HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

MECHANICAL ERA

FIRST GENERATION

SECOND GENERATION

THIRD GENERATION

FOURTH GENERATION

SOURCES

Mechanical Era 2400 B.C- 1940

2400 BCThe abacus, the first known calculator, was invented in Babylonia

500 BCPanini Introduced the forerunner to modern formal language theory

300 BCPingala invented the binary number system

87 BCAntikythera Mechanism was built in Rhodes to track movement of the stars60 AD

Heron of Alexandria invents machines which follow a series of instructions

724 ADLiang Ling-Can invents the first fully mechanical clock

1492Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci depict inventions.

1614John Napier invents a system of moveable rods (Napier's Rods) based on logarithms which was able to multiply, divide and calculate square and cube roots

1622William Oughtred develops slide rules

1623The Calculating Clock was Invented by Wilhelm Schickard.

1642Blaise Pascal invents the the "Pascaline", a mechanical adding machine

1671Gottfried Leibniz is known as one of the founding fathers of calculus and also created the stepped reckoner.

1801Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents an automatic loom controlled by punched cards

1820The Arithmometer was the first mass-produced calculator invented by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar

1822Charles Babbage designs his first mechanical computer, the difference machine

1834The Analytical Engine was invented by Charles Babbage

1829The first typewriter is patented by William Austin Burt

1840Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, suggests to Babbage that he use the binary system. She writes programs for his analytical engine, becoming the world's first programmer

1835Samuel Morse invents Morse code

1848Boolean algebra is invented by George Boole

1853Per Georg Scheutz and his son Edvard invent the Tabulating Machine

1869William Stanley Jevons designs a practical logic machine

1878Ramon Verea invents a fast calculator with an internal multiplication table

1880Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone called the Photophone

1884The Comptometer is an invention of Dorr E. Felt which is operated by pressing keys

1890Herman Hollerith invents a counting machine which  increment mechanical counters

1895Radio signals were invented by Guglielmo Marconi

1896Herman Hollerith forms the Tabulating Machine Company which later becomes IBM

1898Remote control was invented by  Nikola Tesla 

1906Lee De Forest invents the electronic tube

1911IBM is formed on June 15, 1911

1923Television Electronic was invented by  Philo Farnsworth

1924Electro Mechanical television system was invented by John Logie Baird

1924Walther Bothe develops the logic gate

1930Vannevar Bush develops a partly electronic Difference Engine

1931Kurt Godel publishes a paper on the use of a universal formal language

1938Konrad Zuse creates the Z1 Computer a binary digital computer using punch tape 

1939George Stibitz develops the Complex Number Calculator - a foundation for digital computers

1937Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine

1939John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry develop the  ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer) prototype

1939William Hewlett and David Packard start Hewlett Packard

First Generation - 1940-1956

1943Adolf Hitler uses the Enigma encryption machine

1943Alan Turing develops the the code-breaking machine Colossus

1944Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper designed the MARK series of computers at Harvard University 

1945John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly: John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly develop the ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)

1945The term computer ‘bug’ as computer bug was first used by Grace Hopper

1946F.C. Williams develops his cathode-ray tube (CRT) storing device ,the forerunner to  random-access memory (RAM)

1947Donald Watts Davies joins Alan Turing to build the fastest digital computer in England at the time, the Pilot ACE

1947William Shockley invents the transistor at Bell Labs

1948Andrew Donald Booth invents magnetic drum memory

1948Frederic Calland Williams  & Tom Kilburn develop the SSEM "Small Scale Experimental Machine" digital CRT storage,nicknamed the "Baby"

1949Claude Shannon builds the first machine that plays chess

1947Douglas Engelbart theorises on interactive computing with keyboard and screen display instead of on punchcards

1949Howard Aiken develops the Harvard-MARK III

1950The first electronic computer is created in Japan by Hideo Yamachito. 1950

Alan Turing publishes his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence which helps create the Turing Test. 

1951T. Raymond Thompson and  John Simmons develop the first business computer, the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) at Lyons Co.

1951UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was introduced - the first commercial computer made in the United States and designed principally by John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly

1951The EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) begins performing basic tasks. Unlike the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal

1953The IBM 701 becomes available and a total of 19 are sold to the scientific community.

1954John Backus & IBM develop the FORTRAN Computer Programming Language 

1955Bell Labs introduces its first transistor computer. 

Second Generation - 1956-1963

1957Sputnik I and Sputnik II: Sputnik I and Sputnik II are launched by the Russians

1956Optical fiber was invented by  Basil Hirschowitz, C. Wilbur Peters, and Lawrence E. Curtiss 

1958ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) and NASA is formed

1958The first integrated circuit, or silicon chip, is produced by the US Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce

1959Paul Baran theorises on the "survivability of communication systems under nuclear attack", digital technology and symbiosis between humans and machines

1960The Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) programming language is invented

1961General Motors puts the first industrial robot, Unimate, to work in a New Jersey factory.1962

The first computer game Spacewar Computer Game invented BY Steve Russell & MIT 

1963 Douglas Engelbart invents and patents the first computer mouse (nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end)

1963The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers.

Third Generation - 1963-1971)

1964IBM introduces the first word processor

1964John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language (BASIC)

1965Andries van Dam and Ted Nelson coin the term "hypertext"

1967IBM creates the first floppy disk

1969Seymour Cray develops the CDC 7600, the first supercomputer

1969Gary Starkweather invents the laser printer whilst working with Xerox

1969The U.S. Department of Defense sets up the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET ) this network was the first building blocks to what the internet is today but originally with the intention of creating a computer network that could withstand any type of disaster.

1970Intel  introduces the world's first available dynamic RAM ( random-access memory) chip and the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004. 

Fourth Generation (1971-)

1971E-mail was invented by  Ray Tomlinson

1971Liquid Crystal Display ( LCD ) was invented by  James Fergason

1971Pocket calculator was invented by Sharp Corporation

1971Floppy Disk was invented by  David Noble with IBM - Nicknamed the "Floppy" for its flexibility. 

1972Atari releases Pong, the first commercial video game

1973Robert Metcalfe creates the Ethernet, a local-area network (LAN) protocol

1972The compact disc is invented in the United States.

1973The minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers

1973Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn develop gateway routing computers to negotiate between the various national networks 

1974 IBM develops SEQUEL (Structured English Query Language ) now known as SQL

1974Charles Simonyi coins the term WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) to describe the ability of being able to display a file or document exactly how it is going to be printed or viewed

1975Altair produces the first portable computer

1977Ward Christensen writes the programme "MODEM" allowing two microcomputers to exchange files with each other over a phone line

1978The first magnetic tape is developed in the US

1979Over half a million computers are in use in the United States. 

1975The Microsoft Corporation was founded April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800

1976Apple Computers was by founded Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs

1977Apple Computer’s Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics, is demonstrated

1980IBM hires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for a new PC. They buy the rights to a simple operating system manufactured by Seattle Computer Products and use it as a template to develop DOS. 

1981MS-DOS Computer Operating System increases its success

1982WordPerfect Corporation introduces WordPerfect 1.0 a word processing program

1982The Commodore 64 becomes the best-selling computer of all time. 

1982 SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is introduced

1983More than 10 million computers are in use in the United States

1983Domain Name System (DNS) pioneered by Jon Postel, Paul Mockapetris and Craig Partridge. Seven 'top-level' domain names are initially introduced: edu, com, gov, mil, net, org and int.

Microsoft Windows introduced eliminating the need for a user to have to type each command, like MS-DOS, by using a mouse to navigate through drop-down menus, tabs and icons

1984Apple introduces the Macintosh with mouse and window interface

1984William Gibson coins the word cyberspace when he publishes Neuromancer

1985Paul Brainard introduces Pagemaker for the Macintosh creating the desktop publishing field. 

1985The Nintendo Entertainment System makes its debut.

1986More than 30 million computers are in use in the United States.

1987Microsoft introduces Microsoft Works

1987Larry Wall introduces Perl 1.0 

1988Over 45 million PCs are in use in the United States.

1990Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau propose a 'hypertext' system starting the modern Internet

1990Microsoft and IBM stop working together to develop operating systems

1991The World Wide Web is launched to the public on August 6, 1991

1993At the beginning of the year only 50 World Wide Web servers are known to exist

1994The World Wide Web Consortium is founded by Tim Berners-Lee to help with the development of common protocols for the evolution of the World Wide Web1994YAHOO is created in April, 1994. 

1995Java is introduced

1995Amazon.com is founded by Jeff Bezos

1995EBay is founded by Pierre Omidyar

1995Hotmail is started by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia.

1996WebTV is introduced

1997Altavista introduces its free online translator Babel Fish

1998 Google is founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page on September 7, 1998

1998PayPal is founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin 

2001Xbox: Bill Gates introduces the Xbox on January 7th 2001. 

2002Approximately 1 billion PCs been sold

2006Skype announces that it has over 100 million registered users. 

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