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Hewlett-Packard
David Packard and Bill Hewlett founded HP. HP's first computer on the market was the 200A Audio Oscillator. -
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Early Computers in the Development Stage
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Z3 computer
The Z3 computer was built by Konrad Zuse; a german engineer. The Z3 used binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. It was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin in 1943. -
EDVAC invented
EDVAC was one of the first computers to be able to store memory without punch cards. -
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1st Generation Computers (Vacuum Tubes)
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ENIAC
ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was the first computer to be able to do more tasks at one time. It could handle 5,000 operations per second. This computer helped in the production of the hydrogen bomb in WWII. -
First Semiconductor
William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen successfully made the point-contact transistor to work. this set off a semiconductor revolution. Although this version wasn't very efficient AT&T Bell inproved these guys model. -
IBM's arrival
IBM’s SSEC computer shows scientific data to the public in Manhattan. The SSEC produced the course of flight of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon. This device could do 50 multiplications per second and was 1000 square feet big. -
Magnetic drum memory
Andrew Donald Booth creates magnetic drum memory which can hold 10 bits per inch of drum and the drum is 2inches by 2 inches. -
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper completes the A-0 Compiler. This invention was the first compiler(program that alows the user to use letters instead of 1/0s. -
Silicon Junction Transistors
Silicon Junctionn Transistors were perfected by Gordon Teal of Texas Instruments Inc. There were smaller and better than vaccum tubes and cost only 2.50 each. They were first used in a radio which costs only 50 dollars. -
TRADIC/AT&T BELL
AT&T Bell released the first all transistor computer. This TRADIC computer had 800 transistors and drew half the power of a Vaccum tube computer. -
RAMAC 350 Disk File
There was a Storage revolution of the magnetic disk when IBM released the RAMAC 350 Disk file. This was one of the first Random access memory modules. It consisted of 50 magnetically coated metal platters with the ability of holding five million bytes of data. These platters were stacked on top of each other and rotated on the same drive shaft. -
The Dawn of the Integraded circuit
Jack Kilby, Texas instruments created the first integrated circuit. His circuit consisted of a thin piece of germanium with five components linked by wires. -
Monolithic Integrated circuit/First Planar transistor
Jean Hoerni's invented the monolithic integrated circuit at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. This solution protects transistor junctions with a layer of oxide. -
Period: to
Second Generation of Computers (The Era of Transistors)
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SpaceWar!
SpaceWar! was the first computerized video game to be invented. It was created by hackers at MIT. -
The new modem
AT&T designed the Dataphone which was the first commercial modem. It converted digital computer data into analog signals. -
PDP-1
Digital Equipment makes the first minicomputer which was named the PDP-1. It is the first commercial computer with a keyboard and a monitor. Major turning point in the transition from a mainframe to a personal computer. -
First Removable Disk Drive
IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive is realeased on October 11, 1962. Each removable pack weighed 10 pounds. The IBM 1311 could hold 6 removable disks and had a capacity of 2 million characters. -
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is made to try and have a common data exchange between computers. -
BASIC(Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop the BASIC programming language at Dartmouth College. BASIC was an introductry language to computers. -
First Successful Minicomputer
Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. It cost 18,000 which was one fifth of the price of any other computer. -
Period: to
The Integraded Circuit/Miniaturizing of Computers
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HP's entrance into the computer buissness
Hewlett-Packard entered computer building business with its HP-2115. -
IBM creates the first floppy drive
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Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer made its debut when the Apollo 7 orbited the earth. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the moon's surface. -
Intel is founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore
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UNIX
AT&T Bell Laboratories programmers Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed the UNIX operating system. The UNIX system was similar to the Multics which was the first effort at creating a multi-user, multi-tasking operating system. -
ARPAnet
First type of Internet -
AMD is founded
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PARC
Xerox opens the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). PARC was composed of the top computer scientists and produced many groundbreaking inventions. Things like the Ethernet and the laser printer were invented by Xerox's PARC but Xerox couldn't market the products so other companies like Apple, 3Com, and Adobe took over.
