History of Computing

Module 1 Lecture
1/24/02
Pre 1642
 3000 BC – Abacus
is invented in
Babylonia

 800 AD -
Chinese begin  From 800 to 1641
to use zero. some kinda important
stuff happens in math –
algebra, calculus,
geometry, etc.
1642 - 1800
 1642-1643 – Blaise  1666 – Mechanical
Pascal invents the calculator that can
first gear-driven add and subtract.
adding machine
 1777 – Multiplying
“Pascalene”
calculator
invented.
Industrial Revolution
 1801 – Jacquard  Boom in
Loom development of
machinery led to
growth of factories
and mass
production of goods.
Charles Babbage
 1821 – Difference
Engine
 Used wheels with
numbers and worked
with gears like a
clock. User inputted
equation and turned
crank until answer
appeared. Only a
prototype built.
Charles Babbage (cont)
 1834 – 1835,  Actually four
Babbage shifts his machines in one:
interest towards an  Receiver –
instructions inputted
Analytic Engine, a on cards
steam powered  Machine that
general purpose performs the
machine that did instructions
more than  Machine that stores
intermediate
calculations. calculations
 Machine that prints
results to paper
1838 – 1890’s
 1838 – Telegraph  1874 – Alexander
demonstrated. Graham Bell invents
 1854 – George and patents the
Boole introduced telephone.
system for logic and  1893 – First four
reasoning that will function calculator is
become basis of introduced.
computer design.
1890 Census
 Herman Hollerith’s
Electric Tabulating
System wins the
competition to
compute the 1890
census.
 1896 – Hollerith
establishes the
Tabulating Machine
Company
1900 - 1931
 1907 – First regular  1929 – Color
radio broadcasts television signals
from New York. transmitted.
 1927 – First  1931 – Scan-tron is
demonstration of TV created
in US with sound
transmitted over
telephone lines.
1931 - 1940
 1931 – Konrad Zuse  1937 - Turing’s
builds the Z1 – first paper presents
electronic digital ideas on
calculator. computability.
 1940 - Zuse builds
the Z2, the first fully
functioning
electomagnetic
computer.
 1940 – First color
television broadcast.
1941 - 1942
 December 5, 1941 –  1942 – Colossus
Zuse’s Z3, a helps break German
complete fully Enigma
functional program –
automatically
controlled
electromechanical
computer. It has 64
word memory and
takes 3 seconds per
multiplication.
1943
 1943 – ENIAC
contracted for use in
calculating ballistic
tables
 Weighed 30 tons
 30’ x 50’ space
 18,000 vacuum tubes
 360 multiplications
performed per
second
1944
 1944 – Mark I –
uses punched paper
to program and
vacuum tubes and
relays to solve
problems
1945 - 1950
 June 1945 – Stored  September 9, 1945
program computer – First computer
idea introduced by “bug” found at
John vonNeumann. 15:45, a moth.

 1950 – Turing test for

machine intelligence
published.
1951
 March 31, 1951 –  June 16, 1951 –
UNIVAC I delivered First programming
to census bureau error occurs at the
 16,000 pounds census bureau.
 5,000 vacuum tubes
 6,000 calculations
per second
 $159,000

 1951 – First American computer to implement

the stored program concept is completed.
1952 - 1956
 1952 – UNIVAC I  1956 – First
predicts the keyboard used to
outcome of the directly input
presidential election information into a
with only 5% of computer.
votes in.  1956 – First
 1954 – First line programming
printer developed. language,
FORTRAN invented.
1957 - 1962
 1957 – First  1959 – First
photograph is commercial copy
scanned, processed, machine introduced by
and redisplayed by a Xerox.
computer.  1962 – First
 1958 – Second
department of
generation of
computers (transistor
Computer Science
computers) are established at Purdue
produced. First and Stanford.
generation are those  1962 – First video
made with vacuum game (Spacewar)
tubes. invented at MIT.
1963 - 1969
 1963 – Joseph  1969 – ARPANET –
Weizenbaum (MIT) network of researches
develops Eliza. at UCLA, UC Santa
 1964 – Mouse is Barbara, SRI, and U. of
invented. Utah goes live –
 Internet is born
1964 – Third generation
 1969 – UNIX is created
of computers emerges
– integrated circuit at AT&T Bell Labs.
 1968 – Federal
Information Processing
Standard encourages
use of six digit format
YYMMDD.
1970 - 1972
 1970 – Floppy disks  1972
and daisy wheel  Hand held
printers debut. calculators
 1970 – Fourth introduced and
makes slide rule
generation of obsolete.
computers – large  Atari founded.
scale integrated  Email program
circuits: 15,000 created and sends
circuits on a chip as messages across
opposed to 1,000 in Arpanet.
third generation.
1973 - 1976
 1973 – Xerox PARC  1975 – IBM
and Alan King introduces laser
develop a PC that printer.
 1975 – Xerox PARC
uses icons,
graphics, and a – Ethernet and first
mouse. LAN developed.
 1976 – IBM
 1974 – Xerox PARC
develops ink jet
develops first printer.
WYSIWYG  1976 – Steve Jobs &
application, Bravo. Steve Wozniak build
Apple I.
 1977 - 1980
 1977 – Apple II  1979 – Cell phones
announced and tested in Japan and
produced with 16K Chicago.
RAM, 16K ROM,
 1979 – Pac Man and
$1298.
 1978 – First word early video games
processor, Wordstar. appear.
 1979 – First  1980 – IBM selects
spreadsheet, VisiCalc PC-DOS from
 1979 – Work on first unknown company
database program Microsoft as OS for
begun – dBase II. its new PC.
1981 - 1982
 1981 – First  1982 – Commercial
commercially email across 25
successful portable cities begins.
computer, the
 1982 – Term
Osborne I: 23
pounds, 64K RAM. Internet first
 1982 – Commodore assigned to a group
64: 64K RAM, 20K of networked
ROM, $595. computers.
 1982 – Sony  1982 – 3,275,000
announces CD PCs sold, up from
technology. 300,000 in 1981.
1983 - 1987
 1983 - Lotus 1,2,3  1985 – Speeds
combined reach 1 billion
spreadsheets, operations per
graphics, and second.
 1985 – Windows
database together in
one package. jumps on the GUI
bandwagon.
 1984 – Apple’s
 1986 – Wall Street
Macintosh unveiled Journal talks about
with Graphical User Computer Aided
Interface. Software
Engineering.
1988 - 1990
 1988 – Internet  1990
Relay Chat debuts.  54 million
 1989 – 1000 computers in the
hospital computer US.
systems die 215 days  MS Windows 3.0

after Jan. 1, 1900 introduced.

 First commercially

available dial-up
Internet access.
 Arpanet

decommissioned.
1991 - 1992
 1991  1992
 Mobile, pen-based  Microsoft sells 3
computers that can million copies of
read handwriting Windows 3.1 in first
introduced. two months.
 World Wide Web  Prodigy serves 1

standards released million subscribers.

that describe  PDA announced by
framework for Apple.
linking documents
on different
computers.
1993 - 1997
 September 1994 –  1996 – Heavy
Netscape web traffic on Internet
browser becomes causes World Wide
available. Wait.
 1995 – Toy Story,  1997 – Worldwide:
fully generated by  50 million World
computer. Wide Web users
 15 million Internet
 August 1995 –
hosts computers.
Windows 95 is  150 countries on
launched. the Internet.
1997 – 2002
 1997 – Deep Blue  2000 – Dot com
beats chess master goes dot bust –
Kasparov in game of growth of Internet
chess. companies comes to
 1999 – Y2K worries a screeching halt.
cause companies to  2001 – Microsoft
spend $500 billion introduces XP as its
worldwide. newest Operating
System.