Adobe

John Warnock and Charles Geschke leave Xerox PARC in 1982 in order to further develop and commercialize their PostScript page description language. Their new company is named for the Adobe Creek in nearby Mountain View, California. Adobe's first success is the use of PostScript in the Apple LaserWriter printer product, which plays a significant role in the development of desktop publishing.
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Flight Simulator

Bruce Artwick's newly formed company named subLOGIC releases Flight Simulator for the Apple II in 1979. The first flights featured 2-D line grid landscapes and simple instrument gages. The game is licensed to Microsoft in 1982 and evolves into one of the best-known software programs serving a worldwide community of virtual pilots with add-ons and upgrades.
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RadioShack

Brothers Theodore and Milton Deutschmann open a one-store retail and mail order operation in downtown Boston in 1921. They choose the name RadioShack, which is a term for the small, wooden structure that houses a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns think the name is appropriate for a store that will supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as ham radio operators.
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Robots

The 1921 play "Rossum's Universal Robots" introduces the word "robot" to the English language. Czech playwright, novelist, and essayist Karel Capek coins the term as derived from the Czech word robota, meaning work or serf. The word robot usually conjures up images of clanking metal contraptions, however the robots in Capek's story are human-like droids.
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MySQL

Finnish programmer Michael Widenius develops the open source database product MySQL in 1996. MySQL becomes a popular alternative to other commercial SQL products due to its open source code and that it can be downloaded for free. Over time, MySQL registers millions of users and records tens of thousands of daily downloads, becoming a serious competitor to commercial database management systems.
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Computer graphics

Boeing Corporation art director William Fetter coins the term "computer graphics" in 1960. Fetter uses the phrase to describe new graphic methods he is pursuing during his aircraft cockpit design. One of the most memorable early computer graphic images from Fetter's project is that of a human figure, often referred to as the "Boeing Man."
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PayPal

Hedge fund manager Peter Thiel and Ukrainian engineer Max Levchin establish PayPal in late 1998. The two create the company with the hopes of providing a secure software system that allows electronic transfer of payments. Their company is backed by Nokia Ventures, Deutche Bank, and Goldman Sachs and soon has 1.5 million account holders generating $2 million of transactions per day.
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