Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and Eric Wieschaus describe genetic mutations affecting the body plan of the fruit fly Drosophila, and identify genes controlling the basic body plans of all animals. These genes will eventually be known as Hox genes.

Paul Berg, Walter Gilbert, and Frederick Sanger share a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, with Berg cited for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA, and Gilbert and Sanger cited for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids. This is Sanger's second Nobel, the first having come in 1958 for his work on the structure of insulin.

Louis W. Alvarez, Walter Alvarez, Frank Asaro and Helen V. Michel publish their asteroid impact theory of dinosaur extinction. The theory will not gain widespread acceptance among scientists for several years.

Acorn Atom Launched

Apple Computer’s Initial Share Offering

Microsoft Signs Contract with IBM to Create Operating System

Sinclair ZX80 Launched

The Apple III was announced

Acorn BBC Micro Launched

HP-41 calculator Used In Space Shuttle

IBM announced that it was launching a personal computer using an Intel 8088

IBM introduces personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating system, MS-DOS 1.0

Introduction of Osborne portable computer in a suitcase

Microsoft incorporates

Sinclair ZX81 Computer Launched

Space Shuttle uses Intel 8086 and RCA 1802

The first ‘portable’ computer is launched

VIC-20 Released in Europe & US

Commodore 64 Released

Dragon 32 Released

Introduction of Cray X-MP supercomputer

Introduction of Intel 80286 at 6 MHz, with 134,000 transistors

Sinclair launches the ZX Spectrum computer

Sinclair ZX Spectrum Launched

Barbara McClintock receives the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery of mobile genetic elements.

German paleobiologist Adolf Seilacher suggests that most of the Ediacaran fossils discovered in the 1940s are not related to any modern forms. Calling them vendobionts, he argues that they went extinct after the emergence of large predators. Seilacher's interpretation, however, will remain in dispute.

Apple Lisa Launched

Introduction of spreadsheet program 1-2-3 by Lotus,

Microsoft Introduced 2-button Mouse

Microsoft Introduces Windows

The famicom is released in Japan

David Raup and Jack Sepkoski publish the controversial claim that mass extinctions are regularly spaced at 26 million years.

Richard Leakey and his team discover Turkana Boy, the most complete Homo erectus fossil yet discovered.

Apple launches Macintosh 128K

Creation of Dell Computer Corporation by Michael Dell

First ARM Processors Powered Up

IBM and Compaq introduce the IDE interface

IBM’s new 3480 cartridge tape system introduced

Introduction of IBM PC/AT based on Intel 80286

Macintosh 512K Launched

Novelist William Gibson coins the term cyberspace

Kenneth Oakley publishes Decorative and Symbolic Uses of Fossils describing, among other things, a hand axe crafted by Homo heidelbergensis featuring a fossil sea urchin, and a fossil urchin set within a bronze locket from a Gallo-Roman temple.

Paleoanthropologists excavate an artifact-rich portion of Cueva de los Aviones in Iberia. Fifty-thousand-year-old perforated and pigment-stained shells from the cave will prompt researchers to argue, 25 years later, that Neanderthals wore both makeup and jewelry.

Commodore 128 Released

Cray X-MP Supercomputer Begins Operation

First Commodore Amiga Released

Introduction of Intel 386

Microsoft Windows Launched

Olivetti buy 49% of Acorn Computers

Steve Jobs founds NeXT Computers Inc.

Norman H. Sleep submits a paper calculating the probability of life forms surviving an extraterrestrial impact in the Hadean Period (first 700 million years of Earth's existence). The paper is rejected on the grounds there would have been no life on Earth yet.

Acorn BBC Master Compact Launched

Acorn BBC Master Launched

Apple Macintosh Plus launched

First PC virus is released with "Brain"

Microsoft moves to corporate campus in Redmond, Washington

Microsoft stock goes public

Nintendo NES released

Kodak scientists invent the world's first megapixel sensor.

Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cann announce that all humans share a common ancestor who lived in Africa as recently as 150,000 years ago. Because the discovery is based on examination of mitochondrial DNA, the ancestral entity will be given the popular (and somewhat misleading) name of "Mitochondrial Eve." The controversial finding will be supported by another discovery in 2000.

Jenny Clack finds Acanthostega, the most complete Devonian tetrapod yet discovered. It has evidence for functional gills as well as legs, strongly suggesting that animals evolved legs while still living in the water.

Kansas rancher Charles Bonner collects a plesiosaur mother-and-fetus fossil. Nearly 25 years later, O'Keefe and Chiappe will describe this as evidence that that plesiosaurs gave live birth and might have been attentive mothers.

Commodore release the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000

Macintosh II released

Windows 2 was launched

Dhananjay Mohabey discovers what looks like a simple clutch of dinosaur eggs in India. Twenty-three years later, he, Jeffrey Wilson and colleagues will report that the fossil find includes not just sauropod eggs, but a predatory Cretaceous snake that apparently snacked on hapless sauropod hatchlings.

Molecular biologist John Cairns describes experiments suggesting that bacteria facing environmental stress can "direct" their mutations to produce favorable adaptations. Directed mutation will remain a controversial idea, but the possibility that organisms mutate at a greater rate (hypermutation) under environmental stress will gain more acceptance.

IBM announces 3 millionth PS/2 personal computer

RISC OS is released

The first worm experience appears

The NeXT (68030 CPU) computer is introduced after two years of research

Unisys takes over Convergent Technologies

Sidney Altman and Thomas R. Cech share a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their discovery of catalytic properties of RNA.

Ned Colbert finally completes his definitive species description of the Coelophysis dinosaurs he found in 1947.

Philip Gingerich finds a fossil whale, Basilosaurus in Egypt. It has tiny legs, just inches long, retaining all five toes. Five years later, he will discover an even more primitive whale ancestor, Rodhocetus, with even bigger hind legs, in Pakistan. Eighteen years later, Hans Thewissen will announce the discovery of another missing link in cetacean evolution: fox- like Indohyus found in Kashmir.

Apple introduces the Macintosh SE/30

Apple Macintosh Portable Released

ICL introduces DRS model 40 and 45

Tim Berners-Lee toyed with the idea of web pages and hyperlinks