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Blaise Pascal creates the first machine resembling a modern computer, a calculator named Pascaline which was able to execute addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. -
Invented by Gottfried Leibniz, the Leibniz Wheel was more advanced than Pascaline, still able to carry out simple mathematical operations. Considered to be the 'first true four-function calculator' -
A fabric loom that for the first time used the concepts of programming and storage, utilizing punched cards that signaled which of its automated tasks the loom was to perform. -
Another calculator, but this time, being way more sophisticated, it could carry out significantly more complex operations. It was created by Charles Babbage, a pioneer who went on to make crucial contributions in this field. -
Invented once more by Charles Baggage, this device bares a great many similarities to the modern computer, using the mill (CPU), the store (memory), the reader and the printer (input/output). -
Being a predecessor to the computers today, this machine could automatically read, tally, and sort data stored on punched cards. This invention by Herman Hollerith held a vice grip over the field for many years, signifying the dawn of the era of mechanized binary code and semiautomatic data processing. -
Having been built as part of a Harvard project under the direction of Howard Aiken, it was a massive electromechanical protocomputer. The IBM and US navy, having sponsored its creation, used it during world war 2 for crucial calculations. It had 3 further advanced successors, named mark 2 through 4, the last one being fully electronic. -
A general-purpose mechanical computer, made by Konrad Zuse -
The ABC was developed by John V. Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry, specifically made to solve systems of linear equations. It was the first special-purpose computer that encoded information electrically -
Created by a team led by Tommy Flowers, this was the first programmable electronic digital computer and was used by the British for cryptanalysis, having been developed for this process during world war 2. -
This was the first general purpose and completely electronic computer, made by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. The ENIAC was huge, weighing 30 tons and using 18.000 vacuum tubes. -
Small semiconductor device -
The first computer created using von Neumann's concept which proposed that both numbers and orders be stored in a uniform memory, a method from which today's computers have been based on. -
Marked by the creation of expensive commercial computers that were used by big organizations, who could afford them. Said computers were bulky, using vacuum tubes, and were kept locked up.
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These computers used transistors instead of vacuum tubes, decreasing their cost and size and thus making them accessible to smaller companies. More advanced and thus easier programing languages were developed
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The integrated circuit and chip were invented, further decreasing the cost and size of computers. The processing power of computers was rapidly increasing, minicomputers were created and the software developed even more, and with the creation of software packages came a whole new industry.
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This was the first desktop computer, and it ignited the microcomputer revolution. -
Remarkable technological advancements allowed for entire computer subsystems to fit on a single circuit board, and thus the desktop computer was made, popularizing computing even more. Computer networks were also created.
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The first desktop computer that was made by IBM, with software created by the then newly formed Microsoft. -
Marked by the miniaturization of computing machines and the creation of the laptop, the internet, virtual reality, countless improvements in secondary storage media, the use of multimedia, and, of course, the smartphone.