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Industry members use these products to create advanced computingand communications systems. Intel’s mission is to be the prominent building block supplier tothe worldwide Internet economy.Communications building blocks for next-generation networks and Internet data centersare offered at various levels of integration. These products are used in communications servers,network appliances and computer telephony integration equipment.Component-level building blocks include communications silicon such as networkprocessors and other board-level components, software and embedded control chips.
Theseproducts are integrated in communications hardware such as hubs, outers, switches and serversfor local and wide area networking applications. Embedded control chips are also used in laserprinters, automotive systems and other applications.Intel’s measures resulted in a remarkable technological lead against its competitors. Themost significant consequence, which was a landmark in the company’s development, was IBM’sdecision to rely on the Intel 8088 microprocessor for its PCs in 1980.IBM (short for International Business Machines) has been the world’s leadingcompany in the big mainframe computers since the 1950s. Due to its dominance, it was oftencompared with a giant and referred to as “Big Blue”.
Because of IBM’s dominance andworldwide reputation, its PCs soon became industry standard and penetrated the office market.Other established computer companies followed and introduced their own PCs - the so-called“clones”-which were compatible to IBM’s models. To maintain compatibility, all thesemanufactures were forced to rely on Intel’s microprocessors, which thus were bootstrapped toindustry standard, too.
MS-DOS was chosen as the IBM PC’s operating system and becameindustry standard, essential to every compatible IBM PC.The Apple company provides one of Silicon Valley’s most famous stories. It showsfeatures that are typical for most star-up firms in the valley, however, it is unique and its earlysuccess and its contribution to the personal computer field are unmatched.Apple’s history starts with the story of two young and exceptional people “Two Steves”who began building a computer in their garage and launched the microcomputer revolution,changing our daily life in many respects.Stephen G. Wozniak was a typical Silicon Valley child. Born in 1950, he grew up withthe electronics industry in Silicon Valley, and became intrigued by electronics from the verystart, since his father was an electronics engineer. Wozniak, known to his friends as “Woz”, wasan electronics genius.
At the age of 13, he won the highest award at a local science fair for hisaddition-subtraction machine. His electronics teacher at Homestead High School recognizedWoz’s outstanding talent and arranged a job for him at a local company, where Steve could workwith computers once a week. It was there that Wozniak saw the capabilities of a computer (itwas the DEC PDP-8 minicomputer).In 1971, Wozniak built his first computer with his high-school friend Bill Fernandez.This computer (they called it Cream Soda Computer) was developed in his friend’s garage. Billintroduced Woz to a friend of his, named Steven P. Jobs.
Jobs’ parents were - like most otherpeople in Silicon Valley-blue-collar workers. Growing up in an environment full of electronics,Steve came in contact with this fascinating technology and was caught by it. Jobs was a lonerand his character can be described as brash, very ambitious and unshakably self-confident. Withhis directness and his persistency he managed to persuade most people. He had the ability toconvey his notions and visions to other people quite well. And he was not afraid to talk tofamous people until they gave in and did what he wanted.In 1972, Steve Jobs went to Reed College in Oregon, but dropped out a year later andreturned to Silicon Valley, where he took a job with a young video game company Atari., whichat that time planned to develop a new game called “Breakout”.
Jobs boasted he could design itquicker and better than anyone else. Jobs told his friend Woz about it, and the two designed thegame in record time, working four nights and days, and were paid the promised $700 for it. Thisexperience showed them that they could work together on a tough project and succeed.When the Homebrew Computer Club came into existence, Wozniak began attending itsmeetings. There he met people who shared his love for computers and exchanged the technicalexpertise.
Soon after, Chuck Peddle at MOS Tech released his new 6502 microprocessor chip foronly $20, which was a sensation compared to the usual price of $400. Suddenly, Woz saw hischance and decided to write the first BASIC for it, which was the most spread programminglanguage. After finishing with the BASIC, he made a computer for it to run on. The otherhobbyists at Homebrew were impressed by Wozniak’s kit, which actually was a board with chipsand interfaces for a keyboard and a video monitor.The breakthrough for the two Steves came in July, when Paul Terrell ordered 50 Applesfor his Byte Shop, however on condition the computers were fully assembled in a case andequipped with a cassette interface to enable external data storage.
Working hard in Job`s parent’sgarage they managed to construct the 50 Apples within those 30 days.The Apple I was continuously refined by Wozniak, and its sales made the youngcompany known, partly because the company’s name appeared on top of computers lists, whichwere published by electronics magazines in alphabetical order.
By the time the first Apple wasbeing sold, Steve Wozniak had already begun working on another computer, the Apple II. Thismachine had several special features, which had not appeared in any microcomputer before andwould make it the milestone product that would usher in the age of personal computer.Steve Job’s persistency persuaded Wozniak to build up a company. In 1979, DanielFylstra, a programmer from Boston, released VisiCalc for the Apple 11. This spreadsheet was anovelty in computer software. It relieved business calculations considerably and could be used todo financial forecasting.
It was the first application that made personal computers a practical toolfor people who do not know how to write their own programs. VisiCalc was very successful andcontributed to the skyrocketing of the Apple 11.The same year Mike Markkula made another important decision for Apple futuregrowth. His idea was to create a new market in the field of education and schools.
The AppleEducation Foundation was established, which granted complete Apple systems equipped withlearning software to schools. This market should account for a major part of the company’s salesin the subsequent years, since Apple 11 soon became the most popular machine forstudents.Apple remains the second-biggest personal computer manufacturer after IBM and hasreleased innovative products such as Quick Time, easy to use multimedia software combiningsound, video and animation.
Its further development is Newton, a personal digital assistant(PDA), which serves as an electronic notepad and “integrates advanced hand-writingrecognition, communication and data-management technologies”.Practically at the same time a graduate student of Stanford University AndyBechtolsheim conceived and designed the Sun workstationfor the Stanford UniversityNetwork communication project..In February 1982 he together with Vinod Khosia, and ScottMcNealy founded Sun Microsystems ( Stanford University Network) and started initial publicofferings in 1986 under the stock symbol SUNW, changed in 2007 to JAVA;At present Sun holds the patent of the widely used Java Development language and offerscertification and support to the Java development community. The company makes networkcomputing products such as workstations, servers, storage systems, network switches, software,microprocessors, and provides associated services and support with its mission to connecteveryone, everywhere via sun solutions.The founder and leader of Microsoft Corporation.
William Henry Gates was born inthe family of upper middle class businessman in Seattle. He went to Lakeside Prep. School,where he was first introduced to computers. At that time, computers were still too bulky andexpensive for the school to purchase their own ones, but the school made agreements withvarious companies that allowed its students to use the computers. Bill Gates, his friend PaulAllen and a handful of other students took up computing. They read books on computers, triedto write programs, hack the systems, alter and crash the files.
Soon Bill and his friends wereinvited by the computer company to find bugs and explore weaknesses in the system. Accordingto Gates, “ the boys used their time eating, drinking, and breathing computers”. When thecompany that was hiring the group went out of business in 1970, the boys were soon hired byInformation Sciences Inc. to write a program for the payroll.
Later they were also contracted byother computer firms to find bugs and fix them.In 1973 Gates was enrolled to Harvard University as a prelaw student, though he spentmost of the time programming in the campus computer center. A year later his friend Paul Allenshowed Bill the picture of the first personal microcomputer on the cover of a magazine ”PopularElectronics” along with a lengthy article. They both realized that their “star time” had come – thehome PC business was about to explode and needed software for the machines.
Gates arranged ameeting with the Altair manufacturers and by the time of the appointment Gates and Allen hadalready got the program Basic Interpreter– the result of their feverish night work. They soldthe program and licensed it to their first customer MITS.After Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard, Paul Allen also left MITS ( where he wasinvited to the position of the Director of Software) to devote the time completely to their newjoint company “Microsoft”( 1977). The company went through some rough first years, comingout with its second programming languages FORTRAN and third COBOL In 1980 Microsoftreleased the Z-80 Soft Card, announced an interactive, multi-user, multi-tasking system XENIXOIS, compatible with the programs written for UNIX OS.In 1981 Microsoft became a great corporation with Bill Gates as President and Chairmanof the Board, and Paul Allen as Executive Vice President in the State of Washington, introducedits PC, multi-feature word processing program, Microsoft Word for MS-DOS1.0 and theMicrosoft Mouse.In 1984 Microsoft took the leading role in developing software for the Apple Macintosh,created a new Hardware and Peripheral Division and announced their new personal computer,the IBM PC AT.
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