| 500 B.C. |
The abacus |
| 1614 |
Napier discovers logarithms |
| 1623 |
Schickard's Calculating Clock |
| 1625 |
Invention of the Slide Rule by William Oughtred |
| 1642 |
Pascaline - Pascal's adding machine |
| 1668 |
Sir Samuel Morland's English money adding machine |
| 1671 |
Leibniz's "Stepped Reckoner" |
| 1775 |
Earl Stanhope makes a multiplying calculator similar to Leibniz's |
| 1776 |
Mathieus Hahn also makes a multiplying calculator |
| 1786 |
J. H. Mueller conceives the principles of the "difference engine" |
| 1801 |
punch cards used to control an automatic loom |
| 1820 |
"Arithmometer", the first mass-produced calculator |
| 1822 |
Charles Babbage's first mechanical computer |
| 1832 |
Babbage and Clement prototype the difference engine |
| 1834 |
George Scheutz's small wooden difference engine |
| 1834 |
Babbage's "Analytical Engine" |
| 1842 |
Babbage's difference engine project is cancelled. |
| 1843 |
Scheutz & Scheutz produce a 3rd order difference engine |
| 1847 |
Babbage improves and simplifies his difference engine. |
| 1848 |
George Boole devises Boolean Algebra |
| 1853 |
Scheutzes complete the first full-scale difference engine |
| 1858 |
First purchases of the full-scale difference engine |
| 1871 |
Babbage prototypes parts of his Analytical Engine |
| 1878 |
Ramon Verea invents a fast multiplying machine |
| 1879 |
Abandonment of the Analytical Engine project. |
| 1885 |
Compacter multiplying calculator enters mass production |
| 1886 |
First entirely key operated calculator |
| 1889 |
The first printing desk calculator |
| 1890 |
Punched cards used to record census data |
| 1892 |
More robust key operated calculator |
| 1896 |
Formation of the Tabulating Machine Company (to become IBM) |
| 1899 |
"Everything that can be invented has already been invented." |
| 1906 |
Henry Babbage completes some parts of his father's Analytical Engine |
| 1906 |
Electronic Valve developed |
| 1911 |
Merger of companies to form "Computing - Tabulating - Recording Company" (later IBM) |
| 1919 |
Flip-flop circuit design |
| 1924 - February |
IBM formed |
| 1931-1932 |
Binary digital counter |
| 1935 |
IBM introduce a punch card based multiplier (IBM 601) |
| 1937 |
Turing's paper on "computable numbers" |
| 1937 |
Bell Labs. 1-bit binary adder |
| 1938 |
Paper on implementing symbolic logic using relays |
| 1938 |
Konrad Zuses' mechanical programmable calculator ("V1") |
| 1939 - January 1 |
Hewlett-Packard formed |
| 1939 - November |
First machine to calculate using vacuum tubes |
| 1939 |
Start of WWII. This spurred many improvements in technology - and led to
the development of machines such as the Colossus (see 1943).
|
| 1939 |
Zuse and Schreyer begin work on the "V2" (later "Z2") |
| 1939/1940 |
Prototype 10-bit adder using vacuum tubes |
| 1940 - January |
Ball Labs. develop "Complex Number Calculator" |
| 1941 - Summer |
Simultaneous linear equation solver |
| 1941 - December |
Zuze's V3 (later Z3) |
| 1943 |
First Generation Computers (1943-1959) |
| 1943 |
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." |
| 1943 - January |
Harvard Mark I |
| 1943 - April |
Heath Robinson |
| 1943 - September |
Williams and Stibitz complete the "Relay Interpolator" |
| 1943 - December |
Colossus |
| 1946 |
ENIAC |
| 1947 - end |
Invention of the Transistor |
| 1948 - June 21 |
Manchester University's "Baby" |
| 1949 - May 6 |
EDSAC |
| 1949 |
EDVAC (the first computer to use magnetic tape) |
| 1949 |
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." |
| 1950 |
Floppy disk invented |
| 1950 |
Turing Test |
| 1951 |
High level language compliler invented by Grace Murray Hopper. |
| 1951 |
Whirlwind |
| 1951 |
UNIVAC-1 - the first commercially sucessful electronic computer |
| 1952 |
EDVAC completed. |
| 1953 |
Estimate that there are 100 computers in the world. |
| 1953 |
Magnetic Core Memory developed. |
| 1954 |
FORTRAN |
| 1956 |
First conference on Artificial Intelligence |
| 1956 |
Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm |
| 1957 |
First Dot Matrix printer marketed by IBM |
| 1957 |
FORTRAN development finished |
| 1957 |
"I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." |
| 1958 |
LISP |
| 1958 - September 12 |
Integrated Circuit |
| 1959 |
Second Generation (1959-1964) |
| 1959 |
COBOL Programming Language |
| 1960 |
ALGOL Programming Language |
| 1960 |
Tandy Corp. founded. |
| 1961 |
APL Programming Language |
| 1964 |
Third Generation |
| 1964 |
PL/1 Programming language |
| 1964 |
Launch of IBM 360 |
| 1964 |
DEC PDP-8 Mini Computer |
| 1965 |
Moore's law published |
| 1965 |
Fuzzy Logic designed |
| 1965 |
BASIC Programming Language |
| 1965 |
Mouse conceived |
| 1965 |
First supercoputer, the Control Data CD6600 |
| 1967 |
PASCAL Programming Lanaguage |
| 1968 |
Intel founded |
| 1968 |
LOGO Programming Language |
| 1968 |
"But what ... is it [the microchip] good for?" |
| 1969 |
ARPANET Started |
| 1969 - April 7 |
RFC0001 |
| 1969 |
Introductions of RS-232 |
| 1970 |
First RAM chip |
| 1970 |
Development of UNIX started |
| 1970 |
Forth Programming langauge |
| 1970 - June |
Powerful and fast flight data processor for the F14A |
| 1971 - November 15 |
First microprocessor - the Intel 4004 |
| 1971 |
PASCAL completed |
| 1972 |
Atari founded |
| 1972 |
Pong released |
| 1972 |
Fourth Generation |
| 1972 |
C Programming language |
| 1972 |
First handheld scientific calculator |
| 1972 - April 1 |
Intel 8008 processor |
| 1972 |
International connections to ARPANET |
| 1973 |
Prolog Programming Language |
| 1973 |
Ethernet developed |
| 1974 |
First parallel computer (CLIP-4) |
| 1974 - April 1 |
Intel 8080 processor |
| 1974 - December |
First personal computer (MITS Altair 8800) |
| 1975 |
BASIC implemented by Bill Gates and Paul Allen |
| 1975 |
Unix marketed |
| 1975 |
Formation of Microsoft |
| 1975 |
IBM 5100 |
| 1976 |
Apple Computer Inc. founded to Market Apple I |
| 1976 |
First laser printer (IBM 3800) |
| 1976? |
Intel 8085 |
| 1976 |
Z80 processor from Zilog |
| 1976 |
6502 microprocessor |
| 1976 |
Cray 1, the first commercially developed supercomputer |
| 1976 |
Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange algorithm published |
| 1977 |
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." |
| 1977 |
"RSA algorithm announced" |
| 1977 |
TCP is introduced to replace Arpanet's NCP |
| 1977 - May |
Apple II computer |
| 1978 - June 8 |
Intel 8086 |
| 1978 |
Arcade Video game "Space Invaders" |
| 1979 |
ADA Programming Language |
| 1979 - June 1 |
Intel 8088 |
| 1979 |
Commodore PET released |
| 1979 |
Compact Disk |
| 1979 |
68000 microprocessor |
| 1979 |
IBM started development of the PC |
| 1980 |
"DOS addresses only 1 Megabyte of RAM because we cannot imagine any applications needing more." |
| 1980 - October |
Development of MS-DOS/PC-DOS began |
| 1980 - Early |
Sinclair ZX80 |
| 1981 - April |
Xerox 8010 ('Star') System, the first WIMP (Windowing) system. |
| 1981 |
"640k ought to be enough for anybody." |
| 1981 |
Sinclair ZX81 released. |
| 1981? |
INTEL 80186/80188 |
| 1981 - August 12 |
IBM Announced the IBM PC. |
| 1981 - August 12 |
MDA (Mono Display Adapter) introduced with IBM PC |
| 1981 - August 12 |
MS-DOS 1.0., PC-DOS 1.0. |
| 1981 |
Pacman was written |
| 1982 |
BBC Micro introduced |
| 1982 - January |
Commodore 64 released |
| 1982 - February 1 |
Intel 80286 released |
| 1982 |
Compaq's IBM PC compatible Compaq Portable |
| 1982 |
MIDI standard published |
| 1982 |
Red Book on the format of Audio CDs |
| 1982 - March |
MS-DOS 1.25, PC-DOS 1.1 |
| 1982 - April |
Sinclair ZX Spectrum |
| 1982 - May |
320K floppy disk drives |
| 1982 - December |
IBM buy 12% of Intel. |
| 1983 - January 1 |
TCP/IP Protocol |
| 1983 - January |
IBM PC gets European launch at Which Computer Show. |
| 1983 - January |
Apple LISA |
| 1983 |
Borland Formed. |
| 1983 - Spring |
IBM XT released |
| 1983 - March |
MS-DOS 2.0, PC-DOS 2.0 |
| 1983 - May |
MS-DOS 2.01 |
| 1983 - October |
IBM released the PC Junior |
| 1983 - October |
PC-DOS 2.1 (for PC Jr) |
| 1983 - October |
MS-DOS 2.11 |
| 1984 |
DNS introduced to the internet |
| 1984 |
Turbo Pascal introduced by Borland |
| 1984 |
HP Laserjet released |
| 1984 - January |
Apple Macintosh released |
| 1984 |
IBM AT released |
| 1984 - August |
MS-DOS 3.0/PC-DOS 3.0 |
| 1984 - September |
512KB version of the Macintosh released |
| 1984 - October |
Sinclair ZX Spectrum+ released |
| 1984 - End |
Compaq started developing the IDE interface |
| 1985 - January |
Postscript introducted by Adobe Systems |
| 1985 |
Tetris written |
| 1985 |
CD-ROM |
| 1985 |
EGA released |
| 1985 - March |
MS-DOS 3.1/PC-DOC 3.1 |
| 1985 - May |
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 announced |
| 1985 - July 23 |
Commodore Amiga announced |
| 1985 - October 17 |
Intel 80386 released |
| 1985 - October |
MS-DOS 2.25 |
| 1985 - November |
Microsoft Windows launched |
| 1985 - December |
MS-DOS 3.2/PC-DOS 3.2 |
| 1985 - End |
EMS (memory standard) introduced |
| 1986 - January |
Macintosh Plus |
| 1986 - February |
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 128 released |
| 1986 - April |
Macintosh 512Ke |
| 1986 - September |
Amstrad PC 1512 |
| 1987? |
Acorn Archimedes |
| 1987 |
Connection Machine (very parallel supercomputer) |
| 1987 |
Microsoft Windows 2 released |
| 1987 |
Fractal Image Compression |
| 1987 - March 2 |
Macintosh II & SE |
| 1987 - April 2 |
IBM PS/2 introduced |
| 1987 |
VGA released |
| 1987 |
MCGA released |
| 1987 |
IBM 8514/A (a graphics card that included its own processor) |
| 1987 - April |
MS-DOS 3.3/PC-DOS 3.3 |
| 1987 - April |
OS/2 launched by Microsoft and IBM |
| 1987 - August |
AD-LIB soundcard released |
| 1987 - October/November |
Compaq DOS (v3.31) released to cope with disk partitions >32MB |
| 1987 - End |
LIM EMS v4.0 |
| 1988 |
First optical chip |
| 1988 |
XMS (memory standard) introduced. |
| 1988 |
EISA Bus standard introduced |
| 1988 |
WORM (Write Once Read Many times) disks |
| 1988 - June 16 |
Intel 80386 SX |
| 1988 - July/August? |
MS-DOS 4.0/PC-DOS 4.0 |
| 1988 - September |
IBM PS/2 Model 30/286 |
| 1988 - October |
CAM committee formed |
| 1988 - October |
Macintosh IIx released |
| 1988 - November |
MS-DOS 4.01/PC-DOC 4.01 |
| 1989 |
World Wide Web invented by Tim Berners-Lee |
| 1989 |
CD-I released |
| 1989 - January |
Macintosh SE/30 released |
| 1989 - April 1 |
E-IDE standard defined by CAM |
| 1989 - March |
Macintosh IIcx |
| 1989 - April 10 |
Intel 80486 released |
| 1989 - September |
Macintosh IIci |
| 1989 - November |
Sound Blaster Card released by Creative Labs |
| 1990 |
VESA formed to introduce the VESA SVGA standard |
| 1990 - March |
Macintosh IIfx |
| 1990 - May 22 |
Microsoft Windows 3.0 |
| 1990 - October |
Macintosh Classic released |
| 1990 - November |
Macintosh LC released |
| 1990 - November |
MPC (Multimedia PC) Level 1 specification |
| 1990 - November |
ATA spec. submitted to ANSI |
| 1991 |
ISA standard introduced |
| 1991 |
Borland took over Ashton-Take Copr. & its popular Dbase program |
| 1991 - April 22 |
Intel 80486 SX |
| 1991 - May |
Introduction of Sound Blaster Pro. |
| 1991 - June |
MS-DOS 5.0/PC-DOS 5.0 |
| 1991 - August |
Linux is born |
| 1992 |
"Windows NT addresses 2 Gigabytes of RAM which is more than any application will ever need" |
| 1992 |
Introduction of CD-I |
| 1992 - April |
Introduction of Windows 3.1 |
| 1992 - May |
Wolfenstein 3D released by Id Software Inc. |
| 1992 - June |
Sound Blaster 16 ASP Introduced. |
| 1993 |
Commercial providers were allowed to sell internet connections to individuals |
| 1993 |
Doom released by Id Software Inc. |
| 1993 |
The 7th Guest released by Trilobyte |
| 1993 |
Novell purchased Digital Research |
| 1993 - March 22 |
Intel Pentium released |
| 1993 - May |
MPC Level 2 specification introduced |
| 1993 - July 27 |
Windows NT 3.1 |
| 1993 - December |
MS-DOS 6.0 & Doublespace |
| 1994 - March 7 |
Intel Pentium 90 & 100 MHz versions. |
| 1994 - March 14 |
Linux kernel version 1.0 released |
| 1994 - September |
PC-DOS 6.3 |
| 1994 - September 21 |
Windows NT 3.5 |
| 1994 - October 10 |
Intel Pentirum 75 |
| 1994 |
Doom II released. |
| 1994 |
Netscape 1.0 |
| 1994 |
Command & Conquer released. |
| 1995 - March |
Linux Kernel v1.2.0 |
| 1995 - March 27 |
Intel Pentium 120 MHz |
| 1995 - May 30 |
Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 |
| 1995 - June 1 |
Intel Pentium 133 MHz |
| 1995 - August 21 [poss. 23] |
Microsoft Windows 95 |
| 1995 - November 1 |
Pentium Pro released |
| 1995 - December 28 |
CompuServe blocked access to over 200 sexually explicit sites |
| 1995 - December |
JavaScript development announced by Netscape. |
| 1996 |
Quake released |
| 1996 - January |
Netscape Navigator 2.0 released |
| 1996 - January 4 |
Intel Pentium 150 & 166 MHz versions |
| 1996 |
Windows '95 OSR2 |
| 1996 - June 9 |
Linux 2.0 released |
| 1996 - July 31 |
Windows NT 4.0 |
| 1996 - October 6 |
Intel Pentium 200 released |
| 1997 |
Tim Berners-Lee awarded the Institute of Physics' 1997 Duddell Medal for inventing the World Wide Web |
| 1997 |
"Grand Theft Auto", "Quake 2" and "Blade Runner" were all released while Lara Croft returned in "Tomb Raider 2". |
| 1997 - January 8 |
Intel Pentium MMX released |
| 1997 - May 11 |
IBM's Deep Blue, the first computer to beat a reigning World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov, in a full chess match. |
| 1997 - May 7 |
Intel Pentium II released |
| 1997 - June 2 |
Intel Pentium MMX 233 released |
| 1997 - August 6 |
Microsoft buy 100,000 non-voting shares in Apple |
| 1998 - February |
Intel Pentium II 333 MHz |
| 1998 - April |
A U.S. court has finally banned the long-running game of buying domain names relating to trademarks and then at selling them for extortionate prices to the companies who own the trademark. |
| 1998 - June 25 |
Microsoft Windows '98 |
| 1999 - Jan 25 |
Linux Kernel 2.2.0 released |
| 1999 - Feb 22 |
AMD release K6-III 400MHz |
| 1999 - Aug 31 |
Apple PowerMac G4 released |
| 1999 - Nov 29 |
AMD release Athlon 750MHz |
| 2000 - Jan 14 |
US Government cryptography restrictions relaxed |
| 2000 - Jan 19 |
Transmeta launch the 'Crusoe' chips |
| 2000 - Feb 17 |
Official launch of Microsoft Windows 2000 |
| 2000 - March 6 |
AMD Release the Athlon 1GHz. |
| 2000 - March 8 |
Intel release very limited supplies of the 1GHz Pentium III chip. |
| 2000 - June 20 |
BT claim to have patented hyperlinks |
| 2000 - Sept 6 |
RSA Security Inc. released their RSA algorithm into the public domain |
| 2001 - Jan 4 |
Linux kernel 2.4.0 released. |
| 2001 - March 24 |
Apple released MacOS X |
| 2001 - October 25 |
Microsoft released Windows XP |
| 2001 - November 15 |
Release of the `X' Box - Microsoft's games console |
| 2002 - August 6 |
Edsger W. Dijkstra died |
| 2003 - April 24 |
Windows Server 2003 |
| 2003 - October 24 |
MacOS X version 10.3 (Panther) released |
| 2003 - December 17 |
Linux kernel 2.6.0 released. |
| 2003 - December 31 |
Sir Tim Berners-Lee |