10 Major Developments in the History of the Personal Computer and the Internet

Charles Babbage comes up with an idea for steam-driven machines that could have computing capabilities

Jan 1, 1822

Charles Babbage, an English mathematician, designed several machines which he called "difference engines" that would've been able to compute tables of numbers, effectively eliminating human error. Although the machines he made never ended up working properly, his ideas would inspire the creation of the first computers in the 1900's. Charles Babbage Biography

Alan Turing presents the "Turing Machine"

Jan 1, 1936

In his paper "On Computable Numbers...", Turing proposed a machine capable of computing anything that was capable of being computed. He would later use these ideas to create a German code-breaking electro-mechanical computer during WWII that was the first "computer" with electrical and mechanical components. The popular movie "The Imitation Game" was made about his life. Alan Turing Biography

The first all-electrical computer/calculator, the ENIAC, is created

Jan 1, 1942

John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert proposed an all-electronic calculating machine that the Army, in need of a simpler way to do complex calculations, then financed, creating the EINAC. It filled a 20-by-40ft room and was able to many different types of calculations, with reprogramming. ENIAC History

William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invent the transistor

Jan 1, 1947

Prior to the transistor, electrical switches were created by vacuums. The creation of the transistor allowed for electrical switches to be created with solid component. These components were markedly smaller than the vacuums and allowed for the size of these computers, and the cost, to drastically decrease. Transistor History

A prototype of the first modern computer is presented, and features a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI)

Jan 1, 1964

Douglas Engelbart created what is considered to be the first computer "mouse" and presented the first modern computer with a GUI. This marked the beginning of the "computer" to be more accessible to the public, and not made for just mathematicians and scientists. Douglas Engelbart Biography

The software company Microsoft is created.

Apr 4, 1975

After reading about the Altair 8080 (a new mini-computer kit) in a magazine, Paul Allen and Bill Gates offer to write software for the computer, and with it's success they start the Microsoft software company. Microsoft History Timeline

The "Apple Computers" company is created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the Apple I, the first computer with a single circuit board, is released

Apr 1, 1976

In the next year, they presented the Apple II, a computer which boasted color graphics and an audio cassette tape for storage. It was very popular. History of Apple Computers

The first "IBM personal computer", nicknamed Acorn, is released.

Jan 1, 1981

The PC boasted a Microsoft operating system (MC-DOS) and had an intel chip, two floppy disks, and an optional color monitor. It was the first computer that was sold by/available through outside distributors, and it also popularized the term "PC". More info on the IBM personal computer

Microsoft announces Windows in response to Apple's first GUI on it's personal computer, "Lisa"

Nov 20, 1985

Apple's and Microsoft's first GUI included drop-down menus and icons, make computers even more accessible to the general public.More info on the first Windows

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is created, giving rise to the World Wide Web

Jan 1, 1990

Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist in Geneva, invented HTML, allowing for the creation of webpages and hyperlinks via tags and "markups". This became the language of the world wide web and spawned the creation of "browsers", which allowed one to find/access different web pages. More info on HTML history