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This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing from 1990 to 1999. For narratives explaining the overall developments, see the history of computing.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1990 | Motorola releases the 68040 capable of 35 MIPS and integrated a far superior FPU. The 68040 was included in some of the Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga lineup. |
| March 19, 1990 | Macintosh IIfx released. Based on a 40 MHz version of the 68030 it achieved 10 MIPS. It also had a faster SCSI adapter, which could transfer 3.0 Mbit/s. |
| May 22, 1990 | Introduction of Windows 3.0 by Microsoft. It is a multitasking system that maintains compatibility with MS-DOS, allowing several MS-DOS tasks to be run at once on an 80386 or above. This created a real threat to the Macintosh and despite a similar product, IBM's OS/2, it was very successful. |
| June 1990 | Commodore releases the Amiga 3000, the first 32-bit Amiga. It used a Motorola 68030 processor and the upgraded ECS chipset. Amiga OS 2.0 was released with the launch of the A3000, which exploited its 32-bit architecture. Later variants included the Amiga 3000UX, launched as a low end UNIX workstation, running UNIX System V. The A3000T was the first Amiga to use a tower form factor, which increased expansion potential. |
| October 1990 | Macintosh Classic released, an identical replacement to the Macintosh Plus of January 1986. Also came the Macintosh IIsi which ran a 68030 processor at 20 MHz to achieve 5.0 MIPS, and also a 256 colour video adapter. |
| November 19, 1990 | Microsoft Office released |
| November | Macintosh LC released. This ran a 68020 processor at 16 MHz to achieve 2.6 MIPS, it had a slightly improved SCSI adapter and a 256 colour video adapter. |
| 1990 | Multimedia PC (MPC) Level 1 specification published by a council of companies including Microsoft and Creative Labs. This specified the minimum standards for a Multimedia IBM PC. The MPC level 1 specification originally required a 12 MHz 80286 microprocessor, but this was later revised to require a 16 MHz 80386SX microprocessor as the 80286 was realised to be inadequate. It also required a CD-ROM drive capable of 150 kB/s (single speed) and also of Audio CD output. Companies can, after paying a fee, use the MPC logo on their product. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1991 | Borland acquires Ashton-Tate Corporation and the Dbase program. |
| 1991 | Phil Zimmermann releases the public key encryption program PGP along with its source code, which quickly appears on the Internet. |
| March 1991 | Commodore release the CDTV, an Amiga multimedia appliance with CD-ROM drive but no floppy drive. |
| April 22 | The Intel 80486 SX is released as a cheaper alternative to 80486 DX, with the key difference being the lack of an integrated FPU. |
| May 1991 | Creative Labs introduces the Sound Blaster Pro sound card. |
| June 1991 | To promote OS/2, Bill Gates took every opportunity after its release to say 'DOS is dead'; however, the development of DOS 5.0 led to the permanent dropping of OS/2 development. Unlike version 4, this version was properly tested through the distribution of beta versions to over 7,500 users.[ This paragraph needs citation(s) ] This version included the ability to load device drivers and TSR programs above the 640 KiB boundary (into UMBs and the HMA), freeing more RAM for programs. This version marked the end of collaboration between Microsoft and IBM on DOS. |
| August 1991 | The Linux kernel is born with the following post to the Usenet Newsgroup comp.os.minix by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish college student: "Hello everybody out there using minix- I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." [1] Linux has become one of the most widely used Unix-like operating system kernels in the world today. It originally only ran on Intel 386 processors, but years later added many different types of computers (now includes complete range from small to supercomputers and IBM mainframes), including Sun SPARC, DEC/Compaq Alpha, and many ARM, MIPS, PowerPC, and Motorola 68000 based computers. In 1992, the GNU project adopted the Linux kernel for use with GNU systems while they waited for the development of their own kernel, GNU Hurd, to be completed. The GNU project's aim is to provide a complete and free Unix-like operating system, combining the Hurd or Linux kernel with a complete suite of free software to run on it. Torvalds changed the licence of the Linux kernel from one prohibiting commercial use to the GNU General Public License on February 1, 1992. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1992 | First 64-bit microprocessors; the first 64-bit variant of MIPS, the MIPS R4000 was introduced in 1992 (announced October 1, 1991) and another major RISC microprocessor, DEC Alpha (no longer produced), was also introduced in 1992. Intel had introduced the Intel i860 RISC microprocessor in 1989, marketed as a "64-bit microprocessor", while it had essentially a 32-bit architecture (non-pure "32/64-bit"), enhanced with a 3D graphics unit capable of 64-bit. Computers with 64-bit registers (but not addressing, and not microprocessors) had appeared decades earlier, as far back as IBM 7030 Stretch (considered a failure) in 1962, and in the Cray-1 supercomputer installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976. |
| 1992 |
|
| ? | Introduction of CD-i launched by Philips. |
| 1992 | The PowerPC 601, developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple Computer, was released. This was the first generation of PowerPC processors. |
| 1992 | The last "luggable" computer of the Compaq Portable series, the Compaq Portable 486, was released. |
| 1992 | IBM ThinkPad 700C laptop created. It was lightweight compared to its predecessors. [2] |
| April 1992 | Introduction of Windows 3.1 [3] |
| May 1992 | Wolfenstein 3D released by id Software [4] |
| June 1992 | Sound Blaster 16 ASP introduced by Creative Labs. |
| October 1992 | Commodore International releases the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000. Both machines included the improved Advanced Graphics Architecture chipset. The 1200 had a 14 MHz 68020 processor; the 4000 had a 25 MHz 68040. |
| November 10, 1992 | Digital Equipment Corporation introduces the Alpha AXP architecture and the Alpha-based DEC 3000 AXP workstations, DEC 4000 AXP departmental servers and the DEC 7000 AXP enterprise servers. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1993 | Mosaic graphical web browser launched. [5] |
| 1993 | Commercial providers were allowed to sell Internet connections to individuals. Many people began using the Internet, especially with the new interface provided by the World-Wide Web (see 1989) and NCSA Mosaic. |
| 1993 | Release of the first version of ELOQUENS, a text-to-speech commercial software, from CSELT. |
| 1993 | The first web magazine, The Virtual Journal, is published but fails commercially. |
| 1993 | Novell purchases Digital Research; DR DOS becomes Novell DOS. |
| 1993 | The MP3 file format was published. This sound format later became the most common standard for music on PCs and later digital audio players. |
| March 1993 | Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 6.0, including DoubleSpace disk compression. |
| March 22, 1993 | Intel releases the P5-based Pentium processor, 60 and 66 MHz versions. It has over 3.1 million transistors and can achieve up to 100 MIPS. John H. Crawford co-managed the design of the P5; [6] Donald Alpert managed the architectural team; [7] and Vinod K. Dham headed the P5 group. [8] |
| May 1993 | MPC Level 2 specification introduced (see November 1990). This was designed to allow playback of a 15 frames per second video in a 320x240 pixel window. The key difference from MPC level 1 is the requirement of a CD-ROM drive capable of 300 kB/s (double speed). Products are also required to be tested by the MPC council, making MPC Level 2 compatibility a stamp of certification. |
| June 1993 | Severe Tire Damage made the first live music performance on the Internet, using MBone technology. |
| July 27, 1993 | Microsoft released the Windows NT 3.1 operating system that supported 32-bit programs. |
| December 10, 1993 | Doom was released by id Software. The PC began to be considered as a serious games-playing machine, reinforced by the earlier release in November of Sam & Max Hit the Road . |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1994 | Several major PC games are released, such as Command & Conquer , Alone in the Dark 2 , Theme Park , Magic Carpet , Descent and Little Big Adventure . Other, less significant releases for the PC included Star Trek: The Next Generation: A Final Unity , Full Throttle and Terminal Velocity . This success of the PC as a games platform was partly due to and partly a cause of significantly increased PC ownership among the general public during the early–mid 1990s. This also reflected the rapidly increasing quality of games available for the PC. |
| 1994 | Peter Shor devises an algorithm which lets quantum computers determine the factorization of large integers quickly. This is the first interesting problem for which quantum computers promise a significant speed-up, and it therefore generates a lot of interest in quantum computers. |
| 1994 | DNA computing proof of concept on toy travelling salesman problem; a method for input/output still to be determined. |
| 1994 | Motorola released the 68060 processor. |
| 1994 | Adobe Photoshop 3.0 graphics editing software released. [2] |
| June 1994 | Microsoft releases MS-DOS 6.22, containing disk compression under the name DriveSpace after settling a dispute with Stac over their compression program, Stacker. Microsoft had removed DoubleSpace from MS-DOS 6.21 in February after a jury found them guilty of patent infringement, and a judge later ordered Microsoft to recall all unsold infringing products worldwide. MS-DOS 6.22 was the last standalone version of MS-DOS released. |
| March 7, 1994 | Intel released Pentium processor, 90 and 100 MHz versions. |
| March 14, 1994 | Linus Torvalds released version 1.0 of the Linux kernel. |
| April 29, 1994 | Commodore International declares bankruptcy. Commodore's assets were eventually sold to German PC manufacturer ESCOM in 1995. |
| August 1994 | IBM releases the IBM Simon a forerunner to the smartphone. |
| September 1994 | PC DOS 6.3 is released, essentially the same as version 5.0; this release by IBM included more bundled software, such as Stacker and anti-virus software. |
| October 10, 1994 | Intel releases the Pentium processor, 75 MHz version. [9] |
| December 1994 | Netscape Navigator 1.0 web browser released. [2] It was written as an alternative to NCSA Mosaic. |
| December 3, 1994 | Sony releases its first PlayStation console in Japan; to date, over 100 million units have been sold. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| ? | Jaz drive removable hard disk storage introduced. [10] |
| ? | Zip drive removable floppy disk storage introduced. [10] |
| March 1995 | Linus released Linux Kernel v1.2.0 (Linux 95). |
| March 27, 1995 | Intel released Pentium processor, 120 MHz version. |
| May 23, 1995 | Sun Microsystems first announces Java at the SunWorld conference. |
| June 1, 1995 | Intel released Pentium processor, 133 MHz version. |
| August 24, 1995 | Microsoft releases Windows 95, replacing Windows 3.1 with a pre-emptively multitasked 32-bit operating system that integrated MS-DOS and Windows. |
| October 3, 1995 | Be Inc. launch the BeBox, featuring two PowerPC 603 processors running at 66 MHz, and running their new operating system BeOS. |
| November 1, 1995 | Intel released Pentium Pro, 150, 166, 180, and 200 MHz versions, on one day. It was the first product based on the P6 microarchitecture, later used in the Pentium II, III, M, and Core processors. It achieves 440 MIPS and contains 5.5 million transistors; this is nearly 2,400 times as many as the first microprocessor, the 4004; and capable of 70,000 times as many instructions per second. |
| November 6, 1995 | 3dfx releases Voodoo, the first consumer 3D accelerator, able to render scenes in real time and in high resolution. GLQuake (an OpenGL port of Quake) is the first popular game using this new technology. Other games soon follow, including Tomb Raider. |
| December 1995 | JavaScript development announced by Netscape. |
| December 21, 1995 | First public release of the Ruby programming language (version 0.95) |
| December 28, 1995 | CompuServe blocked access to over 200 sexually explicit Usenet newsgroups, partly to avoid confrontation with the German government. Access to all but five groups was restored on February 13, 1996. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1996 | Nokia released the Nokia 9000, the first of Nokia's smartphones. [11] |
| 1996 | Quake released – representing the dramatic increases in both software and hardware technology since Doom , of three years prior. [12] Other notable releases included Civilization 2 , Tomb Raider , [13] Command & Conquer: Red Alert [14] and Grand Prix Manager 2 . [15] On the more controversial front Battlecruiser 3000AD was also released, but its advertising had to be censored. |
| January 1996 | Netscape Navigator 2.0 released. First browser to support JavaScript. |
| Windows 95 OSR2 (OEM System Release 2) was released –partly to fix bugs found in release 1 –but only to computer retailers for sale with new systems. There were actually two separate releases of Windows 95 OSR2 before the introduction of Windows 98, the second of which contained both USB and FAT32 support –the main selling points of Windows 98. FAT32 is a new filing system that provides support for disk partitions bigger than 2.1 GB and is better at coping with large disks (especially in terms of wasted space). | |
| January 4, 1996 | Intel released Pentium processor, 150 and 166 MHz versions. |
| April 17, 1996 | Toshiba released the Libretto sub-notebook. With a volume of 821.1 cm3 and a weight of just 840 g, it was the smallest PC compatible computer to be released at that time. |
| June 9, 1996 | Linux 2.0 released. 2.0 was a significant improvement over the earlier versions: it was the first to support multiple architectures (originally developed for the Intel 386 processor, it now supported Digital's Alpha architecture and would very soon support the SPARC architecture, and many others). It was also the first stable kernel to support SMP, kernel modules, and much more. |
| July 4, 1996 | Hotmail, founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, is commercially launched on Independence Day in the United States, symbolically representing freedom from Internet service providers. (Hotmail is now owned and operated by Microsoft; it is now[ when? ] known as Outlook.com.) |
| July 14, 1996 | The first public release of Opera, version 2.1 for Windows. |
| September 23, 1996 | Audio Highway announced the Listen Up player, the first MP3 digital audio player. [16] It was later released in September 1997. |
| October 6 | Intel releases a 200 MHz version of the Pentium processor. |
| November | Telecom Italia released TIM Card, the first prepaid card for cellular phones in the world; designed by CSELT. |
| December | id Software releases QuakeWorld, a version of Quake designed for Internet multiplayer games. Several innovative[ citation needed ] features such as movement prediction make the game playable even over low-speed and high-latency Internet connections. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| ? | Tim Berners-Lee awarded the Institute of Physics' 1997 Duddell Medal for inventing the World Wide Web (see 1989). |
| ? | Grand Theft Auto and Quake 2 were released while Lara Croft returned in Tomb Raider II . As standards for graphics kept increasing, 3D graphics cards were beginning to become mandatory for game players. |
| January 8 | Intel released Pentium MMX, 166 and 200 MHz versions. Its MMX instruction set is designed to increase performance when running multimedia applications. |
| May 7 | Intel releases the Pentium II processor, 233, 266, and 300 MHz versions. It has a larger on-chip cache and expanded instruction set. |
| May 11 | IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a reigning World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, in a full chess match. The computer had played him before, losing 5/6 games in February 1996. |
| June 2 | Intel released Pentium MMX, 233 MHz version. |
| August 6 | After 18 months of losses Apple Computer was in serious financial trouble. Microsoft invested in Apple, buying 100,000 non-voting shares worth $150 million; many Apple owners disapproved. One condition was that Apple would drop the long-running court case; attempting to sue Microsoft for copying the look and feel of their operating system when designing Windows. |
| September | Internet Explorer 4.0 was released. |
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| January | Compaq Computer Corporation announces pending acquisition of Digital Equipment Corporation for $9.6 billion. |
| February | Intel released the 333 MHz Pentium II processor. Code-named Deschutes, they used the new 0.25 micrometre manufacturing process, so they can run faster and generate less heat. |
| March | Be Inc. released BeOS R3. This was the first BeOS version available for x86 PCs and Power Macs. |
| May | Apple announces the iMac, an all-in-one with integral 15 inch (381 mm) multiscan monitor, 24× CD-ROM, 2× available USB ports, 56 kbit/s modem, two stereo speakers, and Ethernet, but no floppy drive. It was encased in translucent Bondi Blue and Ice plastic. Quantity shipping began in August. Designed by Jonathan Ive, it was the model that enabled Apple to become profitable again.[ citation needed ] |
| June 25 | Microsoft released Windows 98. Some U.S. attorneys tried to block its release since the new OS interfaces with other programs, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, and so effectively closes the market of such software to other companies. Microsoft has fought back with a letter to the White House suggesting that 26 of its industry allies say that a delay in the release of the new OS could damage the U.S. economy. The main selling points of Windows 98 were its support for USB and its support for disk partitions greater than 2 GB with FAT32 (although FAT32 was actually released with Windows 95 OSR2). |
| September | Upstart eMachines announces two home PCs priced at $399 and $499, creating the sub-$600 market and launching a price war. Within four months, the new company becomes the No. 5 computer maker at retail. |
| Date | Event | |
|---|---|---|
| January 25 | Linux Kernel 2.2.0 is released. The number of people running Linux is estimated at over 10 million, making it an important operating system in the Unix market, and increasingly so in the PC market. | |
| February 22 | AMD releases a K6-III clocked at 400 MHz and a 450 MHz version for OEMs. It contains about 23 million transistors, and requires motherboards using a Super Socket 7. It supports a 100 MHz front side bus (FSB), an improvement over AMD's prior chips that used a 66 MHz FSB. The use of a 100 MHz FSB brought technical equivalence with the 100 MHz FSB used on the Intel Pentium II. | |
| August 31 | Apple releases the Power Mac G4. It is powered by the PowerPC G4 chip from Motorola. Available in 400 MHz, 450 MHz and 500 MHz versions, Apple claimed it as the first personal computer to be capable of over one billion floating-point operations per second. | |
| October 11, 1999 | Nvidia releases Geforce 256, claiming to be the first consumer level Graphics Processor Unit with Transform and Lighting Engine. | |
| November 29 | AMD releases an Athlon clocked at 750 MHz. |
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets.
Backward compatibility is a property of an operating system, software, real-world product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially in telecommunications and computing.
The Intel 8080 ("eighty-eighty") is the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel. It first appeared in April 1974 and is an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility. The initial specified clock rate or frequency limit was 2 MHz, with common instructions using 4, 5, 7, 10, or 11 cycles. As a result, the processor is able to execute several hundred thousand instructions per second. Two faster variants, the 8080A-1 and 8080A-2, became available later with clock frequency limits of 3.125 MHz and 2.63 MHz respectively. The 8080 needs two support chips to function in most applications: the i8224 clock generator/driver and the i8228 bus controller. It is implemented in N-type metal–oxide–semiconductor logic (NMOS) using non-saturated enhancement mode transistors as loads thus demanding a +12 V and a −5 V voltage in addition to the main transistor–transistor logic (TTL) compatible +5 V.
A microprocessor is a computer processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). The IC is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, clock-driven, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and provides results as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system.
Instructions per second (IPS) is a measure of a computer's processor speed. For complex instruction set computers (CISCs), different instructions take different amounts of time, so the value measured depends on the instruction mix; even for comparing processors in the same family the IPS measurement can be problematic. Many reported IPS values have represented "peak" execution rates on artificial instruction sequences with few branches and no cache contention, whereas realistic workloads typically lead to significantly lower IPS values. Memory hierarchy also greatly affects processor performance, an issue barely considered in IPS calculations. Because of these problems, synthetic benchmarks such as Dhrystone are now generally used to estimate computer performance in commonly used applications, and raw IPS has fallen into disuse.
Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) is a type of parallel processing in Flynn's taxonomy. SIMD can be internal and it can be directly accessible through an instruction set architecture (ISA), but it should not be confused with an ISA. SIMD describes computers with multiple processing elements that perform the same operation on multiple data points simultaneously.
The Intel 8008 is an early 8-bit microprocessor capable of addressing 16 KB of memory, introduced in April 1972. The 8008 architecture was designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) and was implemented and manufactured by Intel. While the 8008 was originally designed for use in CTC's Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal, an agreement between CTC and Intel permitted Intel to market the chip to other customers after Seiko expressed an interest in using it for a calculator.
In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32-bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculations more efficiently and process more data per clock cycle. Typical 32-bit personal computers also have a 32-bit address bus, permitting up to 4 GB of RAM to be accessed, far more than previous generations of system architecture allowed.
This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing from 1950 to 1979. For narratives explaining the overall developments, see the history of computing.
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.
The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and modern computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or for chalk and slate, with or without the aid of tables.
In the history of video games, the second-generation era refers to computer and video games, video game consoles, and handheld video game consoles available from 1976 to 1992. Notable platforms of the second generation include the Fairchild Channel F, Atari 2600, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and ColecoVision. The generation began in November 1976 with the release of the Fairchild Channel F. This was followed by the Atari 2600 in 1977, Magnavox Odyssey² in 1978, Intellivision in 1980 and then the Emerson Arcadia 2001, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, and Vectrex, all in 1982. By the end of the era, there were over 15 different consoles. It coincided with, and was partly fuelled by, the golden age of arcade video games. This peak era of popularity and innovation for the medium resulted in many games for second generation home consoles being ports of arcade games. Space Invaders, the first "killer app" arcade game to be ported, was released in 1980 for the Atari 2600, though earlier Atari-published arcade games were ported to the 2600 previously. Coleco packaged Nintendo's Donkey Kong with the ColecoVision when it was released in August 1982.
The transistor count is the number of transistors in an electronic device. It is the most common measure of integrated circuit complexity. The rate at which MOS transistor counts have increased generally follows Moore's law, which observes that transistor count doubles approximately every two years. However, being directly proportional to the area of a chip, transistor count does not represent how advanced the corresponding manufacturing technology is: a better indication of this is transistor density.
Following the introduction of the IBM Personal Computer, or IBM PC, many other personal computer architectures became extinct within just a few years. It led to a wave of IBM PC compatible systems being released.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to computer engineering:
The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the microprocessor, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold often in electronic kit form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.
A personal computer, often referred to as a PC, is a computer designed for individual use. It is typically used for tasks such as word processing, internet browsing, email, multimedia playback, and gaming. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. The term home computer has also been used, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people in all countries.
In computer architecture, 16-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 16 bits wide. Also, 16-bit central processing unit (CPU) and arithmetic logic unit (ALU) architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
This list compares various amounts of computing power in instructions per second organized by order of magnitude in FLOPS.
Lost media is any media that is believed to have been forgotten or no longer exists in any format. The term primarily encompasses visual, audio, or audiovisual media such as films, television and radio broadcasts, music, and video games.
