ask--such as word processing, managing accounts and inventories, or displaying an arcade game. PCs and other RevolutionsBy the mid-1970s, microchips and microprocessors had drastically reduced the cost of the thousands of electronic components required in a computer. The first affordable desktop computer designed specifically for personal use was called the Altair 8800 and was sold by Micro Telemetry Systems in 1974. In 1977 Tandy Corporation became the first major electronics firm to produce a personal computer. They added a keyboard and CRT to their computer and offered a means of storing programs on a cassette recorder. Soon afterward, a small company named Apple Computer, founded by engineer Stephen Wozniak and entrepreneur Steven Jobs, began producing a superior computer. IBM introduced its Personal Computer, or PC, in 1981. As a result of competition from the makers of clones (computers that worked exactly like an IBM-PC), the price of personal computers fell drastically. Today's personal computer is 400 times faster than ENIAC, 3,000 times lighter, and several million dollars cheaper. In rapid succession computers have shrunk from tabletop to lap-top and finally to palm size. With some personal computers, called pen-pads, people can even write directly on an etched-glass, liquid-crystal screen using a small electronic stylus , and words will appear on the screen in clean typescript. MultimediaIn the early 1990s, manufacturers began producing inexpensive CD-ROM drives that could access more than 650 megabytes of data form a single disc. This development started a multimedia revolutionthat may continue for decades. The term multimedia encompasses the computer's ability to merge sounds, video, text, music, animations, charts, maps, etc., into colorful, interactive presentations, a business advertising campaign, or even a space-war arcade game. Faster computers and the rapid proliferation of multimedia program...
