History of Micro-Computers - The MESSUI Place

The computer hasfinally arrived, to benamed "Man of theYear" 1983Western Design Center introduces the65802 and the 65816, both 16-bit versions of thepopular 6502 chip. These chips were still notavailable in early 1985.Shugart Corp. announces a $76001-gigabyte write-once optical-disc drive.In Japan, Canon displays anunder-$2000 300-dot-per-inch laser printer forOEM (original equipment manufacturer) use.Borland International Inc. advertisesTurbo Pascal for CP/M and 8086-basedcomputers, Its quality, speed, and low price makeit a de facto standard, especially in the IBM PCworld.Ovation Technologies announcesOvation, an ambitious integrated IBM PC softwarepackage that gets shown at several conventionsbut never gets shipped—the term "vaporware" iscoined to describe it and similar products.Microsoft Corp. announces Windows,its multiple-window software product for the IBMPC, a package that became available in summer of1985.Tandy (Radio Shack's parent)announces the Tandy Model 2000, a $2999 IBMPC clone with enhanced features and an 80186processor,Apple Computer Inc. introduces theMacintosh, At $2495 for a computer that needsconsiderable expansion for many applications, it'shardly "the computer for the rest of us," but itsinnovations (which draw considerably from itsancestors, the Xerox 8010 and the Apple Lisa)continue to influence many other microcomputerproducts.Seiko Instruments U,S.A. Inc. displaysthe first wristwatch computer; it has a10-character by 4-line LCD, 2K bytes of CMOSRAM, and 6K bytes of ROM,Sinclair Research announces theSinclair QL (68008, 128K bytes of RAM, twocassette-loop mass-storage drives, bundledsoftware, and other features) for £399 in the U,K,The computer is not made available in the U.S,Lotus announces Symphony, its $695spreadsheet-oriented integrated package whosecomplexity limits its success.AT&T unveils its 3B2/300 UNIX-basedsupermicrocomputer for $9950; the computeruses the Western Electric 32000 CMOS processor,Ashton-Tate announces Framework, itsword-processor-oriented $695 competitor toSymphony.Mindset Corp. announces the Mindset PC,a graphics-oriented microcomputer with customgraphics chips and some IBM PC compatibility.Although its enclosure won a design award thatput it in the Museum of Modern Art's designcollection, the microcomputer market in 1984 wasnot able to support a new computer.Apple Computer Inc. unveils the Apple lkwith a morning-to-night publicity extravaganza thatsets a new standard for such things in theindustry.MAI Hewlett-Packard Co. announces the HP 110,a 9-pound $2995 portable that includes Lotus's1-2.3 in ROM.Motorola Inc. adds the 68020 32-bitprocessor to its 68000 family.Tom Jennings releases the Fidocomputerized bulletin-board system, which runs onmany MS-DOS microcomputers, into the publicdomain, By 1985 there are over 300 Fido "nodes"in the U.S,Jack Tramiel (formerly head of CommodoreBusiness Machines Inc,) buys Atari from WarnerCommunications,Commodore Business Machines Inc,buys Amiga Corp. and its graphics-intensive 68000computer design,IBM announces the IBM PC AT (80286,256K bytes of RAM, one 1.2-megabyte floppy-diskdrive, and other items—minimum working system,$5469) and its PC Network local-area network,Digital Research Inc, announces its GEMicon/desktop user interface for 8086-basedcomputers. (GEM is later used by Atari in its $39568000-based "JackintoshlData General Corp. announces theDG/One, a 10-pound, $2895 battery-poweredportable computer with most of the features of afully configured IBM PC. The machine is criticizedfor an LCD that is hard to read, a point that DGcorrects to some extent in a later model,IBM acquires Rolm Corp., acommunications equipment company; this givesIBM a competitive edge against AT&T, which hasentered the computer market.Osborne Computer Corp, emergesfrom bankruptcy proceedings with the Vixen, a$1298 Z80-based, two-drive portable with bundledsoftware.DECEMBER 1985 • JUST COMPUTERS 45