Computer-related introductions in 1968

Computer-related introductions in 1968
Year	1968

Computer-related introductions in 1968 was a landmark year in the history of computing, marked by foundational innovations that shaped the modern digital landscape. It saw the public debut of revolutionary concepts in human-computer interaction, the release of influential hardware and software systems, and the establishment of key industry standards. The year's events, from the The Mother of All Demos to the publication of the IBM System/360 Model 85 announcement, collectively signaled a major shift towards interactive, networked, and more accessible computing.

Hardware

The hardware landscape in 1968 was dominated by significant mainframe developments and the emergence of new input paradigms. IBM solidified its IBM System/360 family with the announcement of the high-performance IBM System/360 Model 85, which featured cache memory. Concurrently, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) expanded its influential PDP-10 series and introduced the PDP-8/I, a more compact version of the seminal PDP-8 minicomputer. Perhaps most iconic was the demonstration of the first computer mouse by Douglas Engelbart at the The Mother of All Demos, alongside an early hypertext system and graphical user interface concepts. Other notable introductions included the Data General Nova minicomputer, the Hewlett-Packard 9100A desktop calculator, and the ILLIAC IV supercomputer project, which pioneered parallel array processing.

Software

Software advancements in 1968 began to realize the potential of interactive and multi-user systems. The most famous software demonstration was Douglas Engelbart's NLS (computer system), or oN-Line System, showcased at the The Mother of All Demos, which integrated hypertext, collaborative editing, and video conferencing. In the realm of operating systems, the Multics project, a joint venture by MIT, General Electric, and Bell Labs, became operational, profoundly influencing later systems like UNIX. The first RDF-style model was proposed, and early work on computer algebra systems progressed. The year also saw the development of the TENEX (operating system) for the PDP-10, which introduced virtual memory and other advanced features to the DEC ecosystem.

Programming languages

The programming language domain in 1968 featured both the refinement of existing languages and the birth of new paradigms critical for software engineering. ALGOL 68, a major revision of the influential ALGOL language, was published, introducing orthogonality and new syntactic elements. Niklaus Wirth began developing Pascal (programming language), which would become a cornerstone of structured programming and education. Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson started work on the precursors to the C (programming language) at Bell Labs. Additionally, the Logo (programming language) was created by Wally Feurzeig, Seymour Papert, and Cynthia Solomon at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, introducing turtle graphics for educational computing. The SNOBOL language also saw a significant update with SNOBOL4.

Companies and organizations

Several key institutions and corporate entities with lasting impact were founded or saw major developments in 1968. Intel Corporation was founded in July by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, setting the stage for the microprocessor revolution. The same month, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was established by Jerry Sanders and other former Fairchild Semiconductor executives. In networking, the precursor to the modern Internet, the ARPANET, was initiated by the United States Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), with the contract awarded to Bolt, Beranek and Newman. Furthermore, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) traces its conceptual origins to this period, influenced by projects like the ILLIAC IV.

Standards and protocols

While the full explosion of networking standards was still ahead, 1968 laid crucial groundwork for data communication and character encoding. A significant milestone was the approval of the ASCII standard (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which became the ubiquitous character encoding for computers and the Internet. Early planning and proposals for the ARPANET network architecture, which would later give rise to the TCP/IP suite, began under the guidance of Lawrence Roberts and the Information Processing Techniques Office at ARPA. These foundational activities set the stage for the development of standardized packet-switching protocols in the following years.

Concepts and terminology

The conceptual vocabulary of computing expanded dramatically in 1968, often driven by seminal publications and demonstrations. The term "software engineering" was famously coined and legitimized at the NATO Software Engineering Conference in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, highlighting a crisis in software development and advocating for disciplined engineering practices. Douglas Engelbart's The Mother of All Demos at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco effectively introduced the world to the concepts of the mouse (computing), hypertext, windows, and video conferencing. The idea of structured programming was also being formalized, influenced by the work of Edsger W. Dijkstra and his famous letter "Go To Statement Considered Harmful," published in the Communications of the ACM.

Category:Computing by year Category:1968 in technology