Technology History Project

Robot

Sep 17, 1921

resource Robot is used to describe a computerized machine designed to respond to input received manually or from its surroundings.

The Complex Number Calculator

Sep 10, 1940

SourceDesigned by researcher George Stibitz.This is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing.

Turing test

Sep 17, 1950

resourceAlan Turing publishes Computing Machinery and Intelligence in which he proposes a test to determine whether or not a machine has gained the power to think for itself.

The first integrated circuits

Sep 15, 1960

sourceThe first integrated circuits (IC's) begin being sold for $120.00 and are chosen to be used on the Gemini spacecraft.

The first industrial robot - Unimate

Sep 10, 1961

SourceObeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum, the 4,000-pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.

The first mobile robot

Sep 17, 1966

resourceThe Stanford Research Institute creates Shakey the first mobile robot to know and react to its own actions. Amongst other achievements SRI was also the research institute that helped bring us modern day laundry detergent in the development of Tide.

The First Internet -ARPANET

Apr 7, 1969

Source
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was an early packet switching network and the first network to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. ARPANET was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.

The first mobile robot

Sep 10, 1970

Source Equipped with sensing devices and driven by a problem-solving program called STRIPS, the robot found its way around the halls of SRI by applying information about its environment to a route.

The silver arm

Sep 17, 1974

resourceVictor Scheinman forms his own company and starts marketing the Silver Arm. It is capable of assembling small parts together using touch sensors.

Stanford cart

Sep 17, 1979

resourceIn development since 1967, the Stanford Cart successfully crossed a chair-filled room without human intervention in 1979. Hans Moravec rebuilt the Stanford Cart in 1977, equipping it with stereo vision. A television camera, mounted on a rail on the top of the cart, took pictures from several different angles and relayed them to a computer. The computer gauged the distance between the cart and obstacles in its path.

Created an operating system for a new PC

Sep 15, 1980

sourcePaul Allen and Bill Gates buy the rights to a simple operating system manufactured by Seattle Computer Products and use it as a template. IBM allows the two to keep the marketing rights to the operating system, called DOS.

IBM PC

Sep 15, 1981

sourceThe computer was code named and still sometimes referred to as the Acorn. THe IBM PC had a 8088 processor, 16 KB of memory, which was expandable to 256 and utilized MS-DOS.

Computer company

May 3, 1984

sourceDell Computer is founded May 3, 1984 in Austin Texas.

Pathfinder Mission

Sep 17, 1997

resourceThe Pathfinder Mission lands on Mars. Its robotic rover Sojourner, rolls down a ramp and onto Martian soil in early July. It continues to broadcast data from the Martian surface until September.

Robotics Invention System

Sep 17, 1998

resourceLEGO releases their first Robotics Invention SystemTM 1.0. LEGO names the product line MINDSTORMS after Seymour Papert's seminal work of 1980.