Jonathan A. Titus

Microcomputer Pioneer

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This page hosts the timeline of major events in the microcomputing topic. This will help show the accomplishments of Jon Titus in the context of other microcomputers and events in microcomputer history.



1947

Point-Contact Transistor

December, 1947 Three scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories: William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen demonstrate their new invention of the Point-Contact Amplifier.

1948

First Transistor

Bardeen, Brattain, and Schockley files a patent on the first Transistor ever made.

1952

Solid Block Components

G.W.Dummer, a radar expert from Britain's Royal Radar Establishment, Presents a paper proposing that a solid block of materials can be used to connect electronic components, with no connecting wires.

1954

Commercial Silicon Transistors

In May of 1954, Texas Instruments announces the start of commercial production of the first commercial silicon transistors.

1956

Nobel Prize Transistor

The Nobel Prize in physics is awarded to John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley for their work on the transistor.

1958

Integrated Circuit

A monolithic integrated circuit (also known as IC, Microcircuit, microchip, silicon chip, or chip) is a miniaturized electronic circuit (consisting mainly of semiconductor devices, as well as passive components) that has been manufactured in the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material.

1960

PDP-1

The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series was first produced in 1960. It's famous for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture, at MIT, BBN, and other places as well.

1964

BASIC

John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop the BASIC programming language at Dartmouth College.

1966

PDP-8

PDP-8, designed in 1965, provided a very valuable tool for minicomputer users. It became available as a desktop model as early as 1968, although it was too expensive for individual people.

1968

Public Debut of a Computer Mouse

On December 9th,1968, Douglas C. Engelbart and a group of 17 researchers working with him in the Augmentation Research Center at Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA, presented a 90-minute live publiv demonstration of the online system, NLS, they had been working on since 1962.

1969

RS-232

The original DTEs were electromechanical teletypewriters and the original DCEs were (usually) modems. When electronic terminals (smart and dumb) began to be used, they were often designed to be interchangeable with teletypes, and so supported RS-232. The C revision of the standard was issued in 1969.
Since application to such devices as computers, printers, digitizer tables, test instruments, and so on, were not envisaged in the standard, designers implementing an RS-232 compatible interface on their equipment often interpreted the requirements idiosyncratically. Common problems were non-standard pin assignment of circuits on connectors, and incorrect or missing control signals.

1970

Intel creats a 4004 mincroprocessor chip

Intel designs an integrated circuit chip that could receive instructions, and perform simple functions on data. The design is announced as the 4004 microprocessor.

1971

Kenbak-1 and Scelbi-8H introduced

Kenbak-1 designed by John V. Blankenbaker(1971), using a 1KBMOS memory from Intel, and Scelbi-8H is born(1972).

1972

Intel 8008 microprocessor is produced

The Intel 8008 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel ans introduced in April of 1972. The 8008, originally codenamed 1201, was originally commissioned by Computer Terminal Corperation for use in its Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal.

Implemented in PMOS, initial verisons of the 8008 ran at 0.5 MHz, later increased to 0.8 MHz. While a little slower in terms of instructions per second than the 4-bit Intel 4004 and Intel 4040, the fact that the 8008 processed data eight bits at a time and could access significantly more RAM actually gave it 3 to 4 times the processing power of the 4-bit chips.

1971

Kenbak-1 and Scelbi-8H introduced

Kenbak-1 designed by John V. Blankenbaker(1971), using a 1KBMOS memory from Intel, and Scelbi-8H is born(1972).

1972

Intel 8008 microprocessor is produced

The Intel 8008 was an early microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel ans introduced in April of 1972. The 8008, originally codenamed 1201, was originally commissioned by Computer Terminal Corperation for use in its Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal.

Implemented in PMOS, initial verisons of the 8008 ran at 0.5 MHz, later increased to 0.8 MHz. While a little slower in terms of instructions per second than the 4-bit Intel 4004 and Intel 4040, the fact that the 8008 processed data eight bits at a time and could access significantly more RAM actually gave it 3 to 4 times the processing power of the 4-bit chips.

1973

Intel Intellec-8 microcomputer

The Intellec-8 was the second Intellec Model, introduced in 1973. It was intended for software development for the 8008, the first Intel 8-bit processor.

1974

Intel 8008 microprocessor is produced

The Mark-8 was a microcomputer designed in 1974, based on the Intel 8008 CPU. The microcomputer was designed by graduate student Johnathan Titus and published in the July 1974 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine as a loosse kit' microcomputer.

The heart of the Mark-8 Minicomputer is an Intel 8008 microprocessor IC that contains all of the arithmetic registers. Subroutine registers and most of the control logic necessary to interface the micro processor with semiconductor memories as well as inout and output registers. Standard TTL type ICs are used throughout and commonly available 1101.

1975

MITS Altair 8800 microcomputer built

The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975, based on the Intel 8080 CPU. Sold as a kit through Popular Electronics magazine, the designers intended to sell only a few hundred to hobbyists, and were surprised when they sold thousands in the first month.

Today the Altair is widely recognized as the spark that led to the personal computer revolution of the next few years: The computer bus designed for the Altair was to become a de facto standard in form of the S-100 bus, and the first programming language for the machine was Microsoft's founding product, Altair BASIC.

1976

IMSAI 8080 microcomputer built

The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and S-100 bus. It was compatible with its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800, by which it was inspired.

The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first "clone" computer. The IMSAI machine ran a highly modified version of the CP/M operating system called IMDOS. It was developed, manufactured and sold by IMS Associates, Inc. (later renamed IMSAI Manufacturing Corp).

1977

Radio Shack TRS-80

TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, and sold at RadioShack stores, in the late-1970s and 1980s. Hobbyists, home users, and small-businesses were the intended consumers, and the endearment of the TRS-80 computer by its users resulted in a successful venture.

Its leading position in the 1977 Trinity years was due mostly to Tandy retailing it throughout 3000+ of its Radio Shack storefronts. Its other strong features were its full stroke QWERTY keyboard, small size, well written Floating BASIC and it came with a monitor all for $599. Its major draw back was the massive RF interference it caused in surrounding electronics.

1978

Intel 8086 Microprocessor

Intel introduces its 8086 16-bit microprocessor in June of 1978.

1979

Motorola 68000 Microprocessor

Motorola releases its 68000 16-bit microprocessor.

1980

IBM PC prototype

Drawing on its pioneering SCAMP (Special Computer, APL Machine Portable) prototype of 1973, IBM's General Systems Division announced the IBM 5100 Portable Computer in September 1975

Weighing approximately 50 pounds, the 5100 desktop computer was comparable to the IBM 1130 in storage capacity and performance but almost as small and easy to use as an IBM Selectric Typewriter. It was followed by similar small computers such as the IBM 5110 and 5120.

1981

Osborne

The Osborne I was the first popular portable computer, coming out in 1981. "Portable" was a relative term, for it weighed 23.5 pounds and was the size of a large suitcase. It came with a 5" monitor and ran the CP/M operating system.

Adam Osborne, an engineer who had taken on a second career writing documentation for computers, surveyed the booming and chaotic personal computer phenomenon (around 1980). He envisioned a compact appliance, light enough to be carried as luggage and small enough to fit under an airline seat.

1982

MS/DOS and CP/M Operating Systems

MS-DOS 1.1 and CP/M-86 are released for the IBM PC.

1983

>Data General One

The Data General One, pictured above, was one of the first commercially successful laptops. It was an improvement in portability over Osborne-Kaypro systems, but its 3 1/2" disk drives were non-standard format. 5 1/4" external drives were an option.

1985

Intel 80386DX Processor

The Intel 80386 is a microprocessor which was used as the central processing unit (CPU) of many personal computers from 1986 until 1994 and later. During its design phase the processor was code-named simply "P3", the third-generation processor in the x86 line, but is normally referred to as either 80386 or i386.

It was the first x86 processor to have a 32-bit architecture, with a basic programming model that has remained virtually unchanged for over twenty years and remains completely backward compatible. Successively newer implementations of this same architecture have become literally several hundred times faster than the original i386 chip during these years.

1987

IBM PS/2

The Personal System/2 or PS/2 was IBM's second generation of personal computers. The PS/2 line, released to the public in 1987, was created by IBM in an attempt to recapture control of the PC market by introducing an advanced proprietary architecture.

Although IBM's considerable market presence ensured the PS/2 would sell in relatively large numbers, the PS/2 architecture ultimately failed in its bid to return control of the PC market to IBM. Due to the higher costs of the closed architecture, customers preferred competing PCs that extended the existing PC architecture instead of abandoning it for something new.

1990

NeXTstation

NeXTstation was a high-end workstation computer developed, manufactured and sold by NeXT from 1990 until 1993. It ran the NeXTSTEP operating system. The NeXTstation was released as a more affordable alternative to the NeXTcube at about US $4,995 or about half the price.

Several models were produced, including the NeXTstation (25 MHz), NeXTstation Turbo (33 MHz), NeXTstation Color (25 MHz) and NeXTstation Color Turbo (33 MHz). In total, NeXT sold about 50,000 computers, making the NeXTstation today a rarity as many units have since stopped working.

1995

BeBox

The BeBox was a short-lived dual processor PC, offered by Be Inc. to run their own operating system, BeOS.

The BeBox made its debut in October 1995 (BeBox Dual603-66). The processors were upgraded to 133 MHz in August 1996 (BeBox Dual603e-133). Production was halted at the end of 1996, following the port of BeOS to the Macintosh, in order for the company to concentrate on software. Be sold around 1000 66 MHz BeBoxes and 800 133 MHz BeBoxes.

1999

Direct Rambus DRAM

The first PC motherboards with support for RDRAM debuted in 1999. They supported PC-800 RDRAM, which operated at 400 MHz and delivered 1600 MB/s of bandwidth over a 16-bit bus using a 184-pin RIMM form factor.

This was significantly faster than the previous standard, PC-133 SDRAM, which operated at 133 MHz and delivered 1066 MB/s of bandwidth over a 64-bit bus using a 168-pin DIMM form factor. Data is transferred on both the raising and the falling edges of the clock signal (double data rate).

2003

64-bit Processors Mainstream

In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are at most 64 bits (8 bytes) wide. Also, 64-bit CPU and ALU architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size.

64-bit CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1960s and in RISC-based workstations and servers since the early 1990s. In 2003 they were introduced to the (previously 32-bit) mainstream personal computer arena, in the form of the x86-64 and 64-bit PowerPC processor architectures.

2006

Intel Core 2

The Core 2 brand refers to 64-bit mobile and mainstream desktop CPUs with the eighth-generation Core architecture (of Intel's x86 processor), which evolved from the 32-bit Yonah mobile microprocessor. The Yonah comprised of two interconnected Pentium M cores (descendants of Pentium III) packaged, as a single die (piece) silicon chip (IC).

Core 2 marked a relegation of the Intel's Pentium brand to a lower-end market, and a reunion of Intel's notebook and desktop product lines split by the 2003 release of Pentium M (paralleling Pentium 4). The Core 2 brand was launched on July 27, 2006 branching off as Duo (dual-core), Quad (quad-core), and Extreme.


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