| Timeline |
| 1904 |
Sir John Ambrose
Fleming invents the vacuum tube and diode. |
| 1939 |
John Atanasoff
and Clifford Berry invent the first electronic computer at
Iowa State University. In 1973 a judge in a patent infringement suit
would rule that this research was the idea source for the modern
computer. |
| 1940 |
Konrad Zuse in
Germany develops the first programmable calculator using binary
numbers and Boolean logic. His program runs on a paper
tape. |
| 1943 |
The world's first
electronic valve programmable logic calculator, the Colossus, is
built in Britain for the purpose of breaking Nazis codes. On
average, Colossus deciphers a coded message in two hours. |
| 1945 |
Alan Turing
publishes his paper on the Universal Machine, laying out the
principles of the modern computer. |
| 1945 |
John Von Neumann,
working independently of Turing, writes a document describing the
stored-program computer, the basis for the computer industry.
|
| 1946 |
ENIAC, the first
electronic digital computer put into operation. |
| 1947 |
John Bardeen,
Walter H. Brattain, and William B. Shockley of Bell Telephone
Laboratories invent the transistor. |
| 1949 |
Bell Labs
publishes Shannon's theory of relay logic. |
| 1951 |
UNIVAC becomes
the first commercial computer. |
| 1952 |
The first
database is implemented on RCA's Bizmac computer. |
| 1952 |
Admiral Grace
Hopper develops the first computer compiler, leading to the creation
of user-friendly languages and opening the door to a larger universe
of computer applications and users. |
| 1954 |
Gene Amdahl
develops the first computer operating system for the IBM
704. |
| 1955 |
Reynold Johnson
develops the first disk drive. |
| 1957 |
FORTRAN becomes
commercially available. |
| 1958 |
Jack Kilby of
Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor
independently develop the integrated circuit (IC). |
| 1958 | Seymour Cray of Control Data Corp. develops the
first transistorized computer. |
| 1958 |
ALGOL computer
language, a high-level language designed specifically for programming
scientific computations, comes into use. |
| 1959 |
COBOL computer
language is created. |
| 1961 |
Silicon chips
first appear. |
| 1962 |
First
minicomputer comes into use. |
| 1963 |
Douglas
Englebart, SRI, patents the idea of the computer mouse. |
| 1964 |
IBM releases its
Model 360 computer, which will result in $100 billion in sales over
its life cycle. |
| 1964 |
John Kemeny and
Thomas Kurtz develop the BASIC computer language.
Intel Chairman Gordon Moore suggests that integrated circuits would
double in complexity every 18
months. This later becomes known as Moore's Law and is applied to
microprocessor speed. |
| 1965 |
Digital Equipment
Corp. (DEC) introduces PDP-8 minicomputer. |
| 1969 |
PASCAL computer
language. |
| 1971 |
Intel introduces
its popular 4004 4-bit microprocessor, starting the evolution of
Intel's famous line of 386, 486, and Pentium processors. |
| 1973 |
Xerox develops
first Ethernet Local Area Network (LAN) technology. |
| 1975 |
Bill Gates and
Paul Allen found Microsoft. |
| 1976 |
Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniak form the Apple Computer Company. |
| 1976 |
Alan Shugart,
IBM, invents the 5.25-inch floppy. |
| 1979 |
Dan Bricklin
introduces the Visicalc spreadsheet. |
| 1980 |
Philip Estridge,
IBM, develops the first hard drive for PCs. It holds
10MB. |
| 1981 |
IBM introduces
the PC. |
| 1982 |
First
IBM-compatible PC clone is introduced by Columbia Data Systems.
|
| 1983 |
Apple Computer
introduces the Macintosh computer.
Microsoft releases Microsoft Windows 1.0. |
