Computer History

~300 B.C.

Although various primitive counting aids have doubtless been used by many cultures for thousands of years, the earliest surviving abacus was discovered in Babylonia from this time period.

~800 A.D.

The concept of the algorithm, a formal method for solving problems, is put forth by Muhammad ibn Musa Al'Khowarizmi.  This would eventually form the basis of modern computer programming techniques.

1612

John Napier makes first printed use of the decimal point, and invents logarithms and several types of mechanical multiplication aids.

1622

William Oughtred invents the slide rule.

1623

William Schickard describes an adding machine with an automatic carry capability.  However, none of his prototypes survived.

1642

Blaise Pascal is credited with inventing the first adding machine with automatic carry, the Pascalene.

1673

Gottfried Leibniz builds a calculator capable of multiplication by repeatedly adding a number into an accumulator, not unlike  the use of registers in modern computers.

1801

Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents a loom which uses punched cards to control the pattern of the fabric.

1822

Charles Babbage recognizes the need for a computing machine for computing celestial and navigational tables.  He devotes his life to designing the steam-powered Difference Engine.

1833

Babbage expands his work to a more general purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, in which he describes the basic components of modern computers.

1842

Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, translates a description of the Analytical Engine, adding her own notes on programming the device, becoming the world's first programmer.

1847-1849

Babbage created several drawings for the design of the Difference Engine, but was unable to build the device due to technological limitations of the day.  After his death, his son built the arithmetic logic unit for the device and sent copies of it around the world, including Harvard University.

1854

George Boole describes a system of symbolic logic that later becomes known as Boolean Algebra, a vital part of computer design.

1890

Herman Hollerith invents a data processing machine using punched cards for use in tabulating data in the 1890 U.S. Census.  He founds a company to market these machines, Hollerith Tabulating Company.  In later years punched computer cards are known as Hollerith cards.

1914

The Hollerith Tabulating Company merges with two other companies to form the Calculating-Tabulating-Recording (C-T-R) company.

1924

The C-T-R company is renamed IBM.

1925

Vannevar Bush of MIT invents the differential analyzer, which incorporates the functionality of a slide rule with the capability of calculating integration and differentiation.

1935-1938

Konrad Zuse of Berlin, Germany, invents a relay computer that uses binary arithmetic, the Z-1.  In 1938 he completes the Z-2.  Due to the war his inventions were not widely known until some years later.  At the end of the war he moved to Switzerland where he built the Z-4.  He also founded a computer company that would be absorbed into the Siemens Corporation.

1936-1939

John Vincent Atanasoff and John Berry invent the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) at Iowa State University.  The ABC is the earliest example of an electronic calculator, and developed several primary concepts later used in the development of general purpose computers.

1937

Alan Turing describes the concept of a "Universal Machine," capable of executing any describable algorithm.  Howard Aiken at Harvard University is also working on the problem of "computability" at this time.  Also, George Stibitz at Bell Telephone Laboratories is investigating the possibilities of building a device that uses telephone switch relays to do arithmetic.

1939

Bell Telephone Laboratories builds the first electro-mechanical relay calculator, the Complex Number Calculator (later renamed the Bell Labs Model 1).  This machine would later be used over telephone lines, setting the stage for the linking of telephone and computer into computer networks.

1940-1944

In an attempt to build a device to decrypt German messages encrypted with the ENIGMA encoder, a team at Bletchley Park, including Alan Turing, invent the Colossus Mark I, which is instrumental in decrypting messages during the end of the war.  The existence of Colossus was classified until 1970, and the decryption algorithms remain classified today.

1943

John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania begin work on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).

1944

The first large scale, automatic general purpose electromechanical calculator, the Harvard Mark I, is built.  The Mark I was based on design work done by Howard Aiken in the late 1930s, and was commissioned by the U.S. Navy to calculate mathematical and navigational tables, just as Babbage's Differential Engine was originally intended.  In June 1944 Grace Hopper joins Aiken's team as the third "coder" on the Mark 1.

1945

While working on the Mark II, Grace Hopper finds a moth beaten to death in a relay, and glues it into the logbook.  From then on, whenever the machine stops, the team tells Aiken they are "debugging" the system.

John von Neuman writes "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in which he lays out the basic principles of modern computer architecture, including the stored program concept.  This led to some controversy in later years, as Mauchly and Eckert claimed they had thought of these concepts prior to von Neuman joining the ENIAC team at the University of Pennsylvania.  Later, Konrad Zuse claims to have had the same ideas in the 1930s.

1946

ENIAC is unveiled in Pennsylvania.  However, it does not use the stored programming concept, instead depending on programming by rewiring connections between components.  Later, after a patent dispute with the University of Pennsylvania, Mauchly and Eckert leave to form the Electronic Control Corporation to build the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC).  The company was taken over by Remington-Rand before UNIVAC was completed.

1947

William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invent the transfer resistance device, better known later on as the transistor.

1948

Work on stored program computers continues at various locations in the U.S. and England.  The first working prototype of a stored program computer is "Baby," at the Royal Society Computing Laboratory in Manchester.  

T.J. Watson, Sr. orders the development of the Selective Sequence Control Computer (SSEC) for IBM, marking the beginning of IBMs movement away from card tabulating machines.

1949

The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer (EDSAC), the first large-scale, fully functional stored program digital computer is built by Maurice Wilkes and his staff at the Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge University.

1951

Jay Forrester and Bob Everett at MIT build a simulator for the Air Force, the Whirlwind.  This is the first real-time processing computer, and the first to implement core memory.  

The first UNIVAC is delivered to the Census Bureau.  

Maurice Wilkes, Stanley Gill, and David Wheeler develop the concept of using subroutines to create reusable code modules.  They write the first software development textbook, "The Preparation of Programs for an Electronic Digital Computer."  

The Mark III computer is delivered to the Naval Surface Weapons Center, and is the first computer featured on the cover of Time Magazine.

1952

Grace Hopper, now working on UNIVAC at Remington-Rand, describes the basic concepts of the compiler and language translation.  

After being featured on CBS News during election night coverage, UNIVAC becomes the household word for computer.

1953

IBM  builds the IBM Type 701 EDPM, their first entry into the mainframe market that did not rely on punch card technology.

1954

IBM builds the IBM Type 650 EDPM, which still used the punch card technology (providing an upgrade path to early adopters), but was the first mass produced computer.  Much to their surprise, IBM quickly leased over 1000 of them.  

John Backus proposes the development of a high level language easily expressed in mathematical formulae, later known as the Formula Translator (FORTRAN).

1955

IBM introduces the 704, the first commercial machine with floating point hardware.  The 704 is capable of a speed of 5000 operations per seconds, or 5 kFLOPS.  It was designed by Gene Amdahl, who later worked on designing supercomputers in the 1990s.  

The first computer user groups emerge:  SHARE (originally not an acronym, but later defined as Society to Help Alleviate Redundant Effort) for IBM users, and USE for UNIVAC users.

1956

John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky organize a conference at Dartmouth to explore the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

1957

IBM develops the IBM 305 RAMAC, the first computer using a disk memory system.  

John Backus and his team deliver the first FORTAN compiler for the IBM 704.  This was shortly followed by the first compiler error (a missing comma in a GOTO statement).

1958

Jack St. Clair Kilby demonstrates his idea of  integrating transistors with resistors and capacitors on a single integrated chip.  

The Whirlwind project culminates in the deployment of the SAGE system for the Air Force.  The first air traffic control system also goes on-line.  

Control Data Corporation markets the first fully transistorized computer, the CDC 1604, designed by Seymour Cray.  

Continuing his work in AI, John McCarthy lays down the concepts for an AI programming language he calls LISP (LISt Processing), although later computer students prefer the acronym LISP (Lots of Idiotic, Silly Parentheses).

1959

IBM creates two separate product lines, the IBM 1401 for business and the IBM 1620 for scientists and universities.  

General Electric Corporation delivers 32 ERMA (Electronic Recording Machine – Accounting) devices to the Bank of America for use in check processing.  These were the first machines to make use of Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR), leading to the automation of the banking system.