Computers in a Nutshell

By hmerrett

  • First Punch Cards

    Joseph-Marie Jacquard created a loom where punch cards dictated the pattern that was being woven. Punch card-based systems were the first programmable machines.

  • 1890 US Census uses machine tabulation

    This census was the first one to use machine tabulation. Data was entered on punched cards and tabulated with a machine. This reduced the time it took to complete the census from eight years for the 1880 census to one year for the 1890 census, showing the data storage capability of punched cards and the tabulation capabilities of electromechanical machines.

  • Zuse Z1

    In 1938, Konrad Zuse finished consturction of the Z1, the first freely programmable computer. However, it never worked reliably because of imperfections in its parts.

  • The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is tested

    The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic computer, although it wasn't prgorammable. It was conceived in 1937, but wasn't completed and tested until 1942

  • Colossus

    The Colossus was a fully electronic computer that was built do decode secret German message encrypted using the Lorenz cipher machine during World War 2

  • ENIAC Announced

    On this day, ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, was announced to the public. ENIAC was capable of various mathematical processes, not just adding and subtracting

  • Manchester "Baby"

    The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, nicknamed the Baby, was originally meant as a testbed for the Williams tube, but was also the first computer ever to store programs.

  • Transistoes in computers

    Transistors replaced vacuum tubes in computers from this point onwards. They had many advantages over vacuum tubes, such as being smaller and less power-intensive

  • The Microchip

    Third generation compuers kicked off around 1965, with Jack Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit (microchip)

  • The Microprocessor

    On this day, Intel released the first microprocessor, the 4004. It was developed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator company, as a better alternative to hardwired circiutry.

  • Pong

    Pong
    Pong was the first popular arcade video game, and started the video game industry. It was a two-player tennis game.

  • Apple

    Apple Inc is founed by two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, to market the Apple 1 computer

  • MS-DOS

    The first version of MS-DOS was created for the first IBM PC. MS-DOS was, at its peak, installed on over 100 million computers worldwide. It was replaced by Windows 95, but DOS emulators still exist today for the purpose of playing computer games that were designed for DOS.

  • The Internet

    Tim Berners-Lee was the inventor of the internet. He worked at CERN in Switzerland, the same guys who built the Large Hadron Collider. Very quickly, there were several Internet browsers, including Mosaic, whose developers went on to make Netscape.

  • PC Gaming Takes Off

    Two games launched in 1993, Doom, a first-person shooter, and Sam and Max Hit the Road, a 2D platorming adventure game, showed that the PC was a viable gaming platform that could compete with consoles of the time, like the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Sega Genesis

  • Mac OS X

    Mac OS X was released, Applle's operating sytem for Mac computers that, albiet with numerous updates, lives on to this day.

  • Windows XP

    Windows launches Windows XP, based on Windows 200 and the Windows NT kernel. XP brought a revised GUI, and introduced the NT kernel to consumers.

  • The iPhone

    The iPhone
    Apple launches the first iPhone, a smartphone that featured a multi-touch touchscreen, instead of having to use a stylus or keypad. The iPhone is currently in its fifth iteration, with several upgrades made over the generations of iPhone.

  • The iPad

    The iPad
    The first iPad is released. The iPad is a tablet computer that uses Apple's multitouch feature first used on the iPhone, which allows tapping on multiple places on the screen and dragging your finger across the screen, which made the iPad much more practical than non-multitouch tablet prototypes from years earlier.

  • The Wii U Goes on Sale

    The Wii U Goes on Sale
    The Wii U, the first eight-generation home game console and the succesor to the Wii, the first motion-control console.

  • I Add A Creative Commons License

    I Add A Creative Commons License
    On this day, I added a CC license to this timeline, at the request of my ICT teacher. You are now free to reuse this timeline in your own work, remix it, and/or print it out and use it as toilet paper.