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2400 BCE
Abacus Estimated Invention
The Abacus was Invented around 2400 B.C.E and was used throughout the entirety of Eurasia. It may seem like a simple children's toy but originally used to calculate large numbers, and even square and cube roots. It was one of the 1st calculators, and to some, the 1st computer.
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Napier's Discovery of Logarithms
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Napiers Bones Pattened
The "Napier's Bones" is named after John Napier, who was a Scottish mathematician. In 1617, he invented a device that was able to calculate multiplication and division of large numbers easily, using logarithms and simple addition and subtraction. It is widely mentioned, historically, that the device was welcomed by merchants as they were able to spend less time calculating transactions.
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Slide Rule
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Slide Rule Computing
During this time the slide rule was used and added upon. It was eventually able, in 1755 it had an inverted scale, and in 1815 it could easily do square roots and exponents, and in 1821 it could do trigonometric functions. Even later on it could do more specific things, like answer navigation questions and calculate heat transfer. It was eventually taken down by computers and pocket calculators in the 1970s
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Pascaline Invention
One of the many calculators to follow John Napier's work, and was used to quickly do simple addition and subtraction using dials on its surface. It was invented by Blaise Pascal, between 1642 to 1644. It was used to calculate taxes to help her father with his work.
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Invention of the Stepped Reckoner
The stepped rocker, or the Leibniz calculator, is the 1st machine that could calculate all four major functions. Addition, Subtraction, Division, and Multiplication are all doable functions, however, its most popular design was limited in that its functions have to be less than 16 and 8 digits. Leibniz mostly built it from the ground up himself, down to the acclamator and gear procceses.
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Jacquard Loom was Patented
The Jacquard loom was invented by Joseph Jacquard in 1804. His machine allowed for complex weaving patterns to be saved on cards. The cards could be used over again or swapped with others and then used again. This saved weavers lots of time and labor.
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Arithmometer Patented
The first digital mechanical calculator, the Arthmometer, could reliably, and imminently do complex calculations. It was invented by Thomas de Colmar in 1820, and many companies made clones up till the end of ww1, mainly including Burkhardt and Layton. It started the calculator industry that saw millions of units produced.
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Sheutzian Calculation Engine Completion
The Sheuztian Calculation Engine's development was completed in 1843 by Pher Georg Scheutz and his son Edward. Georg and Pher were Swedes. Their machine was a difference engine and was able to calculate polynomial functions. The engine was very useful for many applications, including navigation, science, and engineering,
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The First of the Tabulating machine
The Tabulating machine was designed by Herman Hollerith to process punch cards to help simplify the collection of the U.S Census. They were also used by businesses for accounting and summarizing inventory. It was invented after the 1880 census took a total of 8 years to calculate, with the growing U.S population a faster method was necessary. -
The Z1 Computer
The Z1 was one of the first electrically driven binary calculators. However, it was the first programable computer and was very similar to most modern computers, it had a 64-word memory, could process 22-bit equations, and with control logic it was able to do multi-operation equations. It was the 1st in a series of computers, the Z2 and the Z3.
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Colbol
COBOL stands for “common business-oriented language", and it was a programming language designed to tackle economic and financial problems. It was used primarily in private companies and governmental agencies. It has many modern uses, in fact, the latest version was made in 2014 and is known as Cobol-2014. One of its major uses on modern mainframes, which it is used for software transactions.
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The Harvard Mark 1
Otherwise known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or ASCC for short, was a general-purpose electromechanical computer. It was used in the latter part of WW2 and used to help with the Manhatten project. Its original concept was drawn up in 1937 by IBM's (International Business Machines Corporation), Howard Aikan, and work started on it in 1939.
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The Enivac
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first fully electrical, and programmable computer. It was a general proposed device, and despite most computers having at least one of these things, it had all, it could do just about anything. It was originally designed to calculate artillery shell trajectories but was used for much more.
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The Transistor
Is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical signals and power. What does this mean? Well, it is one of the fundamental building blocks of modern computing, it controls what signals go where. It usually connects to a circuit at three points, in which it "observes" when a voltage of current is applied to it and, may or may not, send it elsewhere. -
EDVAC
It was one of the first fully-electronic computers. It was a Binary computer, unlike its ancestor the UNIVAC. The computer was functionally it was a binary serial computer with automatic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and could be programmed to do division and automatic checking. However, it also had a large memory holding 1,024 44-bit words.
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UNIVAC 1
The UNIVAC 1 was one of the first general-purpose electronic digital computers. It was made by the same great minds who brought you the ENIVAC, and was designed for the U.S census bureau when the Tabulator couldn't even handle the 1940 election. One of its most famous stunts is predicting with only 5.5% voter turnout, the Eisenhower landslide.
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Fortran
A codding language made originally by IBM, the same people who funded the Harvard Mark 1. It was designed for scientific and engineering applications and subsequently became the number one for scientific computing. Fortran 2018 is the latest version and is still used today, it was originally made in 1957, and released in 66.
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The Micro-Chip
A microchip is a set of electronic circuits, usually on a small flat piece of silicon. On the chip, transistors act as miniature electrical switches that are on and off which converts to 1's and 0's. Many other things could be added to the microchip, to allow for some more advanced functions. It was invented by Jack Kilby, Robert Noyce, Frank Wanlass, and Edward Kenojian.
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The Mouse's invention
The development of what would later become the mouse began in the early 1960s by SRI International's Douglas Engelbart. The first mouse was built in 1964 while multiple button designs came out later. The mouse was originally thought up while Douglas was exploring the interactions between humans and computers.
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The Floppy Disk
A floppy disk is a thin flexible disk usually in a protective container. Casually called a floppy, these disks, invented by IBM came in protective cases, and had three versions. The first version was the 8-inch floppy, which wasn't normally used with personal computers, then the 5 1/4-inch floppy came out, then did the 3 1/2-inch floppy, which could store more than the other two.
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Ethernet
Ethernet is a series of cables made to connect to routers. It is also used for LAN (Local Area Network). Some of its uses include connecting to a public router, connecting to a non-wireless router, and getting higher bit rates. Ethernet originally used coaxial cable as a shared medium, while the newer Ethernet variants use twisted pair and fiber optic links in conjunction with switches. -
Apple II
The "Apple 2" was an 8-bit home computer, and one of the world's first successful release of a home computer. It was introduced originally at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, and was the first aimed at a primarily consumer market. It was one of the first computers which could display colored graphics, and with a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, could support high-graphics (for the time).
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TRS-80
The first in a series of computers, The TRS-80 model 1 was one of the first to be marketed as a home computer, and one of the first to be mass-produced. By 1979, the TRS-80 had the largest selection of software in the computer market. Until 1982, the TRS-80 was even outselling the Apple II series by a factor of five times. Link -
Release of the IBM PC
The IBM PC was coined responsible for coining the term PC. It was originally called "Acorn" as a kind of code name. It, with 16 kilobytes of memory which is expandable to 256k, the PC could handle large amounts of data. It could also be outfitted to have a colored monitor. However, what really made it different is that it was one of the first to be built with foreign parts.
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Early Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Windows 3 was the first version to see widespread success and be considered a challenger to Apple’s
1984 Macintosh. Windows 3.1 is the first to introduce "TrueType" fonts, allowing it to be used for publishing. Many windows versions followed such as Windows 84, which brought with it IE 4, Microsoft Chat, and NetShow Player.
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The iPhone
Unofficially known as the iPhone 1, the iPhone was the first model in a series of phones, and also the first smartphone. Originally designed by Apple, this device is one of the first to use a "Finger friendly" touch interface. The iPhone was one of Apple's most successful products, later generations made it the most profitable business that the time.
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Molecular Informatics
The Molecular Informatics program provides an untapped well for computing, such as computing concepts outside of traditional digital, logic-based approaches. It plans to address a series of mathematical and computational problems with molecular computing, encoding, and of course, processing.
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The chromebook
The Chromebook is a laptop or tablet running the Linux-based ChromeOS. It was initially designed to be based on web applications for tasks using the Google Chrome browser, Chromebooks have since expanded to be able to run many apps since 2018. Chromebooks can work offline, and still sync data when reconnecting to the internet. They were 1st shipped on June 15, 2011.