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The History of Computers:

Welcome to the history of Computers.  This chronology, or timeline if you wish starts in 3000 BC and Stonehenge and travels through the 21st century, the Internet, and advanced computer systems. For a detailed listing of ALL technology events, try the Technology History document.

1900-wwII | 1946-1959 | 1960's | 1970's | 1980's | 1990's - present

The Beginning:

3000 BC: Stonehenge is started, estimated completion is 2000 BC.  This was perhaps the first calendar.

1000 BC: Some claim the first abacus is developed by Babylonians.  Around the time of Christ it is certain that people in Asia / China are using the abacus to solve mathematical problems

1642: Blaise Pascal developed a machine with gears and cranks that was able to calculate the addition of numbers.  This was referred to as the Pascal Machine, perhaps this was the father of the first calculator

1752: Benjamin Franklin finds electricity in lightening while flying a kite in a storm.

The 1800's:

1822, Charles Babbage begins working on a mechanical device that was far superior to the Pascal machine, but lacking the resources to build such a device, construction is never completed.  The plans for it survive, and become a building block for the future.

1833, Charles Babbage stopped work on his mechanical calculator it to move on to another project that would calculate 'yes / no' analytical or conditional functions beyond simple addition.  This system was designed to use 'holes punched in paper' as a method of input, but the device was never built beyond the 'planning' stages.

1889:  The company "Nintendo" is founded when Fusajiro Yamauchi who lived in Kyoto Japan established the company by creating playing cards.  Nintendo goes on to become one of the biggest computer game developers of the 20th century.

1890, the US Government commissions work to begin on a new census machine to calculate the population of the United States.  The census bureau was the leading cause of the development of the "punch card" tabulator.  American inventor named Herman Hollerith developed the machine that was able to count (or tabulated) the punched cards which counted the population of the USA.

1900 - WW II :

1910:  3 companies merge to become C-T-R (Computing- Tabulating- Recording Company) the forefather of IBM.

1924:  C-T-R outgrows its roots.  On February 14, C-T-R becomes IBM (International Business Machines Corporation.)

1916: Enigma is created to encode messages at the end of WW I

1926: Robert S. Ledley invented the first scanner.  It was used to create x-ray scans for medical research.

1943: In January of 1943 the first electrical computer is introduced.  Howard Aiken and IBM developed the first fully automatic 'electro-mechanical' machine capable of not only addition, but other functions such as multiplication, and trig functions as well.  The machine was known as the "Harvard Mark I".  The machine that Charles Babagge had designed 300 years earlier becomes a working model.  Work on the project began in the late 1930's
1943: In December of 1943, the COLOSSUS computer went on-line to help the allied war effort decode the 'Enigma' encrypted messages.

1946 - 1959: Transistors

1947:  February. ENIAC (Electrical Numerical Integrator And Computer) is unveiled.  This is widely considered to be the first working 'computer'.  It contains over 18,000 vacuum tubes.
1947:  The first transistor is created by Bell Labs.  This is much smaller, more efficient, and cost effective than vacuum tube technology.  William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain are credited with the invention.

1949:  EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer).  This machine could do things no other could.  Through electrical states, the properties of mercury, and the ability to store 2 different states (1 or 0 which would signify either on or off) EDVAC achieved something no other device had to date achieved.  Memory.  It could not only calculate, but it could 'remember' and compute results based on various variables entered.  In August 1949, the first computer with a "Stored Program" went on-line.  Work on this computer actually began in 1945, 2 years before the ENIAC computer went operational.

1951: The first commercial 'general purpose' computer, UNIVAC-1 goes on-line.  It is able to calculate with both numerical and alpha (or words) data.

1954: FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) language is developed.

1956:  A little known computer is developed.  The first "programmable" computer that relies entirely on transistors, and a magnetic core memory is developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratories called the TX-0.  Although never a commercial product, it is a computer development that is often overlooked in the history of computers.

1957:  The USSR launched its first space ship called Sputnik.  The United States responded by creating an agency known as ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency.)  ARPA quickly fell under the control of the DoD (Department of Defense) and evolved into DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) which would play a very large roll in the development of the Internet and the ability of computers to speak to one another.
1957: IBM debuts the first computer 'printer'.  A dot-matrix printer is marketed by IBM
1957:  DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) is founded in August in in Maynard, Massachusetts by Ken Olsen, a Massachusetts engineer who had been working at Lincoln Labs.  DEC goes on to be a primary driving force in the computer industry through the 60's, 70's and early 80's.

1958:  Jack St. Clair Kilby of Texas Instruments invented the first "integrated circuit" or "chip".  Although it was simply manufacturing individual transistors within a single 'chip' - it catapulted the computer industry into an almost modern era.

1959: COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) is introduced.

The 1960's

1960: The Tandy corporation is founded by Charles Tandy.

1962:  J.C.R. Licklider of MIT envisions a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. (much like the Internet of today). Licklider goes on to become the first head of the computer research program at DARPA in 1972.

1963 -1964:  Douglas Engelbart invents the first mouse, a pointing device for computers. There is little use for it at the time due to the lack of a GUI (Graphical User Interface), but the technology of this invention will drive the computer industry in the very near future.  In 1969 a public demonstration is given at the Augmentation Research Center, and in 1970 Engelbart is awarded a patent on his 2-wheel device, and in 1983 the mouse become popular with the Apple computer and its graphical interface.

1964  Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny, (members of the Dartmouth mathematics department) developed a 'language' that computers could use to accept 'input' and produce 'output'.  BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) became the first 'general purpose' computer language.

1964:

1966:  Ralph Baer begins work on the first video game.

1967: The Pascal language is released.  Development had started in 1964, and Pascal goes on to become a primer 'teaching' language.

1968:  T.J Watson (owner) and IBM develop and patent the first memory module called DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) which will become the foundation for short term memory storage used by computers.

1969

1970 - 1980: UNIX, RAM, Apple, Microsoft, and the first home computer.

By 1970 Xerox had created it's own developmental lab of computer science.  While much of the work developed at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) failed to capitalize on private patents and income from the private sector, this facility developed a great deal of the governmental technology that found its way into the public sector by the late 1980's.

1970: 

1971: 

1972

1973: 

1974: 

1975: 

1976:

1977: 

1978

1979

1980's: DOS, Windows, the PC, and the Internet.

1980's: Fiber optic system used to transmit computer data is developed.

1980:

1981

The Story of DOS and IBM

There are many stories as to the next famous (or infamous) step in history.  It is generally believed that in 1981, IBM visited the home of Gary Kidall in hopes of purchasing CP/M from him to become the standard operating system for this new "microcomputer" which will use the new 8088 processing chip from Intel.  The story unfolds as such: Kidall is not at home that day, and his wife and business partners refuse to sign anything that IBM presents in the way of a contract, or agreement in the development of this project.  IBM, being bigger than any "one individual" flies to Seattle Washington, and they approach another young team in Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who quickly agree to produce a workable operating system for the IBM personal computer.

From here the story gets a little cloudy.  Those who support the Gates and Allen team would say that Bill had told IBM to go to Gary Kidall first, and that Kidall was not available, or was difficult when asked to sign a contract.  Microsoft says they then purchased QDOS from Tim Patterson and Seattle Computer Products for $50,000.   From there they de-compiled it, de-bugged it, and re-wrote it to their own code for the IBM machines, and delivered it to IBM. 

The Kidall camp would say that Gates and Allen had obtained the CP/M system, and without consent simply changed a few lines of code, and slapped the name "DOS" on it before handing it over to IBM.  At this point it should be noted that there are a great many references to the OS being called QDOS (which stood for Quick and Dirty Operating System) When asked, Kidall once responded "ask Bill why the string in function 9 is terminated with a dollar sign.  Ask him, because he can't answer, only I know that". 

From this point it is generally accepted that Microsoft agreed to provide IBM with all the copies of DOS it wanted, only asking to maintain ownership of the operating system themselves, and be allowed to sell this new operating system to other computer manufacturers.  In a rare case of short-sightedness, IBM agreed, believing that the only real future in microcomputers was the hardware alone, not an operating system, and that the only true computer company in the world that could gather any kind of market share was IBM.  "oops"

At this point in time, it is quite obvious that there are a GREAT number of similarities between Kidall's CP/M and Gates's DOS.  From the ubiquitous A> (A prompt) to the "DIR" command which lists the files on a disk.  It's not the last time that Microsoft is accused of 'stealing' from a competitor.  The future will hold a great deal of time open in the courts for companies like Apple (who claims that Microsoft stole its GUI, Graphical User Interface, a/k/a Windows) and Netscape who claimed that Microsoft strong-armed their way into the browser market by making Internet Explorer a part of newer Windows systems.  Eventually even the US Government takes a shot at dismantling the 'monopoly-like' company of Microsoft.

1982: 

1983: 

1984: 

1985 - 1988     The T1 backbone of the Internet is developed, which allows the speed limit of data flow to jump from 56 kbs to 1.544Mbps (like going from 56 miles an hour to 1.5 thousand miles an hour)

1985: 

1986: 

1987: 

1988:

1989: 

1990 - Today: Windows 9x, DVD, and the future.

1990

1991

1992: 

1993

1994:

1995

1996: 

1997: 

1998:

1999:

2000:

2001:

2002:

2003:

At this point, it is only fair to mention one VERY valuable resource I came across during this research project.  Many thanks to: Steven White.  Please send any corrections or additons to the contact page.

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file: tech_history.html
posted: July 4, 2003
updated: July 16, 2003
copyright Charles H. Davis