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the invention of clocks
The first accurate, modern clock was the pendulum clock. It was invented in 1656 by a Dutch scientist, Christian Huygens. When he first built the pendulum, it had an error of 1 minute per day. A lot of tweaking later, he had reduced it to only 10 seconds a day. -
the loom was invented
In France, Joseph Marie Jacquard invents a loom that uses punched wooden cards to automatically weave fabric designs. Early computers would use similar punch cards. -
the invention of phones
The telephone was invented in 1876 by Alexander Graham Bell. A fellow inventor, Elisha Gray, invented a voice transmission system at the same time, but Bell was first to patent his invention. -
The invention of projector
The first projector was invented by Thomas Edison and his partner, William Dickinson, in 1892, while the movie projector was invented in 1895 by Louis Lumiere and Auguste Lumiere, two brothers living in France. Edison and Dickinson's version of the projector could not take a film recording and put it on the big screen. -
The invention of air conditioning
The first large-scale electrical air conditioning was invented and used in 1902 by American inventor Willis Carrier, however the chemical processes of rapid cooling go back as far as 1758, when Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley discover that the evaporation of alcohol will cool down a cylinder of water fast enough to freeze it. -
The invention of TV
On September 7, 1927, Philo Farnsworth made the world's first working television system in his laboratory in San Francisco, with electronic scanning of both the pickup and display devices. He first demonstrated to the press on September 1, 1928. -
the first programmable computer
First programmable computer. The Z1 was created by German Konrad Zuse in his parents' living room between 1936 and 1938. It is considered to be the first electro-mechanical binary programmable computer, and the first really functional modern computer. -
The first computer installed in the White house
While the US government had funded many computing projects dating back to the 1940s, it wasn't until the Carter administration that a computer is actually installed in the White House. Staffers were given terminals to access a shared Hewlett-Packard HP3000 computer, and the technology department acquired a Xerox Alto for the Oval Office. Later, an IBM laser printer was installed, though President Reagan had the Alto removed from the Oval Office when he was elected. -
The invention of computers
There have been many types of computers over the past few centuries, but the first electronic, general-purpose, digital computer, ENIAC, was built starting in 1943 and was announced in 1946. -
The first lazer disc
The LaserDisc is introduced as “Discovision” by MCA and Philips. The first LaserDisc sold in North America was the film Jaws. It offered better audio and video quality than its competitors, but LaserDisc players were prohibitively expensive for many consumers. That fact, in conjunction with the availability of only a limited LaserDisc library, helped it gain significant popularity only in parts of Asia. Now obsolete, it was the direct forerunner of the CD and DVD. -
The first good picture
One of the most significant static images in the history of computer graphics, The Road to Point Reyes is one of Lucasfilm's most important early projects. Begun in 1983, Rob Cook directed the image and conceived the scene, while Alvy Ray Smith, Loren Carpenter, Tom Porter, Bill Reeves, and David Salesin provided various elements including shading, hidden surface routines, and fractals. -
Microsoft Word
Microsoft announces Word, originally called Multi-Tool Word. In a marketing blitz, Microsoft distributed 450,000 disks containing a demonstration version of its Word program in the November issue of PC World magazine, giving readers a chance to try the program for free. It competed with WordPerfect for market share as a word processing program, and it was not until Microsoft Word for Windows was introduced in 1989 that it became a global standard. -
Photo shop is released
Photoshop is released. Created by brothers John and Thomas Knoll, Photoshop was an image. Thomas, while earning a PhD at the University of Michigan, had created an early version of the program in 1987, and John saw a practical use for it as a special effects staff member at Industrial Light & Magic.. When Adobe saw potential in the project they bought a license for distribution in 1989 and released the product on February 19, 1990. -
compaq computers
Advertised as the first 100% IBM PC-compatible computer, the Compaq Portable can run the same software as the IBM PC. With the success of the clone, Compaq recorded first-year sales of $111 million, the most ever by an American business in a single year. The success of the Portable inspired many other early IBM-compatible computers. Compaq licensed the MS-DOS operating system from Microsoft and legally reverse-engineered IBM’s BIOS software. -
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the first reprogrammable quantum
: The first reprogrammable quantum computer was created. "Until now, there hasn't been any quantum-computing platform that had the capability to program new algorithms into their system. They're usually each tailored to attack a particular algorithm," said study lead author Shantanu Debnath, a quantum physicist and optical engineer at the University of Maryland, College Park.
