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OPERA MINI

Opera Software was founded as an independent company on August 30, 1995 by Jon Stephenson Von Tetchier and Geir Ivarsoy. The company was created to continue what was originally a research project at Telenor, the largest Norwegian telecommunications company.

Opera Software's first product, the Opera web browser version 2.1 for Windows, was released in 1997. Opera Software had an IPO in February 2004, and was listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange March 11, 2004.

In an attempt to capitalize on the emerging market for Internet-connected handheld devices, a project to port the Opera browser to more platforms was started in 1998. Opera 4.0, released in 2000, included a new cross-platform core that facilitated creation of editions of Opera for multiple operating systems and platforms. Up to this point, the Opera browser was trialware and had to be purchased after the trial period ended. But version 5.0 (released in 2000) saw the end of the trial period requirement. Instead, Opera became ad-sponsored, displaying advertisements to users without a license. Users could still buy licenses for several years, however. Later versions of Opera gave the user the choice of seeing banner ads or targeted text advertisements from Google.

On January 12, 2005, Opera Software announced that it would offer free licenses to higher education institutions — a change from the previous cost of $1,000 USD for unlimited licenses. Schools that opted for the free license included Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, University of Oxford, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Duke University. Opera was commonly criticized for having been ad-sponsored, since this was seen as a barrier to gaining market share. In the newer versions the user was allowed a choice of generic graphical banners, or text-based targeted advertisements provided by Google based upon the page being viewed. Users could pay a license fee to remove the advertisement bar.

With version 8.5 (released in 2005) the advertisements were removed entirely and primary financial support came through revenue from Google (which is by contract Opera's default search engine).

The introduction in August 2005 of "Opera Mini", a Java ME based web browser for mobile phones marketed not to end users but to mobile network operators, possibly marks a new direction towards directly revenue-generating business, making the company less dependent on give-away and advertising-based Internet software. On September 20, 2005, Opera announced that it would remove the advertising from its browser and remain free of charge. Although Opera was free to download and use before this change, it had previously displayed an advertising banner unless the user purchased a license. The move was made in the hope that it would prompt more users to switch to the Opera browser. However, Opera does continue to charge for its "Opera Mobile" product which runs on many Mobile devices.

Legal issues

On May 18, 2004, Opera Software settled a lawsuit. Their statement on the Oslo Stock Exchange read:

Opera Software ASA has settled legal claims with an international corporation resulting in payment to Opera of net USD 12.75 million. The other party is not a customer of Opera and the settlement does not negatively impact future revenues. The entire amount will be booked in Q2.

Details are confidential pursuant to the settlement agreement.

It is widely theorized that the 'international corporation' named above is Microsoft, who had previously blocked Opera users from correctly viewing MSN.com (see History of the Opera web browser First MSN.com controversy and History of the Opera web browser Second MSN.com controversy).

In 2007 Opera filed a complaint against Microsoft in the European Commission, alleging that bundling Internet Explorer with Microsoft Windows is harmful to both the consumer and to other web browser companies.

AMD

1969
AMD incorporates with $100,000; establishes headquarters in Sunnyvale, California

1970
AMD introduces its first proprietary device: the Am2501 logic counter

1972
AMD goes public

1979
Production begins in new AMD Austin manufacturing facility

1979
AMD debuts on the New York Stock Exchange

1982
At IBM's request, AMD signs an agreement to serve as a second source to Intel for IBM

PC microprocessors

1984
AMD is listed in "The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America

1985
AMD is listed in Fortune 500 for the first time ATI incorporates
ATI develops its first graphics controller and first graphics board product

1986
ATI secures major contract with Commodore Business Machines to supply 7000 chips per week

1987
AMD acquires Monolithic Memories, Inc. and enters programmable logic business
ATI debuts EGA Wonder™ and VGA Wonder

1988
Work begins on AMD Submicron Development Center

1989
ATI assists in establishment of VESA standard for graphics industry

1991
AMD's Am386® microprocessor family debuts

ATI introduces Mach8™ chip and board products: first ATI products to process graphics independently of the CPU

1992

ATI introduces Mach32™: first ATI integrated graphics controller and accelerator in one chip
ATI releases VESA Local Bus (VLB) products, followed by peripheral component interconnect (PCI_) products
ATI establishes ATI GmbH in Munich, Germany

1993
AMD Am486® microprocessor family debuts
AMD establishes joint venture with Fujitsu to produce Flash memory products
ATI goes public; stocks are listed on NASDAQ and Toronto Stock Exchange

1994
AMD and Compaq Computer Corp. form long-term alliance to power Compaq computers with Am486 microprocessors
ATI introduces Mach64™: first ATI graphics boards to accelerate motion video

1995
AMD introduces AMD-K5® microprocessor: first independently-designed, socket-compatible x86 microprocessor
ATI is first graphics company to ship Mac-compatible graphics boards

1996
AMD acquires NexGen, a microprocessor company
ATI releases industry's first 3D graphics chip, first combination graphics and TV tuner card, and first chip to display computer graphics on a television
ATI enters the notebook market with the industry's first notebook 3D graphics accelerator
ATI establishes ATI Ireland

1997
AMD introduces the AMD-K6® microprocessor: helps drive PC prices below $1,000 for the first time, making PCs affordable to average consumers
ATI is first graphics company to provide hardware support for DVD acceleration and display
ATI is first graphics company to release products supporting Accelerated Graphics Port, the new industry standard

1998
ATI is first company to introduce a complete set-top box design
ATI ships its ten millionth AGP chip

1999
AMD Athlon™ processor becomes first seventh-generation processor for Microsoft® Windows® computing
Vantis, AMD's programmable logic business, sold to Lattice Semiconductor

2000
AMD is first to break the historic 1GHz (one billion clock cycles per second) with the AMD Athlon™ processor
AMD introduces AMD PowerNow!™ technology with Mobile AMD-K6®-2+ processors
ATI Radeon™ graphics technology debuts: leading product for high-end gaming and 3D workstations
ATI acquires ArtX, Inc., a graphics chipset company

2001
AMD Athlon™ MP processor debuts: the company's first multiprocessing platform
AMD HyperTransport™ technology is adopted by Agilent, Apple Computer, Broadcom, Cisco Systems, IBM, nVidia, Sun, and Texas Instruments

2002
AMD acquires Alchemy Semiconductor for low-power, embedded processor technology
AMD Cool'n'Quiet™ technology debuts with Athlon™ XP family: helps lower power consumption, enables quieter-running system, and delivers performance on-demand to maximize users' computing experience
ATI launches ATI Radeon™ 9700 Pro: world's first DirectX 9 graphics processor

2003
AMD and IBM sign joint manufacturing technology development agreement to develop future generation manufacturing technologies
AMD Opteron™ processor and AMD Athlon™ 64 processor debut
With Fujitsu, AMD forms FASL, LLC, and a new company: Spansion™
AMD forms strategic alliance with Sun Microsystems and acquires National Semiconductor's x86 business
ATI introduces ATI Radeon™ 9600 XT: world's first high volume 0.13um low-k chips

2004
AMD demonstrates world's first x86 dual-core processor
AMD announces the 50x15 Initiative with the goal of accelerating affordable Internet access and basic computing to 50 percent of the world's population by 2015
Advanced Micro Devices (China) Co., Ltd. is established, headquartered in Beijing
ATI is listed in the NASDAQ 100
ATI introduces first 110nm GPUs (ATI Radeon™ X800 XL)

2005
AMD introduces AMD Turion™ 64 mobile technology for notebook PCs and AMD Athlon™ 64 X 2 dual-core processor for desktop
AMD introduces the world's highest performing processors for 1-8P x86 servers and workstations
AMD files landmark antitrust litigation against Intel for illegally abusing its monopoly to exclude and limit competition
Spansion™ goes public
AMD announces grand opening of Fab 36 in Dresden, Germany
ATI GPU is featured in Microsoft Xbox 360, revolutionizing high-definition gaming

2006
AMD acquires ATI to create a new, innovative processing powerhouse CrossFire™ multi-GPU gaming platform debuts
AMD LIVE!™ media center PCs debut
Dell Inc. announces it will offer AMD processor-based systems
AMD begins revenue shipments of processors from Fab 36
AMD's Shanghai Research and Development Center (SRDC) launches to focus on the development of AMD's next-generation mobile platforms
AMD demonstrates the industry's first native quad-core x86 server processor
AMD is a founding member of The Green Grid, an open, global organization designed to decrease IT facility energy usage patterns

2007
AMD demonstrates Accelerated Computing platform that breaks teraflop performance barrier
AMD introduces ATI Radeon™ HD 2000 series graphics processors to deliver The Ultimate Visual Experience™ graphics for desktop and mobile platforms

INTERNET

Prior to the widespread internetworking that led to the internet, most communication networks were limited by their nature to only allow communications between the stations on the network, and the prevalent computer networking method was based on the central mainframe computer model. Several research programs began to explore unicorn homes and articulate principles of networking between separate physical networks. This led to the development of the packet switching model of digital networking. These research efforts included those of the laboratories of Donald Davies (NPL), Paul Baran (RAND Corporation), and Leonard Kleinrock’s MIT and UCLA.

1957

The USSR launches Sputnik, the first artificial earth satellite. In response,the United States forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within theDepartment of Defense (DoD) to establish US lead in science and technology applicable to the military.

1962

RAND Paul Baran, of the RAND Corporation (a government agency), was commissioned by the U.S. Air Force to do a study on how it could maintain its command and control over its missiles and bombers, after a nuclear attack. This was to be a military research network that could survive a nuclear strike, decentralized so that if any locations (cities) in the U.S. were attacked, the military could still have control of nuclear arms for a counter-attack.

Baran's finished document described several ways to accomplish this. His final proposal was a packet switched network.

"Packet switching is the breaking down of data into datagrams or packets that are labeled to indicate the origin and the destination of the information and the forwarding of these packets from one computer to another computer until the information arrives at its final destination computer. This was crucial to the realization of a computer network. If packets are lost at any given point, the message can be resent by the originator."

ARPA awarded the ARPANET contract to BBN. BBN had selected a Honeywell minicomputer as the base on which they would build the switch. The physical network was constructed in 1969, linking four nodes: University of California at Los Angeles, SRI (in Stanford), University of California at Santa Barbara, and University of Utah. The network was wired together via 50 Kbps circuits.

1960-1970

The research led to the development of several packet-switched networking solutions in the late 1960s and 1970s, including ARPANET and the X25 protocols. Additionally, public access and hobbyist networking systems grew in popularity, including unix to unix copy (UUCP) and Fido Net. They were however still disjointed separate networks, served only by limited gateways between networks. This led to the application of packet switching to develop a protocol for inter-networking, where multiple different networks could be joined together into a super-framework of networks. By defining a simple common network system, the Internet protocol suite, the concept of the network could be separated from its physical implementation. This spread of inter-network began to form into the idea of a global inter-network that would be called “The Internet” , and this began to quickly spread as existing networks were converted to become compatible with this. This spread quickly across the advanced telecommunication networks of the western world, and then began to penetrate into the rest of the world as it became the de-facto international standard and global network. However, the disparity of growth led to a digital divide that is still a concern today.

ARPA awarded the ARPANET contract to BBN. BBN had selected a Honeywell minicomputer as the base on which they would build the switch. The physical network was constructed in 1969, linking four nodes: University of California at Los Angeles, SRI (in Stanford), University of California at Santa Barbara, and University of Utah. The network was wired together via 50 Kbps circuits

The first e-mail program was created by Ray Tomlinson of BBN.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was renamed The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (or DARPA)
ARPANET was currently using the Network Control Protocol or NCP to transfer data. This allowed communications between hosts running on the same network.

Development began on the protocol later to be called TCP/IP, it was developed by a group headed by Vinton Cerf from Stanford and Bob Kahn from DARPA. This new protocol was to allow diverse computer networks to interconnect and communicate with each other.

1980-1990

Following commercialisation and introduction of privately run Internet Service Providers in the 1980s, and its expansion into popular use in the 1990s, the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce. This includes the rise of near instant communication by e-mail, text based discussion forums, and the World Wide Web. Investor speculation in new markets provided by these innovations would also lead to the inflation and collapse of the Dot-Com Buble, a major market collapse. But despite this, the Internet continues to grow.

INTEL PENTIUM PROCESSORS

Intel was one of the pioneering Microprocessor manufacturers when it created the 4004 processor in 1971. This was followed by the 8080 processor in the late 70's, which was developed into the 8086 and 8088 processors in 1979. It was only when, in 1981 IBM selected the 8086 processor for its new Personal Computer, the IBM PC, did the Intel processor design gain its opportunity to be used widely.

The Intel 8086/8088 range of processors were based upon Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) which allows the number of bytes per instruction to vary according to the instruction being processed. This is unlike Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) which has fixed length instructions (typically set at 32 bits each). The architechture pioneered by Intel has become known as "x86" due to the early naming system where processors were called 8086, 80186 (not used in PC's), 80286, 80386, and 80486.

In 1982 Intel introduced the 80286 (or 286) processor. This featured significant enhancements over the 8086/8088 line, mainly by introducing protected mode and the ability to address up to 16 megabytes of memory. The 286 processor was used in the IBM XT range.

1985 saw the introduction of the 80386 (or 386), which was the first processor to use 32 bit addressing, allowing it to utilise up to 4 Gigabytes of memory. A cut down version of the 386 known as the 386SX was introduced which had a lower memory throughput, as it could only access 16 megabytes of memory. The 386 processor was manufactured in many different versions and ran at speeds from 16 Mhz through to 40 Mhz.

The 80486 processor family was introduced in 1989. It featured little enhancements over than the 386 other than the fact that it had more transistors and could run at higher clock speeds. Like its predecessor the 386, the 486 was offered in budget (486 SX, minus the math co-processor) and standard (486 DX) versions. The 486 initially ran at clock speeds of 25 MHz (SX only) and 33 MHz. As it was developed the 486 was enhanced with a clock doubled processor core (486 DX-2) allowing it to run at speeds of 50, 66 and 75 MHz, and then tripled (DX-4) which ran up to 100 MHz.

1993 saw the introduction of the Pentium processor, first at speeds of 60 and 66 MHz. This was the first Intel processor not to use the x86 naming system. This processor was enhanced with MMX instructions in January 1997 and ran up to speeds of 233 Mhz.

Intel's 6th generation processor was introduced as the Pentium Pro in 1995. This ran at speeds of 166, 180 and 200 MHz. What was significant was the integration of the processors 2nd level cache memory onto the processor module itself. This processor was enhanced with MMX instructions in 1997 with its development into the Pentium II. This marked a departure for Intel as it moved away from the old socket method of mounting processors with the introduction of Slot 1. The Pentium II runs at speeds from 233 to 450 MHz. 1998 saw the development of this familiy into the Celeron and Xeon families for the budget and server/workstation markets respectively.

COMPUTER

Before 1900
People have been using mechanical devices to aid calculation for thousands of years. For example, the abacus probably existed in Babylonia (present-day Iraq) about 3000 B.C.E. The ancient Greeks developed some very sophisticated analog computers. In 1901, an ancient Greek shipwreck was discovered off the island of Antikythera. Inside was a salt-encrusted device (now called the Antikythera mechanism) that consisted of rusted metal gears and pointers. When this c. 80 B.C.E. device was reconstructed, it produced a mechanism for predicting the motions of the stars and planets. (More Antikythera info here.)
John Napier (1550-1617), the Scottish inventor of logarithms, invented Napier's rods (sometimes called "Napier's bones") c. 1610 to simplify the task of multiplication.
In 1641 the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) built a mechanical adding machine. Similar work was done by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716). Leibniz also advocated use of the binary system for doing calculations.
Recently it was discovered that Wilhelm Schickard (1592-1635), a graduate of the University of Tübingen (Germany), constructed such a device in 1623-4, before both Pascal and Leibniz. A brief description of the device is contained in two letters to Johannes Kepler. Unfortunately, at least one copy of the machine burned up in a fire, and Schickard himself died of bubonic plague in 1635, during the Thirty Years' War.
Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752-1834) invented a loom that could weave complicated patterns described by holes in punched cards. Charles Babbage (1791-1871) worked on two mechanical devices: the Difference Engine and the far more ambitious Analytical Engine (a precursor of the modern digital computer), but neither worked satisfactorily. (Babbage was a bit of an eccentric -- one biographer calls him an "irascible genius" -- and was probably the model for Daniel Doyce in Charles Dickens' novel, Little Dorrit. A little-known fact about Babbage is that he invented the science of dendrochronology -- tree-ring dating -- but never pursued his invention. In his later years, Babbage devoted much of his time to the persecution of street musicians (organ-grinders).) The Difference Engine can be viewed nowadays in the Science Museum in London, England.
One of Babbage's friends, Ada Augusta Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), sometimes is called the "first programmer" because of a report she wrote on Babbage's machine. (The programming language Ada was named for her.)
William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882), a British economist and logician, built a machine in 1869 to solve logic problems. It was "the first such machine with sufficient power to solve a complicated problem faster than the problem could be solved without the machine's aid." (Gardner) It is now in the Oxford Museum of the History of Science.
Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) invented the modern punched card for use in a machine he designed to help tabulate the 1890 census.

1900 - 1939: The Rise of Mathematics
Work on calculating machines continued. Some special-purpose calculating machines were built. For example, in 1919, E. O. Carissan (1880-1925), a lieutenant in the French infantry, designed and had built a marvelous mechanical device for factoring integers and testing them for primality. The Spaniard Leonardo Torres y Quevedo (1852-1936) built some electromechanical calculating devices, including one that played simple chess endgames.
In 1928, the German mathematician David Hilbert (1862-1943) addressed the International Congress of Mathematicians. He posed three questions: (1) Is mathematics complete; i.e. can every mathematical statement be either proved or disproved? (2) Is mathematics consistent, that is, is it true that statements such as "0 = 1" cannot be proved by valid methods? (3) Is mathematics decidable, that is, is there a mechanical method that can be applied to any mathematical assertion and (at least in principle) will eventually tell whether that assertion is true or not? This last question was called the Entscheidungsproblem.
In 1931, Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) answered two of Hilbert's questions. He showed that every sufficiently powerful formal system is either inconsistent or incomplete. Also, if an axiom system is consistent, this consistency cannot be proved within itself. The third question remained open, with 'provable' substituted for 'true'.
In 1936, Alan Turing (1912-1954) provided a solution to Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem by constructing a formal model of a computer -- the Turing machine -- and showing that there were problems such a machine could not solve. One such problem is the so-called "halting problem": given a Pascal program, does it halt on all inputs?

1940's: Wartime brings the birth of the electronic digital computer
The calculations required for ballistics during World War II spurred the development of the general-purpose electronic digital computer. At Harvard, Howard H. Aiken (1900-1973) built the Mark I electromechanical computer in 1944, with the assistance of IBM.
Military code-breaking also led to computational projects. Alan Turing was involved in the breaking of the code behind the German machine, the Enigma, at Bletchley Park in England. The British built a computing device, the Colossus, to assist with code-breaking.
At Iowa State University in 1939, John Vincent Atanasoff (1904-1995) and Clifford Berry designed and built an electronic computer for solving systems of linear equations, but it never worked properly.
Atanasoff discussed his invention with John William Mauchly (1907-1980), who later, with J. Presper Eckert, Jr. (1919-1995), designed and built the ENIAC, a general-purpose electronic computer originally intended for artillery calculations. Exactly what ideas Mauchly got from Atanasoff is not complely clear, and whether Atanasoff or Mauchly and Eckert deserve credit as the originators of the electronic digital computer was the subject of legal battles and ongoing historical debate. The ENIAC was built at the Moore School at the University of Pennsylvania, and was finished in 1946.
In 1944, Mauchly, Eckert, and John von Neumann (1903-1957) were already at work designing a stored-program electronic computer, the EDVAC. Von Neumann's report, "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC", was very influential and contains many of the ideas still used in most modern digital computers, including a mergesort routine. Eckert and Mauchly went on to build UNIVAC.
Meanwhile, in Germany, Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) built the first operational, general-purpose, program-controlled calculator, the Z3, in 1941. More information about Zuse can be found here.
In 1945, Vannevar Bush published a surprisingly prescient article in the Atlantic Monthly about the ways information processing would affect the society of the future. (Another copy of the Bush article appears here.)
Maurice Wilkes (b. 1913), working in Cambridge, England, built the EDSAC, a computer based on the EDVAC. F. C. Williams (b. 1911) and others at Manchester University built the Manchester Mark I, one version of which was working as early as June 1948. This machine is sometimes called the first stored-program digital computer.
The invention of the transistor in 1947 by John Bardeen (1908-1991), Walter Brattain (1902-1987), and William Shockley (1910-1989) transformed the computer and made possible the microprocessor revolution. For this discovery they won the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics. (Shockley later became notorious for his racist views.)
Jay Forrester (b. 1918) invented magnetic core memory c. 1949. More about Forrester here.

1950's
Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) invented the notion of a compiler, at Remington Rand, in 1951. Earlier, in 1947, Hopper found the first computer "bug" -- a real one -- a moth that had gotten into the Harvard Mark II. (Actually, the use of ``bug'' to mean defect goes back to at least 1889.)
John Backus and others developed the first FORTRAN compiler in April 1957. LISP, a list-processing language for artificial intelligence programming, was invented by John McCarthy about 1958. Alan Perlis, John Backus, Peter Naur and others developed Algol.
In hardware, Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) and Robert Noyce (Fairchild Semiconductor) invented the integrated circuit in 1959.
Edsger Dijkstra invented an efficient algorithm for shortest paths in graphs as a demonstration of the ARMAC computer in 1956. He also invented an efficient algorithm for the minimum spanning tree in order to minimize the wiring needed for the X1 computer. (Dijkstra is famous for his caustic, opinionated memos. For example, see his opinions of some programming languages).
In a famous paper that appeared in the journal Mind in 1950, Alan Turing introduced the Turing Test, one of the first efforts in the field of artificial intelligence. He proposed a definition of "thinking" or "consciousness" using a game: a tester would have to decide, on the basis of written conversation, whether the entity in the next room responding to the tester's queries was a human or a computer. If this distinction could not be made, then it could be fairly said that the computer was "thinking".
In 1952, Alan Turing was arrested for "gross indecency" after a burglary led to the discovery of his affair with Arnold Murray. Overt homosexuality was taboo in 1950's England, and Turing was forced to take estrogen "treatments" which rendered him impotent and caused him to grow breasts. On June 7, 1954, despondent over his situation, Turing committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide.

1960's
In the 1960's, computer science came into its own as a discipline. In fact, the term was coined by George Forsythe, a numerical analyst. The first computer science department was formed at Purdue University in 1962. The first person to receive a Ph. D. from a computer science department was Richard Wexelblat, at the University of Pennsylvania, in December 1965.
Operating systems saw major advances. Fred Brooks at IBM designed System/360, a line of different computers with the same architecture and instruction set, from small machine to top-of-the-line. Edsger Dijkstra at Eindhoven designed the THE multiprogramming system.
At the end of the decade, ARPAnet, a precursor to today's Internet, began to be constructed.
Many new programming languages were invented, such as BASIC (developed c. 1964 by John Kemeny (1926-1992) and Thomas Kurtz (b. 1928)).
The 1960's also saw the rise of automata theory and the theory of formal languages. Big names here include Noam Chomsky and Michael Rabin. Chomsky later became well-known for his theory that language is "hard-wired" in human brains, and for his criticism of American foreign policy.
Proving correctness of programs using formal methods also began to be more important in this decade. The work of Tony Hoare played an important role. Hoare also invented Quicksort.
Douglas C. Englebart invents the computer mouse c. 1968, at SRI.
Ted Hoff (b. 1937) and Federico Faggin at Intel designed the first microprocessor (computer on a chip) in 1969-1971.
A rigorous mathematical basis for the analysis of algorithms began with the work of Donald Knuth (b. 1938), author of 3-volume treatise entitled The Art of Computer Programming.

1970's
The theory of databases saw major advances with the work of Edgar F. Codd on relational databases. Codd won the Turing award in 1981.
Unix, a very influential operating system, was developed at Bell Laboratories by Ken Thompson (b. 1943) and Dennis Ritchie (b. 1941). Brian Kernighan and Ritchie together developed C, an influential programming language.
Other new programming languages, such as Pascal (invented by Niklaus Wirth) and Ada (developed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah), arose.
The first RISC architecture was begun by John Cocke in 1975, at the Thomas J. Watson Laboratories of IBM. Similar projects started at Berkeley and Stanford around this time.
The 1970's also saw the rise of the supercomputer. Seymour Cray (b. 1925) designed the CRAY-1, which was first shipped in March 1976. It could perform 160 million operations in a second. The Cray XMP came out in 1982. Cray Research was taken over by Silicon Graphics.
There were also major advances in algorithms and computational complexity. In 1971, Steve Cook published his seminal paper on NP-completeness, and shortly thereafter, Richard Karp showed that many natural combinatorial problems were NP-complete. Whit Diffie and Martin Hellman published a paper that introduced the theory of public-key cryptography, and a public-key cryptosystem known as RSA was invented by Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman.
In 1979, three graduate students in North Carolina developed a distributed news server which eventually became Usenet.

1980's
This decade also saw the rise of the personal computer, thanks to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, founders of Apple Computer.
The first computer viruses are developed c. 1981. The term was coined by Leonard Adleman, now at the University of Southern California.
In 1981, the first truly successful portable computer was marketed, the Osborne I. In 1984, Apple first marketed the Macintosh computer.
In 1987, the US National Science Foundation started NSFnet, precursor to part of today's Internet.

1990's and Beyond
Parallel computers continue to be developed.
Biological computing, with the recent work of Len Adleman on doing computations via DNA, has great promise. The Human Genome Project is attempting to sequence all the DNA in a single human being.
Quantum computing gets a boost with the discovery by Peter Shor that integer factorization can be performed efficiently on a (theoretical) quantum computer.
The "Information Superhighway" links more and more computers worldwide.
Computers get smaller and smaller; the birth of nano-technology.

MOZILLA FIREFOX

The Mozilla Firefox project was created by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project. Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004. Firefox 1.5 was released on November 29, 2005. Version 2.0 was released on October 24, 2006 and Firefox 3.0 was released on June 17, 2008.

Early beginnings: a pared-down browser
Hyatt and Ross' browser was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed, internally referred to, and continued by the community as SeaMonkey), which integrated features such as IRC, mail and news, and WYSIWYG HTML editing into one software suite.
Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface markup language. The use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of extensions and themes. The development and installation processes of these add-ons raised security concerns, and with the release of Firefox 0.9, the Mozilla Foundation opened a Mozilla Update website containing "approved" themes and extensions. The use of XUL sets Firefox apart from other browsers, including other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms (Galeon and Epiphany use GTK+; K-Meleon uses MFC; and Camino uses Cocoa). Many of these projects were started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration.
Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continued to maintain the suite until April 12, 2006 because it had many corporate users, as well as being bundled with other software. The Mozilla community (as opposed to the Foundation) continues to release new versions of the suite using the product name SeaMonkey to avoid any possible confusion with the original Mozilla Suite.
On February 5, 2004 the business and IT consulting company AMS categorized Mozilla Firefox (then Firebird) as a "Tier 1" (meaning "Best of Breed") open source product. This meant that AMS considered Firebird (as it was called at the time) to be virtually risk-free and technically strong.

NAMING
The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix.
The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003 when it was changed (after a short stint as Phoenix Browser) due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser called Phoenix FirstWare Connect). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as the Firebird database server already carried the name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation issued an official statement which stated that the browser should be referred to as Mozilla Firebird (as opposed to just Firebird). Continuing pressure from the Firebird community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004 the project was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short).
The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. This trademark process led to a delay of several months in the release of Firefox 0.8 when the foundation discovered that in the UK Firefox had already been registered as a trademark for software by The Charlton Company. The situation was resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark.
The repeated renaming of the program prompted the development of the tongue-in-cheek extension "Firesomething", which allowed users to randomize the name on startup, giving it such satirical soubriquets as "Firegiraffe" or "Moonbadger".

BRANDING AND VISUAL IDENTITY
One of the most visible enhancements is the new visual identity of Firefox and Thunderbird. It has often been argued that free software is typically designed only by programmers — rather than graphic designers or usability gurus — and that it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI design and lacks a strong visual identity. The early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not up to the same standard as many professionally released software packages.
In October 2003, professional interface designer, Steven Garrity, wrote an article covering everything he considered to be wrong with Mozilla's visual identity. The page received a great deal of attention (it was slashdotted). The majority of the criticisms levelled at the article were along the lines of "where's the patch?", an open source way of saying "if you don't like it, you can fix it yourself."
Shortly afterwards, Garrity was invited by the Mozilla Foundation to head up the new visual identity team. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of the new branding efforts, including new icons designed by silverorange, a group of web developers with a long-standing relationship with Mozilla, with final renderings by Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on Camino. The logo was revised and updated later, fixing some flaws found when the logo was enlarged.
The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is considered to be a common name for the Red Panda. The panda, according to Hicks, "didn't really conjure up the right imagery", besides not being widely known. The logo was chosen for the purpose of making an impression, while not shouting out with overdone artwork. The logo had to stand out in the user's mind, be easy for others to remember and stand out while not causing too much distraction when among other icons. It was expected to be the final logo for the product.
The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software, and builds of official distribution partners. Although the core software is open source, the artwork (along with the quality feedback agent and parts of the installer) is not freely licensed without official permission from the developers. For this reason, Debian and other software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox do not use the icon.

DELICIOUS DELICACIES
Early Firefox releases featured a preferences panel that described cookies by stating "Cookies are delicious delicacies".
The phrase was representative of the programmers' quirky sense of humor and a general reflection of the free software movement's unconventional approach. The phrase became something of a cult legend and was even featured in an O'Reilly computer book.
The original text was inserted by Blake Ross, one of the lead developers of Firefox, because, he says, "describing something so complicated in such a small space was quite frankly the last thing I wanted to worry about after rewriting the cookie manager".
However, in reflection of the growing acceptance and use of the Firefox browser in the Internet mainstream, the text was later changed. It was considered a bug and was "fixed" by Mike Connor to read "Cookies are pieces of information stored by web pages on your computer. They are used to remember login information and other data". The revision was regarded as more likely to be helpful for the less technically oriented computer users who were now using Firefox—representing Mozilla's desire to appeal to mainstream users.
After this happened, the following remarks were made by Blake Ross over IRC to Mike Connor:
congratulations mconnor
you just destroyed a legend!
The text became a popular in-joke and on August 2004, the Delicious Delicacies extension, which is no longer maintained and updated, was released by Jesse Ruderman. This extension restored the old description of cookies, available in several languages.
As of Firefox 2.0, cookies no longer have a description in the preferences window.

VERSION 1.5
On June 23, 2005, the Mozilla Foundation announced that Firefox 1.1 (which became Firefox 1.5) and other new Mozilla products will no longer support Mac OS X v10.1. This is intended to improve the quality of Firefox releases on Mac OS X v10.2 and above. Users of 10.1 could still use Firefox versions from the 1.0.x branch
Firefox 1.5 was released on November 30, 2005. The original plan was for a Firefox 1.1 and later a Firefox 1.5. After the first two 1.1 alpha builds, the Mozilla Foundation abandoned the 1.1 release plan and merged it with the planned feature set of 1.5 instead, with 1.5 being released later than was planned for 1.1. The new version resynchronised the code-base of the release builds (as opposed to nightly builds) with the core "trunk" which contained additional features not available in 1.0, as it branched from the trunk around the 0.9 release. As such, there was a backlog of bug fixes between 0.9 and the release of 1.0, which were made available in 1.5. Version 1.5 implemented a new Mac-like options interface, which was the subject of much criticism from Windows and Linux users, with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. In Firefox 1.5, a user can clear all privacy-related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. Moreover, the software update system was improved (with binary patches now possible). There were also improvements in the extension management system, with a number of new developer features.
Also, Firefox 1.5 had (partial) SVG 1.1 support, as shown in Mozilla's Bugzilla database. This unplanned movement may have been due to the release of Opera 8.0 on April 19, 2005, which supported SVG Tiny.
Alpha builds of Firefox 1.5 (1.1a1 and 1.1a2) did not contain Firefox branding. They were labeled "Deer Park" (which was Firefox 1.5's internal codename) and contained a different program icon. This was done to dissuade end-users from downloading preview versions, which are intended for developers only.
Firefox 1.5.0.12 is the final version supported on Windows 95.

VERSION 2
On March 22, 2006, the first alpha version of Firefox 2 (Bon Echo Alpha 1) was released. It featured Gecko 1.8.1 for the first time.
The final version of Firefox 2 was released on October 24, 2006. The release contained many new features not found in Firefox 1.5, including improved support for SVG and JavaScript 1.7, as well as UI changes.
Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.x is the final version supported on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98.

FIREFOX LIVE CHAT
December 2007, Firefox Live Chat was launched. It allows users to ask volunteers questions through a system powered by Jive Software, with guaranteed hours of operation and the possibility of help after hours.

VERSION 3.0
The Mozilla Foundation released Firefox 3 on June 17, 2008. The first Firefox 3 beta (under codename 'Gran Paradiso'.) had been released several months earlier on 19 November 2007, which was followed by several more beta releases in the Spring of 2008 culminating in the June release. One of the major changes in Firefox 3 is the implementation of Gecko 1.9, an updated layout engine. The new version fixes many bugs and implements new web APIs.

VERSION 3.1
Version 3.1 Alpha 2 was launched on September 6, 2008, adding new video support and enhancing the speed of some JavaScript computations. Code named "Shiretoko," Mozilla said it will be the last in a short series of alpha editions, and timely released just days after Google introduced competing Chrome software Google Chrome.

FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
The precursory releases of upcoming Firefox releases are codenamed "Minefield", as this is the name of the trunk builds. Development of Firefox after version 3.0 is split over two milestones: version 3.1 and version 4.0. Firefox 3.0, formerly in the development stage, was released to the general public on June 17, 2008.[20] Development for the 3.1 releases takes place on the Mozilla trunk, with releases and pre-release nightly builds coming from the Mozilla 1.8.1 branch (2.0) and the Mozilla 1.9 branch (3.0). Development for 4.0 will be based on Mozilla 2. Mitchell Baker, Mozilla's former Chief Executive Officer, had mentioned some possible future features of Firefox in an interview for APC Magazine. These features included open-source, in-browser video playback, offline application support, and a version of Firefox for mobile phones.

MICROSOFT WINDOWS




The Windows logo used since November 2006.

In 1983 Microsoft announced the development of Windows, a graphical user interface (GUI) for its own operating system (MS-DOS), which had shipped for IBM PC and compatible computers since 1981. Since then, Microsoft has shipped many versions of Windows, and the product line has changed from a GUI product to a modern operating system.

Early history: an expansion of MS-DOS

Early Windows logo
Main articles: Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, and Windows 2.1x

The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released on 20 November 1985, achieved little popularity. It was originally going to be called "Interface Manager" but Rowland Hanson-the head of marketing at Microsoft, convinced the company that the name would be more appealing to consumers. Windows 1.0, was not a complete operating system, but rather an "operating environment" that extended MS-DOS, and shared the latter's inherent flaws and problems. The first version of Microsoft Windows included a simple graphics painting program called Windows Paint, Windows Write, a simple word processor, an appointment "calendar", a "cardfiler", a "Microsoft notepad", a "clock", a " control panel", a "computer terminal", "Clipboard", and RAM driver. It also included the MS-DOS Executive and a game called Reversi.

Microsoft had worked with Apple Computer to develop several Desk Accessories and other minor pieces of software that were included with early Macintosh system software. As part of the related business negotiations, Microsoft had licensed certain aspects of the Macintosh user interface from Apple; in later litigation, a district court summarized these aspects as "screen displays". In the development of Windows 1.0, Microsoft intentionally limited its borrowing of certain GUI elements from the Macintosh user interface, in order to comply with its license.

For example, windows were only displayed "tiled" on the screen; that is, they could not overlap or overlie one another. There was no trash can icon with which to delete files, since Apple claimed ownership of the rights to that paradigm.

Microsoft Windows version 2 came out on 9 December 1987, and proved slightly more popular than its predecessor. Much of the popularity for Windows 2.0 came by way of its inclusion as a "run-time version" with Microsoft's new graphical applications, Excel and Word for Windows. They could be run from MS-DOS, executing Windows for the duration of their activity, and closing down Windows upon exit.

Microsoft Windows received a major boost around this time when Aldus PageMaker appeared in a Windows version, having previously run only on Macintosh. Some computer historians date this, the first appearance of a significant and non-Microsoft application for Windows, as the beginning of the success of Windows.

Versions 2.0x used the real-mode memory model, which confined it to a maximum of 1 megabyte of memory. In such a configuration, it could run under another multitasker like DESQview, which used the 286 Protected Mode.

Later, two new versions were released: Windows/286 2.1 and Windows/386 2.1. Like previous versions of Windows, Windows/286 2.1 used the real-mode memory model, but was the first version to support the "High Memory Area|HMA". Windows/386 2.1 had a protected mode kernel with LIM-standard EMS (Emulator|emulation), the predecessor to "Extended memory|XMS" which would finally change the topology of "IBM" PC computing. All Windows and DOS-based applications at the time were real mode, running over the protected mode kernel by using the virtual (Intel 8086|8086) mode, which was new with the 80386 processor.

Version 2.03, and later 3.0, faced "Apple v. Microsoft|challenges from Apple" over its overlapping windows and other features Apple charged mimicked the ostensibly copyrighted "look and feel" of its operating system and "embodie[d] and generated a copy of the Macintosh" in its OS. Judge [William Schwarzer] dropped all but 10 of Apple's 189 claims of copyright infringement, and ruled that most of the remaining 10 were over uncopyrightable ideas.

Success with Windows 3.0

Microsoft Windows scored a significant success with Windows 3.0, released in 1990. In addition to improved capabilities given to native applications, Windows also allowed users to better multitask older MS-DOS based software compared to Windows/386, thanks to the introduction of virtual memory.

Windows 3.0's user interface was finally a serious competitor to the user interface of the Macintosh computer. PCs had improved graphics by this time, due to VGA video cards, and the Protected/Enhanced mode allowed Windows applications to use more memory in a more painless manner than their DOS counterparts could. Windows 3.0 could run in Real, Standard, or 386 Enhanced modes, and was compatible with any Intel processor from the 8086/8088 up to the 80286 and 80386. This was the first version to run Windows programs in protected mode, although the 386 enhanced mode kernel was an enhanced version of the protected mode kernel in Windows/386.

A "multimedia" version, Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions 1.0, was released several months later. This was bundled with "multimedia upgrade kits", comprising a CD-ROM drive and a sound card, such as the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Pro. This version was the precursor to the multimedia features available in Windows 3.1 and later, and was part of Microsoft's specification for the Multimedia PC.

The features listed above and growing market support from application software developers made Windows 3.0 wildly successful, selling around 10 million copies in the two years before the release of version 3.1. Windows 3.0 became a major source of income for Microsoft, and led the company to revise some of its earlier plans.

A step sideways: OS/2

During the mid to late 1980s, Microsoft and IBM had cooperatively been developing OS/2 as a successor to DOS. OS/2 would take full advantage of the aforementioned Protected Mode of the Intel 80286 processor and up to 16MB of memory. OS/2 1.0, released in 1987, supported swapping and multitasking and allowed running of DOS executables.

A GUI, called the Presentation Manager (PM), was not available with OS/2 until version 1.1, released in 1988. Its API was incompatible with Windows. (Among other things, Presentation Manager placed X,Y coordinate 0,0 at the bottom left of the screen like Cartesian coordinates, while Windows put 0,0 at the top left of the screen like most other computer window systems.) Version 1.2, released in 1989, introduced a new file system, HPFS, to replace the FAT file system.

By the early 1990s, conflicts developed in the Microsoft/IBM relationship. They cooperated with each other in developing their PC operating systems, and had access to each others' code. Microsoft wanted to further develop Windows, while IBM desired for future work to be based on OS/2. In an attempt to resolve this tension, IBM and Microsoft agreed that IBM would develop OS/2 2.0, to replace OS/2 1.3 and Windows 3.0, while Microsoft would develop a new operating system, OS/2 3.0, to later succeed OS/2 2.0.

This agreement soon however fell apart, and the Microsoft/IBM relationship was terminated. IBM continued to develop OS/2, while Microsoft changed the name of its (as yet unreleased) OS/2 3.0 to Windows NT. Both retained the rights to use OS/2 and Windows technology developed up to the termination of the agreement; Windows NT, however, was to be written anew, mostly independently (see below).

After an interim 1.3 version to fix up many remaining problems with the 1.x series, IBM released OS/2 version 2.0 in 1992. This was a major improvement: it featured a new, object-oriented GUI, the Workplace Shell (WPS), that included a desktop and was considered by many to be OS/2's best feature. Microsoft would later imitate much of it in Windows 95. Version 2.0 also provided a full 32-bit API, offered smooth multitasking and could take advantage of the 4 gigabytes of address space provided by the Intel 80386. Still, much of the system still had 16-bit code internally which required, among other things, device drivers to be 16-bit code as well. This was one of the reasons for the chronic shortage of OS/2 drivers for the latest devices. Version 2.0 could also run DOS and Windows 3.0 programs, since IBM had retained the right to use the DOS and Windows code as a result of the breakup.

Windows 3.1 and NT


Microsoft Windows logo (1992-2000)
Main articles: Windows 3.1x, Windows NT, and Windows NT 3.1

In response to the impending release of OS/2 2.0, Microsoft developed Windows 3.1, which includes several minor improvements to Windows 3.0 (such as display of TrueType scalable fonts, developed jointly with Apple), but primarily consists of bugfixes and multimedia support. It also excludes support for Real mode, and only runs on an 80286 or better processor. Later Microsoft also released Windows 3.11, a touch-up to Windows 3.1 which includes all of the patches and updates that followed the release of Windows 3.1 in 1992. Around the same time, Microsoft released Windows for Workgroups (WfW), available both as an add-on for existing Windows 3.1 installations and in a version that included the base Windows environment and the networking extensions all in one package. Windows for Workgroups includes improved network drivers and protocol stacks, and support for peer-to-peer networking. One optional download for WfW was the "Wolverine" TCP/IP protocol stack, which allowed for easy access to the Internet through corporate networks. There are two versions of Windows for Workgroups, WfW 3.1 and WfW 3.11. Unlike the previous versions, Windows for Workgroups 3.11 only runs in 386 Enhanced mode, and requires at least an 80386SX processor.

All these versions continued version 3.0's impressive sales pace. Even though the 3.1x series still lacked most of the important features of OS/2, such as long file names, a desktop, or protection of the system against misbehaving applications, Microsoft quickly took over the OS and GUI markets for the IBM PC. The Windows API became the de-facto standard for consumer software.

Meanwhile Microsoft continued to develop Windows NT. The main architect of the system was Dave Cutler, one of the chief architects of VMS at Digital Equipment Corporation (later purchased by Compaq, now part of Hewlett-Packard).[1] Microsoft hired him in August 1988 to create a successor to OS/2, but Cutler created a completely new system instead. Cutler had been developing a follow-on to VMS at DEC called Mica, and when DEC dropped the project he brought the expertise and around 20 engineers with him to Microsoft. DEC also believed he brought Mica's code to Microsoft and sued.[2] Microsoft eventually paid $150 million U.S. and agreed to support DEC's Alpha CPU chip in NT.

Windows NT 3.1 (Microsoft marketing wanted Windows NT to appear to be a continuation of Windows 3.1) arrived in Beta form to developers at the July 1992 Professional Developers Conference in San Francisco.[3] Microsoft announced at the conference its intentions to develop a successor to both Windows NT and Windows 3.1's replacement (code-named Chicago), which would unify the two into one operating system. This successor was codenamed Cairo. In hindsight, Cairo was a much more difficult project than Microsoft had anticipated and, as a result, NT and Chicago would not be unified until Windows XP. Parts of Cairo have still not made it into Windows as of 2009 - specifically, the WinFS file system, which was the much touted Object File System of Cairo. Microsoft announced that they have discontinued the separate release of WinFS for Windows XP and Windows Vista[4] and will gradually incorporate the technologies developed for WinFS in other products and technologies, notably Microsoft SQL Server.

Driver support was lacking due to the increased programming difficulty in dealing with NT's superior hardware abstraction model. This problem plagued the NT line all the way through Windows 2000. Programmers complained that it was too hard to write drivers for NT, and hardware developers were not going to go through the trouble of developing drivers for a small segment of the market. Additionally, although allowing for good performance and fuller exploitation of system resources, it was also resource-intensive on limited hardware, and thus was only suitable for larger, more expensive machines.

However, these same features made Windows NT perfect for the LAN server market (which in 1993 was experiencing a rapid boom, as office networking was becoming common). NT also had advanced network connectivity options and the efficient NTFS file system. Windows NT version 3.51 was Microsoft's entry into this field, and took away market share from Novell (the dominant player) in the following years.

One of Microsoft's biggest advances initially developed for Windows NT was a new 32-bit API, to replace the legacy 16-bit Windows API. This API was called Win32, and from then on Microsoft referred to the older 16-bit API as Win16. The Win32 API had three main implementations: one for Windows NT, one for Win32s (which was a subset of Win32 which could be used on Windows 3.1 systems), and one for Chicago. Thus Microsoft sought to ensure some degree of compatibility between the Chicago design and Windows NT, even though the two systems had radically different internal architectures. Windows NT was the first Windows operating system based on a hybrid kernel.

Windows 95


Windows 95 Logo
Main article: Windows 95

After Windows 3.11, Microsoft began to develop a new consumer oriented version of the operating system code-named Chicago. Chicago was designed to have support for 32-bit preemptive multitasking like OS/2 and Windows NT, although a 16-bit kernel would remain for the sake of backward compatibility. The Win32 API first introduced with Windows NT was adopted as the standard 32-bit programming interface, with Win16 compatibility being preserved through a technique known as "thunking". A new GUI was not originally planned as part of the release, although elements of the Cairo user interface were borrowed and added as other aspects of the release (notably Plug and Play) slipped.

Microsoft did not change all of the Windows code to 32-bit; parts of it remained 16-bit (albeit not directly using real mode) for reasons of compatibility, performance and development time. This, and the fact that the numerous design flaws had to be carried over from the earlier Windows versions, eventually began to impact the operating system's efficiency and stability.

Microsoft marketing adopted Windows 95 as the product name for Chicago when it was released on 24 August 1995. Microsoft had a double gain from its release: first it made it impossible for consumers to run Windows 95 on a cheaper, non-Microsoft DOS; secondly, although traces of DOS were never completely removed from the system, and a version of DOS would be loaded briefly as a part of the booting process, Windows 95 applications ran solely in 386 Enhanced Mode, with a flat 32-bit address space and virtual memory. These features make it possible for Win32 applications to address up to 2 gigabytes of virtual RAM (with another 2GB reserved for the operating system), and in theory prevented them from inadvertently corrupting the memory space of other Win32 applications. In this respect the functionality of Windows 95 moved closer to Windows NT, although Windows 95/98/ME did not support more than 512 megabytes of physical RAM without obscure system tweaks.

IBM continued to market OS/2, producing later versions in OS/2 3.0 and 4.0 (also called Warp). Responding to complaints about OS/2 2.0's high demands on computer hardware, version 3.0 was significantly optimized both for speed and size. Before Windows 95 was released, OS/2 Warp 3.0 was even shipped preinstalled with several large German hardware vendor chains. However, with the release of Windows 95, OS/2 began to lose market share.

It is probably impossible to nail down a specific reason why OS/2 failed to gain much market share. While OS/2 continued to run Windows 3.1 applications, it lacked support for anything but the Win32s subset of Win32 API (see above). Unlike with Windows 3.1, IBM did not have access to the source code for Windows 95 and was unwilling to commit the time and resources to emulate the moving target of the Win32 API. IBM also introduced OS/2 into the United States v. Microsoft case, blaming unfair marketing tactics on Microsoft's part, but many people would probably agree that IBM's own marketing problems and lack of support for developers contributed at least as much to the failure.[original research?]

Microsoft went on to release five different versions of Windows 95:

  • Windows 95 - original release
  • Windows 95 A - included Windows 95 OSR1 slipstreamed into the installation.
  • Windows 95 B - (OSR2) included several major enhancements, Internet Explorer (IE) 3.0 and full FAT32 file system support.
  • Windows 95 B USB - (OSR2.1) included basic USB support.
  • Windows 95 C - (OSR2.5) included all the above features, plus IE 4.0. This was the last 95 version produced.

OSR2, OSR2.1, and OSR2.5 were not released to the general public, rather, they were available only to OEMs that would preload the OS onto computers. Some companies sold new hard drives with OSR2 preinstalled (officially justifying this as needed due to the hard drive's capacity). This product was sold under the name Windows 97 in some countries in Europe.

The first Microsoft Plus! add-on pack was sold for Windows 95.

Windows NT 4.0

Main article: Windows NT 4.0

Microsoft released Windows NT 4.0, which features the new Windows 95 interface on top of the Windows NT kernel. (a patch was available for developers to make NT 3.51 use the new UI, but it was quite buggy).

Windows NT 4.0 came in four versions:

  • Windows NT 4.0 Workstation
  • Windows NT 4.0 Server
  • Windows NT 4.0 Server, Enterprise Edition (includes support for 8-way SMP and clustering)
  • Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server

Windows 98


Windows 98 logo
Main article: Windows 98

On 25 June 1998, Microsoft released Windows 98, which was widely regarded as a minor revision of Windows 95, but generally found to be more stable and reliable than its 1995 predecessor. It included new hardware drivers and better support for the FAT32 file system which allows support for disk partitions larger than the 2 GB maximum accepted by Windows 95. The USB support in Windows 98 is far superior to the token, unreliable support provided by the OEM editions of Windows 95. It also controversially integrated the Internet Explorer browser into the Windows GUI and Windows Explorer file manager, prompting the opening of the United States v. Microsoft case, dealing with the question of whether Microsoft was abusing its hold on the PC operating system market to unfairly compete with companies such as Netscape.

In 1999, Microsoft released Windows 98 Second Edition, an interim release whose most notable feature was the addition of Internet Connection Sharing, which was a form of network address translation, allowing several machines on a LAN (Local Area Network) to share a single Internet connection. Hardware support through device drivers was increased. Many minor problems present in the original Windows 98 were found and fixed which make it, according to many, the most stable release of Windows 9x family.

Windows 2000


Windows 2000 logo
Main article: Windows 2000

Microsoft released Windows 2000, known during its development cycle as Windows NT 5.0, in February 2000. It was successfully deployed both on the server and the workstation markets. Amongst Windows 2000's most significant new features was Active Directory, a near-complete replacement of the NT 4.0 Windows Server domain model, which built on industry-standard technologies like DNS, LDAP, and Kerberos to connect machines to one another. Terminal Services, previously only available as a separate edition of NT 4, was expanded to all server versions. A number of features from Windows 98 were incorporated as well, such as an improved Device Manager, Windows Media Player, and a revised DirectX that made it possible for the first time for many modern games to work on the NT kernel. Windows 2000 is also the last NT-kernel Windows operating system to lack Product Activation.

While Windows 2000 upgrades were available for Windows 95 and Windows 98, it was not intended for home users.[5] It lacked device drivers for many common consumer devices such as scanners and printers[citation needed].

Windows 2000 was available in six editions:

  • Windows 2000 Professional
  • Windows 2000 Server
  • Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
  • Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition
  • Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Limited Edition

Windows Millennium Edition (Me)

Windows Me logo
Main article: Windows Me

In September 2000, Microsoft introduced Windows Me (Millennium Edition), which upgraded Windows 98 with enhanced multimedia and Internet features. It also introduced the first version of System Restore, which allowed users to revert their system state to a previous "known-good" point in the case of system failure. System Restore was a notable feature that made its way into Windows XP. The first version of Windows Movie Maker was introduced as well.

Windows Me was conceived as a quick one-year project that served as a stopgap release between Windows 98 and Windows XP. Many of the new features were available from the Windows Update site as updates for older Windows versions, (System Restore and Windows Movie Maker were exceptions). As a result, Windows Me was not acknowledged as a unique Operating System along the lines of 95 or 98. Windows Me was widely criticised for serious stability issues, and for lacking real mode DOS support, to the point of being referred to as the "Mistake Edition". Windows Me was the last operating system to be based on the Windows 9x (monolithic) kernel and MS-DOS. It is also the last 32-bit release of Microsoft Windows that did not include Product Activation.

Windows XP: merging the product lines

The Windows logo, redesigned with the release of Windows XP, used until 4 December 2006.
Main article: Windows XP
See also: Features new to Windows XP

In 2001, Microsoft introduced Windows XP (code named "Whistler"). The merging of the Windows NT/2000 and Windows 95/98/Me lines was finally achieved with Windows XP. Windows XP uses the Windows NT 5.1 kernel, marking the entrance of the Windows NT core to the consumer market, to replace the aging 16/32-bit branch. The initial release met with considerable criticism, particularly in the area of security, leading to the release of three major Service Packs. Windows XP SP1 was released in September of 2002, SP2 came out in August, 2004 and SP3 came out in April, 2008. Service Pack 2 provided significant improvements and encouraged widespread adoption of XP among both home and business users. Windows XP lasted longer than any other version of Windows, from 2001 all the way to 2007 when Windows Vista was released to consumers. The Windows XP line of operating systems was succeeded by Windows Vista on 30 January 2007.

Windows XP is available in a number of versions:

  • Windows XP Home Edition, for home desktops and laptops (notebooks)
  • Windows XP Professional, for business and power users
    • Windows XP Professional N, as above, but without a default installation of Windows Media Player, as mandated by a European Union ruling
  • Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE), released in November 2002 for desktops and notebooks with an emphasis on home entertainment
    • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003
    • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004
    • Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, released on 12 October 2004.
  • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, for tablet PCs (PCs with touch screens)
    • Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005
  • Windows XP Embedded, for embedded systems
  • Windows XP Starter Edition, for new computer users in developing countries
  • Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, released on 25 April 2005 for home and workstation systems utilizing 64-bit processors based on the x86-64 instruction set developed by AMD as AMD64; Intel calls their version Intel 64
  • Windows XP 64-bit Edition, is a version for Intel's Itanium line of processors; maintains 32-bit compatibility solely through a software emulator. It is roughly analogous to Windows XP Professional in features. It was discontinued in September 2005 when the last vendor of Itanium workstations stopped shipping Itanium systems marketed as "Workstations".
    • Windows XP 64-bit Edition 2003, based on the Windows NT 5.2 codebase.

Windows Server 2003

Main article: Windows Server 2003

On 24 April 2003 Microsoft launched Windows Server 2003, a notable update to Windows 2000 Server encompassing many new security features, a new "Manage Your Server" wizard that simplifies configuring a machine for specific roles, and improved performance. It has the version number NT 5.2. A few services not essential for server environments are disabled by default for stability reasons, most noticeable are the "Windows Audio" and "Themes" services; Users have to enable them manually to get sound or the "Luna" look as per Windows XP. The hardware acceleration for display is also turned off by default, users have to turn the acceleration level up themselves if they trust the display card driver.

In December 2005, Microsoft released Windows Server 2003 R2, which is actually Windows Server 2003 with SP1 (Service Pack 1) plus an add-on package. Among the new features are a number of management features for branch offices, file serving, printing and company-wide identity integration.

Windows Server 2003 is available in six editions:

  • Web Edition (32-bit)
  • Standard Edition (32 and 64-bit)
  • Enterprise Edition (32 and 64-bit)
  • Datacenter Edition (32 and 64-bit)
  • Small Business Server (32 and 64-bit)
  • Storage Server (OEM channel only)

Thin client: Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs

Main article: Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs

In July 2006, Microsoft released a thin-client version of Windows XP Service Pack 2, called Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP). It is only available to Software Assurance customers. The aim of WinFLP is to give companies a viable upgrade option for older PCs that are running Windows 95, 98, and Me that will be supported with patches and updates for the next several years. Most user applications will typically be run on a remote machine using Terminal Services or Citrix.

Windows Home Server

Main article: Windows Home Server

Windows Home Server (codenamed Q, Quattro) is a server product based on Windows Server 2003, designed for consumer use. The system was announced on 7 January 2007 by Bill Gates. Windows Home Server can be configured and monitored using a console program that can be installed on a client PC. Such features as Media Sharing, local and remote drive backup and file duplication are all listed as features.


Windows Vista


Windows Vista logo

Main article: Windows Vista
See also: Features new to Windows Vista and Development of Windows Vista

The current client version of Windows, Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn) was released on 30 November 2006[1] to business customers, with consumer versions following on 30 January 2007. Windows Vista intended to have enhanced security by introducing a new restricted user mode called User Account Control, replacing the "administrator-by-default" philosophy of Windows XP. Vista also features new graphics features, the Windows Aero GUI, new applications (such as Windows Calendar, Windows DVD Maker and some new games including Chess, Mahjong, and Purble Place)[6], a revised and more secure version of Internet Explorer, a new version of Windows Media Player, and a large number of underlying architectural changes.

Windows Vista ships in several editions:[7]

  • Starter (only available in developing countries)
  • Home Basic
  • Home Premium
  • Business
  • Enterprise (only available to large businesses and enterprises)
  • Ultimate (combines both Home Premium and Enterprise)

All editions (except Starter edition) are currently available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. The biggest advantage of the 64-bit version is breaking the 4 gigabyte memory barrier, which 32-bit computers cannot fully access. In the first year after Vista's release, most installations were still 32-bit, due to poor driver support of the 64-bit version.

Windows Server 2008


Windows Server 2008 screenshot showing the server manager and start menu.
Main article: Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008, released on 27 February 2008, was originally known as Windows Server Codename "Longhorn". Windows Server 2008 builds on the technological and security advances first introduced with Windows Vista, and is significantly more modular than its predecessor, Windows Server 2003.

Windows 7


Windows 7 beta, showing its new task bar and updated start menu.
Main article: Windows 7

Windows 7 is the next major release after Windows Vista and is planned for a three-year development timeframe.[8] It was previously known by the code-names Blackcomb and Vienna.

On Wednesday January 7th, 2009 Steve Ballmer announced that a beta version of Windows 7 would be available for download Friday January 9th. By that Friday, Microsoft delayed making the beta version available by approximately one day, citing the need to beef up their server capacity due to overwhelming demand. Windows 7 beta (build 7000) is now available for download from Microsoft.com[2].

Some features of Windows 7 are faster boot-up, Device Stage, Windows Power Shell, less obtrusive User Account Control, Multi Touch, Home Group networking, Windows Gadget, Taskbar with application based thumbnails, and better power management for notebooks. Features previously included with Windows Vista and not in the Windows 7 beta include the Quick Launch toolbar and Windows Mail. A mail program is not provided with Windows 7 - Windows Live Mail[3] can be downloaded for those wanting a free Microsoft mail client.


Product progression

MS-DOS

  • MS-DOS 1.x through 6.22
  • Windows 95 (MS-DOS 7.0)
  • Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.x and Windows 98 (MS-DOS 7.1)
  • Windows Millennium Edition (MS-DOS 8.0)

Windows (MS-DOS Based)

Windows NT

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