Enduring Legacy of the 90S: The Classic Techs We Still Rely On Today

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The 1990s were an incredible time for technology. While car phones and beepers may have died off, plenty of tech from the 90s is still with us today. We’ll share some of the best apps, tech, and devices that got their humble start in the darling decade that was the Nineties.

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BackRub A.K.A. Google

Navigating the internet was not very easy in the ‘90s. In fact, there really wasn’t much “navigating” to do. You mostly just entered a destination and went there. That made it hard to find stuff online that you didn’t know about, which is where Google came in.

Google was originally nicknamed “BackRub” by Larry Page and Sergey Brin as a reference to “backlinks.” The project started in 1996, and the google.com domain was registered on September 15, 1997. Page and Brin officially incorporated the company a year later, in September 1998.

Nearly 30 years later, Google Search is the most-visited website in the entire world, and Google has a huge library of apps, services, and devices.

Photoshop

Computer History Museum

Not many computer applications have garnered the same name recognition as Adobe Photoshop. Any image that appears edited has been “Photoshopped,” regardless of which app was actually used. Just like every tissue is a “Kleenex” and every bandage is a “Band-Aid.”

Photoshop started life as a program developed by Thomas Knoll at the University of Michigan in 1987. His brother, John Knoll, urged him to develop the program further. The Knoll brothers eventually showed it off to an art director at Adobe, and the company purchased a license to distribute Photoshop in 1990.

Photoshop 1.0 for Mac costs a whopping $895. Over the next five years, it would be ported to Windows and become much more popular. In 1995, Adobe fully purchased the rights to Photoshop for $34.5. Nowadays, it generates billions in revenue and has millions of users.

DVDs

Hannah Stryker / How-To Geek

I know what you’re thinking—we don’t still use DVDs in 2024, do we? Oh yes, yes, we do . In fact, DVD sales have been steadily climbing over the last few years, and DVDs absolutely crush Blu-ray sales. It all started in the ‘90s.

VHS had dominated home movies throughout the 70s and 80s, but DVDs offered better quality, more storage, easier controls, interactive features, and no need to rewind. The first DVD players hit the US market in 1997, and by 2001, they were already outselling VCRs.

DVDs remain massively popular today due to their low cost and the fact that the picture quality is still “good enough” for many people. In 2018 , DVDs made up around 52% of sales, while Blu-ray accounted for around 47%. Fast-forward three years, and DVDs shot up to 72%, pushing Blu-ray down to 29%. This 90s tech seems to be here to stay.

Text Messaging

Justin Duino / How-To Geek

Despite having the amazing ability to hear someone’s voice and see their face in real-time from thousands of miles away, text-based messaging is still king. There’s no denying it’s simply the easiest and quickest form of communication, and it got its start in the 90s.

The first SMS text message was sent on December 3rd, 1992. The message was sent from a computer to a phone, and it said, “Merry Christmas.” Text messaging was slow to take off, but a little over a decade later, it had become the most widely used mobile data service.

Nowadays, the popularity of SMS varies greatly by region, but text-based messaging is popular everywhere. In the U.S., most people are using iMessage or SMS, while many other countries rely on WhatsApp, WeChat, and Telegram.

Sony Playstation

Matthieu Tuffet/Shutterstock.com

Console gaming started to explode in popularity in the 80s, but one of the biggest names got its start in the 90s. The original PlayStation was unveiled by Sony in 1994, and it changed things for the better. Since the PlayStation used a CD-ROM, it was able to make more realistic games that appealed to both adults and kids.

The original PlayStation was a smash hit, with 120 million devices sold . Sony followed things up in 2000 with the PlayStation 2, which was even more popular, selling over 150 million consoles. To this day, PlayStation is still a huge name in console gaming. As of 2022, Sony accounted for nearly half of the worldwide console gaming market .

Bluetooth

Wireless technology is something most people use on a daily basis without thinking twice about it. Bluetooth is one of the most commonly used, and it was invented in 1994.

Bluetooth technology was invented in 1994 by a team of engineers at Ericsson, led by Dr. Jaap Haartsen. The invention was driven by the need for a wireless communication protocol that could connect mobile phones with computers, headsets, and other accessories over short distances without the constraints of wired connections.

Nowadays, Bluetooth is baked into more devices than you can imagine. Smartphones, smartwatches, headphones, light bulbs, plugs, switches, coffee makers, thermometers, thermostats, door locks, and more, and more, and more. Needless to say, it’s been a hit.

Smartphones

Mobile Phone Museum

Many people assume the “first smartphone “ was a Blackberry or maybe even the original iPhone. While the first Blackberry was launched in the 90s, it wasn’t the first smartphone. That title has been given to the IBM Simon from 1992.

Why was it considered a “smartphone”? First and foremost, it had a touchscreen. It was a 4.5 x 1.4 inch monochrome LCD touchscreen that required a stylus, but a touchscreen nonetheless. The Simon could make phone calls, send and receive emails and faxes, and it had a handful of applications. Those apps included some classics, such as an address book, calculator, calendar, world clock, and notepad.

Needless to say, those features have carried over all these years later. Touchscreens are absolutely essential to mobile devices, and making calls and sending emails are considered rudimentary, basic features. It all started with a weird-looking brick.

MP3 Format

MP3 Players have come and gone, but MP3 files have stood the test of time. If you’re dealing with an audio file on your computer or mobile device, there’s a good chance it’s an MP3. The MP3 format was first released in 1991.

The development of MP3 was crucial for the distribution of music over the internet during the mid-to-late 90s, when bandwidth and storage were still at a premium. The format’s ability to compress audio files without a significant loss in quality led to its widespread adoption (and controversies surrounding music piracy, thanks to how easy it is to share MP3 files over the internet).

The MP3 format has had a significant impact on the music industry, changing the way music is distributed and consumed. There are newer and better audio formats, but MP3 remains a popular choice due to its compatibility and the balance it offers between file size and sound quality.

The 90s brought us a lot of other great things, too. The internet itself and web browsers as we know them kicked off in the 90s, as well as the behemoth that is Amazon. It was a great time for technology, and we can thank the hard work of people in the 90s for our technology today.

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Enduring Legacy of the 90S: The Classic Techs We Still Rely On Today