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First working programmable computer
- 1941
- First working programmable computer
- Konrad Zuse
- German engineer, Konrad, developed the mechanical computer and resulted in the first fully-automatic digital computer. Unfortunately, it was never put to use as it was destroyed by a bombing in Berlin. It was able to perform addition and multiplication
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FIrst programmable electronic computer
- 1943
- First programmable electronic computer
- Tommy Flowers
- The Colossus was the first programmable electronic computer which was used to decrypt German messages and offered strategic advantage to British intelligence during WW2.
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First personal computer
- 1950
- First personal computer
- Edmund Berkeley
- The Simon was built and used punch paper or five keys on the front panel as input and five lights as output. It was able to perform addition, negation, greater than, and selection. The punch paper also served as memory storage.
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First high-level programming language
- 1954
- First high-level programming language
- John Backus
- John Backus invented FORTRAN which is a compiled, multi-paradigm programming language that was used for scientific computing and numerical computation. FORTRAN simplified the process of writing programs.
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FIrst microprocessor
- 1971
- First microprocessor
- Fredrico Faggin
- Italian engineer, Fredrico, with the help of his team developed the first microprocessor, Intel 4004. This invention allowed for systems to perform more than 60,000 operations per second.