History of Digital Revolution

ENIAC

Oct 23, 1943

Two University of Pennsylvania professors—John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert—build the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). Considered the grandfather of digital computers, it fills a 20 foot by 40 foot room and has 18,000 vacuum tubes.

UNIVAC

Oct 23, 1946

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.

COBOL

Oct 23, 1953

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.

FORTRAN

Oct 23, 1954

The FORTRAN programming language is born.

The Computer Chip

Oct 23, 1958

Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip.

GUI

Oct 23, 1964

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.

Ethernet

Oct 23, 1973

Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, develops Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other hardware.

Personal Computers available to consumer

Period: Oct 23, 1974 to Oct 23, 1978

A number of personal computers hit the market, including Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, RadioShack’s TRS-80—affectionately known as the “Trash 80,” and the Commodore PET.

Developement of "Internet Protocols"

Aug 23, 1975

n a research paper published in 1974, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn proposed a protocol they called "TCP". Cerf and Kahn didn't realize it at the time, but the protocol they invented would later become IP, the official network-layer protocol of the Internet.

The first Personal Computer

Oct 25, 1975

In 1975, Ed Roberts coined the term personal computer when he introduced the Altair 8800. Although the first personal computer is considered to be the Kenback-1, which was first introduced for $750 in 1971. The computer relied on a series of switches for inputting data and output data by turning on and off a series of lights.

The first Apple computer

Jan 28, 1976

Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs designed the first Apple known as the Apple I computer in 1976.

First Printer

Oct 23, 1977

The IBM 5100 becomes the first commercially available portable computer.

First PC with a GUI

Oct 23, 1983

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.

Birth of Windows, Amiga 1000

Aug 23, 1985

Microsoft announces Windows, its response to Apple’s GUI. Commodore unveils the Amiga 1000, which features advanced audio and video capabilities.

First domain name

Oct 23, 1985

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 Massachussets computer manufacturer, registers Symbolics.com. More than two years later, only 100 dot-coms had been registered.

WELL and AOL

Mar 3, 1994

Electric pioneers Steve Case and Stewart Brand created WELL and AOl and other dial-up services that offered home-computer users e-mail, bulletin boards, chat rooms and information. In 1994 AOL allowed its members to directly access the internet.

World Wide Web

Dec 23, 1994

World Wide Web Is a system of interlinked hypertext documents that are accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them via hyperlinks.Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist and former CERN employee,is considered the inventor of the Web. On March 12, 1989, ,he wrote a proposal for what would eventually become the World Wide Web.

Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple

Oct 23, 1997

Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple, which was struggling at the time, ending Apple’s court case against Microsoft in which it alleges that Microsoft copied the “look and feel” of its operating system.

Mac OS X

Oct 23, 2001

Apple unveils the Mac OS X operating system, which provides protected memory architecture and pre-emptive multi-tasking, among other benefits. Not to be outdone, Microsoft rolls out Windows XP, which has a significantly redesigned GUI

Billion internet users

Oct 23, 2005

One billion people accessing the internet.

iPhone

Oct 23, 2007

The iPhone brings many computer functions to the smartphone.

Windows 7

Oct 23, 2009

Microsoft launches Windows 7, which offers the ability to pin applications to the taskbar and advances in touch and handwriting recognition, among other features.