Designed by Manuel Fernandez, owner and founder of the Gavilan Computer Corporation, the Gaviian SC was one of the earliest portable computers and was the first machine dubbed a “laptop”. Although most portable computers were not the ultra light and powerful machines we know of today, it was one of…
Snipes is one of the first networked multiplayer games. It was created in 1983 to test the capabilities and features of the new PC-based Novell Netware network operating system developed by former members of Superset Software. It is considered the precursor to modern multiplayer games such as Doom and a…
In 1983 Raymond Noorda of Novell picked up on work originally done by Superset Software, a group that included Drew Major, Dale Neibauer, Kyle Powell and later Mark Hurst, who were later hired to continue work on the project. They were assigned the task of creating a disk sharing system…
Lotus 123 was a spreadsheet program created by Lotus Software, which later became part of IBM. It was THE killer app of the mid 1980s, outselling it’s competitor VisiCalc. It helped plant the IBM PC firmly in the business world. Originally written by a Harvard student, it was supposedly sold…
The Lisa was built by Apple Computer and development originally began in the late 1970s. It was their first attempt at designing a personal computer with a graphical user interface. First introduced in January 1983, it was the first PC with a GUI and mouse. It used a 5mhz Motorola…
First proposed to the Audio Engineering Society by Dave Smith in 1981, with the first specification produced in 1983. Pronounced middy, an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, a standard adopted by the electronic music industry for controlling devices, such as synthesizers and sound cards, that emit music. At minimum,…
Originally written in 1983 for the IBM PC running DOS by Richard Brodie, Word has gone on to become the most dominant word processing software on the planet both in the home and in the office. Versions for the Mac, UNIX, OS/2 , and Windows arrived in the mid 80s….
Compaq Computer Corporation was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior managers who left Texas Instruments and invested $1,000 each to form their own company. Sketched on a paper place mat in a Houston pie shop, the first product was a portable personal…