Inventions in Computer

By Zhongqi
  • First Widely Used High Level Programming Language: FORTRAN

    First Widely Used High Level Programming Language: FORTRAN
    If you check the textbooks, you will find FORTRAN listed as the first high level programming language. Thought up by John W. Backus who disliked writing programs and decided to create a programming system to help make the process much easier, the use of FORTRAN greatly reduced the number of programming statements required to get a machine running. By 1963, more than 40 FORTRAN compilers were already available.
  • 1964 First Mouse - Douglas Engelbart

    1964 First Mouse - Douglas Engelbart
    The computer mouse is an important part of computer. It helps us to control computer easier, more convenient.
  • 1965 First Commercial Desktop Computer: Programma 101 - Pier Giorgio Perotto

    1965 First Commercial Desktop Computer: Programma 101 - Pier Giorgio Perotto
    Also known as Perottina, Programma 101 was the world’s first commercial PC. It could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, square root, absolute value, and fraction. For all that it could do, it was priced at $3,200 (it was a very different time) and managed to sell 44,000 units. Perottina was invented by Pier Giorgio Perotto and produced by Olivetti, an Italian manufacturer.
  • First Touchscreen

    First Touchscreen
    It doesn’t look like much but this was the first touchscreen the world has ever known. It’s a capacitative touchscreen panel, with no pressure sensitivity (there’s either contact, or no contact) and it only registers a single point of contact (as opposed to multitouch). The concept was adopted for use by air traffic controllers in the UK up until the 1990s.
  • First Object Oriented Programming Language: Simula

    First Object Oriented Programming Language: Simula
    Based on C. A. R. Hoare’s concept of class constructs, Ole-Johan Dahl & Kristen Nygaard updated their “SIMULA I” programming language with objects, classes and subclasses. This resulted in the creation of SIMULA 67 which became the first object-oriented programming language.