Computer Era (1946 - Today)

• Fourth Generation (1971 - Today)
  • Characteristics
    • Microprocessor - general purpose processor on a single chip
    • 1 billion calculations per second
  • Themes
    • Faster
    • Smaller
    • More reliable
    • Cheaper
    • More powerful
    • Eniac versus 150 MHz Pentium
  • Famous Computers, etc.
    • 1971 - First handheld calculator
      • Texas Instruments Cal-Tech
      • - 4 functions at $425
    • 1973 - Ethernet designed
      • Now used for most Local Area Networks (LANs)
    • 1975 - First Personal computer - Altair 8800
      • First easily available microcomputer
      • 256 bytes (not k!) memory
        • Bill Gates co-wrote BASIC for it
    • 1976 Apple 1
      • Apple Computer formed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniuk
      • MicroSoft incorporated
    • 1976 First Cray Supercomputer
    • 1977 Apple ][
    • 1981 IBM PC
      • First "legitimate" microcomputer
      • IBM-PC, MS-DOS
    • 1984 IBM PC Jr.
    • 1984 Apple Macintosh
      • First computer with a graphicical user interface
      • 1984 Super Bowl Commercial introducing the Macintosh (RealPlayer) (Dial-Up) (Cable-DSL)
    • 1985 CD-ROM, invented by Phillips, produced in collaboration with Sony.
    • 1985 Microsoft Windows Launched.
    • 1988 First optical chip developed, it uses light instead of electricity to increase processing speed.
    • 1993 Intel Pentium microprocessor released
    • 1995 Windows '95 was launched by Bill Gates & Microsoft.
    • 1995 JavaScript development announced by Netscape.
    • 1999 Apple release the PowerMac G4
    • 2000 Intel release very limited supplies of the 1GHz Pentium III chip.