1976 Communications And Media

New York television journalist Barbara Walters, 44, accepts a 5-year contract from American Broadcasting Company to co-host the network's nightly news program for $1 million per year. Despite the remark of a former NBC News president in 1971 that "audiences are less prepared to accept news from a woman's voice than from a man's," Walters has successfully been co-anchoring NBC's morning Today Show. Indianapolis-born WMAQ-TV Chicago television news co-anchor Jane Pauley, 26, succeeds Walters as news co-anchor of the Today show, a position she will hold until 1990.
The first word-processing program for personal computers goes on sale under the name Electric Pencil, but PCs are still in their infancy. Dedicated word processors made by Wang Laboratories begin to revolutionize offices with work stations that share central computers (see 1974; technology [Wang], 1951).

Fax (facsimile transmission) machines gain ground as second-generation technology cuts transmission time from 6 minutes per page to 3. The devices translate a printed page or graphics into electronic signals, transmit them over telephone lines, and print out signals received from other fax machines thousands of miles (or one block) away. Government offices, law enforcement agencies, news agencies, publishers, and banks are the major users. Prices fall for machines, but quality remains poor (see 1982).

1976 News on Technology

The First Altair Computer Conference opens at Albuquerque, N.M., to promote the Altair 8800 introduced last year. Priced at $379 in its basic version, it requires extra memory boards and other add-ons if it is to be used for anything useful or entertaining, the add-ons may double its price, and its open architecture allows others to make innovations of their own (it also invites competition) (see 1977).

Microsoft Corp. is founded at Albuquerque by computer whiz Bill Gates and his friend Paul Allen with the stated aim of creating a software business separate from any hardware company (see 1975; 1977).

Apple Computer Co. is founded April 1 in a California garage to produce personal computers. Stephen G. Wozniak, 25, and Steven P. Jobs, 21, are college dropouts who have spent 6 months designing the crude prototype for Apple I, using ideas, including the mouse, picked up from visits to Xerox Corp. technologists at their Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox Parc). Jobs was permitted to audit Stanford physics classes while still in high school, he has been experimenting with computer circuits for years, his father has told him to produce something that could be sold and do it within 30 days or get a job, and he has persuaded Wozniak that they could make the simple computer (essentially some microchips screwed to a piece of plywood) for $20 and sell it for $40. Jobs has raised $1,500 with help from Apple cofounder Armas Clifford "Mike" Markkula Jr., 33, he and Wozniak have agreed to pay the Stanford Research Institute $45,000 for a lifetime license to the mouse technology, and Wozniak uses the 4,000-transistor MOS Technology 6502 microchip as the basis for Apple II, which is marketed in a wooden cabinet (see 1977).

The first floppy-disk drive for small computers is shipped in September by Shugart Associates (see 1971; Seagate Technology, 1979).

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Home Computer, 1976

Most domestic computer user in the years 1970, were amateurs, designed or assembling their own machines. The Apple I, developed a bedroom during the year 1976 by Steve Wozniak, Jobs and Steven Ron Wayne, was a mother on the basis of enthusiasts would like to add display units and keyboards. During the year 1977 Jobs and Wozniak launched Apple II, with whom the market for personal computers.

Apple I was the first computer from a company that at one of the fastest growth in history, the introduction of a number of innovative and most influential hardware and software products.