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500
Abacus, 500 BC.
The abacus also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal. -
Holes in cards, 1725
A punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. -
The analytical machine, 1792
The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician Charles Babbage. -
ENIAC, 1947
ENIAC Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. -
UNIVAC, 1948
UNIVAC is the name of a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company and successor organizations. -
High-level programming language, 1950
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. -
PC, 1965
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator. -
UNIX operating system, 1969
A multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, Michael Lesk andJoe Ossanna. -
Altair, 1975
Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. It is currently in the G-cloud. -
Apple, 1976
Is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California that designs, develops, and sells consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. -
CRAY-1. 1976
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. -
First electronic spreadsheet, 1979
A spreadsheet is an interactive computer application program for organization and analysis of information in tabular form. -
Macintosh, 1984
Marketed as Mac, is a line of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. -
Windows, 1985
Microsoft Windows is a series of graphical interface operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Microsoft. -
Von Neumann architecture, 1987
Derives from a 1945 computer architecture proposal by the mathematician and earlycomputer scientist John von Neumann and others.