An Overview of the History of Computing

1642

Blaise Pascal invents a mechanical adder ("Pascaline").
 

1801

Joseph Jacquard invents a loom controlled by punched cards.
 

1811

Luddites (after Edward "Ned" Ludd) break into their former factories and mills, destroying machines.
 

1821

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) proposes the Difference Engine [which AEOnline confuses with the Analytical Engine], a complex mechanical calculator for solving polynomial equations.
 

1834-35

Babbage designs the Analytical Engine.
 

1842-43

Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), translates "Observations on Mr. Babbage's Analytical Engine" (with her "Notes").
 

1854

George Boole develops the logical algebra that will underlie computer logic.
 

1887

Herman Hollerith invents a sorting and tabulating machine to solve the 1880 U.S. census problem, and founds the Tabulating Machine Company (later, International Business Machines).
 

1932

Vannevar Bush completes the Differential Analyzer, an analog computer (mechanical calculator) which could solve calculus problems. (See Bush's 1945 article As We May Think.)
 

1936

Alan Turing publishes "On Computable Numbers," which lays the theoretical groundwork for computer science.
 

1936-1941

Konrad Zuse (b. 1910), with assistance from Helmut Schreyer, builds a general-purpose computer using binary arithmetic and mechanical storage.
 
1938   Z1 -- uses mechanical switches, keyboard input
 
1939   Z2 -- uses electro-magnetic relays, punched film input
 
1941   Z3 -- first operational fully programmable computer
 

1937-41

John V. Atanasoff at Iowa State University, assisted by Clifford Berry, builds the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), a special-purpose machine using vacuum tubes to find solutions to systems of linear equations. [prototype, 1939; completed (?), 1942]
 

1936-43

Howard H. Aiken of Harvard (with a grant from IBM) builds a general-purpose computer, the Harvard Mark I, using electro-magnetic relays.
 

1943

Alan Turing and other British scientists, mathematicians, and engineers working at Bletchly Park build the first electronic computer, the Colossus, designed for code-breaking, using 2000 vacuum tubes.
 

1943-46

John Mauchley and J. Presper Eckert of the Moore School of Engineering (PA) design and build the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), a general-purpose electronic computer with 18,000 vacuum tubes. (For more detailed information, see The ENIAC Story.)
 

1945

John von Neumann spends two days with the ENIAC team and writes a proposal for a stored-program computer, the EDVAC.
 

1947

J. Bardeen, W.H. Brattain and Wm. Shockley of Bell Telephone Labs invent the transistor, a high-speed electronic switch.
 

1948

The Manchester Mark 1 ("Baby"), the first stored program computer, is completed by a team led by Freddie Williams and Tom Kilburn
 

1949

EDSAC, Cambridge's stored program computer, is completed by a team led by Maurice Wilkes.
 

1946-1952

EDVAC, the "first" (conceptually) stored program computer, is built.
 

1954

Mauchley and Eckert sell the Univac I, the first commercial computer, to General Electric.
 

1959

Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild independently invent the integrated circuit (IC), combining many transistors an a silicon chip.
 

1961

Fairchild markets the first commercial IC.
 

1969

Ted Hoff (1937-) of Intel invents the microprocessor (the 4004), placing the entire CPU of a computer on a single chip.
 

1971

The Intel 4004 is used in an electronic calculator.
 

Source: Linley Gwennap, "Birth of a Chip," BYTE, Dec. 1996, p. 78.

^*for CPU, excluding cache

Source: BYTE, Dec. 1996, p. 82

Related Resources

The History of Computing (Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech)

History of Computing Online (Dr. Tim Bergin at American University)

A Brief History of Computers and Networks

Global Networking: a Timeline --- view the history of computing in a broader historical context

A History of Computers based on Bebop Bytes Back by Clive "Max" Maxfield and Alvin Brown

The Charles Babbage Institute --- scholarly information on the history of information processing

Babbage printer finally runs (BBC News, 2000 April 13)

John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer: An Exhibition in the Department of Special Collections, Van Pelt Library, University of Pennsylvania -- extensive ENIAC documentation

History of Computing Information (U.S. Army Research Lab) -- mostly ENIAC-related material

Student Andrew Hopkins' page on the Manchester Mark I (Baby)

Article on the 50th anniversary of EDSAC (BBC News, 1999 Apr 15)

World's smallest transistor (BBC News, 1999 Nov 19)