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 1970 to 1979

1971

• Ted Hoff invents the microprocessor.
• First edition of the UNIX operating system released from Bell Labs. (Various varieties of UNIX follow.)
• Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail message and designates "@" as the locator symbol for electronic addresses.

1972

• Nolan Bushnell founds Atari and introduces Pong, the first modern commercial video game. (In 1976, Bushnell sells Atari for $28 million. A year later he opens the first Chuck E. Cheese's restaurant, which he also later sells.)

1974

• MITS releases the first successful personal computer, the Altair. Elsewhere, the 64K RAM mouse-equipped Alto is developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). The Alto would later inspire Steve Jobs at Apple Computers to create the Macintosh.
• Motion Pictures Product Group forms.

1975

• Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapt BASIC to run on the Altair 8800 and sell the interpreter to MITS. By November, Gates and Allen found a new company called Micro-soft.
• The term "data highway" is used in some articles to describe global networking.
• Sony Betamax video cassette recorder released.

1976

• Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computers and introduce the Apple II, the first PC to use color graphics.

1977

• AT&T and Bell Labs construct a prototype cellular phone system; public trials happen a year later.
• JVC VHS videocassettes introduced.
• Atari Video Computer System (VCS/2600) released.
• The first Star Wars movie debuts.

1978

• Taito's Space Invaders coin-operated videogame sweeps Japan; Bally Midway releases the game in the United States.
• Video laser disc introduced.

1979

• On April 12, Kevin MacKenzie suggests to the MsgGroup they start using text to suggest emotions, like ;-) for meaning something is meant tongue-in-cheek. Despite an initial poor reaction, emoticons become widely used.
• USENET and newsgroup protocols are created by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and Steve Bellovin.
• Tokyo becomes the market for the first commercial cellular telephone system.

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.