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Charles Babbage
He first came up with the idea of a mechanical computer after seeing how numerical tables calculated by humans had a high-degree of error. He decided that by creating a device for doing that same job, the errors would be eliminated. The difference engine was born: a machine capable of calculating the values of polynomial functions automatically. Sadly, although funding was in place, the difference engine was never completed. He turned his hand to the Difference Engine No. 2, an improved calcul -
Ada Lovelace
As a young adult, her mathematical talents led her to an ongoing working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician Charles Babbage, and in particular Babbage's work on the analytical engine. Between 1842 and 1843, she translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on the engine, which she supplemented with an elaborate set of notes of her own, simply called Notes. These notes contain what is considered the first computer program – that is, an algorithm en -
Herman Hollerith
Hollerith built machines under contract for the Census Office, which used them to tabulate the 1890 census in only one year. The previous 1880 census had taken eight years. In 1896 Hollerith started his own business when he founded the Tabulating Machine Company. Many major census bureaus around the world leased his equipment and purchased his cards, as did major insurance companies. Hollerith's machines were used for censuses in Russia, Austria, Canada, France, Norway, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and -
William Burroughs
He designed the mechanical adding machine. The machine operated by way of a crank and was key driven. The Burroughs Adding Machine Company was to become one of the giants of the computer industry. His machine could record, calculate, and summarize. Today, Burroughs has merged with UNISYS which builds computers. -
Vannevar Bush
Developed a calculator for solving differential equations in 1931. The machine could solve complex differential equations that had long left scientists and mathematicians baffled. The machine was cumbersome because hundreds of gears and shafts were required to represent numbers and their various relationships to each other -
Tommy Flowers
He was a member of the Bletchley Park World War II team; Tommy Flowers was instrumental in building the world’s first electronic computer: Colossus. Built using valves, the computer was five times faster and more flexible than its predecessor, Heath Robinson. Colossus was the first programmable, digital, computer and revolutionary at the time. -
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was most famous for helping break the German’s Enigma code during World War II with using computers. He was able to break codes faster, saving millions of lives in the process and shortening the length of the war. The initial machine created was the Bombe: a device devised to help the code-breakers device the key of the day the German’s were using on their Enigma machines. Using a menu provided by the code breaking team from a crib, the Bombe operators could quickly set up the mach -
John von Nuemann
He came up with the computer architecture that’s named after him. In a paper, he described the architecture in which both data and the program are stored in a computer’s memory in the same address space, making for more flexible computers that were easier to program. -
Douglas Engelbar
He came up with the computer architecture that’s named after him. In a paper, he described the architecture in which both data and the program are stored in a computer’s memory in the same address space, making for more flexible computers that were easier to program. -
Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore is justly famous for his eponymous law, which describes how the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Although an observation at the time, Moore's company Intel (co-founded with Robert Noyce) has adhered to it, delivering faster and more complicated processor designs. It's through Intel that Gordon Moore's main contribution to computers is recognized. Initially a semi-conductor company, Intel dramatic -
Philip Don Estridge
Philip Don Estridge, known as Don Estridge, led the development of the IBM Personal Computer (PC), arguably the most important computer in the history of computers. It's the creation of this computer that's led to the types of computer that we have today. The revolutionary part about the computer was that it was designed by using off-the-shelf parts available from OEMs, rather than creating brand-new technology. This let IBM create the PC in less than a year and keep prices down to affordable -
Steve Jobs
He made the Macintosh (1984) that changed things: It was the first computer to have a graphical user interface and mouse rather than a command line interface. The Macintosh really highlights Jobs’ ability to take existing technology and improve it, making it desirable.
He also helped found the Apple Company. Despite his success, in 1985 he left the Apple Company. Jobs moved on to found Next Computer, and then in 1986 he bought little known The Graphics Group from Lucas film. Mush of Next’s -
Tim Berners-Lee
He has many cool claims to fame, inventing the World Wide Web has to be the best. While working as a contractor at CERN, he came up with a system called ENQUIRE, which enabled sharing and updating information between researchers using hypertext. In 1989 when he returned to CERN that he saw an opportunity to link hypertext to the internet and the World Wide Web was born. He designed and built the first web browser, created the first web server and changed the entire world as we know it. People -
Bill Gates
He’s best known for founding Microsoft. Gates is the key figure in the success of Microsoft- equal parts technology genius and business man, he’s pushed, cajoled and basically dictated the computer market. By the early 1990’s, Windows had driven other Dos-based GUIs like Gem and Geos out of the market. Gates fought hard to establish Microsoft’s dominant position in the software industry and has fought even harder to defend it. His ability to get Microsoft software pre-installed on most PCs shi -
James Gosling
Gosling is best known as the father of the Java programming language, the first programmed language designed with the internet in mind and which could adapt to highly distributed applications. In 1984, Gosling joined Sun Microsystems, where he is currently chief technology officer in the developer product group. In the early 1990s, Gosling initiated and led a project code-named Green that eventually became Java. Green aimed to develop software that would run on a variety of computing devices w -
Larry Page
As a research project at Stanford University, Page and Brin created a search engine that listed results according to the popularity of the pages, after concluding that the most popular result would often be the most useful. They called the search engine Google after the mathematical term "Googol," which is a 1 followed by 100 zeros, to reflect their mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the Web.
