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IBM founded
Initially operating as the Computing-Tabulated-Recording Company -
Social security record keeping
IBM's punch card machines help keep records for millions of Americans -
World War II
IBM becomes part of the war effort, tracking statistics and later developing a calculator used by the Navy for projectile trajectory calculations -
The first hard disk drive
Creation of the first hard drive would begin the quest for more memory in a smaller space computers. The first one was quite a bit larger than the photo, and was essential to the 305 RAMAC computer. This was the first computer to use moving magnetic disk storage technology. 305 RAMAC info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305_RAMAC -
FORTRAN
Standing for FORmula TRANslation, FORTRAN was released as a scientific programming language with algebra like syntax. It would quickly become the most widely used language for technical purposes. Programming in FORTRAN:
http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/fortran/fortran1.html -
Transistor mass production
IBM engineers design the first automatic production line for transistor manufacturing. When up and running, 1800 transistors were produced and tested per hour. History of the transistor:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/transist.htm -
SABRE reservations for American Airlines
The Semi-Automatic Business-Related Environment system was the first system to communicate via the phone lines to link several computers. This system was used to manage airline data in over 50 cities. -
Spaceflight
A whopping 59 pound IBM computer was used for the guidance system on NASA's Gemini flights, which demonstrated spacewalking, orbital rendezvous, and endurance. More information on project Gemini:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/gemini/index.html -
Moon Landing
IBM computers and employees work with NASA to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon during Apollo 11, demonstrating the remarkable things you can do with computers. Project Apollo information:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/index.html -
Floppy Disk
The floppy disk becomes the new standard for data storage, further miniaturizing and simplifying data storage techniques. Several generations of floppy disks would decrease size further. -
Laser printer
IBM delivers the first printer using laser technology. This sped up printing immensely, and is still used today for printing large volumes of documents. -
The IBM personal computer
The smallest and lowest price IBM computer at the time. Caught on quickly and became a standard, and was part of the reason the personal computer was Time magazines man of the year in 1982. More information on the IBM PC:
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_birth.html -
Scanning tunneling microscopy
Developed by IBM researchers, scanning tunneling microscopy produces the first ever three dimensional images of atomic structures. More microscopy information:
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/microscope/ -
ThinkPad
The IBM ThinkPad is one of the first notebook computers, and was an immediate success. Computers have become truly portable, coming a long way from the early mainframes taking up entire rooms. Several of these computers were used aboard space shuttle flights for various uses. ThinkPad information:
https://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/space/space_thinkpad.html -
Watson smashes Jeopardy
A question answering system developed using speech recognition technology obliterates the two best human Jeopardy players, showing a huge leap in computing technology Watson information:
https://www.ibm.com/watson/
