Computer history - 1980 - 1990
| Year | Event |
| 1980 | On January 3, Hewlett Packard introduces its HP-85. A microcomputer with 16kB of RAM and a 5-inch CRT display. |
| 1980 | IBM introduces RISC. |
| 1980 | IBM hires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for a new PC. The pair buy the rights to a simple operating system manufactured by Seattle Computer Products and use it as a template. IBM allows the two to keep the marketing rights to the operating system, called DOS. |
| 1980 | IBM hires Microsoft to develop versions of BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and Pascal for the PC being developed by IBM. |
| 1980 | Microsoft licenses Unix and starts to develop a PC version, XENIX. |
| 1980 | The programming language FORTRAN 77 is created. |
| 1980 | The first Tandy Color computer is introduced. |
| 1980 | AST is founded. |
| 1980 | Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released May 21, 1980. |
| 1980 | Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft's 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Bill Gates. |
| 1980 | Atari becomes the first company to register a Copyright for two computer games "Asteroids" and "Lunar Landar" on June 17, 1980. |
| 1980 | FIC is founded. |
| 1980 | Iomega is established. |
| 1980 | Quantum is founded. |
| 1980 | ARPANET experiences first major network crash causing it to go down for four hours October 27, 1980. |
| 1980 | Shawn Fanning is born November 22, 1980. |
| 1981 | Jeff Dailey, a 19-year old becomes the first person to die from computer gaming after dying from a heart attack after posting a score of 16,660 on Berzerk. |
| 1981 | Satya Pal Asija receives the first U.S. patent for a computer software program May 26, 1981. |
| 1981 | Diskeeper is founded on July 22, 1981. |
| 1981 | Microsoft buys the rights for QDOS from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for $25,000 on July 27, 1981. |
| 1981 | MS-DOS 1.0 was released August, 1981. |
| 1981 | American National Standards Institute more commonly known as ANSI was founded. |
| 1981 | IBM joins the computer race by announcing the IBM Personal Computer on August 12, 1981, which runs the new MS-DOS operating system and has a starting price of $1,565. |
| 1981 | Kermit is developed at the Columbia University in New York |
| 1981 | Xerox introduces the graphical Star workstation. This computer greatly influences the development of Apples future computer models, Lisa and Macintosh, as well as Microsoft's Windows. |
| 1981 | VHDL is proposed and begins development. |
| 1981 | VMEbus is developed. |
| 1981 | Hayes Introduces the Smartmodem 300 with its standard setting AT command set and an operating speed of 300 bits per second. |
| 1981 | Adam Osborne introduces the Osborne I, the first successful portable computer, which weighs 25 pounds. |
| 1981 | Hewlett-Packard Superchip the first 32-bit chip is introduced. |
| 1981 | Commodore ships the VIC-20, which later becomes the worlds most popular computer costing only $299.95. |
| 1981 | Logitech is founded in Apples, Switzerland. |
| 1981 | Adaptec is founded. |
| 1981 | BITNET is founded. |
| 1981 | Gemlight is founded. |
| 1981 | Hayes releases the Smartmodem 1200 with transfer rates of 1,200 bits per second. |
| 1981 | CTX is established. |
| 1981 | IBM joins the computer race by introducing IBM 5150 PC that used the 4.77-MHz Intel 8088 processor, 16 kB base memory, and PC-DOS (MS-DOS) for the OS. |
| 1981 | Kensington is founded. |
| 1981 | MG Siegler is born November 2, 1981. |
| 1982 | Peter Norton creates Norton Utilities. |
| 1982 | Sony releases its first Trinitron monitor. |
| 1982 | SGI is founded. |
| 1982 | The Intel 80286 is introduced February 1, 1982. |
| 1982 | Maxtor is founded. |
| 1982 | Hercules is founded. |
| 1982 | Labtec is founded. |
| 1982 | Disney releases the movie Tron on July 9, 1982, the first movie to use computer generated special effects. |
| 1982 | Number Nine is founded. |
| 1982 | Symantec is founded. |
| 1982 | A Philips factory in Germany creates the world's first compact disc August 17, 1982. |
| 1982 | Jack Kilby is inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. |
| 1982 | Microsoft releases FORTRAN for the PC COBOL for MS-DOS, and Multiplan for the Apple II and CP/M machines. |
| 1982 | Microsoft establishes a subsidiary in England to begin foreign sales efforts. |
| 1982 | WordPerfect Corporation introduces WordPerfect 1.0 a word processing program that will become one of the computer markets most popular word processing program. |
| 1982 | The first luggable computer is introduced. |
| 1982 | Sun is incorporated in February 1982, with four employees. |
| 1982 | Lotus Development Corporation is founded. |
| 1982 | Compaq Computer Corp. is founded by Rod Canion and other Texas Instruments Incorporated engineers. Compaq is the first company to introduce a clone of the IBM PC (the Compaq Portable in 1983) and become IBMs biggest challenger in the corporate market. |
| 1982 | The Commodore 64 an 8-bit computer with 64 kilobytes of memory and Commodore BASIC begins to be sold. |
| 1982 | Diamond Multimedia is founded. |
| 1982 | The movie Blade Runner is released June 25, 1982. |
| 1982 | Veronica Belmont is born July 21, 1982. |
| 1982 | The HX-20 becomes the first notebook-sized portable computer is introduced by Epson. |
| 1982 | MS-DOS version 1.25 is released. |
| 1982 | Apple Computer is the first personal computer manufacturer to hit the $1 billion mark for annual sales. |
| 1982 | Adobe is founded. |
| 1982 | Professor Scott Fahlman creates a post on bulletin board mention the idea of using a series of characters to represent a smiley face and frown face that later became known as emoticons. |
| 1982 | BTC is founded. |
| 1982 | Sony begins selling the first Audio CD players October 1, 1982. |
| 1982 | The XT bus is introduced. |
| 1982 | Rich Skrenta a 15-year old high school student creates the first known computer virus known as The Elk Cloner. |
| 1982 | The first permanent artificial heart is implanted into Barney Clark December 2, 1982. |
| 1982 | AutoCAD is introduced in December 1982. |
| 1983 | Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program is introduced January 26, 1983. |
| 1983 | Apple releases the Lisa computer, the first commercial computer with a GUI. |
| 1983 | The IBM XT is first introduced on March 8, 1983. |
| 1983 | The first Apple WWDC is held. |
| 1983 | Compaq introduces the first 100% IBM compatible computer the "Compaq Portable" in March of 1983. |
| 1983 | PC World magazine first appears on newstands March 1983. |
| 1983 | John Scully becomes CEO of Apple on April 8, 1983. |
| 1983 | BSD 4.2 is released and introduces pseudo terminals. |
| 1983 | Zoran is founded. |
| 1983 | The movie Wargames is released June 3, 1983. |
| 1983 | Paul Allen leaves Microsoft. |
| 1983 | Iomega introduces the Bernoulli drive. |
| 1983 | The TIME magazine nominates the personal computer as the "machine of the year" December 26,1982, the first non-human ever nominated. |
| 1983 | The 414s, a group of hackers are caught by the FBI. |
| 1983 | Interplay is founded. |
| 1983 | Novell introduces Netware. |
| 1983 | The Apple IIe is introduced. The computer contains 64 kilobytes of RAM one megahertz 6502 processor and running Applesoft BASIC and sells for $1,400. |
| 1983 | ARPANET standardizes TCP/IP. |
| 1983 | Tandy, Epson and NEC all sell notebook computers however only the Tandys model 100 becomes popular because of its low price of $499. |
| 1983 | THX is established. |
| 1983 | More than 10 million computers are in use in the United States. |
| 1983 | MS-DOS 2.0 was released March, 1983. |
| 1983 | Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is released May 25, 1983. |
| 1983 | True BASIC is created and is a compiled, structured language. It doesn't require line numbers, as the original BASIC did, and includes the advanced control structures necessary for structured programming. |
| 1983 | The QIC Standard becomes the first standard in the computer history for tape drives. |
| 1983 | Soviet jets shoot down a civilian Korean Air Lines Flight 007 flying from New York to Seoul and kill all 269 passengers and crew. As a result of this mistake President Ronald Regan orders the U.S. military to make Global Positioning System (GPS) available for civilian use. |
| 1983 | The GNU operating system is first announced by Richard Stallman September 27, 1983. |
| 1983 | IAB is founded in 1983. |
| 1983 | IBM announces the PCjr (PC junior) computer November 1, 1983. |
| 1983 | Microsoft Windows was announced November 10, 1983. |
| 1983 | The largest BBS Exec-PC goes online November 28, 1983. |
| 1984 | The AT&T company we know today officially starts, expiring the famous Bell logo January 1, 1984. |
| 1984 | Docutel/Olivetti introduce the Olivetti PC, compatible with the IBM PC on January 3, 1984. |
| 1984 | On January 4th Netherlands Antilles issues a 45-cent postage stamp of a computer making a newspaper. |
| 1984 | The now famous Apple "1984" commercial is aired during Super Bowl XVIII January 22, 1984. |
| 1984 | On January 24, 1984 the Apple Macintosh is introduced. |
| 1984 | Hitachi announces it has developed the first memory chip capable of holding 1MB on January 5th. |
| 1984 | IBM's AT computer is introduced. |
| 1984 | The MUD was known as MAD becomes the first global MUD and runs across BITNET. |
| 1984 | IBM PC Division (PCD) introduces its first portable computer, the IBM Portable weighing in at 30 pounds. |
| 1984 | Microsoft creates a new hardware and peripheral division March 29, 1984. |
| 1984 | ESS Technologies is founded. |
| 1984 | Mark Zuckerberg is born May 14, 1984. |
| 1984 | The game Tetris is first released in the USSR June 6, 1984. |
| 1984 | Guillemot is founded. |
| 1984 | Amiga is purchased by Commodore Business Machines on August 15th. |
| 1984 | Bill Gates is featured on the cover of TIME magazine. |
| 1984 | ASN.1 is first defined. |
| 1984 | The 3.5-inch floppy diskette is introduced and later becomes an industry standard. |
| 1984 | Dell Computer is founded May 3, 1984 in Austin Texas. |
| 1984 | Fox Software FoxBASE is introduced. |
| 1984 | Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel introduce DNS. |
| 1984 | The now famous Apple commercial is shown during the Super Bowl, the commercial introduces the Apple Macintosh, a computer with graphical user interface instead of needing to type in commands. In six months sales of the computer reach 100,000. |
| 1984 | Apple AppleTalk networking protocol is introduced. |
| 1984 | Dhrystone is developed. |
| 1984 | IBM develops EGA. |
| 1984 | The computer Museum opens in downtown Boston. |
| 1984 | Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 3.0 for the IBM PC AT and MS-DOS 3.1 for networks. |
| 1984 | The Tandy 1000 personal computer is introduced and becomes the best-selling IBM-compatible computer of the year. |
| 1984 | IBM introduces the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) video card with higher resolution, more colors, and a quicker response then previous video cards. |
| 1984 | University of Southern California professor Fred Cohen creates alarm when he warns the public about computer viruses in his Computer Virus - Theory and Experiments paper. |
| 1984 | The term cyberspace is first used and coined by William Gibson in his book Neuromancer. |
| 1984 | Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are awarded the National Medal of Technology |
| 1984 | The beginning of the greatest adventure computer gaming series is released by Sierra. Kings Quest 1: Quest for the crown is released to the public. |
| 1984 | The Yellow book of CD-ROM standards is written. |
| 1984 | The original Terminator movie is released October 26, 1984. |
| 1984 | SETI is founded November 20, 1984. |
| 1984 | Cirrus is established. |
| 1984 | ISA is expanded to 16-bit capability. |
| 1985 | The WELL is founded in February 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant. |
| 1985 | On January 4th at CES, Commodore introduces the Commodore 128 PC with 8502 processor 128 kB of RAM and ROM cartridge port. |
| 1985 | On January 4th at CES, Atari introduces the Atari 130XE, 130ST, 260ST, 520ST, 65XE, 65XEM, and 65XEP computers. |
| 1985 | The first Internet domain name symbolics.com is registered by Symbolics, a Massachusetts computer company on March 15, 1985. |
| 1985 | Charles Hamblin passes away May 14, 1985. |
| 1985 | The GNU manifesto is published by Dr. Dobb's Journal |
| 1985 | Software Arts assets are sold to Lotus. Software Arts is most well known for its VisiCalc program. |
| 1985 | The Amiga aka A1000 is introduced.. |
| 1985 | PNY Technologies is founded. |
| 1985 | Dell releases its first computer, the "Turbo PC." |
| 1985 | Titus Interactive is founded. |
| 1985 | Microtek introduces the world's first 300-dpi black-and-white sheetfed scanner. |
| 1985 | Quantum Computer Services is founded, this company later becomes AOL. |
| 1985 | Microsoft and IBM begin collaboration on the next-generation operating system (OS/2). |
| 1985 | The computer company Gateway 2000 is founded in Siox City, Iowa on September 5, 1985. |
| 1985 | CAT1 wiring is introduced. |
| 1985 | Intel introduces the 80386 in October. |
| 1985 | Paul Brainard of Aldus Corporation introduces Pagemaker for the Macintosh, a program that lets users mix type and graphics on the same page. The combination of this software and the new Apple LaserWriter laser printer helps create the desktop publishing field. |
| 1985 | The Mach Project begins at the Carnegie Mellon University. |
| 1985 | IBM develops NetBEUI. |
| 1985 | Microsoft Windows 1.0 is introduced in November, 1985 and is initially sold for $100.00. |
| 1985 | ATI is founded. |
| 1985 | Steve Jobs quits Apple September 16, 1985. |
| 1985 | Boca is established. |
| 1985 | IBM introduces the Baby AT motherboard form factor. |
| 1985 | Corel is founded. |
| 1985 | The first C++ reference guide is published by Bjarne Stoustrup October 14, 1985. |
| 1985 | The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is released in North America October 18, 1985. |
| 1985 | Microsoft releases the first version of Microsoft Excel on the Apple Macintosh November 30, 1985. |
| 1985 | Gravis is founded. |
| 1986 | The Hacker Manifesto is published in Phrack (Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10) on January 8, 1986. |
| 1986 | The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is formed January 16, 1986. |
| 1986 | The space shuttle Challenger explodes January 28, 1986 during take off, resulting in the death of the seven crew members. |
| 1986 | Beny Alagem buys the Packard Bell name from Teledyne and starts the Packard Bell computer company. |
| 1986 | The term vaporware is first used by Philip Elmer-DeWitt in a TIME magazine article. |
| 1986 | Gigabyte is founded. |
| 1986 | Pixar is co-founded by Steve Jobs. |
| 1986 | Apple introduces the Mac Plus. The computer contained one megabyte of RAM, new keyboard that contained cursors and numeric keypad and sold for $2,600. |
| 1986 | The AT or 101 key keyboard is introduced by IBM. |
| 1986 | Compaq introduces the first 386-based PC compatible computer. |
| 1986 | The NCSA opens. |
| 1986 | Microsoft is listed on the New York Stock Exchange selling shares to the public at $21 each, making Bill Gates one of the worlds youngest billionaires. |
| 1986 | More than 30 million computers are in use in the United States. |
| 1986 | The domain ibm.com comes online March 19, 1986. |
| 1986 | MS-DOS 3.2 was released April, 1986. |
| 1986 | IBM becomes the first company to use a one megabit chip in the IBM Model 3090. |
| 1986 | IMAP is developed by Stanford University. |
| 1986 | Eric Thomas develops the first Listserv. |
| 1986 | NSFNET is created. |
| 1986 | BITNET II is created. |
| 1986 | IBM PC Division (PCD) announces it's first laptop computer, the PC Convertible, weighing 12 pounds, which is 18 pounds lighter than the earlier portable computer. |
| 1986 | CD-i format is specified. |
| 1986 | Tandy announces the Color Computer 3 July 30, 1986. |
| 1986 | Aztech is established. |
| 1986 | Avid is established. |
| 1987 | Steve Wozniak ends his employment with Apple on February 6, 1987. |
| 1987 | The domain apple.com comes online February 19, 1987. |
| 1987 | Oak Technology is founded. |
| 1987 | CompuServe introduces the GIF standard and images. |
| 1987 | Robert Noyce is awarded the National Medal of Technology. |
| 1987 | Microsoft purchases Forethought Incorporated. The company that developed the presentation software PowerPoint. |
| 1987 | Microsoft introduces Microsoft Works. |
| 1987 | Dolby AC-1 is introduced. |
| 1987 | VIA Technologies is founded. |
| 1987 | Microsoft and IBM release OS/2 1.0. |
| 1987 | The Mac SE is introduced at $2,900. |
| 1987 | Chipsets begin to be found on computer motherboards. |
| 1987 | IBM introduces the PS/2 personal computer that has improved graphics, a 3.5-inch diskette drive, and proprietary bus to help prevent clone makers competition, and a bidirectional 8-bit port. |
| 1987 | IBM sends clone manufacturers letters demanding retroactive licensing fees. |
| 1987 | IBM develops 8514/A. |
| 1987 | MS-DOS 3.3 was released April, 1987. |
| 1987 | The domain cisco.com comes online May 14, 1987. |
| 1987 | IBM introduces MCA. |
| 1987 | The first ARM processor computer, the Acorn Archimedes is released. |
| 1987 | Microsoft Shares hits $100 per share. |
| 1987 | Apogee is founded, Apogee is well known for its computer games as well as the company who first released a 'Shareware' game. |
| 1987 | The SPARC processor is first introduced by Sun. |
| 1987 | The first e-mail from China is sent to its connection in Germany September 20, 1987. |
| 1987 | IBM introduces VGA. |
| 1987 | RealTek is founded October 1987. |
| 1987 | Walter Brattain passes away October 13, 1987. |
| 1987 | Larry Wall introduces Perl 1.0. |
| 1987 | On November 22, 1987 a Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW-11 TV broadcast gets hacked by a person wearing a Max Headroom mask. |
| 1987 | Microsoft introduces Windows 2.0 in December 9, 1987. |
| 1987 | Larry Wall releases the first version of Perl on December 18, 1987, version 1.0. |
| 1987 | Elitegroup Computer Systems is established. |
| 1988 | Edmund Berkeley passes away March 7, 1988. |
| 1988 | Apple files a copyright infringement against Microsoft for Windows 2.03 and Hewlett Packard for New Wave in comparison with their Macintosh operating system. |
| 1988 | About 45 million PCs are in use in the United States. |
| 1988 | SNMP is introduced. |
| 1988 | Robert Morris releases the Morris worm November 22, 1988, becoming one of the first major worms to infect roughly 6,000 computers over the Internet and helps establish the CERT Coordination Center. |
| 1988 | First T-1 backbone is added to ARPANET. |
| 1988 | Xircom is founded. |
| 1988 | Bitnet and CSNET merge to create CREN. |
| 1988 | Trend Micro is founded. |
| 1988 | Creative Labs introduces the SoundBlaster, a sound card for the PC that contains an 11-voice FM synthesizer with text-to-speech, digitized voice input/output, a MIDI port, a joystick port and bundled software. |
| 1988 | Jarkko Oikarinen develops IRC |
| 1988 | EISA is announced in September as an alternative to MCA. |
| 1988 | Motorola releases the 88000 processor. |
| 1988 | NTP is introduced. |
| 1988 | Intel 80386SX is introduced. |
| 1988 | Promise is founded. |
| 1988 | OSF is founded. |
| 1988 | Morphing is first introduced in the movie Willow. |
| 1988 | MS-DOS 4.0 was released July, 1988. |
| 1988 | MS-DOS 4.01 was released November, 1988. |
| 1988 | Andrei Ershov passes away December 8, 1988. |
| 1989 | GriD Systems Corporation introduces the first pen-based computer. |
| 1989 | PCMCIA trade association is founded. |
| 1989 | ActionFront is founded. |
| 1989 | The Gif89a standard is introduced. |
| 1989 | ABIT is founded. |
| 1989 | SQL Server is introduced. |
| 1989 | Antoni Kilinski passes away May 6, 1989. |
| 1989 | Fred Cohen is awarded the Information Technology Award. |
| 1989 | Intel releases the 486DX processor, with more than 1 million transistors and multitasking capabilities. |
| 1989 | Orange book is released by Philips and Sony. |
| 1989 | William Shockley passes away August 12, 1989. |
| 1989 | Poqet announces the Poqet PC the first pocket-sized MS-DOS compatible computer. |
| 1989 | Asus is founded. |
| 1989 | AC-2 is introduced. |
| 1989 | The networking routing protocol OSPF is introduced. |
| 1989 | Citrix is founded. |
| 1989 | S3 Inc. is founded. |
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