The document outlines the history of hospital information systems from the 1960s to the 1990s, organized by decade. Each decade is summarized by the dominant computing platform, a vehicle symbolic of the platform, and notable vendors during that time. The 1960s saw mainframe computers that filled large rooms as the dominant platform, with IBM dominating the vendor landscape. Shared systems on large mainframes connected by phone lines became prevalent in the 1970s. Minicomputers that were a fraction of the size of mainframes began computerizing clinical areas directly in hospitals in the 1980s. Microcomputers with floppy disks and small memory became the platform of the 1990s, taking automation to the bedside.