************************************************************** * * * CYBERSPACE * * A biweekly column on net culture appearing * * in the Toronto Sunday Sun * * * * Copyright 2000 Karl Mamer * * Free for online distribution * * All Rights Reserved * * Direct comments and questions to: * * * * * ************************************************************** 1000 Years of Computer History Part II: The Darker Ages, from Windows to Windows 3.1 Welcome to my thousand year history of computers. In the last edition of Cyberspace we covered the dark ages of computing, a period ranging from the introduction of zero in the 12th century to the invention of BASIC in 1964. Things develop pretty quickly from here on in. Gimme your hand. Alan Kay Invents Everything Not Yet Invented 1972 Alan Kay took a job at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and set about designing the world's first notebook computer called the Dynabook. His idea for a computer you could carry around under your arm, instead of a computer that needed to be wheeled in pieces into a room, was at least a decade ahead of the technology curve. While waiting for the technology to catch up, he developed Object Oriented Programming, the graphical user interface, laser printing, and Ethernet. He eventually got hired by Apple and helped create the Macintosh. Apple II Released 1977 Most people are probably familiar with the story of how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (no relation despite the same first name) started Apple in their garage. The Apple was not their first creation. Jobs and Wozniak got the tinkering bug back in a high school science course. Hewlett-Packard (HP), then an obscure manufacturer of scientific instruments, used to donate surplus junk to California high schools teaching electronics. Jobs and Wozniak found their muse building things out of HP's surplus hardware. This miniscule investment kick started the minds that started Apple, which started the desktop publishing revolution, which started HP earning tidy profits as the leading manufacturer of laser printers. A Harvard Business Student Creates the VisiCalc Spreadsheet 1978 For a couple years, microcomputers like the Apple II, the PET, and the TRS-80 were really just expensive calculators that played some lame games. In the spring of 1978, when most young men's minds were turning to love, Dan Bricklin dreamed up the idea of an electronic spreadsheet while sitting in a Harvard business class. He borrowed a friend's Apple II and wrote it in BASIC. Business people rapidly saw VisiCalc's utility for creating expense and time sheet and other things that needed numbers jiggled. Business people bought Apple IIs in large numbers simply to run the spreadsheet software. When IBM sales people came knocking to try and sell companies $20,000 systems, they found $2,000 worth of Apple hardware and VisiCalc running on people's desks. IBM quickly realized it need a lean, mean, VisiCalc-running machine of its own. IBM Releases the PC 1981 When Big Blue's big sales men in big blue suits began reporting big losses in sales to little Apple, Big Blue's biggest boys knew they had to act fast big time. But they realized that being big in the world of microcomputers wasn't so grand. The time it took the company's various levels of bureaucracy to turn out a new product meant the computer would be obsolete the moment it hit the store shelves. The solution was to create a computer from off-the-shelf components and license an operating system. Legend has it IBM tried to set up a meeting with Gary Kidall, the creator of the CP/M operating system. CP/M was at that time world's most popular OS. Kidall arrogantly thumbed his nose at IBM, preferring to enjoy a day of perfect flying weather in his private plane. IBM then looked up Bill Gates who showed them Microsoft DOS. Internet Opened to Commercial Traffic 1991 The National Science Foundation, which oversaw the Internet's principle backbone, had banned commercial use since the net's inception. In 1991, it lifted this restriction, opening up the net to a wide range of non-educational uses. This single move is probably more important than the development of browser and web technology (both developed in 1991 as well). With the restriction gone, the public at large now had access to all those make-money-fast emails and pictures of Gillian Anderson's head stuck on naked centerfold bodies. Windows 3.1 Is Released 1992 Eghads.