A Computer history timeline

Counting aidsManual caculators  Mechanical calculators  Programmable calculators  Programmable computers

Date / Inventor / Device / Details
c.3000 B.C / Babylonians / Abacus / Simple counting and calculating aid. Thought to have first been invented around this time
c.1200 A.D / unknown / Chinese abacus / In widespread use in China by this time (according to textbook)
c.1600 / unknown / Japanese abacus / In widespread use in Japan by this time (according to textbook)
c.1600 / John Napier / Napier’s Bones / Multiplication and division tool based on logarithms
1621 / William Oughtred / Slide Rule / Similar in purpose and function to Napier’s Bones. Based on logarithms also. Popular up until the 1960’s.
1623 / Wilhelm Schickard / Shickard’s Calculator / Interlocking geared wheels. Not much known about it.
1642 / Blaise Pascal / Pascaline / Could add, subtract, multiply and divide.
1673 / Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz / Leibniz Calculator / Similar to Pascaline. A mechanical calculating device.
1801-1804 / Joseph Jacquard / Jacquard Loom / Weaving machine that could be “programmed” with punched cards.
1820 / Thomas deColmar / deColmar’s Arithometer / First mass-produced mechanical calculator
1822-1833 / Charles Babbage / Difference Engine / (Never completed) Steam powered. For calculating large tables of numbers for astronomy and engineering. Would have had > 4000 gears levers and wheels.
1834 / Charles Babbage / Analytical Engine / (Never completed) Embodied many of ideas of modern computers: memory, programmable processor, input/output capabilities. Was to use punched cards, probably got that idea from Jacquard. Ada Lovelace (daughter of the poet Lord Byron) also contributed and is considered the world’s first programmer.
1890 / Herman Hollerith / Hollerith Tabulating Machine / Punched card tabulating machine created to tabulate results of the 1890 US Census. He incorporated as “The Tabulating Machine Company” which later became “International Business Machines” (a.k.a. IBM)
1937-1942 / John V. Atanasoff and Clifford E. Berry / Altanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) / First computer prototype to use vacuum tubes instead of mechanical switches. Also used the binary number system like a modern computer.
~1942-1945 / Konrad Zuse / Z3 / A binary computer. Based on electromechanical relay switches. But working under the Nazi regime in Germany, his work was unknown until much later.
1939 / Howard Aiken (IBM sponsored) / Harvard Mark I / Electromechanical relay computer with many moving parts. Used decimal number system.
1943 / A British team incl. Alan Turing / COLLOSUS / Electronic device made to decode encrypted ENIGMA messages. Made with vacuum tubes and based on binary arithmetic.
1943-1945 / John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert / ENIAC / General purpose computer. Vacuum tubes. Designed to calculate trajectory tables for the US Army, but wasn’t finished until shortly after the war. Programmed via switches and patch cables.
1951 / Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. / UNIVAC / First commercially successful digital computer. Vacuum tubes. Also used magnetic tape for storage. Took punched cards too. Remington-Rand is the corp that actually marketed and sold UNIVAC, because Eckert-Mauchly ran out of money.
Late 1950’s / Various / Various / “Second generation computers”, based on transistors.
1965 / RCA / RCA Spectra 70 / One of the first “Third Generation Computers” based on integrated circuits (IC)
1965 / IBM / IBM 360 / Another of the first “Third Generation Computers”. Based on IC technology.
1965 / Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) / PDP-8 / First commercially successful minicomputer (also IC-based)
1971 / Ted Hoff (INTEL) / Intel 4004 / First “Fourth Generation Computer”, i.e. first microprocessor. That is, the first complete processor on a single chip built using integrated circuit technology. Followed by 8008, 8085, 8080, 8086,8088,80286,80386,80486, 80586 (a.k.a “Pentium), Pentium II, Pentium III, Pentium IV.
1974 / Motorola / 6800 / Early predecessor of processor first used in Macintosh computers, the 68000.
1976 / Zilog / Z80 / Based on Intel’s 8080, versions still used today in embedded computing tasks.
1974 / Jonathan A. Titus / Mark-8 / Early hobbyist personal computer
1975 / Ed Roberts / MITS Altair / First truly commercial hobbyist microcomputer.
1977 / Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs / Apple I / Another early microcomputer kit for hobbyists.
1978 / Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs / Apple II / Early personal computer with color graphics and actually useful software (VisiCalc)
1981 / IBM / IBM PC / Predecessor of the most popular personal computer platform in use today.
1983 / Apple Computer / Lisa / First commercial personal computer with a Graphical User Interface (GUI) based on ideas from Xerox PARC research lab.
1984 / Apple Computer / Macintosh / First commercially successful computer with a GUI