2-3 shipped for the IBM PC. That was also the year Microsoft Word 1.0 shipped although it remained a small player until Windows dominated. Apple Computer introduced the first consumer machine with a mouse and graphical user interface, the Lisa. Of course, at $10,000, not many consumers could afford it, but it paved the way for the Apple Macintosh of 1984. At $2,500, it was much more affordable than...