Microcomputer Generation Timeline

FIRST GENERATION

1975 - First implementation of BASIC by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, it was written for the MITS Altair - the first personal computer - this led to the formation of Microsoft later in the year.

1976 - Apple Computer, Inc. founded, to Market Apple I computer. Designed by Stephen Wozinak and Stephen Jobs.

1977 - May Apple II computer introduced.

1972 - MITS Altair 8800, the first personal computer to be available commercially released, by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems.
200 kilohertz
3,500 transistors
16 kbytes
Uses: dumb terminals, calculators, bottling machines
data/character manipulation.

1974-7 - Intel 8088
ISA 8 bit data bus
Processor speed 4.77 MHz
6,000 transistors
RAM 64 kbytes
Uses: Traffic light controller.

From the Intel Museum

1978 - Intel 8086, AMD 8086, NEC V-30
8 and 10 bit data bus
Processor Speed 8, 10 MHz instruction
29,000 transistors
Use: portable computing.

1979 - Arcade Video game ‘Space Invaders’ released.
1980 - Atari’s Asteroids.

1979 - Compact disk was invented.

SECOND GENERATION

1982 - Intel 80286, AMD 286, 186S
16 bit ISA data bus
Processor Speed 6, 8, 10, 12, 16, 20 MHz
134,000 transistors
RAM 16 MB
CPU square PGA (Pin Grid Array) with pin 1 identified by a small notch soldered or surface mounted on the motherboard
ISA slots
Use: Microprocessor.

12MHz 80286 Motherboard
6 16 bit expansion slots, two eight bit slots.

1982 - The TCP/IP Protocol established, and the "Internet" is formed as a connected set of networks using TCP/IP.

From the Intel Museum

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THIRD GENERATION

1984 - Compaq started the development of the IDE interface (Intelligent Drive Electronics).
1985 - CD-ROM, invented by Phillips, produced in collaboration with Sony.

1987 - IBM PS/2 family
Introduced MCA 32 bit bus

1985-9 - Intel 80386DX, AMD, CYRIX
32 bit external data bus, 32 bit Address Bus
Processor Speed 16, 20. 25. 33, 40 MHz
4 GIG Memory
386 Protected Mode (Virtual Memory)
132 Pin PGA, 132 Pin Socket
275,000 transistors
CPU PGA
Multitask DOS programs
MCA (Micro Channel Archtecture), EISA (Extended Industry Standard Architecture), ISA expansion slots
Use: Desktop Computing

From the Intel Museum

1987 - Macintosh II & Macintosh SE released. The SE was still based on the 68000, but could cope with 4 Mb of RAM and had a SCSI adapter, similar specifications to the Macintosh Plus of Jan. 1986.

1987 - 32 Bit Bus Width: The MCA bus features a full 32 bit bus width, the same width as the VESA and PCI local buses. It had far superior throughput to the ISA bus.It included:

• Bus Mastering: The MCA bus supported bus mastering adapters for greater efficiency, including proper bus arbitration.
• Plug and Play: MCA automatically configured adapter cards, so there was no need to fiddle with jumpers. This was eight years before Windows 95 brought PnP into the mainstream! This was created by IBM for their PS/2 machines.

MCA had a great deal of potential. Unfortunately, IBM made two decisions that would doom MCA to utter failure in the marketplace.

• First, they made MCA incompatible with ISA; this means ISA cards will not work at all in an MCA system.
• Second, IBM made the MCA proprietory.

1988 - EISA Bus standard introduced by Compaq. EISA was ISA compatible and had all the elements of MCA, but it was expensive, and there were not as many cards for EISA.

1988-92 - Intel 80386SX, AMD, CYRIX
15 bit data bus
Processor Speed 16, 20, 25, 33 MHz
16 MB Memory
132 Pin PGA, 132 Pin Socket

FOURTH GENERATION

1989 - Macintosh SE/30 released.

1989 - Release of Sound Blaster Card, by Creative Labs.

1989 - World Wide Web, invented by Tim Berners-Lee who saw the need for a global information exchange that would allow physicists to collaborate on research (he was working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Switzerland, at the time). 1990 - Windows 3.0 released by Bill Gates & Microsoft. Mosaic the only brower used.

1990 - Macintosh Classic and IIsi released. 68030 processor at 20 MHz, 256 colors video adapter.
Macintosh LC released. 8020 processor at 16 MHz.

1989-91 - Intel 80486DX, AMD, CYRIX
32 bit data bus
Processor Speed 25, 33, 50 MHz
4 GIG Memory
168 Pin PGA, 168 Pin Socket, 1, 2, 3 1.2 million transistors
From command level to point and click
ISA, EISA, MCA expansion slots
CPU PGA, 168 piins, @ 1.75 square
Operates at +5 V, DX operates at 3.3 VDC
A built-in math coprocessor, which speeds up computing because it offers complex math functions from the central processor
Use: Desktop computing.

From the Intel Museum

DX2 - Overdrive chips runs at 2 clock speeds for internal, one for external operations.

DX4, DX4-100 - Clock tripler technology (called Blue Lightening; i.e., a 25 MHz chip could run internally at 75 MHz.

1990 - Macintosh Classic released

1990 - PCI introduced.

1990 - ISA expanded to 16 bits.

1990 - VESA bus created. The VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) Local Bus was invented at around the time that the 486 was introduced. As a result, the majority of 486-based motherboards are based on VESA (VLB, VL-bus) designs.

1990 - Windows 3.1 released by Bill Gates & Microsoft.

1992 - Wolfenstein 3D released by Id Software Inc.

1992 - Intel 80486DX2, 80486DX2 Overdrive (for upgrading)
Clock Doubling
Processor Speed 50, 66, 80 MHz

1993 - Doom was released by Id Software Inc.
1994 - Doom II released.

1991-2 - Intel 80486SX, AMD, CYRIX , Level 2 Cache
Processor Speed 26, 20, 25, 33 MHz
No Math Coprocessor

1994 - Netscape 1.0 was written as an alternative browser to NCSA Mosaic.

1994 - Intel 80486DX4 and 80486DX4 Overdrive
Clock Tripling
Processor Speed 75, 100, 120 MHz

1995 - Intel 80486DX5, AMD 5X86
Processor Speed 133 MHz

1996 - Quake released.

1996 - Cyrix 5X86
Processor Speed 100 MHz X 50 MHz bus, 120 MHz,110 MHz X 55 Mhz bus, 133 MHz X 66 MHz bus, 150 MHz X 75 MHz bus
Pentium compatible, since it fitted into a Socket 7

FIFTH GENERATION

PCI Bus

1993-6 - Intel Pentium(P5 [5 vol]), P54C[3.3 volt]) - Developed by Intel in Haifa, Israel, 1993
64 bit internal and external data bus
3.1 million transistors
BiPolar CMOS
RAM 4 GIG
Processor Speed 50, 60(1993), 66(1993), 75(1994-5), 90(1994), 100(1994), 120(1995), 133(1995), 150(1996), 166(1996), 200(1997) - all 60-66 MHz motherboard speed
CPU - 1.94 inches square SPGA, 273 pins work at 5 VDC, 296 pins operate at 3.3 VDC
Socket 4, 5, 7
Can process 4 instructions per clock cycle
2 8K cache
superscaler - CPU is 2 chips in one for fault tolerant technology - one chip falters, another takes over
Incorporated "real world" data such as speech, sound, handwriting and photographic images

K5
Pentium copy
16 KB L1 cache and no MMX</p>

Intel Pentium OverDrive
32, 64 Data bus
296 Pin SPGA, "Socket 7"
Processor Speed 63, 83, 120/133, 125, 150, 166

MMX

• Adds 57 new instructions for multimedia and internal improvements to support instructions
• Required new motherboard becuase of Split Voltage - 2.8V for internal logic - 3.3V for I/O logic
• SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data): allows one instruction to perform the same function on multiple pieces of data
• more cache built into chip

1996 - January Netscape Navigator 2.0 released. First browser to support JavaScript.

1997 - Intel Pentium with MMX(P55C)
Split Rail Voltage
Processor Speed 166, 200, 233 MHz

1997 - "Grand Theft Auto", "Quake 2" and "Blade Runner" were all released while Lara Croft returned in "Tomb Raider 2". As the standards for graphics kept increasing, 3d graphics cards were beginning to become mandatory for games players.

1997 - After 18 months of losses Apple were in serious financial trouble.

1997 - Intel Pentium with MMX Overdrive
Processor Speed 125, 150, 166, 180, 200 MHz

1998 - Intel Celeron Processor
266, 300, 333, 366, 400, 433, 466(1999), 500(1999)
Use: Low-cost PC's

1995-6 - CYRIX 6X86 (M1) - Incompatibilities, Overheated, etc.
Processor Speed 120+, 133+, 150+, 166+, 200+ MHz

1995-7 - AMD, K5 (K5, 5K86)
RISC Processor
Processor Speed 75, 90, 100, 116
K6 - socket 7

SIXTH GENERATION

RISC Chip, Level 1 cache wider, cache off motherboard

Intel decided to go to the Slot 1 interface for the Pentium II, while AMD and Cyrix were sticking with Socket 7 on Pentium-class boards.

1994 - Netscape 1.0 was written as an alternative browser to NCSA Mosaic.

1995 - Windows '95 was launched by Bill Gates & Microsoft.

1995-7 - Intel Pentium Pro (P6)
64 GIG Memory
387 Pin Dual SPGA, "Socket 8"
Processor Speed 150, 166, 180, 200
L2 256 and 512 KB 5.5 million transistors
Dynamic Execution:

• Multiple Branch Prediction: looks ahead and predicts instructions to be processed.
• Dataflow Analysis: decide which commands to schedule
• SPeculative Execution: schedule performed

Netscape Navigator 2.0 released.

1997 - AGP is introduced. The need for increased bandwidth between the main processor and the video subsystem originally lead to the development of AGP. AGP is considered a port, and not a bus, because it only involves two devices (the processor and video card) and is not expandable. One of the great advantages of AGP is that it isolates the video subsystem from the rest of the PC so there isn't nearly as much contention over I/O bandwidth as there is with PCI. It is 32 bit and has a high-bandwidth 66 MHz speed. AGP has defined a 2X mode, which uses special signaling to allow twice as much data to be sent over the port at the same clock speed.

1997 - Intel Pentium II (Klamath)
SEC (Single-edge cartridge) "Socket 1"
Processor Speed 233, 266, 300 MHz
7.5 million transistors
Has Dynamic Execution
CPU - SEC (Single Edge Contact)
With this chip, PC users can capture, edit and share digital photos with friends and family via the Internet; edit and add text, music or between-scene transitions to home movies; and, with a video phone, send video over standard phone lines and the Internet.

1998 - Intel Pentium II (Deschutes)
333 MHz

1997/8 - AMD K6
2.2 Volts
Processor Speed 166, 200, 233, 266 MHz X 66 MHz bus, 300 MHz X 100 MHz bus MHz, 333 Mhz X 95 MHz bus, 350 MHz X 100 MHz bus, 380 MHz X 95 MHz bus, 400 MHz X 100 MHz bus

1997 - CYRIX 6X86MX PR-166, PR-200, PR-233
Processor Speed 150, 166, 187 MHz
MMX
Socket 7

1998 - Release of Windows '98.

1999 - Linux Kernel 2.2.0 Released. The number of people running Linux is estimated at over 10million, making it an not only important operating system in the Unix world, but an increasingly important one in the PC world.

Pentium III

Pentium III: The Next Generation in Processing

Detailed specs of all the above

NOTE: Most of the above information was taken from

• A Brief History of Computing, © Copyright 1996-1999, Stephen White
• Intel
• PC Guide