Computer History Timeline I

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Computer History Timeline I

CA. 500 - 1979

	Event
ca. 500	In Egypt the bead-and-wire abacus was invented to add and subtract numbers.

1502

Peter Henlein, a craftsman from Nuremberg Germany, creates the first watch.

1617	John Napier introduced a system called "Napier’s Bones," made from horn, bone or ivory the device allowed the capability of multiplying by adding numbers and dividing by subtracting.
1622	The circular slide rule is invented by William Oughtred.
1623	The first known workable mechanical calculating machine is invented by Germany’s Wilhelm Schickard.
1642	France’s Blaise Pascal invents a machine, called the Pascaline, that can add, subtract, and carry between digits.
1674	Germany’s Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz creates a machine that can add, subtract, multiply and divide automatically.

1774	The first telegraph is built.
1780	American Benjamin Franklin discovers electricity.

1804	France’s Joseph-Marie Jacquard completes his fully automated loom that is programmed by punched cards.
1820	Thomas de Colmar creates the first reliable, useful and commercially successful calculating machine.
1831	Joseph Henry of Princeton invents the first working telegraph.
1838	Samuel Morse invents a code (later called Morse code) that used different numbers to represent the letters of the English alphabet and the then digits.
1851	Western Union was founded.
1866	The first successful Trans-Atlantic cable is laid from Ireland to Newfoundland.
1868	Christopher Sholes invents the typewriter in the United States utilizing the QWERTY keyboard.
1875	Tanaka Seizo-sho is established in Japan and later merges with another company called shibaura Seisaku-sho to form Tokyo Shibarura Denki. Later this company’s name is shortened to the company that we know today, Toshiba.
1876	American Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone.
1877	The microphone is invented in the United States by Emile Berliner.
1880	ASME is founded.
1883	American Thomas Edison discovers the Edison effect, in which a electric current flows through a vacuum.
1885	American Telegraph and Telephone company (AT&T) is incorporated.
1888	William S. Burroughs patents a printing adding machine.
1896	Herman Hollerith starts the Tabulating Machine Company, the company later becomes the well-known computer company IBM (International Business machines).

1901	The first radio message is sent across the Atlantic Ocean in Morse code.
1903	American Nikola Tesla a student of Thomas Edison, patents the electrical logic circuits which later to become a crucial addition to subtraction and multiplication machines.
1911	Company now known as IBM on is incorporated June 15, 1911 in the state of New York as the Computing - Tabulating - Recording Company (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Company, and The International Time Recording Company.
1920	Czech playwright Karel Capek coins the term "robot"
1920	First radio broadcasting begins in United States, Pittsburgh, PA.
1921	The first Radio Shack store is open.
1924	The Tabulating Machine Company is renamed to IBM.
1927	The first publicly demonstrated TV is demonstrated at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
1928	September 25, 1928, The Galvin Manufacturing Corporation begins, the company will later be known as Motorola.
1930	Galvin Manufacturing Corporation Auto radios begin to be sold as an accessory for the automobile. Paul Galvin coins the name Motorola for the company's new products, linking the ideas of motion and radio.
1930	Citizen is founded.
1933	Canon is established.
1934	The US Communication Act goes into place.
1936	Dvorak keyboard developed.
1938	Germany’s Konrad Zuse creates the Z1, one of the first binary digital computers and a machine that could be controlled through a punch tape.
1938	Orson Welles and Houseman broadcast H.G. Welles War of the Worlds on the airways October 30th as a Halloween spoof.
1939	George Stibitz completes the Complex Number Calculator capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing complex numbers. This device provides a foundation for digital computers.
1939	The first Radio Shack catalog is published.
1939	Iowa State College’s John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry create a prototype of the binary-based ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer). This device is often considered the first automatic digital computer.
1939	Hewlett Packard is found by William Hewlett and David Packard.

1940	The first handheld two-way radio called the "Handy Talkie" is created by Motorola for the U.S. Army Signal Control.
1941	German Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3, a fully operational calculating machine.
1942	Blaise Pascal's creates the Pascaline calculating machine.
1943	ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first general-purpose electronic digital calculator begins to be constructed. This computer by most is considered to be the first electronic computer.
1943	Dan Noble with Motorola designs a "Walkie Talkie" the first portable FM two-way radio that a backpack version that weighed 35 pounds.
1944	The relay-based Harvard-IBM MARK I a large programmable-controlled calculating machine provides vital calculations for the U.S. Navy. Grace Hopper becomes its programmer.
1945	The term ‘bug’ as computer bug was termed by Grace Hopper when programming the MARK II.
1946	F.C. Williams applies for a patent on his cathode-ray tube (CRT) storing device, an original form of random-access memory (RAM).
1946	ENIAC computer completed.
1947	John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley invents the first transistor
1947	F.C. Williams memory system is now in working order.
1947	ISO is founded.
1948	IBM builds the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator). The computer contains 12,000 tubes.
1948	Andreew Donald Booth creates magnetic drum memory, which is two inches long and two inches wide and capable of holding 10 bits per inch.
1948	The 604 multiplying punch, based upon the vacuum tube technology, is produced by IBM.
1948	The television begins to divert radio audiences.
1949	Claude Shannon builds the first machine that plays chess at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1949	The Harvard-MARK III, the first of the MARK machines to use an internally stored program and indirect addressing, goes into operations again under the direction of Howard Aiken.
1949	The small-scale electronic machine (SSEM) is fully operational at Manchester University.
1950	The first electronic computer is created in Japan by Hideo Yamachito.
1950	The enhanced Z4 is installed by Konrad Suse
1950	The NICAD battery begins its commercial use.
1951	The first business computer, the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) is completed by T. Raymond Thompson, John Simmons and their team at Lyons Co.
1951	The first commercial computer, the "First Ferranti MARK I" is now functional at Manchester University.
1951	The first ISO is published with the title, "Standard reference temperature for industrial length measurement".
1951	UNIVAC I was introduced.
1952	Fairly reliable working magnetic drum memories for use in computers begin to be sold by Andrew Donald Booth and his father.
1952	IBM introduces the first IBM 701.
1952	The Moore school completes a finished version of the EDVAC, with a clock speed of one megahertz.
1953	A magnetic memory smaller and faster than existing vacuum tube memories is built at MIT.
1953	The IBM 701 becomes available to the scientific community. A total of 19 are produced and sold.
1954	IBM produces and markets the IBM 650. More than 1,800 of these computers are sold in an eight-year span
1954	The first version of FORTRAN (formula translator) is published by IBM.
1955	Dartmouth College’s John McCarthy coins the term "artificial intelligence."
1955	IBM introduces the first IBM 702.
1955	Bell Labs introduces its first transistor computer. Transistors are faster, smaller and create less heat than traditional vacuum tubs, making these computers more reliable and efficient.
1955	The ENIAC is turned off for the last time. It’s estimated to have done more arithmetic than the entire human race had done prior to 1945.
1956	IBM’s 3005 RAMAC is the first computer to be shipped with a hard disk drive.
1957	Digital Equipment Corporation is founded by Kenneth Olsen. The company will later become a major network computer manufacture.
1957	Russia launches the first artificial satellite, named sputnik.
1957	Casio is established.
1958	The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is renamed to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
1958	The programming language FORTRAN II is created. Later FORTRAN III is created but never released to the public.
1958	President Eisenhower’s Christmas address is the first voice transmission from a satellite.
1959	The Harvard-MARK I is turned off for the last time.
1959	Motorola produces the two-way, fully transistorized mobile radio.

1960	IBM’s 1400 series machines, aimed at the business market begin to be distributed.
1960	The Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) programming language is invented.
1960	Psychologist Frank Rosenblatt creates the Mark I Perception, which has an "eye" that can learn to identify its ABCs.
1960	IFIP is founded.
1961	Hewlett-Packard stock is accepted by the New York Stock Exchange for national and international trading.
1961	General Motors puts the first industrial robot – the 4,000 pound Unimate – to work in a New Jersey factory.
1961	The programming language FORTRAN IV is created.
1962	The NASA rocket, the Mariner II, is equipped with a Motorola transmitter on it strip to Venus.
1963	Doug Engelbart invents and patents the first computer mouse.
1963	IEEE is founded.
1963	The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers.
1964	Dartmouth University’s John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language (BASIC).
1964	The first computerized encyclopedia is invented at the Systems Development Corporation.
1965	Ted Nelson coins the term "hypertext," which refers to text that is not necessarily linear.
1965	Engineers at TRW Corporation develop a Generalized Information Retrieval Language and System which later develops to the Pick Database Management System used today on Unix and Windows systems.
1965	Texas Instruments develops the transistor-transistor logic (TTL).
1966	MIT’s Joseph Weizenbaum writes a program called ELIZA, that makes the computer act as a psychotherapist.
1966	Stephen Gray establishes the first personal computer club, the Amateur Computer Society
1967	IBM creates the first floppy disk.
1967	The LOGO programming language is developed and is later known as "turtle graphics," a simplified interface useful for teaching children computers.
1968	Intel Corporation is founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore.
1968	Seiko markets a miniature printer for use with calculators.
1968	Sony invents trinitron.
1969	Control Data Corporation led by Seymour Cray, release the CDC 7600, considered by most to be the first supercomputer.
1969	AT&T Bell Laboratories develop Unix.
1969	The first RFC is created on April 7, 1969.
1969	Gary Starkweather, while working with Xerox invents the laser printer.
1969	The U.S. Department of Defense sets up the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET ) this network was the first building blocks to what the internet is today.
1969	CompuServe, the first commercial online service, is established.
1969	AMD is founded.
1970	Intel announces the 1103, a new memory chip containing more than 1,000 bits of information. This chip is classified as random-access memory (RAM).
1970	The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is established to perform basic computing and electronic research.
1970	The forth programming language is created by Charles H. Moore.
1970	The first ATM is demonstrated and used in Georgia.
1970	U.S. Department of Defense develops ada a computer programming language capable of designing missile guidance systems.
1970	Intel introduces the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004.
1970	The Sealed Lead Acid battery begins being used for commercial use.
1971	The first 8" floppy diskette drive was introduced
1971	FTP is first purposed.
1971	Niklaus Wirth invents the Pascal programming language.
1971	Intel develops the the first processor, the 4004
1972	Atari releases Pong, the first commercial video game.
1972	The programming language FORTRAN 66 is created.
1972	Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs invents the C programming language.
1972	The compact disc is invented in the United States.
1973	Robert Metcalfe creates the Ethernet at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
1973	Interactive laser discs make their debut.
1973	The ICCP is founded.
1974	Intel’s improved microprocessor chip, the 8080 becomes a standard in the microcomputing industry.
1974	The first Toshiba floppy disk drive is introduced.
1974	The IBM MVS operating system is introduced.
1975	MITS ships one of the first PCs, the Altair 8800 with one kilobyte (KB) of memory. The computer is ordered as a mail-order kit for $397.00
1975	Paul Allen and Bill Gates write the first computer language program for personal computers, which is a form of BASIC designed for the Altair. Gates later drops out of Harvard and founds Microsoft with Allen.
1975	The Byte Shop, one of the first computer stores, open in California.
1975	Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer.
1976	The first 5.25-inch floppy disk is invented.
1976	Microsoft introduces an improved version of BASIC.
1976	The first convention of computer hobbyist clubs is held in New Jersey.
1976	The Intel 8086 is introduced.
1976	Xerox develops the widely used networking protocol Ethernet.
1977	Ward Christansen develops a popular modem transfer modem called Xmodem.
1977	Apple Computer Inc., Radio Shack and Commodore all introduce mass-market computers.
1977	ARCNET the first commercially network is developed
1977	Apple Computer’s Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics is demonstrated.
1977	Commodore announces that the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) will be a self-contained unit, with a CPU, RAM, ROM, keyboard, monitor and tape recorder all for $495.00
1977	Microsoft sells the license for BASIC to Radio Shack and Apple and introduces the program in Japan.
1978	Epson introduces the TX-80, which becomes the first successful dot matrix printer for personal computers.
1978	OSI is developed by ISO.
1978	Microsoft introduces a new version of COBOL.
1978	The 5.25-inch floppy disk becomes an industry standard.
1978	Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss have the first major microcomputer bulletin board up and running in Chicago.
1979	Software Arts Incorporated VisiCalc becomes the first electronic spreadsheet and business program for PCs.
1979	Epson releases the MX-80 which soon becomes an industry standard for dot matrix printers.
1979	Texas Instruments enters the computer market with the TI 99/4 personal computer that sells for $1,500.
1979	Hayes markets its first modem which becomes the industry standard for modems.
1979	Atari introduces a coin-operated version of Asteroids.
1979	More then half a million computers are in use in the United States.
1979	3COM is founded.
1979	The programming language DoD-1 is officially changed to Ada.
1979	The Motorola 6800 is released and is later chosen as the processor for the Apple Macintosh.
1979	The Intel 8088 is released.
1979	Phoenix is founded.
1979	VMS is introduced.
1979	Usenet is first started
1979	Bit 3 is established.
1979	Novell Data System is established as a operating system manufacturer. Later in 1983 the company becomes the Novell company.

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