|
Time Period |
Advancement |
Definitive Impact
|
|
3000 BC |
Abacus |
Invention; Babylonia
|
250 – 230 BC |
Sieve of Eratosthenes |
Determines prime numbers |
1300 AD |
Wire and Bead Abacus |
Advancement over Chinese calculating rods |
1492 |
Decimal point |
Francis Pellos of Nice |
c. 1600 |
Algebraic Symbols |
Logical representation for mathematical solutions |
1612 – 14 |
Printed decimal point
Logarithms and Numbered Sticks |
Implemented by John Napier. Logarithms and Numbered Sticks (or Napier Bones) used for calculating and were a precursor to the Slide Rule) |
1622 |
Circular Slide Rule |
Invented by William Oughtred based on Napier’s logarithms |
1623 |
Calculating Clock |
Designed by William (Wilhelm) Schickard. Used a gear-driven carry mechanism to aid in multiplication of multi-digit numbers |
1642 – 43 |
Pascalene |
Adding machine created by Blaise Pascal utilizing a gear drive - the first mechanical adding machine |
1666 |
Mechanical calculator |
Produced by Samuel Morland - It could add and subtract |
| 1674 | Stepped Reckoner | Gottfried Liebniz builds a calculator using a stepped cylindrical gear |
| 1774 | Calculating machines | Built and sold by Philipp-Matthaus Hahn – boasted 12 digit precision |
| 1777 | Multiplying calculator | Invented by the Third Earl of Stanhope |
| 1786 | Difference engine | J. H. Mueller envisions but cannot get the funds to build it |
| 1801 | Punched card programming | Linked sequences utilized in the weaving of patterns in Joseph-Marie Jacquard’s loom |
| 1820 | The Thomas Arithmometer | Based on Liebniz’ stepped-drum principle, is demonstrated to the French Academy of Science |
| 1822 | First relevant Difference Engine | Charles Babbage begins to design and build it |
| 1823 | Binary Arithmetic | The importance of Babbage’s work is recognized by Ada Lovelace, Lord Byron's daughter who, gifted in mathematics, devises a form of binary arithmetic, which uses only the digits 1 and 0. |
| 1834 - 35 | Analytical Engine | Babbage begins initial design |
| 1837 | Telegraph | Invented, Samuel F. B. Morse |
| 1842 - 43 | Menabrea’s treatise on the Analytical Engine | Translated by Augusta Ada - adding her own commentary |
| 1847 - 49 | Difference Engine #2 | Although never completed, Babbage finished 21 drawings for this invention |
| 1854 | An Investigation of the Laws of Thought | George Boole’s system for symbolic and logical reasoning that will become the basis for computer design |
| 1868 | First commercial typewriter | Invented, Christopher Latham Sholes of Milwaukee |
| 1872 | Large-scale analog computer | Developed, Lord Kelvin; predicted the height of tides |
| 1876 | Telephone | Invented, Alexander Graham Bell |
| 1886 | Comptometer | Developer, Dorr E. Felt of Chicago; the first calculator with keys |
| 1889 | Electronic Tabulating System | Herman Hollerith’s "tabulator" outperforms the competition and in the fall is selected for use in the 1890 census. The cards are read electrically |
| 1893 | Calculator | The first four function calculator is invented |
| 1896 | Radio Telegraph | Developer, Guglielmo Marconi |
| 1899 | Magnetic Recorder | Developer, Val Demar Poulsen |
| 1901 | The keypunch | Initial appearance, changes little in the next half century |
| 1904 | Vacuum Tube Diode | Inventor, J. A. Fleming; Improves radio communications and circuit sophistication |
| 1906 | Vacuum Tube Triode | Inventor, L. de Forest; In adding an additional electrode to control current flow, he had gained the ability to amplify signals & create switching circuits |
| 1906 | Analytical Engine | Developer, Henry Babbage, son of Charles; with the help of the firm of R. W. Munro, completes his father's work, just to show that it would have worked. |
| 1911 | Emergence of CTR | Hollerith’s Tabulating Machines Co. and two other companies merge to for Calculating, Tabulating and Recording Co. |
| 1915 | Semiconductors | Physicist, M. Benedicks, discovers the germanium crystal that can be used to convert AC to DC |
| 1919 | First flip-flop circuit design | Published, W. H. Eccles and F. W. Jordan |
| 1923 | Television | Inventor, Vladimir K. Zworykin |
| 1924 | Emergence of IBM | CEO, T. J. Watson renames CTR to International Business Machines, or IBM and popularizes the slogan "THINK" |
| 1925 | Television | First public demonstration |
| 1927 | Black and white TV | First US broadcast |
| 1928 | Quartz Time Base | Allowed for unprecedented accuracy & stability of clock references |
| 1929 | Color TV | First successful broadcast |
| 1930 | Differential Analyzer | Developer, V. Bush and MIT; solved various differential equations |
| 1934 | Calculating Machine | Developer, K. Zuse; builds better machine than was currently available in Germany |
| 1936 | Electric Logic Machine | Developer, Benjamin Burack; Builds the first |
| 1936 | Schematics | Designer, Claude Shannon; demonstrates the relationship between electrical circuitry and symbolic logic |
| 1937 | Base 2 Electric Adder | Developer, C. Shannon; publishes principles of Base 2 adder |
| 1937 | Boolean Circuit | Developer, G. Stibitz; develops a binary circuit based on Boolean Algebra |
| 1937 | Development of Electronic Digital Computer | Developer, J. V. Atanasoff; devises principles for electronic digital computer |
| 1937 | Turing Machine | Professor, Alan M. Turing; publishes a paper on "computable numbers" which introduces the theoretical simplified computer |
| 1938 | Emergence of HP | William Hewlett and David Packard form Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA |
| 1938 | Logic Relay | Designer, Claude E. Shannon; publishes a paper on the implementation of symbolic logic using relays |
| 1938 | Electromechanical Binary Computer | Developer, K. Zuse; Completes the Z1 & refines the design of the Z2 |
| 1939 | Prototyping of Electronic Digital Computer | Developer, J. V. Atanasoff and C. E. Berry; build prototypical Electronic Digital Computer that uses Binary Arithmetic |
| 1939 | Prototype 16-bit Adder | Professor, John V. Atanasoff, Graduate Student, Clifford Berry; first machine to calculate using vacuum tubes |
| 1940 | Electromechanical Binary Computer | Developer, K. Zuse; Completes the Z2 using telephone relays instead of mechanical logic relays |
| 1941 | First operational programmable calculator | Developer, Konrad Zuse; builds V3 calculator |
| 1943 | ENIAC | Construction begins at Moore School |
| 1943 | IBM ASCC (Harvard Mark I) | Developers, H. H. Aiken & Harvard University; ("Automatic Sequence-Controlled Calculator Mark I"). It is the first binary computer built in the U.S. that is operated by electricity |
| 1943 | Heath Robinson | Developers, Max Newman, Wynn-Williams & the secret English Gov’t. Code and Cypher School; complete a specialized machine for cipher-breaking |
| 1945 | ENIAC | Developers, J. W. Mauchly, J. P. Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania; (Electronic Numerical Integrator & Calculator) completed to calibrate projectile trajectories |
| 1945 | EDVAC | Developers, J. W. Mauchly, J. P. Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania; Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer |
| 1945 | Von Neumann Computer | Developer, John von Neumann; drafts a report describing a stored-program computer based on EDVAC |
| 1945 | Z4 | Zuse’s Z4 survives WWII & provides a foundation for computing in post war Germany |
| 1945 | 1st Computer Bug | Programmer, G. M. Hopper; while working on the prototype of the Mark II, discovers a moth caused a failure in one of the relays |
| 1945 | The Transistor | Solid State component to subsequently replace tubes |
| 1946 | Plankalkul | Developer, Konrad Zuse; 1st programming language |
| 1947 | Magnetic Drum Memory | Independently invented by several people |
| 1948 | Manchester Mark I | Developers, Newman, Williams & Manchester University; The first true computer because it's the first with a true stored-program capability |
| 1948 | Hammings Code | Programmer, R. Hamming; developed a way to find & correct errors in blocks of data |
| 1949 | Whirlwind | Developers, J. W. Forrester & MIT; constructed for the US Navy's Office of Research and Inventions. The 1st computer designed for real-time work. This allows the machine to be used for air traffic control |
| 1949 | EDSAC | Developers, M. Wilkes & Cambridge University; Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer |
| 1949 | Short Order Code | Developer, J. W. Mauchly; thought to be the 1st high level programming language |
| 1949 | Magnetic Core Memory | Developer, J. W. Forrester; As it is to become commonly used, a grid of wires used to address the cores |
| 1950 | Computing Machinery and Intelligence | Developer, Alan Turing; publishes text |
| 1951 | UNIVAC(S) I | U.S. Census Bureau takes delivery of the first UNIVAC(S) I |
| 1951 | Matrix Core Memory | Developer, J. W. Forrester; files patent for improved memory design |
| 1951 | The 1st Transistor | Developer, W. Shockley; creates 1st junction transistor |
| 1951 | Code Compiler | Programmer, Grace Murray Hopper; coded 1st compiler |
| 1952 | EDVAC | 1,000 times faster than ENIAC |
| 1952 | ILLIAC I | Built by University of Illinois based on von Neumann architecture |
| 1952 | ORDVAC | Built by US Army based on von Neumann architecture |
| 1952 | IAS Bit Parallel Machine | Built by von Neumann for the Institute fir Advanced Studies |
| 1952 | IBM Leadership | T. J. Watson, Jr. becomes president of IBM |
| 1952 | UNIVAC I | Used to predict outcome of presidential race |
| 1952 | IBM 701 | The Defense Calculator built for the Dept. of Defense |
| 1953 | LEO | Based on the EDSAC, the Lyons Co. of the UK produces the LEO |
| 1953 | IBM 650 | Known as the Magnetic Drum Calculator, it is the 1st of IBM’s to be mass produced |
| 1954 | Uniprinter | Developer, E. Masterson; 1st line printer, capable of 600 lines per minute |
| 1954 | Silicon Transistor | Texas Instruments produces them allowing for faster switching & greater power dissipation |
| 1954 | Ferrite Core Memory | UNIVAC 1103A is the 1st to feature this form of memory |
| 1956 | Artificial Intelligence | Developers, J. McCarthy & M. Minsky; Initial concepts of AI are discussed at Dartmouth College |
| 1956 | Solid State UNIVAC | A UNIVAC comprised of transistors appears in production |
| 1957 | Sputnik | USSR Launches first earth orbiting satellite |
| 1957 | ForTran | Programmers, J. Backus & IBM; deliver the 1st ForTran (or Formula Translator) compiler to Westinghouse |
| 1957 | Atlas Guidance Computer | 1st solid state controller from Burroughs used on the Atlas Missile launcher control project |
| 1957 | 1st Solid State Computer | Japan’s Electrotechnical Laboratory develops a computer utilizing 130 transistors & 1,700 diodes |
| 1957 | AI Department | J. McCarthy forms MIT’s AI Dept. |
| 1957 | Control Data founded | Control Data founded |
| 1958 | Fairchild founded | R. Noyce, G. Moore & others form Fairchild Semiconductor |
| 1958 | DEC founded | Digital Equipment Corp. founded |
| 1958 | Integrated Circuits | At TI, J. Kilby develops a prototype IC, while, independently at Fairchild, R. Noyce achieves similar results |
| 1958 | Whirlwind ATCS | Whirlwind project extended to produce an Air Traffic Control System |
| 1958 | LISP | Developer, McCarthy; Creates first LISP |
| 1958 | 1st Modem | Bell’s modem allowed for the transmission of Binary Data across phone lines |
| 1959 | MIT AI Lab | Developers, Minsky and McCarthy; Research Lab established |
| 1959 | CODASYL & COBOL | The Committee on Data System Languages (CODASYL) is formed to create COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) |
| 1959 | COBOL & LISP | Programming languages for business use & the 1st string processing language, respectively, released |
| 1959 | NEAC 2201 | Japan demonstrates 1st commercial solid state computer in Paris |
| 1959 | Patent application | Noyce & Moore, on behalf of Fairchild, file for a patent on the IC |
| 1959 | MICR & Banking | GE’s ERMA processes checks encoded for MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) |
| 1960 | Algol 60 | European programming language and ancestor of many others, including Pascal, is released. US & European Standards are set |
| 1960 | LARC | Livermore Advance Research Computer boasts 60,000 transistors |
| 1960 | PDP-1 | DEC introduces 1st commercial computer with a monitor & keyboard input |
| 1961 | IBM 7030 (STRETCH) | 30 times faster than IBM 704 |
| 1961 | Time Sharing | Developers, F. Corbato & MIT; developed a method for sharing computer time amongst many users |
| 1962 | EDS Founded | Founder, H. R. Perot; founds Electronic Data Systems, soon to be the largest computer service bureau |
| 1962 | 1st Video game | Developers, S. Russell & MIT; played in labs all over the US |
| 1963 | ASCII Standardized | ANSI accepts ASCII 7 bit code for character interchange |
| 1963-64 | X-Y Position Indicator | Inventor, Doug Englebart; Invents the 1st computer mouse |
| 1964 | BASIC | Programmers, J. Kemeny & T. Kurtz of Dartmouth College; develop the 1st BASIC programming language |
| 1964 | LOCI | Developer, Wang; (Logarithmic Calculating Instrument), a desktop calculator costing far less than a mainframe |
| 1964 | PL1 | Released |
| 1964 | Sabre database system | American Airlines' implements IBM system, eliminates the problem of coordinating information about hundreds of flight reservations across the continent every day |
| 1964 | HP2116A | Hewlett-Packard enters the computer market with the HP2116A real-time computer. It is designed to crunch data acquired from electronic test and measurement instruments |
| 1964 | System 360 | IBM sells over 30,000 core memory based mainframes |
| 1964 | CDC 6600 | Designer, S. Cray; Control Data’s computer was capable of 9 Megaflops, considered the world’s 1st super computer |
| 1964 | Intel | Company founded marketing semiconductors & ICs |
| 1964 | CAD | IBM develops 1st Computer Aided Design System |
| 1965 | PDP-8 | DEC introduces the PDP-8 as the 1st to use transistorized plug-in modules |
| 1965 | Project MAC | Multi-user time sharing development leading to the Multics OS (the precedent to UNIX) |
| 1965 | Cache Memory | Developer, M. Wilkes; based on an idea from G. Scarott, accelerates predictive data access |
| 1967 | Simula | Programmers, O. Dahl & K. Nygaard; develop first fully Object-Oriented Language |
| 1967 | 1st Floppy Disk | IBM develops the 1st floppy disk (8") |
| 1967 | Fairchild 3800 | Fairchild introduces an 8 bit ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) |
| 1968 | B2500 & B3500 | 1st computers to feature integrated circuits from Burroughs |
| 1968 | Y2K Crisis source | A Federal Information Processing Standard encourages the use of the YYMMDD date format – a critical failure to exclude century offset |
| 1968 | CDC 7600 | Cray designed super computer capable of 40 Megaflops |
| 1969 | 1 KB RAM chip | Intel announces a RAM chip, with larger capacity than any previously produced memory chip |
| 1969 | UNIX | Developers, K. Thompson, D. Ritchie & AT&T Bell Laboratories; Unix multitasking (also called time-sharing) operating system featuring virtual memory, multi-user design and security., USA |
| 1969 | ARPANET | Forebear of the Internet, links first two computers at UCLA and Stanford Research Institute. UCLA, UCSB, University of Utah and SRI are the four original members of Arpanet |
| 1969 | First email | Developers, Dr. L. Kleinrock & Charley Kline, of UCLA; successfully send message after resolving initial problems |
| 1970 | MOS | RCA MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) promises smaller & cheaper ICs |
| 1970 | Xerox PARC | Xerox opens the Palo Alto Research Center for advanced computer development |
| 1970 | X-Y Position Indicator | Inventor, Doug Englebart; patents the 1st computer mouse |
| 1970 | Daisy Wheel Printer | Debuts |
| 1970 | Pascal | Programmer, Nicklaus Wirth, releases Pascal, a predecessor of Modula 2 |
| 1971 | Large Scale Integration | Bowmar Instruments Corporation introduces the LSI-based four-function (+, -, *, /) pocket calculator with LED at an initial price of $250. |
| 1971 | Intel 4004 | 1st computer on a chip |
| 1971 | 1st Relational Database Model | Developers, E. F. Codd & IBM; described the structure of today’s relational databases |
| 1972 | @ sign for email addresses | Programmer, Ray Tomlinson, author of first email software; Chooses @ sign for email addresses. |
| 1972 | C language | Programmer, Dennis Ritchie invents C (so called because it’s predecessor was B) |
| 1972 | Hand held calculators | Popularity makes slide rules obsolete |
| 1972 | Intel 8008 | The 1st 8 bit microprocessor, soon to be replaced by the 8080 |
| 1972 | Smalltalk | Xerox PARC developed OOL based on the ideas of A. Kay |
| 1972 | Prolog | Developer, A. Colmerauer; popularized key programming concepts |
| 1972 | Word Processors | Wang, VYDEC & Lexitron introduce standalone systems for business |
| 1972 | PDP-11/45 | DEC system featured completely comprised of ICs |
| 1972 | Microsoft emergence | Bill Gates and Paul Allen form Traf-O-Data (which eventually becomes Microsoft |
| 1973 | PARC advances | Xerox PARC debuts system utilizing a mouse, GUI & Ethernet |
| 1973 | TCP | Vinton Cerf develops Transmission Control Protocol at Stanford |
| 1973 | Winchester Hard Disk Drive | IBM develops the first true sealed hard disk drive. It used two 30 Mb platters |
| 1973 | Office Computer | A. Kay introduces a system utilizing a mouse, GUI & Smalltalk |
| 1973 | Large Scale Integration | Advanced integration yields 10,000 components on a 1-sq-cm chip |
| 1973 | Ethernet | Developer, R. Metcalfe; indicates that Ethernet is a modified Aloha net |
| 1974 | Bravo | Xerox PARC develops 1st WYSIWYG application |
| 1974 | 4K-bit DRAM | Now commercially available |
| 1975 | IBM 801 Project | Design of a mini-computer of a then unnamed RISC architecture |
| 1975 | 1st Laser Printer | debuts |
| 1975 | First Personal Computer | MITS Altair kit, It was based on Intel's 8-bit 8080 processor, 256 bytes RAM (exp. to a 12 Kb), Octal toggle switches & an LED panel. The Keyboard, screen & storage devices could be added using extension cards. |
| 1976 | Apple I | Developers, S. Jobs & S. Wozniak; from the heart of their garage, the 1st Apple computer rises as an alternative to current offerings |
| 1976 | Cray I | 1st super computer to feature vectorial architecture |
| 1976 | Impact of email | Queen Elizabeth is first head of state to send email |
| 1976 | 1st 5.25" Floppy | Shugart introduces 5.25" floppy |
| 1976 | Apple II | Apple Computer introduces the Apple II. It is the first personal computer with color graphics, a 6502 CPU, 4KB RAM, 16KB ROM, keyboard, 8-slot motherboard, game paddles, and built-in BASIC |
| 1976 | PET computer | Commodore introduces the PET computer |
| 1976 | TRS-80 | Tandy/Radio Shack announces its first TRS-80 microcomputer |
| 1977 | Fiber optics | Several companies begin development in communication applications |
| 1977 | 1st Commercial LAN | Datapoint Corp. develops ARCnet (Attached Resource Computing) via coax lines at 3 MBps |
| 1978 | Apple II Drives | Apple introduces disk drives for the Apple II and initiates the LISA R&D project |
| 1978 | VAX 11/780 | DEC releases a 32 bit computing system popular in the technical & scientific communities |
| 1978 | IBM PC | IBM announces its Personal Computer. |
| 1978 | DEC PC | DEC announces a line of personal computers |
| 1978 | WordStar | 1st popular word processing application written for CP/M &, subsequently, DOS |
| 1978 | RSA Encryption | Developers, R. Rivest, A. Shamir & L. Adelman; composed cipher algorithms for secure messaging |
| 1978 | HP 9000 | HP introduces the HP 9000 technical computer with 32-bit technology - it is as powerful as the room-sized computers of the 1960s |
| 1978 | Intel 8086 | Intel’s 1st 16 bit processor debuts |
| 1979 | VisiCalc | Developers, D. Bricklin & R. Franston; 1st popular spreadsheet application – considered the 1st "Killer App" |
| 1979 | Motorola 68000 | CPU that would someday power the Mac |
| 1979 | Digital Videodiscs | Sony & Phillips market the 1st standardized formats |
| 1979 | Cell Phones | Service testing begins in Chicago & Japan |
| 1980 | Microsoft gets IBM contract | After InterGalactic Digital Research misses contract opportunity to provide an OS for IBM’s fledgling PC project, Microsoft slips in with its newly acquired "Cheap’N’Dirty" OS. The deal comes with a cross-licensing agreement. |
| 1980 | Ada | After a long development period, the Dept. of Defense signs off on this language for process control & embedded applications |
| 1980 | DBase II | Developer, W. Ratcliff; This database enjoyed great success in the PC market as a "killer app" |
| 1980 | Osborne I | At 24 pounds, Osborne introduces first portable computer. |
| 1980 | RISC | Developers, D. A. Patterson & J. Hennessy; the concept of "reduced instruction set computing" enters the computing word |
| 1981 | Japan’s Big Break | By producing 64Kb RAM chips, Japan grabs a sizable piece of chip market |
| 1981 | Xerox Star | A commercial offering based on the Alto |
| 1981 | PC architecture licensed to the computer industry | In a bold move by IBM, it allows for what begins the PC compatible or clone era allowing for competition & development in a coherent unified product base |
| 1982 | 1st PC Clone | Columbia data enters the market followed closely by Compaq |
| 1982 | AutoDesk/AutoCAD | AutoDesk founded & AutoCAD enters the market as the 1st commercial CAD/CAM application |
| 1982 | Adobe/PostScript | Adobe founded by J. Warnock & C. Geschke; Warnock devises PostScript page description language |
| 1982 | Cray X-MP | 2 Cray-1 computers linked in parallel delivering 3 times the computing power |
| 1982 | Email proliferation | Commercial email available in 25 cities |
| 1983 | IBM PCjr | IBM announces the PCjr |
| 1983 | Lotus 1-2-3 | By including Pie Charts & Bar Graphs, Lotus does for the PC what VisiCalc did for the Apple II |
| 1983 | Josephson’s Junction | By improving chip manufacturing procedures to the point of producing quality predicted in Josephson’s 1962 premise, higher speed & dissipation for IC’s |
| 1983 | IBM PC XT | IBM heads the market with this offering while the PCjr. |
| 1983 | TCP/IP | With the switchover to TCP/IP, the the global internet becomes a reality |
| 1983 | Apple Lisa | Although not destined for the commercial market, the Lisa demonstrated what can be done with a GUI, mouse & pull down menus (based on intelligence gathered from Xerox demonstration) |
| 1983 | C++ | Developers, B. Stroustrup & Bell Labs; an OO extension to C |
| 1984 | Apple Macintosh | Macintosh personal computer, launched by Apple Computer Inc. The first computer has 128KB of memory and a 3.5" 400KB floppy disk drive. The OS with astounding graphic interface is bundled with MacWrite (word processor) and MacPaint (free-hand, B&W drawing) software. |
| 1984 | MIDI | The Musical Instrument Digital Interface allows integration with the music industry |
| 1984 | CD-ROM | Sony & Philips provide a digital storage medium boasting larger capacity than was previously achieved |
| 1984 | MC68020 | Motorola boasts over 250,000 transistors |
| 1984 | Chip Density | NEC provides a 256kB RAM chip, IBM offers the 1st 1 MB RAM chip |
| 1984 | Cinema Quality Graphics | The film "The Last Starfighter" features extensive computer based graphics |
| 1984 | "Cyberspace" | In W. Gibson’s book "Neuromancer", the term cyberspace is coined |
| 1984 | 80286 | IBM expands computing capability with a new 16-but CPU |
| 1985 | Faster speeds achieved | Cray 2 feature speeds exceeding 1 Gigaflop |
| 1985 | Windows 1.0 | Microsoft’s 1st attempt at a Mac-like application switching environment for DOS compatible computers |
| 1985 | 80386 | Intel’s 32 bit CPU feature on-chip memory management |
| 1985 | Aldus PageMaker | 1st popular on the Mac, now ported for the PC becomes the PC’s 1st Desktop Publishing app |
| 1986 | Cray XP | Featuring 4 processors, it exceeds 713 Million floating point operations per second |
| 1987 | HyperCard | HyperCard enabled you to construct a series of on-screen `filing cards' that contained textual and graphical information (or hypertext) |
| 1987 | Chip Density | Experimental 4 & 16 MB RAM chips emerge |
| 1988 | MC88000 | Motorola’s RISC chip boasts 17 MIPs |
| 1988 | NExT | In a departure from Apple, Steve Jobs promotes this advanced computing model with little notice by the industry |
| 1988 | 1st Computer Worm | Developer, R. Morris, Jr.; Noting the need for greater security, he releases a worm on the web to dramatize the need |
| 1989 | World Wide Web | Developer, T. Berners-Lee; proposes WWW project to CERN |
| 1989 | Intel 80486 | Features 1.2 million transistors |
| 1989 | Cray Computing founded | Cray 3 emerges utilizing Gallium Arsenide chips |
| 1989 | SPEC | Industry standard set of benchmarks designed to compare computer performance |
| 1990 | Windows 3.0 | Microsoft releases 1st viable GUI that supports virtual memory, multi-tasking & a CUA compliant interface. Apple disputes the "look & feel" issue as a copyright infringement |
| 1990 | HP & IBM | Both announce RISC platforms |
| 1990 | Faster CPU’s | Intel’s i80486 & iPSC/860 & Motorola’s MC68040 become available |
| 1990 | World Wide Web | Developer, T. Berners-Lee; incorporates key factors to WWW: URLs, HTML & HTTP |
| 1991 | Arpanet | Officially decommissioned |
| 1991 | Cray Y-MP C90 | Features 16 processors & yields 16 Gigaflops |
| 1991 | PowerPC | IBM, Motorola & Apple create PowerPC Alliance |
| 1992 | Michelangelo | Although feared, this virus caused little damage |
| 1992 | 1st Audio Multicast | 1st M-bone audio multicast transmitted over the Net |
| 1992 | DEC Alpha | DEC delivers 1st Alpha RISC CPU |
| 1993 | 1st PDA | Apple presents the Newton but the product suffers from poor handwriting recognition |
| 1993 | Intel Pentium | 1st generation Pentium released |
| 1993 | Mosaic Graphic WWW Browser | Developer, Marc Andreessen; Mosaic Graphic WWW browser. GUI makes WWW finally a competitor to Gopher. |
| 1993 | Web Servers deployed | There are 200+ Web servers in existence. |
| 1994 | Labyrinth Graphic 3-D (VRML) WWW browser | Developer, Mark Pesce; Labyrinth Graphic 3-D (VRML) WWW browser is built by. It provides access to the virtual reality of three-dimensional objects (artifacts, buildings, landscapes). |
| 1994 | Netscape WWW browser | Developer, Marc Andreessen. |
| 1995 | Streaming Audio | RealAudio narrowcasting |
| 1995 | Java Programming Language | Developer, Sun Microsystems, Palo Alto, California. Client-side, on-the-fly supplementary data processing can be performed using safe, downloadable micro-programs (applets). |
| 1995 | Metacrawler | WWW meta-search engine. The content of WWW is actively and automatically catalogued. |
| 1995 | Cinema Animation | "Toy Story" produced completely out of computer animation from Pixar |
| 1995 | The first online bookstore, Amazon.com | Web Entrepreneur, J. P. Bezos; The first online bookstore, Amazon.com |
| 1995 | AltaVista WWW Crawler Search Engine | Built by Digital around the Digital Alpha processor. A very fast search of 30-50% of the WWW is made possible). |
| 1995 | Windows 95 | Windows 95 released with great fanfare |
| 1996 | Web Servers deployed | There are 100,000 Web servers in existence. |
| 1996 | Intel Pentium Pro | A newer high performance CPU |
| 1997 | Web Servers deployed | There are 650,000 Web servers in existence. |
| 1997 | DVD technology | For Players and Movies is released. A DVD-recordable standard is approved |
| 1997 | Web TV | Web TV introduced |
| 1998 | Web Servers deployed | There are 3.6 million Web servers in existence. |
| 1999 | Web Servers deployed | There are 4.3 million Web servers in existence. |
Learning Computing History