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1300 BCE
Abacus
Abacus, created by Tim Cranmer, is an instrument that was used to make calculations. This device was primarily used within the Early 18th century In Europe and Arabia.
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Napier's Bones (John Napier)
The Napier’s Bones is a type of calculation device that is used manually. Mainly made out of “slips” of ivory, they were marked individually with different numbers. This was invented and used in 1617 and is surprisingly still used today.
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Slide Rule (William Oughtred)
The slide rule is based on John Napier's recent knowledge of Logarithms and Edmund Gunter’s invention of logarithmic scales. William made these Slide rules by inscribing the logarithms into a piece of wood or ivory
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Pascaline (Blaise Pascal)
This machine calculator was one of the first to ever be “mass” produced. There were a total of 50 in 10 years. This calculator could add numbers by turning the wheels on the box, and to subtract you would simply rotate them the other way.
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Stepped Reckoner (Gottfried Leibniz)
This German mathematician based his new calculator invention off of Blaise Pascal's Pascaline. Gottfried, however, even furthered this idea and added multiplication and division. He did this by adding another lever to crank the gear and multiply the numbers.
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Jacquard Loom (Joseph-Marie Jacquard)
The Jacquard Loom was one of the driving forces to the textile era. This machine had the capabilities to make fabrics product patterns. However, with a machine with the capabilities that this one has, they felt that it would deprive workers of jobs. Many people despised this invention and ended up burning the machines and attacking Joseph himself.
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Arithmometer (Thomas de Colmar)
This calculation device was one of the first to be commercially mass produced. The arithmometer could perform it all from addition, subtraction, multiplication, and even division. However, the size of this calculator was still fairly large, large enough to cover a desk. The arithmometer lasted for around 90 years before a new invention was made.
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Augusta Ada Byron
She was an associate of Babbage for the digital computer. She created a program for that computer. Augusta was then considered the first computer programmer.
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Difference and Analytical Engines (Charles Babbage)
This was considered to be the first computer to be made. Babbage thought that if he were to broaden the operation of his computer, it would be able to do a lot of different calculations. The main goal of this project and device was to be able to calculate any equation that was given to it. There were four aspects of this computer: the mill, the store, the reader, and the printer.
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Scheutzian Calculation Engine (Per Georg Scheutz)
This machine that George and his son have made was based off of Babbage’s successful difference engine. These devices that they made were used to create logarithmic tables. The log tables were not perfect and that they will never be so they tried to make the device a lot more compact instead of the size of a piano.
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Tabulating Machine (Herman Hollerith)
This new invention was known as the punch card tabulating machine. How this would work is exactly how a punch card works. You stick a card with a piece of information on it and put mercury on it. The mercury will create an electric flow from the information to the machine. All of the dials on the dashboard is all of the different categories of information that is stored.
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Z1 (Konrad Zuse)
This was a binary electrical calculator.This was used to be a value adder and subtractor. However, for more complex calculations, it was also used to be a multiplier and divider.They figured out multiplication is just repeated addition and that division is repeated subtraction. This was the first freely programmable computer in the world that sadly got destroyed in the bombardment of Berlin in 1943.
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Havard Mark 1 (Howard Aiken)
Howard aiken had the idea of this new machine design and he collaborated with the company IBM to design and manufacture it. The Havard Mark one is one of the biggest calculators that there was. It is about the size of the room and it takes a whole team to operate such a machine. There is a fifty foot long camshaft that runs throughout the whole machine.
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ENIAC (Eckert & Mauchly)
“ the first programmable general-purpose electronic digital computer”.This was made for artillery calculations. The machine had a plug board which allowed there to be a series of electricity flow through it. They had a card reader that would be able to state instructions. It took a lot of time to rewire the machine when needed. The machine was incredibly large.
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The transistor (Shockley, et al)
All electronics need a control valve that gages the amount of signal being set out and what is weak and strong. This transistor is an upgrade to the previous vacuum tube. The Tube was very bulky and got very hot which shortened its life. The transistor was a smaller vacuum tube that would take up less power. Not only is it using up less power, but there will be less heat which makes the transistor last longer.
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UNIVAC 1(Eckert & Mauchly)
UNIVAC, short for Universal automatic computer,was built to be a stored program computer. They then used a typewriter for all of its inputs as well as magnetic tape. The machine could read 7,200 decimal digits per second.
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EDVAC (John von Neumann)
EDVAC,or Electronic discrete variable automatic computer, was soon to become the world's first operational stored-program computer.Neumann not only saw computers to be more than a machine,but a device,he also knew that they will and could be used to solve mathematical problems that we needed an answer for. There are claims that there would not have been a hydrogen bomb invention in the near future.
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FORTRAN (John Backus, et al)
John wanted to create an easy to use programming language for all. He assembled a team of programmers right after college. FORTRAN is another computer language. After being successful, FORTRAN became a global requirement for standardization engineering and science.
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Computer Chip (Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce)
After the realization that the transistors were not able to be shrunken any further down, they wanted to be able to make a whole circuit with it. Jack had a realization that these resistors and other parts could be made out of silicone and that all you would need to complete the circuit is a single crystal.
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COBOL (Grace Hopper)
COBOL is a computer language. A computer language is a series of codes that guides the computer into doing an action. Programs that were written on COBOL could be on different computers. They proved this in the year 1960.
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The mouse (Douglas Engelbart)
Douglas had an idea that you would be able to control the screen. There were many brainstormed ideas whether it be from a pen on a pad or something that you could hold in your hand. After a lot of prototypes later, Douglas made the “mouse”.With two perpendicular wheels on the bottom, it allowed you to control the screen in almost every direction.Also the name “mouse” was because it had a cord on the back of it.
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The floppy disk (Alan Shugart)
The floppy disk was invented by the company IBM. The disk was originally 8 inches long before getting shrunk into the diskettes. These disks had the capacity to hold from 360 kilobytes to 1.44 megabytes of storage.
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Ethernet (Robert Metcalfe)
The invention of the ethernet cable was a huge advancement into the modern world. The cable allows you to directly connect to the internet and even gain speed. Even to this day it is an IEEE standard for electricity.
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Radio Shack’s TRS-80
In the year 1977, the TRS-80 was first introduced. However, it would take a real engineer to try and assemble this. This computer offered four kilobytes of RAM, a cassette tape that had two games on it, a power supply, and a 12 inch tv screen.
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Apple II (Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak)
This computer was a huge advancement from the Radioshack TRS-80. The main difference between the two is the amount of RAM (Random access memory) the computer has. The Apple II has a range of 4k to 48K RAM. The features are still the same including the cassette tape holder and the screen.
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IBM Acorn
Not only did IBM make their own new computer, they made a brand new operating system. The PC (Personal computer) had a total of 16 kilobytes of memory, an optional color monitor, two floppy disk drives, and many other features. IBM was also selling their PC at an affordable price of around 1,500 dollars.
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Microsoft Windows
With the start of Microsoft Windows comes to the start of GUI’s (graphical user interfaces). This new idea and invention allows the DOS to be represented visually. You would no longer have to type in commands to get to your location, a simple mouse click will take you there.
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Mac OS X
The Mac OS X offers a lot more than the previous version of the Mac OS. There were a lot of improvements such as memory protection, multitasking, and it was easier to find what you were looking for.
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iPhone
The iphone was one of the most groundbreaking inventions. After going from a computer, to a small, mobile phone. Not only was this a small phone where you could call, you could also have internet connection, map locations, and many other interactive features.
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Chromebook
The chromebook was not only able to connect to the internet, but also provides a 3g data plan. These laptops were built so that they would always try to connect to the internet. In addition to the internet, Chromebook is linked with google and due to google having the “cloud”, there will be a lot more storage for the chromebook.
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Molecular Informatics (DARPA)
This will allow there to store information inside of molecules in chemistry. This is a working progress to try and discover more storage and processing systems. In doing so, they are combining chemistry with programming.
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