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Mechanical calculator
The first mechanical calculator was a big event in the computer history as it started a revolution. It is still to this day unclear who made the original one though. It is between Blaise Pascal and Wilhelm Schikard. Wilhelm's first drawing of the machine was made in 1623 but because he never actually built it or fully put how it was going to work on paper, some say that Pascal is the inventor as he actually built one in 1642 but still to this day, it has not been decided who is the originator. -
Charles Babbage (the analytic engine)
Charles Babbage known to be the "father of computers". Made the plans for the first ever automatic digital computer, he worked on it until he died in 1871, sadly it was never completely built. It included 4 parts, the store, reader, printer and the mill. These four segments are still the base for all computers. He worked along with Ada Lovelace who would in 1842 program the computer to make it do what Cabbage wanted it to. He wanted the computer to be able to do any calculation it was given. -
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace was born in London in 1815, and died November 27th 1852. Ada Lovelace has been known to be called the first ever computer programmer, but because this was in the 1840s and she was a women. She did not get the credit she deserved for her discoveries. She discovered that a computer could follow a series of instructions. She also wrote the first ever machine algorithm, for an early stage computer that then only existed on paper. This computer was called "the analytical engine". -
Christopher Latham Sholes
Christopher Latham Sholes is known to be the inventor of typewriters. He made the QWERTY typewriter, that computers still to this day uses almost the exact same layout. He chose this layout because he tried to design it so people could type faster. He made many changes during the developing years to try and make it as efficient as possible. The QWERTY typewriter is the first typewriter ever made, this is a huge moment in computer history as this changed the writing but also business world. -
Howard aiken
Howard Aiken was a physicist who invented the modern electrical digital computer called Harvard Mark I. The computer marked the beginning of modern computing and the computer was said to be "Babbage's dream come true". Aiken worked on this computer together with IBM, from 1939 to 1944 when it was functional. The computer was used at the end of world war II. Mark I was a 51 feet long general purpose computer which produced mathematical tables. It weighed 5 tons and used 730,000 separate parts. -
Douglas Engelbert
Douglas Engelbart was an American computing developer that is most famous for being the inventor of the first computer mouse. He also invented hypertext, video conferencing, word processing and graphical user interface with windows. He has invented a lot of extremely useful computer related things that we still use everyday. He has 21 patents on different innovations including the mouse. He was 88 years old when he died in 2013. -
Steve Wozniak
In 1976, Wozniak along with Steve jobs and Ronald Wayne founded the company Apple computer. Wozniak also designed the first personal computer that were actually successful as people bought it. He made both Apple I, the first computer apple ever sold but also Apple II. Apple I was sold for 666 dollars and sold around 200 copy's. Then Apple II launched and it was an even bigger success, it sold approximately 6 million units until it was canceled in 1993. -
Tim Berners Lee
Tim Berners lee invented the world wide web in 1989. His intention with the invention was that scientists all around the world would be able to share information and ideas with each other. Tim invented this while working at CERN. WWW later developed to be something much bigger that Tim ever intended. In January 2021, there were 4.66 billion users on the world wide web. This invention has gotten this British engineer and scientist a networth of 10 million dollars.