Computor History Timeline

  • Hewlett-Packard is Founded

    Hewlett-Packard is Founded
    Hewlett-Packard is Founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for engineers.
  • The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed.

    The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed.
    The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz.
  • Z3 computer

    Z3 computer
    Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 computer.
  • The Atanasoff-Berry Computer

    The Atanasoff-Berry Computer
    During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews.
  • Whirlwind begins

    Whirlwind begins
    During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews.
  • Harvard Mark-1

    Harvard Mark-1
    Harvard Mark-1 is completed. Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator.
  • ENIAC

    ENIAC
    In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J.
  • Williams tube

    Williams tube
    The Williams tube won the race for a practical random-access memory. Sir Frederick Williams of Manchester University modified a cathode-ray tube to paint dots and dashes of phosphorescent electrical charge on the screen, representing binary ones and zeros.
  • IBM´s SSEC

    IBM´s SSEC
    IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in public display near the company´s Manhattan headquarters. Before its decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
  • Wilkes with the EDSAC

    Wilkes with the EDSAC
    Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University. His ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended three years earlier.