1981 IBM Personal Computer released IBM introduces the IBM Personal Computer with an Intel 8088 microprocessor and an operating system—MS-DOS—designed by Microsoft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory and a floppy disk drive, it costs under $3,000. 1981 IBM Personal Computer released IBM introduces the IBM Personal Computer with an Intel 8088 microprocessor and an operating system—MS-DOS—designed by Microsoft. Fully equipped with 64 kilobytes of memory and a floppy disk drive, it costs under $3,000. 1984 Macintosh is introduced Apple introduces the Macintosh, a low-cost, plug-and-play personal computer whose central processor fits on a single circuit board. Although it doesn’t offer enough power for business applications, its easy-to-use graphic interface finds fans in education and publishing. 1984 CD-ROM introduced Phillips and Sony combine efforts to introduce the CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory), patented in 1970 by James T. Russell. With the advent of the CD, data storage and retrieval shift from magnetic to optical technology. The CD can store more than 300,000 pages worth of information—more than the capacity of 450 floppy disks—meaning it can hold digital text, video, and audio files. Advances in the 1990s allow users not only to read prerecorded CDs but also to download, write, and record information onto their own disks. 1985 Windows 1.0 is released Microsoft releases Windows 1.0, operating system software that features a Macintosh-like graphical user interface (GUI) with drop-down menus, windows, and mouse support. Because the program runs slowly on available PCs, most users stick to MS-DOS. Higher-powered microprocessors beginning in the late 1980s make the next attempts—Windows 3.0 and Windows 95—more successful.
1991 World Wide Web The World Wide Web becomes available to the general public (see Internet). 1991 World Wide Web The World Wide Web becomes available to the general public (see Internet). 1992 Personal digital assistant Apple chairman John Sculley coins the term "personal digital assistant" to refer to handheld computers. One of the first on the market is Apple’s Newton, which has a liquid crystal display operated with a stylus. The more successful Palm Pilot is released by 3Com in 1996. 1999 Palm VII connected organizer Responding to a more mobile workforce, handheld computer technology leaps forward with the Palm VII connected organizer, the combination of a computer with 2 megabytes of RAM and a port for a wireless phone. At less than $600, the computer weighs 6.7 ounces and operates for up to 3 weeks on two AAA batteries. Later versions offer 8 megabytes of RAM, Internet connectivity, and color screens for less than $500.
"The telephone," wrote Alexander Graham Bell in an 1877 prospectus drumming up support for his new invention, "may be briefly described as an electrical contrivance for reproducing in distant places the tones and articulations of a speaker's voice." As for connecting one such contrivance to another, he suggested possibilities that admittedly sounded utopian: "It is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could be laid underground, or suspended overhead, communicating by branch wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories, etc." "The telephone," wrote Alexander Graham Bell in an 1877 prospectus drumming up support for his new invention, "may be briefly described as an electrical contrivance for reproducing in distant places the tones and articulations of a speaker's voice." As for connecting one such contrivance to another, he suggested possibilities that admittedly sounded utopian: "It is conceivable that cables of telephone wires could be laid underground, or suspended overhead, communicating by branch wires with private dwellings, country houses, shops, manufactories, etc."
It was indeed conceivable. The enterprise he helped launch that year—the forerunner of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company—would grow into one of the biggest corporations ever seen. At its peak in the early 1980s, just before it was split apart to settle an antitrust suit by the Justice Department, AT&T owned and operated hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment, harvested annual revenues amounting to almost 2 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States, and employed about a million people. AT&T's breakup altered the business landscape drastically, but the telephone's primacy in personal communications has only deepened since then, with technology giving Bell's invention a host of new powers. It was indeed conceivable. The enterprise he helped launch that year—the forerunner of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company—would grow into one of the biggest corporations ever seen. At its peak in the early 1980s, just before it was split apart to settle an antitrust suit by the Justice Department, AT&T owned and operated hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment, harvested annual revenues amounting to almost 2 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States, and employed about a million people. AT&T's breakup altered the business landscape drastically, but the telephone's primacy in personal communications has only deepened since then, with technology giving Bell's invention a host of new powers. Linked not just by wires but also by microwaves, communications satellites, optical fibers, networks of cellular towers, and computerized switching systems that can connect any two callers on the planet almost instantaneously, the telephone now mediates billions of distance—dissolving conversations every day-eight per person, on average, in the United States. As Bell foresaw in his prospectus, it is "utilized for nearly every purpose for which speech is employed," from idle chat to emergency calls. In addition, streams of digital data such as text messages and pictures now often travel the same routes as talk. Modern life and the telephone are inextricably intertwined.
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