1900-1909 | 1910-1919 | 1920-1929 | 1930-1939 | 1940-1949 | 1950-1959 | 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999
20th Century
Ninth Decade

1980: Sony Walkman tape player starts a fad.
1980: In France, a holographic film shows a gull flying.
1980: Phototypesetting can be done by laser.
1980: Intelsat V relays 12,000 phone calls, 2 color TV channels.
1980: Public international electronic fax service, Intelpost, begins.
1980: Atlanta gets first fiber optics system.
1980: CNN 24-hour news channel.
1980: Addressable converters pinpoint individual homes.
1981: 450,000 transistors fit on a silicon chip 1/4-inch square.
1981: Hologram technology improves, now in video games.
1981: The IBM PC.
1981: The laptop computer is introduced.
1981: The first mouse pointing device.
1982: From Japan, a camera with electronic picture storage, no film.
1982: USA Today type set in regional plants by satellite command.
1982: Kodak camera uses film on a disc cassette.
1983: Cellular phone network starts in U.S.
1983: Lasers and plastics improve newspaper production.
1983: Computer chip holds 288,000 bits of memory.
1983: Time names the computer as "Man of the Year."
1983: ZIP + 4, expanded 9-digit ZIP code is introduced.
1983: AT&T forced to break up; 7 Baby Bells are born.
1983: American videotext service starts; fails in three years.
1984: Trucks used for SNG transmission.
1984: Experimental machine can translate Japanese into English.
1984: Portable compact disc player arrives.
1984: National Geographic puts a hologram on its cover.
1984: A television set can be worn on the wrist.
1984: Japanese introduce high quality facsimile.
1984: Camera and tape deck combine in the camcorder.
1984: Apple Macintosh, IBM PC AT.
1984: The 32-bit microprocessor.
1984: The one-megabyte memory chip.
1984: Conus relays news feeds for stations on Ku-Band satellites.
1985: Digital image processing for editing stills bit by bit.
1985: CD-ROM can put 270,000 papers of text on a CD record.
1985: Cellular telephones go into cars.
1985: Synthetic text-to-speech computer pronounces 20,000 words.
1985: Picture, broken into dots, can be transmitted and recreated.
1985: U.S. TV networks begin satellite distribution to affiliates.
1985: At Expo, a Sony TV screen measures 40x25 meters.
1985: Sony builds a radio the size of a credit card.
1985: In Japan, 3-D television; no spectacles needed.
1985: Pay-per-view channels open for business.
1986: HBO scrambles its signals.
1986: Cable shopping networks.
1987: Half of all U.S. homes with TV are on cable.
1987: Government deregulates cable industry.
1988: Government brochure mailed to 107 million addresses.
1989: Tiananmen Square demonstrates power of media to inform the world.
1989: Pacific Link fiber optic cable opens, can carry 40,000 phone calls.

1900-1909 | 1910-1919 | 1920-1929 | 1930-1939 | 1940-1949 | 1950-1959 | 1960-1969 | 1970-1979 | 1980-1989 | 1990-1999