Computer History: A Look Into the 1950s

By saralance
  • Ferranti Mark 1

    Ferranti Mark 1

    The oldest known recordings of computer-generated music came off of this computer. It's hoot function, that provided auditory feedback, could be exploited into playing a medley.
  • UNIVAC

    UNIVAC

    The first general purpose computer, designed to handle both numeric and textual information. Invented by John Mauchly to help the US Army with calculations on artillery firings.
  • FORTRAN

    FORTRAN

    Invented by John Backus and his IBM team, FORTRAN, shortened from formula translation, is the first high level programming language ever developed.
  • LISP

    LISP

    Short for List Processing, developed by John McCarthy at MIT is a programming language used in AI development.
  • Integrated Circuit

    Integrated Circuit

    Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce worked separately on the microprocessor. Robert Noyce went on to found Intel, the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue.