Major Events and People in the History of Computers

By chloe.stevens75740

  • Charles Babbage

    Designed first automactic calculator called Analytical Engine
    Interesting Fact: He pioneered lighthouse signalling, invented the ophthalmoscope, and proposed 'black box' recorders.

  • Herman Hollerith

    Made the first tabulating mechine that automatically read data that had been punched into small punch cards.
    Interesting Fact: These machines reduced a ten-year job to three months and he got his degree when he was 19

  • Eniac

    U.S. Government sponsered machince developed to calculate the settings for weapons.
    Interesting Fact: For a decade, until a 1955 lightning strike, ENIAC may have run more calculations than all mankind had done up to that point.

  • 2nd Generation Computer

    Computers that used transistors
    Insteresting Fact: The first computers of this generation were developed for the atomic energy industry.

  • Univac

    First commercially successful electronic digital computer
    Interesting Fact: General Electric's Appliance Park facility in Louisville, Kentucky, which was the first non-goverment contract, used the UNIVAC computer for a payroll application.

  • 1st Generation Computers

    UNIVAC and computers like it were considered first generation computers because they were the last to use vaccum tubes to store data.
    Interesting Fact: They could only solve one problem at a time

  • Jack Kilby

    Invented the world's first integrated circuit
    Interesting Fact: To congratulate him, U.S. President Bill Clinton wrote, "You can take pride in the knowledge that your work will help to improve lives for generations to come."

  • 3rd Generation Computer

    Computers with integrated circuits
    Interesting Fact: The integrated circuits combined three electronic components onto a small silicon disc, which was made from quartz.

  • Z1 Computer

    Thought to be the first to include certain features such as a control unit and seperate memory function.
    Interesting Fact:This computer was destroyed in the bombardment of Berlin in December 1943, during World War II, together with all construction plans.

  • BASIC

    A language that beginning programming students could easily learn
    Interesting Facts:
    Bill Gates and Paul Allen used BASIC to write their program for Altair

  • 4th Generation Computer

    Computers that use a microprocesser chip
    Interesting Fact: Fourth generation computers also saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.

  • Intro of the GUI

    Allowed users to interact with the computer more easily
    Interesting Facts:
    GUI is also pronounced Gooey

  • Altair Computer

    Marked the start of the personal computer boom.
    Interesting Fact:
    Les Solomon asked his young daughter, who was watching Star Trek, what they called the computer. So she said, "Why don't you call it Altair? That's where they're going this week."

  • Bill Gates

    First Altiar owner and creator of Microsoft
    Interesting Fact: He wrote his first computer program: an implementation of tic-tac-toe that allowed users to play games against the computer

  • Steve Jobs

    Worked in Wozniak's garage and made the Apple Computer Company.
    Interesting Fact: Jobs worked as a video game designer with Atari

  • Apple II

    Color monitor, sound, and game paddles.
    Interesting Facts:
    The Apple II survived longer than any other computer platform from the early days. It was in continuous production for sixteen years and seven months

  • WordStar

    First word processing application.
    Interesting Fact: William F. Buckley, Jr. said of WordStar, "I'm told there are better programs, but I'm also told there are better alphabets."

  • Visicalc

    First electronic spread sheet application
    Interesting Fact: It propelled the Apple from being a hobbyist's toy to a useful tool for business.

  • Osborne Computer

    First portable computer.
    Interesting Facts:
    Osborne is most famous for having failed. His company nosedived into bankruptcy after he announced new computers before they were ready, a blunder that’s known as “the Osborne Effect”.

  • Excel

    One of the first spread sheets to use a graphical interface
    Interesting Fact: The first version was only released for Macintosh

  • PageMaker

    First desktop publishing software
    Interesting Fact: Despite some interesting marketing ploys, Aldus had lost significant market share to QuarkXPress, because it had color and PageMaker didn't

  • Mosaic

    Allowed users to view multimedia on the web
    Interesting Facts:
    Mosaic was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications .It discontinued development and support in1997. It can still be downloaded from NCSA.

  • Netscape

    Web browser that soon became a predominant player in browsers software
    Interesting Fact: Netscape was discontinued and support for all Netscape browsers and client products was terminated on March 1, 2008