History of computers

  • Charles Babbage

    Charles Babbage
    Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871)[1] was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer.[2] Considered a "father of the computer",[3] Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.[4] Parts of his uncompleted mechanisms are on display in the London Science Museum. In 1991, a perfectly functioning difference engine was constructed fr
  • Ada Lovelace

    Ada Lovelace
    Born
    The Hon. Augusta Ada Byron
    10 December 1815
    London
    Died
    27 November 1852 (aged 36)
    Marylebone, London Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 - 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron, was an English writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognised as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine; thanks to this, she is sometimes co
  • CRT

    CRT
    The cathode ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun (a source of electrons) and a fluorescent screen used to view images. It has a means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam onto the fluorescent screen to create the images. The image may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures (television, computer monitor), radar targets and others. CRTs have also been used as memory devices, in which case the visible light emitted from the fluoresecent material (if any
  • Enigma

    Enigma
    An Enigma machine is any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I.[1] The early models were used commercially from the early 1920s, and adopted by military and government services of several countries — most notably by Nazi Germany before and during World War II.[2] Several different Enigma models were produced, but the German militar
  • ENIAC

    ENIAC
    ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. This mathematical power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists. The inventors promoted the spread of the
  • UNIVAC I

    UNIVAC I
    The UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I) was the first commercial computer produced in the United States.[1] It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC. Design work was begun by their company, Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, and was completed after the company had been acquired by Remington Rand (which later became part of Sperry, now Unisys).
  • tim berners lee

    tim berners lee
    Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (born 8 June 1955[1]), also known as "TimBL", is an English computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989[2] and on 25 December 1990, 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
  • internet

    internet
    The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (often called TCP/IP, although not all applications use TCP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of infor
  • Thin-film transistor

    Thin-film transistor
    A thin-film transistor (TFT) is a special kind of field-effect transistor made by depositing thin films of a semiconductor active layer as well as the dielectric layer and metallic contacts over a supporting substrate.
  • CD-ROM

    CD-ROM
    A CD-ROM (an acronym of "Compact Disc Read-only memory") is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data.
  • mouse (computer)

    mouse (computer)
    A mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons. It sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features that can add more control or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a pointer on a disp
  • Floopy discs

    Floopy discs
  • floppy disc

  • Cray 1

    Cray 1
    The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history.
  • Apple I

    Apple I
    The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak.[1][2] Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple's first product, and to finance its creation, Jobs sold his only means of transportation, a VW van [3] and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator for $500.[4] It was demonstrated in April 1
  • Sinclair ZX80/ ZX81

    Sinclair ZX80/ ZX81
    The ZX81 was a home computer produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Scotland by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and was designed to be a low-cost introduction to home computing for the general public. The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. THEN DISCONTINUED
  • IBM Personal Computer

    IBM Personal Computer
    The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981. It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida.
  • Commodore 64

    Commodore 64
    In January 1981, MOS Technology, Inc., Commodore's integrated circuit design subsidiary, initiated a project to design the graphic and audio chips for a next generation video game console. Design work for the chips, named MOS Technology VIC-II (graphics) and MOS Technology SID (audio), was completed in November 1981.[
  • Windows all versions

    Windows all versions
    Microsoft Windows is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft.
  • Mac OS

    Mac OS
    On January 24, 1984, Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc.) introduced the Macintosh personal computer, with the Macintosh 128K model, which came bundled with what was later renamed the Mac OS, but then known simply as the System Software
  • Amstrad PCW

    Amstrad PCW
    The Amstrad PCW series was a range of personal computers produced by British company Amstrad from 1985 to 1998, and also sold under licence in Europe as the "Joyce" by the German electronics company Schneider in the early years of the series' life. When it was launched, the cost of a PCW system was under 25% of the cost of almost all IBM-compatible PC systems in the UK.
  • GPS

    GPS
    The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites.
  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System

    Super Nintendo Entertainment System
    The Super Nintendo Entertainment System was Nintendo's second home console, following the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The console introduced advanced graphics and sound capabilities compared with other consoles at the time. Additionally, development of a variety of enhancement chips (which were integrated on game circuit boards) helped to keep it competitive in the marketplace.
  • DVD

    DVD
    DVD is an optical disc storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions.
  • the first FIFA game

    the first FIFA game
    FIFA, also known as FIFA Football or FIFA Soccer, is a series of association football video games, released annually by Electronic Arts under the EA Sports label. While there was no major competition when EA released the first titles in their Madden NFL and NHL series, football video games such as Sensible Soccer, Kick Off and Match Day had been developed since the late 1980s and were already competitive in the games market when EA Sports announced a football game as the next addition to their E
  • Playstation

    Playstation
    The PlayStation (, officially abbreviated PS) brand is a series of video game consoles created and developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. Spanning the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth generations of video gaming, the brand was first introduced on December 3, 1994 in Japan.[1] The brand consists of a total of three home consoles, a media center, an online service, a line of controllers, two handhelds and a phone, as well as multiple magazines.
  • 1st CGI film

    1st CGI film
    Computer-generated imagery (CGI) is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in art, video games, films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media.
  • memory stick

    memory stick
    Memory Stick is a removable flash memory card format, launched by Sony in October 1998 and is also used in general to describe the whole family of Memory Sticks
  • ipod

    ipod
    iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc.. The product line-up consists of the hard drive-based iPod classic, the touchscreen iPod touch, the compact iPod nano and the ultra-compact iPod shuffle.
  • Xbox

    Xbox
    a games console
  • Wii

    Wii
    The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3.
  • Iphone

    Iphone
    An iPhone can function as a video camera (video recording was not a standard feature until the iPhone 3GS was released), a camera phone, a portable media player, and an Internet client with email and web browsing capabilities, can send texts and receive visual voicemail, and has both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity. The user interface is built around the device's multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard rather than a physical one.
  • ipad

    ipad
    The iPad ( /ˈaɪpæd/ EYE-pad) 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. Its size and weight fall between those of contemporary smartphones and laptop computers. The iPad runs on iOS, the same operating system used on Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone, and can run its own applications as well as iPhone applications. Without modification, the iPad will only r