RDP was first available in NT4 Terminal Services edition, which Wikipedia tells me was released in 1998 - though I think it's fair to say that it became far mor

RDP was first available in NT4 Terminal Services edition, which Wikipedia tells me was released in 1998 - though I think it's fair to say that it became far more popular when Windows 2000 dropped. VNC was first created by the Oracle and Olivetti Research Lab, Cambridge, prior to their acquisition in 1999. RealVNC (the first version I remember using (I think on an Acorn)) was founded as a company in 2002, TightVNC first released 2001. From memory I was convinced VNC was around much earlier, though Wikipedia set me straight. For remote desktop use, it seems unfair to mention Xorg. The X windowing system was designed from day 1 as "an architecture-independent system for remote graphical user interfaces and input device capabilities." and version 11 (X11), was first specified in 1987 and is still in common use today. Its also worth mentioning that the implementation and resulting usability /usecases of remote X applications has caused its fair share of conversation and consternation over its lifetime.