1990 Date Event 1990 Motorola releases the 68040 capable of 35 MIPS and integrated a far superior FPU. The 68040 was included in some of the Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga lineup. March 19 Macintosh IIfx released. Based on a 40 MHz version of the 68030 it achieved 10 MIPS. It also had a faster SCSI adapter, which could transfer 3.0 Mbit/s. May 22 Introduction of Windows 3.0 by Microsoft. It is a multitasking system that maintains compatibility with MS-DOS, allowing several MS-DOS tasks to be run at once on an 80386 or above. This created a real threat to the Macintosh and despite a similar product, IBM's OS/2, it was very successful. June Commodore releases the Amiga 3000, the first 32-bit Amiga. It used a Motorola 68030 processor and the upgraded ECS chipset. Amiga OS 2.0 was released with the launch of the A3000, which exploited its 32-bit architecture. Later variants included the Amiga 3000UX, launched as a low end UNIX workstation, running UNIX System V. The A3000T was the first Amiga to use a tower form factor, which increased expansion potential. October 1 Microsoft Office released. October 15 Macintosh Classic released, an identical replacement to the Macintosh Plus of January 1986. Also came the Macintosh IIsi which ran a 68030 processor at 20 MHz to achieve 5.0 MIPS, and also a 256 colour video adapter. November 12 Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal to the management at CERN which coined the term WorldWideWeb.NovemberMacintosh LC released. This ran a 68020 processor at 16 MHz to achieve 2.6 MIPS, it had a slightly improved SCSI adapter and a 256 colour video adapter. 1990 Multimedia PC (MPC) Level 1 specification published by a council of companies including Microsoft and Creative Labs. This specified the minimum standards for a Multimedia IBM PC. The MPC level 1 specification originally required a 12 MHz 80286 microprocessor, but this was later revised to require a 16 MHz 80386SX microprocessor as the 80286 was realised to be inadequate. It also required a CD-ROM drive capable of 150 kB/s (single speed) and also of Audio CD output. Companies can, after paying a fee, use the MPC logo on their product.
1991 Date Event 1991 Borland acquires Ashton-Tate Corporation and the Dbase program. 1991 Phil Zimmermann releases the public key encryption program PGP along with its source code, which quickly appears on the Internet. March Commodore release the CDTV, an Amiga multimedia appliance with CD-ROM drive but no floppy drive. April 22 The Intel 80486 SX is released as a cheaper alternative to 80486 DX, with the key difference being the lack of an integrated FPU. May Creative Labs introduces the Sound Blaster Pro sound card. June To promote OS/2, Bill Gates took every opportunity after its release to say 'DOS is dead'; however, the development of DOS 5.0 led to the permanent dropping of OS/2 development.
Unlike version 4, this version was properly tested through the distribution of beta versions to over 7,500 users. This version included the ability to load device drivers and TSR programs above the 640 KiB boundary (into UMBs and the HMA), freeing more RAM for programs. This version marked the end of collaboration between Microsoft and IBM on DOS. August The Linux kernel is born with the following post to the Usenet Newsgroup comp.os.minix by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college student:"Hello everybody out there using minix- I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones."
Linux has become one of the most widely used Unix-like operating system kernels in the world today. It originally only ran on Intel 386 processors, but years later added many different types of computers (now includes complete range from small to supercomputers and IBM mainframes), including Sun SPARC, DEC/Compaq Alpha, and many ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and Motorola 68000 based computers.
In 1992, the GNU project adopted the Linux kernel for use with GNU systems while they waited for the development of their own kernel, GNU Hurd, to be completed. The GNU project's aim is to provide a complete and free Unix-like operating system, combining the Hurd or Linux kernel with a complete suite of free software to run on it. Torvalds changed the licence of the Linux kernel from one prohibiting commercial use to the GNU General Public License on February 1, 1992.
1992 Date Event 1992 First 64-bit microprocessors; the first 64-bit variant of MIPS, the MIPS R4000 was introduced in 1992 (announced October 1, 1991) and another major RISC microprocessor, DEC Alpha (no longer produced), was also introduced in 1992. Intel had introduced the Intel i860 RISC microprocessor in 1989, marketed as a "64-bit microprocessor", while it had essentially a 32-bit architecture (non-pure "32/64-bit"), enhanced with a 3D graphics unit capable of 64-bit. Computers with 64-bit registers (but not addressing, and not microprocessors) had appeared decades earlier, as far back as IBM 7030 Stretch (considered a failure) in 1962, and in the Cray-1 supercomputer installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. 1992 ? Introduction of CD-i launched by Philips. 1992 The PowerPC 601, developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple Computer, was released. This was the first generation of PowerPC processors.1992The last "luggable" computer of the Compaq Portable series, the Compaq Portable 486, was released. 1992 IBM ThinkPad 700C laptop created. It was lightweight compared to its predecessors. March First release of 386BSD: the first fully operational Unix operating system to be completely free and open source, and to be able to ran on PC-compatible computer systems based on the 32-bit Intel 80386 ("i386"). April Introduction of Windows 3.1 MayWolfenstein 3D released by id Software JuneSound Blaster 16 ASP introduced by Creative Labs. October Commodore International releases the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000. Both machines included the improved Advanced Graphics Architecture chipset. The 1200 had a 14 MHz 68020 processor; the 4000 had a 25 MHz 68040. November 10Digital Equipment Corporation introduces the Alpha AXP architecture and the Alpha-based DEC 3000 AXP workstations, DEC 4000 AXP departmental servers and the DEC 7000 AXP enterprise servers.
1993 Date Event January 23 Mosaic graphical web browser launched. 1993 Commercial providers were allowed to sell Internet connections to individuals. Many people began using the Internet, especially with the new interface provided by the World-Wide Web (see 1989) and NCSA Mosaic. 1993 Release of the first version of ELOQUENS, a text-to-speech commercial software, from CSELT. 1993 The first web magazine, The Virtual Journal, is published but fails commercially. 1993 Novell purchases Digital Research; DR DOS becomes Novell DOS. 1993 The MP3 file format was published. This sound format later became the most common standard for music on PCs and later digital audio players. Reference 3 in the paper is to Committee Draft of Standard ISO/IEC 11172, December 6, 1991. March Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 6.0, including DoubleSpace disk compression. March 22 Intel releases the P5-based Pentium processor, 60 and 66 MHz versions. It has over 3.1 million transistors and can achieve up to 100 MIPS. John H. Crawford co-managed the design of the P5;p. 54, "Intel Turns 35: Now What?", David L. Margulius, InfoWorld, July 21, 2003, . Donald Alpert managed the architectural team;p. 21, "Architecture of the Pentium microprocessor", D. Alpert and D. Avnon, IEEE Micro, 13, #3 (June 1993), pp. 11–21, . and Vinod K. Dham headed the P5 group.p. 90, "Inside Intel", Business Week, #3268, June 1, 1992. May MPC Level 2 specification introduced (see November 1990). This was designed to allow playback of a 15 frames per second video in a 320x240 pixel window. The key difference from MPC level 1 is the requirement of a CD-ROM drive capable of 300 kB/s (double speed). Products are also required to be tested by the MPC council, making MPC Level 2 compatibility a stamp of certification. June Severe Tire Damage made the first live music performance on the Internet, using MBone technology. July 27 Microsoft released the Windows NT 3.1 operating system that supported 32-bit programs. December 10 Doom was released by id Software.The PC began to be considered as a serious games-playing machine, reinforced by the earlier release in November of Sam & Max Hit the Road.
1994 Date Event 1994 Several major PC games are released, such as Command & Conquer, Alone in the Dark 2, Theme Park, Magic Carpet, Descent and Little Big Adventure. Other, less significant releases for the PC included Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity, Full Throttle and Terminal Velocity.This success of the PC as a games platform was partly due to and partly a cause of significantly increased PC ownership among the general public during the early–mid 1990s. This also reflected the rapidly increasing quality of games available for the PC. 1994 Peter Shor devises an algorithm which lets quantum computers determine the factorization of large integers quickly. This is the first interesting problem for which quantum computers promise a significant speed-up, and it therefore generates a lot of interest in quantum computers. 1994 DNA computing proof of concept on toy travelling salesman problem; a method for input/output still to be determined. — The first DNA computing paper. Describes a solution for the directed Hamiltonian path problem. Also available here: 1994 Motorola released the 68060 processor. 1994 Adobe Photoshop 3.0 graphics editing software released. June Microsoft releases MS-DOS 6.22, containing disk compression under the name DriveSpace after settling a dispute with Stac over their compression program, Stacker. Microsoft had removed DoubleSpace from MS-DOS 6.21 in February after a jury found them guilty of patent infringement, and a judge later ordered Microsoft to recall all unsold infringing products worldwide. MS-DOS 6.22 was the last standalone version of MS-DOS released. March 7 Intel released Pentium processor, 90 and 100 MHz versions. March 14 Linus Torvalds released version 1.0 of the Linux kernel. April 29 Commodore International declares bankruptcy. Commodore's assets were eventually sold to German PC manufacturer ESCOM in 1995.August IBM releases the IBM Simon a forerunner to the smartphone. September PC DOS 6.3 is released, essentially the same as version 5.0; this release by IBM included more bundled software, such as Stacker and anti-virus software. October 10 Intel releases the Pentium processor, 75 MHz version. December 1994 Netscape Navigator 1.0 web browser released. It was written as an alternative to NCSA Mosaic. December 3 Sony releases its first PlayStation console in Japan; to date, over 100 million units have been sold.
1995