In any important technology field, standards are a critical element in achieving success. A key early computing standard came in 1963 when the American National Standards Institute, a joint industry-government committee, accepted ASCII 7-bit code for information exchange. ASCII, which was the first universal standard for computers, permitted machines from different manufacturers to exchange data.
The arrival of ASCII set the stage for IBM's 1964 release of its Model 360 computer and accompanying OS/360 operating system, which was the first mass-produced computer operating system. Using the OS/360, all computers in the IBM 360 family could run any software program. System 360 computers also set the de facto worldwide standard of the 8-bit byte for 16-bit and 32-bit machines.
IBM's Model 360 helped establish what stands to this day as the modern computing standard of backward compatibility with earlier generations of computing equipment as well as that of a flexible operating system that could support multiple applications.
While IBM was breaking new ground in the mainframe market, competitors had other goals in mind. The trend toward miniaturization and modularization that had its start with military programs in the fifties made its way into the computing world with Digital Equipment's 1965 launch of its PDP-8 mini computer. Notable for its use of transistor circuitry modules with ICs, the PDP-8 was roughly the size of a two-drawer filing cabinet, making it small enough for desktops. It represented a primitive step in the direction of distributed computing as opposed to the centralized model based on mainframes. Eventually, mini computers would find broad use in manufacturing, scientific labs, and offices.
Earlier versions of the mini computer went even further in portending the future. A predecessor to the PDP-8 had already broken ground as the first commercial mini computer with a monitor and keyboard input. Meanwhile, other innovators were thinking about alternate means of data input. The concept of the computer mouse, patented in 1963, came to fruition in the form of a 1968 X-Y position indicator for a display system. Computer graphics were also being added to text-based display systems. By mid-decade, input and display systems had grown sophisticated enough to support primitive computer-aided design systems.
The sixties saw computer technology take the world by storm. Corporate users, universities, and government agencies made sure that computers proliferated by the thousands worldwide. As telephone communications had already done, it was time for computer communications to go global.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense laid the groundwork for a worldwide computer network. Conceptualized in 1962 as an "Intergalactic Network" by J.C.R. Licklider, ARPA's head of computer research, an ambitious plan was proposed in which every computer user on the globe would be interconnected and would have access to programs and data at any site from any other site. Packet switching, in which information is parceled into packets of data that are sent independently along a network, offered a promising model for such a communication system.
By the end of the decade, the "Intergalactic Network" had been redubbed ARPAnet. Links between the network's first four nodes at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), and the University of Utah became operational in 1969. Originally conceived as a means for hard-core computer users to share resources and pass messages, the ARPAnet would eventually outgrow its humble beginnings, becoming what we know today as the Internet.
Although computing technology advanced greatly in the sixties, it would be another 20 years before computing made its way into the consumer realm. Meanwhile, the electronics age was impacting consumers' daily lives in other ways. By 1968, there were some 200 million television sets worldwide, forming a mass medium that made deities of pop musicians. That same mass medium served to polarize opinions of the Vietnam War. Millions of Americans tuned in nightly as the war was brought into their living rooms in full color, with the names of the dead scrolling down the screen.
Electronics was becoming pervasive in other ways, too. By 1967, John Q. Public had an IC-based four-function calculator at his disposal, courtesy of Texas Instruments. Stereo FM broadcasts commenced in 1962, bringing audiophiles a new way to enjoy music. The ubiquitous tape cassette was introduced a year later. And touch-tone phones made the scene. It all added up to electronics invading the home, office, and every other aspect of daily life in a process that only accelerated with time.
A decade that had opened with such great promise for America closed in social and political turmoil. But for the electronics industry, the future was extremely bright. It found itself poised to build on what it had started with a new explosion of innovation and integration. Transistors begat digital logic and digital logic begat the beating heart, if not the soul, of the new machine: the microprocessor. The fun was just beginning.
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