Kaira Longley The History of Computers

Charles Babbage

Dec 26, 1791

Charles Babbage, also known as the "Father of the Computer" is known for inventing the first automatic calculator called the Anytical Engine in 1834. Although it was never developed, it design is used to build computers of today.

Herman Hollerith

Feb 29, 1860

While working in the U.S Census Bureau Herman Hollerith was the first to apply Jacquard's punch card concept and apply it to his Hollerith Tabulating Machine.

Z1 Computer

Sep 7, 1936

The Z1 Computer was invented in 1936 by German inventor Konrad Zuse. The Z1 is known to be the first computer to have some features which is in today's computers.

First Generation Computers

Mar 5, 1940

The first generation computers were the last computers to ever use the vacuum tubes for storage. The size of the computers were very large. The operating systems were also slow and they were very costly.

Eniac

Apr 7, 1944

The Eniac, also known as the Electronic Numerical Intergrator and Computer was invented to calculate the settings used for weapons. It was invented by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.

BASIC

Sep 7, 1950

BASIC also known as Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code is a software that contains languages such as FORTRAN, ALGOL, and COBOL.

Univac

Feb 2, 1951

The Univac, also known as Universal Automatic Computer was the first commercial computer to be successful in 1951.The Univac ran on punch cards and used magnetic tape.

Steve Jobs

Feb 24, 1955

Steve Jobs is an entrepeneur and inventor of the Apple Inc which is responsible for the Apple products (Iphones, Ipads, Mac laptops). He is known as a motivated pioneer for his electronics and his career in computers.

Bill Gates

Oct 28, 1955

Bill Gates is widely known for inventing the largest computer software program known as Microsoft Windows along with Paul Allen. Bill Gates was also the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.

2nd Generation computers

Jun 1, 1956

Second generation computers can be defined as computers that use transistors. The transistors were in use to replace vacuum tubes in computers. Although the second generation computers were invented in 1956, the transistor was invented in 1947 by three scientists.

3rd Generation Computers

Jan 1, 1958

Third Generation computers were invented in 1958 by Jack Kilby while working in the Texas Instruments. He invented the world's first intergrated circuit allowing computers to become smaller and lighter.

Jack Kilby

Mar 2, 1958

While working in texas Instruments, Jack Kilby took part in realizing the first intergrated ciruit. In December of 2000, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.

4th Generation Computers

Jan 1, 1971

Fourth Generation Computers are computers that consisit of a microprocessor. The microprocessor acts as the brains of the computer. The intel i7 is on of the most powerful processors of today's time.

The Introduction of GUI

Sep 7, 1972

The introduction of GUI was invented to allow people to interact with the computers.

Altair 8800

Jan 1, 1975

The Altair was invented by Ed Roberts and Forrest M Mims the third while serving at the Air force Weapons Laboratory. There were two trypes of Altair Computers which is the do it yourself kit and the fully assembeled unit.

Apple II

Jun 10, 1977

The Apple II was invented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The computer consisted of a color monitor, sound and two game paddles.

Visicalc

Jun 4, 1978

The Visicalc is a spreadsheet program which was created by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston in 1978

Wordstar

Sep 5, 1979

Wordstar was the first word processing software that was available for personal computers.

Osborne Computer

Jul 5, 1981

The Osbourne Computer was the first portable computer which was invented in 1981 by Adam Osborne. The Osborne design was later bought by the Compaq Company causing the Osborne Company to close down.

Pagemaker

Jul 1, 1985

PageMaker was the first publishing software for desktop which was invented in 1985 by Aldus. Adobe PostScript plays a big role in PageMaker because it relies on it for page descriptive language.

Excel

Sep 30, 1985

Microsoft Excel was invented in 1985 after the Visicalc by Microsoft Office. It was one of the first spreadsheets software to use graphing tools.

Mosaic

Sep 7, 1993

Since computers were updated with the Internet, a web browser was invented in 1993 called Mosaic. The browser allows people to view multimedia.

Netscape

Apr 4, 1994

Netscape was the first company which attempted to capatalize on the World Wide Web in the year or 1994. The Company first web browser was called Mosaic Netscape 0.9 which was released in October 1994.