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First Attempts
In France, Joseph Marie Jacquard invents a loom that uses punched wooden cards to automatically weave fabric designs. -
Charles Babbage
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. More than a century later, however, the world's first computer was actually built. -
Herman Hollerith
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. -
Alan Turing
Alan Turing presents the notion of a universal machine, later called the Turing machine, capable of computing anything that is computable. The central concept of the modern computer was based on his ideas. -
Atanasoff-Berry
Atanasoff and his graduate student, Clifford Berry, design a computer that can solve 29 equations simultaneously. This marks the first time a computer is able to store information on its main memory. -
Maychly-Presper
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. -
Hopper and Watson Jr.
Grace Hopper develops the first computer language, which eventually becomes known as COBOL. Thomas Johnson Watson Jr., son of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson Watson Jr., conceives the IBM 701 EDPM to help the United Nations keep tabs on Korea during the war. -
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Engelbart shows a prototype of the modern computer, with a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI). This marks the evolution of the computer from a specialized machine for scientists and mathematicians to technology that is more accessible to the general public. -
Paul Allen and Bill Gates
Paul Allen and Bill Gates, offer to write software for the Altair, using the new BASIC language. On April 4, after the success of this first endeavor, the two childhood friends form their own software company, Microsoft. -
Steve Jobs
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, according to Stanford University. -
Radio Shack's initial production
The TRS-80, was one of the first machines whose documentation was intended for non-geeks -
Apple's Lisa
Apple's Lisa is the first personal computer with a GUI. It also features a drop-down menu and icons. It flops but eventually evolves into the Macintosh. The Gavilan SC is the first portable computer with the familiar flip form factor and the first to be marketed as a "laptop." -
Dot- com
The first dot-com domain name is registered on March 15, years before the World Wide Web would mark the formal beginning of Internet history. The Symbolics Computer Company, a small Massachusetts computer manufacturer, registers Symbolics.com. More than two years later, only 100 dot-coms had been registered. -
Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, develops HyperText Markup Language (HTML), giving rise to the World Wide Web. -
Wi-Fi
The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language and users begin connecting to the Internet without wires. -
Web Browsers
Mozilla's Firefox 1.0 challenges Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the dominant Web browser. Facebook, a social networking site, launches. -
Creation of Youtube and more
YouTube, a video sharing service, is founded. Google acquires Android, a Linux-based mobile phone operating system. -
iPad
Apple unveils the iPad, changing the way consumers view media and jumpstarting the dormant tablet computer segment. -
reprogrammable quantum computer
The first reprogrammable quantum computer was created.
