The Chronology of New Media

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Note: These entries have been loosely complied from hundreds of online and print sources. Make independent confirmation and proper citation before using any of this material for professional or academic purposes.

Events from 1960 to 1969

1960s

• Doug Engelbart prototypes an "oNLine System" (NLS) which does browsing among linked documents, editing and email. He invents the mouse for helping perform these tasks.
• Influenced by Engelbart and Bush, Ted Nelson begins work about a form of non-sequential writing he calls hypertext. Nelson also imagines Xanadu, a global chain of public access "Silver Stands" which enable people to pull information from hypertext documents all over the world.

1962

• Launch of Telstar, the first orbital communications satellite.
• MIT programmers use a DEC PDP-1 (the world's first minicomputer) to create Spacewar, the first video game. Soon similar versions of the game are created on campuses around the nation.

1964

• Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, predicts the number of transistors that can be built on a piece of silicon will double every 18 months. This axiom becomes known as Moore's Law.

1965

• IBM introduces the word processor.

1966

• On Sept. 8, Star Trek debuts on NBC.
• Ralph Baer's Odyssey, produced by Magnavox, becomes the first commercial computer game.

1969

• Xerox PARC founded.
• First use of computer-generated graphics in a commercial, an ad for IBM.
• Alan Kay at Xerox develops the graphical user interface (GUI).
• Spin-off technologies from NASA's moon mission include laptop computers, small solid-state lasers, cordless power tools, solar power cells, liquid crystals, and Tang.
• And now, for something completely different: Monty Python's Flying Circus debuts on BBC-1.

Go to:  Overview | Pre-1900 | 1900s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s | List all (170k)

Note: These entries have been loosely complied from hundreds of online and print sources. Make independent confirmation and proper citation before using any of this material for professional or academic purposes.