Computer History
Computer History – B.C. – A.D. 1000
Year | Event |
50,000 B.C. | The first evidence of counting is dated back around 50,000 B.C. |
30,000 B.C. | Paleolithic peoples in Europe record numbers by notching tallies on bones, ivory, and stone. |
4000 B.C. | Metals begin being created and used. |
3500 B.C. | The first evidence of writing is dated back to around 3,500 B.C. |
3400 B.C. | Egyptians develop a symbol for the number 10, making counting larger numbers easier. |
3300 B.C. | The Bronze Age begins. |
3000 B.C. | Hieroglyphic numerals are first used in Egypt. |
2600 B.C. | Chinese introduce the abacus. |
1350 B.C. | Chinese use the first decimal. |
1350 B.C. | Iron begins being developed. |
300 B.C. | Mathematician Euclid releases Euclid’s Elements, 13 books that summarize all mathematical knowledge of the Greeks. |
300 B.C. | The Salamis Tablet, Roman Calculi, and hand-abacus, much like today’s abacus. |
260 B.C. | The Maya develop base-20 system of mathematics, which introduce zero. |
1000 A.D. | A churchman by the name of Gerbert d’Aurillac, who later becomes Pope Sylvester II, introduces the abacus and Hindu-Arabic math to Europe. |
Computer History – 1400’s
Year | Event |
1440 | Johannes Gutenberg completes his development of the Gutenberg press, the first printing press. |
1492 | Leonardo da Vinci makes drawing of 13-digit cog-wheeled adder. |
Computer History – 1500’s
Year | Event |
1500 | Leonardo da Vinci invents the mechanical calculator. |
1502 | Peter Henlein, a craftsman from Nuremberg Germany, creates the first watch. |
Computer history – 1600’s
Year | Event |
1600 | William Gilbert coins the term electricity from the Greek word elecktra. |
1613 | The word “computer” was first recorded as being used in 1613 and was originally was used to describe a person who performed calculations or computations. The definition of a computer remained the same until the end of the 19th century when it began referring to a machine that performed calculations. |
1617 | John Napier introduced a system called “Napiers Bones,” made from horn, bone or ivory the device allowed the capability of multiplying by adding numbers and dividing by subtracting. |
1621 | The circular slide rule is invented by William Oughtred. |
1623 | Blaise Pascal is born June 19, 1623. |
1623 | The first known workable mechanical calculating machine is invented by Germanys Wilhelm Schickard. The machine is based on the idea of Napier’s Bones, mentioned earlier. |
1632 | William Oughtred of Cambridge combines two Gunter rules to make a device that resembles today’s slide rule. |
1642 | Frances Blaise Pascal invents a machine, called the Pascaline, that can add, subtract, and carry between digits. |
1646 | Gottfried Leibniz is born July 1, 1646. |
1662 | Blaise Pascal passes away August 19, 1662. |
1671 | Gottfried Leibniz introduces the Step Reckoner, a device that can multiply, divide, and evaluate square roots. |
1679 | Gottfried Leibniz demonstrates binary arithmetic, a discovery that shows every number can be represented by 0 and 1 only. |
Computer history – 1700’s
Year | Event |
1706 | Benjamin Franklin is born January 17, 1706. |
1724 | Gabriel Fahrenheit purposes the Fahrenheit standard. |
1725 | An early form of punch cards begin to be used in textile looms. |
1752 | On June 10, 1752 Benjamin Franklin flies a kite that collects a charge after being struck by lightning. |
1753 | Charles Stanhope is born August 3, 1753. |
1765 | Joseph Niépce is born March 7, 1765. |
1774 | The first telegraph is built. |
1785 | Charles Thomas is born May 5, 1785. |
1785 | Georg Scheutz is born September 23, 1785. |
1789 | Georg Ohm is born March 16, 1789. |
1790 | Benjamin Franklin passes away April 17, 1790. |
1790 | Samuel Hopkins receives the first United States patent July 31, 1790. |
1791 | Samuel Morse is born April 27, 1791. |
1791 | Charles Babbage is born December 26, 1791. |
Computer History – 1800’s
Year Event 1804 Frances Joseph-Marie Jacquard completes his fully automated loom that is programmed by punched cards. 1811 Alexander Bain is born in 1811. 1814 Izrael Staffel is born in 1814. 1815 Giovanni Caselli is born April 25, 1815. 1815 George Boole is born November 2, 1815. 1815 Ada Lovelace is born December 15, 1815. 1816 Charles Stanhope passes away December 15, 1816. 1819 Christopher Sholes is born February 14, 1819. 1820 Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar creates the “arithometer”, the first reliable, useful, and commercially successful calculating machine. 1822 In the early 1822 Charles Babbage purposed and begins developing the Difference Engine. 1823 Baron Jons Jackob Berzelius silicon (Si), which today is the basic component of IC’s. 1825 The earliest known surviving photograph is taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1825 of a view of a courtyard from his window. 1827 George Simon Ohm introduces Ohm‘s law in the book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet. 1831 Joseph Henry of Princeton invents the first working telegraph. 1832 Semen Korsakov uses punch cards for the first time to store and search for information. 1833 Joseph Niépce passes away July 5, 1833 (age 68) 1835 Elisha Gray is born August 2, 1835. 1837 Charles Babbage purposes the Analytical Engine. 1838 Samuel Morse invents a code (later called Morse code) that used different numbers to represent the letters of the English alphabet and the then digits. 1844 Samuel Morse dispatches the first telegraphic message over a line from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore on May 24, 1844. 1845 In 1845, Izrael Staffel demonstrated the Staffel’s calculator at the industrial exhibition in Warsaw. 1847 Thomas Edison is born February 11, 1847. 1847 Alexander Graham Bell is born March 3, 1847. 1847 Siemens is founded. 1849 John Ambrose Fleming is born November 29, 1849. 1850 Charles Flint is born January 24, 1850. 1851 Western Union was founded. 1852 Ada Lovelace passes away November 27, 1852. 1854 Augustus DeMorgan and George Boole formalize a set of logical operations now known as DeMorgan transformations. 1854 Georg Ohm passes away July 6, 1854 (Age: 65) 1856 Nikola Tesla is born July 10, 1856. 1857 The phonautograph (phonograph) is patented March 25, 1857 by Frenchman Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. The device was capable of transcribing sound to a medium. 1859 The Elevator is patented on August 9, 1959. 1860 Herman Hollerith is born February 29, 1860. 1861 The first known permanent color photograph is taken of a Tartan Ribbon by the photographer Thomas Sutton. To achieve a color image he took a photo of the ribbon three times, each time with a different color, a method developed by James Clerk Maxwell. 1862 Dorr Felt is born March 18, 1862. 1864 George Boole passes away December 8, 1864. 1866 The first successful Trans-Atlantic cable is laid from Ireland to Newfoundland. 1868 Christopher Sholes is issued a patent on July 14, 1868 for a typewriter utilizing the QWERTY layout keyboard still used today. 1870 Charles Thomas passes away March 12, 1870. 1871 Charles Babbage passes away October 18, 1871. 1872 Samuel Morse passes away April 2, 1872. 1873 Georg Scheutz passes away May 22, 1873. 1874 Thomas Watson is born February 17, 1874. 1875 Tanaka Seizo-sho is established in Japan and later merges with another company called shibaura Seisaku-sho to form Tokyo Shibarura Denki. Later this companies name is shortened to the company that we know today, Toshiba. 1875 The company American Telephone and Telegraph Company that later became AT&T is founded. 1876 Scottish-Canadian-American Alexander Graham Bell is often credited as inventing the telephone makes the first call March 10, 1876. 1877 Alexander Bain passes away January 2, 1877. 1877 The microphone is invented in the United States by Emile Berliner. 1877 Thomas Edison invents and announces on November 21, 1877 the first phonograph capable of recording and replaying sounds. 1878 Eadweard Muybridge’s “The Horse In Motion” becomes the first motion picture. 1879 Albert Einstein is born March 14, 1879. 1879 Thomas Edison demos incandescent electric light bulb that lasts 13 1/2 hours October 21, 1879. 1879 James Jacob Ritty patents the worlds first cash register November 4, 1879. 1879 President Rutherford B. Hayes becomes the first president with a phone in the White House and gets the phone number “1.” 1880 ASME is founded. 1881 Emanuel Goldberg is born on August 31, 1881. 1882 The first commercial electric power station becomes operation September 4, 1882. 1882 Fredrik Bull is born December 25, 1882. 1883 Edith Clarke is born February 10, 1883. 1883 American Thomas Edison discovers the Edison effect, where an electric current flows through a vacuum. 1884 Izrael Staffel passes away in 1884. 1885 American Telegraph and Telephone company (AT&T) is incorporated March 3,1885. 1886 Heinrich Rudolf Hertz proves that electricity is transmitted at the speed of light. 1888 Clair Lake is born in 1888. 1888 National Geographic Society is established on January 27, 1888. 1888 Nikola Tesla patents the rotating field motor May 1, 1888 and later sells the rights to George Westinghouse. This invention helps create and transmit AC power and today is still a method for generating and distributing AC power. 1888 William S. Burroughs patents a printing adding machine. 1888 Eastman Kodak is founded. 1888 John Loud gets patent for the ballpoint pen October 30, 1888. 1888 Friedrich Reintzer discovers liquid crystal. 1890 Christopher Sholes passes away February 17, 1890. 1891 Phillips is founded. 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen discovers X-rays November 8, 1895. 1896 Herman Hollerith starts the Tabulating Machine Company, the company later becomes the well-known computer company IBM (International Business machines). 1897 Emil Post is born February 11, 1897. 1897 German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the Cathode-Ray Oscilloscope. 1897 Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, a motion picture viewer on August 31, 1897. 1898 Alcatel is founded. 1898 Nikola Tesla invents the remote control November 8, 1898. 1890 Vannevar Bush is born March 11, 1890. 1890 Herman Hollerith developed a method for machines to to record and store information onto punch cards to be used for the US census. He later formed the company we know as IBM today. 1891 Giovanni Caselli passes away June 8, 1891. 1899 AT&T acquires assets of American Bell, and becomes the parent company of Bell System. 1899 On September 13, 1899 Henry Bliss becomes the first North American pedestrian to be killed by an automobile. 1899 William D. Middlebrook patents the paper clip on November 9, 1899. |
Computer History – 1900 – 1940
Year | Event |
1900 | Howard H. Aiken is born March 8, 1900. |
1900 | Nikola Tesla develops frequency hopping, now known as spread spectrum. |
1901 | The first radio message is sent across the Atlantic Ocean in Morse code. |
1901 | Arthur Samuel is born in 1901. |
1901 | Elisha Gray passes away on January 21, 1901 (age 66) |
1901 | Hubert Cecil Booth receives a patent for the first powered vacuum cleaner August 30, 1901. |
1902 | Walter Brattain is born February 10, 1902. |
1902 | 3M is founded. |
1903 | Nikola Tesla patents electrical logic circuits called “gates” or “switches”. |
1903 | Wilbur and Orville Wright both take the first flight December 17, 1903. |
1903 | John von Neumann is born December 28, 1903. |
1903 | John Vincent Atanasoff is born October 4, 1903. |
1904 | John Ambrose Fleming experiments with Edison’s diode vacuum tubes and creates the first commercial diode vacuum tube. |
1905 | Derrick Lehmer is born February 23, 1905. |
1906 | The IEC is founded in London England. |
1906 | Arnold I. Dumey is born in 1906. |
1906 | Reynold Johnson is born July 16, 1906. |
1906 | Philo Farnsworth is born August 19, 1906. |
1906 | Grace Hopper is born December 9, 1906. |
1907 | Lee De Frost files patent #879,532 on Jan 29, 1907 for the vacuum tube triode. This is later used as an electronic switch in the first electronic computer. |
1907 | IBM files for its first U.S. patent, #998,631 October 11, 1907. |
1908 | John Bardeen is born May 23, 1908. |
1908 | The film “A Visit To The Seaside” becomes the first film commercially produced in natural color in December of 1908. |
1909 | Edmund Berkeley is born February 22, 1909. |
1909 | Geoffrey Dummer is born February 25, 1909. |
1909 | Antoni Kilinski is born October 20, 1909. |
1910 | William Shockley is born February 13, 1910. |
1910 | Konrad Zuse is born June 22, 1910. |
1910 | Henry Babbage, Charles Babbage‘s youngest son completes a portion of the Analytical Engine and was able to perform basic calculations. |
1911 | Alexey Andreevich Lyapunov is born in 1911. |
1911 | Cuthbert Hurd is born April 5, 1911. |
1911 | Company now known as IBM on is founded June 16, 1911 in the state of New York as the Computing – Tabulating – Recording Company (C-T-R), a consolidation of the Computing Scale Company, and The International Time Recording Company. |
1911 | Frederic Williams is born June 26, 1911. |
1911 | IBM is granted its first patent #998,631 July 25, 1911. |
1911 | Allen Coombs is born October 23, 1911. |
1912 | Alan Turing is born June 23, 1912. |
1912 | David Packard is born September 7, 1912. |
1912 | G. N. Lewis begins work on the lithium battery. |
1913 | William Hewlett is born May 20, 1913. |
1913 | Maurice Wilkes is born June 26, 1913. |
1914 | Cyril Cleverdon is born September 9, 1914. |
1914 | George Dantzig is born November 8, 1914. |
1915 | The first telephone call is made across the continent. |
1915 | Borje Langefors is born May 21, 1915. |
1915 | Arthur Walter Burks is born October 13, 1915. |
1916 | Herbert Simon is born June 15, 1916. |
1916 | Claude Shannon is born April 30, 1916. |
1916 | Christopher Strachey is born November 16, 1916. |
1917 | On September 9, 1917 one of the earliest records of OMG (Oh! My God!) is used by British Admiral John Arbuthnot Fisher when writing to Winston Churchill in a 1917 correspondence. |
1917 | Arthur C. Clark is born December 16, 1917. |
1918 | Alexander L’vovich Brudno is born January 10, 1918. |
1918 | Andrew Booth is born February 11, 1918. |
1918 | Panasonic is founded March 18, 1918. |
1918 | William Eccles and F.W. Jordan build the world’s first flip-flop. |
1918 | Bashir Rameyev is born May 1, 1918. |
1918 | Jay Forrester is born July 14, 1918. |
1919 | Nathan Rochester is born January 14, 1919. |
1919 | Andrew F. Kay is born March 22, 1919. |
1919 | John Adam Presper “Pres” Eckert, Jr. is born April 9, 1919. |
1919 | Olympus is established on October 12, 1919 by Takeshi Yamashita. |
1920 | An Wang is born February 7, 1920. |
1920 | Bob Bemer is born February 8, 1920. |
1920 | First radio broadcasting begins in United States, Pittsburgh, PA. |
1921 | Alexander (Sandy) Shafto Douglas is born May 21, 1921. |
1921 | Forrest Parry is born July 4, 1921. |
1921 | Czech playwright Karel Capek coins the term “robot” in the 1921 play RUR (Rossum’s Universal Robots). |
1921 | The first Radio Shack store is open. |
1922 | MPAA is established. |
1922 | Charles Hamblin is born in 1922. |
1922 | Georgy Adelson-Velsky is born January 8, 1922. |
1922 | Alan Perlis is born April 1, 1922. |
1922 | Keith Uncapher is born April 1, 1922. |
1922 | Alexander Graham Bell passes away August 2, 1922 (age 75) |
1923 | Corrado Böhm is born in 1923. |
1923 | Eugene Kleiner is born May 12, 1923. |
1923 | Edgar Codd is born August 23, 1923. |
1923 | Jack St. Clair Kilby, Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the Integrated Circuit, handheld calculator, and thermal printer is born November 8, 1923. |
1923 | Donald Michie is born November 11, 1923. |
1924 | The Computing – Tabulating – Recording (C-T-R) company is renamed to IBM on February 14, 1924. |
1924 | David Evans is born February 24, 1924. |
1924 | Enid Mumford is born March 6, 1924. |
1924 | Donald Davies is born June 7, 1924. |
1924 | CATV and cable broadcasting begins being used in some European cities. |
1924 | Friedrich Bauer is born June 10, 1924. |
1924 | John Backus is born December 3, 1924. |
1924 | Charles Bachman is born December 11, 1924. |
1924 | Jean Bartik is born December 27, 1924. |
1925 | Douglas Engelbart is born January 30, 1925. |
1925 | Fredrik Bull passes away June 7, 1925 (Age: 43) |
1925 | David Huffman is born August 9, 1925. |
1925 | Seymour Cray is born September 28, 1925. |
1926 | John Kemeny is born May 31, 1926. |
1926 | Fernando Corbató is born July 1, 1926. |
1926 | Carl Petri is born July 12, 1926. |
1926 | The first patent for the semiconductor transistor is created. |
1926 | Arthur Rock is born August 19, 1926. |
1927 | David Wheeler is born February 9, 1927. |
1927 | Allen Newell is born March 19, 1927. |
1927 | Dudley Buck is born April 25, 1927. |
1927 | Theodore Maiman is born July 11, 1927. |
1927 | Marvin Minsky is born August 9, 1927. |
1927 | Bob Evans is born August 19, 1927. |
1927 | John McCarthy is born September 4, 1927. |
1927 | Philo Taylor Farnsworth becomes the first person to successfully transmit a TV signal on September 7, 1927. |
1927 | Robert Noyce is born December 12, 1927. |
1928 | Thomas Kurtz is born February 22, 1928. |
1928 | The Galvin Manufacturing Corporation begins on September 25, 1928, the company will later be known as Motorola. |
1928 | Bernard Galler is born October 3, 1928. |
1928 | Noam Chomsky is born December 7, 1928 |
1928 | Jack Tramiel is born December 13, 1928 |
1928 | Martin Cooper is born December 26, 1928. |
1929 | Gordon Moore is born January 3, 1929. |
1929 | Herman Hollerith passes away November 17, 1929. |
1929 | Douglas Ross is born December 21, 1929. |
1930 | Einar Stefferud is born January 11, 1930. |
1930 | Edsger Dijkstra is born May 11, 1930. |
1930 | Daniel McCracken is born July 23, 1930. |
1930 | Galvin Manufacturing Corporation Auto radios begin to be sold as an accessory for the automobile. Paul Galvin coins the name Motorola for the company’s new products, linking the ideas of motion and radio. |
1930 | Dorr Felt passes away August 7, 1930. |
1930 | Alan F. Shugart is born September 27, 1930. |
1930 | Citizen is founded. |
1931 | Fletcher Jones is born January 22, 1931. |
1931 | Eiichi Goto is born January 26, 1931. |
1931 | Anthony (Tony) Edgar Sale is born January 30, 1931. |
1931 | Andrei Ershov is born April 19, 1931. |
1931 | Frederick Brooks is born April 19, 1931. |
1931 | Thomas Edison passes away October 18, 1931. |
1932 | Jay Glenn Miner is born May 31, 1932. |
1932 | Frances Allen is born August 4, 1932. |
1932 | ROM-type storage media is introduced. |
1932 | Robert H. Dennard is born September 5, 1932. |
1932 | Dana Scott is born October 11, 1932. |
1933 | Canon is established. |
1933 | Boris Babayan is born December 20, 1933. |
1934 | Edward Fredkin is born January 1, 1934. |
1934 | Charles Hoare is born January 11, 1934 |
1934 | Charles Flint passes away February 26, 1934. |
1934 | Robert Moog is born May 23, 1934. |
1934 | Leonard Kleinrock is born June 13, 1934. |
1934 | Gordon Bell is born August 19, 1934. |
1934 | The FCC is established. |
1934 | The US Communication Act goes into place. |
1934 | Carl Sagen is born November 9, 1934. |
1935 | Barry Boehm is born in 1935. |
1935 | The Polygraph machine aka lie detector is used for the first time. |
1935 | Roger Needham is born February 9, 1935. |
1935 | Charles Molnar is born March 14, 1935. |
1936 | Edward Feigenbaum is born January 20, 1936. |
1936 | Germanys Konrad Zuse creates the Z1, one of the first binary digital computers and a machine that could be controlled through a punch tape. |
1936 | While working on a radio, Paul Eisler invents the Printed Circuit Board (PCB). |
1936 | Abraham Lempel is born February 10, 1936. |
1936 | Dvorak receives a patent for the Dvorak keyboard May 12, 1936. |
1936 | Henry F. Phillips receives patent for the Phillips screw and screwdriver July 7, 1936. |
1936 | Andrew Grove is born September 2, 1936. |
1936 | Jerry Sanders is born September 12, 1936. |
1936 | Alan Turing develops the Turing Machine. |
1937 | Charles Peddle is born in 1937. |
1937 | Iowa State Colleges John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry begin work on creating the binary-based ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer). Considered by most to be the first electronic digital computer. |
1937 | Dabbala Reddy is born June 13, 1937. |
1937 | Alec Reeves develops PCM. |
1937 | Ted Nelson, who coined the term HTTP is born in 1937. |
1937 | Marcian Hoff is born October 28, 1937. |
1938 | Charles Moore is born in 1938. |
1938 | Gary Starkweather is born in 1938. |
1938 | Donald Knuth is born January 10, 1938. |
1938 | Lynn Conway is born January 10, 1938. |
1938 | The company now known as Hewlett Packard creates its first product the HP 200A. |
1938 | Chester Carlson produces first electrophotographic image October 22, 1938, which later becomes the Xerox machine. |
1938 | Orson Welles and Houseman broadcast H.G. Welles War of the Worlds on the airways October 30th as a Halloween spoof. |
1938 | BBC creates the first science fiction television program. |
1938 | Bob Kahn is born December 23, 1938. |
1939 | Adam Osborne is born March 6, 1939. |
1939 | John Scully is born April 6, 1939. |
1939 | George Stibitz completes the Complex Number Calculator capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing complex numbers. This device provides a foundation for digital computers. |
1939 | The first Radio Shack catalog is published. |
1939 | Craig Barrett is born August 29, 1939 |
1939 | Charles Geschke is born September 11, 1939. |
1939 | Iowa State Colleges John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry create a prototype of the binary-based ABC (Atanasoft-Berry Computer). |
1939 | Hewlett Packard is found by William Hewlett and David Packard. The name is decided on the flip of a coin toss. |
1939 | Barbara Liskov is born November 7, 1939. |
Computer history – 1940 – 1960
Year | Event |
1940 | The first handheld two-way radio called the “Handy Talkie” is created by Motorola for the U.S. Army Signal Control. |
1940 | Alan Kay is born May 17, 1940. |
1940 | Clive Sinclair is born July 3, 1940 |
1940 | John Warnock is born October 6, 1940. |
1941 | David Parnas is born February 10, 1941. |
1941 | Amir Pnueli is born April 22, 1941. |
1941 | August-Wilhelm Scheer is born July 27, 1941. |
1941 | German Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3, a fully program-operational calculating machine. The computer is publically introduced in Berlin May 12, 1941. |
1941 | Dennis Ritchie is born September 9, 1941. |
1941 | Henry Edward Roberts is born September 13, 1941. |
1941 | Chester Carlson gets patent for electric photography more commonly known today as photocopying October 6, 1941. |
1941 | Alan Kotok is born November 9, 1941. |
1941 | Federico Faggin is born December 1, 1941. |
1942 | Brian Kernighan is born in 1942. |
1942 | Edward Tufte is born in 1942. |
1942 | Steven Hawking is born January 8, 1942. |
1942 | Armas Markkula is born February 11, 1942. |
1942 | David Cutler is born March 13, 1942. |
1942 | Gary Kildall is born May 19, 1942. |
1942 | Enrico Fermi designs and creates the world’s first Nuclear Reactor December 2, 1942. |
1943 | John Draper is born in 1943. |
1943 | Nikola Tesla passes away January 7, 1943. |
1943 | Charles Thacker is born February 26, 1943. |
1943 | David S. Morse is born April 15, 1943. |
1943 | Vint Cerf is born June 23, 1943. |
1943 | The Colossus, the first eclectic programmable computer developed by Tommy Flowers is first demonstrated in December 1943. |
1943 | Butler Lampson is born December 23, 1943. |
1943 | ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first general-purpose electronic digital calculator begins to be constructed. This computer by most is considered to be the first electronic computer. |
1943 | Dan Noble with Motorola designs a “Walkie Talkie” the first portable FM two-way radio that a backpack version that weighed 35 pounds. |
1944 | Donald Chamberlin is born in 1944. |
1944 | Andrew Tanenbaum is born March 16, 1944. |
1944 | David Clark is born April 7, 1944. |
1944 | Edward Yourdon is born April 30, 1944. |
1944 | Bailey Diffie is born June 5, 1944. |
1944 | The Harvard Mark I computer is officially presented at Harvard University on August 7, 1944. The relay-based Harvard-IBM MARK I a large programmable-controlled calculating machine provides vital calculations for the U.S. Navy. Grace Hopper becomes its programmer. |
1944 | Larry Ellison is born August 17, 1944. |
1944 | The first binary, and partially programmable computer, Colossus, was created at Bletchley Park. |
1944 | Steve Crocker is born October 15, 1944. |
1944 | Abhay Bhushan is born November 23, 1944. |
1945 | Lee Felsenstein is born in 1945. |
1945 | Patent is filed for the Harvard Mark I digital computer on February 8, 1945. |
1945 | John Ambrose Fleming passes away April 18, 1945. |
1945 | Adele Goldberg is born July 7, 1945. |
1945 | Edmund Clarke is born July 27, 1945. |
1945 | The Von Neumann Architecture and a description of a general purpose electronic digital computer with a stored programs is introduced in John von Neumann’s report of the EDVAC. |
1945 | The term bug as computer bug was termed by Grace Hopper when programming the MARK II. |
1945 | The first ballpoint pen goes on sale in New York for $12.50 on October 30, 1945. |
1946 | Freddie Williams applies for a patent on his cathode-ray tube (CRT) storing device in December. The device that later became known as the Williams tube is capable of storing between 512 and 1024 bits of data. |
1946 | Konrad Zuse writes the first algorithmic programming language called ‘Plankalkül’. |
1946 | ENIAC computer completed. |
1946 | Brooklyn New York’s Flatbush National Bank becomes the first bank to issue a credit card in 1946. |
1946 | Robert Metcalfe is born April 7, 1946. |
1946 | The Selectron tube capable of storing 256 bits of information begins development. |
1946 | Andrew Chi-Chih Yao is born December 24, 1946. |
1947 | 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. file patent #2,455,992 describing one of the first computer games played on a CRT January 25, 1947. |
1947 | Robert Cailliau is born January 26, 1947. |
1947 | Freddie Williams memory system known as the Williams tube is now in working order. |
1947 | Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting on June 24, 1947. |
1947 | Ben Shneiderman is born August 21, 1947. |
1947 | Edward Shortliffe is born August 28, 1947. |
1947 | Jay Forrester extends the life of a vacuum tube from 500 to 500,000 hours. |
1947 | ISO is founded. |
1947 | The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is established September 18, 1947. |
1947 | David Patterson is born November 16, 1947. |
1947 | John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley invent the first transistor at the Bell Laboratories on December 23, 1947. |
1948 | IBM builds the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator). The computer contains 12,000 tubes. |
1948 | John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley patent the first transistor. |
1948 | Andrew Donald Booth creates magnetic drum memory, which is two inches long and two inches wide and capable of holding 10 bits per inch. |
1948 | William Gibson is born March 17, 1948. |
1948 | Scott Fahlman is born March 21, 1948. |
1948 | The 604 multiplying punch, based upon the vacuum tube technology, is produced by IBM. |
1948 | Carol Bartz is born August 29, 1948. |
1948 | Charles Simonyi is born in September 10, 1948 |
1948 | The television begins to divert radio audiences. |
1949 | David Bradley is born in 1949. |
1949 | Claude Shannon builds the first machine that plays chess at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
1949 | The concept of a computer program capable of reproducing itself was first mentioned by John von Neumann in his 1949 “Theory of self-reproducing automata” essay. |
1949 | The Harvard-MARK III, the first of the MARK machines to use an internally stored program and indirect addressing, goes into operations again under the direction of Howard Aiken. |
1949 | The first computer company, Electronic Controls Company is founded by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the same individuals who helped create the ENIAC computer. |
1949 | The EDSAC performs its first calculation on May 6, 1949. |
1949 | Alain Glavieux is born July 4, 1949. |
1949 | John Chambers is born August 23, 1949. |
1949 | Popular Mechanics predicts: “Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.” |
1949 | The small-scale electronic machine (SSEM) is fully operational at Manchester University. |
1949 | The Australian computer CSIRAC is first ran. |
1950 | Bertrand Meyer is born in 1950. |
1950 | Dave Boggs is born in 1950. |
1950 | Douglas Lenat is born in 1950. |
1950 | The United States Government receives the UNIVAC 1101 or ERA 1101 in 1950. This computer is considered to be the first computer that was capable of storing and running a program from memory. |
1950 | The first electronic computer is created in Japan by Hideo Yamachito. |
1950 | Konrad Zuse completes and sells the Z4 on July 12, 1950, becoming the first commercial computer. |
1950 | Steve Wozniak is born August 11, 1950. |
1950 | Alan Turing publishes his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence in October. This paper helps create the Turing Test. |
1950 | The NICAD battery begins its commercial use. |
1950 | Mitchell Kapor is born November 1, 1950. |
1950 | Bjarne Stroustrup is born December 30, 1950. |
1951 | Radia Perlman is born in 1951. |
1951 | The first business computer, the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) is completed by T. Raymond Thompson, John Simmons and their team at Lyons Co. |
1951 | The first commercial computer, the “First Ferranti MARK I” is now functional at Manchester University. |
1951 | The first ISO is published with the title, “Standard reference temperature for industrial length measurement.” |
1951 | UNIVAC I was introduced. |
1951 | The EDVAC begins performing basic tasks. |
1951 | Dean Kamen is born April 5, 1951. |
1951 | Jay Forrester applies for a patent for magnetic core memory, the first random access memory (RAM) May 11, 1951. |
1951 | The Nixie tube is first introduced. |
1951 | Grace Hopper develops A-0, the first Arithmetic language. |
1951 | Dan Bricklin is born July 16, 1951. |
1951 | Bill Atkinson is born in 1951. |
1952 | Fred Baker is born in 1952. |
1952 | Complaint is filed against IBM for Monopolistic practices on January 1952. |
1952 | Alan Cooper is born June 3, 1952. |
1952 | Adi Shamir is born July 6, 1952. |
1952 | Geoffrey Dummer a British radar engineer introduces the concept of the integrated circuit at a tech conference in the United States. |
1952 | Fairly reliable working magnetic drum memories for use in computers begin to be sold by Andrew Donald Booth and his father. |
1952 | RIAA is established. |
1952 | The first ASR device was used to recognize single digits spoken by a user (it was not computer driven). |
1952 | Alexander Sandy Douglas created the first graphical computer game of Tic-Tac-Toe on an EDSAC known as “OXO.” |
1952 | The National Security Agency (NSA) is formed November 4, 1952. |
1952 | Craig Newmark is born December 6, 1952 |
1953 | David Deutsch is born in 1953. |
1953 | James Martin is born in 1953. |
1953 | IBM introduces the 701 to the public April 7, 1953. The 701 is IBM’s first electric computer and first mass produced computer. |
1953 | The UNIVAC predicts the presidential election during a televised news broadcast. |
1953 | A magnetic memory smaller and faster than existing vacuum tube memories is built at MIT. |
1953 | Paul Allen is born January 21, 1953. |
1953 | Craig Reynolds is born March 15, 1953. |
1953 | Richard Stallman is born March 16, 1953. |
1953 | Andy Hertzfeld is born April 6, 1953. |
1953 | The IBM 701 becomes available to the scientific community. A total of 19 are produced and sold. |
1953 | Florian Brody is born October 31, 1953. |
1953 | The Colgate Comedy Hour on N.B.C. becomes the first TV show to broadcast in color on November 22, 1953. |
1954 | IBM produces and markets the IBM 650. More than 1,800 of these computers are sold in an eight-year span, with 120 installations in the first year. |
1954 | Daniel Kottke is born April 4, 1954. |
1954 | Tim O’Reilly is born June 6, 1954. |
1954 | Alan Turing passes away June 7, 1954. |
1954 | The USSR’s Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant opens June 27, 1954 and becomes the first Nuclear power plant to generate electricity. |
1954 | The first version of FORTRAN (formula translator) is published by IBM. |
1954 | Texas Instruments announces the start of commercial production of silicon transistors. |
1954 | IBM becomes the first company to translate Russian into English using a computer. |
1954 | Larry Wall is born September 27, 1954. |
1954 | CERN is established on September 29, 1954. |
1954 | IBM introduces its first calculating machine that uses solid-state transistors instead of vacuum tubes October 7, 1954. |
1954 | The first commercially produced transistor radio, the Regency TR-1 is announced October 18, 1954. |
1954 | Ken Williams is born October 30, 1954, |
1954 | William Joy is born November 8, 1954. |
1955 | Steve Jobs is born February 24, 1955. |
1955 | Grady Booch is born February 27, 1955. |
1955 | MIT introduces the Whirlwind machine March 8, 1955, a revolutionary computer that was the first digital computer with magnetic core RAM and real-time graphics. |
1955 | Tom Watson, IBM’s president is featured on the front of Time Magazine March 28, 1955. |
1955 | Albert Einstein passes away on April 18, 1955. |
1955 | Eric Schmidt is born April 27, 1955. |
1955 | John McCarthy coins the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) in 1955 at Dartmouth University. |
1955 | Dartmouth Colleges John McCarthy coins the term “artificial intelligence.” |
1955 | Dave Winer is born May 2, 1955. |
1955 | Tim Bernes-Lee is born June 8, 1955. |
1955 | Donna Dubinsky is born July 4, 1955. |
1955 | Andreas (Andy) von Bechtolsheim is born September 30, 1955. |
1955 | William (Bill) H. Gates is born October 28, 1955. |
1955 | IBM introduces the first IBM 702. |
1955 | Bell Labs introduces its first transistor computer. Transistors are faster, smaller and create less heat than traditional vacuum tubs, making these computers more reliable and efficient. |
1955 | The ENIAC is turned off for the last time. Its estimated to have done more arithmetic than the entire human race had done prior to 1945. |
1956 | John von Neumann is presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Dwight Eisenhower on February 15, 1956. |
1956 | Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov is born on March 14, 1956. |
1956 | Steve Ballmer is born March 24, 1956. |
1956 | The TX-O (Transistorized Experimental computer) and first transistorized computer is demonstrated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
1956 | Tim Paterson is born June 1, 1956. |
1956 | Thomas Watson passes away June 19, 1956. |
1956 | Dr. Robert Adler of Zenith invents the first cordless TV remote control in 1956. |
1956 | John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley are awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their work on the transistor. |
1956 | On September 13, 1956 the IBM 305 RAMAC is the first computer to be shipped with a hard drive that contained 50 24-inch platters and was capable of storing 5 million characters and weighed a ton. |
1956 | Wen Tsing Chow develops PROM. |
1956 | The programming language FORTRAN is introduced to the public October 15, 1956. |
1956 | Leo Laporte is born November 29, 1956. |
1957 | Carl Sassenrath is born in 1957. |
1957 | IBM announces it will no longer be using vacuum tubes and releases its first computer that had 2000 transistors. |
1957 | Fred Cohen is born in 1957. |
1957 | Barry Leiba is born in 1957. |
1957 | John von Neumann passes away February 8, 1957 (age of 53) |
1957 | Mark Dean is born March 2, 1957. |
1957 | Emil Post passes away on April 21, 1954 (age 57) |
1957 | Jeff Hawkins is born June 1, 1957. |
1957 | Bruce Eckel is born July 8, 1957. |
1957 | Fairchild Semiconductor is founded by Andy Grove, Eugene Kleiner, Gordon Moore, Jerry Sanders, Robert Noyce. |
1957 | Digital Equipment Corporation is founded by Kenneth Olsen. The company will later become a major network computer manufacturer. |
1957 | Russia launches the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik on October 4, 1957. |
1957 | In response to Sputnik the United States creates the new agency ARPA. |
1957 | Casio is established. |
1957 | Eric Raymond is born December 4, 1957. |
1958 | Shafi Goldwasser is born in 1958. |
1958 | Clair Lake passes away in 1958. |
1958 | The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics is renamed to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). |
1958 | Control Data Corporation introduces Seymour Cray’s 1604 for $1.5 Million, half the cost of the IBM computer. |
1958 | NEC builds its first computer the NEAC 1101. |
1958 | William Higinbotham created the first video game called: Tennis for Two. |
1958 | The programming language FORTRAN II is created. Later FORTRAN III is created but never released to the public. |
1958 | President Eisenhowers Christmas address is the first voice transmission from a satellite. |
1958 | Steve Case is born August 21, 1958. |
1958 | The first integrated circuit is first developed by Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments. The first IC was demonstrated on September 12, 1958. |
1959 | Feng-hsiung Hsu is born in 1959. |
1959 | Danese Cooper is born January 19, 1959. |
1959 | Hitachi is founded. |
1959 | The Harvard-MARK I is turned off for the last time. |
1959 | Dudley Buck passes away May 21, 1959 (Age: 32). |
1959 | Robert Noyce creates an integrated circuit with component connections made of aluminum lines on silicon. |
1959 | The Luna 2 becomes the first human made object to land on the moon on September 14, 1959. |
1959 | Edith Clarke passes away on October 29, 1959 (age 76) |
1959 | Leonard Kleinrock starts to developing packetization. |
1959 | Motorola produces the two-way, fully transistorized mobile radio. |
1959 | Panasonic is founded. |
1959 | David Culler is born November 12, 1959. |
Computer History 1960 – 1980
Year | Event |
1960 | 2,000 computers are in use in the United states. |
1960 | IBM develops the first automatic mass-production facility for transistors in New York. |
1960 | Will Wright is born January 20, 1960. |
1960 | IBMs 1400 series machines, aimed at the business market begin to be distributed. |
1960 | The first integrated circuits (IC’s) begin being sold for $120.00 and are chosen to be used on the Gemini spacecraft. |
1960 | The Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) programming language is invented. |
1960 | Psychologist Frank Rosenblatt creates the Mark I Perception, which has an “eye” that can learn to identify its ABCs. |
1960 | NASA launches TIROS, the first weather satellite into space. |
1960 | Bob Bemer introduced the backslash. |
1960 | Physicist Theodore Maiman creates the first laser May 16, 1960. |
1960 | AT&T introduces the dataphone and the first known MODEM. |
1960 | RS-232 is introduced by EIA. |
1960 | IFIP is founded. |
1960 | Digital introduces the PDP-1 the first minicomputer. |
1960 | Tim Cook is born November 1, 1960. |
1960 | Anders Hejlsberg is born in December of 1960. |
1961 | Brendan Eich is born in 1961. |
1961 | Hewlett-Packard stock is accepted by the New York Stock Exchange for national and international trading. |
1961 | Ed Colligan is born March 4, 1961. |
1961 | Leonard Kleinrock publishes his first paper entitled “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets” is published May 31, 1961. |
1961 | Fairchild Semiconductor introduces the first commercially available integrated circuits (IC’s). |
1961 | The first IBM Selectric typewriter is released July 27, 1961. |
1961 | General Motors puts the first industrial robot the 4,000 pound Unimate to work in a New Jersey factory. |
1961 | Accredited Standards Committee is founded, this committee later becomes the INCITS. |
1961 | P.Z. Ingerman develops a thunk. |
1961 | ECMA is established. |
1961 | The first transcontinental telegraph line began operation October 24, 1961. |
1961 | The programming language FORTRAN IV is created. |
1962 | Steve Russell creates “SpaceWar!” and releases it in February 1962. This game is considered the first game intended for computers. |
1962 | Philippe Kahn is born March 16, 1962. |
1962 | Leonard Kleinrock releases his paper talking about packetization. |
1962 | AT&T places first commercial communications Satellite, the Telstar I into orbit. |
1962 | Paul Baran suggests transmission of data using fixed size message blocks. |
1962 | J.C.R. Licklider becomes the first Director of IPTO and gives his vision of a galactic network. |
1962 | Philips invents the compact audio cassette tape. |
1962 | The NASA rocket, the Mariner II, is equipped with a Motorola transmitter on it’s trip to Venus. |
1962 | Sharp is founded. |
1963 | IEEE is founded. |
1963 | The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers. |
1963 | Kevin Mitnick is born August 6, 1963. |
1963 | Bell Telephone introduces the push button telephone November 18, 1963. |
1963 | On December 7, 1963 during a Army-Navy football game on CBS the first instant replay is shown on TV. |
1964 | Jeff Bezos is born January 12, 1964. |
1964 | Dartmouth Universitys John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language (BASIC) and run it for the first time May 1, 1964. |
1964 | Baran publishes reports “On Distributed Communications.” |
1964 | AT&T starts the practice of monitoring telephone calls in the hopes of identifying phreakers. |
1964 | The TRANSIT system becomes operational on U.S. Polaris submarines. This system later becomes known as GPS. |
1964 | On April 7, 1964 IBM introduces its System/360, the first of its computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment. |
1964 | Leonard Kleinrock publishes his first book on packet nets entitled Communication Nets: Stochastic Message Flow and Design. |
1964 | The first computerized encyclopedia is invented at the Systems Development Corporation. |
1964 | Marc Benioff is born September 25, 1964. |
1964 | Eric Bina is born in October 1964. |
1964 | Tsutomu Shimomura is born October 23, 1964. |
1964 | Alan Emtage is born November 27, 1964. |
1965 | Robert Scoble is born January 18, 1965. |
1965 | Ted Nelson coins the term “hypertext,” which refers to text that is not necessarily linear. |
1965 | Hypermedia is coined by Ted Nelson. |
1965 | Digital Equipment Company’s first successful minicomputer, the PDP-8 is introduced. The computer sold for $18,000 and over 50,000 are sold. |
1965 | Donald Davies coins the word “Packet.” |
1965 | Engineers at TRW Corporation develop a Generalized Information Retrieval Language and System that later develops to the Pick Database Management System used today on Unix and Windows systems. |
1965 | Michael Dell is born February 23, 1965. |
1965 | Millions watch for the first time a space probe crashing into the moon on March 24, 1965. |
1965 | Texas Instruments develops the transistor-transistor logic (TTL). |
1965 | Lawrence G. Roberts with MIT performs the first long distant dial-up connection between a TX-2 computer n Massachusetts and a Q-32 in California. |
1965 | Gordon Moore makes an observation in a April 19, 1965 paper that later becomes widely known as Moore’s Law. |
1965 | Robert Tappan Morris is born November 8, 1965. |
1966 | MITs Joseph Weizenbaum writes a program called Eliza, that makes the computer act as a psychotherapist. |
1966 | Lawrence G. Roberts and Tom Marill publish a paper about their earlier success at connecting over dial-up. |
1966 | David Filo is born April 20, 1966. |
1966 | Stephen Gray establishes the first personal computer club, the Amateur Computer Society. |
1966 | Robert Taylor joins ARPA and brings Larry Roberts there to develop ARPANET. |
1966 | The programming language BCPL is created. |
1966 | The original Star Trek is shown for the first time on United States NBC September 8, 1966. |
1967 | IBM creates the first floppy disk. |
1967 | The first CES is held in New York from the July 24 to 28, 1967. |
1967 | Donald Davies creates 1-node NPL packet net. |
1967 | Wes Clark suggests use of a minicomputer for network packet switch. |
1967 | The LOGO programming language is developed and is later known as “turtle graphics,” a simplified interface useful for teaching children computers. |
1967 | Donald Davies creates 1-node NPL packet net. |
1967 | Ralph Baer creates “Chase”, the first video game that was capable of being played on a television. |
1967 | HES is developed at the Brown University. |
1967 | Nokia is formed. |
1967 | GPS becomes available for commercial use. |
1967 | ISACA is established. |
1968 | Intel Corporation is founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. |
1968 | Hewlett Packard began marketing the first mass-marketed PC, the HP 9100A. |
1968 | The first Network Working Group (NWG) meeting is held. |
1968 | Bob Propst invents the office cubicle. |
1968 | Larry Roberts publishes ARPANET program plan on June 3, 1968. |
1968 | On June 4, 1968 Dr. Robert Dennard at the IBM T.J. Watson Research center is granted U.S. patent 3,387,286 describing a one-transistor DRAM cell. |
1968 | First RFP for a network goes out. |
1968 | Alan Cox is born July 22, 1968. |
1968 | UCLA is selected to be the first node on the Internet as we know it today and serve as the Network Msmnt Center. |
1968 | The movie “2001: A Space Odyssey” is released. |
1968 | SHRDLU is created. |
1968 | Seiko markets a miniature printer for use with calculators. |
1968 | Sony invents Trinitron. |
1968 | Jerry Yang is born November 6, 1968. |
1968 | Douglas Engelbart publicly demonstrates Hypertext on the NLS on December 9, 1968. |
1969 | Control Data Corporation led by Seymour Cray, release the CDC 7600, considered by most to be the first supercomputer. |
1969 | AT&T Bell Laboratories develop Unix. |
1969 | The first totally artificial heart is placed into Haskell Carp on April 4, 1969 for 64 hours until a donor heart became available. |
1969 | Steve Crocker releases RFC #1 on April 7, 1979 introducing the Host-to-Host and talking about the IMP software. |
1969 | Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is founded on May 1, 1969. |
1969 | Adrian Carmack is born May 5, 1969. |
1969 | Gary Starkweather, while working with Xerox invents the laser printer. |
1969 | UCLA puts out a press release introducing the public to the Internet on July 3, 1969. |
1969 | At 4:17 Eastern Time the Apollo 11 space craft lands on the moon and Neil Armstrong becomes the first human to walk on the moon. |
1969 | Intel sells its first commercial product, the 3101 Schottky bipolar 64-bit SRAM chip. |
1969 | Ralph Baer files for a US Patent on August 21, 1969 that describes playing games on a television and would later be a part of the Magnavox Odyssey. |
1969 | On August 29, 1969 the first network switch and the first piece of network equipment (called “IMP”, which is short for Interface Message Processor) is sent to UCLA. |
1969 | The first U.S. bank ATM went into service at 9:00am on September 2, 1969. |
1969 | On September 2, 1969 the first data moves from UCLA host to the IMP switch. |
1969 | Charley Kline a UCLA student tries to send “login”, the first message over ARPANET at 10:30 p.m on October 29, 1969. The system transmitted “l” and then “o” but then crashed making today the first day a message was sent over the Internet and the first network crash. |
1969 | CompuServe, the first commercial online service, is established. |
1969 | Linus Torvalds is born December 28, 1969. |
1970 | Western Digital is founded. |
1970 | Steve Crocker and UCLA team releases NCP. |
1970 | Intel announces the 1103, a new DRAM memory chip containing more than 1,000 bits of information. This chip is classified as random-access memory (RAM). |
1970 | The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is established to perform basic computing and electronic research. |
1970 | The Forth programming language is created by Charles H. Moore. |
1970 | Henry Edward Roberts establishes Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in 1970. |
1970 | U.S. Department of Defense develops ada a computer programming language capable of designing missile guidance systems. |
1970 | The Sealed Lead Acid battery begins being used for commercial use. |
1970 | Jack Kilby is awarded the National Medal of Science. |
1970 | Patrick Norton is born June 26, 1970. |
1970 | Tom Merritt is born June 28, 1970. |
1970 | Philips introduces the VCR. |
1970 | Centronics introduces the first dot matrix printer. |
1970 | Emanuel Goldberg passes away on September 13, 1970 (age 89) |
1970 | Tom Anderson is born on November 8, 1970. |
1970 | Douglas Engelbart gets a patent for the first computer mouse on November 17, 1970. |
1970 | IBM introduces the System/370, which included the use of Virtual Memory and utilized memory chips instead of magnetic core technology. |
1971 | Philo Farnsworth passes away. |
1971 | The first 8″ floppy diskette drive was introduced. |
1971 | Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail, the first messaging system to send messages across a network to other users. |
1971 | The computer gets a voice, as the first computer is demonstrated with a synthesized voice. |
1971 | Bob Bemer publishes world’s first warning on Year 2000 problem in 1971. |
1971 | The first laser printer is developed at Xerox PARC. |
1971 | FTP is first purposed April 16, 2012 by Abhay Bhushan of MIT in RFC 114. |
1971 | IBM introduces its first speech recognition program capable of recognizing about 5,000 words. |
1971 | Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney create the first arcade game called “Computer Space.” |
1971 | SMC is founded. |
1971 | Marc Andreessen is born July 9, 1971. |
1971 | Steve Wozniak and Bill Fernandez develop a computer called the Cream Soda Computer. |
1971 | Schadt and Helfrich develop twisted nematic. |
1971 | Niklaus Wirth invents the Pascal programming language. |
1971 | Intel with the help of Ted Hoff introduces the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 on November 15, 1971. The 4004 had 2,300 transistors, performed 60,000 operations per second (OPS), addressed 640 bytes of memory, and cost $200.00. |
1971 | First edition of Unix released November 03, 1971. The first edition of the “Unix PROGRAMMER’S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie.” It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat (concatenate files); chdir (change working directory); chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner); cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word count); who (who is one the system). The main thing missing was pipes. |
1972 | Erik Selberg is born in 1972. |
1972 | Evan Williams is born March 31, 1972. |
1972 | Intel introduces the 8008 processor on April 1, 1972. |
1972 | The first video game console called the Magnavox Odyssey is demonstrated May 24, 1972 and later released by Magnavox and sold for $100.00 USD. |
1972 | ARPA is renamed to DARPA. |
1972 | The programming language FORTRAN 66 is created. |
1972 | Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs invents the C programming language. |
1972 | Edsger Dijkstra is awarded the ACM Turning Award. |
1972 | The compact disc is invented in the United States. |
1972 | Cray Research Inc. is founded. |
1972 | Atari releases Pong, the first commercial video game on November 29, 1972. |
1972 | First public demo of ARPANET. |
1972 | Whetstone is first released in November 1972. |
1972 | Fletcher Jones passes away November 7, 1972 (Age: 41) |
1972 | Norm Abramson’ Alohanet connected to ARPANET: packet radio nets. |
1973 | The architecture used with the CP/M operating system becomes the standard for the next eight years until MS-DOS is introduced. |
1973 | Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn design TCP during 1973 and later publish it with the help of Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine in December of 1974 in RFC 675. |
1973 | Howard H. Aiken passes away march 14, 1973. |
1973 | Larry page is born March 26, 1973. |
1973 | ARPA deploys SATNET the first international connection. |
1973 | Alexey Andreevich Lyapunov passes away in 1973. |
1973 | Dr. Martin Cooper makes the first handheld cellular phone call to Dr. Joel S. Engel April 3, 1973. |
1973 | Robert Metcalfe creates the Ethernet at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on May 22, 1973. |
1973 | The first VoIP call is made. |
1973 | IBM introduces its 3660 Supermarket System, which uses a laser to read grocery prices and UPC bar codes. |
1973 | Interactive laser discs make their debut. |
1973 | The first Landsat satellite is launched July 23, 1973. |
1973 | Chris Pirillo is born July 26, 1973. |
1973 | The ICCP is founded. |
1973 | Sergey Brin is born August 21, 1973. |
1973 | U.S. Patent 3,906,166 is filed October 17, 1973 for a radio telephone system, which helps paves the way for what we know today as a cell phone. |
1973 | Judge awards John Vincent Atanasoff as the inventor of the first electronic digital computer on October 19, 1973. |
1974 | Jeri Ellsworth is born in 1974. |
1974 | Christopher Stone is born March 10, 1974. |
1974 | Intel’s improved microprocessor chip is introduced April 1, 1974, the 8080 becomes a standard in the computer industry. |
1974 | The U.S. government starts its antitrust suit against AT&T and doesn’t end until 1982 when AT&T agrees to divest itself of the wholly owned Bell operating companies that provided local exchange service. |
1974 | John Draper aka Captain Crunch discovers a breakfast cereal children’s whistle creates a 2600 hertz tone. Using this whistle and a blue box he’s able to successfully get into AT&T‘s phone network and make free calls anywhere in the world. |
1974 | The first Toshiba floppy disk drive is introduced. |
1974 | Vannevar Bush passes away June 28, 1974. |
1974 | The IBM MVS operating system is introduced. |
1974 | A commercial version of ARPANET known as Telenet is introduced and considered by many to be the first Internet Service Provider (ISP). |
1974 | IBM develops SEQUEL, which today is known as SQL today. |
1974 | IBM introduces SNA. |
1974 | Charles Simonyi coins the term WYSIWYG. |
1974 | Altair 8800 kits start going on sale December 19, 1974. |
1975 | Bill Gates and Paul Allen Establish Microsoft April 4, 1975. |
1975 | Christopher Strachey passes away May 18, 1975. |
1975 | Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Monte Davidoff announce Altair BASIC. |
1975 | MITS ships one of the first PCs, the Altair 8800 with one kilobyte (KB) of memory. The computer is ordered as a mail-order kit for $397.00. |
1975 | A flight simulator demo is first shown. |
1975 | Paul Allen and Bill Gates write the first computer language program for personal computers, which is a form of BASIC designed for the Altair. Gates later drops out of Harvard and founds Microsoft with Allen. |
1975 | Molly Wood is born May 23, 1975. |
1975 | Marissa Mayer is born May 30, 1975. |
1975 | Xerox exits the computer market on July 21, 1975. |
1975 | The Byte Shop, one of the first computer stores, open in California. |
1975 | The IBM 5100 becomes the first portable computer, which was released on September 1975. The computer weighed 55 pounds and had a five inch CRT display, tape drive, 1.9MHz PALM processor, and 64KB of RAM. |
1975 | EPSON enters the US market. |
1975 | Gina Trapani is born September 19, 1975. |
1975 | Bram Cohen is born October 12, 1975. |
1975 | IMS Associates begin shipping its IMSAI 8080 computer kits on December 16, 1975. |
1976 | On February 3, 1976 David Bunnell publishes an article by Bill Gates complaining about software piracy in his Computer Notes Altair newsletter. |
1976 | Intel introduces the 8085 processor on March 1976. |
1976 | Steve Wozniak designs the first Apple, the Apple I computer in 1976, later Wozniak and Steve Jobs co-found Apple Computers on April Fools day. |
1976 | The first 5.25-inch floppy disk is invented. |
1976 | Microsoft introduces an improved version of BASIC. |
1976 | The First Annual World Altair Computer convention and first convention of computer hobbyists is held in New Mexico on March 26, 1976. |
1976 | The term meme is first defined in the book The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. |
1976 | The first Public Key Cryptography known as the Deffie-Hellman is developed by Whitfield Deffie and Martin Hellman. |
1976 | The Intel 8086 is introduced June 8, 1976. |
1976 | Amber MacArthur is born June 27, 1976. |
1976 | Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak demonstrate the first Apple computer at the Home Brew Computer Club. |
1976 | The NASA Viking 2 lands on Mars September 3, 1976 and transmits pictures and soil analysis. |
1976 | Professor at Bowling Green State University first uses the term ‘Computer Ethics‘. |
1976 | The original Apple computer company logo of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree is replaced by the well known rainbow colored apple with a bite out of it. |
1976 | Matrox is founded. |
1976 | DES is approved as a federal standard in November 1976. |
1976 | Jack Dorsey is born November 19, 1976. |
1976 | Microsoft officially drops the hyphen in Micro-soft and trademarks the Microsoft name November 26, 1976. |
1976 | In December of 1976 Bill Gates drops out of Harvard to devote all his time to Microsoft. |
1977 | Apple Computer becomes Incorporated January 4, 1977 |
1977 | Ward Christansen develops a popular modem transfer modem called Xmodem. |
1977 | Apple Computer Inc., Radio Shack, and Commodore all introduce mass-market computers. |
1977 | Kevin Rose is born February 21, 1977. |
1977 | Derek Gehl is born March 10, 1977. |
1977 | The First West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco’s Brooks Civic Auditorium is held on April 15, 1977. |
1977 | Peter G. Neuman coins the term peopleware. |
1977 | Apple Computers Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics is demonstrated. |
1977 | ARCNET the first commercially network is developed |
1977 | Zoom Telephonics is founded. |
1977 | Commodore announces that the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) will be a self-contained unit, with a CPU, RAM, ROM, keyboard, monitor and tape recorder all for $495.00 |
1977 | Microsoft sells the license for BASIC to Radio Shack and Apple and introduces the program in Japan. |
1977 | Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is released May 25, 1977. |
1977 | Apple releases the Apple II series of computers June 10, 1977. |
1977 | Chad Hurley is born July 21, 1977. |
1977 | Tandy announces it will manufacture the TRS-80 Model 1, the first mass-produced computer on August 3, 1977. This computer is commonly referred to as the Trash 80. |
1977 | Frederic Williams passes away August 11, 1977 (Age: 66) |
1977 | NASA Voyager 1 is launched into space September 5, 1977. This spacecraft is the farthest man-made object in space. |
1977 | BSD is introduced. |
1978 | Dan Bricklin creates VisiCalc. |
1978 | The first BBS is put online February 16, 1978. |
1978 | TCP splits into TCP/IP driven by Danny Cohen, David Reed, and John Shoch to support real-time traffic. This allows the creation of UDP. |
1978 | Epson introduces the TX-80, which becomes the first successful dot matrix printer for personal computers. |
1978 | OSI is developed by ISO. |
1978 | Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle create the first MUD. |
1978 | The first spam e-mail was sent by Gary Thuerk in May 1, 1978 an employee at Digital who was advertising the new DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T on ARPAnet. |
1978 | Microsoft introduces a new version of COBOL. |
1978 | Peter Sunde is born September 13, 1978. |
1978 | Louise Joy Brown born July 25, 1978, becomes the first human baby born as a result of using in vitro fertilization (IVF). |
1978 | The 5.25-inch floppy disk becomes an industry standard. |
1978 | In June of 1978 Apple introduces Apple DOS 3.1, the first operating system for the Apple computers. |
1978 | Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss have the first major microcomputer bulletin board up and running in Chicago. |
1978 | ETA is founded. |
1978 | Steve Chen is born in 1978. |
1978 | John Shoch and Jon Hupp at Xerox PARC develop the first worm. |
1979 | Jawed Karim is born in 1979. |
1979 | Robert Williams of Michigan became the first human to be killed by a robot at the Ford Motors company on January 25, 1979. Resulting in a $10 million dollar lawsuit. |
1979 | Software Arts Incorporated VisiCalc becomes the first electronic spreadsheet and business program for PCs. |
1979 | Epson releases the MX-80 which soon becomes an industry standard for dot matrix printers. |
1979 | SCO is founded. |
1979 | Sierra is founded. |
1979 | The Intel 8088 is released on June 1, 1979. |
1979 | Markus Persson is born June 1, 1979. |
1979 | Bit 3 is founded. |
1979 | Texas Instruments enters the computer market with the TI 99/4 personal computer that sells for $1,500. |
1979 | Hayes markets its first modem that becomes the industry standard for modems. |
1979 | Atari introduces a coin-operated version of Asteroids. |
1979 | More than half a million computers are in use in the United States. |
1979 | 3COM is founded by Robert Metcalfe. |
1979 | Oracle introduces the first commercial version of SQL. |
1979 | The programming language DoD-1 is officially changed to Ada. |
1979 | The Motorola 6800, an 8-bit processor is released and is later chosen as the processor for the Apple Macintosh. |
1979 | Phoenix is founded. |
1979 | VMS is introduced. |
1979 | CompuServe becomes the first commercial online service offering dial-up connection to anyone September 24, 1979. |
1979 | Usenet is first started. |
1979 | A technology consulting firm in Washington D.C. known as Network Solutions is established. |
1979 | Bit 3 is established. |
1979 | Seagate is founded. |
1979 | Saitek is founded |
1979 | Oracle is founded. |
1979 | Novell Data System is established as an operating system developer. Later in 1983 the company becomes the Novell company. |
Computer history – 1980 – 1990
Year | Event |
1980 | On January 3, Hewlett Packard introduces its HP-85. A microcomputer with 16kB of RAM and a 5-inch CRT display. |
1980 | IBM introduces RISC. |
1980 | IBM hires Paul Allen and Bill Gates to create an operating system for a new PC. The pair buy the rights to a simple operating system manufactured by Seattle Computer Products and use it as a template. IBM allows the two to keep the marketing rights to the operating system, called DOS. |
1980 | IBM hires Microsoft to develop versions of BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and Pascal for the PC being developed by IBM. |
1980 | Microsoft licenses Unix and starts to develop a PC version, XENIX. |
1980 | The programming language FORTRAN 77 is created. |
1980 | The first Tandy Color computer is introduced. |
1980 | AST is founded. |
1980 | Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released May 21, 1980. |
1980 | Steve Ballmer joins Microsoft on June 11, 1980, and became Microsoft’s 30th employee, the first business manager hired by Bill Gates. |
1980 | Atari becomes the first company to register a Copyright for two computer games “Asteroids” and “Lunar Landar” on June 17, 1980. |
1980 | FIC is founded. |
1980 | Iomega is established. |
1980 | Quantum is founded. |
1980 | ARPANET experiences first major network crash causing it to go down for four hours October 27, 1980. |
1980 | Shawn Fanning is born November 22, 1980. |
1981 | Jeff Dailey, a 19-year old becomes the first person to die from computer gaming after dying from a heart attack after posting a score of 16,660 on Berzerk. |
1981 | Satya Pal Asija receives the first U.S. patent for a computer software program May 26, 1981. |
1981 | Diskeeper is founded on July 22, 1981. |
1981 | Microsoft buys the rights for QDOS from Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for $25,000 on July 27, 1981. |
1981 | MS-DOS 1.0 was released August, 1981. |
1981 | American National Standards Institute more commonly known as ANSI was founded. |
1981 | IBM joins the computer race by announcing the IBM Personal Computer on August 12, 1981, which runs the new MS-DOS operating system and has a starting price of $1,565. |
1981 | Kermit is developed at the Columbia University in New York |
1981 | Xerox introduces the graphical Star workstation. This computer greatly influences the development of Apples future computer models, Lisa and Macintosh, as well as Microsoft‘s Windows. |
1981 | VHDL is proposed and begins development. |
1981 | VMEbus is developed. |
1981 | Hayes Introduces the Smartmodem 300 with its standard setting AT command set and an operating speed of 300 bits per second. |
1981 | Adam Osborne introduces the Osborne I, the first successful portable computer, which weighs 25 pounds. |
1981 | Hewlett-Packard Superchip the first 32-bit chip is introduced. |
1981 | Commodore ships the VIC-20, which later becomes the worlds most popular computer costing only $299.95. |
1981 | Logitech is founded in Apples, Switzerland. |
1981 | Adaptec is founded. |
1981 | BITNET is founded. |
1981 | Gemlight is founded. |
1981 | Hayes releases the Smartmodem 1200 with transfer rates of 1,200 bits per second. |
1981 | CTX is established. |
1981 | IBM joins the computer race by introducing IBM 5150 PC that used the 4.77-MHz Intel 8088 processor, 16 kB base memory, and PC-DOS (MS-DOS) for the OS. |
1981 | Kensington is founded. |
1981 | MG Siegler is born November 2, 1981. |
1982 | Peter Norton creates Norton Utilities. |
1982 | Sony releases its first Trinitron monitor. |
1982 | SGI is founded. |
1982 | The Intel 80286 is introduced February 1, 1982. |
1982 | Maxtor is founded. |
1982 | Hercules is founded. |
1982 | Labtec is founded. |
1982 | Disney releases the movie Tron on July 9, 1982, the first movie to use computer generated special effects. |
1982 | Number Nine is founded. |
1982 | Symantec is founded. |
1982 | A Philips factory in Germany creates the world’s first compact disc August 17, 1982. |
1982 | Jack Kilby is inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. |
1982 | Microsoft releases FORTRAN for the PC COBOL for MS-DOS, and Multiplan for the Apple II and CP/M machines. |
1982 | Microsoft establishes a subsidiary in England to begin foreign sales efforts. |
1982 | WordPerfect Corporation introduces WordPerfect 1.0 a word processing program that will become one of the computer markets most popular word processing program. |
1982 | The first luggable computer is introduced. |
1982 | Sun is incorporated in February 1982, with four employees. |
1982 | Lotus Development Corporation is founded. |
1982 | Compaq Computer Corp. is founded by Rod Canion and other Texas Instruments Incorporated engineers. Compaq is the first company to introduce a clone of the IBM PC (the Compaq Portable in 1983) and become IBMs biggest challenger in the corporate market. |
1982 | The Commodore 64 an 8-bit computer with 64 kilobytes of memory and Commodore BASIC begins to be sold. |
1982 | Diamond Multimedia is founded. |
1982 | The movie Blade Runner is released June 25, 1982. |
1982 | Veronica Belmont is born July 21, 1982. |
1982 | The HX-20 becomes the first notebook-sized portable computer is introduced by Epson. |
1982 | MS-DOS version 1.25 is released. |
1982 | Apple Computer is the first personal computer manufacturer to hit the $1 billion mark for annual sales. |
1982 | Adobe is founded. |
1982 | Professor Scott Fahlman creates a post on bulletin board mention the idea of using a series of characters to represent a smiley face and frown face that later became known as emoticons. |
1982 | BTC is founded. |
1982 | Sony begins selling the first Audio CD players October 1, 1982. |
1982 | The XT bus is introduced. |
1982 | Rich Skrenta a 15-year old high school student creates the first known computer virus known as The Elk Cloner. |
1982 | The first permanent artificial heart is implanted into Barney Clark December 2, 1982. |
1982 | AutoCAD is introduced in December 1982. |
1983 | Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program is introduced January 26, 1983. |
1983 | Apple releases the Lisa computer, the first commercial computer with a GUI. |
1983 | The IBM XT is first introduced on March 8, 1983. |
1983 | The first Apple WWDC is held. |
1983 | Compaq introduces the first 100% IBM compatible computer the “Compaq Portable” in March of 1983. |
1983 | PC World magazine first appears on newstands March 1983. |
1983 | John Scully becomes CEO of Apple on April 8, 1983. |
1983 | BSD 4.2 is released and introduces pseudo terminals. |
1983 | Zoran is founded. |
1983 | The movie Wargames is released June 3, 1983. |
1983 | Paul Allen leaves Microsoft. |
1983 | Iomega introduces the Bernoulli drive. |
1983 | The TIME magazine nominates the personal computer as the “machine of the year” December 26,1982, the first non-human ever nominated. |
1983 | The 414s, a group of hackers are caught by the FBI. |
1983 | Interplay is founded. |
1983 | Novell introduces Netware. |
1983 | The Apple IIe is introduced. The computer contains 64 kilobytes of RAM one megahertz 6502 processor and running Applesoft BASIC and sells for $1,400. |
1983 | ARPANET standardizes TCP/IP. |
1983 | Tandy, Epson and NEC all sell notebook computers however only the Tandys model 100 becomes popular because of its low price of $499. |
1983 | THX is established. |
1983 | More than 10 million computers are in use in the United States. |
1983 | MS-DOS 2.0 was released March, 1983. |
1983 | Alexis Ohanian is born April 24, 1983. |
1983 | Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is released May 25, 1983. |
1983 | True BASIC is created and is a compiled, structured language. It doesn’t require line numbers, as the original BASIC did, and includes the advanced control structures necessary for structured programming. |
1983 | The QIC Standard becomes the first standard in the computer history for tape drives. |
1983 | Soviet jets shoot down a civilian Korean Air Lines Flight 007 flying from New York to Seoul and kill all 269 passengers and crew. As a result of this mistake President Ronald Regan orders the U.S. military to make Global Positioning System (GPS) available for civilian use. |
1983 | The GNU operating system is first announced by Richard Stallman September 27, 1983. |
1983 | IAB is founded in 1983. |
1983 | IBM announces the PCjr (PC junior) computer November 1, 1983. |
1983 | Microsoft Windows was announced November 10, 1983. |
1983 | The largest BBS Exec-PC goes online November 28, 1983. |
1984 | The AT&T company we know today officially starts, expiring the famous Bell logo January 1, 1984. |
1984 | Docutel/Olivetti introduce the Olivetti PC, compatible with the IBM PC on January 3, 1984. |
1984 | On January 4th Netherlands Antilles issues a 45-cent postage stamp of a computer making a newspaper. |
1984 | The now famous Apple “1984” commercial is aired during Super Bowl XVIII January 22, 1984. |
1984 | On January 24, 1984 the Apple Macintosh is introduced. |
1984 | Hitachi announces it has developed the first memory chip capable of holding 1MB on January 5th. |
1984 | IBM‘s AT computer is introduced. |
1984 | The MUD was known as MAD becomes the first global MUD and runs across BITNET. |
1984 | IBM PC Division (PCD) introduces its first portable computer, the IBM Portable weighing in at 30 pounds. |
1984 | Justine Ezarik is born March 20, 1984. |
1984 | Microsoft creates a new hardware and peripheral division March 29, 1984. |
1984 | ESS Technologies is founded. |
1984 | Mark Zuckerberg is born May 14, 1984. |
1984 | The game Tetris is first released in the USSR June 6, 1984. |
1984 | Guillemot is founded. |
1984 | Amiga is purchased by Commodore Business Machines on August 15th. |
1984 | Bill Gates is featured on the cover of TIME magazine. |
1984 | ASN.1 is first defined. |
1984 | The 3.5-inch floppy diskette is introduced and later becomes an industry standard. |
1984 | Dell Computer is founded May 3, 1984 in Austin Texas. |
1984 | Fox Software FoxBASE is introduced. |
1984 | Paul Mockapetris and Jon Postel introduce DNS. |
1984 | The now famous Apple commercial is shown during the Super Bowl, the commercial introduces the Apple Macintosh, a computer with graphical user interface instead of needing to type in commands. In six months sales of the computer reach 100,000. |
1984 | Apple AppleTalk networking protocol is introduced. |
1984 | Dhrystone is developed. |
1984 | IBM develops EGA. |
1984 | The computer Museum opens in downtown Boston. |
1984 | Microsoft introduces MS-DOS 3.0 for the IBM PC AT and MS-DOS 3.1 for networks. |
1984 | The Tandy 1000 personal computer is introduced and becomes the best-selling IBM-compatible computer of the year. |
1984 | IBM introduces the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) video card with higher resolution, more colors, and a quicker response then previous video cards. |
1984 | University of Southern California professor Fred Cohen creates alarm when he warns the public about computer viruses in his Computer Virus – Theory and Experiments paper. |
1984 | The term cyberspace is first used and coined by William Gibson in his book Neuromancer. |
1984 | Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are awarded the National Medal of Technology |
1984 | The beginning of the greatest adventure computer gaming series is released by Sierra. Kings Quest 1: Quest for the crown is released to the public. |
1984 | The Yellow book of CD-ROM standards is written. |
1984 | The original Terminator movie is released October 26, 1984. |
1984 | SETI is founded November 20, 1984. |
1984 | Cirrus is established. |
1984 | ISA is expanded to 16-bit capability. |
1985 | The WELL is founded in February 1985 by Stewart Brand and Larry Brilliant. |
1985 | On January 4th at CES, Commodore introduces the Commodore 128 PC with 8502 processor 128 kB of RAM and ROM cartridge port. |
1985 | On January 4th at CES, Atari introduces the Atari 130XE, 130ST, 260ST, 520ST, 65XE, 65XEM, and 65XEP computers. |
1985 | The first Internet domain name symbolics.com is registered by Symbolics, a Massachusetts computer company on March 15, 1985. |
1985 | Charles Hamblin passes away May 14, 1985. |
1985 | The GNU manifesto is published by Dr. Dobb’s Journal |
1985 | Software Arts assets are sold to Lotus. Software Arts is most well known for its VisiCalc program. |
1985 | The Amiga aka A1000 is introduced.. |
1985 | PNY Technologies is founded. |
1985 | Dell releases its first computer, the “Turbo PC.” |
1985 | Titus Interactive is founded. |
1985 | Microtek introduces the world’s first 300-dpi black-and-white sheetfed scanner. |
1985 | Quantum Computer Services is founded, this company later becomes AOL. |
1985 | Microsoft and IBM begin collaboration on the next-generation operating system (OS/2). |
1985 | The computer company Gateway 2000 is founded in Siox City, Iowa on September 5, 1985. |
1985 | CAT1 wiring is introduced. |
1985 | Intel introduces the 80386 in October. |
1985 | Paul Brainard of Aldus Corporation introduces Pagemaker for the Macintosh, a program that lets users mix type and graphics on the same page. The combination of this software and the new Apple LaserWriter laser printer helps create the desktop publishing field. |
1985 | The Mach Project begins at the Carnegie Mellon University. |
1985 | IBM develops NetBEUI. |
1985 | Microsoft Windows 1.0 is introduced in November, 1985 and is initially sold for $100.00. |
1985 | ATI is founded. |
1985 | Microsoft releases first version of QuickBASIC on August 18, 1985. |
1985 | Steve Jobs quits Apple September 16, 1985. |
1985 | Boca is established. |
1985 | IBM introduces the Baby AT motherboard form factor. |
1985 | Corel is founded. |
1985 | The first C++ reference guide is published by Bjarne Stoustrup October 14, 1985. |
1985 | The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is released in North America October 18, 1985. |
1985 | Microsoft releases the first version of Microsoft Excel on the Apple Macintosh November 30, 1985. |
1985 | Gravis is founded. |
1986 | The Hacker Manifesto is published in Phrack (Volume One, Issue 7, Phile 3 of 10) on January 8, 1986. |
1986 | The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is formed January 16, 1986. |
1986 | The space shuttle Challenger explodes January 28, 1986 during take off, resulting in the death of the seven crew members. |
1986 | Beny Alagem buys the Packard Bell name from Teledyne and starts the Packard Bell computer company. |
1986 | The term vaporware is first used by Philip Elmer-DeWitt in a TIME magazine article. |
1986 | Gigabyte is founded. |
1986 | Pixar is co-founded by Steve Jobs. |
1986 | Apple introduces the Mac Plus. The computer contained one megabyte of RAM, new keyboard that contained cursors and numeric keypad and sold for $2,600. |
1986 | The AT or 101 key keyboard is introduced by IBM. |
1986 | Compaq introduces the first 386-based PC compatible computer. |
1986 | The NCSA opens. |
1986 | Microsoft is listed on the New York Stock Exchange selling shares to the public at $21 each, making Bill Gates one of the worlds youngest billionaires. |
1986 | More than 30 million computers are in use in the United States. |
1986 | The domain ibm.com comes online March 19, 1986. |
1986 | MS-DOS 3.2 was released April, 1986. |
1986 | IBM becomes the first company to use a one megabit chip in the IBM Model 3090. |
1986 | IMAP is developed by Stanford University. |
1986 | Eric Thomas develops the first Listserv. |
1986 | NSFNET is created. |
1986 | BITNET II is created. |
1986 | IBM PC Division (PCD) announces it’s first laptop computer, the PC Convertible, weighing 12 pounds, which is 18 pounds lighter than the earlier portable computer. |
1986 | CD-i format is specified. |
1986 | Tandy announces the Color Computer 3 July 30, 1986. |
1986 | Aztech is established. |
1986 | Avid is established. |
1987 | Steve Wozniak ends his employment with Apple on February 6, 1987. |
1987 | The domain apple.com comes online February 19, 1987. |
1987 | Oak Technology is founded. |
1987 | CompuServe introduces the GIF standard and images. |
1987 | Robert Noyce is awarded the National Medal of Technology. |
1987 | Microsoft purchases Forethought Incorporated. The company that developed the presentation software PowerPoint. |
1987 | Microsoft introduces Microsoft Works. |
1987 | Dolby AC-1 is introduced. |
1987 | VIA Technologies is founded. |
1987 | Microsoft and IBM release OS/2 1.0. |
1987 | The Mac SE is introduced at $2,900. |
1987 | Chipsets begin to be found on computer motherboards. |
1987 | IBM introduces the PS/2 personal computer that has improved graphics, a 3.5-inch diskette drive, and proprietary bus to help prevent clone makers competition, and a bidirectional 8-bit port. |
1987 | IBM sends clone manufacturers letters demanding retroactive licensing fees. |
1987 | IBM develops 8514/A. |
1987 | MS-DOS 3.3 was released April, 1987. |
1987 | The domain cisco.com comes online May 14, 1987. |
1987 | Microsoft acquires Forethought on June 29, 1987, the developer of what we know today as Microsoft PowerPoint. |
1987 | IBM introduces MCA. |
1987 | The first ARM processor computer, the Acorn Archimedes is released. |
1987 | Microsoft Shares hits $100 per share. |
1987 | Apogee is founded, Apogee is well known for its computer games as well as the company who first released a ‘Shareware’ game. |
1987 | The SPARC processor is first introduced by Sun. |
1987 | The first e-mail from China is sent to its connection in Germany September 20, 1987. |
1987 | Star Trek: The Next Generation TV show premiers for the first time. |
1987 | IBM introduces VGA. |
1987 | RealTek is founded October 1987. |
1987 | Walter Brattain passes away October 13, 1987. |
1987 | Larry Wall introduces Perl 1.0. |
1987 | On November 22, 1987 a Chicago PBS affiliate WTTW-11 TV broadcast gets hacked by a person wearing a Max Headroom mask. |
1987 | Microsoft introduces Windows 2.0 in December 9, 1987. |
1987 | Larry Wall releases the first version of Perl on December 18, 1987, version 1.0. |
1987 | Elitegroup Computer Systems is established. |
1988 | Edmund Berkeley passes away March 7, 1988. |
1988 | Apple files a copyright infringement against Microsoft for Windows 2.03 and Hewlett Packard for New Wave in comparison with their Macintosh operating system. |
1988 | About 45 million PCs are in use in the United States. |
1988 | SNMP is introduced. |
1988 | Robert Morris releases the Morris worm November 22, 1988, becoming one of the first major worms to infect roughly 6,000 computers over the Internet and helps establish the CERT Coordination Center. |
1988 | First T-1 backbone is added to ARPANET. |
1988 | Xircom is founded. |
1988 | Bitnet and CSNET merge to create CREN. |
1988 | Trend Micro is founded. |
1988 | Creative Labs introduces the SoundBlaster, a sound card for the PC that contains an 11-voice FM synthesizer with text-to-speech, digitized voice input/output, a MIDI port, a joystick port and bundled software. |
1988 | Jarkko Oikarinen develops IRC |
1988 | EISA is announced in September as an alternative to MCA. |
1988 | Motorola releases the 88000 processor. |
1988 | NTP is introduced. |
1988 | Intel 80386SX is introduced. |
1988 | Promise is founded. |
1988 | OSF is founded. |
1988 | Morphing is first introduced in the movie Willow. |
1988 | MS-DOS 4.0 was released July, 1988. |
1988 | MS-DOS 4.01 was released November, 1988. |
1988 | Andrei Ershov passes away December 8, 1988. |
1989 | GriD Systems Corporation introduces the first pen-based computer. |
1989 | PCMCIA trade association is founded. |
1989 | ActionFront is founded. |
1989 | The Gif89a standard is introduced. |
1989 | ABIT is founded. |
1989 | SQL Server is introduced. |
1989 | Antoni Kilinski passes away May 6, 1989. |
1989 | Fred Cohen is awarded the Information Technology Award. |
1989 | Intel releases the 486DX processor, with more than 1 million transistors and multitasking capabilities. |
1989 | Orange book is released by Philips and Sony. |
1986 | Robert Morris becomes first person indicted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on July 26, 1989. |
1989 | The first release of Microsoft Office for the Apple Mac is released on August 1, 1989. |
1989 | William Shockley passes away August 12, 1989. |
1989 | Poqet announces the Poqet PC the first pocket-sized MS-DOS compatible computer. |
1989 | Asus is founded. |
1989 | AC-2 is introduced. |
1989 | The networking routing protocol OSPF is introduced. |
1989 | Citrix is founded. |
1989 | S3 Inc. is founded. |
Computer History – 1990
Year | Event |
1990 | In 1990 Tim Berners-Lee, working with Robert Cailliau at CERN propose a ‘hypertext’ system, which is the first start of the Internet as we know it today. |
1990 | Microsoft releases Windows 3.0 a completely new version of Microsoft Windows. The version will sell more than 3 million copies in one year. |
1990 | Microsoft exceeds $1 billion in sales and becomes the first company to do so. |
1990 | Godwin’s Law is conceived. |
1990 | Alan Perlis passes away February 7, 1990. |
1990 | Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF is founded February 16, 1990. |
1990 | An Wang passes away march 24, 1990. |
1990 | Hubble telescope goes into space. |
1990 | Microsoft releases its first product for the Russian market Russian DOS 4.01. |
1990 | The World, the first commercial Internet dial-up access provider comes online. |
1990 | Norton sells his software business to Symantec. |
1990 | Creative Labs introduces the SoundBlaster Pro. |
1990 | Quarterdeck releases its memory management program QEMM386 version 5.1 which quickly becomes the fastest-selling software program in the Untied States. |
1990 | Robert Noyce passes away June 3, 1990. |
1990 | The Multimedia Personal Computer (MPC) standards are developed by Tandy and Microsoft. |
1990 | Microsoft and IBM stop working together to develop operating systems. |
1990 | Arthur Samuel passes away July 29, 1990. |
1990 | IBM introduces XGA. |
1990 | ARPANET replaced by NSFNET. |
1990 | The first search engine Archie, written by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan, and Mike Parker at McGill University in Montreal Canada is released on September 10, 1990 |
1990 | GSM standard is defined. |
1990 | The NiMH battery begins being used for commercial use. |
1990 | Panda Software is founded. |
1990 | Archie, the first search engine is introduced on September 10, 1990. |
1990 | Gopher is developed at the University of Minnesota. The program is a menu-driven search-and-retrieval tool and helps Internet users location information online. |
1990 | The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is launched October 17, 1990. |
1990 | Intel releases the 80386SL processor that uses low power and found in many portable computers. |
1990 | Tim Berners-Lee successfully sets up the first web server at info.cern.ch on December 25, 1990. |
Computer History – 1991
Year | Event |
1991 | John Bardeen passes away January 30, 1991. |
1991 | id Software is founded February 1, 1991. |
1991 | BSDi is founded. |
1991 | Python is introduced. |
1991 | HTTP/0.9 is introduced. |
1991 | NSF opens the Internet to commercial use. |
1991 | AMD introduces the AM386 microprocessor family in March. |
1991 | Intel introduces the Intel 486SX chip in April in efforts to help bring a lower-cost processor to the PC market selling for $258.00. |
1991 | Cell phone Lithium batteries begin being recalled in Japan after phone explodes and burns mans face while talking on the phone. |
1991 | The Sega Genesis game “Zero Wing” is introduced. The phrase “All your base are belong to us” later becomes a popular saying for computer gamers and geeks. |
1991 | Symantec releases Norton antivirus software. |
1991 | The programming language FORTRAN 90 is created. |
1991 | Following its decision not to develop operating systems cooperatively with IBM, Microsoft changes the name of OS/2 to Windows NT. |
1991 | Creative Labs releases a multimedia upgrade kit that includes a CD-ROM drive, the SoundBlaster Pro sound card, a MIDI kit and a variety of software applications. The kit allows IBM compatible users to obtain all tools needed to meet the MPC standards. |
1991 | Pretty Good Privacy more commonly known as PGP a public key used for encryption is released as Freeware by Philip Zimmerman. |
1991 | The computer Monkey Virus is first discovered in Edmonton, Canada. |
1991 | The domain microsoft.com comes online May 2, 1991. |
1991 | Dolby introduces AC-3. |
1991 | Apple introduces System 7 operating system May 13, 1991. |
1991 | Derrick Lehmer passes away May 22, 1991. |
1991 | The DLT tape drive is released as a very reliable, high-speed and high-capacity tape drive solution. |
1991 | The Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP) is developed by Intel, Xircom and Zenith Data Systems. |
1991 | TrueType a scalable font is introduced and developed by Microsoft and Apple and is used on all Apple computers and PC computers running Windows. |
1991 | MS-DOS 5.0 was released June, 1991. |
1991 | The London Science Museum completed the Difference Engine No 2 for the bicentennial year of Charles Babbage’s birth in June of 1991. |
1991 | The movie Terminator 2 is released July 1, 1991. |
1991 | The first Cybercafe opens in July 1991 in SanFrancisco . |
1991 | The World Wide Web is launched to the public August 6, 1991. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at the European Partial Physics Laboratory (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland develops the Web as a research tool. |
1991 | Linux is introduced by Linus Torvald in August 25, 1991. |
1991 | Apple QuickTime is introduced December 2, 1991. |
Computer History – 1992
Year | Event |
1992 | Internet Society formed. |
1992 | Grace Hopper passes away January 1, 1992. |
1992 | John Scully first uses the term PDA at CES while describing the Apple Newton on January 7, 1992. |
1992 | NSFNET upgraded to T-3 backbone. |
1992 | Microsoft introduces Windows 3.1. It sells more than 1 million copies within the first two months of its release. |
1992 | Intel releases the 486DX2 chip March 2 with a clock doubling ability that generates higher operating speeds. |
1992 | Microsoft acquires Fox Software in June, maker of FoxPro. |
1992 | Allen Newell passes away July 19, 1992. |
1992 | VESA local bus is introduced. |
1992 | Radio Shack releases the M2500 XL/2 and M4020 SX personal computers, which are the first personal based upon the MPC specification. |
1992 | The Reusable Alkaline battery is used for commercial use. |
1992 | GeCAD is founded. |
1992 | Popular Gopher tool Veronica is first released. |
1992 | EPP version 1.7 is released. |
1992 | IBM PCD introduces ThinkPad, the industry’s first notebook with a 10.4 inch color TFT display and TrackPoint. |
1992 | Thrustmaster is founded. |
1992 | TWAIN a standard interface for scanning equipment is developed by the TWAIN consortium, as it was called, consisted of representatives from Aldus, Caere, Eastman, Kodak, Hewlett Packard and Logitech. |
1992 | Microsoft and Hewlett Packard develops ECP. |
1992 | MIME standard is defined. |
1992 | Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is developed by SQL Access Group. |
1992 | Jean-Loup Gaily and Mark Alder release gzip on October 31, 1992. |
1992 | John Kemeny passes away December 26, 1992. |
Computer History – 1993
Year | Event |
1993 | Fifty World Wide Web servers are known to exist as of January. |
1993 | Winsock is released January 1993. |
1993 | President Bill Clinton puts the United States White House online with a World Wide Web page and E-mail address for the President, Vice President and first lady. |
1993 | Microsoft releases Windows NT, Microsoft Office 4.0 and MS-DOS 6.0. |
1993 | Intel develops PPGA. |
1993 | Efficient Networks is established. |
1993 | Tandy sells its computer business to AST Research. |
1993 | Intel releases the Pentium Processor on March 22 1993. The processor is a 60 MHz processor, incorporates 3.2 million transistors and sells for $878.00. |
1993 | The NCSA releases the Mosaic browser April 22, 1993. |
1993 | Microsoft and IBM introduce a PnP ISA. |
1993 | The first live streaming was done by the band Severe Tire Damage on June 24, 1993. The event was seen live in Australia and other locations over the Internet. |
1993 | Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 was released July 27, 1993. |
1993 | Neomagic is founded. |
1993 | Wine begins to be developed. |
1993 | John Scully is named president of Apple Computers. |
1993 | IrDA is founded. |
1993 | InterNIC is established. |
1993 | FRISK software is founded. |
1993 | Tim Negris, a VP at Oracle Corporation coins the term Thin client. |
1993 | Funcom is founded. |
1993 | WinRAR is first released. |
1993 | PowerQuest is founded. |
1993 | The Internet experiences massive growth. |
1993 | Edgar F. Codd introduces the world to OLAP. |
1993 | ADSI is developed at Bellcore |
1993 | The Environmental Protection Agency, along with 50 computer companies, establish Energy Star guidelines that aim to decrease the amount of power a PC uses when they are idle. |
1993 | Developed by IBM, Motorola and Apple the PowerPC processor for the Apple Power Mac is introduced and later included in the Power Mac. |
1993 | VCD is introduced. |
1993 | The PC game DOOM by Id Software was released December 10, 1993. Today, DOOM is thought of as a turning point for first person shooters and for computer games in general. |
1993 | Broderbund releases the computer game Myst is released September 24, 1993 and later is honored for being one of the most popular, well known, and sold IBM compatible and Apple Macintosh title. |
1993 | Microsoft Windows 3.11, an update to Windows 3.1 is released December 31, 1993 |
Computer History – 1994
Year | Event |
1994 | Commodore computers files Bankruptcy. |
1994 | Vice President Al Gore makes a speech where he coins the term “Information Superhighway.” |
1994 | IBM releases OS/2 Warp. |
1994 | CDDI is adopted into the X3-T9.5 standard. |
1994 | VESA Local Bus 2.0 is released. |
1994 | Intel releases the second generation of Intel Pentium processors on March 7, 1994. |
1994 | Netscape (Mosaic Communications corporation) is found by Marc Andreesen and James H. Clark April 4, 1994. |
1994 | 3DFX is founded. |
1994 | Microsoft introduces SMS, now known as SCCM. |
1994 | Iomega releases its Zip disk drive and diskettes. |
1994 | Red Hat Linux is founded. |
1994 | Microsoft releases its beta for Windows 95, code named Chicago. |
1994 | Rasmus Lerdorf creates PHP. |
1994 | IBM PCD introduces the IBM ThinkPad 775CD, the first notebook with an integrated CD-ROM. |
1994 | Hotwired sells the first banner ad to AT&T on October 27, 1994 and begins running the first Internet banner ad campaign. |
1994 | A mathematical flaw in the Intel Pentium involving the Pentium not correctly performing floating-point calculations is discovered. Later this leads to Intel millions of processors. |
1994 | YAHOO is created in April, 1994. |
1994 | Sunbelt Software is founded. |
1994 | The e-mail hoax “Good Times virus” is first sent out in e-mail. The hoax claimed that an e-mail containing “Good Times” in the subject was spreading on the Internet and if opened would erase everything on the hard drive and to forward the warning to all your friends. This e-mail continues to be sent out even today. |
1994 | MS-DOS 6.22 was released April, 1994. |
1994 | Intel introduces the Intel 486DX4 processor. |
1994 | ANSI approves the ATA standard May 12, 1994. |
1994 | Bashir Rameyev passes away May 16, 1918 |
1994 | Microsoft releases Windows 3.11. |
1994 | Geek Squad is founded June 16, 1994. |
1997 | The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) is established. |
1994 | Jay Miner passes away June 20, 1994. |
1994 | Norway’s telecom company, Telenor, starts a research project that later becomes Opera Software |
1994 | Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 was released September 21, 1994. |
1994 | The W3C organization is founded by Tim Berners-Lee on October 1, 1994. |
1994 | Commodore completed its file for bankruptcy. |
1994 | The Mach Project ends. |
1994 | Mosaic Netscape 0.9, the first Netscape browser is officially released October 13, 1994. This browser also introduces the Internet to Cookies. |
1994 | Perl 5.000 is released October 17, 1994. |
1994 | Professor Thomas Nicely sends an e-mail on October 30, 1994 describing the Intel FPU bug. |
1994 | Amazon.com domain is registered November 1, 1994. |
1994 | WXYC (89.3 FM Chapel Hill, NC USA) becomes first traditional radio station to announce broadcasting on the Internet November 7, 1994. |
1994 | Mosaic branches off the company Netscape November 14, 1994. |
1994 | The W3C organization holds its first meeting December 14, 1994. |
1994 | Netscape version 1 is released. |
1994 | On December 24, 1994 Unisys and CompuServe announced that they expected licensing fees for software that creates and displays GIF images. This caused a lot of hysteria among developers and website owners using GIF images because of potential future GIF taxes that lead to the development of the PNG format. |
Computer History – 1995
Year | Event |
1995 | Apple allows other computer companies to clone its computer by announcing its licensed the Macintosh operating system rights to Radius on January 4. |
1995 | IBM introduces the butterfly keyboard. |
1995 | The dot-com boom starts. |
1995 | Code named Utopia Microsoft Bob is introduced to the public January 5, 1995 at the CES by Bill Gates. |
1995 | The first Wiki is created. |
1995 | Yahoo.com domain is registered on January 18, 1995. |
1995 | Allen Coombs passes away January 30, 1995. |
1995 | Computer hacker Kevin Mitnick is arrested by the FBI. |
1995 | EPoX is founded in February |
1995 | The first VoIP software (Vocaltec) is released allowing end users to make voice calls over the Internet. |
1995 | Apple develops FireWire. |
1995 | O’Reilly Media sells the Global Network Navigator (“GNN”) to AOL in 1995. |
1995 | Netscape introduces SSL in February of 1995. |
1995 | Computer hacker Kevin Mitnick is arrested February 15, 1995. |
1995 | Perl 5.001 is released March 13, 1995. |
1995 | Arnold I. Dumey passes away. |
1995 | The Opera browser version 1 is released April 1, 1995. |
1995 | John Adam Presper “Pres” Eckert, Jr. passes away June 3, 1995. |
1995 | John Vincent Atanasoff passes away on June 15, 1995 at the age of 91. |
1995 | The movie ‘The Net’ with Sandra Bullock is released July 28, 1995. |
1995 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 1.0 on August 16, 1995. |
1995 | The domain ebay.com comes online August 4, 1995. |
1995 | Netscape goes public at $28.00 a share and by the closing ends at $58.00 a share. |
1995 | The first E3 is held in Las Vegas Nevada. |
1995 | Intel introduces the SMBus. |
1995 | Microsoft and General Electrics NBC television network form a partnership. |
1995 | LiveScript is renamed to JavaScript. |
1995 | Java is introduced. |
1995 | The Iomega Jaz drive is introduced. |
1995 | Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 was released May 30, 1995. |
1995 | Microsoft Releases Windows 95, within four days the software sells more than 1 million copies. |
1995 | PHP is publicly released June 8, 1995. |
1995 | One of the largest and well known e-commerce sites today opens its website for the first time. Amazon.com is officially opened July of 1995. |
1995 | DSVD is released. |
1995 | WebTV Networks is founded. |
1995 | EBay is founded by Pierre Omidyar. |
1995 | Hotmail is started by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia. |
1995 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 2.0 on November 22, 1995 and officially starts the browser war between Netscape. |
1995 | CD-E is introduced to the general public. |
1995 | Ruby is released. |
1995 | The movie Hackers is released September 15, 1995. |
1995 | On September 20, 1995 AT&T splits into three separate publically traded companies: a systems and equipment company, a computer company, and a communications services company. |
1995 | Microsoft releases DirectX 1.0 (4.02.0095) on September 30, 1995. |
1995 | EDO memory is introduced. |
1995 | Intel releases the new motherboard form factor ATX. |
1995 | Lotus becomes a part of IBM. |
1995 | The first computer network wiretap is authorized October 23, 1995 and leads later to the arrest of Julio Cesar Ardita. |
1995 | CPAN is introduced October 26, 1995. |
1995 | Intel introduces the Intel Pentium Pro in November. |
1995 | Toy Story is released November 22, 1995 becoming the first movie that is completely computer generated. |
1995 | HTML 2.0 standard is first published in RFC 1866 November 24, 1995. |
1995 | Larry Page and Sergey Brin begin developing a search engine called BackRub with PageRank, an important technology that becomes an important part of Google. |
1995 | On December 4, 1995 Sun Microsystems announced JavaScript and first releases it in Netscape 2.0B3. In the same year they also introduced Java. |
1995 | IBM unveils Deep Blue December 5, 1995, a parallel computing system that will later play the World Chess Champion Gary Kasparov. |
1995 | Internet search engine AltaVista launches December 15, 1995. |
1995 | Konrad Zuse passes away December 18, 1995 |
1995 | USB standard is released. |
Computer History – 1996
Year | Event |
1996 | The domain imdb.com comes online January 5, 1996. |
1996 | Netgear is founded January 8, 1996. |
1996 | Intel releases the 200 MHz P6. |
1996 | Jeffrey Lee Parson is born in 1996. |
1996 | IPv6 is introduced. |
1996 | Telecom Act deregulates data networks. |
1996 | For the first time more e-mail is sent than postal mail in USA. |
1996 | The first Java Development Kit (JDK 1.0) codenamed oak is released January 23, 1996. |
1996 | The game Duke Nukem 3D is released January 29, 1996. |
1996 | The domain myspace.com comes online February 22, 1996. |
1996 | The movie Twister becomes the first featured film put on DVD March 25, 1996. |
1996 | David Packard passes away on March 26, 1996 |
1996 | Microsoft VBScript is introduced. |
1996 | Cuthbert Hurd passes away. |
1996 | Angelfire is founded. |
1996 | Alexa is introduced in April 1996. |
1996 | Dr. Thomas Pabst starts the Tom’s Hardware website. |
1996 | Microsoft releases DirectX 2.0a (4.03.00.1096) on June 5, 1996. |
1996 | A domestic sheep by the name of Dolly is born and becomes the first mammal to be cloned |
1996 | Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 was released July 29, 1996. |
1996 | Li-polymer batteries begin being used. |
1996 | HTTP/1.0 is specified in RFC 1945 and introduced in 1996. |
1996 | CREN ended its support and since then the network has cease to exist. |
1996 | What first started off as a Usenet, IMDb becomes incorporated as the Internet Movie Database, Ltd. |
1996 | Google is first developed by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. |
1996 | KDE is started to be developed by Matthias Ettrich |
1996 | Macromedia purchases FutureWave and later releases Macromedia Flash 1.0. |
1996 | The first CSS specification, CSS 1, is published by the W3C in December 1996. |
1996 | The CDA amendment to the U.S. 1996 Telecommunications Act that went into effect on February 8, 1996. The law was intended to protect children from obscenity on the Internet, but many Internet users argued that its language was too vague and it violated the rights of free speech. Protesters against the law turned their web pages black and displayed blue ribbon icons downloaded from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. February 8, 1996 is more commonly known as “black Thursday.” |
1996 | Cray Research merges with SGI. |
1996 | ATA-2 is approved by ANSI. |
1996 | IBM and Sears sell Prodigy is sold to Internet Wireless. |
1996 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3.0 on August 13, 1996. |
1996 | AT&T introduces Worldnet. |
1996 | Microsoft releases DirectX 3.0 (4.04.00.0068) on June 5, 1996. |
1996 | AT&T spins off the system and technology unit, which later renames itself Lucent Technologies. |
1996 | IBM computer Deep Blue beats chess master Garry Kasparov in two chess matches for the first time on February 2, 1996. |
1996 | NEC merges its PC operations outside Japan with Packard Bell. |
1996 | Sony enters the PC market with the release of VAIO. |
1996 | Creative Labs introduces the 3D Blaster card its first graphics card to be released to the computer market. |
1996 | Apple Stock sinks to a 10-year low of less than $18.00 a share. |
1996 | U.S. Robotics Pilot is announced. |
1996 | Seagate has completed the merger of Conner Peripherals. |
1996 | Microsoft releases Windows CE. |
1996 | Tandy announces it will either sell or close all of its 17 incredible Universe stores and 19 of its Computer City stores because of low sales and losses in revenue. |
1996 | WebTV is introduced allowing users to browse the web from their TV July 10, 1996. |
1996 | MSNBC makes its debut. |
1996 | Microsoft introduces the IntelliMouse also known as a wheel mouse. |
1996 | Acer America Corporation introduces its designer home PCs. |
1996 | Sun Microsystems releases its line of network computers. |
1996 | Apple announces it will purchase NeXT for $429 million on December 20, 1996 and that it will acquire Steve Jobs, Apples cofounder, as a consultant. |
1996 | Microsoft Windows CE 1.0 is released as a portable operating system solution. |
1996 | Bit 3 becomes part of SBS Technologies. |
1996 | Seymour Cray passes away October 5, 1996. |
1996 | The U.S. Postal Services releases a new stamp commemorating the 50th birthday of the ENIAC. |
1996 | The first Tomb Raider game is released November 14, 1996. |
1996 | United States patent 5,579,430 is granted November 26, 1996 for the digital encoding process of MP3 files. |
1996 | K56Flex is announced in November by Lucent and Rockwell. |
1996 | Charles Molnar passes away December 13, 1996. |
1996 | Carl Sagen passes away December 20, 1996. |
1996 | The ATSC approves of HDTV on December 24, 1996. |
Computer History – 1997
Year | Event |
1997 | HTTP/1.1 is specified in RFC 2616 and officially released in January 1997. |
1997 | Mosaic development and support officially discontinued on January 7, 1997. |
1997 | On January 7th Microsoft releases the final version of Internet Explorer 3.0 for the Apple Macintosh. |
1997 | The PNG standard is introduced on January 10, 1997. |
1997 | Internet2 consortium is established. |
1997 | The world learns of Dolly, the first successfully cloned mammal February 22, 1997. |
1997 | The domain facebook.com comes online March 28, 1997. |
1997 | IEEE releases 802.11 (WiFi) standard. |
1997 | The Mars Pathfinder successfully lands on Mars July 4, 1997. |
1997 | Microsoft releases DirectX 5.0 (4.05.00.0155) on July 16, 1997. |
1997 | Intel introduces the MMX chip. |
1997 | The CD burning software Nero is first released. |
1997 | Unwired Planet develops HDML. |
1997 | Intel introduces the Slot 1 processor and slot. |
1997 | Connectix introduces Virtual PC. |
1997 | Yahoo! introduces Yahoo Mail. |
1997 | ATA-3 is approved by ANSI. |
1997 | Several computer manufactures introduce sub 1,000 computers, computers that cost less than $1,000.00. |
1997 | AOL faces several lawsuits from subscribers who are upset about the difficulties encountered when attempting to connect to its services. |
1997 | The dancing baby becomes one of the Internets first fads. The dancingbaby is a short 3D animation of a small baby wearing diapers dancing. It was first created by Michael Girard and later tweaked by Ron Lussier at LucasArts who released it on a CompuServe forum as chacha.avi. |
1997 | Altavista introduces its free online translator Babel Fish. |
1997 | A cult known as the Heaven’s Gate that earns its money from designing web sites commits a mass suicide on March 27, 1997. |
1997 | Digital Video Discs aka Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs) first go on sale. |
1997 | Microsoft announces plans to buy WebTV Networks in April for $425 million. The deal is later approved and completed in August. |
1997 | CompUSA joins Dell and Gateway in selling build-to-order PC computers. |
1997 | Intel Pentium II is introduced on May 7, 1997. |
1997 | IBMs Deep Blue computer defeats world champion chess player Garry Kasparov May 11, 1997 in their second six-game showdown, winning the tie-breaking game in only 62 minutes. |
1997 | Perl 5.004 is released May 15, 1997. |
1997 | Kaspersky is founded. |
1997 | Carsten Haitzler releases Enlightenment. |
1997 | E ink is established. |
1997 | CD-RW drives and media are introduced. |
1997 | Bill Gates is now the worlds richest businessman. |
1997 | The NASA Pathfinder Web site, which is running real-time images sent from the Pathfinder on Mars receives more than 100 million hits during its first four days, in response to the high popularity NASA sets up 25 mirror pages to handle the traffic. The site sets a new popularity record. |
1997 | Microsoft begins working on its own search engine. |
1997 | The TRUSTe organization is founded. |
1997 | Microsoft saves Apple with a $150 million investment August 6, 1997. |
1997 | The google.com domain name is registered after Sergey Brin and Larry Page decide to change the name of their BackRub search engine to Google September 15, 1997. |
1997 | The domain craigslist.com comes online September 24, 1997. |
1997 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 4.0 in September of 1997. |
1997 | Microsoft releases Microsoft Office 97. |
1997 | The first paywall is introduced by the Wall Street Journal. |
1997 | Microsoft announces Windows 98. |
1997 | 3Com buys U.S. Robotics for $6.6 billion making the consolidation the largest in the history of computer companies. |
1997 | Apple releases MAC OS 8. |
1997 | Nullsoft is founded by Justin Frankel. |
1997 | Webroot Software is founded. |
1997 | Microsoft invests $150 million in Apple Computers Inc. and agrees to continue creating software for Apple computers, in agreement Apple makes Microsoft Internet Explorer its browser of choice for Macintosh computers. |
1997 | The Li-Ion battery begins being used for commercial uses. |
1997 | The Intel Pentium II 233 MHz processor is released. |
1997 | IEEE introduced 802.11 the wireless network standard in June 1997. |
1997 | Advanced Graphics Port or AGP designed for Video cards. Designed by Intel is released August of 1997. |
1997 | Microsoft Windows CE 2.x is released. |
1997 | The Slashdot website launches. |
1997 | Steve Jobs rejoins Apple September 16, 1997. |
1997 | Cyrix is established. |
1997 | Riven, the sequel to Myst is released in October 1997. |
1997 | The domain netflix.com comes online November 10, 1997. |
1997 | Microsoft acquires Hotmail a free e-mail service in December 1997. |
1997 | Cyril Cleverdon passes away December 4, 1997. |
Computer History – 1998
Year | Event |
1998 | Internet weblogs begin to appear. |
1998 | Intel releases the Celeron processor. |
1998 | Compaq Computer purchases Digital Equipment Corporation for $9.6 billion on January 26, 1998. |
1998 | Hearings open between Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice to whether Microsoft has a monopoly on the software market. |
1998 | The DMCA is passed. |
1998 | XML 1.0 becomes a W3C recommendation on February 8, 1998. |
1998 | ATA-4 is approved by ANSI. |
1998 | Lite-on is founded. |
1998 | Blender begins being developed by NeoGeo and Not a Number Technologies in 1998. |
1998 | eMachines is founded. |
1998 | 3DNow! is introduced by AMD. |
1998 | Sun releases the JavaStation |
1998 | Bill Gates, is hit in the face with a cream pie. |
1998 | During the demonstration of a pre-release copy of Windows 98 at Comdex Bill Gates and an assistant demonstrate how to install a scanner. During the demonstration Windows 98 caused an error message. |
1998 | V.90 modem standard is announced and agreed on February 6, 1998 |
1998 | Sun Microsystems begins shipping the JavaStation in March of 1998. |
1998 | Saehan’s MPMan becomes the first MP3 player released in Japan to the public in spring of 1998. |
1998 | The CIH virus also known as Chernobyl virus is created and begins infecting computers and starts executing one year later on April 26, 1999 the same day as the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. |
1998 | Koko, a gorilla ape and student of American Sign Language holds first interspecies live Internet chat April 27, 1998. |
1998 | SETI@Home is introduced on June 8, 1998. |
1998 | Microsoft Windows 98 is officially released on June 25, 1998. |
1998 | The domain computerhope.com comes online July 14, 1998. |
1998 | Perl 5.005 is released July 22, 1998. |
1998 | The “Solar Sunrise” attack is launched by two teenager hackers and gives them access to more than 500 military government computers. |
1998 | Google files for incorporation in California September 4, 1998. |
1998 | The CST is initiated by ETA. |
1998 | AMR is released September 9, 1998 |
1998 | Reynold Johnson passes away September 15, 1998. |
1998 | Google hires Craig Silverstein as its first employee. |
1998 | Microsoft Internet Explorer passes Netscape in Internet browser market share for the first time as reported in a September 28, 1998 International Data Corporation report. |
1998 | Rockstar Games is founded. |
1998 | MySQL is introduced. |
1998 | PayPal is founded. |
1998 | Amazon purchases IMDb. |
1998 | Apple introduces the iMac, the iMac helps bring Apple back on the computer maps as a very easy and friendly computer. |
1998 | Award, well known for its computer BIOS becomes part of Phoenix, another company well known for its computer BIOS. |
1998 | Sony introduces the Sony Memory Stick. |
1998 | David Evans passes away October 3, 1998. |
1998 | In October of 1998 Microsoft announced that future releases of Windows NT would no longer have the initials of NT and that the next edition would be Windows 2000. |
1998 | Computer Hope is established in November 1, 1998. |
1998 | Microsoft acquires the advertising company LinkExchange for $265 Million USD November 6, 1998. |
1998 | Valve Half-Life a popular FPS game is released November 19, 1998. |
1998 | AOL announces it will acquire Netscape Communications for an estimated value of $4.2 billion November 24, 1998. |
Computer History – 1999
Year | Event |
1999 | RIM releases the Blackberry January 19, 1999. |
1999 | @Home buys Excite for $6.7 billion USD January 19, 1999. |
1999 | The TiVo is introduced at the Consumer electronics show in January 1999. |
1999 | Yahoo! buys GeoCities for $3.65 billion USD January 28, 1999. |
1999 | The Victoria’s Secret fashion show becomes the first major webcast on the Internet attracting over 1.5 million visitors on February 5, 1999. Unfortunately not everyone was able to view the webcast because of the popularity. |
1999 | The Intel Pentium III 500 MHz is released on February 26, 1999. |
1999 | IEEE introduced 802.11b. |
1999 | Microsoft releases Windows CE 3.0. |
1999 | RDF Site Summary, the first version of RSS is created by Ramanathan Guha at Netscape in March of 1999. |
1999 | The popular massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) EverQuest is released March 16, 1999. |
1999 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 5.0 in March 18, 1999. |
1999 | The first Wiki is introduces with WikiWikiWeb on March 25, 1999. |
1999 | The Melissa begins infecting computers March 26, 1999 and quickly spreads around the globe over e-mail in hours and becomes one of the fastest spreading viruses in history. |
1999 | The popular sci-fi movie Matrix is released March 31, 1999. |
1999 | RSAC becomes part of ICRA. |
1999 | EVGA is founded. |
1999 | Yahoo purchases Broadcast.com for $5.7 billion April 1, 1999. |
1999 | AMD releases the Slot A processor and slot. |
1999 | Microsoft acquires Access software April 19, 1999. |
1999 | The Intel Pentium III 550 MHz is released on May 17, 1999. |
1999 | Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is released May 19, 1999 |
1999 | National Semiconductor announced it will exit the PC processor market. June 30, 1999 – VIA Technologies announces it will acquire Cyrix from National Semiconductor. |
1999 | Apple introduces the Apple Airport and iBook on July 21, 1999. |
1999 | Microsoft introduces WMV with WMV 7. |
1999 | IBM introduces the first Microdrive, the world’s physically smallest hard drive capable of storing 170MB. |
1999 | The Intel Pentium III 600 MHz is released on August 2, 1999. |
1999 | Sony and Philips Electronics introduce SACD. |
1999 | AMD introduces the AMD Athlon processors August 9, 1999. |
1999 | Pyra Labs launches the Internet service Blogger August 23, 1999. |
1999 | The Intel Pentium III 533B and 600B MHz is released on September 27, 1999. |
1999 | Aims Labs goes out of business. |
1999 | Amazon agrees to buy Accept.com, Alexa Internet (Alexa.com), and Exchange.com. |
1999 | AOL purchases Nullsoft Jun 1, 1999. |
1999 | NVIDIA introduces the GPU. |
1999 | 802.11i is introduced with WPA encryption. |
1999 | The Melissa e-mail virus begins spreading over the Internet causing an estimated $80 million in damage. |
1999 | Sun Microsystems acquires StarDivision, the developers behind the StarOffice suite of software. |
1999 | Total Entertainment Network renamed to Pogo.com. |
1999 | David Huffman passes away October 7, 1999. |
1999 | The Intel Pentium III Coppermine series is first introduced on October 25, 1999. |
1999 | The D programming language starts development. |
1999 | On December 1, 1999 the most expensive Internet domain name business.com was sold by Marc Ostrofsky for $7.5 Million The domain was later sold on July 26, 2007 again to R.H. Donnelley for $345 Million USD. |
1999 | RIAA sues Napster December 7, 1999. |
1999 | Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com is named Time Person of the Year December 27, 1999. |
1999 | TIME magazine includes Philo Farnsworth in “The TIME 100: The Most Important People of the Century”. |
Computer history 2000 to today
Year | Event |
2000 | Computers continue to work and the world doesn’t come to an end on January 1, 2000 as some feared might happen because of the year 2000 bug. |
2000 | A glitch in a computer in the Washing D.C. air traffic control causes a shutdown of air traffic across the U.S. East Coast January 6, 2000. |
2000 | AOL acquires Time Warner and becomes AOL Time Warner |
2000 | Microsoft Bill Gates relinquishes his title as CEO to Microsoft President Steve Ballmer on January 13, 2000. |
2000 | The domain twitter.com comes online January 21, 2000. |
2000 | EA releases The Sims, the best-selling PC game in history February 04, 2000. |
2000 | CNR is introduced by Intel February 07, 2000. |
2000 | Microsoft Windows 2000 was released February 17, 2000. |
2000 | U.S. Judge Thomas Penfield announced today after over 2-years in the court that Microsoft be split into two companies although will remain intact until the appeals process is exhausted. |
2000 | VeriSign agrees to acquire Network Solutions for $21 billion on March 7, 2000. |
2000 | On March 10, 2000 NASDAQ hits its record high and marks the turning point of the dot-com boom. |
2000 | Perl 5.6 is released March 22, 2000. |
2000 | Microsoft Pocket PC 2000 is introduced April 19, 2000. |
2000 | The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act becomes effective April 21, 2000. |
2000 | ATI introduces their Radeon product line on April 24, 2000. |
2000 | Young Filipino students releases the ILOVEYOU e-mail virus that begins infecting computers and spreading over the Internet starting on May 4, 2000. The virus becomes one of the most costly viruses ever, estimated causing over $10 billion dollars in damage because of the steps involved in cleaning a computer after it has been infected. |
2000 | Donald Davies passes away May 28, 2000 (age 76) |
2000 | On June 24, 2000 U.S. President Bill Clinton makes the first ever Presidential webcast among the announcements President Bill Clinton announces a new web site that will be able to search all government resources. |
2000 | Jack Kilby is awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. |
2000 | ATA-5 is approved by ANSI. |
2000 | Google announces it has indexed over one billion pages making it the Internet’s largest search engine. |
2000 | Microsoft releases Windows ME June 19, 2000. |
2000 | Microsoft introduces C# to the public in June 2000. |
2000 | For the first time more than half of the households in America have Internet access on August 17, 2000 according to Nielsen. |
2000 | AT&T announces in October it will restructure over the next two years into a family of separate publicly held companies: AT&T Wireless, AT&T Broadband, and AT&T. |
2000 | Steve Wozniak is inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in September 2000. |
2000 | Google launches Google AdWords with 350 customers in October of 2000. |
2000 | Bill Shepherd, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev become the first to enter the International Space Station November 2, 2000 in what later becomes the longest continuously inhabited spacecraft. |
2000 | Microsoft release DirectX 8, November 9, 2000. |
2000 | The site egghead.com announces December 22, 2000 its site was hacked and that around 3.5 million customers credit cards were exposed. |
2001 | Microsoft announces on January 1, 2001 Windows 95 is now a legacy item and will no longer be sold or shipped to any more customers. |
2001 | January 02, 2001 – Intel announced that it will recall its 1.13 GHz Pentium III processors due to a glitch. Users with these processors should contact their vendors for additional information about the recall. |
2001 | Linus Torvalds releases version 2.4 of the Linux Kernel source code on January 4th. |
2001 | William Hewlett passes away January 12, 2001 (age 88) |
2001 | The domain wikipedia.org comes online January 13, 2001. |
2001 | Wikipedia is founded on January 15, 2001. |
2001 | Herbert Simon passes away February 9, 2001 (age 85) |
2001 | Google acquires its first public acquisition: Deaj.com’s Usenet Service on February 13, 2001, which later becomes Google groups. |
2001 | Claude Elwood Shannon passes away on February 24, 2001 (age 85) |
2001 | UsRobotics introduces the V.92 modem standard February 27, 2001. |
2001 | Napster reaches over 26 million users February 2001. |
2001 | The man who practically invented the Silicon Valley success story, Hewlett-Packard Co. co-founder William Hewlett, dies at his home, he was 87. |
2001 | Chip-making giant Intel has agreed to acquire Xircom Inc., a maker of mobile computing gear, for about $748 million. |
2001 | Claude Elwood Shannon, the mathematician who laid the foundation of modern information theory while working at Bell Labs in the 1940s, died on February 24, 2001. He was 85. |
2001 | Electronic Arts purchases Pogo.com in March 2001. |
2001 | On March 08, 2001 AOL membership surpasses 28 Million. |
2001 | The Mir Russian Space station reenters Earth’s atmosphere March 23, 2001 and breaks up after 15-years in space. |
2001 | The HyperTransport standard is introduced. |
2001 | The Code Red worm begins infecting Windows computers in July 2001 with the intention of performing a DDoS attack on the White House government web page. The worm is estimated in causing $2 billion in damages and never succeeded in it’s attack. |
2001 | Jan de Wit aka OnTheFly is convicted for the Anna Kournikova virus May 27, 2001. |
2001 | Nathan Rochester passes away June 8, 2001 (age 82) |
2001 | Bram Cohen introduces BitTorrent on a public message board July 2, 2001. |
2001 | Google Image Search is introduced offering access to 250 million images in July. |
2001 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 6.0 in August 27, 2001. |
2001 | Compaq introduces the Compaq Presario line of computers August 27, 2001. |
2001 | The CDDB is officially renamed to Gracenote. |
2001 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.0 code named Cheetah and becomes available March 24, 2001. |
2001 | March 09, McAfee releases first handheld virus protection software. |
2001 | After 21 years of selling hard drives, Quantum sells its hard drive business to Maxtor to turn its full attention to higher-level storage products and services March 31, 2001. |
2001 | April 20, Dell computers becomes the largest PC maker. |
2001 | June 5, 2001, Nevada becomes the first U.S. state to vote to legalize online gambling. |
2001 | Airlines begin to implement methods of gaining Internet access while flying. |
2001 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.1 code named Puma and becomes available on September 25, 2001. |
2001 | USB 2.0 is introduced. |
2001 | Microsoft announces April 11, 2001 that it will no longer include Clippy with future releases of Microsoft Office. |
2001 | July 20, 2001 – PC shipments worst since 1986, as only Dell grows. |
2001 | Egghead files for Bankruptcy protection on August 18, 2001. |
2001 | SATA 1.0 is introduced in August 2001. |
2001 | AST Computers goes out of business and stops selling computers. |
2001 | Hewlett Packard announces plans to buy Compaq on September 6, 2001. |
2001 | Apple introduces the iPod and it goes on sell October 23, 2001. |
2001 | On October 9, 2001 AMD announces a new branding scheme. Instead of identifying processors by their clock speed the AMD XP will bear monikers of 1800+, 1700+, 1600+ and 1500+, with each lower model number representing a lower clock speed. |
2001 | Microsoft Windows XP home and professional editions are released October 25, 2001. |
2001 | Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition (Version 2002) for Itanium systems is released. |
2001 | IBM starts the Eclipse project. |
2001 | The domain Stumbleupon.com comes online November 4, 2001. |
2001 | Microsoft releases the original Xbox game console November 15, 2001. |
2001 | Dean Kamen unveils the Segway December 3, 2001. |
2001 | The “Goner” virus is first discovered December 4, 2001 and ends up costing an estimated eighty-million dollars in damage. |
2001 | Rhapsody is released in December of 2001. |
2001 | In December 2001 the Google search engine is now indexing three billion web documents. |
2002 | In February 2002 Google releases its first hardware device called the Google Search Appliance. |
2002 | Excite@Home, one of the largest ISP’s files for bankruptcy and closes its doors March, 02, 2002. |
2002 | Gentoo is released March 31, 2002. |
2002 | Approximately 1 billion PCs have been shipped worldwide since the mid-’70s, according to a study released by consulting firm Gartner. |
2002 | Jan de Wit aka OnTheFly is convicted May 1, 2002 for the Anna Kournikova virus. |
2002 | Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is released May 16, 2002. |
2002 | Napster files for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 3, 2002. |
2002 | WorldCom the Number 2 long-distance telephone and data service company files for bankruptcy June 21, 2002. |
2002 | PCI Express is approved as standard. |
2002 | Perl 5.8 is released July 18, 2002. |
2002 | The first Trackback is used on Movable Type. |
2002 | Edsger Dijkstra passes away August 6, 2002 (age 72) |
2002 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.2 code named Jaguar and becomes available on August 23, 2002. |
2002 | Cartoon turtle named “Dewie” introduced to help promote Internet safety and security. |
2002 | Geoffrey Dummer passes away September 9, 2002 (age 93) |
2002 | The first of code that would later become Mozilla Firefox is made available September 23, 2002. |
2002 | PayPal is acquired by eBay on October 3, 2002. |
2002 | Keith Uncapher passes away October 10, 2002 (age 80) |
2002 | Iomega discontinues the Jaz drive. |
2002 | Roxio acquires the Napster name and logo in a bankruptcy auction on November 25, 2002. |
2002 | Hitachi closes deal to purchase IBM’s hard drive operation for $2.05 billion. |
2002 | Microsoft releases DirectX 9, December 19, 2002. |
2002 | In December 2002 Google introduces Froogle, which allows users to search for stuff to buy. |
2003 | The Slammer worm is first released in January 2003 and becomes the fastest spreading worm in history after infecting hundreds of thousands of computers in less than three hours. |
2003 | The space shuttle Columbia explodes fifteen minutes before it is scheduled to land on February 1, 2003, resulting in the death of all seven crew members. |
2003 | Google acquires Blogger February 17, 2003. |
2003 | PCMCIA announces the development of a new standard codenamed NEWCARD on February 19, 2003. |
2003 | Roger Needham passes away March 1, 2003 (age 68) |
2003 | Supreme court rules that sex offenders information and pictures can be posted online on March 3, 2003. |
2003 | Intel Pentium M is introduced in March. |
2003 | Adam Osborne passes away March 18, 2003 (age 64) |
2003 | Puppy Linux is introduced. |
2003 | SCO files a $1 billion USD lawsuit against IBM March 6, 2003 for allegedly devaluing its version of UNIX by contributing its intellectual property to the codebase of Linux. |
2003 | Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition (Version 2003) for Itanium 2 systems is released on March 28, 2003. |
2003 | Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is released March 28, 2003. |
2003 | The first computer is infected with the Spybot worm on April 16, 2003. |
2003 | Apple opens the iTunes store April 28, 2003. |
2003 | Edgar Codd passes away April 18, 2003 (age 80) |
2003 | The first D Conference is held in May. |
2003 | The H.264 standard is completed in May 2003. |
2003 | Internet site LinkedIn launches May 5, 2003. |
2003 | Yahoo! acquires Overture for $1.63 billion June 14, 2003. |
2003 | The game Second Life is released June 23, 2003. |
2003 | Windows Mobile 2003 on June 23, 2003 |
2003 | The Safari Internet browser is released June 30, 2003. |
2003 | The Mozilla Foundation is officially formed on July 15, 2003. |
2003 | The Internet VoIP service Skype goes public August 29, 2003. |
2003 | Valve introduces Steam September 12, 2003. |
2003 | Intel announces the new BTX form factor. |
2003 | Apple adds iTunes support for Microsoft Windows computers October 17, 2003 |
2003 | On October 24, 2003 the Sober computer worm is first discovered, a computer worm written in Visual Basic and distributed through e-mail. |
2003 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.3 code named Panther October 25, 2003. |
2003 | ImageShack comes online in November 2003. |
2003 | Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) standard is announced on November 18, 2003 as a planned replacement for DVD. |
2003 | Eugene Kleiner passes away November 20, 2003 (age 80) |
2003 | President George W. Bush signs CAN-SPAM into law December 16, 2003, establishing the first United States’ standards for sending commercial e-mail. |
2003 | Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2003 is released on December 18, 2003. |
2003 | Google releases Google Print in December 2003, which later becomes Google Book Search. |
2004 | MySpace official site is launched January 2004. |
2004 | Google jumps into the Social Networking with the release of Orkut in January 2004. |
2004 | The Mydoom computer virus with 250,000 infected computer begin to dos attack the SCO site February 1, 2004. |
2004 | In February 2004 Google is now indexing six billion items, including 4.28 billion web pages and 880 million images. |
2004 | Mark Zuckerberg launches Thefacebook February 4, 2004, which later becomes Facebook |
2004 | WPA2 begins being used. |
2004 | The photo sharing site Flickr is launched in March of 2004. |
2004 | Comcast purchases TechTV March 25, 2004 to form G4TechTV. |
2004 | Google announces Gmail on April 1, 2004. Many people take it as an April Fools joke. |
2004 | PC Maker Gateway closes all its retail stores April 2, 2004. |
2004 | Lindows changes it’s name to Linspire April 14, 2004. |
2004 | Kelkea purchases the assets of MAPS. |
2004 | The Cabir aka SymbOS/Cabir virus and fist known cell phone virus is discovered June 14, 2004 and is capable of spreading to other Symbian phones over Bluetooth. |
2004 | The first five reported killed in South Waziristan by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) June 18, 2004. |
2004 | Bob Bemer passes away June 22, 2004 (age 84) |
2004 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.4 code named Tiger at the WWDC on June 28, 2004. |
2004 | Apple introduces AirPlay. |
2004 | Intel starts the development of the BTX form factor. |
2004 | COPPA goes into effect July 1, 2004. |
2004 | Google acquires Picasa. |
2004 | Google’s initial public offering (IPO) of 19,605,052 shares becomes available at $85 a share August 18, 2004. |
2004 | Google now has more than 100 domains. |
2004 | Bob Evans passes away September 2, 2004 (age 77) |
2004 | Alain Glavieux passes away September 24, 2004 (age 55) |
2004 | Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is released on October 12, 2004. |
2004 | Internet site Yelp is launched on October 13, 2004. |
2004 | Google acquires Keyhole in October 2004, which later becomes Google Earth. |
2004 | The first release of Ubuntu is released October 20, 2004. |
2004 | Firefox 1.0 is first introduced on November 9, 2004. |
2004 | Blizzard‘s World of Warcraft game, the most popular and successful MMORPG is released November 23, 2004. |
2004 | Google now indexes 8 billion web pages. |
2004 | IBM sells its computing division to Lenovo Group for $1.75 billion on December 08, 2004. |
2004 | David Wheeler passes away December 13, 2004 (age 77) |
2005 | Jeffrey Parson aka T33kid is convicted January 1, 2005 for the Blaster computer worm. |
2005 | SBC announced it would purchase AT&T for more than $16 Billion USD January 31, 2005. |
2005 | Google Maps is launched February 8, 2005. |
2005 | Lenovo completes the acquisition of IBM‘s Personal Computing Division. |
2005 | YouTube is founded and comes online February 15, 2005. |
2005 | Google acquires Urchin in March 2005, which later becomes Google Analytics. |
2005 | Verizon introduces FiOS. |
2005 | Yahoo announces that it will acquire the popular photo service Flickr on March 21, 2005. |
2005 | Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) is introduced March 22, 2005. |
2005 | The first YouTube video entitled “Me at the zoo” is uploaded April 23, 2005 by Jawed Karim. |
2005 | Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is released on April 24, 2005. |
2005 | George Dantzig passes away May 13, 2005 (Age: 91) |
2005 | Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is released May 19, 2005. |
2005 | Google introduces its Personalized Homepage in May 2005, which is now known as iGoogle. |
2005 | Apple announces it plans on switching its computer to the Intel processors June 6, 2005. |
2005 | Eiichi Goto passes away June 12, 2005 (age 74) |
2005 | Jack Kilby passes away June 20, 2005 (age 82) |
2005 | Microsoft announces it’s next operating system, codenamed “Longhorn” will be named Windows Vista on July 23, 2005. |
2005 | IBM officially announces on July 14, 2005 that all sales of OS/2 will end on December 23, 2005 and that all support from IBM for OS/2 will end on December 16, 2005. |
2005 | MySpace is purchased by News Corporation for $580 Million US on July 18, 2005. |
2005 | On September 12, 2005 eBay acquired Skype for approximately $2.6billion. |
2005 | The Pandora Internet Radio service is launched August 25, 2005. |
2005 | Google hires DARPA veteran Vint Cerf September 2005 to carry on his quest for a global open Internet. |
2005 | Google releases Google Analytics in November 2005. |
2005 | TeamViewer is founded. |
2005 | Microsoft releases the Xbox 360, the second generation of their popular game console November 16, 2005. |
2005 | Adobe completes its acquisition of Macromedia on December 3, 2005. |
2005 | Yahoo! buys del.icio.us for $20 million December 12, 2005. |
2005 | Maxtor is acquired by Seagate Technology December 21, 2005. |
2005 | Forrest Parry passes away December 31, 2005 (Age 84) |
2006 | The blu-ray is first announced and introduced at the 2006 CES on January 4, 2006. |
2006 | On January 5, 2006 Intel introduces the Intel Core and Viiv. |
2006 | Google introduces Picasa. |
2006 | On March 2, 2006 Wikipedia volunteers create the article that passes the 1,000,000 article mark. |
2006 | Google announces acquisition of Writely in March 2006, which becomes the basis for Google Docs. |
2006 | Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter posts the first Twitter post “Just setting up my twttr” on his account March 21, 2006. |
2006 | Toshiba releases the first HD DVD player in Japan on March 31, 2006. |
2006 | Apple announces Boot Camp, which will allow users to run Windows XP on their computers April 5, 2006. |
2006 | Google launches Google Calendar in April 2006. |
2006 | Enid Mumford passes away April 7, 2006 (age 82) |
2006 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E6320 (4M Cache, 1.86 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) April 22, 2006. |
2006 | Dell purchases Alienware May 8, 2006. |
2006 | Toshiba releases the first HD DVD player in a computer computer with the introduction of the Toshiba Qosmio 35 on May 16, 2006. |
2006 | Alan Kotok passes away May 26, 2006 (age 65) |
2006 | Twttr, now known as Twitter is officially launched July 15, 2006. |
2006 | Intel introduces the Intel Core 2 Duo processors with the Core 2 Duo Processor E6300 (2M Cache, 1.86 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) July 27, 2006. |
2006 | The Intel Core 2 Extreme is first released on July 29, 2006. |
2006 | On August 6, 2006 MySpace announces its 106 millionth account was created. |
2006 | Amazon.com opens AWS. |
2006 | Skype announced that it had over 100 million registered users. |
2006 | The Microsoft XNA tool set is released August 30, 2006. |
2006 | Bernard Galler passes away September 4, 2006 (age 78) |
2006 | HP announces its plans to purchase the PC maker VoodooPC September 28, 2006. |
2006 | The GIF standard and pictures becomes officially free on October 1, 2006. |
2006 | Google announces plans to purchase YouTube for 1.65 Billion on October 9, 2006. |
2006 | Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is introduced October 18, 2006. |
2006 | Google launches its Custom Search Engine service October 23, 2006. |
2006 | U.S. President George W. Bush signs the USA Patriot Act into law October 26, 2006, giving law enforcement reduced restrictions on searching telephone, e-mail, and other forms of communication and records. |
2006 | Google acquires JotSpot October 31, 2006, which later becomes Google Sites. |
2006 | Sony releases the PlayStation 3 November 11, 2006. |
2006 | On November 14, 2006 Microsoft released its portable Zune media player. |
2006 | Nintendo releases the Wii November 19, 2006. |
2006 | Microsoft introduces exFAT in November 2006. |
2006 | Microsoft releases Microsoft Windows Vista to corporations on November 30, 2006. |
2006 | Alan F. Shugart passes away December 12, 2006 (age 76) |
2006 | TIME magazine names “You” as the person of the year December 13, 2006, with the continued growth and success of community driven websites and content. |
2006 | Google introduces Patent search December 13, 2006, which searches over 7 million patents. |
2007 | AMD releases the DTX motherboard form factor in January 2007. |
2007 | Apple announces in January 1, 2007 that it will drop computer from its name as it becomes a company who deals with more than computers. |
2007 | Apple introduces the iPhone to the public at the January 9, 2007 Macworld Conference & Expo. |
2007 | Douglas Ross passes away January 21, 2007 (age 78) |
2007 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E4300 (2M Cache, 1.80 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) January 21, 2007. |
2007 | Dropbox is founded. |
2007 | Microsoft releases Microsoft Windows Vista and Office 2007 to the general public January 30, 2007. |
2007 | Estonia becomes the first country to conduct an election over the Internet March 4, 2007 |
2007 | John Backus passes away March 17, 2007 (age 83) |
2007 | Adobe introduces Adobe AIR on March 19, 2007. |
2007 | Apple announces it will begin selling DRM-Free songs April 2, 2007. |
2007 | Google announces it will be purchasing DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. |
2007 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E4400 (2M Cache, 2.00 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) April 22, 2007. |
2007 | Theodore Maiman passes away May 5, 2007 (age 80) |
2007 | Google releases Google Trends on May 22, 2007. |
2007 | Google releases Google Street View May 25, 2007 that allows visitors of Google Maps to view of an area looks like |
2007 | Data Robotics introduces the Drobo in June. |
2007 | DDR3 is introduced. |
2007 | Apple releases the Apple iPhone to the public June 29, 2007. |
2007 | Donald Michie passes away July 7, 2007 (age 84). |
2007 | The Apple iPhone Jailbreaking method is introduced to the public on July 10, 2007. |
2007 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E4500 (2M Cache, 2.20 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) July 22, 2007. |
2007 | The Internet domain name business.com is sold on July 26, 2007 to R.H. Donnelley for $345 Million USD. |
2007 | David Morse passes away November 2, 2007 (age 64) |
2007 | Google releases Android November 5, 2007. |
2007 | Microsoft renames their SMS to SCCM in November 2007. |
2007 | The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is introduced to the public November 16, 2007. |
2007 | Amazon.com releases the first Kindle in the United States November 19, 2007. |
2007 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E4600 (2M Cache, 2.40 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) October 21, 2007. |
2007 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.5 code named Leopard October 26, 2007. |
2007 | Steve Jobs is inducted into the California Hall of Fame on December 5, 2007. |
2008 | Acer officially acquires Packard Bell January 31, 2008. |
2008 | The HD player war comes to an end when HD DVD calls it quit, making Blu-ray the victor on February 19, 2008. |
2008 | Microsoft release the WorldWide Telescope (WWT) program February 27, 2008. |
2008 | AOL ends support for the Netscape Internet browser March 1, 2008. |
2008 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E4700 (2M Cache, 2.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) March 2, 2008. |
2008 | The Hulu website is released to the Public March 12, 2008. |
2008 | Arthur C. Clark passes away March 19, 2008 (age 91) |
2008 | Intel releases the Core 2 Duo E7200 (3M Cache, 2.53 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) on April 20, 2008. |
2008 | Arthur Walter Burks passes away May 14, 2008 (age 93) |
2008 | Apple introduces Mac OS X 10.6 code named Snow Leopard and MobileMe at the WWDC on June 9, 2008. |
2008 | XM and Sirius complete their merger. |
2008 | The ATSC approves H.264 to be broadcast over television in July 2008. |
2008 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E7300 (3M Cache, 2.66 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) August 10, 2008. |
2008 | Apple introduces its latest line of Apple iMac computers on August 28, 2008. |
2008 | Google releases the beta version of Chrome September 2, 2008. |
2008 | Leonard Kleinrock is awarded the National Medal of Science on September 29, 2008. |
2008 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E7400 (3M Cache, 2.80 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) October 19, 2008. |
2008 | After completing their merger XM and Sirius begin broadcasting both services as one November 12, 2008. |
2008 | The first Intel i7 is released to the public in November of 2008. |
2008 | Google releases the first public version of Chrome December 11, 2008. |
2009 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E7500 (3M Cache, 2.93 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) January 18, 2009 |
2009 | Google voice, based on GrandCentral is launched March 11, 2009. |
2009 | Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 is introduced March 19, 2009. |
2009 | Apple removes support for AppleTalk in August 28, 2009 with its introduction of Mac OS X v10.6 that also is the first version of the Mac OS that no longer supports PowerPC processors. |
2009 | Google announces plans to acquire reCAPATCHA. |
2009 | Facebook overtakes MySpace in Internet traffic. |
2009 | The Minecraft game is released. |
2009 | Intel releases the Core2 Duo Processor E7600 (3M Cache, 3.06 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) May 31, 2009 |
2009 | Microsoft launches the Bing search engine June 3, 2009. |
2009 | The analog TV signal begins to be phased out as broadcasts moved to high-definition on June 12, 2009 |
2009 | CompuServe shuts down July 1, 2009. |
2009 | Google announces the Google Chrome OS July 7, 2009. |
2009 | After more than five years in beta, Gmail finally gets out of beta July 7, 2009. |
2009 | On July 29, 2009 Yahoo! and Microsoft announced a 10-year search deal where the Yahoo! search would be replaced by Bing. |
2009 | Microsoft releases Virtual PC September 19, 2009. |
2009 | Microsoft releases MSE on September 30, 2009. |
2009 | Microsoft releases Windows 7 October 22, 2009. |
2009 | Amir Pnueli passes away November 2, 2009 (age 68) |
2009 | Steve Jobs is named CEO of the decade by Fortune Magazine November 5, 2009. |
2009 | Palm introduces WebOS. |
2009 | Andrew Booth passes away November 29, 2009 (age 91) |
2009 | USB 3.0 begins being released in November of 2009. |
2009 | The first Barnes & Noble Nook is released November 30, 2009. |
2009 | Alexander L’vovich Brudno passes away December 1, 2009 (age 91) |
2009 | Rocket Software acquires Folio and NXT from Microsoft December 2. |
2009 | Borje Langefors passes away December 13, 2009 (age 94) |
2010 | Apple introduces the iPad on January 27, 2010. |
2010 | Google Buzz is released February 9, 2010. |
2010 | Apple announces over 10 billion tracks have been downloaded from iTunes. |
2010 | Ed Roberts passes away April 1, 2010 (age 68). |
2010 | Hewlett Packard purchased the Palm company, and the rights to WebOS, in April 2010. |
2010 | Alexander (Sandy) Shafto Douglas passes away April 29, 2010 (age 89) |
2010 | Stuxnet worm is first discovered. |
2010 | Apple introduces the iPhone 4 on June 24, 2010. |
2010 | Woot.com announces it has signed an agreement to be acquired by Amazon.com June 30, 2010. |
2010 | Carl Petri passes away July 2, 2010 (age 84) |
2010 | Amazon releases a press release July 19, 2010 mentioning it is now selling more Kindle books than hardcover books. |
2010 | The Document Foundation releases LibreOffice September 28, 2010. |
2010 | Intel releases the AHCI specification in October 2010. |
2010 | Microsoft announces plans to release Windows Phone 7 October 11, 2010. |
2010 | First all-robotic surgery performed at Montreal General Hospital October 13, 2010. |
2010 | OpenStack is established. |
2010 | MachinimaSports becomes the 1 billionth subscriber on YouTube October 28, 2010. |
2010 | United States Cyber Command achieves full operational capability November 5, 2010. |
2010 | Planet Calypso a virtual planet in the game Entropia becomes the most valuable virtual item selling for $635,000.00 USD November 12, 2010. |
2010 | Microsoft first releases the Kinect for the Xbox 360 in November 4, 2010. |
2010 | Maurice Wilkes passes away November 29, 2010 (age 97) |
2010 | Mark Zuckerberg is named TIME Person of the Year 2010. |
2011 | Intel Sandy Bridge processor is released on January 9, 2011. |
2011 | Watson, an IBM Super computer beats the two best human Jeopardy players in a three day event with a score greater than the two human players combined on February 16, 2011. |
2011 | Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 9 March 14, 2011. |
2011 | Jean Bartik passes away March 23, 2011 (Age 87) |
2011 | Microsoft announces plans on May 10, 2011 to acquire Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. |
2011 | Microsoft introduces Office 365 June 28, 2011. |
2011 | On June 29, 2011 Newscorp sells MySpace to Specific Media L.L.C for $35 million, around $473 Million less than it initially paid for it. |
2011 | On August 18, 2011 Hewlett Packard announces an interest in selling its Personal Systems Group, including WebOS. |
2011 | Steve Jobs resigns as Apple’s CEO due to health reasons on August 24, 2011. |
2011 | Tony Sale passes away on August 28, 2011 (age 80) |
2011 | Einar Stefferud passes away on September 22, 2011 (age 81) |
2011 | Steve Jobs passes away on October 5, 2011 (age 56) |
2011 | Dennis Ritchie passes away on October 12, 2011 (age 70) |
2011 | John McCarthy passes away October 24, 2011 (Age 84) |
2012 | Jack Tramiel passes away on April 8, 2012 (age 84) |
2012 | Google and several other companies migrate to IPv6 on June 6, 2012. |
2012 | Pinterest is made available to everyone August 10, 2012. |