1980s/90s Music Timeline

1981 - The MTV Music TV Cable Network debuts on the air at Midnight, August 1st.
1981 - The first IBM-brand "PC" (for "Personal Computer") is released on August 12th.
Personal Computer" becomes the popular name of what used to be called a "micro computer" system; It uses the "DOS" -- Disk Operating System provided byentrepreneur Bill Gates who bought the rights to it from a local company in Seattle for a pittance, and resold it under his company's name -- "Microsoft"
1982 - The digital Compact Disc (CD) is introduced by a Japanese conglomerate.
1982 - The first CD released (in Japan) is Billy Joel's "52nd Street" (October, 1982.)
1983 - The first CD titles are released in the US in June (12 CBS, 15 Telarc, 30 Denon.)
1983 - In November, U.S. computing student Fred Cohen created the very first computer virus -- as a research project.
1984 - The (128K) Apple Macintosh personal computer debuts with a Graphical User Interface advertised as "the computer for the rest of us", expected sales of 50,000 the first month at $2495, the industry (and Apple) is surprised when 75,000 orders pour in...perhaps due in part to a novel TV ad aired during the Football Superbowl game.
1984 - NBC broadcasts the first television programs with stereo sound.
1985 - Adoption of the CD starts taking a huge bite out of LP sales, causing them to drop 25%.
1986 - The Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) announces on June 19 that CDs have overtaken LP sales in the U.S.
1988 - The CD overtakes LP sales worldwide; CD-ROMs are developed as a computer medium able to store around 750 MegaBytes per disc.
1988 - CEDAR Audio Ltd. of Cambridge, England develops a Noise Reduction system to fix clicks, pops and crackle from old records re-mastered for release on CD's. CEDAR is an acronym for Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration. Other companies in the U.S. soon followed. One of them -- Sonic Solutions -- began in San Rafael, California as a spin-off of a project called "Edit-Droid" from George Lucas' company Lucasfilm. Sonic Solutions sells a system of professional noise reduction options called "NoNoise."
1990 - Phillips introduces a digital audio tape recorder (DAT) using a digital casette.
1990 - Dec. 25 (Christmas Day) Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher working at the CERN atomic laboratory in Switzerland, finishes programming the first practical Web Browser, which comes to be known as "Nexus", incorporating both FTP (file transfer protocol) and his own HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), simplifying interactions between client and server machines, making a more seamless display of text and graphics over the Internet; the browser was first released on Feb 26,1991 to a group of physicists, and it became such a popular phenomena, that Tim Berners-Lee (who could have received royalties) let the browser go into Public Domain in 1993 -- so as to further promote the growth of the World-Wide Web.
1991 - The Moving Picture Experts Group MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (MP3) compressed audio file format becomes an international standard, and eventually the most popular format for distributing digital audio over the Internet.
1991 - The "Sound Scan" barcode tracking system of reporting music recording sales begins to bring accurate sales figures to record charts; Country music is now a bigger segment.
1994 - Personal computers outsell TV sets for the first time in the United States.
1994 - The Internet starts to "take off" as a major computing platform due to the World Wide Web being "discovered" for a myriad of commercial and social uses; junk Email begins
1995 - The online auction community eBay starts out as "AuctionWeb.com", programmed by General Magic engineer Pierre Omidyar who started it as a hobby project. It debuts on the Web in September 1995, and 10 years later in September, 2005 eBay will boast 157 million registered users worldwide, 75 million in the U.S.
1996 - The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) increases capacity of digital storage of audio and video on a CD (Compact Disc) medium; can store on to 4.7 GigaBytes per side; double-sided disks are possible though rare...
1997 - The world falls in love with everything Internet, and there is talk of a "New Economy" where the old rules don't apply. But by 2001, the speculative bubble bursts, leaving many computer engineers jobless; and fuelling the trend toward hi-tech outsourcing.
1998 - The Internet Web site "ClassicThemes.com" debuts on January 26th, 1998; Founded by former Radio/TV composer/producer and Macromedia software engineer David Shields, who wanted to consolidate his research into classic television themes and old-time radio (OTR) themes, that he had been researching, collecting and publishing since 1960; Over the years biographies about the better composer-arrangers of Light (Easy Listening) music, and other resources are added; and the site becomes a primary source for the music industry.
1998 - First regular transmissions of HDTV (High-Definition Television) begin in major cities
1999 - Broadband Internet service providers begin to be offered to consumers faster Web page downloads and smoother and faster streaming media.
1999 - Recordable CD-R digital audio disc technology becomes part of personal computer systems.
1999 - Rival Audio DVD formats DVD-A and SACD (Super-Audio CD) introduced which offer superior sound than conventional CDs; DVD-A includes other media content as well.
1999 - The Mutual Broadcasting System is a victim of consolidation -- absorbed into Westwood One-CNN Radio on April 18, ending 65 years as an independent radio network.