The IBM PC @ 20: Timeline

August 10, 2001 12:00 PM ET

1977 Apple Computer Inc. delivers the Apple II. 1980 Sinclair introduces the ZX80 PC.
1981 IBM introduces the IBM Personal Computer on Aug. 12. Xerox Corp. ships a new computer, the Xerox Star, which introduces the graphical user interface concept and uses a mouse for the first time.
1982 Mouse Systems introduces the first mouse for the IBM PC. 1983 Compaq Computer Corp. ships its first computer in January and sells 47,000 units worth $111 million, the greatest first-year sales in the history of U.S. business. Compaq goes public; investors buy 6 million shares in one day.
1984 Apple Computer Inc. introduces the Macintosh. 1985 A group of industry leaders meets to set a CD-ROM standard. 1986 WordPerfect 4.2 ships. 1987 Microsoft announces Excel for the PC, the first Excel product for Windows. IBM and Microsoft announce Operating System/2 (OS/2). 1989 The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) is formed. 1991 World Wide Web program is released for the Internet by Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland. WWW is a hypertext system for publishing information on the Internet.
1993 Intel introduces the Pentium processor. Windows applications outsell DOS programs for the first time. 1994 Mosaic Communications, which later became Netscape Communications Corp., releases the Netscape Navigator 1.0 Web browser. Novell Inc. buys WordPerfect Corp. for $850 million. Iomega Corp. introduces its Zip drive and Zip disks, floppy-disk-size removable storage in sizes of 100MB. 1995 The first macro virus is found in a Word document. Novell announces its decision to exit the personal productivity business applications business. 1997 The first 56K-bit modem is introduced.
1998 Compaq buys Digital Equipment Corp. for $9.6 billion. Hewlett-Packard Co. ships its 30 millionth Laser Jet printer. 2000 Unit sales of PCs drop 0.8%, the first annual decline.

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