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Charles Babbage was given £17,000 ($21,184.13) by the British government to construct a device that used the decimal number system (powered by turning a crank) to produce tables. The project was shut down in 1824 without recieving a working engine.
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After failing to deliver the Difference Engine, Charles Babbage created the Analytical Engine, the first general-purpose computer concept. The Analytical Engine had an Arithmetic Logic Unit, basic flow control, and integrated memory. However, the Analytical Engine was not finished while Babbage was alive. It was later completed in 1910 by his youngest son, Henry Babbage.
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Created in his parent's living room, Konrad Zuse invented what is considered the first the first electro-mechanical binary programmable computer, also referred to as the first functioning computer.
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Developed by Proffesor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry, the ABC computer was an electrical computer that used vaccum tubes for digital computation (binary math and Boolean logic) but, it had no CPU.
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John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert were commisioned to create a fully functioning electronic computer. They were successful in this, and produced a computer that took up 1,800 square-feet, used 18,000 vaccum tubes, and weighed 50 tons.
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The first electric programmable computer, dubbed Colossus, was created by Tommy Flowers to help British code breakers decrypt coded German messages during WWII. However, it was not fully functional, therefor it was not the first electric computer.
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Considered the first stored program electronic computer, the EDSAC ran the first graphical computer game, nicknamed "Baby".
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Founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the same individuals who created the ENIAC, and who would later release mainframe computers under the UNIVAC name. The Electronic Controls Company is the first computer company (later renamed the EMCC, or Eckert-Machly Computer Corporation).
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The UNIVAC 1101, Universal Non Integrated Vacuum Actuated Computer, is considered to be the first computer to store and run a program from memory
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The PDP-1, released by the Digital Equiptment Corporation, was introduced to markets.
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Intel releases its first microprocesser.
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The Compaq Portable, which was 100% compatible with IBM computers and could run IBM software, was introduced from the company Compaq.
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Tandy Radio Shack becomes one of the first companies to release a computer based on the MPC standard with its introduction of the M2500 XL/2 and M4020 SX computers.
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For the first time more than half the households in America have Internet access.
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Aaron Swartz was arrested by federal authorities in connection with the systematic download of academic journal articles from JSTOR.
