| 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 |
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 |
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 |
William Joy is born November
8, 1954. |
| 1955 |
Steve Jobs is born February 24, 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 |
Emil Post passes away on April
21, 1954 (age 57) |
| 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. |
