A History of the Computer Stage 1 2 3 4 5 Pre-History Electronics Mini Micro Network c.300 B.C. –Abacus 1947 – Transistor 1991 – World Wide Web 1981 – IBM PC 1977 – Apple 1968 – Intel Last Updated: April 16, 2017

Pre-History I Stones & pebbles (Greek) are counting aids c.50 B.C. - Abacus (Babylonia) spreads through Europe. c.800 B.C. - al-Khwarizmi introduces the Hindu decimal system and the zero into Arabic mathematics. Resulting Indo-Arabic system is what we use today. 1594 - John Napier (Scotland) develops natural logarithms. His multiplication "rods" can be considered an ancestor of the slide rule.

Pre-History II 1623 - Wilhelm Schickard (Germany) builts first mechanical calculator. It can work with six digits. 1642 - Blaise Pascal builds a mechanical calculator. It has the capacity for eight digits, but has trouble carrying and its gears tend to jam. 1727 - Antonius Braun (Austria) develops the first calculator with 4 basic calculations: add, subtract, multiply and divide. Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents an automatic loom controlled by punch cards.

Pre-History III 1820 - Charles Babbage conceives of a "Difference Engine". It is a massive steam-powered mechanical calculator designed to print astronomical tables. 1834 - Babbage has an idea for the Analytical Engine - a mechanical computer. It uses punch cards and can perform simple a conditional operation. 1833 - Augusta Ada Byron joins Babbage and outlines the fundamentals of computer programming. including data analysis, looping and memory addressing.

Pre-History VI 1936 - Konrad Zuse (Germany) constructs the Z1 in his bedroom.The machine becomes so large that it occupies his parent's living room. 1941- Zuse completes the first general purpose programmable calculator. He pioneers the use of binary math and Boolean logic in electronic calculation. 1943 - Grace Hopper invents the first compiler. During the Mark-I project, she discovers the first computer "Bug".

Electronics I World War II was a Time of Technological Advancement 1943 - Colossus, a British computer used for code-breaking. 1945 - the world's first electronic digital computer, Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC), was developed by Army Ordnance to compute WWII ballistic firing tables. It was developed by the Ballistics Research Laboratory in MD. ENIAC filled an entire room, weighed thirty tons and consumed 200 kilowatts of power.

Electronics II The Most Important Invention of the 20th Century 1947 - Bell Labs is the birthplace of the transistor, inventing the device that led to a communications revolution. Walter H. Brattain, William Shockley and John Bardeen earned the Nobel prize in 1956 for this invention. A transistor regulates current or voltage flow and acts as a switch or gate for electronic signals.

Electronics III The World's First Commercially Available Computer 1951 – Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was used to predict the 1952 presidential election and was delivered to the Census Bureau. UNIVAC weighed 16,000 lbs, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations/sec. It can store 12,000 digits in random access mercury-delay lines.

Electronics VI A Very Simple Binary Computer 1952 – Electronic Discrete Variable Computer (EDVAC) is the successor of the ENIAC. EDVAC is built by the Moore School of Electrical Engineering under the sponsorship of the U.S. Army. It is a very simple binary computer, with automatic addition, subtraction, and multiplication, programmed division. Memory capacity of 1,000 words is implemented with mercury delay lines.

Electronics V All Computers Started to be Made Using Chips 1959 - Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductor both announce the integrated circuit (IC). Two separate inventors, Jack Kilby and Robert N. Noyce, invented almost identical ICs at nearly the same time. An IC is a small electronic device made out of a semiconductor material. 1961 - All computers can now be made using chips instead of individual transistors.

Electronics VI The Standard Institutional Mainframe Computer 1964 - IBM 360 is a $5 billion R&D project. The first "family" of compatible computers sets a standard that's been followed for 40 years. By the mid-80s, the 360 and its descendents generate more than $100 billion in revenue for IBM.

Mini I The First Graphical Communication System 1962 - Ivan Sutherland demonstrates "Sketchpad" on a TX-2 mainframe at MIT's Lincoln Labs which allows interaction with a computer by drawing on the display surface with a light pen. His group developed the first algorithms to remove "hidden lines" in drawings of 3D objects. 1968 - Doug Engelbart’s most famous invention is the computer mouse. He pioneers collaborative hypermedia, knowledge management, community networking, and organizational transformation.

Mini II Moore’s Law 1965 – An IC that cost $1000 in 1959 now costs < $10. Gordon Moore predicts that the no.of components in an IC will double every year. This is known as Moore's Law. The World’s First CPU 1968 – Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce found Intel. 1971 - Intel 4004. The processor’s speed is 60,000 operations/sec. It consists of 2,300 transistors and has a 10mm2 area. Robert Noyce invents the microprocessor. 1972 - Intel introduces the 8008, the first 8-bit microprocessor

Mini III The Architecture of Information 1969 - Xerox creates Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC). Its mission is to explore the "architecture of information." The First Popular Video Game 1972 - Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn wheeled a strange apparatus into Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, CA. The game is called "Pong".

Micro I Genesis of Personal Computer (70’s) 1971 - Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Traf-O-Data to sell their computer traffic-analysis systems. Each time a car crossed the hose, the box increased its count. 1971 - Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are building and selling "blue boxes" in South California, making long distance phone calls. 1972 - Gary Kildall writes the first SW for a microprocessor, and then created a disk operating system for it. He writes PL/M (Programming Language/Microprocessor) to run on IBM 360 and CP/M (Control Program/Monitor), a simple OS in his PL/M language.

Micro II The First Generation of Microcomputer (70’s) 1974 - The Mark-8 "Your Personal Minicomputer" (based on the Intel 8008 CPU) is designed by grad student Jonathan Titus. The DIY design is published in Radio – Electronics (Jul74). 1975 - Popular Electronics (Jan75) features the Altair 8800 on its cover. It is (also) hailed as the first "personal" computer. Thousands of orders for the 8800 rescue MITS from bankruptcy. Paul Allen and Bill Gates develop BASIC for the Altair 8800. Microsoft is born.

Micro II The Second Generation of Micro Computer (70’s) 1977 - the second generation is known as home computer. It became affordable for the general public due to the mass production of the silicon chip microprocessor. 1979 - Software Arts develops the first spreadsheet program, Visicalc. It is an immediate success. Copies shipped per month rise from 500 to 12,000 between 1979 and 1981.

Micro III 1980 – Microsoft is approached by IBM to develop BASIC for its personal computer project. The IBM PC is released in August, 1981. 1982 - Designed by Bob Yannes, the Commodore 64 is a home computer with 64 kilobytes of RAM that was popular in the 1980s. It offered sound and graphics. The total estimation of sales vary between 17 and 22 million computers and still remains the best selling computer model of all time. It targeted department stores and toy stores.

World Wide Web I Early 1960 - Timesharing, the concept of linking a large numbers of users to a single computer via remote terminals, is developed at MIT. 1962 - Paul Baran of RAND develops the idea of distributed, packet-switching networks. 1969 - ARPANET goes online. It is designed to provide efficient communication for scientists. ARPANET later becomes the Internet. Four host computers in Santa Barbara, Utah, UCLA and Stanford.

World Wide Web II 1973 - Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf develop the basic ideas of the Internet. 1982 - TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) is established as the standard for ARPANET 1991- Tim Berners-Lee develops the World Wide Web. CERN releases the first Web server.

Sources http://www.thocp.net/index.htm http://www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/ http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/ENIAC.Richey.HTML http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~csclub/museum/timeline.html http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance/chap3.html http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa080498.htm