Technology 1980s

Bernoulli Box

1983

Named after Daniel Bernoulli
This would be a high capacity magnetic drive with removable disk cartridges, able to store 10MB of data for personal computers. Instead of heads having constant contact with a disc, the Bernoulli disks used a cushion of air with voice coil mechanism to maintain head right above the surface. Better tracking precision could be provided by using feedback to position the head over track.

First Macintosh computer

1984

Inventor : Steve Jobs
This would be the first commercially successful personal computer. This computer featured a built in screen, the mouse and the graphical user interface. This invention also helped establish the desktop publishing market.

Flash Memory

1984

Inventor: Fujio Masuoka
Entire sections of memory able to erase and be reprogrammed multiple times and done very quickly.

Connection Machine CM-1

1986

Inventor: Daniel Hillis
Moving AI further, this invention could complete several billion operations per second and was a controversial concept of massive parallelism. Each processor had own small memory linked to others that users changed by reprogramming. The systems connections could broadcast information & requests in simulation of brain like associative recall and would work faster than any other machine.

Nintendo GameBoy

1989

This console provided good graphics and used removable game cartridges to play on its 2.9-inch black and white screen. Popularity boosted with the release of the puzzle game Tetris. It was one of the all-time, top-selling game systems. The portable lightweight device allowed gamers to play wherever. Affordable, easy to play, & built to last.