Infographic

Timeline of
the History of
Computers
Submitted By:
Ahmad Saud M. Uddin
Reynan R. Rusina
Hernane A. Benedicto Jr.
ACT – Networking 1
Computers in the 1800s
1801: In France, weaver and merchant Joseph Marie Jacquard creates a loom that uses wooden
punch cards to automate the design of woven fabrics. Early computers would use similar punch
cards.
1822: Thanks to funding from the English government, mathematician Charles Babbage invents a
steam-driven calculating machine that was able to compute tables of numbers.
1890: Inventor Herman Hollerith designs the punch card system to calculate the 1880 U.S. census. He
would eventually go on to establish a company that would become IBM.

Computers from the 1900-1950s

1936: Alan Turing developed an idea for a universal machine, which he would call the Turing
machine, that would be able to compute anything that is computable. The concept of modern
computers was based on his idea.
1937: A professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, J.V. Atanasoff, attempts to
build the first computer without cams, belts, gears, or shafts.
1939: Bill Hewlett and David Packard found Hewlett-Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, California.
Their first project, the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, would rapidly become a popular piece of test
equipment for engineers.
1941: Professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University J.V. Atanasoff and graduate
student Clifford Berry design a computer that can solve 29 equations simultaneously. This is the
first time a computer is able to house data within its own memory.
1943: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, professors at the University of Pennsylvania, build an
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). This is considered to be the grandfather of
digital computers, as it is made up of 18,000 vacuum tubes and fills up a 20-foot by 40-foot room.

1944: British engineer Tommy Flowers designed the Colossus, which was created to break the
complex code used by the Nazis in World War II. These machines would reduce the time it took to
break their code from weeks to hours, leading historians to believe they greatly shortened the war
by being able to understand the intentions and beliefs of the Nazis.
1945: Mathematician John von Neumann writes The First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC. This paper
broke down the architecture of a stored-program computer.
1946: Mauchly and Eckert left the University of Pennsylvania and obtained funding from the Census
Bureau to build the UNIVAC. This would become the first commercial computer for business and
government use.
1947: Walter Brattain, William Shockley, and John Bradeen of Bell Laboratories invented the
transistor, which allowed them to discover a way to make an electric switch using solid materials,
not vacuums.
1948: Frederick Williams, Geoff Toothill, and Tom Kilburn, researchers at the University of
Manchester, develop the Small-Scale Experimental Machine. This was built to test new memory
technology, which became the first high-speed electronic random-access memory for computers.
The became the first program to run on a digital, electronic, stored-program computer.
1950: Built in Washington, DC, the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) was created,
becoming the first stored program computer completed in the United States. It was a test-bed for
evaluating components and systems, in addition to setting computer standards.
1953: Computer scientist Grace Hopper develops the first computer language, which is eventually
known as COBOL, that allowed a computer user to use English-like words instead of numbers to
give the computer instructions. In 1997, a study showed that over 200 billion lines of COBOL code
were still in existence.
1954: The FORTRAN programming language is developed by John Backus and a team of
programmers at IBM. Additionally, IBM creates the 650, which was the first mass-produced
computer, selling 450 in just one year.
1958: Jack Kirby and Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit, which is what we now call the
computer chip. Kilby was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for his work.
Computers from the 1960-1970s
1962: IBM announces the 1311 Disk Storage Drive, the first disk drive made with a removable disk
pack. Each pack weighed 10 pounds, held six disks, and had a capacity of 2 million characters.
1964: Douglas Engelbart introduces a prototype for the modern computer that includes a mouse and
a graphical user interface (GUI). This begins the evolution from computers being exclusively for
scientists and mathematicians to being accessible to the general public.
1969: Developers at Bell Labs unveil UNIX, an operating system written in C programming language
that addressed compatibility issues within programs.
1970: Intel introduces the world to the Intel 1103, the first Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip.
1971: Alan Shugart and a team of IBM engineers invented the floppy disk, allowing data to be shared
among computers.
1973: Robert Metcalfe, research employee at Xerox, develops Ethernet, connecting multiple
computers and hardware.
1974: Personal computers are officially on the market! The first of the bunch were Scelbi & Mark-8
Altair, IBM 5100, and Radio Shack's TRS-80.
1976: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers and introduce the world to the Apple I,
the first computer with a single-circuit board.
1977: Jobs and Wozniak unveil the Apple II at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It boasts color
graphics and an audio cassette drive for storage. Millions were sold between 1977 and 1993, making
it one of the longest-lived lines of personal computers.
1979: MicroPro International unveils WordStar, a word processing program.

Computers from the 1980-1990s

1981: Not to be outdone by Apple, IBM releases their first personal computer, the Acorn, with an Intel
chip, two floppy disks, and an available color monitor.

1983: The CD-ROM hit the market, able to hold 550 megabytes of pre-recorded data. That same year,
many computer companies worked to set a standard for these disks, making them able to be used
freely to access a wide variety of information.
1984: Apple launches Macintosh, which was introduced during a Super Bowl XVIII commercial. The
Macintosh was the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphical user interface. It sold
for $2,500.
1985: Microsoft announces Windows, which allowed for multi-tasking with a graphical user
interface.
1990: English programmer and physicist Tim Berners-Lee develops HyperText Markup Language,
also known as HTML. He also prototyped the term WorldWideWeb. It features a server, HTML, URLs,
and the first browser.
1991: Apple releases the Powerbook series of laptops, which included a built-in trackball, internal
floppy disk, and palm rests. The line was discontinued in 2006.
1996: Sergey Brin and Larry Page develop Google at Stanford University.

1997: Microsoft invests $150 million into Apple, which ended Apple’s court case against Microsoft,
saying they copied the “look and feel” of their operating system.
1998: Apple releases the iMac, a range of all-in-one Macintosh desktop computers. Selling for
$1,300, these computers included a 4GB hard drive, 32MB Ram, a CD-ROM, and a 15-inch monitor.
1999: The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language as users begin connecting without
wires. Without missing a beat, Apple creates its “Airport” Wi-Fi router and builds connectivity into
Macs.
Computers from 2000-2010
2000: The USB flash drive is introduced. Used for data storage, they were faster and had a greater
amount of storage space than other storage media options. Plus, they couldn’t be scratched like
CDs.
2001: Apple introduces the Mac OS X operating system. Not to be outdone, Microsoft unveiled
Windows XP soon after.
2003: Apple releases iTunes music store, giving users the ability to purchase songs within the
program. In less than a week after its debut, over 1 million songs were downloaded.
Also in 2003, the Blu-ray optical disc is released as the successor of the DVD.
2004: The first challenger of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer came in the form of Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0.
That same year, Facebook launched as a social networking site.

2005: YouTube, the popular video-sharing service, is founded by Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad
Hurley. Later that year, Google acquired the mobile phone operating system Android.
2006: Apple unveiled the MacBook Pro, making it their first Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer.
2007: Apple released the first iPhone, bringing many computer functions to the palm of our hands. It
featured a combination of a web browser, a music player, and a cell phone -- all in one. Users could
also download additional functionality in the form of “apps”. The full-touchscreen smartphone
allowed for GPS navigation, texting, a built-in calendar, a high-definition camera, and weather
reports.

2008: Apple releases the MacBook Air, the first ultra notebook that was a thin and lightweight
laptop with a high-capacity battery. To get it to be a smaller size, Apple replaced the traditional hard
drive with a solid-state disk, making it the first mass-marketed computer to do so.
2009: Microsoft launched Windows 7.
2010: Apple released the iPad, officially breaking into the dormant tablet computer category. This
new gadget came with many features the iPhone had, plus a 9-inch screen and minus the phone.
Computers from 2011 - present day
2012: The Raspberry Pi, a credit-card-sized single-board computer is released, weighing only 45
grams.
2015: Apple releases the Apple Watch, which incorporated Apple’s iOS operating system and sensors
for environmental and health monitoring. Almost a million units were sold on the day of its release.
This release was followed closely by Microsoft announcing Windows 10.
2016: The first reprogrammable quantum computer is created.
2019: Apple announces iPadOS, the iPad's very own operating system, to better support the device as
it becomes more like a computer and less like a mobile device.