TIMELINE: Major events at Sun Microsystems

(Reuters) - Acquisition talks between IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc broke down over the weekend, a source familiar with the matter said, diminishing hopes for a deal that would combine the world's No. 1 and No. 4 makers of computer servers.

The following are some major events in the history of Sun, whose name is derived from the initials of the Stanford University Network:

1982: Sun is founded by Andy Bechtolsheim, Bill Joy, Vinod Khosla and Scott McNealy at Stanford University. Produces its first workstation.

1986: Company goes public at $16 per share, or $1 after adjusting for splits. Trades at a record split-adjusted low of 75 cents on August 1.

1988: Annual revenue hits $1 billion

1989: Sun introduced the SPARCstation 1. It is the first "pizza box" computer, fitting into a 3-by-16-by-16-inch space.

1991: Sun introduces the Solaris 2 Unix-based operating system for business computers.

1992: Sun introduces the SPARCstation 10, the first multiprocessing desktop computer.

1993: Sun joins the Fortune 500.

1995: Sun debuts Java, a programing language that allows developers to write one set of code that will work on machines running on the Windows, Macintosh, OS/2 and UNIX operating systems.

1995: One hundred Sun systems are used to make "Toy Story," the first animated movie that is created entirely on computers.

1996: Sun licenses Java to all major hardware and software manufacturers.

1997-2004: Sun sues Microsoft for introducing Windows-only enhancements of Sun's Java. The dispute goes on for years, until the two sides finally settled in 2004, with Microsoft agreeing to pay Sun nearly $2 billion.

2000-2001: Sun's shares hit a record high of $258.63 in September 2000 on strong demand for its expensive server computers coveted by Internet startups and large companies alike. Then the dot-com bubble burst and demand plummeted.

2005: Sun pays $4 billion for StorageTek, a maker of tape storage systems for mainframe computers.

2006: Pony-tailed Jonathan Schwartz, who was chief operating officer, is named CEO. Scott McNealy steps down as chief executive but stays on as chairman.

2007: Sun changes its stock trading symbol on Nasdaq to "JAVA" from SUNW, saying the open-source software brand better represents its strategy

2008: Sun buys open-source database maker MySQL for $1 billion as Schwartz looks to expand software offerings, part of a strategy to boost sales by bundling the programs with hardware and services. But the deal and other moves fail to revive Sun's shares, which hit a 52-week low of $2.60 on November 24.

November 14, 2008: Sun plans to cut 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, or up to 18 percent of its workforce. It aims to save annual costs of $700 million to $800 million.

March 18, 2009: IBM is in talks to buy Sun for between $10 and $11 per share, about double Sun's closing price the day before. The Wall Street Journal reported the deal would be worth about $8 billion.

April 5, 2009: The talks between IBM and Sun break down after IBM had cut its offer to no more than $9.40 per share, with a deal value of about $7 billion, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Source: Sun Microsystems, Reuters News, MSN Encarta

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin and Jim Finkle, editing by Derek Caney)