Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

Appendix II 539favorite Web sites. That list would eventually becomeYahoo!• Advertising in the form of banner ads began to appear onWeb sites.1995•Microsoft Windows 95 gave a new look to the operatingsystem and provided better support for devices, includingplug and play device configuration.Microsoft began its own on-line service, the MicrosoftNetwork (MSN). Despite its startup icon being placed onthe Windows 95 desktop, the network would trail industryleader America Online, which had overtaken CompuServeand Prodigy.Jeff Bezos’s online bookstore, Amazon.com, opened for business.It would become the largest e-commerce retailer.The major online services began major promotion of accessto the World Wide Web.NSFNET retired from direct operation of the Internet,which had now been fully privatized. The agency thenfocused on providing new broadband connections betweensupercomputer sites.Sun announced the Java language. It would become one ofthe most popular languages for developing applications forthe World Wide Web.Motorola announced the Power PC-602, a 64-bit cpu chip.Compaq ranked first in personal computer sales in theUnited States, followed by Apple.Physicists Peter Fromherz and Alfred Stett of the MaxPlanck Institute of Biochemistry in Munich, Germany, demonstratedthe direct stimulation of a specific nerve cell ina leech by a computer probe. This conjured visions of the“jacked-in” neural implants foreseen by science fiction writerssuch as William Gibson.The next generation of Cray supercomputers, the T90series, could be scaled up to a rate of 60 billion instructionsper second.streaming (real-time video and audio) began to becomepopular on the Web.Computer-generated imagery (CGI) was featured by Hollywoodin the movie Toy Story.•••••••••••1996• A product called Web TV attempted to bring the WorldWide Web to home consumers without the complexity offull-fledged computers. The product achieved only modestsuccess as the price of personal computers continued todecline.• The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp honoring the 50thanniversary of ENIAC.• The Boston Computer Society, one of the oldest computeruser groups, disbanded.• World chess champion Garry Kasparov won his first matchagainst IBM’s Deep Blue chess computer, but said the matchhad been unexpectedly tough.• Yahoo! offered its stock to the public, running up the second-highestfirst-day gain in NASDAQ history.• Seymour Cray’s Cray Research (a developer of supercomputers)was acquired by Silicon Graphics.• Pierre Omidyar turned a small hobby auction site into eBayand was soon attracting thousands of eager sellers and buyersto the site.• In one of its infrequent ventures into hardware, Microsoftannounced the NetPC, a stripped-down diskless PC thatwould run software from a network. Such “network computers”never really caught on, being overtaken by the everdecliningprice for complete PCs.1997•The chess world was shocked when world champion GarryKasparov was defeated in a rematch with Deep Blue.A single Internet domain name, business.com, was sold for$150,000.Amazon.com had a successful initial public offering (IPO).A technology called “push” began to be hyped. It involvedWeb sites continually feeding “channels” of news or entertainmentto user’s desktops. However, the idea would fail tomake much headway.Internet users banded together to demonstrate distributedcomputing by cracking a 56-bit DES cipher in 140days.The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) celebratedits 50th anniversary.•••••1998• Microsoft Windows 98 provided an incremental improvementin the operating system.• Apple announced the iMac, a stylish machine that rejuvenatedthe Macintosh line.• eBay’s IPO was wildly successful, making Pierre Omidyar,Meg Whitman, and other eBay executives instant millionaires.• Merger-mania hit the online service industry, with AmericaOnline buying CompuServe’s online service (spinning offthe network facilities to WorldCom). AOL then acquiredNetscape and its Web hosting technology.• In another significant merger, Compaq acquired DigitalEquipment Corporation (DEC).1999•••Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson found that Microsoftviolated antitrust laws. The case dragged on withappeals, with the process of crafting a remedy (such aspossibly the split-up of the company) still unresolved in2002.Another virus, Melissa, panicked computer users.Some companies began to offer “free” computers to peoplewho agreed to sign up for long-term, relatively expensiveInternet service.Computer scientists and industry pundits debated the possibilityof widespread computer disasters due to the y2k problem.Companies spent millions of dollars trying to find andfix old computer code that used only two digits to store yeardates.•