-
Charles Babbage designs an analytical engine to perform general calculations automatically. Ada Augusta (a.k.a. Lady Lovelace) is a programmer for this machine.
-
Herman Hollerith designs a system to record census data. The information is stored as holes in cards, which are interpreted by machines with electrical sensors. Hollerith starts a company that will eventually become IBM.
-
J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly design and build the ENIAC computer. It used 18,000 vacuum tubes and cost $500,000 to build.
-
John von Neumann proposes that a program be stored in a computer in the same way that data are stored. His proposal, called the "von Neumann architecture," is the basis for modern computers.
-
Eckert and Mauchly build the first general-purpose commercial computer, the UNIVAC.
-
An IBM team, led by John Backus, designs the first successful high-level programming language, FORTRAN, for solving engineering and science problems.
-
A first version of the UNIX operating system is running on the DEC PDP-7.
-
The first microcomputer, the Altair, is introduced.
-
The first supercomputer, the Cray-1, is announced.
-
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer.
-
The PC was invented in 1981
-
Apple made their own computer called the Macintosh computer.
-
Microsoft founded windows