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Commodore introduces the VIC-20
Commodore releases the VIC-20 home computer as the successor to the Commodore PET personal computer. Intended to be a less expensive alternative to the PET, the VIC-20 was highly successful, becoming the first computer to sell more than a million units. -
3 ½-inch floppy drive
Sony introduces the first 3 ½-inch floppy drives and diskettes in 1981. The first significant company to adopt the 3 ½-inch floppy for general use was Hewlett-Packard in 1982, an event which was critical in establishing momentum for the format and which helped it prevail over the other contenders for the microfloppy standard, including 3-inch, 3 ¼-inch, and 3.9-inch formats. -
TIME announces “Machine of the Year”
TIME magazine alters its annual tradition of naming a "Man of the Year," choosing instead to name the personal computer its "Machine of the Year." In introducing the theme, TIME publisher John A. Meyers wrote, "Several human candidates might have represented 1982, but none symbolized the past year more richly, or will be viewed by history as more significant, than a machine: the computer." His magazine, he explained, has chronicled the change in public opinion with regard to computers -
Apple introduces the Lisa computer
Lisa is the first commercial personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). It was thus an important milestone in computing as soon Microsoft Windows and the Apple Macintosh would soon adopt the GUI as their user interface, making it the new paradigm for personal computing. -
Apple 1984 commercial debuts
Apple 1984 commercial debuts
Popular Culture
Apple’s “1984” commercial is aired during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. Earlier that month, Apple's Macintosh computer was already the most anticipated personal computer release ever. As a part of the rollout, Apple commissioned director Ridley Scott to direct a one-minute commercial for the Mac. -
The C++ Programming Language is published
The C++ programming language emerges as the dominant object-oriented language in the computer industry when Bjarne Stroustrup publishes the book The C++ Programming Language. Stroustrup, from AT&T Bell Labs, said his motivation stemmed from a desire to create a language that would allow for more complex programs and which combined the low-level features of BCPL with the high-level structures of Simula. -
Compaq introduces the Deskpro 386 system
Compaq beats IBM to the market when it announces the Deskpro 386, the first computer on the market to use Intel´s new 80386 chip, a 32-bit microprocessor with 275,000 transistors on each chip. At 4 million operations per second and 4 kilobytes of memory, the 80386 gave PCs as much speed and power as older mainframes and minicomputers. -
Acorn Archimedes is released Computers
Acorn's ARM RISC microprocessor is first used in the company's Archimedes computer system. One of Britain's leading computer companies, Acorn continued the Archimedes line, which grew to nearly twenty different models, into the 1990s. Acorn spun off ARM as its own company to license microprocessor designs, which in turn has transformed mobile computing with ARM’s low power, high-performance processors and systems-on-chip (SoC). -
Tin Toy wins Oscar
Pixar´s Tin Toy becomes the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award, taking the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. In it, a wind-up toy first encountered a boisterous baby and then deals with the consequences. To illustrate the baby´s facial expressions, programmers defined more than 40 facial muscles on the computer controlled by the animator. -
100,000 hosts: The Internet Comes From Behind
At its official 1983 launch, the Internet had been a modest experimental network of networks owned by the U.S. government. As late as 1989, even insiders are betting against it – OSI is the official favorite for the future of internetworking, or connecting networks together. But in the meantime the Internet has quietly grown to 100,000 host machines, each with multiple users. By 1992 the Internet will have emerged as the new global standard, linking a million computers.
