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Origins (1947–1969) In 1947 the transistor was invented,[9] leading the way to more advanced digital computers. In the 1950s and 1960s the military, governments and other organizations had computer systems. The public was first introduced to the concepts that would lead to the Internet when a message was sent over the ARPANET in 1969. Packet switched networks such as ARPANET, Mark I, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined together into a network of networks. The Whole Earth movement of the 1960s led to the inspiration and eventual creation of the World Wide Web.[10] The 1970s The 1970s saw the introduction of the home computer,[1] time-sharing computers,[2] the video game console, the first coin-op video games,[11][12] and the subsequent golden age of arcade video games. As digital technology proliferated, and the switch from analog to digital record keeping became the new standard in business, a relatively new job description was popularized, the data entry clerk. Culled from the ranks of secretaries and typists from earlier decades, the data entry clerk's job was to convert analog data (customer records, invoices, etc.) into digital data. The 1980s In developed nations, computers achieved semi-ubiquity during the 1980s as they made their way into schools, homes, business, and industry. Automated teller machines, industrial robots, CGI in film and television, electronic music, bulletin board systems, and video games all fueled what became the zeitgeist of the 1980s. Millions of people purchased home computers, making household names of early personal computer manufacturers such as Apple, Commodore, and Tandy. To this day the Commodore 64 is often cited as the best selling computer of all time, having sold 17 million units (by some accounts)[13] between 1982 and 1994. In 1984 the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting data on computer and Internet use in the United States; their first survey showed that 8.2% of all U.S. households owned a personal computer in 1984, and that households with children under the age of 18 were nearly twice as likely to own one at 15.3% (middle and upper middle class households were the most likely to own one, at 22.9%).[14] By 1989 15% of all U.S. households owned a computer, and nearly 30% of households with children under the age of 18 owned one.[15] By the late 1980s, many businesses were dependent on computers and digital technology. Motorola created the first mobile phone, Motorola DynaTac in 1983. However, this device used analog communication - digital cell phones were not sold commercially until 1991 when the 2G network started to be opened in Finland to accommodate the unexpected demand for cell phones that was becoming apparent in the late 1980s. The first true digital camera was created in 1988, and the first were marketed in December 1989 in Japan and in 1990 in the United States.[16] By the mid-2000s, they would eclipse traditional film in popularity. Digital ink was also invented in the late 1980s. Disney's CAPS system (created 1988) was used for a scene in 1989's The Little Mermaid and for all their animation films between 1990's The Rescuers Down Under and 2004's Home On The Range. The 1990s Tim Berners-Lee designed the World Wide Web, first brainstorming the general concept in March 1989 and writing the code and server in the last months of 1990. The first public digital HDTV broadcast was of the 1990 World Cup that June; it was played in 10 theaters in Spain and Italy. However HDTV did not become a standard until the mid-2000s outside of Japan. The World Wide Web became publicly accessible in 1991, previously available only to government and universities.[17] In 1993 Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina introduced Mosaic, the first web browser capable of displaying inline images[18] and the basis for later browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. The Internet expanded quickly, and by 1996, it was part of mainstream consciousness and many businesses listed websites in their ads. By 1999 almost every country had a connection, and nearly half of Americans and people in several other countries used the Internet on a regular basis. However throughout the 1990s, most connections were slow dial-up and the present day mass Internet culture was not possible. In 1989 about 15% of all households in the United States owned a personal computer, by 2000, this was up to 51%;[19] for households with children nearly 30% owned a computer in 1989, and in 2000 more than 75% owned one. The 2000s Cell phones became as ubiquitous as computers by the early 2000s, with movie theaters beginning to show ads telling people to silence their phones. They also became much more advanced than phones of the 1990s, most of which only took calls or at most allowed for the playing of simple games. Text messaging existed in the 1990s but was not widely used until the early 2000s, when it became a cultural phenomenon. The digital revolution became truly global in this time as well - after revolutionizing society in the developed world in the 1990s, the digital revolution spread to the masses in the developing world in the 2000s. In late 2005 the population of the Internet reached 1 billion,[20] and 3 billion people worldwide used cell phones by the end of the decade. HDTV became the standard television broadcasting format in many countries by the end of the decade. The 2010s The widespread use and interconnectedness of mobile networked devices and mobile telephony, internet websites and resources, and social networking have become a de facto standard in digital communication.[citation needed] By 2012, over 2 billion people used the Internet, twice the number using it in 2007. Cloud computing had entered the mainstream by the early 2010s. By 2015, tablet computers and smartphones are expected to exceed personal computers in Internet usage.[21] |
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