Lesson 1: The Big Picture or Why the World    Wide Web Waited until the 1990s

STEP TWO
The Personal Computer introduced in mid 1970s,
becoming ubiquitous in late 1980s.

The computer scene remained stable up through the 1960s until the computer chip, integrated circuit, and liquid crystal began to redirect the computer industry. Hand held calculators and digital wrist watches debuted in the early 1970s.

By 1975 microcomputers were being marketed to hobbyists by the likes of Apple, Commodore, Texas Instruments, and Radio Shack. Early microcomputers were as much for play as for work, with Atari selling both video games and computers. In 1980, IBM entered the microcomputer market. The competition trembled. IBM determined to market their computers with "open architecture" meaning anybody could manufacture an IBM clone and anybody could write software that would run on an IBM computer. IBM contracted a young 24-year-old to write an operating system for the new IBM computer. Bill Gates - "The King of Software" - began his fortune writing Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS DOS), Version 1, for the first IBM personal computer. The influence of microcomputers continued to grow.

Time magazine departed from tradition and instead of naming a "man of the year" declared 1982 "The year of the computer". There was also a winnowing of microcomputer platforms and by the mid-1980s, only two types of computers remained viable: the IBM (and IBM clones) and the Apple. Today 98% of PC software is marketed for the IBM and Mac platform. The World Wide Web is popular today because users can avail the Web from their homes. Personal Computing makes this possible.

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