CB Simulator

The very first online chat service was offered by CompuServe and was called the CB Simulator. Released in 1980, the feature used familiar citizen’s band radio concepts to describe its functions such as using “bands” or “channels” to describe the different categories. This quickly became a popular product with virtually…

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Wordperfect

WordPerfect was developed by Brian Bastion and Dr.Allen Ashton in 1981 at Satellite Software International. Later renamed WordPerfect Corp., the application was ported to the IBM PC in 1982 and was an immediate success, becoming one of the most popular and dominant word processors on the market. The height of…

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Renderman

From Pixar Studios‘, What Is Renderman? Leading digital effects houses and computer graphics specialists use Pixar’s Renderman® because it is the highest quality renderer available anywhere and has been production tested through successful use in feature films for over ten years. Pixar’s Renderman is stable, fast, and efficient for handling…

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Snipes

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…

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Lotus 123

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…

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Microsoft Word

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….

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SuperCalc

In 1980, software company Sorcim introduced SuperCalc, a spreadsheet program with major improvements over VisiCalc. It was able to run on any system that supported the popular CP/M operating system. The Osborne-1 included a free copy of the financial software along with it’s bundle of programs, a big boost to…

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VisiCalc

VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. Conceived by Dan Bricklin, refined by Bob Frankston and distributed by Personal Software Inc. in 1979 (later VisiCorp) for the Apple II computer, it propelled the Apple from being a hobbyist’s toy to being a much-desired, useful financial tool for…

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CBBS, The First BBS

A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users.The BBS…

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Telnet

Telnet was and is the way of connecting to computers on the Internet. Before the World Wide Web made graphical access to the Internet possible, computers on the Internet understood only typed commands very much like DOS. Telnet is designed to allow a user to log in to a foreign…

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