Windows

Windows
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and a multitasking environment for IBM computers.

Introducing Interface Manager

Microsoft promised that the new product would be on the shelf by April 1984. Windows might have been released under the original name of Interface Manager if marketing whiz, Rowland Hanson had not convinced Microsoft's founder Bill Gates that Windows was the far better name.

Did Windows Get Top View?
That same November in 1983, Bill Gates showed a beta version of Windows to IBM's head honchos. Their response was lackluster probably because they were working on their own operating system called Top View. IBM did not give Microsoft the same encouragement for Windows that they gave the other operating system that Microsoft brokered to IBM. In 1981, MS-DOS became the highly successful operating system that came bundled with an IBM Computer.

Top View was released in February of 1985 as a DOS-based multitasking program manager without any GUI features. IBM promised that future versions of Top View would have a GUI. That promise was never kept, and the program was discontinued barely two years later.

A Byte Out of Apple
No doubt, Bill Gates realized how profitable a successful GUI for IBM computers would be. He had seen Apple's Lisa computer and later the more successful Macintosh or Mac computer. Both Apple Computers came with a stunning graphical user interface.

Wimps

Side Note: Early MS-DOS diehards liked to refer to MacOS (Macintosh operating system)as "WIMP", an acronym for the Windows, Icons, Mice and Pointers interface.

Competition
As a new product, Microsoft Windows faced potential competition from IBM's own Top View, and others. VisiCorp's short-lived VisiOn, released in October 1983, was the official first PC-based GUI. The second was GEM (Graphics Environment Manager), released by Digital Research in early 1985. Both GEM and VisiOn lacked support from the all-important third-party developers. Since, if nobody wanted to write Software programes for an operating system, there would be no programs to use, and nobody would want to buy it.
Microsoft finally shipped Windows 1.0 on November 20, 1985, almost two years past the initially promised release date.
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:51 PM 0 comments
1981
In July of 1980, IBM representatives met for the first time with Microsoft's Bill Gates to talk about writing an Operating System for IBM's new hush-hush "personal" computer. IBM had been observing the growing personal computer market for some time. They had already made one dismal attempt to crack the market with their IBM 5100. At one point, IBM considered buying the fledgling game company Atari to commandeer Atari's early line of personal computers. However, IBM decided to stick with making their own personal computer line and developed a brand new operating system to go with. The secret plans were referred to as "Project Chess". The code name for the new computer was "Acorn". Twelve engineers, led by William C. Lowe, assembled in Boca Raton, Florida, to design and build the "Acorn". On August 12, 1981, IBM released their new computer, re-named the IBM PC. The "PC" stood for "personal computer" making IBM responsible for popularizing the term "PC".

The first IBM PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor. The PC came equipped with 16 kilobytes of memory, expandable to 256k. The PC came with one or two 160k floppy disk drives and an optional color monitor. The price tag started at $1,565, which would be nearly $4,000 today. What really made the IBM PC different from previous IBM computers was that it was the first one built from off the shelf parts (called open architecture) and marketed by outside distributors (Sears & Roebucks and Computerland). The Intel chip was chosen because IBM had already obtained the rights to manufacture the Intel chips. IBM had used the Intel 8086 for use in its Displaywriter Intelligent Typewriter in exchange for giving Intel the rights to IBM's bubble memory technology.

Less than four months after IBM introduced the PC, Time Magazine named the computer "man of the year"
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:50 PM 0 comments
1980

WordStar - The First Word Processor
Released in 1979 by Micropro International, WordStar was the first commercially successful word processing software program produced for microcomputers and the best selling software program of the early eighties.
What is Word Processing?

Word processing can be defined as the manipulation of computer generated text data including creating, editing, storing, retrieving and printing a document.

The Electric Pencil
The first computer word processors were line editors, software-writing aids that allowed a programmer to make changes in a line of program code. Altair programmer Michael Shrayer decided to write the manuals for computer programs on the same computers the programs ran on. He wrote the somewhat popular and the actual first PC word processing program, the Electric Pencil in 1976.
Other early word processor programs worth noting were: Apple Write I, Samna III, Word, WordPerfect and Scripsit.

Seymour Rubenstein and Rob Barnaby
Seymour Rubenstein first started developing an early version of a word processor for the IMSAI 8080 computer when he was director of marketing for IMSAI. He left to start MicroPro International Inc. in 1978 with only $8,500 in cash.
Software programmer Rob Barnaby was convinced to leave IMSAI and tag along with Rubenstein to join MicroPro. Rob Barnaby wrote the 1979 version of WordStar for CP/M. Jim Fox, Barnaby's assistant, ported (meaning re-wrote for a different operating system) WordStar from the CP/M operating system* to MS/PC DOS.
The 3.0 version of WordStar for DOS was released in 1982. Within three years, WordStar was the most popular word processing software in the world. However by the late 1980s, programs like WordPerfect knocked Wordstar out of the word processing market after the poor performance of WordStar 2000.
"In the early days, the size of the market was more promise than reality... WordStar was a tremendous learning experience. I didn't know all that much about the world of big business. I thought I knew it" Quote from Seymour Rubenstein the inventor of WordStar

*The CP/M operating system was developed by Gary Kildall, founder of Digital Research, copywritten in 1976 and released in 1977. MS/PC DOS is the famous operating system introduced by MicroSoft and Bill Gates in 1981.
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:47 PM 0 comments
1970



In the early 1970s, anyone wanting to use a computer had to wait in a long line as computers were few and far apart. The desire and the market was increasing for a computer that could be used at home or in the office, the "personal computer". Several different manufacturers marketed "personal computers" between 1974 and 1977 in response to that desire. These were mainly kits (major assembly required) advertised in the back pages of magazines like Popular Science.
In the March, 1974, issue of QST magazine there appeared the first advertisement for a "personal computer." It was called the Scelbi (SCientific, ELectronic and BIological) and designed by the Scelbi Computer Consulting Company of Milford, Connecticut. Based on Intel's 8008 microprocessor, Scelbi sold for $565 and came with 1K of programmable memory, with an additional 15K of memory available for $2760. The second "personal computer kit" was the Mark-8 (also Intel 8008 based) designed by Jonathan Titus. The July issue of Radio Electronics magazine published an article on building a Mark-8 microcomputer, information the general public was hungry for. At the same time, the Intel company introduced the new 8080 microprocessor chip, made for controlling traffic lights. It was to become the microprocessor inside the very successful Altair computer.
Altair Computer
An Albuquerque, New Mexico, company called MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) was in the calculator business until Texas Instruments swept the market in 1972 with their low cost calculators. MITS owner Ed Roberts, a former air force electronics specialist, then decided to try designing a computer kit. He was aided by his friend Les Soloman, who happened to be the technical editor for Popular Mechanics magazine and had been flooded with letters from readers describing ideas for home computers. Roberts worked together with hardware engineers William Yates and Jim Bybee during '73 and '74 developing the MITS Altair 8800. The Altair was named by Soloman's 12 year-old daughter after an episode from the original Star Trek television series.
The Altair was the cover story for the January, 1975, issue of Popular Electronics, which described the Altair as the "World's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models". The orders for the Altair were huge in response to the article. The computer kit was shipped with an 8080 CPU, a 256 Byte RAM card, and the new Altair Bus design (S100 Bus - the connector had 100 pins) for the price of $400. It was left to the consumer to put it together, make it work and write any needed software. This was an uneasy task but the computer was definitely expandable, cheap and available.
Two young programmers realized that a software program already written for microcomputers could work on the Altair. Ed Roberts was soon contacted by Harvard freshman Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame) and programmer Paul Allen. Within six weeks, Gates and Allen compiled a version of BASIC to run on the Altair. Allan was offered a position by Roberts as the Director of Software and the only member of the software department. Gates, who was then still a student, started working for MITS part-time after he left school.
BASIC required 4096 bytes of memory to run, sixteen times the amount of memory the Altair then came with. MITS created a 4K (4096 byte) memory board that allowed the Altair to run BASIC. The boards were poorly designed and created problems, and a computer hobbyist named Bob Marsh designed a better 4k board and started a company called Processor Technology to sell his Altair compatible boards. Roberts tried to prevent losing his sales by the BASIC software only with his boards. He succeeded in promoting the first wide-spread case of software piracy. Hobbyists everywhere bought a Processor Technology memory board and somehow found a free copy of BASIC.
Robert's tendency to ship some poorly designed products might have caused MITS' downfall after a few short years, but no one can deny that it was the Altair which really kick-started the home computer revolution. Gates and Allen went on to start Microsoft, becoming the world's leading software developers. Ed Roberts became a doctor and went on to practice medicine.
One more computer worthy of note during this period was the IBM 5100. The 5100 was released in 1975 after two years of development. It was referred to as "Project Mercury" by the IBM scientists. The 5100 was IBM's first portable computer and considered an entry level system, but its $10,000 price tag put it beyond the range of the hobbyists who bought the Altair. Sales of the 5100 went to small business and educational institutions who bought the desktop sized minicomputer which came with BASIC, 16KB of RAM, tape storage and a built-in 5-inch screen.
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:46 PM 0 comments
History of intel

In November, 1971, a company called Intel publicly introduced the world's first single chip microprocessor, the Intel 4004 (U.S. Patent #3,821,715), invented by Intel engineers Federico Faggin, Ted Hoff, and Stan Mazor. After the invention of intergrated circuits revolutionized computer design, the only place to go was down -- in size that is. The Intel 4004 chip took the integrated circuit down one step further by placing all the parts that made a computer think (i.e. central processing unit, memory, input and output controls) on one small chip. Programming intelligence into inanimate objects had now become possible.



The History of Intel
In 1968, Bob Noyce and Gordon were two unhappy engineers working for the Fairchild Semiconductor Company who decided to quit and create their own company at a time when many Fairchild employees were leaving to create start-ups. People like Noyce and Moore were nicknamed the "Fairchildren".
Bob Noyce typed himself a one page idea of what he wanted to do with his new company, and that was enough to convince San Francisco venture capitalist Art Rock to back Noyce's and Moore's new venture. Rock raised $2.5 million dollars in less than 2 days.

Intel Trademark
The name "Moore Noyce" was already trademarked by a hotel chain, so the two founders decided upon the name "Intel" for their new company, a shortened version of "Integrated Electronics".

Intel's first money making product was the 3101 Schottky bipolar 64-bit static random access memory (SRAM) chip.

One Chip Does the Work of Twelve

In late 1969, a potential client from Japan called Busicom, asked to have twelve custom chips designed. Separate chips for keyboard scanning, display control, printer control and other functions for a Busicom-manufactured calculator.
Intel did not have the manpower for the job but they did have the brainpower to come up with a solution. Intel engineer, Ted Hoff decided that Intel could build one chip to do the work of twelve. Intel and Busicom agreed and funded the new programmable, general-purpose logic chip.
Federico Faggin headed the design team along with Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor, who wrote the software for the new chip. Nine months later, a revolution was born. At 1/8th inch wide by 1/6th inch long and consisting of 2,300 MOS (metal oxide semiconductor) transistors, the baby chip had as much power as the ENIAC, which had filled 3,000 cubic feet with 18,000 vacuum tubes.
Cleverly, Intel decided to buy back the design and marketing rights to the 4004 from Busicom for $60,000. The next year Busicom went bankrupt, they never produced a product using the 4004. Intel followed a clever marketing plan to encourage the development of applications for the 4004 chip, leading to its widespread use within months.

The Intel 4004 Microprocessor
The 4004 was the world's first universal microprocessor. In the late 1960s, many scientists had discussed the possibility of a computer on a chip, but nearly everyone felt that integrated circuit technology was not yet ready to support such a chip. Intel's Ted Hoff felt differently; he was the first person to recognize that the new silicon-gated MOS technology might make a single-chip CPU (central processing unit) possible.

Hoff and the Intel team developed such an architecture with just over 2,300 transistors in an area of only 3 by 4 millimetres. With its 4-bit CPU, command register, decoder, decoding control, control monitoring of machine commands and interim register, the 4004 was one heck of a little invention. Today's 64-bit microprocessors are still based on similar designs, and the microprocessor is still the most complex mass-produced product ever with more than 5.5 million transistors performing hundreds of millions of calculations each second - numbers that are sure to be outdated fast.
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:44 PM 0 comments

1970
In the early 1970s, anyone wanting to use a computer had to wait in a long line as computers were few and far apart. The desire and the market was increasing for a computer that could be used at home or in the office, the "personal computer". Several different manufacturers marketed "personal computers" between 1974 and 1977 in response to that desire. These were mainly kits (major assembly required) advertised in the back pages of magazines like Popular Science.

In the March, 1974, issue of QST magazine there appeared the first advertisement for a "personal computer." It was called the Scelbi (SCientific, ELectronic and BIological) and designed by the Scelbi Computer Consulting Company of Milford, Connecticut. Based on Intel's 8008 microprocessor, Scelbi sold for $565 and came with 1K of programmable memory, with an additional 15K of memory available for $2760. The second "personal computer kit" was the Mark-8 (also Intel 8008 based) designed by Jonathan Titus. The July issue of Radio Electronics magazine published an article on building a Mark-8 microcomputer, information the general public was hungry for. At the same time, the Intel company introduced the new 8080 microprocessor chip, made for controlling traffic lights. It was to become the microprocessor inside the very successful Altair computer.

Altair Computer

An Albuquerque, New Mexico, company called MITS (Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems) was in the calculator business until Texas Instruments swept the market in 1972 with their low cost calculators. MITS owner Ed Roberts, a former air force electronics specialist, then decided to try designing a computer kit. He was aided by his friend Les Soloman, who happened to be the technical editor for Popular Mechanics magazine and had been flooded with letters from readers describing ideas for home computers. Roberts worked together with hardware engineers William Yates and Jim Bybee during '73 and '74 developing the MITS Altair 8800. The Altair was named by Soloman's 12 year-old daughter after an episode from the original Star Trek television series.

The Altair was the cover story for the January, 1975, issue of Popular Electronics, which described the Altair as the "World's First Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models". The orders for the Altair were huge in response to the article. The computer kit was shipped with an 8080 CPU, a 256 Byte RAM card, and the new Altair Bus design (S100 Bus - the connector had 100 pins) for the price of $400. It was left to the consumer to put it together, make it work and write any needed software. This was an uneasy task but the computer was definitely expandable, cheap and available.

Two young programmers realized that a software program already written for microcomputers could work on the Altair. Ed Roberts was soon contacted by Harvard freshman Bill Gates (of Microsoft fame) and programmer Paul Allen. Within six weeks, Gates and Allen compiled a version of BASIC to run on the Altair. Allan was offered a position by Roberts as the Director of Software and the only member of the software department. Gates, who was then still a student, started working for MITS part-time after he left school.

BASIC required 4096 bytes of memory to run, sixteen times the amount of memory the Altair then came with. MITS created a 4K (4096 byte) memory board that allowed the Altair to run BASIC. The boards were poorly designed and created problems, and a computer hobbyist named Bob Marsh designed a better 4k board and started a company called Processor Technology to sell his Altair compatible boards. Roberts tried to prevent losing his sales by the BASIC software only with his boards. He succeeded in promoting the first wide-spread case of software piracy. Hobbyists everywhere bought a Processor Technology memory board and somehow found a free copy of BASIC.
Robert's tendency to ship some poorly designed products might have caused MITS' downfall after a few short years, but no one can deny that it was the Altair which really kick-started the home computer revolution. Gates and Allen went on to start Microsoft, becoming the world's leading software developers. Ed Roberts became a doctor and went on to practice medicine.

One more computer worthy of note during this period was the IBM 5100. The 5100 was released in 1975 after two years of development. It was referred to as "Project Mercury" by the IBM scientists. The 5100 was IBM's first portable computer and considered an entry level system, but its $10,000 price tag put it beyond the range of the hobbyists who bought the Altair. Sales of the 5100 went to small business and educational institutions who bought the desktop sized minicomputer which came with BASIC, 16KB of RAM, tape storage and a built-in 5-inch screen.
Posted by Beautifullanka1 at 8:41 PM 0 comments

1946

By 1946, a winner in the data-storage game emerged that would dominate the computer field for the next several years. Sir Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn co-invented the Williams-Kilburn Tube (or Williams Tube) Scientists had conducted research on cathode-ray tubes serving as computer data storage since the early 1940s.
The illustration to the right is an example of the video display terminal used with the Manchester computer. The terminal mirrored what was happening within the Williams Tube. A metal detector plate placed close to the surface of the tube, detected changes in electrical discharges. Since the metal plate would obscure a clear view of the tube, the technicians could monitor the tubes used a video screen. Each dot on the screen represented a dot on the tube's surface; the dots on the tube's surface worked as capacitors that were either charged and bright or uncharged and dark. The information translated into binary code (0,1 or dark, bright) became a way to program the computer.
The Williams Tube provided the first large amount of random access memory (RAM), and it was a convenient method of data-storage. It did not require rewiring each time the data was changed, and programming the computer went much faster. It became the dominant form of computer memory until outdated in 1955.
History of the Manchester Baby
In December 1946, Williams began to chair the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University in Manchester, England, with Tom Kilburn moving to Manchester as well. The men had both worked for the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) in Malvern, England, trying to improve the digital storage ability of a cathode-ray tube.
Williams had already succeeded in storing one bit of information on a cathode-ray tube and had filed a provisional patent in December of 1946. Tom Kilburn soon devised an improved method of storing bits, increasing the storage capacity to 2048 bits. Williams added Kilburn's name to the patent. The team was ready to build a computer based on the Williams Tube.
In 1948, Tom Kilburn, assisted by another TRE researcher, Geoff Tootill, worked on designing and building a prototype machine. Nicknamed "The Baby," the new computer demonstrated the ability of the Williams Tube. For the first time in history, a computer used a stored program. Tom Kilburn wrote that computer program, first executed on June 21, 1948.

Manchester Baby's Specifications
32-bit word length.
Serial binary arithmetic using 2 complement integers.
Single address format order code.
Random access main store of 32 words, extendable up to 8192 words.
Computing speed of around 1.2 milliseconds per instruction.
The team designed a second computer (Manchester Mark 1) and commissioned an outside company called Ferranti Ltd. to build the computer in 1949. Ferranti Ltd. and the Manchester University team collaborated in 1951 and built the world's first commercially available general-purpose computer called the Ferranti Mark 1. The first machine off the production line was delivered to the University of Manchester