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Home , Analytical engine, Arithmometer, Bjarne Stroustrup, Difference Engine, John Cocke, Timeline of computing

o commemorate the 50th year of T modern and the Society, the timeline on the following pages traces the evolution of computing and computer technology.

Timeline research by Bob Carlson, Angela Burgess, and Christine Miller. Timeline design and production by Larry Bauer. We thank our reviewers: Ted Biggerstaff, George Cybenko, Martin Campbell-Kelly, Alan Davis, Dan O’Leary, Edward Parrish, and Michael Williams.

Timeline of Computing History 4000-1200 B.. Inhabitants of 3000 B.C. The abacus is invented the first known in Babylonia. civilization in Sumer keep records of 250-230 B.C. The Sieve of commercial Eratosthenes is used to determine transactions on prime numbers. clay tablets.

About 79 A.D. The “Antikythera IBM Archives Device,” when set correctly About 1300 The more familiar wire- according to latitude and day of and-bead abacus replaces the Chinese The University Museum, of Pennsylvania the week, gives alternating calculating rods. 29- and 30-day lunar months.

4000 B.C. — 1300 1612-1614 John Napier uses the printed decimal point, devises , and 1622 William Oughtred 1666 In uses numbered sticks, or Napiers Bones, invents the circular , for calculating. slide rule on the basis Samuel of Napier’s logarithms. Morland produces a mechanical 1623 William (Wilhelm) that can add Schickard designs a and subtract. “calculating clock” with a gear-driven carry mechanism to aid in The Computer Museum multiplication of multi- 1642-1643 Blaise Pascal creates a gear-driven digit numbers. adding called the “Pascalene,” the

The Computer Museum first mechanical adding machine.

1600s 1801 A linked sequence of punched cards controls the weaving of patterns in Joseph-Marie Jacquard’s loom.

1774 Philipp-Matthaus Hahn builds and sells a small number of calculating precise to 12 digits.

1777 The third Earl of Stanhope invents a multiplying calculator. IBM Archives 1674 Gottfried Leibniz builds the 1786 J.H. Mueller envisions a “,” a calculator using “” but cannot

a stepped cylindrical gear. get the funds to build it. IBM Archives

1674-1801 1822 1820 The Thomas begins to design and Arithmometer, based build the Difference on Leibniz’ stepped- Engine. drum principle, is demonstrated to the French Academy of Science. It becomes the first mass-produced calculator and sells for many years. IBM Archives 1811 Luddites destroy machinery that threatens to eliminate jobs.

1811 — 1822 1832 Babbage and 1834-35 Babbage shifts his focus to Joseph Clement designing the . produce a portion of . 1838 In January 1829 William Samuel Morse Austin Burt patents and Alfred Vail an awkward but demonstrate workable typewriter, elements of the the first writing telegraph system. machine in America. IBM Archives IBM Archives

1829 — 1838 1842-43 Augusta Ada, 1847-49 Babbage completes 21 drawings for Countess of Lovelace, the second version of the Difference Engine translates Luigi but does not complete construction. Menabrea’s pamphlet on the Analytical Engine, adding her own commentary. 1854 George Boole publishes “An 1844 Samuel Investigation Morse sends a of the Laws of telegraph Thought,” message from describing a system for symbolic and Washington to logical reasoning that will become The Computer Museum

Baltimore. Smithsonian Institution Photo No. 89-22161 the basis for computer design. 1842 — 1854 1876 Alexander 1876-1878 Baron 1858 A Graham Bell Kelvin builds a telegraph invents and harmonic analyzer cable spans patents the and tide predictor. the Atlantic telephone. Ocean for the first time and provides service for a few days. National Inventors Hall of Fame Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 1861 A transcontinental 1882 William S. Burroughs telegraph line connects the leaves his bank clerk’s job Atlantic and Pacific coasts. determined to invent an Smithsonian Institution Photo No. adding machine. Smithsonian Institution 1858 — 1882 1893 The first 1901 The four- keypunch calculator is appears and invented. changes very little over the 1895 Guglielmo next half Marconi transmits century. a radio signal. The Computer Museum

1889 Herman Hollerith’s Electric Tabulating Sys- tem outperforms the competition and in the fall IBM Archives is selected for use in the 1890 census. 1896 Hollerith establishes the Tabulating Machine Company. 1889 — 1901 1906 Lee de Forest adds a third valve to 1911 Hollerith’s Tabulating Machines Co. and control current flow to Fleming’s to two other companies combine to form C-T-R— create the three-electrode . Calculating, Tabulating, and 1907 Gramophone music Recording Co. constitutes the first regular radio broadcasts from New York. 1908 British scientist 1911 Dutch Campbell Swinton physicist describes an electronic Kamerlingh 1904 John scanning method and Onnes at Leiden A. Fleming foreshadows use of the University

patents the Smithsonian Institution Photo No. 351 cathode-ray tube for discovers diode vacuum tube, setting the stage television. superconductivity. for better radio communication. IBM Archives 1904 — 1911 1915 Use of microchips is foreshadowed as physicist Manson Benedicks discovers that the germanium crystal can be used to convert alternating current to direct current.

1919 Eccles and Jordan, US physicists, invent the flip-flop electronic switching circuit critical to high-speed electronic IBM Archives 1912 The Institute counting systems. 1924 T.J. Watson of Radio Engineers, renames CTR which will eventually to IBM and merge with other 1920-1921 The word “robot” (derived from popularizes the organizations to the Czech word for compulsory labor) is first “Think” slogan he form the IEEE, used by Karel Câpek in his play RUR (Rossum’s coined at National is established. Universal Robots). Cash Register. IBM Archives 1912 — 1924 1934 In Germany, Konrad 1927 Herbert Hoover’s face 1930 The Differential Zuse seeks to build a better is seen on screen during Analyzer, devised by calculating machine than the first demonstration of and those currently available. television in the US. colleagues at MIT, solves Accompanying voice various differential transmission uses equations. telephone wires.

1928 The quartz crystal 1931 Reynold B. Johnson, clock makes possible a high school teacher in unprecedented time- Michigan, devises a way to keeping accuracy. score multiple-choice tests by sensing conductive

1929 Color television Center for the History of Electrical Engineering pencil marks on answer signals are successfully sheets. IBM later buys the transmitted. technology. 1927 — 1934 1935 IBM introduces not 1937 Howard Aiken submits only the 601 multiplying to IBM a proposal for a digital punch-card machine but calculating machine capable of also an electric typewriter. performing the four fundamental operations of and operating in a predetermined 1936 realizes sequence. that programs composed of bit combinations can 1937 be stored, and he files a publishes the principles for an patent application in electric adder to the base two. Germany for the IBM Archives automatic execution of 1937 George Stibitz develops calculations, including a a binary circuit based on

IBM Archives “combination memory.” Boolean algebra.

1935 — 1937 1939 Working from October through November, 1937 Alan , with help from graduate Turing’s student Clifford E. Berry, builds paper “On a prototype Computable electronic-digital Numbers” computer that presents the uses binary concept of arithmetic. the Turing machine. 1938 Zuse completes the Iowa State University

HP Company Archives electromechanical 1937 John Vincent Atanasoff binary computer spends the winter devising the 1938 William Hewlett and and refines the principles for an electronic- David Packard form Hewlett- design with the digital computer. Packard in a garage in Palo Alto, . Iowa State University California. 1937— 1939 1940 Konrad Zuse completes the Z2, which 1944 The (a.k.a. IBM uses telephone relays instead of mechanical Automatic Sequence Controlled logical circuits. Calculator [ASCC]), produced by Howard Aiken, is dedicated at Harvard 1941 Zuse completes the , the first University on August 7, 1944. fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer.

1943 On May 31, 1943, con- 1943 In December, struction begins on the Colossus, a British ENIAC at the Moore School vacuum tube of Electrical Engineering in computer, becomes Philadelphia. operational Bletchley Park Museum at Bletchley Park through the combined efforts of , Tommy Flowers, and M.H.A. Newman. It is

considered the first all-electronic calculating device. IBM Archives 1940 — 1944 1945 J. Presper 1945 John von Eckert and John Neumann introduces Mauchly sign a the concept of a stored contract to build the program in a June 30 EDVAC (Electronic draft report on the Discrete Variable EDVAC design. Automatic 1945 Working on a prototype of the Mark II, Computer). 1945 Zuse’s survives in the summer Grace Murray Hopper finds the World War II and helps first computer “bug,” a moth that had caused launch postwar devel- a relay failure. 1945 By spring of opment of scientific the year, ENIAC is in Germany. 1945 In July, Vannevar Bush’s As up and running. We May Think is published in the IEEE Annals of History Computing Atlantic Monthly.

1945 1946 The American Institute of Electrical Engineers establishes a Subcommittee on Large-Scale 1946 Arthur Calculating Devices—the origin Burks, Herman of today’s IEEE Computer Society. Goldstine, and write “Preliminary Discussion of the Logical Design 1946 Alan US Army Photo of an Electronic Turing Computing 1946 ENIAC, designed by J. Presper publishes a The Computer Museum Eckert and , is unveiled Instrument.” report on his design for ACE (Auto- at the University of Pennsylvania on matic Computing Engine), featuring February 14. Center for the History of Electrical Engineering random extraction of information. 1946 1947 In July, Howard Aiken and his team complete the Harvard Mark II. 1947-48 The magnetic is introduced as a Bell Laboratories storage device for computers.

1947 On December 23, management is informed by and Walter Brattain that along with William Shockley IEEE Annals of History Computing

they have developed the first . The Computer Museum 1947 — 1948 1948 devises a way to 1948 Claude find and correct errors in blocks of data. Shannon publishes The Hamming code is subsequently used in “A Mathematical computer and telephone switching systems. Theory of Communication,” formulating the modern understanding of the communication process. Bell Laboratories The Computer Museum 1948 On June 21, the Manchester Mark I, or “baby” machine, becomes the first operational stored-program digital computer. It used vacuum tube, or valve, circuits. Bell Laboratories 1948 1948 The SSEC (Selective 1949 The 1949 EDSAC (Electronic Delayed Storage Sequence Electronic Calculator), Whirlwind Automatic Computer), a stored-program using both and relays, computer, computer built by at is dedicated on January 24. constructed Cambridge University, England, performs under the its first calculation on May 6. leadership of Jay Forrester at MIT to be the 1949 Short Order Code, developed by first real-time John Mauchly, is thought to be the first computer, is high-level programming language. placed in service during the third quarter. It 1950 The Pilot ACE is completed at contained 5,000 England’s National Physical Laboratory

The Computer Museum vacuum tubes. and runs its first program on May 10. IBM Archives

1948 — 1950 1950 Remington Rand buys the Eckert-Mauchly Computer 1951 Jay Forrester files a patent Corporation. application for the matrix core memory on May 11. 1950 The Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC), built under Harry Huskey’s leadership, is dedicated at UCLA on August 17.

1950 Alan Turing publishes Smithsonian 0Institution an article in the journal Mind 1951 The first Univac I is delivered to establishing the criteria for the US Census Bureau in March. the Turing Test of machine intelligence. Center for the History of Electrical Engineering 1950-1951 1951 David Wheeler, Maurice Wilkes, and Stanley Gill introduce sub- programs and the “Wheeler jump” as a means to implement them. 1951 Maurice Wilkes originates 1951 the concept creates a sort-merge of micro- generator, a programming, Bell Laboratories predecessor a technique 1951-1952 1951 William Shockley invents the of the providing an orderly approach Grace Murray Hopper junction transistor. compiler. to designing a computer system’s develops A-0, the control section. first compiler.

1951-1952 1952 The EDVAC runs its first production program on January 28.

1952 Illiac I is built at the University of 1952 John Illinois, Urbana- von Neumann’s Champaign; Ordvac IAS bit-parallel is built by the US machine is Army. Both use completed in von Neumann June for the architecture. Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton, New Jersey. Institute for Advanced Study IEEE Annals of History Computing

1952 1952 Thomas Watson Jr. becomes president of IBM. 1952 The Institute of Radio Engineers initiates the Transactions 1952 The IBM of the I.R.E. Electronics Group 701—the Defense on Electronic Computers, a Calculator—is predecessor to the introduced in IEEE Transactions on Computers. December.

1952 On television, a Univac I predicts the outcome of the presidential election and expands the public consciousness

regarding computers. IBM Archives IBM Archives

1952 1953 The IBM 1954 Earl Masterson’s Uniprinter, or line 650, known as printer, developed for computers, executes the Magnetic 600 lines per minute. Drum Calculator, debuts and becomes the first mass- produced 1954 Texas computer. Instruments introduces the

IEEE Annals of History Computing silicon transistor, 1953 After several years of development, Digital Equipment Corporation pointing the way LEO, a commercial version of EDSAC built 1953 Kenneth Olsen uses Jay For- to lower by the Lyons Company in the UK, goes rester’s ferrite-core memory to manufacturing costs. into service. build the Memory Test computer. Texas Intruments Incorporated 1953 — 1954 1956 John McCarthy and 1957 and 1954 The Univac chair a colleagues at IBM deliver 1103A becomes the meeting at Dartmouth the first Fortran (formula first commercial College at which the translator) compiler to machine with a concept of artificial Westinghouse. ferrite-core intelligence is developed. c memory. c c Hello, world. 1956 Fuji Photo Film Co. in c c Hello, world. c Program Hello Japan develops a 1,700- Program Hello vacuum-tube computer for implicit none logicalimplicit DONE none 1956-57 IBM lens design calculations. logical DONE DO while (.NOT. DONE) introduces and write(*,10)DO while (.NOT. DONE) begins installing 1956 A Univac with ENDwrite(*,10) DO 10 format(‘Hello,END DO world.’)

IBM Archives and designed the RAMAC 10END format(‘Hello, world.’) (random-access method of accounting and for commercial use is END control) for hard disk data storage. introduced. http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1954 — 1957 1957 The Atlas Guidance Computer from 1957 Control Data is incorporated on July 8. Burroughs, one of the first computers using transistors, helps control the launch of the Atlas missile. 1957 Russia launches Sputnik I into orbit on October 4, and the “space race” begins.

1957-1958 Gordon Moore, Robert 1957 Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. Noyce, and others found Fairchild develops the Musasino-1, the first parametron Semiconductor. computer. It uses 519 vacuum tubes and 5,400 parametrons—logic elements based on the 1957 Japan’s Electrotechnical principle of parametric excitation and Laboratory develops a transistor invented by Eiji Goto in 1954. computer, the ETL Mark III, that uses 130 transistors and 1,700 . 1957 John McCarthy forms MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Department. 1957 1958 At Texas Instruments, 1958 The Whirlwind project develops a prototype semiconductor IC is extended to produce an air while works separately traffic control system. on ICs at Fairchild Semiconductor. The Computer Museum Bell Laboratories

1958 Digital Equipment Corp. is 1958 Bell’s development of the founded. Texas Instruments Incorporated modem data phone enables telephone lines to transmit binary data. 1958 http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 000100 IDENTIFICATION DIVISION. 000200 PROGRAM-ID. HELLOWORLD. ; LISP 000300000200 DATE-WRITTEN.02/05/96 PROGRAM-ID. HELLOWORLD. 21:04. ; LISP 000300 DATE-WRITTEN.02/05/96 21:04. (DEFUN HELLO-WORLD () 000400* AUTHOR JOHN JONES (DEFUN HELLO-WORLD(PRINT () (LIST ‘HELLO ‘WORLD))) 000500000400* ENVIRONMENT AUTHOR DIVISION. JOHN JONES (PRINT (LIST ‘HELLO ‘WORLD))) 000600000500 CONFIGURATION ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.SECTION. 000700000600 SOURCE-COMPUTER. CONFIGURATION SECTION. RM-COBOL. 000800000700 OBJECT-COMPUTER. SOURCE-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL. RM-COBOL. 1959 John McCarthy develops Lisp (list 000900000800 OBJECT-COMPUTER. RM-COBOL. 001000000900 DATA DIVISION. processing) for artificial intelligence 001100001000 FILE DATA SECTION. DIVISION. applications. 001200001100 FILE SECTION. 100000001200 PROCEDURE DIVISION. 100100100000 PROCEDURE DIVISION. 1959 In June, Japan’s first 100200100100 MAIN-LOGIC SECTION. 100300100200 BEGIN. MAIN-LOGIC SECTION. The Computer Museum commercial transistor computer, NEC 100400100300 BEGIN. DISPLAY “ ” LINE 1 POSITION 1 ERASE EOS. 1959 The Committee on Corp.’s NEAC 2201, is demonstrated 100500100400 DISPLAY DISPLAY “HELLO, “ ” LINE WORLD.” 1 POSITION LINE 151 ERASEPOSITION EOS. 10. 100600100500 STOP DISPLAY RUN. “HELLO, WORLD.” LINE 15 POSITION 10. Data Systems Languages at an exhibition in Paris. 100700100600 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT. STOP RUN. (Codasyl) is formed to create 100800100700 MAIN-LOGIC-EXIT. EXIT. 100800 EXIT. Cobol (Common Business 1959 Xerox introduces the first http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml Oriented Language). commercial copy machine. 1959 1959 On July 30, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore file a patent application for technology on behalf of the Fairchild Semiconductor Corp.

1959 UNESCO sponsors the first major international computer conference. Texas Instruments Incorporated 1959 Jack Kilby at 1959 General Electric produces the Texas Instruments GE ERMA to process checks in a designs a flip-flop IC. banking application via magnetic

ink character recognition. Charles Babbage institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 1959 1960 Standards BEGIN 1960 In November, DEC introduces the FILE F (KIND=REMOTE); for Algol 60 are PDP-1, the first commercial computer EBCDIC ARRAY E [0:11]; established REPLACE E BY “HELLO WORLD!”; with a monitor and keyboard input. WHILE TRUE DO jointly by BEGIN American and WRITE (F, *, E); END; European END. computer scientists.

http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1960 The Livermore Advance Research Computer (LARC) by Remington Rand is designed for Rand Corp. scientific work and uses 60,000 transistors. 1960 Working at Rand Corp., Paul Baran develops the 1960 At Cornell University, Frank Rosenblatt packet-switching principle for builds a computer—the Perceptron—that can data communications. learn by trial and error through a neural network. Digital Equipment Corporation 1960 1961 Georg C. 1961 IBM’s 7030, or Devol patents a Stretch, computer is robotic device, completed and runs which Unimation about 30 times soon markets as faster than the 704, the first industrial leading to further robot. It is first exploration of used to automate supercomputing. the manufacture of TV picture tubes.

1961 Fernando Corbató at MIT develops a way for multiple users to share computer time. IBM Archives The Computer Museum

1961 1962 Max V. Mathews leads a Bell 1962 The first video game is invented by MIT 1962 The Telstar communications Labs team in developing that graduate student Steve Russell. It is soon satellite is launched on July 10 and can design, store, and edit synthesized played in computer labs all over the US. relays the first transatlantic television music. pictures.

1962 Atlas, considered the world’s 1962 Stanford and Purdue Universities most powerful computer, is establish the first departments of inaugurated in England on December . 7. Its advances include virtual memory and pipelined operations.

1962 H. Ross Perot founds Electronic 1963 On the basis of an idea of Alan Data Systems, which will become the Turing’s, Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT world’s largest computer service bureau. develops a “mechanical psychiatrist” called Eliza that appears to possess The Computer Museum intelligence. 1962-1963 1963 In January, intro- 1963 The SAGE system for military defense is duces Sketchpad, leading to the consol- fully deployed at a total project cost of about $8 idation of computer graphics. billion. Many of its technological advances prove beneficial to the entire computer industry.

1963 At the 1963 The University of American California, National Berkeley, Standards Lotfi Zadeh Institute Center for the History of Electrical Engineering begins work accepts ASCII 1963 The Institute of Radio on fuzzy 7-bit code for Engineers and the American logic. information Institute of Electrical Engineers The Computer Museum The Computer Museum exchange. merge to form the IEEE. 1963 1964 IBM’s seven-year-long Sabre project, allowing travel agents anywhere to make 1964 Basic (Beginner’s airline reservations, is fully implemented. All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is developed at Dartmouth by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. It spawns many variations.

10 print “Hello World!” 20 goto 10

IBM Archives http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1964 IBM announces the System/360 “third-generation” line of computers. IBM Archives 1964 1964 With a speed of 1964 Doug Engelbart 9 megaflops, Control invents the mouse. Data Corp.’s CDC 6600, designed by Seymour Cray, claims the title of first commercially successful .

1964 IBM develops a computer- aided design Bootstrap Institute

University of Virginia system.

1964 1965 J.A. Robinson develops unification, the underpinning of logic programming and important to many of today’s programming technologies. The Computer Museum

1965 DEC debuts the first , 1965 Maurice Wilkes The Computer Museum the PDP-8, which used transistor circuitry proposes the use of a 1965 At the University of modules. cache memory on the Belgrade, Rajko Tomovic basis of an idea by makes one of the earliest 1965 Project MAC, a large collaborative Gordon Scarott. attempts to develop an

The Computer Museum time-sharing project, leads to the Multics artificial limb with a sense . of touch. 1965 http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml

Begin 1968 A conference while 1 = 1 do begin sponsored by the NATO outtext (“Hello World!”); outimage; 1967 At Texas Science Committee end; Instruments, Jack Kilby, addresses the “software End; Jerry Merryman, and crisis” and introduces James Van Tassel the term “software 1967 Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen invent a four-function engineering.” Nygaard at the Norwegian Computing handheld calculator. Centre complete a general-purpose version of the language , the first object-oriented language. 1967 writes about 1968 Edsger and data structures as Dijkstra writes 1967 Fairchild introduces its entities separate from the programs about the harmful effects of the goto 3800 8-bit ALU chip. they are used in. statement, and interest in structured programming burgeons. 1967 — 1968 1968 The first computers to 1968 The Seymour Cray-designed incorporate integrated circuits— CDC 7600 supercomputer achieves the B2500 and B3500—are 40-megaflops performance. introduced by Burroughs. 1968 The Rand Corp. presents a decentralized communications 1968 A Federal Information network concept to ARPA. Processing Standard encourages use of the six-digit data format (YYMMDD) for information interchange, sowing the seeds of the “Year 2000 Crisis.” 1968 Robert Noyce, Andy Grove, and Gordon Moore establish Intel, which is Intel Corporation incorporated on July 18. 1968 1969 Bell Labs withdraws from 1970 Shakey, Project MAC, which developed developed at SRI Multic, and begins to develop Unix. International, is the first robot to 1969 The RS-232-C standard is use artificial introduced to facilitate data exchange intelligence to between computers and peripherals. navigate.

1970 Winston Royce 1969 The US Department of Defense publishes “Managing commissions Arpanet for research the Development of networking, and the first four nodes Large Software become operational at UCLA, UC Systems,” which Santa Barbara, SRI, and the University outlines the waterfall The Computer Museum The Computer Museum of Utah. development method. 1969 — 1970 1970 The Computer Group News becomes Computer, a monthly magazine for all Computer Society members.

1970 RCA’s MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) technology promises cheaper and smaller ICs.

1970 Xerox establishes the Palo Alto Research Center at Stanford University IBM Archives

Bell Laboratories for computer research. Bell Laboratories 1970 Unix is developed at Bell Labs by 1970 The floppy disk and and Kenneth Thomson. 1970 E.F. Codd describes the the daisywheel printer relational model. make their debut. 1970 http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1971 Don Hoefler writes a series of articles for Electronic News called “Silicon Valley USA,” using in print the name Program Hello (Input, Output); that had been adopted to describe the area. Begin Writeln (‘Hello World!’); End.

1971 develops Pascal, a predecessor to Modula-2. 1971 David Parnas describes the 1971 Ray Tomlinson

Intel Corporation principle of of Bolt Beranek 1971 The information hiding. and Newman IEEE Computer 1971 The team of Ted Hoff, Group S. Mazor, and F. Fagin sends the first network e-mail becomes the develops the Intel 4004 IEEE Computer microprocessor—a message. Bolt Beranek and Newman Society. “computer on a chip.” 1971 http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1972 Dennis Ritchie #include develops C at Bell 1972 Intel’s 8008, the first main() Labs, so named 8-bit microprocessor, appears { for(;;) because its but is soon replaced by the { predecessor was 8080. printf (“Hello World!\n”); } named B. }

1972 Nolan Bushnell’s Pong video game is so successful that he founds Atari. http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml 1972 Smalltalk is Transcript show: ‘Hello World’;cr developed by HP Company Archives Xerox PARC’s 1972 Hand-held become Learning Research popular, making the slide rule obsolete. Group, based largely on the ideas of . 1972 1972 Alain Colmerauer at the University of 1972 Wang, VYDEC, Marseille develops Prolog, which popularizes and Lexitron all key logic programming concepts. introduce word pro- cessing systems. % HELLO WORLD Works with Sbp (prolog) hello :- printstring (“HELLO WORLD!!!!”) 1972 In Wimbledon, printstring ([]) England, an printstring ([H|T]) :- put (H), printstring (T). experimental computerized axial

http://www.latec.doc/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml tomography imager finds a brain tumor The Computer Museum 1972 Analytic complexity theory develops in a patient. the idea of NP-completeness, showing 1972 DEC’s PDP 11/45 is introduced, that a large class of computing problems, its circuitry encased in chips. such as the “traveling salesman problem,” may be computationally intractable. 1972 1973 Researchers at Xerox PARC 1972 Steve develop an experimental PC called Wozniak builds Alto that uses a mouse, Ethernet, a “blue box” and a graphical user interface. tone generator to make free 1973 Work begins on the phone calls Transmission Control Protocol at and sells them a Stanford University laboratory in the dorm at headed by Vinton Cerf. UC Berkeley. 1973 Alan Kay develops a forerunner of the PC. His “office computer,” based on Smalltalk, employs icons, graphics, Xerox PARC

The Computer Museum and a mouse.

1972 — 1973 1973 Through a technique called large- 1974 An article in scale integration, 10,000 components Radio Electronics are placed on a 1-sq-cm chip. describes how to build a “personal minicomputer,” 1974 A 4-Kbit the Mark-8. D-RAM chip 1973 John Vincent Atanasoff is recognized becomes as the creator of the modern computer 1974 At Xexoc PARC, commercially when a federal judge invalidates Eckert available. and Mauchly’s ENIAC patent. Charles Simonyi

Robert Metcalfe writes the first WYSIWYG 1973 writes a memo on 1974 In Stockholm, application, Bravo. “Ether Acquisition,” which describes the chess-playing Ethernet as a modified Alohanet. computers engage in their first tournament. 1973 — 1974

84 Computer 1975 Michael Jackson describes a method to treat a program’s structure as a reflection of a problem’s structure, a precursor to the Jackson System Development method.

1975 works on the 1975 The first 801 project at IBM to develop a PC, an Altair minicomputer with 8800, available the yet-unnamed as a kit, RISC architecture. 1975 Frederick appears on the Brooks writes The George C. Page Museum, © LACMNH cover of Popu- The Mythical Man-Month, which describes software 1975 IBM introduces development as “the mortal struggle of great beasts in lar Electronics the laser printer. in January. the tar pits” and advises that adding more people to a

The Computer Museum late project only makes it later. 1975 1976 Gary Kildall develops the CP/M operating system for 8-bit PCs.

1976 OnTyme, the first commercial e-mail service, finds a limited market because the installed base of potential users is too small. The Computer Museum The Computer Museum 1976 The Cray-1 from Cray Research is 1976 IBM develops the 1976 Steve Jobs and the first supercomputer with a vectorial ink-jet printer. design and build the Apple I , which architecture. consists mostly of a circuit board. 1976 1977 Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Microsoft, setting up shop first in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1977 The Apple II is announced in the spring and establishes the benchmark for personal computers.

1977 Several companies begin experimenting

Apple Computer, Inc. with fiber-optic cable. 1977 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak incorporate Apple Computer on January 3. Microsoft Archives

1977 1977 PCs from Tandy and Commodore come with built-in monitors and thus require no television hookup. Digital Equipment Corporation 1978 DEC introduces the VAX 11/780, a The Computer Museum 32-bit computer that becomes popular for

The Computer Museum technical and scientific applications.

1977-1978 1978 Wordstar is introduced and 1978 Tom DeMarco’s Structured goes on to Analysis and System Specification become a widely popularizes structured analysis. used word processor with CP/M systems 1978 , , and later on DOS and Leonard Adelman propose computers. the RSA cipher as a public-key cryptosystem for enciphering digital transmissions. [email protected]

1979 Benoit Mandelbrot continues his 1978 Intel’s first 16-bit research into fractals by generating a processor, the 8086, debuts. Mandelbrot set, derived from z(n + 1) = z(n) * z(n) − (0). 1978 — 1979 1979 The first electronic spreadsheet program, Don Bricklin’s and Bob Franston’s VisiCalc, is unveiled on May 11 and proves to be the “killer app” for early PCs.

1979 Motorola introduces the 68000 chip, which will later support the Macintosh.

1979 Digital videodisks

appear through the © 1996 Motorola Museum of Electronics The Computer Museum efforts of Sony and 1979 Cellular telephones are Philips. tested in Japan and Chicago.

1979 http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml

with i_o; use i_o; procdure hello is begin 1980 put (“Hello World!”); end Hello; After a long development period, the Ada language emerges. Developed by the US Department of Defense, it is designed for process control and embedded applications. Microsoft Archives

1980 IBM selects PC-DOS from upstart 1980 Wayne Ratliff develops dBase Microsoft as the operating system for II, the first version of a PC database 1980 The Osborne 1 “portable” its new PC. program. It goes on to enjoy wide computer weighs 24 pounds and market success. is the size of a small suitcase. 1980 1981 Barry Boehm devises Cocomo (Constructive Cost Model), a software cost-estimation model.

1981 Japan grabs a big piece of the chip market by producing chips with 64 Kbits of memory.

1980 David A. Patterson at 1981 Xerox introduces a UC Berkeley begins using commercial version of the Alto IBM Archives the term “reduced-instruction called the Xerox Star. 1981 The open-architecture IBM PC is launched in set” and, with John Hennessy August, signaling to corporate America that desktop at Stanford, develops the concept. computing is going mainstream. 1980-1981 1982 Columbia Data 1982 John Warnock Products produces the develops the PostScript first IBM PC “clone.” page-description Compaq soon follows language and with with its own version. Charles Geschke founds Adobe Systems.

1982 Autodesk is founded and ships the first version of AutoCAD later that year. Cray Research

Adobe Systems, Inc. 1982 Time magazine names the computer as 1982 The Cray X-MP (two Cray-1 its “Man of the Year.” computers linked in parallel) proves three times faster than a Cray-1. 1982 1982 Japan launches its “fifth 1983 A Josephson junction is generation” computer project, focusing Lotus developed on the basis of Brian on artificial intelligence. Josephson’s 1962 prediction, bringing higher speed and lower power dissipation to ICs. 1982 Commercial e-mail service begins among 25 cities. 1983 By including graphics such as pie charts and bar 1983 The IBM PC-XT heads for market 1982 In November, Compaq unveils an graphs, Lotus success, while the PC Junior faces quick IBM-compatible portable PC. 1-2-3 does for the extinction. IBM PC what VisiCalc did for the Apple II. 1983 Completion of the TCP/IP switchover marks the creation of the global Internet.

1982 — 1983 1983 Thinking Machines Corp. and Ncube are founded, providing a boost to parallel processing.

#include int main() { char *s1, *s2; par { s1 = “hello, ”; s2 = “world\n”;

Apple Computer, Inc. } cout << s1 << s2 << endl; Bell Laboratories 1983 Though not destined for commercial success, return(0); 1983 At AT&T Bell Labs, Apple’s Lisa, launched in May, shows what can be done } continues

with a mouse, icons, and pulldown menus. http://www.latec.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml work on C++, an OO extension to C. 1983 1984 In January, the Macintosh is unveiled with a publicity campaign that includes an Orwellian-themed ad during the Super Bowl. 1984 Apple gives computer graphics a boost with its MacPaint program.

1984 MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital

Apple Computer, Inc. Interface) standards

are developed for Smithsonian Institution Photo No. interfacing computers 1984 The CD-ROM, introduced by Sony and digital music and Philips, provides significantly greater

Apple Computer, Inc. synthesizers. storage capacity for . 1984 Scientific perspective of change: Fluid-dynamics applications

1984 A motion picture, The Last Starfighter, uses extensive supercomputer-generated graphics.

1984 NEC manufactures a 1984 Beginning 256-Kbit chip, and IBM in August, introduces a 1-Mbit RAM Intel’s 16-bit chip. 80286 chip, installed in IBM’s new © 1996 Motorola Museum of Electronics 1984 In Neuromancer, novelist coins the term PC AT, expands 1984 Motorola introduces “cyberspace.” desktop the MC68020 with 250,000 computer transistors. capabilities. Intel Corporation 1984 1985 With the 1985 Inmos introduces development transputers, featuring of Windows 1.0, concurrent processing Microsoft brings architecture. Macintosh-like features to DOS-compatible 1985 The National computers. Science Foundation establishes four national supercomputing 1985 The Omnibot 1985 Supercomputer speeds reach 1 billion centers. 2000 from Tony operations per second with the release of Kyogo can move, the Cray 2 and Thinking Machines’ parallel- talk, and carry processor Connection Machine. The Computer Museum objects. 1985 1985 Paul Brainard’s PageMaker becomes the first PC desktop publishing program and is widely used, first on the Macintosh and later on IBM compatibles.

1985 In October, Intel introduces the 80386 chip with 32-bit processing and on-chip memory Adobe Systems, Inc. Intel Corporation management. Adobe Systems, Inc.

1985 PROCESS EVOLUTION 1986 An article in the Wall 1987 Experimental 4- OPTIMIZING

Street Journal helps to and 16-Mbit chips are PROCESS popularize the introduced. CONTROL concept and term CASE, for MANAGED PROCESS computer-aided software MEASUREMENT engineering. DEFINED 1987 Watts Humphrey PROCESS (pictured) and William DEFINITION REPEATABLE

Sweet, of the Software BASIC MANAGEMENT 1986 The four-processor Engineering Institute, CONTROL Cray XP performs 713 million publish a “process INITIAL floating-point operations maturity framework,” per second. which becomes the Capability Maturity Model, designed to help predict a developer’s ability to produce reliable software.

1986 — 1987 1988 Motorola’s 32-bit 88000 series of 1988 Steve Jobs’ Next computer debuts but, RISC microprocessors offer processing despite advanced features, attracts too few speeds of up to 17 million instructions buyers to compete in the market. per second.

1988 Graduate student Robert Morris Jr. reveals the need for greater network security by releasing a worm program into the Internet on November 2.

1988 Barry Boehm publishes a description of the spiral model of software development, which recognizes the need to Next Software incrementally build systems. 1988 1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposes 1989 The first set of SPEC the World Wide Web project to benchmarks is released, facilitating CERN (European Council for machine performance comparisons Nuclear Research). for scientific computation tasks.

1989 Intel’s 80486 chip with 1.2 million transistors is introduced in April. 1990 Microsoft introduces 1989 Seymour Cray founds Windows 3.0 Microsoft Archives Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cray Computer Corp. and in May, intensifying begins developing the Cray 3 its legal dispute with Apple over the soft- using gallium arsenide chips. ware’s “look and feel” resemblance to the Macintosh operating system. 1989 — 1990 1990 Scientists at Bell Labs 1990 Arpanet is officially demonstrate the first all-optical decommissioned. processor on January 29. 1991 The Japanese Ministry of Trade and 1990 Hewlett-Packard and IBM both Industry abandons its program to build a announce RISC-based computers. fifth-generation computer and plans instead for a sixth-generation computer to be based on neural networks. 1990 Intel’s i486 and iPSC/860, and Motorola’s 68040 become available. 1991 Cray Research unveils the Cray Y-MP C90 with 16 processors and a

1990 Berners-Lee writes the initial speed of 16 Gflops. University of Virginia prototype for the World Wide Web, which uses his other creations: 1991 IBM, Motorola, and Apple’s PowerPC URLs, HTML, and HTTP. alliance is announced on July 30. 1990 — 1991 1992 After generating great concern in early March, the Michelangelo virus results in little actual damage.

1992 In March, the first M-bone audio 1993 Apple multicast is transmitted releases the Digital Equipment Corporation on the Net. Newton, the Apple Computer, Inc./John Lund 1992 DEC introduces the first chip first popular personal digital assistant. It uses to implement its 64-bit RISC Alpha a stylus pen, and the first generation suffers architecture. from poor handwriting recognition. 1992 — 1993 1994 In April, Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen found Netscape Communications (originally Mosaic Communications).

1994 of the University of Southern California demonstrates that DNA can be University of Illinois Board Trustees used as a computing medium. 1993 Students and staff at the University of Intel Corporation Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing 1994 Netscape’s first browser 1993 Intel’s Pentium is Applications create a graphical user interface becomes available in September introduced in March. for Internet navigation called NCSA Mosaic. and creates a rapidly growing body of Web surfers.

1993 — 1994 1995 Toy Story is the first full-length 1996 The Intel Pentium feature movie Pro is announced. completely computer generated.

1995 The Java programming language, unveiled 1996 The IEEE Computer in May, enables Society celebrates its platform- 50th anniversary. independent application development. Microsoft Archives “Duke” is the first 1995 Windows 95 is launched on JavaSoft JavaSoft applet. August 24 with great fanfare. 1995 — 1996