1980
1980: Home video game popularity grows as action, strategy games get better.
1980: The Minitel telephone system begins in France; it will run for decades.
1980: The PC hard drive, holds 10 MB.
1980: 1% of homes have VCRs.
1980: Berzerk introduces arcade video games that speak.x
1980: A 25 lb. portable computer is favorite of reporters who send news from field.
1980: Pac-Man.
1980: In France, a holographic film shows a gull flying.
1980: A former movie star, Ronald Reagan, is elected president of the United States.
1980: Intelsat V relays 12,000 phone calls, 2 color TV channels.
1980: Public international electronic fax service, Intelpost, begins.
1980: Atlanta gets first fiber optics system.
1980: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones put news database online.
1980: In Germany, the Telekom videotex system begins tests.
1980: CNN, 24-hour news channel, begins reports.
1980: The TRS-80 portable computer is favorite of reporters who send news from field.
1980: Sony introduces the consumer camcorder.
1980: Voyager 1 sends back images of Saturn and its moons, one billion miles away.
1980: From 3M, Post-it notes.
1980: FCC gives private companies go-ahead to build, launch communication satellites.
1980: International committee (CCITT) sets compatibility standards for fax machines.
1980: Oscars: Ordinary People, Robert De Niro, Sissy Spacek.
1980: Also at the movies: Raging Bull, Coal Miner's Daughter, Private Benjamin.
1980: Foreign language film Oscar: Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, U.S.S.R.
1980: Nobel Prize in Literature: Polish-American poet Czeslaw Milosz.
1980: The public sees a computer digital imaging system.
1980: Lasers are used to set type.

1981
1981: On Broadway, Cats.
1981: The laptop computer is introduced by Tandy.
1981: MTV, a music video channel, goes on cable 24/7.
1981: The IBM PC.
1981: Nobel Prize in Literature: British immigrant Elias Canetti.
1981: 450,000 transistors fit on a silicon chip 1/4-inch square.
1981: Hologram technology improves, now in video games.
1981: Donkey Kong, from Nintendo.
1981: Centipede, first arcade video game designed by a woman, Dona Bailey.
1981: In France the Minitel system, an national online information hookup.
1981: From Microsoft, the MSDOS 1.0 operating system.
1981: The laptop computer is introduced.
1981: Most modems run at 300 bits/sec.
1981: Oscars: Chariots of Fire, Henry Fonda, Katherine Hepburn.
1981: At the movies: On Golden Pond, Reds, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Indiana Jones #1).
1981: The mouse pointer is attached to computers.
1981: Prestel videotex adds email service.
1981: The Donkey Kong computer game flies off the shelves.
1981: Some stores in Canada provide touchscreens for shoppers.

1982
1982: Pac-Man attracts girls as well as boys to home video games.
1982: From Japan, a camera with electronic picture storage, no film.
1982: Tron from Disney is both feature film and arcade video game.
1982: Sony of Japan and Philips of the Netherlands bring out the compact disc.
1982: Caller ID.
1982: The one-button point-and-click mouse is born.
1982: Oscars: Gandhi, Ben Kingsley, Meryl Streep.
1982: Also at the movies: E.T., Tootsie, The Verdict, Missing, Das Boot.
1982: Foreign language film Oscar: Volver a Empezar (To Begin Again), Spain.
1982: Return of the Jedi opens in theaters equipped for its THX sound system.
1982: Kodak camera uses film on a disc cassette.
1982: Commodore 64 introduced; popular with game players.
1982: Ian Hancock's Land of Pain tells little known, tortured history of the gypsies.
1982: Vectrex video game computer is introduced.
1982: Nobel Prize in Literature: novelist Gabriel Garc’a Márquez, Colombia.
1982: Michael Jackson's album Thriller sells 25 million copies.
1982: 5.5 million PCs have been sold.
1982: Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple.
1982: Thomas Keneally's novel, Schindler's List starts as "Schindler's Ark."
1982: Prestel videotex system adds Newsweek content for subscribers.
1982: U.S. Post Office begins installing optical scanners nationwide.

1983
1983: Nobel Prize in Literature: British novelist William Golding.
1983: Compaq builds the first fully compatible IBM clone.
1983: Time names the computer as "Man" of the Year for 1982.
1983: Joseph Heller, God Knows, comic novel about King David.
1983: CDs go on sale.
1983: Radio Caroline resumes broadcasting from the Ross Revenge in the North Sea
1983: Intercity fiber optic phone transmission begins: New York to Washington.
1983: Lasers and plastics improve newspaper production.
1983: Audio music cassettes outsell LP records.
1983: Laser disc technology used in Dragon's Lair, an arcade video game.
1983: Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program.
1983: Vanessa Williams, who is black, wins long-time segregated Miss America contest.
1983: Japan's NHK presents its analog HDTV system at Swiss conference.
1983: Computer chip holds 288,000 bits of memory.
1983: ZIP + 4, expanded 9-digit ZIP codes, and postal bar codes are introduced.
1983: Internet domains get names instead of hard-to-remember numbers.
1983: Oscars: Terms of Endearment, Robert Duvall, Shirley MacLaine.
1983: Also at the movies: The Right Stuff, Silkwood, The Big Chill, Flashdance.
1983: TCP/IP becomes standard for Internet communication between computers.
1983: MILNET, for military sites, splits off ARPANET.
1983: American videotext service starts; fails in three years.
1983: In Chicago, Motorola starts testing cellphone service.

1984
1984: Machine translates basic Japanese into basic English, but with mistakes.
1984: Portable compact disc player arrives.
1984: National Geographic puts a hologram on its cover.
1984: From Florida, Radio Marti beams anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba.
1984: William Gibson coins the term "cyberspace" in his novel Neuromancer.
1984: A television set can be worn on the wrist.
1984: Japanese introduce high quality facsmile over phone lines.
1984: Several large U.S. newspapers offer online text versions.
1984: Apple Macintosh and IBM PC AT are introduced.
1984: Canon sells an electronic still camera.
1984: 3 1/2-inch disk drive.
1984: AT&T fiber optic cable service extends from Boston to Washington.
1984: The 32-bit microprocessor.
1984: CD-ROM disk can hold 270,000 typewritten pages of data.
1984: Broadway Pulitzer musical, Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George.
1984: Oscars: Amadeus, F. Murray Abraham, Sally Field.
1984: Also at the movies: Places in the Heart, The Killing Fields, The Natural.
1984: Foreign language film Oscar: Dangerous Moves, Switzerland.
1984: The one-megabyte memory chip.
1984: Nobel Prize in Literature: Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert.
1984: Multiple award novelist John Updike, The Witches of Eastwick.
1984: Playwright Sam Shepard, Fool for Love.
1984: Novelist Tom Clancy, The Hunt For Red October and Red Storm Rising.

1985
1985: Worldwide mass communication harnessed for "Aid to Africa" appeal.
1985: Desktop publishing becomes familiar.
1985: Nintendo enters home video game market.
1985: Cray-2 supercomputer does 1.2 billion calculations per second.
1985: Historian Daniel Boorstin , The Discoverers.
1985: Western novelist Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove.
1985: In Soviet Union, mass communication opens up under "glasnost" policy.
1985: Nobel Prize in Literature: French novelist Claude Simon.
1985: Hollywood amends ratings; now G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X.
1985: Household ownership of VCRs rises rapidly to 20%.
1985: Cellphones go into cars.
1985: Images can be broken into digital bits.
1985: Microsoft ships the Windows 1.0 operating system.
1985: Synthetic text-to-speech computer pronounces 20,000 words.
1985: Television broadcasts can be heard in stereo.
1985: U.S. TV networks begin satellite distribution to affiliates.
1985: Typical modem speed now 2400 bits/second.
1985: At Expo, a Sony TV screen measures 40x25 meters.
1985: Sony builds a radio the size of a credit card.
1985: America Online founded as Quantum Computer Services.
1985: Publication of last of Ana•s Nin's diaries.
1985: In Japan, 3-D television; no spectacles needed.
1985: Oscars: Out of Africa, William Hurt, Geraldine Page.
1985: Also at the movies: Witness, The Color Purple, Prizzi's Honor, Ran, Rambo.
1985: Foreign language film Oscar: The Official Story, Argentina.
1985: The 12-hour holocaust documentary, Shoah.
1985: Kids can't get enough of Super Mario Brothers computer game.
1985: New videotape formats: 8 mm and VHS-C.

1986
1986: Digital Audio Tape (DAT).
1986: Congress passes Electronic Communications Privacy Act.
1986: Computer-created Luxo, Jr. is first of Pixar's virtual studio films.
1986: U.S., Europe veto Japanese analog HDTV; will develop digital system.
1986: Nigerian poet-dramatist Wole Soyinka wins Nobel Prize in literature.
1986: Comic books turn grim and violent with The Dark Knight Returns.
1986: Oscars: Platoon, Paul Newman, Marlee Matlin.
1986: Maus comic books, about the Holocaust, published; will win Pulitzer.
1986: Also at the movies: The Color of Money, Children of a Lesser God, Aliens.
1986: Foreign language film Oscar: The Assault, Netherlands.
1986: A fourth U.S. television network, Fox, is added to ABC, CBS, NBC lineup.
1986: Laser printers start to replace dot matrix and daisy wheel printers.
1986: The LISTSERV mailing list program.
1986: International standards set for audio, video, digital recording.
1986: On Broadway, the musical, Phantom of the Opera.
1986: Patriot Games, another by Tom Clancy, author of best-selling military novels.
1986: Television is on for more than seven hours a day in average U.S. home.
1986: Japanese introduce Game Boy, with 8-bit operating system.
1986: An encyclopedia, the American, is put on CD-ROM.
1986: Cable shopping networks meet two public desires: TV and shopping.
1986: Voyager 2 sends back images of Uranus.

1987
1987: Tom Wolfe's first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities; will be panned film.
1987: Nobel Prize in Literature: Russian exile poet Joseph Brodsky.
1987: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).
1987: The Simpsons, animated cartoon, introduced on Fox TV.
1987: Global teleconference on hunger links 50,000 people in 79 cities.
1987: Toni Morrison's Pulitzer novel, Beloved.
1987: From Japan, the" anime" cartoon film.
1987: Oscars: The Last Emperor, Michael Douglas, Cher.
1987: Also at the movies: Wall Street, Moonstruck, Fatal Attraction, Lethal Weapon.
1987: Government deregulates cable industry.
1987: IBM offers a computer with VGA, giving a choice of 262,144 colors.
1987: Excel, PageMaker are born.
1987: Bill Atkinson's hypercard brings Vannevar Bush's hyperlink vision to reality.
1987: Dolby Pro Logic speakers are made for the home market.
1987: National Science Foundation starts NSFNET; it will replace ARPANET.

1988
1988: The Digital Disc Playback (DDP) system uses uncompressed digital sound.
1988: Sony introduces the Pocket Discman.
1988: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? feature film combines live action, animation.
1988: Stephen Hawking's explanation of the Universe, A Brief History of Time.
1988: First transatlantic telephone call over fiber optics line.
1988: Government brochure mailed to 107 million addresses.
1988: Prodigy dial-up service.
1988: The first Nobel Prize in literature written in Arabic won by Naguib Mahfouz.
1988: Oscars: Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman, Jodie Foster.
1988: Also at the movies: Die Hard, Big, Do the Right Thing, A Fish Called Wanda.
1988: Tenn. Sen. Albert Gore proposes U.S. research and education network.
1988: Self-service fax machine can be accessed by credit card.
1988: "Hacker" and "Worm" enter the Internet lexicon. First data crime reported.
1988: The TV show Roseanne breaks ground with a plain-talking blue collar family.
1988: Steve Jobs offers the futuristic NeXT computer.
1988: Jarkko Oikarinen of Finland writes the Internet Relay Chat software program.
1988: Internet T1 backbone completed; soon proves inadequate for traffic surge.
1988: James Michener, Alaska, another blockbuster from ancient times to the present.
1988: In Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco offers a novel with levels of meaning.
1988: CDs now outsell vinyl records.
1988: Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses, enrages Muslims.
1988: 98% of U.S. homes have at least one television set.

1989
1989: Ayatollah Khomenei orders death for Salman Rushdie, who is not in Iran.
1989: AT&T claims speech recognition machine understands 300 billion sentences.
1989: Amy Tan's best-selling novel of Chinese women, The Joy Luck Club.
1989: Researchers try to index the exploding Internet; can't keep up.
1989: Another Tom Clancy military best-selling novel, Clear and Present Danger.
1989: TV Guide cover puts Oprah Winfrey's head on Ann-Margaret's body.
1989: Caribbean.is examined across time in typical James Michener style.
1989: With 5 million Minitels, France is the world's most wired nation.
1989: New Sony videotape format: Hi8.
1989: Photos can be digitally manipulated on a home computer.
1989: Nintendo racks up an annual profit of $1 billion.
1989: Nobel Prize in Literature: novelist Camilo José Cela, Spain.
1989: E.L. Doctorow, Billy Bathgate, fact and fiction among Thirties gangsters.
1989: New Revised Standard Version of the Bible replaces Revised Standard Version.
1989: Oscars: Driving Miss Daisy, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jessica Tandy.
1989: Also at the movies: When Harry Met Sally, Glory, Field of Dreams.
1989: Foreign language film Oscar: Cinema Paradiso, Italy.
1989: Voyager 2 sends back images of Neptune.
1989: Pacific Link fiber optic cable opens, can carry 40,000 phone calls.
1989: B.F Skinner, The Origins of Cognitive Thought, delves into behaviourist theory.
1989: Holidaymakers can buy single use, throwaway cameras.

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