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In France, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a loom that used punched wooden cards that would weave fabric into designs. Early computers would use similar punch cards.
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English mathematician Charles Babbage invented of a steam power calculating machine that would be able to calculate tables of numbers. The project, supported by the English government became lack of success. More than a century later, the world’s first computer was actually built.
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Herman Hollerith designs a punch card system to calculate the 1880 census,completing the task in just three years and saving the government $5 million. He establishes a company that would now be knows as IBM.
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Alan Turing presents the idea of a universal machine, later called the Turing machine, it was able to compute anything that is able to be computed. The main concept of the modern computer was based on his ideas.
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J.V. Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, tries to build the first computer without gears, cams, belts or shafts.
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Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, created a computer that can solve 29 equations at the same time. This marks the first time a computer is able to hold information on it's main memory
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Mauchly and Presper leave the University of Pennsylvania and receive funding from the Census Bureau to build the UNIVAC, the first commercial computer for business and government applications.
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William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of Bell Laboratories invent the transistor. They found out how to make an electric switch with solid materials and no need for a vacuum.
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Grace Hopper created the first computer language, which eventually becomes known as COBOL. Thomas Johnson Watson Jr., son of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson Watson Sr., created the IBM 701 EDPM to help the United Nations keep tabs on Korea during the war.
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Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce reveal the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip. Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for his work.
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Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). This marks the evolution of the computer from a specialized machine for scientists and mathematicians to technology that is more accessible to the general public.
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A group of developers at Bell Labs produce UNIX, an operating system that addressed compatibility issues. Written in the C programming language, UNIX was portable across multiple platforms and became the operating system of choice among mainframes at large companies and government entities. Due to the slow nature of the system, it never quite gained traction among home PC users.
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The newly formed Intel revealed the Intel 1103, the first Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip.
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Alan Shugart lead a team of IBM engineers who invented the “floppy disk,” letting data to be shared among computers.
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Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, created the Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other hardware.
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Multiple personal computers went on to the market, including Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, RadioShack’s TRS-80 —affectionately known as the “Trash 80” — and the Commodore PET.
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The January issue of Popular Electronics magazine features the Altair 8080, described as the "world's first minicomputer kit to rival commercial models." Two "computer geeks," Paul Allen and Bill Gates, offer to write software for the Altair, using the new BASIC language. On April 4, after the success of this first endeavor, the two childhood friends form their own software company, Microsoft.
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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.
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Radio Shack's initial production run of the TRS-80 was just 3,000. It sold like crazy. For the first time, non-geeks could write programs and make a computer do what they wished.
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Word processing becomes a reality as MicroPro International releases WordStar.
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The first IBM personal computer, code-named “Acorn,” is introduced. It uses Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system. It has an Intel chip, two floppy disks and an optional color monitor. Sears & Roebuck and Computerland sell the machines, marking the first time a computer is available through outside distributors. It also popularizes the term PC.
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Apple’s Lisa is the first personal computer with a GUI. It also features a drop-down menu and icons. It flops but eventually evolves into the Macintosh. The Gavilan SC is the first portable computer with the familiar flip form factor and the first to be marketed as a “laptop.”
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The first dot-com domain name is registered on March 15, years before the World Wide Web would mark the formal beginning of Internet history. The Symbolics Computer Company, a small Massachusetts computer manufacturer, registers Symbolics.com. More than two years later, only 100 dot-coms had been registered.
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PCs become gaming machines as "Command & Conquer," "Alone in the Dark 2," "Theme Park," "Magic Carpet," "Descent" and "Little Big Adventure" are among the games to hit the market.
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Sergey Brin and Larry Page develop the Google search engine at Stanford University.
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The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language and users begin connecting to the Internet without wires.
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The first 64-bit processor, AMD’s Athlon 64, becomes available to the consumer market.
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The iPhone brings many computer functions to the smartphone.
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Facebook has 1 billion users on October 4.
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YouTube, a video sharing service, is founded. Google acquires Android, a Linux-based mobile phone operating system.
