Pixar Animation Studios combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. In partnership with Disney, Pixar has created four of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Academy Award®-winning Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998), Golden Globe-winner Toy Story…
Invented by Bell Labs employee Larry Wall in 1987 and released to the comp.sources.misc newsgroup on December 18th, 1987, this venerable scripting language had originally been intended to manipulate text information. It was based on the C language and later went on to play an important role in the development…
Your computer probably has a “VGA or SVGA monitor” that looks a lot like a TV but is smaller, has a lot more pixels and has a much crisper display. The CRT and electronics in a monitor are much more precise than is required in a TV; a computer monitor…
IBM’s second generation of personal computers. Released to the public in 1987, the PS/2 series introduced three advances over the PC series: 3.5″ 1.44 megabyte microfloppy disks, VGA and 8514 graphics display standards, and the Micro Channel bus architecture. The 3.5″ disks and VGA can be easily installed on other…
This was IBM’s first portable computer (shown here with printer attached). Released on April 3rd, 1986, it was also known as the IBM 5140. It featured power managment, the ability to run on batteries, and a CMOS version of the Intel 8088. It ran at a galloping 4mhz and had…
AOL began in 1985, originally founded as Quantum Computer Services. It officially became America Online in 1989. Four years later, in 1993, AOL had only 500,000 members. It provided access to the Internet, and, in addition, offered access to its own online information and services, which were specifically tailored to…
Created in 1984 by Michael Dell while enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, it was initially called PCs Limited. Working on his own, he ran the company from his dormitory, and sold IBM compatible PCs built from standard parts. After getting an investment from his family, Dell dropped…
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…
The Rainbow 100 was a microcomputer produced by DEC and released in 1982. It borrowed from the VT102 for its video display and was one of the earliest dual CPU microcomputers, using a 4MHz Zilog and a 4.8 MHz Intel 8088. DEC produced three models during the production lifespan of…
American engineers have been calling small flaws in machines “bugs” for over a century. Thomas Edison talked about bugs in electrical circuits in the 1870s. When the first computers were built during the early 1940s, people working on them found bugs in both the hardware of the machines and in…