Computer History Timeline

  • Sep 13, 724

    Liang Ling-Can invents the first fully mechanical clock

  • Period: Sep 13, 724 to

    Computer history Timeline

  • Sep 13, 1492

    Leonardo da Vinci

    Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci depict inventions such as flying machines, including a helicopter, the first mechanical calculator and one of the first programmable robots
  • John Napier

    John Napier invents a system of moveable rods (Napier's Rods) based on logarithms which was able to multiply, divide and calculate square and cube roots
  • William Oughtred develops slide rules

  • Invented by Wilhelm Schickard

  • Blaise Pascal invents the the "Pascaline", a mechanical adding machine

  • Gottfried Leibniz is known as one of the founding fathers of calculus

  • Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents an automatic loom controlled by punched cards

  • The Arithmometer was the first mass-produced calculator invented by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar

  • Charles Babbage designs his first mechanical computer

  • The Analytical Engine was invented by Charles Babbage

  • Samuel Morse invents Morse code

  • Boolean algebra is invented by George Boole

  • Per Georg Scheutz and his son Edvard invent the Tabulating Machine

  • William Stanley Jevons designs a practical logic machine

  • Verea invents a fast calculator with an internal multiplication table

  • Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone called the Photophone

  • The Comptometer is an invention of Dorr E. Felt which is operated by pressing keys

  • Herman Hollerith

    Herman Hollerith invents a counting machine which increment mechanical counters
  • Guglielmo Marconi

    Radio signals were invented by Guglielmo Marconi
  • Tabulating Machine Company

    Herman Hollerith forms the Tabulating Machine Company which later becomes IBM
  • Nikola Tesla

    Remote control was invented by Nikola Tesla
  • Lee De Forest

    Lee De Forest invents the electronic tube
  • IBM

    IBM is formed on June 15, 1911
  • Philo Farnsworth

    Television Electronic was invented by Philo Farnsworth
  • John Logie Baird

    Electro Mechanical television system was invented by John Logie Baird Walther Bothe: Walther Bothe develops the logic gate
  • Vannevar Bush

    Vannevar Bush develops a partly electronic Difference Engine
  • Kurt Godel

    Kurt Godel publishes a paper on the use of a universal formal language
  • Alan Turing

    Alan Turing develops the concept of a theoretical computing machine
  • Konrad Zuse

    Konrad Zuse creates the Z1 Computer a binary digital computer using punch tape
  • George Stibitz

    George Stibitz develops the Complex Number Calculator - a foundation for digital computers Hewlett Packard: William Hewlett and David Packard start Hewlett Packard John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry: John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry develop the ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer) prototype
  • Enigma

    Adolf Hitler uses the Enigma encryption machine Colossus: Alan Turing develops the the code-breaking machine Colossus
  • Howard Aiken & Grace Hopper

    Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper designed the MARK series of computers at Harvard University
  • ENIAC

    John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly: John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly develop the ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) Computer Bug: The term computer ‘bug’ as computer bug was first used by Grace Hopper
  • F.C. Williams

    F.C. Williams develops his cathode-ray tube (CRT) storing device the forerunner to random-access memory (RAM)
  • Pilot ACE

    Donald Watts Davies joins Alan Turing to build the fastest digital computer in England at the time, the Pilot ACE William Shockley: William Shockley invents the transistor at Bell Labs Douglas Engelbart: Douglas Engelbart theorises on interactive computing with keyboard and screen display instead of on punchcards
  • Andrew Donald Booth

    Andrew Donald Booth: Andrew Donald Booth invents magnetic drum memory
    Frederic Calland Williams & Tom Kilburn: Frederic Calland Williams & Tom Kilburn develop the SSEM "Small Scale Experimental Machine" digital CRT storage which was soon nicknamed the "Baby"
  • Claude Shannon

    Claude Shannon builds the first machine that plays chess
    Howard Aiken: Howard Aiken develops the Harvard-MARK III
  • Hideo Yamachito

    The first electronic computer is created in Japan by Hideo Yamachito. Alan Turing: Alan Turing publishes his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence which helps create the Turing Test.
  • LEO

    T. Raymond Thompson and John Simmons develop the first business computer, the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) at Lyons Co. UNIVAC: UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was introduced - the first commercial computer made in the United States and designed principally by John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly
    EDVAC: The EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) begins performing basic tasks. Unlike the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal
  • The IBm

    The IBM 701 becomes available and a total of 19 are sold to the scientific community
  • John Backus & IBM

    John Backus & IBM develop the FORTRAN Computer Programming Language
  • bell labs

    Bell Labs introduces its first transistor computer
  • Optical fiber

    Optical fiber was invented by Basil Hirschowitz, C. Wilbur Peters, and Lawrence E. Curtiss
  • Sputnik

    Sputnik I and Sputnik II: Sputnik I and Sputnik II are launched by the Russians
  • ARPA

    ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) and NASA is formed
    Silicon chip: The first integrated circuit, or silicon chip, is produced by the US Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce
  • Paul Baran

    Paul Baran theorises on the "survivability of communication systems under nuclear attack", digital technology and symbiosis between humans and machines
  • colbol

    The Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) programming language is invented.
  • unimate

    General Motors puts the first industrial robot, Unimate, to work in a New Jersey factory.
  • the first computer game

    The first computer game Spacewar Computer Game invented BY Steve Russell & MIT
  • the computer mouse

    Douglas Engelbart invents and patents the first computer mouse (nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end) The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers.
  • word processor

    IBM introduces the first word processor
    BASIC: John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language (BASIC)