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John V. Atanasoff
begins work on the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), which would later be officially credited as the first electronic computer. Note that an electronic computer uses tubes, transistors, or other solid-state switching devices, whereas an electric computer uses electric motors, solenoids, or relays (electromechanical switches). -
Thomas (Tommy)
develops the Colossus, a secret British code-breaking computer designed to decode teleprinter messages encrypted by the German army. -
ENIAC
is introduced, an electronic computing machine built by John Mauchly and Presper Eckert -
Maurice Wilkes
assembles the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University. -
IBM
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Dataphone
Bell Labs designs its Dataphone, the first commercial modem, specifically for converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across its long-distance network. -
PDP-8
Digital Equipment Corp. introduces the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. -
ARPAnet
The root of what is to become the Internet begins when the Department of Defense establishes four nodes on the ARPAnet: two at University of California campuses (one at Santa Barbara and one at Los Angeles) and one each at Stanford Research Institute and the University of Utah. -
Diskettes.
The first advertisement for a microprocessor, the Intel 4004, appears in Electronic News. -
Sony
introduces and ships the first 3 1/2-inch floppy disk drive -
Wi-Fi
The first 802.11b Wi-Fi-certified products are introduced, and wireless networking rapidly builds momentum. -
Intel
Intel releases six-core versions of the Core i-Series processor (Gulftown) and a dual-core version with integrated graphics (Clarkdale). The Gulftown is the first PC processor with more than 1 billion transistors. -
Microsoft
Microsoft releases its Surface tablet, available in an Intel processor-based version with Windows 8 Pro and an ARM processor-based version with Windows RT -
John von Neumann
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WWW
The World Wide Web (WWW) is born when Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN—the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva—develops Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).