Technology Progression of the 1950s

  • EDVAC

    EDVAC
    The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer was considered the first stored program computer. It was capable of calculating thousands of instructions. This device succeeded the ENIAC, making it one of the first high-speed digital computers.
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    Technology Progression of the 1950s

  • Random Access Magnetic Core Store

    Random Access Magnetic Core Store
    Invented by: Jay Forrester
    This is the considered as the very first memory device. It provided a way to store data temporarily. This device would later evolve into what is now called the Random Access Memory
  • Fortran

    Fortran
    Invented by: John Backus
    Fortran was considered to be the first programming language to be used on a wide scale. It's described as a high-level programming language, which reduced the number of people needed to execute programs in low-level programming languages. This development led to the invention of simpler, more advanced computers.
  • TRADIC

    TRADIC
    Inventor: Jean H. Felker
    The TRADIC was a transistorized digital computer which ran on silicon transistors invented in 1947. It consisted of 800 transistors and took 0.085 cubic meters of space. It only needed around 100 watts of power and could do 1 million operations a second.
  • Integrated Circuit

    Integrated Circuit
    Invented by: Jack Kilby
    For computers to run, hundreds of transistors were all intricately connected, thus increasing the probability of error. The integrated circuit provided a way to pack many transistors into one chip. This invention was able to reduce the consumption of power and heat that computers had.