102.01 Computer History
Hexadecimal
Base 16 numbering system which uses the numbers 0-9 and letters A-F to represent the decimal numbers 0-15.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)
Character code built for the letters, number and symbols on a keyboard.
XEROX Corporation Ltd.
Company originally headquartered in Stamford, CT that produces copiers and other printing devices; their researchers developed the graphical user interface, computer mouse and desktop computing.
Homebrew Computer Club
Computer hobbyist group that first formed to figure out what could be done with the Altair 8800.
Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC)
Computer language that was intended for simplicity of use.
Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
Division of the Xerox Corporation that developed items such as laser printing, Ethernet, the GUI and object-oriented programming.
CP/M
Early operating system (OS) created by Gary Kildall for Intel 8080 based microcomputers.
MITS
Electronics company founded in Albuquerque, NM that created the Altair 8800 computer kit.
IBM PC
First MS-DOS based personal computer.
Compaq
First company to manufacture a PC clone
Altair 8800
First personal computer; came as a computer kit developed at MITS. It would eventually run BASIC licensed from Microsoft.
Macintosh
First successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface and built-in applications, MacPaint and MacWrite. It provided WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing using Adobe printer drivers.
Microsoft
Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 and is to date the largest manufacturer of PC-compatible operating system and office software.
Linux
Free and open source operating system software.
Windows
Graphical user interface and operating system developed by Microsoft.
Apple II
Highly successful mass-produced microcomputer designed by Steve Wozniak and stylized and marketed by Steve Jobs.
World Wide Web (WWW) -
Invented by Tim Berners-Lee, it is a system of interlinked hypertext documents that can be accessed by the Internet; web browsers are needed to view web pages.
Ethernet
Local area network (LAN) technology developed at Xerox PARC to link computer workstations together.
Adobe Systems
Multimedia and creativity, software company founded by John Warnock and Charles Geschke. They licensed their PostScript language for use in laser printers so that what you saw on the monitor was the same as the output on your printer.
Disk Operating System (DOS)
Operating system designed for the IBM PC compatible market from 1981 to 1995; Windows 1.0 through 3.1 required this OS in order to run.
UNIX
Originally developed by Bell Labs, it is an operating system that allows multiple users and multitasking.
Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET)
Packet switching network that was first to implement TCP/IP.
International Business Machines (IBM)
Server manufacturer that got into the personal computer business in 1981.
Visicalc
The first computer spreadsheet program.
Alto
The first computer workstation with a built-in mouse for inputting data. It stored files in windows, had icons and menus, and could link to a local area network.
Netscape Navigator
The first, most dominant web browser.
Binary
The number system that computer language is built on. It only has 2 characters, 0 and 1, and is also known as a base 2 numbering system.
GNUs Not Unix (GNU)
Unix-like operating system but completely free.
