brassicGamer
Experienced Member
Hi folks, relatively new to this forum but I'm a big enthusiast. Have posted about this project elsewhere and wanted to widen the net to see if I could get any help with enhancements / ideas / assistance / source material.
It started when I found a Socket 7 board in my collection with a USB header and I thought "Hmm... what was the first ever USB-enabled board to market?". Is it possible to answer such a question? I tried my best and, in my opinion, based on sources, it was AMI's Merlin board from 1996. This then set me off on a path of mapping the development of PC hardware during the 90s (and a bit of the 80s) by reading the IT press of the time and I found out some really interesting stuff. I think I can safely say I can identify the first ever VLB, PCI and AGP graphics cards to market, for example. But on top of that I have mapped out the development of the Pentium, the Pentium Pro, the 486, and a bunch of other stuff.
Make no mistake, this is a potentially enormous project and I am literally at the very beginning. Consider the current format as a 'dev' model: a breadboard of the final product, if you will. I have mostly used InfoWorld as my source because it's on Google Books and is therefore easily accessed, so my representation of 'history' as it stands is skewed towards how events were reported in the media at the time (i.e. Intel & Microsoft heavy). I think, however, that it's a good starting point. The main point of this is to promote discussion, to elicit facts from people who have them, and to have every pedant who wants to correct a fact to do just that. But you need sources. I want to build a comprehensive history of what happened and when it happened. So I'm just going to leave this here and see what people think:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...2y1wEVQUa3o/pubhtml?gid=266494290&single=true
Please note: the emphasis is supposed to be on accuracy above all else. As things stand, I have included the most accurate sources I am currently aware of. If anyone wishes to make this more accurate, great!
Edit: the links, in most cases, ideally lead to a specific page / article in an online magazine. Some of these are a bit screwy at the moment until I find a more consistent way of finding articles (other than by keyword search).
It started when I found a Socket 7 board in my collection with a USB header and I thought "Hmm... what was the first ever USB-enabled board to market?". Is it possible to answer such a question? I tried my best and, in my opinion, based on sources, it was AMI's Merlin board from 1996. This then set me off on a path of mapping the development of PC hardware during the 90s (and a bit of the 80s) by reading the IT press of the time and I found out some really interesting stuff. I think I can safely say I can identify the first ever VLB, PCI and AGP graphics cards to market, for example. But on top of that I have mapped out the development of the Pentium, the Pentium Pro, the 486, and a bunch of other stuff.
Make no mistake, this is a potentially enormous project and I am literally at the very beginning. Consider the current format as a 'dev' model: a breadboard of the final product, if you will. I have mostly used InfoWorld as my source because it's on Google Books and is therefore easily accessed, so my representation of 'history' as it stands is skewed towards how events were reported in the media at the time (i.e. Intel & Microsoft heavy). I think, however, that it's a good starting point. The main point of this is to promote discussion, to elicit facts from people who have them, and to have every pedant who wants to correct a fact to do just that. But you need sources. I want to build a comprehensive history of what happened and when it happened. So I'm just going to leave this here and see what people think:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...2y1wEVQUa3o/pubhtml?gid=266494290&single=true
Please note: the emphasis is supposed to be on accuracy above all else. As things stand, I have included the most accurate sources I am currently aware of. If anyone wishes to make this more accurate, great!
Edit: the links, in most cases, ideally lead to a specific page / article in an online magazine. Some of these are a bit screwy at the moment until I find a more consistent way of finding articles (other than by keyword search).
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