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Invented in 1980 by Alan Shugart and Finis Conner.
It was one of the first downsized "personal PC sized" hard disks, it could store a whopping 5mb of data! It was quickly used by IBM and Apple/Macintosh -
Invented by the Commodore Corporation in 1982, it sold 22 million units in its lifespan. This is the one you always hear referenced as one of the first "home gaming" PC units. This is the classic, and foundation of home PC gaming.
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Sony and Phillips invented the CD-Rom in 1982 to sell music, initially. They could hold 550 MB of pre recorded data. The first general interest CD Rom came out in 1985 with Groliers Encyclopedia. This would come to change the game for home computing, as they could hold much more data than a standard floppy disc.
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Invented by Jef Raskin and Steve Jobs, the Macintosh was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface. It's initial cost was $2,500. It featured one of the first "paint" style applications and simple word processing. This is really the foundation for home PC "User Friendliness".
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One of the first "on the go" computers, a 16 pound laptop that would cost you $6,000. Nonetheless, it was still a leap in computing technology to even be able to carry it out of the lab. However, it never caught on and was discontinued 2 years later. It did however, open the door for downsizing computers even further in the 90's.
