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Hewlett-Packard is Founded
Both Bill Hewlett and David Packard made their first product, the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. This product was farily new, and big companies wanted to use it for sounds effects, etc.
Reason I chose this: I decided to use this event because it was one of the first major inventions in the beginnning of Computer Technology. Also, Hewlett-Packard is still very popular in today's age, selling computers and offering tech support. -
The Zuse Z3 Computer
Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, finishes the his invention, the Z3 computer. The Z3 was a computer that uses 2,300 relays. In addition to this, the Z3 used floating point binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Why I chose this: I chose to higlight the Zuse Z3 computer because it made a huge advance in how to make computers. -
Colossus is operational at Bletchley Park
This was designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis during WWII. A total of ten Colossi were delivered to Bletchley, each using 1,500 vacuum tubes and a series of pulleys transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing possible solutions to a particular code.
Why I chose this: Not only did it help computer technology advance, but was a major help during WWII. -
The ERA 1101
The Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the first commercially produced computer. It used a drum related storing device, the eventually could stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second.
Why I chose this- This was used a lot by the U.S Navy and became very useful and important. Also, this event introduced the magnetic drum, which was the earliest magnetic storage device. -
First Labratory Data Processing
The LINC (Laboratory Instrumentation Computer) offered the first real time laboratory data processing. It was designed by Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratories. Why I chose this- Most Researchers used this in biomedical studies. This was important for scientists as well as researchers, giving them a better look for important factors in a lab experiment. -
The PDP-8
The Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, which was the first commercially successful minicomputer. It sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a small another company's 360 mainframe. Why I chose this- The speed, small size, and reasonable cost made the PDP-8 to go into a lot of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories. It was a huge step towards computer technology in industries and businesses. -
The Micrel personal computer
This was the earliest commercial, non-kit, personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn developed the software.They created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn´t require high performance.
Why I chose this- Not only did the Mircal introduce the idea of personal computers, but it was sold for $1,750, making it never hurt the U.S. market. -
The TRS-80
The TRS-80, aslo known as the Tandy Radio Shack´s 80, was the first desktop computer that was priced at $599.95. It had a video display, 4 kilobytes of memory, BASIC, cassette storage, and easy-to-understand manuals.
Why I chose this- The TRS-80 introduced the idea of desktop computers to the world and was a huge success in sells, selling 10,000 units rather than the company´s projected sales of 3,000 units for one year. -
The Osborne 1
The Osborne 1 was the first portable computer, invented by Adam Osborne. this Osborne 1 computer weighed about 24 pounds and cost $1,795. The machine featured a 5-inch display, 64 kilobytes of memory, a modem, and two 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives.
Why I chose this- The price of made the machine especially attractive, mostly because included software worth about $1,500. This machine led many people in the world to start buying portable computers. -
The Apple PowerBook G4 1.0 17"
The Apple Powerbook G4 1.0 17" was the first notebook with a 17" display and a fiber optic based "ambient light sensor" that automatically measures ambient light . It also was the first Mac to include a Firewire "800" port. It was made and sold by Apple Computer Inc.
Why I chose this- This laptop was the first laptop to have major imporvements on ambient light and was a very reasonable price. From this laptop, many more versions were made and it helped start the success of Apple products.
