Computer History - 1997
| Year | Event |
| 1997 | HTTP/1.1 is specified in RFC 2616 and officially released in January 1997. |
| 1997 | Mosaic development and support officially discontinued on January 7, 1997. |
| 1997 | On January 7th Microsoft releases the final version of Internet Explorer 3.0 for the Apple Macintosh. |
| 1997 | The PNG standard is introduced on January 10, 1997. |
| 1997 | Internet2 consortium is established. |
| 1997 | The world learns of Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal February 22, 1997. |
| 1997 | The domain facebook.com comes online March 28, 1997. |
| 1997 | IEEE releases 802.11 (WiFi) standard. |
| 1997 | The Mars Pathfinder successfully lands on Mars July 4, 1997. |
| 1997 | Microsoft releases DirectX 5.0 (4.05.00.0155) on July 16, 1997. |
| 1997 | Intel introduces the MMX chip. |
| 1997 | Unwired Planet develops HDML. |
| 1997 | Intel introduces the Slot 1 processor and slot. |
| 1997 | Connectix introduces Virtual PC. |
| 1997 | ATA-3 is approved by ANSI. |
| 1997 | Several computer manufactures introduce sub 1,000 computers, computers that cost less than $1,000.00. |
| 1997 | AOL faces several lawsuits from subscribers who are upset about the difficulties encountered when attempting to connect to its services. |
| 1997 | The dancing baby becomes one of the Internets first fads. The dancingbaby is a short 3D animation of a small baby wearing diapers dancing. It was first created by Michael Girard and later tweaked by Ron Lussier at LucasArts who released it on a CompuServe forum as chacha.avi. |
| 1997 | Altavista introduces its free online translator Babel Fish. |
| 1997 | A cult known as the Heaven's Gate that earns its money from designing web sites commits a mass suicide on March 27, 1997. |
| 1997 | Digital Video Discs / Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) go on sale. |
| 1997 | Microsoft announces plans to buy WebTV Networks in April for $425 million. The deal is later approved and completed in August. |
| 1997 | CompUSA joins Dell and Gateway in selling build-to-order PC computers. |
| 1997 | Intel Pentium II is introduced on May 7, 1997. |
| 1997 | IBMs Deep Blue computer defeats world champion chess player Garry Kasparov May 11, 1997 in their second six-game showdown, winning the tie-breaking game in only 62 minutes. |
| 1997 | Perl 5.004 is released May 15, 1997. |
| 1997 | Kaspersky is founded. |
| 1997 | Carsten Haitzler releases Enlightenment. |
| 1997 | E ink is established. |
| 1997 | CD-RW drives and media are introduced. |
| 1997 | Bill Gates is now the worlds richest businessman. |
| 1997 | The NASA Pathfinder Web site, which is running real-time images sent from the Pathfinder on Mars receives more than 100 million hits during its first four days, in response to the high popularity NASA sets up 25 mirror pages to handle the traffic. The site sets a new popularity record. |
| 1997 | Microsoft begins working on its own search engine. |
| 1997 | The TRUSTe organization is founded. |
| 1997 | Microsoft saves Apple with a $150 million investment August 6, 1997. |
| 1997 | The google.com domain name is registered after Sergey Brin and Larry Page decide to change the name of their BackRub search engine to Google September 15, 1997. |
| 1997 | The domain craigslist.com comes online September 24, 1997. |
| 1997 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 4.0 in September of 1997. |
| 1997 | Microsoft releases Microsoft Office 97. |
| 1997 | Microsoft announces Windows 98. |
| 1997 | 3Com buys U.S. Robotics for $6.6 billion making the consolidation the largest in the history of computer companies. |
| 1997 | Apple releases MAC OS 8. |
| 1997 | Nullsoft is founded by Justin Frankel. |
| 1997 | Webroot Software is founded. |
| 1997 | Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple Computers Inc. and agrees to continue creating software for Apple computers, in agreement Apple makes Microsoft Internet Explorer its browser of choice for Macintosh computers. |
| 1997 | The Li-Ion battery begins being used for commercial uses. |
| 1997 | The Intel Pentium II 233 MHz processor is released. |
| 1997 | IEEE introduced 802.11 the wireless network standard in June 1997. |
| 1997 | Advanced Graphics Port or AGP designed for Video cards. Designed by Intel is released August of 1997. |
| 1997 | Microsoft Windows CE 2.x is released. |
| 1997 | The Slashdot website launches. |
| 1997 | Steve Jobs rejoins Apple September 16, 1997. |
| 1997 | Cyrix is established. |
| 1997 | Riven, the sequel to Myst is released in October 1997. |
| 1997 | The domain netflix.com comes online November 10, 1997. |
| 1997 | Microsoft acquires Hotmail a free e-mail service in December 1997. |
1996 - Computer History - 1998