1961-1965 1966-1970 1971-1975 1976-1980 1981-1984 1985-1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

1937 - 1960

YEAR	EVENTS
1937	Dr. John V. Atanasoff and his assistant Clifford Berry begun to build the first electronic digital computer device. In 1939 it was completed and named ABC. It was not programmable and it never runs without errors, but it provides the foundation for the next advances in computers.
1939	A team of mathematicians and scientists were assigned by British Secret Service to develop a machine to crack the German's code ENIGMA. The result will be COLOSSUS, the world first entirely electric digital computer, in 1943.
1941	Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, independently develops between 1938 and 1941 three calculating machines. One of them, the Z-3, could be considered the world's first fully functional automatic digital computer. It utilized the binary number system and could perform floating-point arithmetic.
1942	US Army commissioned Dr. John Mauchly and John Eckert to design a electronic machine that could compute trajectory table quickly. The result will be ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) in 1946. Later it was classified as calculator.
1946	John Tukey first uses the term bit for binary digit, the basic unit of data for computers.
1948	On 21 June MARK-1 the first programmable computer at Manchester University, runs its first program wrote by Prof. Tom Kilburn. MARK-1 incorporated the Williams storage cathode ray tube.
1948	John Bardeen, William Shockley and Walter Brattain invent the point-contact transistors to replace the bulky and fragile vacuum tube.
1948	Wang invented the computer memory core.
1949	Short Code developed for the UNIVAC 1 is both the first interpreted language and the first assembly language.
1949	EDSAC built by Maurice Wilks and team at Cambridge University (UK) has acoustic memory storage tubes, oscilloscope displays and the first library of sub-routines. It's considered the first usable full-scale stored program computer.
1949	BINAC, the American version of first electronic stored program computer, is tested in August at Eckert-Mauchley company.
1951	UNIVAC, (UNIVersal Automatic Computer), developed by Presper Eckert and John Mauchly under the Ramington-Rand Co., is a programmable computer considered to be the first commercially marketed computer sold for over 1 million dollars.
1951	Grace Hooper comes up with a compiler , a program that scans a programmer's instructions, produce an organized program and carries it out. It will be used first time in 1954 with UNIVAC I. It remained in service for 12 years. 40 UNIVAC were created later. UNIVAC used magnetized metal tape instead of the common plastic tape.
1951	The first machine designed specifically for commercial purposes was LEO (Lyons Electric Office) in Britain.
1951	Dr. W. B. Shockley, R.L. Wallace and Morgan Sparks invent the junction transistors.
1951	WHIRLWIND the first real-time computer is completed.
1952	Autocode is the first compiler but is restricted for military use only developed by Alick Glennie.
1952	First concept of Integrated Circuits published by Geoffrey Dummer in Washington.
1952	IBM (Industrial Business Machines) made the decision to add computers to their line of business equipment products. This led IBM to become a dominant force in this field.
1952	The first production-line electronic digital computer from IBM, Model 701, was designed by Nathaniel Rochester and marketed for scientific use. It includes 1 Kb RAM, a Tape Drive that used magnetized plastic tape and a punched-card reader.
1952	Fred Gruenberger writes first computer manual.
1953	Transistors are first used in a computer.
1953	Magnetic-core memory replaces electrostatic tubes on WHIRLWIND, doubling the speed, quadrupling the input data rate and reducing memory bank maintenance time from 4 hours/day to 2 hours/day
1953	ILLIAC - the world most powerful computer run at University of Illinois.
1953	IBM 650 - a smaller version of 701- was a big success selling over 1800 units. Like 701, the 650 could read from and write to both magnetic tape and punched cards. It's considered to be the first mass-produced computer.
1955	Allen Newell, J.C. Shaw and Herbert Simon develop IPL-II, the first artificial intelligence language.
1955	William Shockley's Semiconductor Laboratory is the first company established in Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay
1955	TRIDAC is the first computer who use transistors. Computers based on transistors marked the beginning of the 2-nd Generation of Computers
1956	IBM shipped 55% of all the data processing equipment.
1957	FORTRAN the first high-level computer language used for mathematical, scientific and engineering, is invented by John Backus and a team at IBM.
1957	Seymour Cray and William Norris establish Control Data Corporation to build supercomputers for scientific calculations.
1957	Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson founded Digital Equipment Corp and started to produce laboratory and systems modules.
1958	FORTRAN II is able to handle subroutines and links to assembly languages.
1958	Appear the original specification for ALGOL (Algorithmic Oriented Language) the first high-level language to break away from using mathematical formula processing and be aimed more at general problem solving.
1958	Jack Kilby from Texas Inst. creates the first integrated circuits.
1958	At Bell Labs is developed the first modulator-demodulator device, known as modem, at a speed of 300 baud.
1958	In USA there are 2500 computers in use.
1959	LISP developed by John Mc Carthy is an interpreted language used in Artificial Intelligence applications (AI). A feature of LISP is the use of brackets as delimiters. Over years many versions of LISP will be offered: MacLisp, ZetaLisp, ICI-Lisp, InterLisp
1959	By this year over 200 programming languages has been created.
1959	COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) is created by the Conference of Data Systems and Languages. One of the first languages which was not intended for mathematical or scientific use. Needs large amounts of memory. It was developed by Grace Murray.
1959	Robert Noyce invents the planer integrated circuit opening the door for commercial development
1959	IBM delivered the first four models of the first all-transistors computers to United States Air Force. These were called 7090 series.
1959	Xerox 914 is the first office copier for sale.
1960	IBM defines PL/1 as a combination of ALGOL, FORTRAN, and COBOL. The new language will be used to write large application programs on large systems.
1960	ALGOL 60 the first block-structured language. Will become the most popular language in Europe in 60s.
1960	Digital announced a small computer called PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) priced at 125,000 and 250,000 US$. It was designed by Ben Gurley.
1960	About 6000 computers are in operation in the United States.

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©; 2000-2003, Marian Bozdoc, Auckland, NZ