Development of modern Computing and the Internet. - Technology project Jesper Bengtsson 9B
By Jesbzon2
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Charles Babbage proposes the idea of the "Analytical engine", a general purpose computer.
The analytical engine was proposed to be a general purpose computer, capable of performing all four basic operations. It was to be operated using punch cards, which would program the machine and give it inputs. Though Babbage never completed the machine, it was later created 1991, long after it grew obsolete. While it never came to be of actual use, it would influence other computer designers and programmers, as it laid the groundwork for how to design a computer. -
Ada Lovelace publishes the first algorithm for the analytical engine.
Ada Lovelace was the first to recognise that Babbage's analytical engine had other uses than simple calculation. Lovelace designed an algorithm that did more than the computer was originally designed to do, this being calculating a certain type of number called bernouli numbers. For this reason, she is often recognised as the first computer programmer. Her work would come to influence future computer programmers. -
Julius Edgar lilenfield proposes the field effect transistor.
The field effect transistor(FET) is a transistor(a device that controls electrical throughput) that uses an electrical field to control the throughput of a transistor, as opposed to a vaccum tube, which was much more expensive, less efficent and slower than FETs. Lilenfield never made one, but FETs were later developed and created by other physiscists, and now versions of them are present in almost all modern computers in their processors and other integrated curcuits. -
Alan Turing presents the idea of a "Turing machine" .
A turing machine is a machine capable of computing any given algorithm or anything computable.This development came to influence computer science in the future, as it created a model upon which the creation of computers could be based upon. The model is an infinite tape that is divided into cells that can have different states. A device can modify these states, using an algorithm expressed to it. Using this machine, anything computable can be computed. -
The first general purpose, fully electronic computer, named ENIAC is completed
The United States army commisioned the creation of a computer, primarily for the use of calcluating artillery trajectories, but due to it's general purpose adaptability, it was also capable of aiding in the creation of thermonuclear weapons. ENIAC was very fast compared to it's electro-mechanical counterparts at the time, and thereby influenced the development of electronic rather than mechanical computers. -
Douglas Engelbart builds the first mouse prototype.
At the time, the mouse wasn't very popular, but it would eventually grow to be the most common way of easily interacting with desktop computers. This first design used two wheels to record motion and convert it to coordinates for the computer to interpret, as opposed to laser mice that we use today. This first design only had one button and no scroll wheel. -
The altair 8800 is released, and becomes the first comercially successfull computer.
Sold by MITS in 1974, the altair 8800 was among one of the first computers to become available to comsumers, and thereby started the development of how we would start to increasingly integrate computers into our daily lives. -
The Invention of the World wide web
Tim Berners-lee develops the world wide web, making information acessible through the internet. Though people before him had connected computers before, this development made information acessible to everyone connected trough the world wide web able to access information from web pages, these all being written in a standardised language called HTML. This standardisation made the modern internet possible, as otherwise, there would be no agreed upon medium of sharing information online.