26 June,2009 11:43 AM IST | | Balaji Narasimhan
What was technology like when MiD DAY was launched in 1979? iT ADDA goes back in time to tell you how things were in the good old days
In 1979, Wikipedia says that Michael Jackson released his first breakthrough album, Off The Wall, which sold 7 million copies in the US alone. While you may still enjoy Jackson and MiD DAY today, this is not bound to be true about technology that existed in those days. If we were to give you such technology, you would find it to be clunky, irritating and not at all user friendly.
But still, people used them, and so it is worth checking out what these things were. With this aim, we checked out https://www.computerhistory.org/, which features excellent information on the history of computing. Here's a sample of what we found.
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Quaintly attractive: Both the Atari 400 (shown here) and the Atari 800 were released in 1979 because Atari felt that the 400 would serve as a game console while the 800 would become a home computer |
Usenet it or lose it: Usenet, the precursor to Web forums, was also born in 1979. It is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use |
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Chipping in: The Motorola 68000 microprocessor was launched in 1979 and like MiD DAY, it is still aroundu00e2u0080u0094Wikipedia says that the architecture is still in use. Featured here is the pre-release XC68000 chip manufactured in 1979 |
Old world charm: What's this, you ask? This is the spreadsheet VisiCalc on the Apple ][. While quaint by today's standards, it was important when it was launched because it converted the Apple into a machine that could be used for business. VisiCalc was so popular when it was launched that it sold over 700,000 copies in six years |
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I can do it alone: Though it dates back to 1967, it was only in 1979 that the Stanford Cart successfully crossed a chair-filled room without human intervention. The TV camera took pictures and relayed them to a computer, which gauged the distance between the cart and obstacles in its path |
