1979 – Intel released the successor to the 8086 processor in the Intel 8088 chip. With a clock rate of either 4.77 MHz or 8 MHz, this 16-bit chip had an external bus of 8 bits and 29,000 transistors. It was used in IBM PC and PC-XT computers during the 80’s.
Descendants to the 8088 are the 80188, 80186, and what would become the 386, 486 and Pentium chips.
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1983 – at an introductory price of $9995, Apple introduces the Lisa computer – the first computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The computer featured a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor, dual 5.25″ 860 KB floppy drives, a 5 MB hard drive and more.
Lisa cost Apple Computer US$50 million to develop. The software for it cost Apple Computer US$100 million to develop.“Lisa” is an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture.
1988– Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. Steve Jobs shows off the NeXT Computer featuring the Motorola 68030 microprocessor at 25 MHz. The computer introduces several new features including optical storage disk, voice recognition, and object-oriented languages. The system came with the NeXT STep operating system and cost $6,500.
NeXT computer sold around 50,000 units. The NeXTSTEP Operating System was highly influential. It was the basis of Mac OS X. Apple acquired NeXT on Decemeber 20th, 1996 for $429 million in cash. Steve Jobs became interim CEO of Apple and the rest was history.
Steve Jobs almost didn’t come back after he was fired from Apple. He ended up not only founding NeXT, but also helped with Pixar. It does beg the question: Would we have an iPhone, iPad if Jobs wouldn’t have come back? Same question if he wasn’t brought back as CEO of Apple? Would it have been the NeXTPhone and NeXTPad?
2011– Steve Jobs passes away in his home at 3 pm Pacific. He went into respritory failure due to the pancreatic cancer he was fighting for over 10 years. Twitter exploded with over 10,000 tweets per second on this event (Osama Bin Laden death was 5,000). Vigils were held in his memory and Cupertino office was plastered with flowers and memories on post-it notes.
1999– The Microprocessor Forum is held in San Jose, California. During the event, Advanced Micro Devices outlines its own x86 64-bit architecture, as well as Lightning Data Transport – Its future system bus. This will become AMD’s eighth-generation microprocessor code-name: Sledgehammer
April 10, 2003: The first Sony Blu Ray Player hit store shelves
2003 – Sony Blu-Ray players hit store shelves for the first time. The BDZ-S77 was the first model, but didn’t sell too well because of the $3800 price tag attached to it. Add to it no movies available in the Blu-Ray format just yet. In fact, the first Blu-Ray movies didn’t hit shelves until June 20, 2006. 50 First Dates, the Fifth Element, Hitch, Terminator and Charlies Angels: Full Throttle were the first titles to be released.
1983 – at an introductory price of $9995, Apple introduces the Lisa computer – the first computer with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). The computer featured a 5 MHz 68000 microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 12″ monochrome monitor, dual 5.25″ 860 KB floppy drives, a 5 MB hard drive and more. Lisa cost Apple Computer US$50 million to develop. The software for it cost Apple Computer US$100 million to develop.“Lisa” is an acronym for Local Integrated Software Architecture.
1988– Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, California. Steve Jobs shows off the NeXT Computer featuring the Motorola 68030 microprocessor at 25 MHz. The computer introduces several new features including optical storage disk, voice recognition, and object-oriented languages. The system came with the NeXT STep operating system and cost $6,500.
NeXT computer sold around 50,000 units. The NeXTSTEP Operating System was highly influential. It was the basis of Mac OS X. Apple acquired NeXT on Decemeber 20th, 1996 for $429 million in cash. Steve Jobs became interim CEO of Apple and the rest was history.
Steve Jobs almost didn’t come back after he was fired from Apple. He ended up not only founding NeXT, but also helped with Pixar. It does beg the question: Would we have an iPhone, iPad if Jobs wouldn’t have come back? Same question if he wasn’t brought back as CEO of Apple? Would it have been the NeXTPhone and NeXTPad?
NeXT Logo
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for October 12
2011– Steve Jobs passes away in his home at 3 pm Pacific. He went into respritory failure due to the pancreatic cancer he was fighting for over 10 years. Twitter exploded with over 10,000 tweets per second on this event (Osama Bin Laden death was 5,000). Vigils were held in his memory and Cupertino office was plastered with flowers and memories on post-it notes.
1999– The Microprocessor Forum is held in San Jose, California. During the event, Advanced Micro Devices outlines its own x86 64-bit architecture, as well as Lightning Data Transport – Its future system bus. This will become AMD’s eighth-generation microprocessor code-name: Sledgehammer
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for October 5