Computer History Project

Z1 Invented

Nov 21, 1936

Z1The Z1 was originally created by Germany's Konrad Zuse in his parents living room from 1936 to 1938. It is considered to be the first electro-mechanical binary programmable (modern) computer and really the first functional computer.

Colossus invented

Dec 1, 1943

LinkThe Colossus was the first electric programmable computer and was developed by Tommy Flowers.First demonstrated in December 1943, it was used to help the Birtish code breakers read encrypted german messages.

ENIAC Invented

Jul 29, 1946

LinkThe Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was invented by the University of Pennsylvania. It was the first computer ever invented and was the size of a large room.

EDSAC Invented

May 6, 1949

LinkThe Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator was an early British computer constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory. It was the first computer to be used in the field of Biology.

IBM 701 Invented

Apr 29, 1952

LinkThe IBM 701 was the first commercial scientific computer. The system used electrostatic storage, consisting of 72 Williams tubes with a capacity of 1024 bits each, giving a total memory of 2048 words of 36 bits each.

ARPANET Invented

Aug 14, 1968

LinkThe Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the world's first operational packet switching network and the progenitor of what was to become the global Internet.

Mouse Invented

Sep 14, 1968

LinkDouglas Engelbart invented the first mouse while he was a part of SRI International. The first mouse was a wooden shell with 2 metal wheels.

IBM 5100 Invented

Sep 10, 1975

LinkThe IBM 5100 was the worlds first portable computer. The computer weighed 55 pounds and had a five inch CRT display, tape drive, 1.9MHz PALM processor, and 64KB of RAM.

Microsoft Windows 1.0 Invented

Nov 20, 1985

LinkMicrosoft Windows 1.0 was Microsoft's first attempt to implement a multi-tasking graphical user interface-based operating environment on the PC platform. It was succeeded by Windows 2.0 and support was discontinued on December 31, 2001.

WWW Invented

Dec 25, 1990

LinkThe World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners Lee, a computer scientist. 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.

Google Invented

Jan 15, 1996

LinkGoogle began as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California. The first funding for Google was an August 1998 contribution of US $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, given before Google was even incorporated.

WiFi Invented

Sep 15, 1999

LinkWiFi is a popular technology that allows an electronic device to exchange data wirelessly (using radio waves) over a computer network, including high-speed Internet connections.

First iPod Invented

Oct 23, 2001

LinkThe first iPod was designed by Apple after former CEO of Apple (Steve Jobs) found current MP3 players 'big and clunky". The iPod was developed in less than one year and the first model had a 5GB capacity.

iPhone Invented

Jan 9, 2007

LinkThe Apple iPhone was one of the most successful phones in the history of communications. It's many high tech features like an 8 MP camera and retina display.

First iPad Invented

Apr 3, 2010

LinkThe iPad 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.