Major Events in the History of Computing & the Internet

By Fellepino

  • Alan Turing

    Alan Turing
    He created the Turing machine, capable of computing anything that is computable. The central concept of the modern computer was based on his ideas.

  • ENIAC

    ENIAC
    Two University of Pennsylvania professors, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, build the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). Considered the grandfather of digital computers, it fills a 20-foot by 40-foot room and has 18,000 vacuum tubes.

  • The First Programming Language

    The First Programming Language
    The first commercially available programming language was FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation)

  • Modern Programming Languages (1961-2000)

    Modern Programming Languages (1961-2000)
    Nowadays Python, Java, JavaScript and C# are the most popular programming languages and have led to countless websites, games and programs that keep getting more and more advanced.

  • LED (RGB)

    LED (RGB)
    In 1962, Nick Holonyak, Jr. invented the first LED that produced visible, red light while working at General Electric. In 1994, Shuji Nakamura invented the ultra-bright blue LEDs that served as the foundation for today’s common commercial LEDs.

  • Birth Of The Modern Computer

    Birth Of The Modern Computer
    Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). This marks the evolution of the computer from a specialized machine for scientists and mathematicians to technology that is more accessible to the general public.

  • Apple

    Apple
    Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers and release the Apple I, the first computer with a single-circuit board, according to Stanford University.

  • Microsoft

    Microsoft
    Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft creating microprocessors and software for the Altair 8800, an early personal computer. They went on to provide the operating system for IBM’s first personal computer. Microsoft released Windows in 1985 and a few years later became the world’s largest personal-computer software company.

  • The First Website

    The First Website
    The first dot-com domain name is registered on March 15. The Symbolics Computer Company, a small Massachusetts computer manufacturer, registers Symbolics.com. More than two years later, only 100 dot-coms had been registered.

  • AI and Neural Networks

    AI and Neural Networks
    AI is an algorithm that learns to make predictions from data that is fed into the system. Because they mimic the architecture of biological nervous systems, artificial neural networks are the
    method of choice for modeling and mimicing the human brain. Originally created in 1955 Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, and Cliff Shaw co-authored Logic Theorist, the first artificial intelligence computer program.