Journey Through the World of Bits and Bytes


	Timeline - 1980's
	1980- IBM hires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for the new PC. IBM allows Allen and Gates to retain the marketing rights to the operating system, DOS.
	MS-DOS (Microsoft’s version) and PC DOS (IBM’s version) soon become the most popular operating systems.
	More than one million computers are in use in the United States .
	1981- IBM joins the personal computer race with its IBM PC, which runs the new DOS operating system.
	Microsoft establishes a national retail sales network and formally incorporates, becoming Microsoft, Inc.
	1983- The Apple IIe is introduced. With 64 kilobytes (KB) of random access memory (RAM), a one megahertz (MHz) 6502 processor, and running Applesoft BASIC, it sells for $1,400.
	1984- The 3.5-inch diskette debuts and eventually becomes the industry’s preferred diskette size.
	In a commercial during the Super Bowl, Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh, a computer with a graphical user interface. Instead of typing commands, user select options with a mouse or other pointing device. In six months, sales of “the computer for the rest of us,” as the advertisements call it, reach 100,000.

	1985- The computer company Gateway 2000 is founded in Sioux City, Iowa. The company later becomes a major force in mail-order computer sales.
	Intel introduces the 80386, a 16-megahertz (MHz) processor that incorporates 275,000 transistors. The processor sells for $299 and is able to access four gigabytes (GB) of memory.
	1989- Tim Berners-Lee proposes a way to let scientists browse each other’s papers to the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN). The language and protocol he develops leads to the creation of the World Wide Web.


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