2000 Despite projections of doom, the Y2K bug based on year date limitations in old software actually causes few problems worldwide. In January, America Online and Time Warner announce plans to merge. In March, the dot-com crash begins; the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index falls 37% from March to May. In April, Ananova.com launches a lightweight… Read More »
1990 Tim Berners-Lee creates a hypertext GUI (graphic user interface) browser and editor under a program he calls “WorldWideWeb.” (Rejected names for this project include Information Mesh, Mine of Information, and Information Mine.) A demonstrable WWW program is working by Christmas. Mitch Kapor founds the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a free expression action group. Mike Godwin… Read More »
1980 Tim Berners-Lee writes a notebook program, “Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything,” which allows links to be made between arbitrary nodes. Each node has a title, a type, and a list of bidirectional typed links. Sony Walkman introduced, changing music into a more exclusive/singular experience. IBM licenses DOS from Microsoft. Namco’s Pac-Man hits coin-operated arcades worldwide. Ted Turner’s Cable… Read More »
1971 Ted Hoff invents the microprocessor. First edition of the UNIX operating system released from Bell Labs. (Various varieties of UNIX follow.) Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail message and designates “@” as the locator symbol for electronic addresses. 1972 Nolan Bushnell founds Atari and introduces Pong, the first modern commercial video game.… Read More »
1960s Doug Engelbart prototypes an “oNLine System” (NLS) which does browsing among linked documents, editing and email. He invents the mouse for helping perform these tasks. Influenced by Engelbart and Bush, Ted Nelson begins work about a form of non-sequential writing he calls hypertext. Nelson also imagines Xanadu, a global chain of public access “Silver… Read More »
1900s Nickelodeons become popular in the United States. 1901 Guglielmo Marconi perfects a wireless radio system that transmits Morse code over the Atlantic Ocean. 1903 German scientist Arthur Korn invents the fax machine. The Great Train Robbery becomes the first feature film. 1912 David Sarnoff, a Marconi wireless operator in New York, receives the SOS… Read More »
c. 3000 B.C. Chinese entertainers use firelight to project silhouettes of puppets onto a screen. Fundamentally, movies and video representations throughout all future technologies rely on this same principle: casting light onto a flat surface to communicate visually. 165 Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy proves the phenomena of rapidly moving still pictures appearing as one moving image.… Read More »