Significant advances to technology and the internet

compex number calculator

Feb 9, 1940

The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz. source

Technology history

Period: Feb 9, 1940 to Feb 10, 2015

Whirlwind begins

Apr 22, 1943

Project Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital computer. source

Public sees the ENIAC

Feb 10, 1946

In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries. source

Norbert Weiner

Oct 31, 1948

Norbert Wiener published "Cybernetics," a major influence on later research into artificial intelligence. He drew on his World War II experiments with anti-aircraft systems that anticipated the course of enemy planes by interpreting radar images. Wiener coined the term "cybernetics" from the Greek word for "steersman."

MIT's whirlwind debuts

Feb 10, 1951

MIT´s Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow´s "See It Now" television series. Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a "reliable operating system," running 35 hours a week at 90-percent utility using an electrostatic tube memory. source

TX-0

Mar 2, 1956

MIT researchers built the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer built with transistors. source

Dataphone

Feb 10, 1960

AT&T designed its Dataphone, the first commercial modem, specifically for converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across its long distance network source

Radioshack

May 10, 1963

Tandy Radio Shack is founded. Tandy Radio Shack (TRS) was formed by the 1963 merger of Tandy Leather Company and Radio Shack. TRS began by selling a variety of electronic products, mainly to hobbyists. source

HP enters the general purpose biz

Aug 19, 1966

Hewlett-Packard entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2115 for computation, offering a computational power formerly found only in much larger computers. source

AI robot

Jul 25, 1970

SRI International´s Shakey became the first mobile robot controlled by artificial intelligence. Equipped with sensing devices and driven by a problem-solving program called STRIPS, the robot found its way around the halls of SRI by applying information about its environment to a route. soure

Tv typewriter

Oct 10, 1973

The TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. source

Apple-1

Oct 5, 1976

Steve Wozniak, a young American electronics expert, designed the Apple-1, a single-board computer for hobbyists. source

Ataria home PCs

Apr 24, 1979

Atari introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built with the idea that the 400 would serve primarily as a game console while the 800 would be more of a home computer. source

IBM introduces it's PC

Mar 18, 1981

IBM introduced its PC, igniting a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system.
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CD-ROM

Sep 25, 1983

Able to hold 550 megabytes of prerecorded data, CD-ROMs grew out of music Compact Disks (CDs). The first general-interest CD-ROM product released after Philips and Sony announced the CD-ROM in 1984 was "Grolier´s Electronic Encyclopedia," which came out in 1985. source

Internet

Nov 5, 1985

The modern Internet gained support when the National Science foundation formed the NSFNET, linking five supercomputer centers at Princeton University, Pittsburgh, University of California at San Diego, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Cornell University. Soon, several regional networks developed source

Animation

Apr 30, 1988

Pixar´s "Tin Toy" became the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award, taking the Oscar for best animated short film. source

HTML

Jun 16, 1990

The World Wide Web was born when Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, the high-energy physics laboratory in Geneva, developed HyperText Markup Language. HTML, as it is commonly known, allowed the Internet to expand into the World Wide Web, using specifications he developed such as URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol). A browser, such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer, follows links and sends a query to a server, allowing a user to view a site. <a href

Terminator 2 special effects

Aug 11, 1992

“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” opens. Director James Cameron’s sequel to his 1984 hit “The Terminator,” featured ground-breaking special effects done by Industrial Light & Magic. Made for a record $100 million, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time. Most of this cost was due to the expense of computer-generated special effects (such as image morphing) throughout the film. source