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Timeline of computing 1980–1989
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==1987== {| class="wikitable sortable" ! Date ! Location ! class="unsortable" | Event |- valign="top" | 2 March | US | Macintosh II and Macintosh SE released. The SE was based on the 68000, but could cope with 4 MB of RAM and had an internal and external SCSI adapter. It offered a high performance PDS interrupt slot which provided some of the first expandability on a Mac. The SE also offered the capability of displaying color with a third-party video card with its new ROM. The Macintosh II was based on the newer Motorola 68020, that ran at 16 MHz and achieved a much more respectable 2.6 MIPS (comparable to an 80286). It too had a SCSI adapter but was also fitted with a colour video adapter. |- valign="top" |rowspan="3"| April | US | On April 2 [[IBM PS/2|PS/2]] Systems were introduced by IBM. The first 4 models were released on this date. The [[IBM PS/2 Model 30|PS/2 Model 30]] based on an 8086 processor and an old XT bus, [[IBM PS/2 Model 50|Models 50]] and [[IBM PS/2 Model 60|60]] based on the 80286 processor and the [[IBM PS/2 Model 80|Model 80]] based on the 80386 processor. These used the 3½" [[floppy disk]]s, storing 1.44 MB on each (although the Model 30 could only use the low 720KB density). These systems (except the Model 30, released in September 1988) included a completely new bus, the MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) bus, which did not catch on as it did not provide support for old-style 16 bit AT bus expansion cards. The MCA bus did show many improvements in design and speed over the ISA bus most PCs used, and IBM (if no one else) still use it in some of their machines. The PS/2 models were very successful{{snd}}selling well over 2 million machines in less than 2 years. |- valign="top" | US | MS-DOS 3.3, PC DOS 3.3 Released with the IBM PS/2 this version included support for the High Density (1.44 MB) 3½" disks. It also supported hard disk partitions, splitting a hard disk into 2 or more logical drives. |- valign="top" | US | [[OS/2]] Launched by Microsoft and IBM. A later enhancement, OS/2 Warp provided many of the 32 bit enhancements boasted by Windows 95{{snd}}but several years earlier, yet the product failed to dominate the market in the way Windows 95 did 8 years later. |- valign="top" | June | UK | Introduction of [[Acorn Archimedes]].<ref name="acornuser198708_risc_revealed">{{cite magazine |date=August 1987 |title=RISC revealed |url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser061-Aug87/page/n12/mode/1up |access-date=26 April 2021 |magazine=Acorn User |pages=11}}</ref> |- valign="top" |rowspan="2"| August | Canada | AD-LIB soundcard released. Not widely supported until a software company, Taito, released several games fully supporting AD-LIB{{snd}}the word then spread how much the special sound effects and music enhanced the games. [[Ad Lib, Inc.]], a Canadian Company, had a virtual monopoly until 1989 when the SoundBlaster card was released. |- valign="top" | US | [[LIM EMS]] v4.0 |- valign="top" | October–<br>November | US | Compaq DOS (CPQ-DOS) v3.31 released to cope with disk partitions >32Mb. Used by some other OEMs, but not Microsoft. |- valign="top" | 9 December | US | [[Windows 2.0|Microsoft Windows 2]] released. |- valign="top" | ? | US | [[Connection Machine]], an interesting{{Attribution needed|date=July 2021|reason=The word 'interesting' is a value judgement and cannot be used in Wikipedia's voice. It should be attributed to a source or removed.}} supercomputer which instead of integration of circuits operates up to 64,000 fairly ordinary microprocessors{{snd}}using parallel architecture{{snd}}at the same time; in its most powerful form it can do somewhere in the region of 2 billion operations per second. |- valign="top" | ? | UK | Fractal Image Compression Algorithm invented by English mathematician [[Michael Barnsley]], allowing digital images to be compressed and stored using fractal codes rather than normal image data. |- valign="top" | ? | US | [[Motorola]] released the [[Motorola 68030|68030]] processor. |- valign="top" | ? | US | [[HyperCard]] software released.<ref name=Kirschenbaum2013>{{citation |url=http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/07/30/_10_most_influential_software_programs_of_all_time_from_sabre_to_minecraft.html |author= Matthew Kirschenbaum |date=July 2013 |title=10 Most Influential Software Programs Ever |work= [[Slate (magazine)|Slate]] |location=USA }}</ref> |- valign="top" | ? | US | Commodore released the [[Amiga 500]] and the [[Amiga 2000]]. The Amiga 500 was similar to the original [[Amiga 1000]], but in an all-in-one case with 512 KB of RAM and at a lower price. The Amiga 2000 was built in a large PC-style case and included 1 MB of RAM and [[Zorro II]] expansion slots. |- valign="top" | ? | US | [[VGA]] released (designed for the PS/2) by IBM. |- valign="top" | ? | US | [[IBM Multicolor Graphics Adapter|MCGA]] released (only for low end PS/2s, i.e. the Model 30) by IBM. |- valign="top" | ? | US | The [[IBM 8514|8514/A]] introduced by IBM. This was a graphics card that included its own processor to speed up the drawing of common objects. The advantages included a reduction in CPU workload. |}
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