Only a few inventions in the history of civilization have had the same impact on society in so many ways and at so many levels as computers. Where once we used computers for computing with simple alphanumeric data, we now use them primarily to exchange information, to communicate, and to share experiences. Computers are rapidly evolving as a means for gaining insights and sharing ideas across distance and time.

Multimedia computing started gaining serious attention from researchers and practitioners during the 1990s. Before 1991, people talked about multimedia, but the computing power, storage, bandwidth, and processing algorithms were not advanced enough to deal with audio and video. With the increasing availability and popularity of CDs, people became excited about creating documents that could include not only text, but also images, audio, and even video. That decade saw explosive growth in all aspects of hardware and software technology related to multimedia computing and communication. In the early 1990s, PC manufacturers labeled their high-end units containing advanced graphics multimedia PCs. That trend disappeared a few years later because every new computer became a multimedia computer.