Timeline of computing 1950-1979
Encyclopedia
This article presents a timeline
of events in the history of computing
from 1950 to 1979. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science
.
Computing timelines
: 2400 BC–1949, 1950–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2009
.
Timeline
A timeline is a way of displaying a list of events in chronological order, sometimes described as a project artifact . It is typically a graphic design showing a long bar labeled with dates alongside itself and events labeled on points where they would have happened.-Uses of timelines:Timelines...
of events in the history of computing
Computing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
from 1950 to 1979. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science
History of computer science
The history of computer science began long before the modern discipline of computer science that emerged in the twentieth century, and hinted at in the centuries prior...
.
Computing timelines
Timeline of computing
This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computing hardware and history of computer science....
: 2400 BC–1949, 1950–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999, 2000–2009
Timeline of computing 2000-2009
This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 2000 to 2009. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science....
.
1950s
| Date | Place | Event |
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| GER Germany Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate... |
Konrad Zuse Konrad Zuse Konrad Zuse was a German civil engineer and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world's first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer, the Z3, which became operational in May 1941.... sells his Z4 Z4 (computer) The Z4 was the world's first commercial digital computer, designed by German engineer Konrad Zuse and built by his company Zuse Apparatebau between 1942 and 1945.... machine to ETH Zurich ETH Zurich The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich or ETH Zürich is an engineering, science, technology, mathematics and management university in the City of Zurich, Switzerland.... . |
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| UK | Turing Test Turing test The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All... – The British mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a... published a paper describing the potential development of human and computer intelligence and communication. The paper would come later to be called the Turing Test. |
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| UK | The Pilot ACE Pilot ACE The Pilot ACE was one of the first computers built in the United Kingdom, at the National Physical Laboratory in the early 1950s.It was a preliminary version of the full ACE, which had been designed by Alan Turing. After Turing left NPL , James H... computer, with 800 vacuum tubes, and mercury delay lines for its main memory, became operational on 10 May 1950 at the National Physical Laboratory National Physical Laboratory, UK The National Physical Laboratory is the national measurement standards laboratory for the United Kingdom, based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London, England. It is the largest applied physics organisation in the UK.-Description:... near London. It was a preliminary version of the full ACE ACE (computer) The Automatic Computing Engine was an early electronic stored-program computer design produced by Alan Turing at the invitation of John R. Womersley, superintendent of the Mathematics Division of the National Physical Laboratory . The use of the word Engine was in homage to Charles Babbage and his... , which had been designed by Alan Turing Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a... . |
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| USA | TIME Time Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects.... magazine cover story on the Harvard "Mark III Harvard Mark III The Harvard Mark III, also known as ADEC was an early computer that was partially electronic and partially electromechanical. It was built at Harvard University under the supervision of Howard Aiken for the US Navy.The Mark III's word consisted of 16 bits. It used 5,000 vacuum tubes and 1,500... : Can man build a superman?" includes a quote from Howard Aiken Howard Aiken Howard Hathaway Aiken was a pioneer in computing, being the original conceptual designer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I computer.... , commenting on "calculators" (computers) then under construction: "We'll have to think up bigger problems if we want to keep them busy." |
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| USA | EDVAC EDVAC EDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer.... becomes operational. |
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| USA | The first commercially successful electronic computer, UNIVAC UNIVAC I The UNIVAC I was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC... , was also the first general purpose computer – designed to handle both numeric and textual information. Designed by J. Presper Eckert J. Presper Eckert John Adam Presper "Pres" Eckert Jr. was an American electrical engineer and computer pioneer. With John Mauchly he invented the first general-purpose electronic digital computer , presented the first course in computing topics , founded the first commercial computer company , and... and John Mauchly John Mauchly John William Mauchly was an American physicist who, along with J. Presper Eckert, designed ENIAC, the first general purpose electronic digital computer, as well as EDVAC, BINAC and UNIVAC I, the first commercial computer made in the United States.Together they started the first computer company,... , whose corporation subsequently passed to Remington Rand Remington Rand Remington Rand was an early American business machines manufacturer, best known originally as a typewriter manufacturer and in a later incarnation as the manufacturer of the UNIVAC line of mainframe computers but with antecedents in Remington Arms in the early nineteenth century. For a time, the... . The implementation of this machine marked the real beginning of the computer era. Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC machine to the U.S. Bureau of Census. This machine used magnetic tape for input. |
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| USA | Whirlwind, the first real-time computer was built at MIT by the team of Jay Forrester for the US Air Defense System, became operational. This computer is the first to allow interactive computing, allowing users to interact with it using a keyboard and a cathode-ray tube. The Whirlwind design was later developed into SAGE Semi Automatic Ground Environment The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment was an automated control system for tracking and intercepting enemy bomber aircraft used by NORAD from the late 1950s into the 1980s... , a comprehensive system of real-time computers used for early warning of air attacks. |
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| UK | J Lyons, a United Kingdom food company, famous for its tea, made history by running the first business application on an electronic computer. A payroll system was run on Lyons Electronic Office Leo I - People :* Pope Leo I , also known as Pope Saint Leo the Great* Leo I the Thracian, 5th century Byzantine Emperor* Leo I, Prince of Armenia - People :* Pope Leo I (400–461), also known as Pope Saint Leo the Great* Leo I the Thracian, 5th century Byzantine Emperor* Leo I, Prince of Armenia -... (LEO) a computer system designed by Maurice Wilkes who had previously worked on EDSAC EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator was an early British computer. The machine, having been inspired by John von Neumann's seminal First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England... . |
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| UK | The oldest known recordings of computer generated music Computer music Computer music is a term that was originally used within academia to describe a field of study relating to the applications of computing technology in music composition; particularly that stemming from the Western art music tradition... were played by the Ferranti Mark 1 computer. The Mark 1 is a commercial version of the Baby Machine from the University of Manchester Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester was a university in Manchester, England. On 1 October 2004 it merged with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology to form a new entity, "The University of Manchester".-1851 - 1951:The University was founded in 1851 as Owens College,... . The music program was written by Christopher Strachey Christopher Strachey Christopher Strachey was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design... . |
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| USA | EDVAC EDVAC EDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer.... (electronic discrete variable computer). The first computer to use Magnetic Tape. EDVAC could have new programs loaded from the tape. Proposed by John von Neumann, it was installed at the Institute for Advance Study, Princeton, USA. |
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| AUS Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
CSIRAC CSIRAC CSIRAC , originally known as CSIR Mk 1, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fourth stored program computer in the world. It was first to play digital music and is one of only a few surviving first-generation computers .The CSIRAC was constructed by a team led by Trevor Pearcey and... used to play music – the first time a computer was used as a musical instrument. |
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| USA | The A-0 high level compiler is invented by Grace Murray Hopper Grace Hopper Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language... . |
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| USA | IBM IBM International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas... introduces the IBM 701 IBM 701 The IBM 701, known as the Defense Calculator while in development, was announced to the public on April 29, 1952, and was IBM’s first commercial scientific computer... , the first computer in its 700 and 7000 series IBM 700/7000 series The IBM 700/7000 series was a series of large-scale computer systems made by IBM through the 1950s and early 1960s. The series included several different, incompatible processor architectures. The 700s used vacuum tube logic and were made obsolete by the introduction of the transistorized 7000s... of large scale machines with varied scientific and commercial architectures, but common electronics and peripherals. Some computers in this series remained in service until the 1980s. |
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| USA | IAS machine IAS machine The IAS machine was the first electronic computer built by the Institute for Advanced Study , in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. It is sometimes called the von Neuman machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a mathematics professor at both Princeton University... completed at the Institute for Advanced Study Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner... , Princeton, USA (by Von Neumann and others). |
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| UK | The University of Manchester University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group... team complete the first transistorised computer. |
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| USA | Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms among PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG, providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to large corporations... was hired to program the payroll for General Electric General Electric General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States... (GE Gê Gê are the people who spoke Ge languages of the northern South American Caribbean coast and Brazil. In Brazil the Gê were found in Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Piaui, Mato Grosso, Goias, Tocantins, Maranhão, and as far south as Paraguay.... )'s Appliance Park manufacturing facility near Louisville, Kentucky. As a result, GE purchased UNIVAC I UNIVAC I The UNIVAC I was the first commercial computer produced in the United States. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the ENIAC... which became the first-ever commercial computer in the United States. Joe Glickauf was Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen Arthur Andersen LLP, based in Chicago, was once one of the "Big Five" accounting firms among PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG, providing auditing, tax, and consulting services to large corporations... 's project leader for the GE engagement. |
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| World | Estimate that there are 100 computers in the world. | |
| USA | Magnetic core memory Magnetic core memory Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information... developed. |
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| USA | FORTRAN Fortran Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing... (FORmula TRANslation), the first high-level programming language development, was begun by John Backus John Backus John Warner Backus was an American computer scientist. He directed the team that invented the first widely used high-level programming language and was the inventor of the Backus-Naur form , the almost universally used notation to define formal language syntax.He also did research in... and his team at IBM The development continued until 1957. It is still in use for scientific programming. Before being run, a FORTRAN program needs to be converted into a machine program by a compiler Compiler A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language... , itself a program. |
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| USA | The IBM 650 IBM 650 The IBM 650 was one of IBM’s early computers, and the world’s first mass-produced computer. It was announced in 1953, and over 2000 systems were produced between the first shipment in 1954 and its final manufacture in 1962... is introduced. A relatively inexpensive decimal machine with drum storage, it becomes the first mass produced computer, with some 2000 installations. |
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| USA | The NORC IBM NORC The IBM Naval Ordnance Research Calculator was a one-of-a-kind first-generation electronic computer built by IBM for the United States Navy's Bureau of Ordnance. It went into service in December 1954 and was likely the most powerful computer at the time... was delivered by IBM to the US Navy. |
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| USA | First conference on artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its... held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. |
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| USA | The Bendix G-15 Bendix G-15 The Bendix G-15 computer was introduced in 1956 by the Bendix Corporation, Computer Division, Los Angeles, California. It was about 5 by 3 by 3 ft and weighed about 950 lb . The base system, without peripherals, cost $49,500. A working model cost around $60,000. It could also be rented for... computer was introduced by the Bendix Corporation Bendix Corporation The Bendix Corporation was an American manufacturing and engineering company which during various times in its 60 year existence made brake systems, aeronautical hydraulics, avionics, aircraft and automobile fuel control systems, radios, televisions and computers, and which licensed its name for... |
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| NED Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... |
Edsger Dijkstra Edsger Dijkstra Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.Shortly before his... invented an efficient algorithm for shortest paths in graphs as a demonstration of the abilities of the ARMAC computer. The example used was the Dutch railway system. The problem was chosen because it could be explained quickly and the result checked. Although this is the main thing many people will remember Dijkstra for, he also made important contributions to many areas of computing – in particular he should be remembered for his work on problems relating to concurrency, such as the invention of the semaphore Semaphore (programming) In computer science, a semaphore is a variable or abstract data type that provides a simple but useful abstraction for controlling access by multiple processes to a common resource in a parallel programming environment.... . |
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| USA | First dot matrix printer marketed by IBM. | |
| USA | FORTRAN development finished. See 1954. | |
| USA | ||
| USA | Programming language LISP (interpreted) developed, Finished in 1960. LISP stands for 'LISt Processing'. Used in A.I. development. Developed by John McCarthy John McCarthy (computer scientist) John McCarthy was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He coined the term "artificial intelligence" , invented the Lisp programming language and was highly influential in the early development of AI.McCarthy also influenced other areas of computing such as time sharing systems... at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in... . |
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| USA | The integrated circuit Integrated circuit An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material... invented by Jack Kilby Jack Kilby Jack St. Clair Kilby was an American physicist who took part in the invention of the integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments in 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2000. He is credited with the invention of the integrated circuit or microchip... at Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology... . Robert Noyce Robert Noyce Robert Norton Noyce , nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968... , who later set up Intel, also worked separately on the invention. Intel later went on to perfect the microprocessor. The patent was applied for in 1959 and granted in 1964. This patent wasn't accepted by Japan so Japanese businesses could avoid paying any fees, but in 1989 – after a 30-year legal battle – Japan granted the patent; so all Japanese companies paid fees up until the year 2001 – long after the patent became obsolete in the rest of the World. |
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| World | Computers built between 1959 and 1964 are often regarded as 'Second Generation' computers, based on transistors and printed circuits – resulting in much smaller computers. More powerful, the second generation of computers could handle compiler Compiler A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language... s for languages such as FORTRAN (for science) or COBOL COBOL COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.... (for business), that accepted English-like commands, and so were much more flexible in their uses. |
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| USA | COBOL COBOL COBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments.... (COmmon Business-Oriented Language) developed by Grace Murray Hopper as the successor to FLOW-MATIC FLOW-MATIC FLOW-MATIC, originally known as B-0 , was the first English-like data processing language. It was developed for the UNIVAC I at Remington Rand under Grace Hopper.-Development:... , finished in 1961. |
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| USSR | Minsk Minsk family of computers Minsk family of mainframe computers was developed and produced in the Byelorussian SSR from 1959 to 1975. Its further progress was stopped by a political decision of switching to IBM System/360 clone family known as ES EVM during the brief period of détente.... mainframe computer Mainframe computer Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the... development and production begun in the USSR. Stopped in 1975. |
1960s
| Date | Place | Event |
|---|---|---|
| USA EUR |
ALGOL ALGOL ALGOL is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which greatly influenced many other languages and became the de facto way algorithms were described in textbooks and academic works for almost the next 30 years... , first structured, procedural, programming language to be released. |
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| UK | Compiler compiler, first compiler compiler is released. | |
| SRB Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
CER-10 CER-10 CER model 10 was a vacuum tube , transistor and relays based computer developed at IBK-Vinca and Mihajlo Pupin Institute in 1960 ref.,]. This was the first digital computer ever developed in SFRY.... , vacuum tube Vacuum tube In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum... -based computer created by Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute is an institute based in Belgrade, Serbia notable for manufacturing numerous computer systems used in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - especially early CER and later TIM line of computers. It is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin.The Institute is well known in... of Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... , first computer in SFRY. |
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| ROM Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea... |
[MECIPT-1 http://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECIPT], vacuum tube Vacuum tube In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum... -based computer created by Polytechnic University of Timisoara Polytechnic University of Timisoara The "Politehnica" University of Timişoara was founded on November 11, 1920. It is one of the largest technical universities in Central and Eastern Europe.The university has 10 faculties and several independent departments.... ,first computer in Romania Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea... . The work was started in 1956 by Iosif Kaufmann, Wilhelm Loewenfeld and Vasile Baltac. |
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| USA | APL programming language APL programming language APL is an interactive array-oriented language and integrated development environment, which is available from a number of commercial and noncommercial vendors and for most computer platforms. It is based on a mathematical notation developed by Kenneth E... released by Kenneth Iverson Kenneth E. Iverson Kenneth Eugene Iverson was a Canadian computer scientist noted for the development of the APL programming language in 1962. He was honored with the Turing Award in 1979 for his contributions to mathematical notation and programming language theory... at IBM. |
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| UK | ATLAS is completed by the University of Manchester team. This machine introduced many modern architectural concepts: spooling, interrupts, pipelining, interleaved memory, virtual memory and paging. It was the most powerful machine in the world at the time of release. |
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| USA | Work begun on the Linc, the brainchild of the M.I.T. physicist Wesley A. Clark Wesley A. Clark Wesley Allison Clark is a computer scientist and one of the main participants, along with Charles Molnar, in the creation of the LINC laboratory computer, which was the first mini-computer and shares with a number of other computers the claim to be the inspiration for the personal computer.Clark... in May 1961. It was the first functional prototype of a computer scaled down to be optimized and priced for the individual user. Used for the first time at the National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland in 1963, many consider it to be the first personal computer. |
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| USA | Spacewar!, the first computer game is written by MIT student Steve Russell Steve Russell Steve "Slug" Russell is a programmer and computer scientist most famous for creating Spacewar!, one of the earliest videogames, in 1961 with the fellow members of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT working on a DEC Digital PDP-1... . The game ran on a DEC Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s... PDP-1 PDP-1 The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere... , competing players fired at each others space ships using an early version of joystick Joystick A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or... . |
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| ? | The AN/UYK-1 computer was designed with rounded edges to fit through the hatch of ballistic missile submarine Ballistic missile submarine A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch ballistic missiles .-Description:Ballistic missile submarines are larger than any other type of submarine, in order to accommodate SLBMs such as the Russian R-29 or the American Trident... s, as part of the first satellite navigation system, Transit Transit (satellite) The TRANSIT system, also known as NAVSAT , was the first satellite navigation system to be used operationally. The system was primarily used by the U.S... . |
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| USA | Mouse Mouse (computing) In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons... conceived by Douglas Engelbart Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs... The Mouse was not to become popular until 1983 with Apple Computer Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... 's Macintosh and not adopted by IBM until 1987 – although compatible computers such as the Amstrad Amstrad Amstrad is a British electronics company, now wholly owned by BSkyB. As of 2006, Amstrad's main business is manufacturing Sky Digital interactive boxes.... PC 1512 were fitted with mice before this date. |
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| USA | Computers built between 1964 and 1972 are often regarded as 'Third Generation' computers, they are based on the first integrated circuits – creating even smaller machines. Typical of such machines was the IBM System/360 System/360 The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific... series mainframe, while smaller minicomputer Minicomputer A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems... s began to open up computing to smaller businesses. |
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| USA | Programming language PL/I PL/I PL/I is a procedural, imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, business and systems programming applications... released by IBM. |
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| USA | Launch of IBM System/360 – the first series of compatible computers, reversing and stopping the evolution of separate "business" and "scientific" machine architectures; all models used the same basic instruction set architecture and register sizes, in theory allowing programs to be migrated to more or less powerful models as needs changed. The basic unit of memory, the "byte", was defined as 8 bits, with larger units such as "words" defined with sizes that were multiples of 8, with many consequences. Many competing computers at the time used word sizes that were multiples of 6. The marketing term "IBM Compatible" was often used, at this time, to indicate that the architecture used 8 bit bytes. Over 14,000 were shipped by 1968. | |
| USA | Project MAC begun at MIT by J.C.R. Licklider: several terminals all across campus will be connected to a central computer, using a timesharing mechanism. Bulletin board Bulletin board A bulletin board is a surface intended for the posting of public messages, for example, to advertise things to buy or sell, announce events, or provide information... s and email Email Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the... are popular applications. |
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| SRB Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
CER-20 CER-20 CER model 20 was an early digital computer developed by Mihajlo Pupin Institute . It was designed as the "electronic bookkeeping machine". First prototype was planned for 1964.-See also:* CER Computers* Mihajlo Pupin Institute* History of computer hardware in the SFRY... released by Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute is an institute based in Belgrade, Serbia notable for manufacturing numerous computer systems used in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - especially early CER and later TIM line of computers. It is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin.The Institute is well known in... of Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... as "electronic bookkeeping machine". |
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| USA | DEC Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s... PDP-8 PDP-8 The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of... Mini Computer. The first minicomputer, built by Digital Equipment (DEC). It cost $16,000. |
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| USA | Moore's law Moore's Law Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.... published by Gordon Moore Gordon Moore Gordon Earle Moore is the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's Law .-Life and career:... . Originally suggesting processor complexity doubled every year. It was published in the 35th Anniversary edition of Electronics magazine Electronics (magazine) Electronics was an American trade journal that covered the radio industry and its later spin-offs in the mid to late 1900s. Published by McGraw-Hill and Penton Publishing , its first issue was dated in April 1930.... . The law was revised in 1975 to suggest a doubling in complexity every two years. |
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| USA | Fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic; it deals with reasoning that is approximate rather than fixed and exact. In contrast with traditional logic theory, where binary sets have two-valued logic: true or false, fuzzy logic variables may have a truth value that ranges in degree between 0 and 1... designed by Lofti Zadeh (University of California, Berkeley University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA... ), it is used to process approximate data – such as 'about 100'. |
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| USSR | BESM-6 BESM BESM is the name of a series of Soviet mainframe computers built in 1950-1960s. The name is an acronym for "Bolshaya Elektronno-Schetnaya Mashina" , literally "Large Electronically Computing Machine". The series began as a successor to MESM... mainframe computer was designed in the USSR Soviet Union The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991.... . |
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| USA | Programming language BASIC BASIC BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.... (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) developed at Dartmouth College Dartmouth College Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences... , USA, by Thomas E. Kurtz and John George Kemeny John George Kemeny John George Kemeny was a Hungarian American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator best known for co-developing the BASIC programming language in 1964 with Thomas E. Kurtz. Kemeny served as the 13th President of Dartmouth College from 1970 to 1981 and pioneered the use of computers in... . BASIC was not implemented on microcomputers until 1975. This was the first language designed to be used in a time-sharing environment, such as DTSS (Dartmouth Time-Sharing System), or GCOS. |
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| USA | Packet switching Packet switching Packet switching is a digital networking communications method that groups all transmitted data – regardless of content, type, or structure – into suitably sized blocks, called packets. Packet switching features delivery of variable-bit-rate data streams over a shared network... , funded by ARPA was developed. This makes reliable computer networking possible. The first computer-to-computer login does not occur until November 21, 1969, between Stanford and UCLA. |
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| USA | The first supercomputer Supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a... , the Control Data CDC 6600 CDC 6600 The CDC 6600 was a mainframe computer from Control Data Corporation, first delivered in 1964. It is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times... , was developed. |
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| USA | Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including... entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2115 HP 2100 The HP 2100 was a series of minicomputers produced by Hewlett-Packard from the mid-1960s to early 1990s. The 2100 was also a specific model in this series. The series was renamed HP 1000 by the 1970s and sold as real-time computers, complementing the more complex IT-oriented HP 3000, and would be... for computation, offering power formerly found only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them ALGOL ALGOL ALGOL is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in the mid 1950s which greatly influenced many other languages and became the de facto way algorithms were described in textbooks and academic works for almost the next 30 years... , BASIC BASIC BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.... , and FORTRAN Fortran Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing... . |
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| SRB Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
CER-200 CER-200 CER model 200 was an early digital computer developed by Mihajlo Pupin Institute in 1966.-See also:* CER Computers* Mihajlo Pupin Institute* History of computer hardware in the SFRY... released by Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute is an institute based in Belgrade, Serbia notable for manufacturing numerous computer systems used in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - especially early CER and later TIM line of computers. It is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin.The Institute is well known in... of Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
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| USA | Development of programming language Pascal Pascal (programming language) Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal... begun, to finish in 1971. Based on ALGOL. Developed by Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth is a Swiss computer scientist, best known for designing several programming languages, including Pascal, and for pioneering several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984 he won the Turing Award for developing a sequence of innovative computer languages.-Biography:Wirth... as a pedagogic tool. |
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| USA | The floppy disk Floppy disk A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles... is invented at IBM IBM International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas... by David Noble, under the direction of Alan Shugart Alan Shugart Alan Field Shugart was an American engineer, entrepreneur and business executive whose career defined the modern computer disk drive industry.-Life:... , for use with the System/370 System/370 The IBM System/370 was a model range of IBM mainframes announced on June 30, 1970 as the successors to the System/360 family. The series maintained backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path for customers; this, plus improved performance, were the dominant themes of the... . License royalties are paid to Doctor Yoshiro Nakamatsu Yoshiro Nakamatsu , also known as , is an eccentric Japanese inventor who has become something of a minor celebrity for his amusing inventions. He regularly appears on Japanese talk shows which, in conjunction with his appearance, usually craft a humorous segment based on one or more of his inventions.He is a... in Tokyo, who claimed he got the idea for the floppy disk in 1950. |
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| SRB Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
CER-22 CER-22 CER model 22 was a transistor based computer developed by Mihajlo Pupin Institute in 1967. It was originally intended for banking applications and was used for data processing and management planning in banks, trade and utility companies in Belgrade.Three CER-22 computers were purchased by... – first transistor Transistor A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current... -based computer created by Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute is an institute based in Belgrade, Serbia notable for manufacturing numerous computer systems used in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - especially early CER and later TIM line of computers. It is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin.The Institute is well known in... of Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... , SFRY. |
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| USA | Intel founded by Robert Noyce Robert Noyce Robert Norton Noyce , nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968... and a few friends. |
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| USA | Programming language LOGO Logo (programming language) Logo is a multi-paradigm computer programming language used in education. It is an adaptation and dialect of the Lisp language; some have called it Lisp without the parentheses. It was originally conceived and written as functional programming language, and drove a mechanical turtle as an output... developed by Seymour Papert Seymour Papert Seymour Papert is an MIT mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, as well as an inventor of the Logo programming language.... and team at MIT. |
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| USA | Douglas Engelbart Douglas Engelbart Douglas Carl Engelbart is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs... demonstrates interactive computing, at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco: mouse, on-screen windows, hypertext Hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the... and full-screen word processing Word processing Word processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter.-External links:... . |
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| USA | ARPANET ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet... begun by the United States Department of Defense United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense is the U.S... for research into networking. It is the original basis for what now forms the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... . It was opened to non-military users later in the 1970s and many universities and large businesses went on-line. |
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| USA | The first Request for Comments Request for Comments In computer network engineering, a Request for Comments is a memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.Through the Internet Society, engineers and... , RFC 1 published. The RFCs (network working group Working group A working group is an interdisciplinary collaboration of researchers working on new research activities that would be difficult to develop under traditional funding mechanisms . The lifespan of the WG can last anywhere between a few months and several years... , Request For Comment) are a series of papers which are used to develop and define protocols for networking; originally the basis for ARPANET, there are now thousands of them applying to all aspects of the Internet. Collectively they document everything about the way the Internet and computers on it should behave, whether its TCP/IP Internet protocol suite The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols used for the Internet and other similar networks. It is commonly known as TCP/IP from its most important protocols: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol , which were the first networking protocols defined in this... networking or how email headers should be written there will be a set of RFCs describing it. |
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| ? | Introduction of the RS-232 RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 is the traditional name for a series of standards for serial binary single-ended data and control signals connecting between a DTE and a DCE . It is commonly used in computer serial ports... (serial interface) standard by EIA (Electronic Industries Association), one of the oldest serial interfaces still in common use today. |
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| USA | Data General Data General Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer... shipped a total of 50,000 Novas at $8000 each. The Nova Data General Nova The Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and... was one of the first 16-bit minicomputers and led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit byte. It was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing... , with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board Printed circuit board A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring... . |
1970s
| Date | Place | Event |
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| USA | First dynamic RAM chip introduced by Intel. It was called the 1103 and had a capacity of 1 K-bit, 1024 bits. | |
| USA | Development of UNIX Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... operating system begun. It was later released as C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... source code to aid portability, and subsequently versions are obtainable for many different computers, including the IBM PC IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981... . It and its clones (such as GNU/Linux Linux Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds... ) are still widely used on network servers and scientific workstations. Originally developed by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie , was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the UNIX operating system... . |
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| USA | Programming language Forth developed. A simple, clean, stackbased design, which later inspired PostScript PostScript PostScript is a dynamically typed concatenative programming language created by John Warnock and Charles Geschke in 1982. It is best known for its use as a page description language in the electronic and desktop publishing areas. Adobe PostScript 3 is also the worldwide printing and imaging... and the Java Java (programming language) Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities... virtual machine. |
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| USA | Steve Geller, Ray Holt and a team from AiResearch and American Microsystems completed development of a 20-bit parallel microprocessor chip set for the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental program following the collapse of the F-111B project... fighter jet. The processor used LSI chips to produce a fast, powerful, and rugged programmable computer that fitted into the very tight space restrictions of the aircraft. The largest LSI chip contained the equivalent of 3268 transistors. |
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| USA | CTC Datapoint Datapoint Corporation, originally known as Computer Terminal Corporation , was a computer company based in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Founded in 1967 by Phil Ray and Gus Roche, its first products were, as the company's initial name suggests, computer terminals... creates the Datapoint 2200 Datapoint 2200 The Datapoint 2200 was a mass-produced programmable terminal, designed by Phil Ray and Gus Roche, announced by Computer Terminal Corporation in June, 1970... , a mass-produced programmable terminal. Its multi-chip CPU provided the basis for the Intel 8008 Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 was an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and introduced in April 1972. It was an 8-bit CPU with an external 14-bit address bus that could address 16KB of memory... ; a monitor and tape drives were built-in, and the entire system fit the approximate footprint of an IBM IBM International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas... Selectric typewriter Typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces... . Users quickly began to use the system as a standalone computer; the unit is the earliest known which strongly resembles the personal computer Personal computer A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator... s of the 1980s and beyond. |
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| USA | Ray Tomlinson Ray Tomlinson Raymond Samuel Tomlinson is a programmer who implemented an email system in 1971 on the ARPANET. Email had been previously sent on other networks such as AUTODIN and PLATO. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to the ARPAnet... develops the first program that can send email Email Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the... messages from one computer to another. |
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| USA | First microprocessor Microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and... , the 4004 Intel 4004 The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor... , developed by a team at Intel, was released. It contains the equivalent of 2300 transistors and was a 4 bit processor. It is capable of around 60,000 instructions per second (0.06 MIPS), running at a maximum clock speed of 740 kHz Hertz The hertz is the SI unit of frequency defined as the number of cycles per second of a periodic phenomenon. One of its most common uses is the description of the sine wave, particularly those used in radio and audio applications.... . |
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| USA | Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology... releases the first easily portable electronic calculator. |
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| SRB Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... |
HRS-100 HRS-100 HRS-100, ХРС-100, GVS-100 or ГВС-100, was a third generation hybrid computer developed by Mihajlo Pupin Institute and engineers from USSR in the period from 1968. to 1971. Three systems HRS-100 were deployed in Academy of Sciences of USSR in Moscow and Novosibirsk in 1971. and 1978... , a hybrid computer system, released by Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute Mihajlo Pupin Institute is an institute based in Belgrade, Serbia notable for manufacturing numerous computer systems used in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - especially early CER and later TIM line of computers. It is named after Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin.The Institute is well known in... of Serbia Serbia Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans... . |
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| USA | Atari Atari Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in... founded by Nolan Bushnell Nolan Bushnell Nolan K. Bushnell is an American engineer and entrepreneur who founded both Atari, Inc and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza-Time Theaters chain... and Ted Dabney Ted Dabney Ted Dabney is the often uncredited co-founder of Syzygy and Atari. While working at Ampex Ted met Nolan Bushnell and the two jointly created Syzygy with their first product being Computer Space which was manufactured and sold by Nutting Associates... , (see also 1972). |
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| USA | Pong Pong Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, and is a tennis sports game featuring simple two-dimensional graphics. While other arcade video games such as Computer Space came before it, Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity... released – widely recognised as the first popular arcade video game. It was invented by Allan Alcorn. |
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| ? | Computers built after 1972 are often called 'fourth generation' computers, based on LSI (Large Scale Integration) of circuits (such as microprocessors) – typically 500 or more components on a chip. Later developments include VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) of integrated circuits 5 years later – typically 10,000 components. The fourth generation is generally viewed as running right up until the present, since although computing power has increased the basic technology has remained virtually the same. | |
| USA | Programming language C C (programming language) C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system.... developed at The Bell Laboratories in the USA by Dennis Ritchie (one of the inventors of the Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... operating system), its predecessor was the B programming language – also from Bell. It is a very popular language, especially for systems programming – as it is flexible and fast. C was considered a refreshing change in the computing industry because it helped introduce structured programming Structured programming Structured programming is a programming paradigm aimed on improving the clarity, quality, and development time of a computer program by making extensive use of subroutines, block structures and for and while loops - in contrast to using simple tests and jumps such as the goto statement which could... . The successor to C, C++ C++ C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell... , was introduced in the 1980s, and in turn helped usher in the era of object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction,... . |
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| USA | First handheld scientific calculator released by Hewlett-Packard, the engineer's slide rule Slide rule The slide rule, also known colloquially as a slipstick, is a mechanical analog computer. The slide rule is used primarily for multiplication and division, and also for functions such as roots, logarithms and trigonometry, but is not normally used for addition or subtraction.Slide rules come in a... is at last obsolete. |
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| USA | 8008 Intel 8008 The Intel 8008 was an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and introduced in April 1972. It was an 8-bit CPU with an external 14-bit address bus that could address 16KB of memory... microprocessor Microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and... released by Intel. |
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| USA | The first international connections to ARPANET ARPANET The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet... are established. ARPANET later became the basis for what we now call the Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... . |
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| NOR Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
Norsk Data Norsk Data Norsk Data was a computer manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway. Existing from 1967 to 1992, it had its most active period in the years from the early 1970s to the late 1980s... launches the Nord-5, the first 32-bit supermini Supermini A superminicomputer, or supermini, is “a minicomputer with high performance compared to ordinary minicomputers.” The term was an invention used from the mid-1970s mainly to distinguish the emerging 32-bit minis from the classical 16-bit minicomputers... computer. |
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| USA | Development of the TCP/IP Internet protocol suite The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols used for the Internet and other similar networks. It is commonly known as TCP/IP from its most important protocols: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol , which were the first networking protocols defined in this... protocol suite by a group headed by Vinton Cerf and Robert E. Kahn. These are the protocols used on the internet. |
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| FRA France The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France... |
Programming language Prolog Prolog Prolog is a general purpose logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics.Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is declarative: the program logic is expressed in terms of... developed at the University of Luminy-Marseilles in France by Alain Colmerauer Alain Colmerauer Alain Colmerauer is a French computer scientist.After completing his Ph.D. at the University of Grenoble, he spent 1967–1970 as Assistant Professor at the University of Montreal, where he created Q-Systems, one of the earliest linguistic formalisms used in the development of the TAUM-METEO machine... . It introduced the new paradigm of logical programming and is often used for expert systems and AI programming. |
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| USA | The TV Typewriter TV Typewriter The TV Typewriter was a video terminal that could display 2 pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The Don Lancaster design appeared on the cover of Radio-Electronics magazine in September 1973. The magazine included a 6 page description of the design but... , designed by Don Lancaster Don Lancaster Donald E. Lancaster is a prolific author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer best known for his magazine columns. He is also known for his "TV Typewriter" dumb terminal project, his book on technical entrepreneurship The Incredible Secret Money Machine, and his work on and advocacy of early... , provided the first display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text. |
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| USA | Ethernet Ethernet Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies.... developed, this became a popular way of connecting PCs and other computers together – to enable them to share data, and devices such as printers. A group of machines connected together in this way is known as a LAN Local area network A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building... . |
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| ? | CLIP-4, the first computer with a parallel architecture. | |
| CAN Canada Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... |
MCM/70 MCM/70 The MCM/70 was a pioneering microcomputer first built in 1973 and released the next year, making it one of the first microcomputers in the world, the second to be shipped in completed form, the first portable computer, and arguably the first truly usable microcomputer system... , the first personal computer to be commercially released, by Micro Computer Machines in Canada. Although it incorporated a plasma display, was programmable in the high level language APL, and weighed just 20 pounds, it failed commercially. |
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| USA | Introduction of the 8080 Intel 8080 The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility... . It ran at a clock frequency of 2 MHz and did 0.64 MIPS. |
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| USA | Motorola Motorola Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... announces the MC6800 Motorola 6800 The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips... 8 Bit Microprocessor. It is more easy to implement than the 8080 because it only needs a single power supply to operate and does not need support chips. Unlike the 8080 it is sold not as much as a general purpose "number cruncher / computer" CPU core but more as a control processor for industrial control and as a peripheral processor. |
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| USA | Engineers Chuck Peddle Chuck Peddle Charles Ingerham Peddle is an American electrical engineer best known as the main designer of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor; the KIM-1 SBC; and its successor the Commodore PET personal computer, both based on the 6502.... and Bill Mensch Bill Mensch American engineer William David Mensch, Jr., born 9 February 1945 in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, USA, is the founder, chairman and CEO of the Western Design Center of Mesa, Arizona... leave Motorola Motorola Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... after completing work on the 6800 Motorola 6800 The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips... CPU Central processing unit The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in... and join MOS Technology, Inc. MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc... |
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| UK | ICL launches its New Range of mainframes, the ICL 2900 Series ICL 2900 Series The ICL 2900 Series was a range of mainframe computer systems announced by the UK manufacturer ICL on 9 October 1974. The company had started development, under the name "New Range" immediately on its formation in 1968... |
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| USA | The MITS Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975. Ed Roberts and Forrest Mims founded MITS in December 1969 to produce miniaturized telemetry... Altair 8800 Altair 8800 The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were... , the third commercially available personal computer, is released. In December 1974, an article in Popular Electronics invited people to order kits for the computer. Despite the limited memory (256 bytes) and limited processing power, around 200 were ordered on the first day. 10,000 were shipped at a kit price of $397 each. The Altair bus later developed into an industry standard, the S-100 bus S-100 bus The S-100 bus or Altair bus, IEEE696-1983 , was an early computer bus designed in 1974 as a part of the Altair 8800, generally considered today to be the first personal computer... . |
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| USA | First microcomputer implementation of BASIC BASIC BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.... by Bill Gates Bill Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen... and Paul Allen Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates... , it was written for the MITS Altair, the first personal computer, this led to the formation of Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... later in the year. |
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| USA | Unix Unix Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna... marketed (see 1970). |
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| NOR Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... |
Norwegian Norway Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million... company Mycron Mycron Mycron was a pioneer manufacturer of microcomputers, located in Oslo, Norway. Originally named Norsk Data Industri, the company was founded in 1975 by Lars Monrad Krohn, who was also one of the founding fathers of Norsk Data.... releases its MYCRO-1 MYCRO-1 The MYCRO-1 was a microcomputer manufactured and sold by Mycron of Oslo, Norway. Built around the Intel 8080 CPU, it was probably the first commercial single-board computer.-External links:*... , the first single-board computer Single-board computer A single-board computer is a complete computer built on a single circuit board, with microprocessor, memory, input/output and other features required of a functional computer. Unlike a typical personal computer, an SBC may not include slots into which accessory cards may be plugged... . |
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| USA | Formation of Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... by Bill Gates Bill Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen... and Paul Allen Paul Allen Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates... . |
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| USA | MOS Technology, Inc. MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc... releases their 6501 CPU. which is pin compatible with Motorola's 6800 Motorola 6800 The 6800 was an 8-bit microprocessor designed and first manufactured by Motorola in 1974. The MC6800 microprocessor was part of the M6800 Microcomputer System that also included serial and parallel interface ICs, RAM, ROM and other support chips... , who soon starts a lawsuit against them. The 6501 is quickly withdrawn from sale and replaced with the 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... which has a "lawsuit-compatible" design, but is otherwise nearly identical to the 6501. The 6502 becomes one of the most popular CPUs for the next 10 years and is used in many computers and game consoles (most notably the Atari 2600 Atari 2600 The Atari 2600 is a video game console released in October 1977 by Atari, Inc. It is credited with popularizing the use of microprocessor-based hardware and cartridges containing game code, instead of having non-microprocessor dedicated hardware with all games built in... , Apple II, the Commodore PET Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International... , VIC-20 Commodore VIC-20 The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET... and Commodore 64 Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595... , the Acorn Electron Acorn Electron The Acorn Electron is a budget version of the BBC Micro educational/home computer made by Acorn Computers Ltd. It has 32 kilobytes of RAM, and its ROM includes BBC BASIC along with its operating system.... /BBC Microcomputer, and the Nintendo Entertainment System/NES Nintendo Entertainment System The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987... ). |
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| USA | IBM 5100 IBM 5100 The IBM 5100 Portable Computer was a portable computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of a prototype called the SCAMP that was developed at the IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center in 1973. In January 1978 IBM announced the IBM 5110, its larger cousin,... computer released; with integrated keyboard, display, and mass storage on tape, it resembles the personal computer Personal computer A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator... s of a few years later, although it does not use a microprocessor Microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and... . |
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| USA | Zilog Zilog Zilog, Inc., previously known as ZiLOG , is a manufacturer of 8-bit and 24-bit microcontrollers, and is most famous for its Intel 8080-compatible Z80 series.-History:... is founded by ex-Intel employees. |
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| USA | Apple Computer Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... , Inc. founded, to market the Apple I Apple I The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer... single-board computer designed by Steve Wozniak Steve Wozniak Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne... and Steve Jobs Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc... . It uses the MOS Technology 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... microprocessor. |
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| USA | First laser printer Laser printer A laser printer is a common type of computer printer that rapidly produces high quality text and graphics on plain paper. As with digital photocopiers and multifunction printers , laser printers employ a xerographic printing process, but differ from analog photocopiers in that the image is produced... introduced by IBM – the IBM 3800. The first colour versions came onto the market in 1988. |
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| USA | Introduction of the Intel 8085 Intel 8085 The Intel 8085 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1977. It was binary-compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 but required less supporting hardware, thus allowing simpler and less expensive microcomputer systems to be built.... chip. An improved version of the 8080, with a superset of the 8080s instruction set (only a couple of extra instructions). Single 5V power supply (while the 8080 needed several different voltages). |
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| USA | Z80 Zilog Z80 The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes... chip released by Zilog. It was a superset of the 8080 chip with additional registers and instructions, and using only one power supply voltage. CP/M was originally written for the 8080, but many implementations used the Z80. The Z80 was the processor for home computers like the Tandy TRS-80 TRS-80 TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with... of 1977, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd... of 1982 and many others. |
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| USA | MOS Technology, Inc MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc... introduces the KIM-1 KIM-1 The KIM-1, short for Keyboard Input Monitor, was a small 6502-based single-board computer developed and produced by MOS Technology, Inc. and launched in 1976... microcomputer system as a demonstrator for its 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... CPU. |
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| USA | Cray-1 Cray-1 The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history... supercomputer was invented by Seymour Cray Seymour Cray Seymour Roger Cray was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which would build many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing," Cray has been credited... . He left Control Data in 1972 to form his own company. This machine was known as much for its horseshoe-shaped design as it was for being the first super to make vector processing practical. 85 were shipped at a cost of $5 million each. |
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| USA | Commodore Commodore International Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited... buys MOS Technology, Inc MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc... in a stock trade. MOS is valued at $12 million. Chuck Peddle Chuck Peddle Charles Ingerham Peddle is an American electrical engineer best known as the main designer of the MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor; the KIM-1 SBC; and its successor the Commodore PET personal computer, both based on the 6502.... joins Commodore as chief engineer. With the purchase of MOS, Commodore begins work on the Commodore PET Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International... . |
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| USA | Commodore Commodore International Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited... introduces the Commodore PET Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International... . It comes with 4KB or 8KB of RAM, and an integrated cassette deck and 9" monochrome monitor. |
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| USA | Apple II Apple II The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977... computer introduced based on an 8 bit MOS Technology MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc., also known as CSG , was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Norristown, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor, and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers.-History:MOS Technology, Inc... 6502 MOS Technology 6502 The MOS Technology 6502 is an 8-bit microprocessor that was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch for MOS Technology in 1975. When it was introduced, it was the least expensive full-featured microprocessor on the market by a considerable margin, costing less than one-sixth the price of... microprocessor running at 1 MHz microprocessor with 4 KB of RAM. It had an open architecture, used color graphics, and an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data. Later, in July 1978, a floppy disk drive was made available with an elegantly designed interface. One of the first examples of a "killer app" (for the business world) was released for it—the VisiCalc VisiCalc VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool... spreadsheet program—in 1979. |
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| USA | Tandy Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name.-History:Tandy began in 1919... brought out the TRS-80 TRS-80 TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with... with "Level I BASIC". Although the TRS-80 had a primitive 4K BASIC (a stripped down version of the public domain "Li-Chen Wang Li-Chen Wang Dr. Li-Chen Wang is an American computer engineer, best known for his Palo Alto Tiny BASIC for Intel 8080-based microcomputers.This was the fourth version of Tiny BASIC that appeared in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, but probably the most influential. It appeared in the... Basic") and abysmal graphics it still became a bestseller quickly. |
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| USA | Heathkit Heathkit Heathkits were products of the Heath Company, Benton Harbor, Michigan. Their products included electronic test equipment, high fidelity home audio equipment, television receivers, amateur radio equipment, electronic ignition conversion modules for early model cars with point style ignitions, and... made the H8 Home computer kit available. It was based on an Intel 8080a processor and shipped with HDOS a Heathkit Disk Operating System and Benton Harbor BASIC. |
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| USA | Tandy upgraded the TRS-80 with a much improved Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... 8K "Level II BASIC", and an "expansion interface" which added 32KB RAM, A floppy disk and a printer interface. With these extras the TRS-80 became a viable small business computer. |
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| USA | Introduction of the 16-bit Intel 8086 Intel 8086 The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and mid-1978, when it was released. The 8086 gave rise to the x86 architecture of Intel's future processors... , the first x86 microprocessor. The available clock frequencies were 5, 8 and 10 MHz, with an instruction set of about 300 operations. At its introduction, the fastest 8086 available was the 8 MHz version which achieved 0.8 MIPS and contained 29,000 transistors. Over three decades later, x86 remains the most popular and commercially successful instruction set architecture in the history of personal computing. |
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| JAP Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
The Arcade Video game 'Space Invaders Space Invaders is an arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, and released in 1978. It was originally manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and was later licensed for production in the United States by the Midway division of Bally. Space Invaders is one of the earliest shooting games and the aim is to... ' is released, sparking a video game craze. In 1979, Atari's Asteroids would prove to be incredibly popular. |
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| USA | Programming language Ada Ada (programming language) Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages... introduced by Jean Ichbiah Jean Ichbiah Jean David Ichbiah was a French-born computer scientist and the chief designer of Ada, a general-purpose, strongly typed programming language with certified validated compilers.... and team at Honeywell Honeywell Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments.... for the US Department of Defense. |
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| USA | Introduction of the Intel 8088, compatible with the 8086 with an 8-bit data bus – but this makes it cheaper to implement in computers. Chosen for the IBM PC IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981... , Intel processors were found in millions of IBM-PC compatible computers. |
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| UK | Commodore PET Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International... released in the United Kingdom. Based on a 1 MHz 6502 processor it displayed monochrome text and had just 8 KB of RAM. Priced £569. For £776 you could purchase a version with 16 KB of RAM, while for £914 you could get a 32 KB of RAM. |
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| NED Netherlands The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders... JAP Japan Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south... |
Compact disc Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,... was invented. |
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| USA | The 68000 Microprocessor launched by Motorola Motorola Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009... , the first of the 68k 68k The Motorola 680x0/m68000/68000 is a family of 32-bit CISC microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors... family. 5+ years later it was used in machines such as the Apple Macintosh, the Atari ST Atari ST The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals... and the Commodore Amiga. |
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| 1979 | USA | Shortly after the release of V7 Unix, which included UUCP UUCP UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it... , a protocol for communication over standard telephone lines, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis created Usenet Usenet Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980... , a global discussion group system. Nowadays, it uses Internet Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide... protocols and is still popular. |
| USA | Four disgruntled Atari Atari Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in... programmers leave and form Activision Activision Activision is an American publisher, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. Its current CEO is Robert Kotick. It was founded on October 1, 1979 and was the world's first independent developer and distributor of video games for gaming consoles... , the first third-party video game software publisher. Activision promotes both the game and the programmer, changing the way software is marketed. |
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| USA | The IBM PC IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981... . IBM saw its computer market dominance being eroded by the new personal computers, such as the Apple II Apple II The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977... and the Commodore PET Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International... . IBM therefore began work on its own personal computer. When finished, this computer was released as the IBM PC on 12 August 1981. |
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| USA | Texas Instruments releases the TI-99/4 microcomputer. This system generally used audio cassettes Compact Cassette The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel... to store information, along with ROM modules, similar to gaming units, to hold commercial software. Additionally, TI made available a speech synthesizer, based on their own chip TMS5220 The Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips are a series of speech synthesizer DSP ICs created by Texas Instruments beginning in 1978. They continued to be developed and marketed for many years, though the speech department moved around several times within TI, until finally the speech department... , for the TI-99/4 and its successor, the 4A. |
See also
- Informational RevolutionInformational revolutionThe term information revolution describes current economic, social and technological trends beyond the Industrial Revolution....
- Programming language timeline
- Operating systems timelineOperating systems timelineThis article presents a timeline of events in the history of computer operating systems from 1951 to the current day. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the History of operating systems.-1950s:* 1951...
- Commercial computer apps timeline
- Computer science timeline
- History of the graphical user interfaceHistory of the graphical user interfaceThe graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles...
- History of the InternetHistory of the InternetThe history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching...
External links
- A Brief History of Computing, by Stephen White. An excellent computer history site; the present article is a modified version of his timeline, used with permission.