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Period: to
History of Computers
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First Draft
English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute tables of numbers. -
Punch Card System
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. -
First Attempt
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. -
First vacuum tube-based computer
First vacuum tube-based computers developed; universities help in computer development effort; technology used in war effort. -
IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator
IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in public display near the company´s Manhattan headquarters. Before its decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon. -
First Computer Language
Grace Hopper develops the first computer language, which eventually becomes known as COBOL. Inventor Thomas Johnson Watson, Jr., son of IBM CEO Thomas Johnson Watson, Sr., conceives the IBM 701 EDPM to help the United Nations keep tabs on Korea during the war. -
FORTRAN
The FORTRAN programming language is born.
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip. -
First Transoritized computer
Felker and Harris program TRADIC, AT&T Bell Laboratories announced the first fully transistorized computer, TRADIC. It contained nearly 800 transistors instead of vacuum tubes. Transistors — completely cold, highly efficient amplifying devices invented at Bell Labs — enabled the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts, or one-twentieth the power required by comparable vacuum tube computers. -
Virtual Memory
Virtual memory emerged from a team under the direction of Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester on its Atlas computer (1962). -
Binary Code
American Standard Code for Information Interchange — permitted machines from different manufacturers to exchange data. ASCII consists of 128 unique strings of ones and zeros. -
Internet
ARPNet The original Internet. -
Apple 1
President Nixon resigns and is given a full pardon by his successor, President Ford; a gasoline embargo creates lines at gas stations; Patty Hurst kidnapped; Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth's lifetime home run record; Apple I computer is sold in kit form. -
Apple
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. -
GUI
The more affordable home computer with a GUI. -
Computer use
25 % of high schools use PCs for college and career guidance, K-8 schools buying mostly Apple II and Macintosh computers, high schools buying mostly DOS-based clones. -
WWW.
The World Wide Web was born when Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, developed HyperText MarkupLanguage. -
Internet Boom
The Internet and the world wide web began to catch on as businesses, schools, and individuals create web pages; most CAI is delivered on CD-ROM disks and is growing in popularity. -
Internet disccusions
The Internet is widely discussed as businesses begin to provide services and advertising using web pages. -
Firefox
Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0 challenges Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the dominant web browers. -
Internet growth
The growth of the internet expands far faster than most predicted. It soon becomes the world's largest database of information, graphics, and streaming video making it an invaluable resource for educators. -
Iphone
The iPhone brings many computer functions to the smartphone. -
Ipad
Apple reveals the Ipad. -
Timeline bibliography
http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1994
http://www.computerhope.com/history/
http://www.csulb.edu/~murdock/histofcs.html
http://campus.udayton.edu/~hume/Computers/comp2.htm
http://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html
http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/Time_Line.php
http://www.softschools.com/timelines/computer_history_timeline/20/
http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/computertimeline.html
http://www.datesandevents.org/events-timeli
