#56 Daily dose : Rise of COMPUTERS

The development and advancement of digital technologies started with one fundamental idea: The Microprocessors

The first personal computers, introduced in 1975, came as kits: The MITS Altair 8800, followed by the IMSAI 8080, an Altair clone. (Yes, cloning has been around that long!) Both used the Intel 8080 CPU. That was also the year Zilog created the Z-80 processor and MOS Technology produced the 6502. Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a BASIC compiler for the Altair and formed Micro-soft.

• 1980s – The computer became a familiar machine and by the end of the decade, being able to use one became a necessity for many jobs. The first cellphone was also introduced during this decade.
• By 1992, the World Wide Web had been introduced, and by 1996 the Internet became a normal part of most business operations. By the late 1990s, the Internet became a part of everyday life for almost half of the American population.
• 2000s – By this decade, the Digital Revolution had begun to spread all over the developing world; mobile phones were commonly seen, the number of Internet users continued to grow, and the television started to transition from using analog to digital signals.
• 2010 and beyond – By this decade, Internet makes up more than 25 percent of the world’s population. Mobile communication has also become very important, as nearly 70 percent of the world’s population owns a mobile phone. The connection between Internet websites and mobile gadgets has become a standard in communication. It is predicted that by 2015, the innovation of tablet computers will far surpass personal computers with the use of the Internet and the promise of cloud computing services. This will allow users to consume media and use business applications on their mobile devices, applications that would would otherwise be too much for such devices to handle.

Here’s how the first spreadsheet used for commercial purpose looks,

VisiCalc (for “visible calculator”) was the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp.