Mark Taylor's
Emerging Network Culture Timeline
for Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption

1921	First fully automatic telephone switching system (in Omaha)
1926	Transatlantic telephony via submarine cable
1932	Federal Home Loan Bank Board created
1934	Securities and Exchange Act
1935	Banking Act of 1935 (creates Federal Open Market Committee) Kodachrome color film
1937	Coaxial cable
1938	1938-48: xerography
1940	First all-electronic computer Regular FM radio broadcasting begins Teletypewriter (calculator tied by phone line to demonstrate remote computing) First regular TV station in U.S. (WNBT, New York, estimated 10,000 viewers)
1941	CBS and NBC start commercial transmission Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sets U.S. TV and radio standards (a broadcaster cannot own television stations that reach more than 35% of the nation's homes) First TV commercial (for Bulova watches) Microwave transmission Push-button telephone
1942	First electronic digital computer Magnetic recording tape
1944	Harvard's Mark I First U.S. televised network newscast (NBC)
1945	FCC creates VHF spectrum of channels Vannevar Bush conceives idea of hyperlinks, hypermedia
1946	High-frequency microwave radio links RCA, NBC demonstrate rival color television systems Dual Television Network Rule enacted, prohibiting a major network from buying another major network University of Pennsylvania's ENIAC
1947	FCC national standard for television receivers International Monetary Fund, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades (GATT) Seven U.S. East Coast TV stations begin regular programming Transistor invented at Bell Labs
1948	Community Antenna Television (CATV), forerunner to cable TV Polaroid instant print camera RCA's Ultrafax system (transmits one million words per minute) Reel-to-reel tape recorder and long-playing 33-1/3 rpm records introduced Shannon and Weaver create information theory Theory developed for check-bits to detect errors in phone switching WFIL-FM, owned by Philadelphia newspaper, transmits fax editions twice a day
1949	Magnetic core computer memory is invented Network TV established in U.S. New York-Chicago co-ax lines; three channels westbound, two east Ninety-eight TV stations RCA offers the 45 rpm record and player Whirlwind, first real-time computer
1950	CBS broadcasts in color to twenty-five television sets Diners Club credit card John von Neumann designs computer logic Nielsen's Audimeter tracks television audiences Phonevision (pay-per-view television system) Xerox photocopiers
1951	Color television goes on sale Direct distance dialing begins Graphics display on vectorscope on Whirlwind computer One and a half million TV sets in U.S. Univac I (first mass-produced computer)
1952	Claude Shannon uses electric mouse and maze to prove computers can learn Portfolio selection (Harry Markowitz, Nobel Prize 1990) Telephone area codes Transistor radios
1953	CATV system uses microwave Magnetic core memory installed in a computer (Whirlwind) Prerecorded reel-to-reel tape at 7Á ips goes on sale
1954	FCC authorizes color TV broadcast U.S. television revenue surpasses radio revenue
1955	Tests begin to provide massive digital communication using fiber optics
1956	Bank Holding Company Act (allowed banks to circumvent state branching laws and permitting holding companies to engage in mortgage banking) Bell's test Picturephone First television broadcast made from videotape First transatlantic telephone calls by submarine cable Geniac (first successful digital computing toy) Milton Friedman's study of quantity theory begins modern monetarism Pagers introduced Transatlantic telephone cable completed
1957	First videotaped television commercial (for corn flakes) FORTRAN becomes the first high-level computer programming language Sputnik
1958	Color videotape Experiments begin to create the modem First successful U.S. Satellite (Explorer I) Separation theorem (James Tobin, Nobel Prize 1981) Stereo LP records TX-1 computer at MIT uses graphics console
1959	COBOL for business Magnetic ink character recognition developed to process checks Microchip Texas Instruments builds an integrated circuit
1960	ATM invented Installed base of five thousand computers in U.S. Lasers introduced Packet-switching (PS) transmission
1961	Bell Labs tests communication by light waves Fairchild semiconductor (commercial integrated circuits) IBM introduces the “golf ball” typewriter First paper on packet-switching theory Sony markets a helical scan videotape recorder TWA offers the first in-flight movie
1962	Comsat created to launch and operate global satellite system FCC requires UHF tuners on TV sets Telstar communications satellite sends television across the Atlantic
1963	Communications satellite, Syncom II, goes into geosynchronous orbit Computer mouse patented Kodak Instamatic Sketchpad Sony open-reel videotape recorder ZIP codes
1964	BASIC programming Capital asset pricing model Compact cassette tape First version of Moore's law (microprocessor speed doubles each year) IBM's OS/360 (first mass-produced computer operating system) Intelsat, international satellite organization, formed Japan's NHK begins HDTV development Mariner IV sends television images from Mars PDP-8, first minicomputer, first to use integrated circuit technology Transpacific submarine telephone cable service begins Local TV Multiple Ownership Rule enacted, prohibiting a broadcaster from owning more than one television station in a given market unless there are at least eight stations in the market.
1965	Audio tape cassettes Bar codes (Universal Product Code) Commercial communications satellite Early Bird (Intelsat I) orbits Computer time-sharing becomes popular FCC rules bring structure to cable television Market price as estimate of value-random walk (Paul Samuelson, Nobel Prize 1970) Mobile radio telephone service widely available in the U.S. Post Office tests optical scanners to read ZIP codes PDP-8 (first mass-produced minicomputer) Sony Portapak portable video system introduced in the U.S. Word “hypertext” coined
1966	Eight-track tape player First ARPANET plan LexisNexis founded as the Data Corporation Xerox introduces the Telecopier (fax machine)
1967	Computer hypertext system is developed Cordless telephones IBM floppy disk OCLC (originally “Ohio College Library Center,” now “Online Computer Library Center)
1968	DEC 338 intelligent graphics terminal First computer installed on a trading floor (Salomon Brothers) Head-mounted display (sword of Damocles) Intel 1 KB RAM microchip Keyboard, keypad, and mouse integrated (demonstrates first working hypertext and prototype for mouse) Magnetic-strip credit cards ONLine System (NLS) Theorem relating corporate finance to returns (Franco Modigliani and Merton Miller, Nobel Prize 1985, 1990) Xerox office copier
1969	ARPANET First automatic teller machine (ATM) Graphical user interface (GUI) Instinet Public Broadcasting System (PBS) founded SIGGRAPH formed UCLA computer sends data to Stanford computer (anticipates Internet) Unix operating system Xerox PARC founded
1970	Alohanet (first wireless computer networking system) Associated Press sends news by computer Corning Glass Works spins out optical fiber clear enough for light pulses Efficient market hypothesis (Eugene Fama) IBM System 370 allows time-sharing, online computing IMAX Picturephone commercial service begins Radio/TV cross-ownership restriction enacted, prohibiting a broadcaster from owning a radio station and a television station in the same market.
1971	E-mail First index fund Intel 4004 microprocessor NASDAQ founded Texas Instruments introduces portable electronic calculator Wang 1200, first word processor
1972	@ introduced Alto computer Atari formed Digital sound and Á-inch videotape first used in broadcasting First digital watches First programmable word processor with video screen First videocassettes HBO starts pay-TV service for cable International currency futures Landsat I, “eye-in-the-sky” satellite Options pricing model (Robert Merton and Myron Scholes, Nobel Prize 1997) Pocket calculators Pong (first home video game) Public demonstration of ARPANET Satellite used for live television transmission Sony's Betamax Sony's Port-a-Pak video recorder
1973	AP, UPI start installing computer terminals in all U.S. bureaus First international connections to the ARPANET Pension funds and endowments allowed to play options market Reuters installs video terminal called Monitor Transmission control protocol (TCP) and Internet protocol (IP) Xerox sets up a LAN (local area network) called Ethernet
1974	BBN opens Telenet, the first public data service (a commercial version of ARPANET) BCC transmits Teletext data to TV sets Electronic news gathering Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Satellite transmission of mailgrams “Teacher-in-the-Sky” satellite begins educational mission Telnet offers commercial packet data service Wall Street Journal successfully transmits edition by satellite Word “Internet” enters the lexicon
1975	Altair 8000 computer (first computer for home use) BASIC becomes the first programming language for the personal computer Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft Corporation Fractals (Benoit Mandelbrot) HBO's “Thrilla' from Manila,” nationwide by satellite, begins pay cable boom IBM portable computer (50 lbs., cost $9,000 for 16K, $20,000 for 64K) Philips demonstrates an optical videodisc system SEC mandates competitive brokerage commissions (end of fixed rate) Sony Betamax recorder Newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership prohibition enacted (banning ownership of both a newspaper and a television station in the same market)
1976	Apple I Electric Pencil (first popular microcomputer) First retail index fund Small satellite dishes for residential backyards Sony's Betamax and JVC's VHS battle for home market. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak create Apple Computer Company Trials begin on TCP/IP protocol for Internet
1977	Apple II, Commodore Pet, TRS-80 AT&T transmits telephone calls by fiber optics VHS wins battle with Betamax TRS-80 introduced Warner Cable's interactive Qube television system
1978	BBS (Bulletin Board Software) lets computers communicate via phone modems DEC VAX II/780 introduced Epson MX-80 (dot matrix printer) Financial Institutions Regulatory Interest Rates Control Act First tests of cellular telephones Individual 401Ks Intel 16-bit microprocessor PBS satellite delivery Oracle videotext and teletext system Video laser disc
1979	Atari eight-bit computers introduced Atari 400 and 800 model game computers CompuServe First currency swap First multiuser domain (MUD) IBM 3279 color terminal Newsgroups arrive on the Internet Sony's Betascan shows fast-forward picture Sony Walkman Speech recognition machine with a vocabulary of 1,000 words VisiCalc spreadsheet program
1980	CNN begins broadcasting FCC allows private companies to build and launch communication satellites IBM licenses DOS from Microsoft Intelsat V relays 12,000 phone calls and two color TV channels International committee (CCITT) sets compatibility standards for fax machines Minitel begins in France MIT Media Lab founded New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones put news database online PacMan Public international electronic fax service, Intelpost U.S. Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act
1981	BITNET connects university mainframe computers worldwide DEC introduces VT100 Financial News Network (FNN) First interest rate swap IBM introduces the first IBM PC (sixteen-bit 8088 chip) Laptop computer introduced Microsoft MSDOS 1.0 operating system Mouse pointer is attached to computers MTV Sony Betacam Reagan administration deregulation under the leadership of FCC chairman Mark Fowler; deregulatory moves, some made by Congress, others by the FCC included extending television licenses to five years from three; the number of television stations any single entity could own grew from seven in 1981 to twelve in 1985
1982	Adobe founded 1982-84: AT&T dismantling AutoDesk founded Commodore 64 Depository Institutions Act, also known as the Garn-St. Germain Act 5.5 million PCs sold Silicon Graphics Inc. NSF launches CSFNET One-button point-and-click mouse introduced Prodigy Stock index options
1983	Apple's Lisa (the first microcomputer with a graphical user interface) ARPANET and MILNET split Seven baby Bells form Audio music cassettes outsell LP records Autodesk introduces first PC-based CAD software Cisco Systems starts network router manufacturing business Compact discs go on sale FIDONET First laser disc arcade game Intercity fiber optic phone transmission begins (New York to Washington) Internet domain names Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program Motorola starts testing cell phone service Sony and Philips introduce first CD player TCP/IP becomes standard for Internet communication between computers
1984	Apple Macintosh and IBM PC AT introduced AT&T fiber optic cable service extends from Boston to Washington British TeleCom privatized CONUS relays news feeds for stations on Ku-band satellites Domain Name System (DNS) introduced; number of hosts exceeds 1,000 First Macintosh computer sold HDTV Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet printer NASDAQ introduces Small Order Execution System (SOES) (becomes mandatory in 1988) One-megabyte memory chip Portable cellular phone introduced (weights two pounds and costs $3995.00) Portable compact disc player arrives 32-bit microprocessor 3Á inch disk drive Universal Studios opens computer graphics department U.S. Federal Appeals Court legalizes nationwide ATM networks
1985	America Online founded as Quantum Computer Services Audio CDs and CD players Cellphones in cars Desktop publishing Images broken into digital bits Nintendo enters home video game market Pixar Image Computer goes on sale Synthetic text-to-speech computer pronounces 20,000 words U.S. TV networks begin satellite distribution to affiliates Whole Earth ’Lectronic Link (WELL) Guidelines for minimal amounts of nonentertainment programming are abolished FCC guidelines on how much advertising can be carried per hour are eliminated
1986	Cable shopping networks Commodity swaps Digital audio tape (DAT) Intel introduces 82786 graphics coprocessor chip Laser printers start to replace dot matrix and daisy wheel printers LISTSERV mailing list program Microsoft goes public Texas Instruments introduces TMS34010 graphics system
1987	Excel, PageMaker Government deregulates cable industry Hypercard IBM offers a computer with VGA, giving a choice of 262,144 colors National Science Foundation starts NSFNET (replaces ARPANET) Stock market crash U.S. Competitive Equality Banking Act Vincent van Gogh's Irises sold at auction for a record $53.9 million Windows 2.0, MS/OS 2 FCC's "Fairness Doctrine" eliminated
1988	CDs outsell vinyl records Digital disc playback (DDP) First transatlantic telephone call over fiber optics line Internet T1 backbone completed NeXT computer Prodigy dial-up service Self-service fax machine accessed by credit card Sony's Pocket Discman
1989	Collapse of the Berlin Wall CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel) Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act First relays between a commercial electronic mail carrier and the Internet Hyperlink created Integrated services digital networks (ISDN) National High Performance Computer Technology Act NHK begins regular broadcasting of analog HDTV programs Number of Internet hosts exceeds 100,000 Pacific Link fiber optic cable opens (can carry 40,000 phone calls) Photos digitally manipulated on a home computer World Wide Web proposed
1990	America Online is created from the expansion of AppleLink-Personal Edition ARPANET ends Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) founded Kodak introduces the photo CD player Nobel Prize recognizes financial economists (William Sharpe, Harry Markowitz, Merton Miller) Windows 3.0 World.Std.com (first commercial provider of Internet dial-up access)
1991	Baby Bells get government permission to offer information services CNBC acquires FNN Compact Disc Interactive (CD-I) player for music, video Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Improvement Act First American Web site Gopher released JPEG/MPEG NSF lifts restrictions on the commercial use of the Net PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) released by Philip Zimmerman Prediction Company founded Three out of four U.S. homes own VCRs Warsaw Stock Exchange opened for first time since World War II World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN
1992	AOL exceeds 200,000 subscribers Apple introduces Quick Time Datek Online founded Delphi offers dial-up service to the Internet Eastman Kodak introduces its Photo CD system for storing and editing images on compact disk Maastricht Treaty on European Union signed Mosaic (browser with graphic user interface) New Web terms: HTTP and URL introduced Remote bar-coding system Sixty-five million personal computers sold Sony Mini-Disc, recordable magneto-optical disc Trade Plus becomes E*trade World Bank goes online
1993	Chicago Board of Options Exchange European Exchange Rate Mechanism reorganized First prison sentence for software counterfeiting in the U.S. Guam, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Liechtenstein, Peru, and Romania connect to NSFNET Intel Pentium chip Internet Talk Radio begins broadcasting Lucent Technologies engineers create virtual reality “you-are-there” games, travel tours, and training simulations MPEG-2 standard for digital television pictures adopted Myst released U.S. National Information Infrastructure Act U.S. White House goes online Web traffic increased 341,631 percent Windows NT Wired magazine begins publishing WWW opened to anyone without cost
1994	Almost one-third of all American homes own a computer Direct Broadcast Satellite service FCC approves advanced TV standard, including HDTV and SDTV FCC approves British Telecom's 20 percent ownership of MCI First banner ads appear on hotwired.com First Virtual (first cyberbank) opens up for business Internet management privatized Japanese prime minister goes online More PCs than TVs are sold in the U.S. for the first time National Information Infrastructure Task Force Netscape Navigator replaces Mosaic Radio stations open Net locations VRML introduced Yahoo search engine introduced Zip drive (removable storage of up to 100 MB)
1995	Amazon.com Over 90 percent (by value) of all transactions in the U.S. are made electronically DBS feeds offered nationwide Federal Communications Commission auctions off licenses for new high-frequency “personal communication services” (PCS) Internet Explorer 2.0 Internet 2 unveiled Java Mark Twain Bank adopts DigiCash Mary Meeker publishes The Internet Report Mondex electronic cash card introduced Netscape IPO NSFNET closed down; Internet privatized RealAudio Sony Playstation and Sega Saturn introduced Sun launches JAVA Toy Story is the first totally digital feature-length film Vatican goes online WebTV
1996	Alan Greenspan's “irrational exuberance” AOL flat rate subscription AT&T spins off Lucent Technologies and NCR Forty-five million Internet users (thirty million in U.S.) Microsoft releases Explorer 3.0 Web browser More than 100,000 World Wide Web sites MSNBC Optical fiber cable line stretches across the Pacific SEC requires NASDAQ to display best available prices to all investors Telecommunications Reform Act deregulates most of the U.S. communications industry (phone, cable, broadcast companies compete) TheStreet.com Web-TV tunes television sets to the Internet via the TV-top box WorldCom takes over MFS Communications WTO eliminates trade tariffs on $500 billion worth of computer and software products by 2000 Yahoo IPO
1997	ARIN (American Registry for Internet Numbers) David Bowie issues Bowie Bonds Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom form Global One Forty-three percent of U.S. homes own computers Installed base of computers in reaches 180 million (95 percent PCs) Microsoft acquires 11.5 percent of Comcast Microsoft acquires WebTV Networks Momentum AG (online trading in Germany) More than 4,000 ISPs in the U.S. and Canada Dow drops 554 points (October 27) Optical fiber cable lines stretch around the world Russian stock market opens Streaming audio and video available on the Web No Electronic Theft Act Internet sites or dial-up connections at 2,600 U.S. newspapers U.S. Supreme court strikes down key provisions of Communications Decency Act (Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union) White House issues The Framework for Global Electronic Commerce WorldCom takes over MCI WTO agrees to open basic telecommunications markets in seventy countries (94 percent of world telecommunications markets) Cable modem introduced as first broadband option
1998	Ten million AOL subscribers Apple's iMac computer Approximately 300 million World Wide Web pages (with 1.5 million added each day) European Union opens voice telecommunications to competition First digital TV programs are broadcast in the U.S. Industry Standard launches Justice Department sues Microsoft Long-Term Capital Management informs Fed it is almost bankrupt (September 20) MP3 NASDAQ Japan launched 180 commercial communications satellites and 530 other satellites in orbit 150 million Internet users (half in the U.S.) Pentium II processor Slate launches 3,250 newspapers and 1,280 TV stations now have online Web sites Traffic on the Internet doubles every one hundred days Yahoo! receives twenty-five million hits a month AOL market capitalization $250 billion (as much as General Motors, Ford, and Boeing combined) First Internet Bank of Indiana (first full-service bank available only on the Net) Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, overturns the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 DSL introduced as the future of home broadband internet access. Shawn Fanning creates Napster, revolutionizes use of P2P (peer-to-peer) network design technique. Bluetooth (short-range radio technology for wireless digital transfer) Internet IPOs go from 42 (1998) to 294 Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com Time's Man of the Year U.S. Supreme Court rules that domain names are property that may be garnished
2000	AOL buys Time Warner Dow peaks at 11,908.50 (January 14) Fed raises short-term interest rates Bell Atlantic and GTE announce that their new combined company will be named Verizon A federal court rules against Microsoft; calls ring out for the organization to be divided into two separate companies Financial disaster for many dot-com companies as venture capital and high stock prices dry up, resulting in layoffs, bankruptcies, and the nickname "dot bombs" SBC pays a record $6.1 million fine for not meeting performance standards set as a condition of its merger with Ameritech. NASDAQ peaks (March 10) OTC derivatives exempted from regulation
2001	Afghanistan's Taliban bans Internet access countrywide Enron declares bankruptcy Industry Standard suspends publication Apple Computer introduces its new operating system OS-X Live coverage of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center Court order for breakup of Microsoft overturned in June; Microsoft settles its antitrust case with the Department of Justice in October and launches its new operating system Windows XP A federal appeals court rules in favor of the Recording Industry Association of America against Napster, effectively shutting down its operations Microsoft xBox and Nintendo Gamecube released
2002	Lehman Brothers ends business casual HP/Compaq merger John Anderson, Jim Hourihan, Cary Phillips, and Sebastian Marino of ILM receive the Scientific and Technical Achievement Academy Award for the development of the ILM Creature Dynamics System, which makes hair, clothing, skin, flesh, and muscle simulation both directable and integrated within a character animation and rigging environment WorldCom files largest bankruptcy in U.S. history Internet2 now has two hundred university, sixty corporate, and forty affiliated members that pay to use it Blogs Nine of ten American schoolchildren have access to computers at home or school DVD sales pass VCR sales; over forty million U.S. homes have DVD 70% of U.S. households could have broadband service; 15% use it Amazon.com stocks more than 350,000 titles UK workers spend more time with e-mail than with their children MTV reaches 250 million homes worldwide New Euro coins and notes introduced by the European Union
2003	Atari Games Corporation (Midway Games West) goes out of business Live coverage of war on Iraq Roxio purchases the legal remains of Napster in order to rerelease it as “legitimate” Amazon.com becomes virtual mall Time Warner drops AOL from name
	Sources In addition to a broad range of newspapers and periodicals, I have consulted the following sources in compiling this timeline: Carlson, Wayne. CGI Historical Timeline, http://www.accad.ohio-state.edu/~waynec/history/timeline.html Davies, Glyn, rev. ed. A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day: A Comparative Chronology of Money (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1996). Material taken from http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/amser/chrono.html Eckman, John Mark. (Dec. 1977). Modernism Timeline 1890-1940, http://www.liquidsquid.com/modernism/timeline.html Fang, Irving, and Kristina Ross. (Oct. 1996). The Media History Project, http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/index2.html; http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/alltime.html Gromov, Gregory R. (Sept. 1996). History of the Internet and WWW: The Roads and Crossroads of Internet's History, http://www.netvalley.com/netvalley/intval.html History of the Internet http://www.internetvalley.com/intvall.html Inventure Place, The National Inventors Hall of Fame. National Inventors Hall of Fame, http://www.invent.org/index.asp Lucent Technologies Inc. (1997). Heritage of Innovation, http://lucent.com.au/lucent-explained/fact_book_her.html Naughton, Russell (Aug. 1998). Adventures in Cybersound, http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/phd3000.html Zakon, Robert Hobbes. Hobbes' Internet Timeline, http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/ http://www.dfaus.com/philosophy/history/ http://www.mediahistory.umn.edu/time/century.html http://www.microsoft.com/education http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/mediatimeline.html http://compnetworking.about.com/library/weekly/aa021403a.htm http://www-out.bell-labs.com/history/heritage/innovation.html http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/timeline/index.html http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/ http://www.dotmusic.com/news/February2001/news17964.asp

 

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Mark C. Taylor
Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World without Redemption
©2004, 392 pages, 22 halftones, 14 line drawings, 2 tables
Cloth $32.50 ISBN: 0-226-79166-1

For information on purchasing the book—from bookstores or here online—please go to the webpage for Confidence Games.

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