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Charles Babbage
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. -
Herman Hollerith
designs a punch card system to calculate the 1880 census, accomplishing the task in just three years and saving the government $5 million. -
J.V. Atanasoft
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. -
UNIVAC
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. -
FORTRAN
The FORTRAN programming language is born -
integrated circuit
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip. -
mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI).
Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). -
first Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip.
The newly formed Intel unveils the Intel 1103, the first Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip. -
floppy disk
Alan Shugart leads a team of IBM engineers who invent the “floppy disk,” allowing data to be shared among computers. -
IBM 5100
The IBM 5100 becomes the first commercially available portable computer -
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
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. -
Apple II
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. -
TRS-80
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. -
VisiCalc
Accountants rejoice at the introduction of VisiCalc, the first computerized spreadsheet program. -
Ethernet
Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, develops Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other hardware.
