Assignment #1

Timeline of the Computer - Assignment # 1
1936 Invented in 1936, the Z1 computer was the first freely programmable computer. Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, was the person who invented it. In the same year the Dvorak keyboard was developed.
1939 Several years later, in 1939, Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry (a graduate student) began work on the ABC (Atansoff- Berry Computer).In the year 1939, Hewlett-Packard formed. Their initial product, the HP 200A Oscillator, was a quickly popular piece of equipment for many (especially engineers
1941 Konrad Zuse completes the Z3 computer in 1941. In the same year the first Bombe was finished. The Bombe was a way of decrypting military communications of the Nazis. . Many Bombes were built, which greatly improved the Allied forces intelligence gathering and processing. During this time the ENIAC’s development was started also.
1942 After three years the ABC is finally completed. Despite the three years of work put into the ABC it was never fully-functional
1943 Many military computer programs were started in 1943. One such program was The Relay Interpolator (later called the Bells Labs Model II). This one was completed during this year to help test the M-9 Gun Director by Bells Labs. Another such military project at this time was Project Whirlwind. It was an idea to build a flight simulator to train bomber crews. After finding the initial computer to be inaccurate and inflexible they decided on building a new digital computer.
1944 The first Colossus was operational in 1944, despite not being presented to the public until the 1970s. It was designed to break complex ciphers used by the Nazis by the British engineer Tommy Flowers. The machine allowed the ciphers to be broken in hours instead of weeks.
1945 In 1945, the "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" was written by John von Neumann. In the document he outlined the architecture of a stored-program computer. Eliminating the need for more clumsy methods, this significantly changed the development of mainstream computers.
1946 After three years of hard work by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert the ENIAC for finally completed. Compared to its contemporaries it had 1000 times the speed.
1949 The first practical stored-program computer emerged. It was known as the EDSAC and was put together by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University. Also completed in this year was the Manchester Mark I computer.
1950 The first commercially produced computer was brought to the public. It was called the ERA 1101, built by the Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis. The National Bureau of Standards constructed both the SEAC and the SWAC. The SEAC is important to computer because it was the first computer to use all-diode logic. This logic eliminated more clumsy methods such as vacuum tubes.
1951 England’s produced their first commercial computer, the LEO( Lyons Electronic Office). This solved many cleric problems, and Lyons soon went into business manufacturing computers for the increasing number of demands for data processing systems. The UNIVAC I became the first commercial computer to gain widespread attention from the public.
1953 The 701, IBM’s first electronic computer was shipped.
1954 The first mass-produces computer was the IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator.
1956 The first general purpose, programmable computer was built by MIT researchers and was known as the TX-0.
1958 Linking hundreds or radar stations across North America, SAGE was one of the first large-scale computer communications network. Japan produced its country’s first electronic computer, the NEAC.
1959 IBM’s first transistorized computers came out in the 7000 series. These were top of the line computers and as such were significantly faster and more dependable.
1960 The PDP-1 emerged as the precursor to the minicomputer. It didn’t need air conditioning and only needed one operator.
1961 IBM introduced the 1400 series, these computers had the vacuum tube replaced by more smaller and more reliable transistors. It also used a magnetic core memory.
1962 The first real time laboratory data processing was offered by the LINC9 Laboratory Instrumentation Computer).
1964 IBM introduced family of six mutually compatible computers that could work together. This was known as the System/360. CDC introduced the 6600 supercomputer. Its processing speed was three times faster than its competition.
1965 The first commercially successful minicomputer was introduced by the Digital Equipment Corp. , and was known as the PDP-8.
1966 The ILLIAC IV achieved a computing speed of 200 million operations per second. The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency had been assigned with the job of designing and building it. Hewlett-Packard started a general-purpose computer business, when it introduced the HP-2115. It had a computing power that had previously only been found in much larger computers.
1968 The Data General Corp. introduced the Nova. Making its debut orbiting the Earth on the Apollo 7 was the Apollo Guidance Computer. In 1969 the same computer system steered the Apollo 11 to the moons surface.
1971 The first personal computer, the Kenbak-1, went on sale.
1972 Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP-35 which was said to be "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule".
1973 A microprocessor, the Micral, was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer.
1974 The Alto became the first computer to have a work station with a built-in mouse for input. AS well it had menus and icons, and could run several files at the same time. The 8H computer was the first computer advertized commercially in the U.S.
1975 The first implementation of a memory-mapped alphanumeric video display for personal computers came in the VDM prototype. This visual display module allowed games to be played on personal computers. The first fault tolerant computer, the Tandem-16, was produced by Tandem.
1976 The fastest computer to this date was the Cray I, reducing the length of wires and time signals travelling through them. It is now known as the first commercially successful vector processor.
1977 The instant success of the Apple II when it was released in 1977 could’ve been attributed to its printed circuit motherboard, keyboard, cassette tape with computer games or one of the many other special additions that came with it.
1978 The VAX 11/780 from DEC, provided hundreds times more capacity of most minicomputers of the age.
1979 Atari introduced their Model 800 and 400 Computers. These were developed as both gaming computers as well as home computers.
1981 IBM produced its PC, causing a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first portable computer was completed by Adam Osbourne and was known as the Osbourne I.
1982 The Cray XMP doubled the operating speed of competing computers. The Commodore 64 was extremely popular and is considered the greatest selling single computer model of all time.
1983 The Lisa was produced , which was the first personal computer to have graphical user interface. It high price eventually led to its failure. The first PC clone was introduced by Compaq Computer Corp. Compaq recorded record sales for a single year for an American business.
1984 The first successful mouse-driven computer was produced. This was the Apple Computer, and though it had features similar to the Lisa, it was more affordable.
1985 The Amiga 1000 featured audio and video capabilities far beyond those of most personal computers.
1987 The PS/2 machine was introduced by IBM. This made the 3 1/2–inch floppy disk drive, and also video graphics a standard for IBM computers.
1988 Steve Jobs revealed the NeXt and it was a failure due to its slowness. Even though it was considered a failure, it was also considered an important innovation. This was because of the fact that it was the first personal computer to have a drive for optical storage disk, as well as voice recognition and object-oriented languages.
1989 The first pen-based computer was introduced. GRiD Systems Corporation produced this in 1989.
1990 A completely new version of Windows came out from Microsoft. This was the Windows 3.0.
1991 On August 6, 1991 the World Wide Web was launched.
1992 Microsoft produced the Windows 3.1, which was extremely popular.
1993 Over 50 computer companies created Energy Star guidelines. These guidelines aimed to decrease the amount of power used in a PC while it is not being used.
1994 The internet posts its first banner ad on the site Hotwired.com.
1995 Hotmail is created by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia.
1996 Google emerges onto the web.
1997 Bill gates becomes the world’s most richest businessman off of his company Microsoft.
1998 The iMac was introduced by Apple, which makes Apple computer known as a very easy and friendly computer.
1999 Microsoft obtained Access software on April 19th.
2000 The Y2K bug causes mass terror, but luckily there was few problems.
2001 The X-Box was introduced by Bill Gates early in the year.
2002 Ebay acquired PayPal.
2003 The spybot worm infected its first computer in mid-April.
2004 Gmail is introduced by Google.
2005 YouTube is introduced.
2006 The first HD DVD was put into a computer, which was the Toshiba Qosmio 35.
2007 The Iphone was introduced by Apple computers in January.

Bibliography

http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?category=cmptr
http://www.computerhope.com/history/19902000.htm