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English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute tables of numbers. The project, funded by the English government, is a failure.
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designs a punch card system to calculate the 1880 census, accomplishing the task in just three years and saving the government $5 million.
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J.V. Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, attempts to build the first computer without gears, cams, belts or shafts.
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Mauchly and Presper leave the University of Pennsylvania and receive funding from the Census Bureau to build the UNIVAC, the first commercial computer for business and government applications.
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The FORTRAN programming language is born
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Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip.
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Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI).
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The newly formed Intel unveils the Intel 1103, the first Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip.
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Alan Shugart leads a team of IBM engineers who invent the “floppy disk,” allowing data to be shared among computers.
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The IBM 5100 becomes the first commercially available portable computer
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Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers on April Fool’s Day and roll out the Apple I, the first computer with a single-circuit board.
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Jobs and Wozniak incorporate Apple and show the Apple II at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It offers color graphics and incorporates an audio cassette drive for storage.
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Radio Shack's initial production run of the TRS-80 was just 3,000. It sold like crazy. For the first time, non-geeks could write programs and make a computer do what they wished.
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Accountants rejoice at the introduction of VisiCalc, the first computerized spreadsheet program.
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Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, develops Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other hardware.
