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| Cyberpunk Computer Room - stock photo (Image Credit: GettyImages) |
When the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. entrance music comes on, you know two things for sure: death and applauding like a lunatic. Yes, no one warned us that life would be this way, but wow, the 1990s were a terrific decade. Thanks to MTV, the internet, and national and international T.V. stations, Pop culture spread like wildfire. Whether you were a Nirvana fan, a beanie baby hoarder, or a Dr Dre aficionado, you understood your tastes weren't unique.
Since the internet is the catalyst for this influx of people from all over the world, let's begin our look back at the best tech of the 1990s there!
It's the year 1990, and the World Wide Web goes live (for real this time)
Many individuals have attempted to construct a 'World Wide Web' before the 1990s without success. The bottom line was that it would take a genius to make it work, whether it failed due to security breaches, a lack of financing, or complexity. I'm glad Tim Berners-Lee was around to help out with the investigation!
What was unique about this attempt? CERN (yep, the massive hadron collider) already had a prototype system built by Berners-Lee called ENQUIRE. ENQUIRE, CERN's internal network of 10,000 computers, already worked like the internet. Working on a private network, on the other hand, is straightforward, so Berners-Lee only required one more component to complete his worldwide network.
He built HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocols) in under three months to cut a long tale short! Once he achieved it, Tim Berners-Lee would formally create the world's first genuinely global and open network.
Say a small thank you to Tim Berners-Lee the next time you open your 20th internet tab, like your aunts' post on Facebook or access a Betty Blocks program in the cloud. Even if a particular piece of software from the 1990s didn't originate on the internet, it could grow as a result of it.
Linux was first introduced in 1991.
A terrific user experience and an adorable mascot were required in the 1990s for a successful operating system to be released to the public. Linus Torvald's Linux operating system nailed both points by adopting a different approach from the competitors. How? By changing their penguin mascot Tux from the obnoxious Clippy and being open-sourced.
Even though open-source software would be commonplace by 2020, it was a risky choice in 2009. The Linux Kernel was like a blank canvas with just the correct code to get things started for a user. From then, customers had complete freedom to customize their operating system in any way they wished. While this may be ideal for seasoned programmers, what about the rest of us?
Online Linux communities arose due to the newly developed internet, publishing libraries of fully programmed modules. Even a complete newbie may find these groups and contribute to making their own personal computer precisely as they want.
What Linux does for us today is debatable; yet, let's assume it's fantastic. Ahem:
- Linux is installed on 83% of all cell phones.
- Linux powers all of the world's supercomputers.
- Linux was used for computer graphics in Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Shrek, and Titanic.
- The Linux platform powers 90% of cloud infrastructure.
- Clippy was killed as a result of the attack.
As strange as it seems, Linux served as more confirmation that the D.I.Y. culture fostered by C.D.s and other portable media was the right path to go. The quicker the Linux community developed, the more individuals were willing to try new things with it. As a result of this community effort, Microsoft and Betty Blocks are committed to further democratizing the application development process.
A Linux-based cloud by itself, however, will not bring us to where we need to go. We need a great deal of computing power as well as electricity.
Pentium processors took over in 1993.
Because computers were now accessible to the general public,'standardized' or proprietary gear became obsolete. It was important for people to know that their computer was running on the most up-to-date components.
We have now entered the age of outlandish hardware promotions! The most egregious offenders are the Pentium CPUs from Intel.
Computer hardware has become a very competitive industry as a result of advertisements like this. As in every other business, competition speeds up progress ten times quicker than it would have otherwise. Pentium got its name from its marketing strategy, but it also owes a lot to how quickly it became THE home, business, and professional brand name.
Pentium processors used to power practically every drab grey computer tower you saw back in the day. If you wanted to browse the web, play Doom, or compile millions of lines of code, Intel was the company to go with.
The year is 1995, and Java is released.
It's perfect for blind programmers who can't read C...
Putting the pranks aside, Java is a well-known programming language. Its "Build Once, Run Anywhere" architecture made it the go-to language when it came to cross-platform, multi-channel, and database applications. By opting for an object-oriented architecture, the old code may be handled much more quickly in the future.
Also Read: History of Vacuum Tube
It's a language that people either love or despise nowadays because of the stiff competition it faces (from Ruby and Python).
While we're on the subject of the 1990s, let's focus on the most critical issue facing any business at the time. Duke, the Java mascot. Former DreamWorks animator Joe Palrang developed this character before moving on to other projects like Shrek. If you know what Duke is intended to be, please let us know in a message.
The year is 1999, and Wifi has finally made it to your house.
When it comes to technical development, Wifi sits somewhere in the centre for us, but it's still worth mentioning. Wifi has, in essence, built the world's largest, most interconnected computer network. You may access a vast amount of information at any one moment, from any location, using whatever device you happen to be using at the time.
This is ideal for commercial or organizational procedures that must be carried out on the go. It might be a hindrance in normal interpersonal relationships. We'll have to wait and watch how things develop over the next several years.
the 90 per cent mark has been reached
Consider any piece of technology you use daily; chances are, one of these breakthroughs was responsible for making it feasible. Even with the internet, it seems like a no-brainer, yet these things are still going strong after 30 years.
The decade of the 1990s established the groundwork for almost every feature of our no-code platform today.
On March 18 and 19, come to our No-Code Now! Event to learn more about how no-code takes inspiration from the 1990s and some of the finest computer scientists ever. Throughout the day, you'll hear from experts in the field, including Jeffrey Hammond of Forrester research and participate in hands-on workshops to better understand why no-code has become so popular among professional developers.
Related: What was the most excellent, significant technology development in the 1990s?
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