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FOUNDATION
MICROSOFT WAS FOUNDED -
APPLE 1976
March: Woz finishes work on the Apple I. He first asks his employer, Hewlett Packard, if they are interested in an $800 machine that runs BASIC. All the departments in HP turns down his offer.
April 1: Apple Computer Company is founded by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ron Wayne.
May: $666.66 Apple I introduced at the Home Brew Computer Club meeting. Paul Terell, president of Byte Shop chain, makes 50 orders.
June: Byte Shop order finished 1 day before deadline. Ron Wayne leaves company.
Fall: W -
APPLE 1977
January 3: Apple Computer, Inc. is officially created after the company is incorporated. Mike Markkula invests $92,000 in Apple, with intent to invest $250,000.
April: The Apple II is publicly introduced for $1295. -
1978
January 3: 34-year-old Jef Raskin joins Apple Computer exactly one year after becoming incorporated. Becomes employee #31.
June 17: Jobs' daughter, Lisa Nicole, is born out of wedlock. He initially denies the possibility of being the father, but came to accept her. -
MICROSOFT MOVES
Microsoft moves from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bellevue, Washington -
1979
January: Daniel Fylstra writes CalcuLedger (later to become VisiCalc). Offers it to Apple and Microsoft for $1 million. Both turn him down.
Spring: Raskin refuses proposal to work on Annie Project, a $500 game machine. Suggests a GUI project instead.
May: Raskin writes proposal for the PITS (Person In The Street's) Computer. It would supposedly to solve the complexities of the Apple II.
June: Apple II+ introduced for $1195.
July 30: The Lisa Project, a $2000 Apple III-like computer, begins under -
1980
March: Lisa project revamped to include all the features of the Alto, with several more. Rothmuller complains the specs are too much to be accomplished if they want to retain the current release schedule and keep the final price reasonable. Jobs fires Rothmuller for "not cooperating", later replaced by John Couch.
Summer: Jobs hires 15 Xerox employees to work on the Lisa Project.
May 19: The Apple III is released at the National Computer Conference (NCC) for $4340 to $7800 depending on configura -
APPLE 1981
January: Jobs forces himself into the Macintosh Project, after earlier dismissing and often trying to cancel it.
March: Mike Markkula becomes president of Apple. The original ship date for the Lisa is missed, coming out 3 years later.
June: An improved variation of the Alto, the $16,595 Xerox Star is introduced at NCC. It included dragging and double clicking of icons.
August 12: IBM introduces the IBM PC for $1565. With 16k RAM, a 5.25" floppy drive, running the first version of MS-DOS, it is a -
INCORPORATION
Microsoft incorporates -
IBM
IBM introduces its personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0 -
APPLE 1982
January 22: Jobs convinces Bill to write a BASIC interpreter for the Mac. This will become the failed MS BASIC.
February: The Mac case-design is finished and finally approved. All the signatures of the members of the project are placed inside the mold.
March 1: After Jobs forces Raskin out of the Macintosh project, he officially resigns.
July 30: The applications bundled with the Lisa finally work together under the OS for the first time.
September 1: Lisa is declared ready for market.
Late in t -
APPLE 1983
January 19: The Lisa is introduced for $9998. The Apple IIe is introduced for $1395, later aguably becoming the most successful and most popular Apple computer. It will be produced for 10 and a half more years.
Spring: Chiat/Day rewrites "1984" for use in the now famous commercial advertising the Macintosh during Super Bowl XVIII.
May: Apple enters Fortune 500 at #411 after only five years of existence. It becomes the fastest growing company in history.
April 8: JObs convinces John Sculley, tehn -
APPLE 1984
January 17: The 30-second version of "1984" appears in theater previews across the country. It was so admired, it was often replayed for free.
January 22: Apple airs "1984" during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVIII to a crowd of
January 24: $2495 Macintosh and $3495 Lisa 2 introduced.
April 24: Apple IIc introduced at the Apple Forever Conference in San Diego. The Apple III+ is finally discontinued.
September: Apple IIc wins Industrial Design Excellence Award.
Microsoft announces and released -
APPLE 1985
January: Apple renames the Lisa 2/10 the Macintosh XL, and discontinues all other Lisa configurations.
January 20: "Lemmings" commercial bombs at Super Bowl XIX.
March: Apple IIe enchanced introduced.
April 29: Macintosh XL discontinued.
May 15: The last Lisa/Mac XL is produced at a Carrollton, Texas factory. Sun Remarketing buys thousands of the last Lisas, and is able to sell most of them at fair prices after upgrading them with current Macintosh technology.
May 24: Jobs tries to force Sculley -
MICROSOFT MOVES
Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington -
MICROSOFT GOES PUBLIC
Microsoft stock goes public -
APPLE 1986
January: Apple settles law suit against Jobs out of court. Jobs agrees not to hire any Apple employees for 6 months, and to always make computers that are more powerful than anything Apple has to offer...yes, you read right.
February: Jobs finishes selling all but one of his 6.5 million shares of stock to begin NeXT, Inc.
June: Paul Rand, responsible for the IBM logo, designs the NeXT logo and suggests the use of the small "e".
September: The Apple IIGS is introduced for $999.
Aldus introduces t -
APPLE 1987
January: Apple renames the Lisa 2/10 the Macintosh XL, and discontinues all other Lisa configurations.
January 3: Apple celebrates its tenth birthday. A coffee table book, So Far, later chronicles the experiences of the last ten years.
Early in the year: Ross Perot invests $20 million in NeXT, Inc.
Spring: Projected release of first NeXT machine. The NeXT Computer would be a year and a half late.
March 17: Apple declares 6 different Mac Pluses the 1 milionth Mac. Raskin is presented with one of -
APPLE 1989
February: Apple Corps., the Beatle's record company, files a trademark infringement suit against Apple.
September: Apple rents space at the Logan landfill and trashes the remaining 2,700 Lisa models.
September 18: The NeXTstep OS is introduced. It will eventually be bought by Apple and used in its next generation OS, Rhapsody. -
EARLIEST VERSION OF OFFICE
Microsoft introduces earliest version of Office suite of productivity applications -
WINDOWS 3.0
Microsoft launches Windows 3.0 -
APPLE 1990
February: Dan'l Lewin, a NeXT founder, resigns.
May 22: Windows 3.0 released
September 18: The NeXTstation is released for $4995, one year after the introduction of the NeXTstep OS. It used the new 25 MHz '40, 2.88 MB floppy drive, 105MB HD, 8MB RAM, and monochrome monitor. Also introduced was the NeXTstation Color for $7995 with a 16" monitor capable of 4,096 colors, and 12 MB RAM. The $7995 NeXTcube was next, with the same configuration as a NeXTstation Color except it could use a 32-bit video -
APPLE 1991
January: Microsoft releases the second version of Windows, version 2.03. Seeing as 1.01 was almost unusable, many improvements (much of which was taken from the Mac) were made. Such include Mac-like icons, and overlapping instead of tiling windows. Windows was still not up to par to the first Alto OS, written 15 years after the release of Win 2.03.
April: Susan Barnes, a NeXT founder, resigns.
April 12: Sculley gives a demonstration to IBM engineers of a IBM PS/2 Model 70 running Pink, a now def -
APPLE 1992
January 22: Steve Jobs announces NeXTstep 3.0, NeXTstep 486, a version of NeXTstep that could run on an Intel 486 simultaneously with MS-DOS, and promises 33 MHz '40 processor versions of the NeXTcube and NeXTstation/Color at the NeXTWORLD Expo in San Fransisco. NeXT would eventually move its OS entirely to the Intel x86 platform.Coincidently, the exposition is held at the same time and in the same city as the Macworld Expo.
March-May: Microsoft introduces Windows 3.1. Microsoft does not make an -
APPLE 1993
January: Rich Page, a NeXT founder, resigns.
February 10: Jobs lays off 280 of his 530 NeXT employees on "Black Tuesday". Sells his hardware line to Canon, and tries to become a Microsoft-like company by concentrating only on the NeXTstep OS for the Intel x86 platform.
April: Motorola ships the first 50 MHz and 66 MHz PowerPC 601. The first generation of PowerPCs has begun. George Crow, the last NeXT founder besides Jobs, resigns.
May: NeXTstep for Intel Processors (compatible with 486 and Penti -
APPLE 1994
January: Apple releases the 66 MHz PowerPC Upgrade Card, the first commercial PowerPC product.
February: Apple announces the Copland Project (defunct Mac OS 8, superceded by Rhapsody).
May 9: Kaleida lays off 20% of its employees.
March 14: Apple releases the first PowerMacs (6100/60, 7100/66, 8100/80) using the PowerPC 601.
June: Apple releases System 7.5, with a bunch of new features everybody already had as shareware.
September: Apple licenses the Mac OS to Radius and Power Computing.
Novembe -
APPLE 1995
February: IBM and Motorola introduce the 100 MHz 603e, up to 30% faster than a 603.
April: IBM releases 120 MHz 601.
May: Power Computing releases the first Mac clones, including the very successful Power 100.
June: Apple releases the first PCI Mac, the $5000 PowerMac 9500/120 using the new Tsunami motherboard.
November: PReP becomes CHRP as Apple, IBM , and Motorola releases the first CHRP specifications. -
WINDOWS 95
Microsoft launches Windows 95 -
BILL GATES SUPPORT INTERNET
Bill Gates outlines Microsoft's commitment to supporting and enhancing the Internet -
APPLE 1996
February: Apple liscenses the Mac OS to Motorola, allows authority to subliscense for the first time.
April 1: Apple celebrates its 20th birthday. The 20th Anniversary Macintosh is announced to commerate the occasion.
April: IBM releases 166 MHz and 180 MHz 604e.
May-July: Apple liscenses Mac OS to IBM. PowerPC 603e and 604e reach 200 MHz.
August: Apple kills Copland Project. IBM and Motorola demo their CHRP prototypes. The third generation of PowerPC processors (G3) is announced. Motorola, Appl -
APPLE 1997
January 24: Mac OS 7.6, the first part of Apple's new OS strategy, is released exactly 13 years after the introduction of the Macintosh.
January 26: Steve Jobs, back as an "advisor" due to the NeXT deal, announces the future of Rhapsody, Mac OS 8, Allegro, and Sonata, the Mac, NeXT, and Apple in general at Macworld Expo.
April: Motorola introduces 300 MHz 603e.
June: Motorola introduces 350 MHz Mach 5 604e.
July: President and CEO Gil amelio and VP Ellen Hancock are forced to resign.
July 22: Ma -
APPLE 1998
January: Microsoft releases the second version of Windows, version 2.03. Seeing as 1.01 was almost unusable, many improvements (much of which was taken from the Mac) were made. Such include Mac-like icons, and overlapping instead of tiling windows. Even so, Windows was still not up to par to the first Alto OS, written 15 years before.
September: The Apple IIc+, the last in the Apple II line, is introduced. GS/OS System 1, a Mac-like GUI for the IIGS, is introduced.
October 12: the NeXT Computer -
APPLE 1998
January 7: Jobs announces a projected $47 million profit for the first quarter at Macworld Expo, finally bringing Apple back to profitability.
January 31: Power Computing goes out of business for good. All office computers and supplies are auctioned off. Owners of Power Computing stock are mailed Apple stock.
February 4: IBM shows off their 1.1 GHz (1100 MHz) PowerPC processor.
February 27: After a little over 5 years, the Newton/eMate line has been discontinued by Apple. Instead, mobile-based p -
WINDOWS 98
Microsoft launches Windows 98 -
STEVE BALLMER
Steve Ballmer named president and chief executive officer for Microsoft -
WINDOWS 2000
Microsoft launches Windows 2000 -
NET
Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer outline Microsoft's .NET strategy for Web services -
MICROSFT LAUNCHES XBOX
Microsoft launches Office XP. Microsoft launches Windows XP. Microsoft launches Xbox