100 JANUARY2021|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 395
1988 19891990 1991
SteveJobslaunchesacomputercalled
theNeXT.It’sachunkyblackcubewith
an optical disk drive and costs £6,000.
Clive Sinclair launches acomputer called
the Z88. It’s alightweight black slab
running on four AA batteries, and it
foreshadows future PDAs. It is utterly
brilliant and costs just £199,but is the
last computer Sinclair produces.
AgraphicfileformatcalledtheGIF
islaunched,pronouncedwithasoft‘g’,
as in ‘gin’. But everyone ignores this in
favour of ahard ‘g’,asin‘gorilla’.
Amstradisthebiggest-sellingUK
computerbrand,andAlanSugarbegins
towearhisheadupsidedownwithout
anyone noticing. Elsewhere,Hewlett-
Packard launches the Deskjet printer for
$1,000, squeezing out one monochrome
page every 30 seconds. And anew
graphics utility called Photoshop
charges£750topretend
everything is beautiful.
➡The true purpose of
computing is revealed at
last, as uncountable
millions playSuper Mario,a
jolly game in which players
takehallucinogens.
➡Uptonow
computerscan
only peep and parp
from puny internal
speakers, but a
new audio card
called SoundBlaster
makes computers
really irritating.
Multitaskingismade
possiblebytheIntel 486 processor.
Itmarksaturningpointincomputing,
whichhasalwaysbeensoftware-driven.
Now it’s programmers who push the
boundaries of what their dumb
machines can do.
TheMacintoshPortableis
launched, aimed at the wealthy
weightlifter market. Paying £6,750
to lug 7.2 kilos around means that
sales are disappointing, despitebeing
well reviewed forits active matrix
display, removable trackball and
high performance.
Meanwhile,anoperating system
called Windows 2.1gains popularity,
and afellow called Tim Berners-Lee
comes up with an intriguing concept
he calls the World Wide Web.
AppleintroducestheMacintosh
Classicasaback-to-basicsrivaltocheap
PCcompatibles.Itsellsfor$ 99 9intheUS
andwhateveritcangetawaywithhere.
⬇Windows3.0arriveswithaprimitive
GUI and compatibility forhardware
without needing different drivers for
every application. It confirms the fact
that you can fool most of thepeople
most of the time,and hold them to
ransom while doing so.The mess that
is Microsoft’s operating system goes
invisible,but MS-DOS still lurks in the
background ready to reboot the
system as it crashes every hour.
The firstlaser printer under £1,000 is
launched. Instead of wires to manipulate
the toner, HP’s LaserJet IIP has acharged
roller system forsnaring ties, necklaces
and dangly bits with great efficiency.
The firstweb server harnesses the Mosaic
browser to let the genie out of the bottle.
The firstwebsiteconsists of asinglepage
explaining how to createother websites.
Nobody bothers to make acopyofthishistoric
item because they’re all toobusyhaving fun
with something called Visual Basic.
➡Linus Torvalds
liberates his Linux
operating system, which
is adopted by only seven
users. But his secure
code works and is
freely available.
Meanwhile,Sega
announces the
first VR
headsets.
On the two-hundredth anniversary of
its design, ateam at the Science Museum
builds Charles Babbage’s mechanical
computer with techniques and materials
available to him in 1791. Theyprove that his
calculating engine not only works just fine,
but it could have been built in his day.
➡The true purpose
of computing is
revealed at last,
as uncountable
millions play
Sonic the
Hedgehog, ajolly
game where players
control aspikyblue
character on his
quest forgold rings.
