Milestones in Computer History
Hey guys just thought to post ,not much but little, history of computers.
In 1937 Dr. John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry design and build the first electronic digital computer. Their machine called Atanasoff-Berry-Computer or ABC. It provided the foundation for advances in electronic digital computers.
In 1943 During World War II, British scientist Alan Turing designs the Colossus, an electronic computer created for the military to break German codes. The computer's existence is kept secret until the 1970's.
In 1945, Dr John von Neumann writes a brilliant paper describing the stored program concept. His breakthrough idea, where memory holds both data and stored programs, lays the foundation for all digital computers that have since been built.
In 1946 Dr. John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, jr. complete work on the first large scale electronic, general purpose digital computer called The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) weighs thirty tons, contains 18,000 vacuum tubes, occupies a thirty by fifty foot space, and consumes 160 kilowatt of power. The first time it is turned on, lights dim in an entire section of Philadlphia.
In 1947 William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invent the transfer resistance device, eventually called the transistor. The transistro would revolutionize computers, proving much more reliable than vacuum tubes.
In 1951 the first commercially available electronic digital computer introduced by Remington Rand called UNIVAC 1 (Universal Automatic Computer).
In 1952 Dr. Grace Hopper considers the concept of reusable software in her paper, "The Education of a Computer". The paper describes how to program a computer with symbolic notation instead of the detailed machine language that had been used.
In 1953 IBM planned to produce only 50 model 650 series but the system got so successful that IBM manufactured more than 1,000 with the IBM 700 series of machines and dominated the mainframe market for the next decade.
In 1957 John Backus introduced easy to use programming language called FORTRAN(Formula Translation)
In 1958 Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments invents the integrated circuit, which lays the foundation for high speed computers and large capacity memories. Computers built with transistors mark the beginning of the second generation of computer hardware.
In 1959 more than 200 programming languages have been created. IBM introduced two smaller, desk size computers I) IBM 1401 for business and the IBM 1602 for scientists.
In 1960 A committee headed by Dr. Grace Hopper developed high level business application language called COBOL.
In 1964 The number of computers has grown to 18,000. Third generation computers are introduced. IBM System/360 computer was the first family of compatible machines merging the science and business lines.
In 1965 DEC(Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the first mini computer called PDP 8. This machine used as an interface for time sharing systems.
In 1968 CSC (Computer Science Corporation) become the first software company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Alan Shugart at IBM demonstrated the first regular use of an eight inch floppy disk.
In 1969 Internet introduced by Pentagon's ARPA(Advanced Research Projects Agency. ARPA's goal was to build a network that allowed scientists at different locations to share the information and work together on military and sicentific projects and could function even if part of the network were disabled or destroyed by the disaster such as nuclear attack. That network called ARPANET became functional in Sept1969 which linked scientific and academic researchers in the US.
in 1970 Fourth generation computers, built with chips that use LSI(Large scale integration) arrived. While tghe chips used in 1965 contained as many as 1,000 circuits, the LSI chip contains 15,000.
In 1971 Dr. Ted Hoff of Intel developed a microprocessor chip the Intel 4004.
In 1975 The first LAN , Ethernet, developed at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) by Robert Metcalf.
MITS, Inc advertised one of the first microcomputer called Altair. Named for the destination in an episode of Star Trek. Altair was sold in kits for less than 400 dollars. It has no keyboard, no monitor, no permanent memory and no software. 4,000 orders are taken within the first three months.
In 1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs build the first Apple computer.
I am tired now and may be post little bit more later. I am not sure though. And yes one more thing before I close this.
Guess what happened in 1994
In 1994 Linus Torvalds created the Linux kernel, a UNIX like operating system that he released free ( wow) across the internet for further enhancement by other programers.
