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The history of computers
A timeline showing how computers have progressed from 1822 to the present day -
Charles Babbage
known as "father of modern computing", began in 1822 with the difference engine, made to compute values of polynomial functions automatically. -
Ada Lovelace
known as "inventor of programming," she made even more extensive notes than the young italian enginner," Luigi Menabrea." -
CRT
The cathode ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen used to view images. The image may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television, computer monitor), radar targets and others. CRTs have also been used as memory devices.he experimentation of cathode rays is largely accredited to J.J. Thomson. -
Enigma
An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages.
Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War. -
Colossus Mk1 &Mk2
Colossus was the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer. Colossus and its successors were used by British codebreakers to help read encrypted German messages during World War II. They used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform the calculations. . The prototype, Colossus Mk1, was working in December 1943 and was operational at Bletchley Park by February 1944. An improved Colossus Mk 2 first worked on 1 June 1944, just in time for the Normandy Landings. -
ENIAC
Stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,was the first general-purpose electronic computer.ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. -
UNIVAC
The first commercial computer produced in the United States. The first UNIVAC was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31, 1951. Used to predict the result of the 1952 presidential election. With a sample of just 1% of the voting population it correctly predicted that Dwight D. Eisenhower would win. Originally priced at US$159,000. -
Mouse
it is a pointing device that works in two dimensional way. This is relative to the motion done by the supporting surface. Independently, Douglas Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute invented the first mouse prototype in 1963,[4] with the assistance of his colleague Bill English. -
TFT
A thin-film transistor (TFT) is a special kind of field-effect transistor made by depositing thin films of a semiconductor active layer as well as the dielectric layer and metallic contacts over a supporting substrate. TFTs can be made using a wide variety of semiconductor materials. A common material is silicon.The best known application of thin-film transistors is in TFT LCDs, an implementation of LCD technology. -
1st CGI film
Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of 3D computer graphics to special effects in a vairety of fields. The first film to use cgi was metadata in 1971, but the first full-length cgi film was final fantasy: the spirits within
The first film to have all it's special effects cgi was "The Last Starfighter" (1984).
The first film to use all CGI (except for some cahracters) was "TRON" (by Disney) in 1982. -
Floppy disks sold
It is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles.
The earliest floppy disks, developed in the late 1960s, were 8 inches in diameter, they became commercially available in 1971.In 1976, Shugart Associates introduced the first 5 1⁄4-inch. By the mid-1990s, the 3 1⁄2-inch disk became the predominant floppy disk. -
Pong
The pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. The game was originally manufactured by Atari Incorporated (Atari). Allan Alcorn created Pong as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell -
Microsoft
Microsoft is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, United States that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing.They dominate the office suite market with Microsoft Office. In May 2011, Microsoft Corporation acquired Skype Communications for $8.5 billion. -
Cray-1
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history. The Cray-1's architect was Seymour Cray. -
Apple I
The original Apple Computer, it is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company (Apple Inc). They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. it went on sale at a price of US$666.66 because Wozniak "liked repeating digits" and because they originally sold it to a local shop for $500 plus a one-third markup. -
Sinclair ZX80
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. The ZX80 was very popular straight away. It was discontinued in 1981 -
Sinclair ZX81
It was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. It was hugely successful and more than 1.5 million units were sold before it was eventually discontinued. The ZX81 was designed to be small, simple, and above all cheap, using as few components as possible to keep the cost down. Video output was to a television set rather than a dedicated monitor. Programs and data were loaded and saved onto audio tape cassettes. It had only 1 kB of memory. -
IBM 5150
It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida. -
Commodre 64
It was an 8-bit home computer. Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595. It took its name from 64 kilobytes. -
Mac OS Systems 1,2,3&4
These releases could only run one application at a time. System 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 used a flat file system called Macintosh File System. System 2.0 added support for AppleTalk and LaserWriter. System 2.1 introduced the HFS which had real directories. System 3.0 was introduced with the Mac Plus.System 4.0 was released with the Mac SE and System 4.1 first shipped with the Macintosh II. -
CD-Roms
It is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data -
Amstrad PCW
The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998.When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was under 25% of the cost of almost all IBM-compatible PC systems in the UK. As a result PCWs became very popular in the home and small office markets, both in the UK and in Europe, and persuaded many technophobes to venture into using computers. it had 256 or 512 KB of memory. -
Microsoft windows version 1.0
The history of Windows dates back to September 1981, when Chase Bishop, a computer scientist but Windows 1.0 was not released until November 1985.Windows 1.0 did not allow overlapping windows. Instead all windows were tiled. Only dialog boxes could appear over other windows. -
Mac Os System 5
It added MultiFinder, an extension which let the system run several programs at once. The system used a co-operative multitasking model, meaning that time was given to the background applications only when the running application yielded control.Users could also choose not to use MultiFinder, thereby sticking with using a single application at a time as in previous releases of the system software. -
Windows 3.0 and 3.1
Windows 3.0 (1990) and Windows 3.1 (1992) improved the design, mostly because of virtual memory and loadable virtual device drivers (VxDs) that allowed them to share arbitrary devices between multitasked DOS windows.For Windows 3.0, Microsoft also rewrote critical operations from C into assembly. -
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (often called TCP/IP, although not all applications use TCP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet allows greater flexibility in working hours. -
Browsers
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It was called WorldWideWeb and was later renamed Nexus. -
SNES
It is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia (Oceania), and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the Super Famicom. 49.10 million units were sold. Best-selling game was Super Mario World ,20.60 million -
Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee
With the help of Robert Cailliau and a young student at CERN, he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet. He is the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation. In 2004, Berners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his pioneering work. -
Mac OS system 7
It was a major upgrade to the Mac OS, adding a significant user interface overhaul, new applications, stability improvements and many new features.Perhaps the most significant feature of System 7 was virtual memory support. System 7 also introduced aliases, similar to shortcuts. -
GPS
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS system and implement the next generation of GPS. -
Playstation
It is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment.The first console in the series, the PlayStation, was the first video game console to ship 100 million units after 9 years and 6 months of its initial launch. -
DVD
DVD is an optical disc storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. -
Windows 95 & 98
Windows 95 was released in August 1995, featuring a new user interface, support for long file names of up to 255 characters, and the ability to automatically detect and configure installed hardware.Microsoft's next release was Windows 98 in June 1998. Microsoft released a second version of Windows 98 in May 1999, named Windows 98 Second Edition (often shortened to Windows 98 SE). -
Memory sticks
Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony. In addition to the original Memory Stick, there is the Memory Stick PRO, a device that allows greater maximum storage capacity and faster file transfer speeds; The Memory Stick Duo, a small-form-factor version of the Memory Stick,has also been introduced. The original memory stick was available in sizes up to 128 MB.The largest capacity Memory Stick currently hold up to 32GB. -
Mac OS X
It is the line of graphical operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Versions include:
Mac OS X v10.0 (Cheetah)
Mac OS X v10.1 (Puma)
Mac OS X v10.2 (Jaguar)
Mac OS X v10.3 (Panther)
Mac OS X v10.4 (Tiger)
Mac OS X v10.5 (Leopard)
Mac OS X v10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Mac OS X v10.7 (Lion)
Mac OS X v10.8 (Mountain Lion) -
Mac OS 9
It was generally a steady evolution from Mac OS 8.Mac OS 9 did allow multiple desktop users to have their own data and system settings. An improved Sherlock search engine added several new search plug-ins. Mac OS 9 also provided a much improved memory implementation and management. -
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Additionally, Microsoft sold Windows 2000 Advanced Server Limited Edition and Windows 2000 Datacenter Server Limited Edition, which ran on 64-bit Intel Itanium microprocessors and were released in 2001.[8] While each edition of Windows 2000 was targeted at a different market, they shared a core set of features -
Windows XP
It is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base. The name "XP" is short for "eXPerience." Over 400 million copies were in use in January 2006.The Windows 2000 "classic" interface can be used instead if preferred. Several third party utilities exist that provide hundreds of different visual styles. -
iPod
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipod (go to timeline for all ipods.)
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up consists of the hard drive-based iPod classic, the touchscreen iPod touch, the compact iPod nano and the ultra-compact iPod shuffle. -
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft.. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console market, and competed with Sony's PlayStation 2, Sega's Dreamcast, and Nintendo's GameCube. The integrated Xbox Live service launched in November 2002 allowed players to play games online. -
Windows Vista
It was available for purchase and download from Microsoft's website. Windows Vista contains many changes and new features, including an updated graphical user interface and visual style dubbed Aero, a redesigned search function, multimedia tools including Windows DVD Maker, and redesigned networking, audio, print, and display sub-systems. Vista aims to increase the level of communication between machines on a home network. -
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. A distinguishing feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and detects movement in three In December 2007,it was revealed that Nintendo was producing approximately 1.8 million Wii consoles each month -
Windows 7
Windows 7 is the current release of Microsoft Windows. Unlike Windows Vista, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista was already compatible. Some standard applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows: Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery. -
iPad
It is a line of tablet computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, apps and web content. Its size and weight fall between those of contemporary smartphones and laptop computers. The iPad runs on iOS, the same operating system used on Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone.It sold 300,00 units on the first day it was released publcily. -
Windows 8
The most recent officially released pre-release version is the Consumer Preview, which was released on February 29, 2012. An almost-complete Release Preview is scheduled for the first week of June 2012. Windows 8 has been “reimagined from the chipset to the user experience” to connect more with the user. It features the Metro-style interface that is designed for touchscreen input similar to that in Windows Phone and on the Xbox 360.
