---
title: "1990s in science and technology"
chunk: 2/2
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_in_science_and_technology"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:38:01.793632+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Home consoles become powerful and affordable enough to begin replacing trips to the arcade.
CD-ROMs, which was first introduced as a software storage media with the 1988 launch of the PC Engine CD-ROM² System in Japan, gradually replaced ROM cartridges and floppy disks as the primary storage media for video games, starting with the release of platforms such as the Turbo Duo and Sega CD, later on with the PlayStation and the Sega Saturn, while CD-ROM drives for PCs became standardized. The sole exception was Nintendo, who canceled their plans to release a CD-ROM adapter for the Super NES and chose to employ cartridges for their subsequent home console, the Nintendo 64.
Gaming, along with animation in general becomes more appealing to adults.
Online multiplayer environments are popular over the internet during the later half of the 1990s. The first console with built-in Internet connectivity was the Dreamcast in 1999, which failed due to the low download speeds common at the time but eventually led to an online-centric gaming industry by the late 2000s.
First-person shooter games become popular with the release of Doom (1993).
3D graphics overtake the traditional 2D graphics in the mid-nineties with the release of Quake and Super Mario 64 in 1996.
The PlayStation is released in Japan on December 3, 1994 and in North America in September 1995.

=== Other ===
By 1996 64 percent of K–12 schools in the United States had Internet access and 63 percent of American 12th graders reported using a computer for school work.
The first hybrid vehicles are produced in 1997.
High-end cars of the 1990s were installed with automatic doors, windows controlled with electric levers, GPS navigation, and CD drives.
DNA identification of individuals, introduced in the late 1980s, finds wide application in criminal law.
Protease inhibitors introduced in 1987 allowing HAART therapy against HIV become an important part of HIV treatment in the 1990s and help extend and save millions of lives.
Discovery of dark matter, dark energy, brown dwarfs, and first confirmation of black holes.
Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem is discovered by Andrew Wiles and completed in 1994.
The remains of Myrtis and other victims of the Plague of Athens are found.

== See also ==

== References ==