Timeline: Creation of Computers

Period: Oct 4, 1880 to Oct 4, 2010

History of Computers

Oct 2, 1882

First Draft

English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute tables of numbers.

Oct 2, 1890

Punch Card System

Herman Hollerith designs a punch card system to calculate the 1880 census, accomplishing the task in just three years and saving the government $5 million.

Oct 2, 1937

First Attempt

J.V. Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, attempts to build the first computer without gears, cams, belts or shafts.

Oct 2, 1946

First vacuum tube-based computer

First vacuum tube-based computers developed; universities help in computer development effort; technology used in war effort.

Oct 2, 1948

IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator

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.

Oct 2, 1953

First Computer Language

Grace Hopper develops the first computer language, which eventually becomes known as COBOL. Inventor Thomas Johnson Watson, Jr., son of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson Watson, Sr., conceives the IBM 701 EDPM to help the United Nations keep tabs on Korea during the war.

Oct 2, 1954

FORTRAN

The FORTRAN programming language is born.
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip.

Oct 2, 1958

First Transoritized computer

Felker and Harris program TRADIC, AT&T Bell Laboratories announced the first fully transistorized computer, TRADIC. It contained nearly 800 transistors instead of vacuum tubes. Transistors — completely cold, highly efficient amplifying devices invented at Bell Labs — enabled the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts, or one-twentieth the power required by comparable vacuum tube computers.

Oct 2, 1962

Virtual Memory

Virtual memory emerged from a team under the direction of Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester on its Atlas computer (1962).

Oct 2, 1963

Binary Code

American Standard Code for Information Interchange — permitted machines from different manufacturers to exchange data. ASCII consists of 128 unique strings of ones and zeros.

Oct 2, 1969

Internet

ARPNet The original Internet.

Oct 2, 1974

Apple 1

President Nixon resigns and is given a full pardon by his successor, President Ford; a gasoline embargo creates lines at gas stations; Patty Hurst kidnapped; Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record; Apple I computer is sold in kit form.

Oct 4, 1976

Apple

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers on April Fool’s Day and roll out the Apple I, the first computer with a single-circuit board.

Oct 4, 1984

GUI

The more affordable home computer with a GUI.

Oct 4, 1986

Computer use

25 % of high schools use PCs for college and career guidance, K-8 schools buying mostly Apple II and Macintosh computers, high schools buying mostly DOS-based clones.

Oct 4, 1990

WWW.

The World Wide Web was born when Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, developed HyperText MarkupLanguage.

Oct 4, 1995

Internet Boom

The Internet and the world wide web began to catch on as businesses, schools, and individuals create web pages; most CAI is delivered on CD-ROM disks and is growing in popularity.

Oct 4, 1996

Internet disccusions

The Internet is widely discussed as businesses begin to provide services and advertising using web pages.

Oct 4, 2004

Firefox

Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0 challenges Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the dominant web browers.

Oct 4, 2007

Internet growth

The growth of the internet expands far faster than most predicted. It soon becomes the world's largest database of information, graphics, and streaming video making it an invaluable resource for educators.