The first electronic television

Russian immigrant Vladimir Zworykin joins Westinghouse Electric Corporation in 1920 to work on the development of radio tubes and photocells. By 1923, Zworykin invents and patents a television transmitter (iconoscope) and receiver (kinescope). The first electronic television system produces an image about one inch square. All future CRT systems are based on Zworykin's 1923 patent.
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Napster

Eighteen-year-old Shawn Fanning changes the music industry forever in 1999 with his file-sharing program he calls Napster. His idea is to create software that allows computer users to share and swap music files. His program combines a music-search function with file sharing and instant messaging. Napster is eventually shut down by a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America.
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Data General

The Data General corporation is formed in 1966 by former engineers of Digital Equipment Corporation and Fairchild Semiconductor. Edson De Castro leads the new company in the development and release of its 16-bit minicomputer called the Nova. Released in 1969, the $8,000 Nova quickly gains a large following. Data General is eventually purchased by EMC Corporation in 1999.
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KraftWerk

The avant-garde, electro-pop quartet KraftWerk releases its highly acclaimed album "Computer World" in 1981. KraftWerk is German for "Power Plant." The concept album's songs are themed on the rise of computers within society and include songs such as "Computer World","Computer Love", and "It's More Fun to Compute."
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Novell

Novell Data Systems begins in 1979 as a team of four Brigham Young University students. Raymond Noorda engages this team in 1983 to develop a file sharing system for the newly introduced IBM-compatible PC. The file sharing operating system is later renamed Novell Netware. By 1990, Novell's Netware has a virtual monopoly on the local area network market and a large base of customers.
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SQL

IBM begins the System/R project in 1974 to develop SEQUEL, or Structured English Query Language. The language is based on E. F. Codd's relational database model and is designed to manipulate and retrieve data. The language is rewritten in 1977 to include multi-table and multi-user features. The revised system is briefly called SEQUEL/2 but later renamed SQL for legal reasons.
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The History of Computers

The first documented case of a robot-related fatality in the United States occurs on July 21, 1984. An automotive worker in Michigan is found pinned between an automated die-casting industrial robot and a 4-inch-diameter steel safety pole used to restrict undesired arm movement by the robot. The worker suffers cardiopulmonary arrest after the robot stalls and applies sustained pressure to his chest.
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The PS/2

IBM releases its second-generation PS/2 personal computer line in 1987. The PS/2 machines run IBM's OS/2 operating system and are the first IBM PCs to use a mouse. IBM ships more than 1 million units by the end of 1987. Despite its highly competent technical design, the PS/2 is a commercial failure due mainly to IBM's perceived attempt to gain control of the personal computer market.
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StarOffice

Sun Microsystems announces on July 19, 2000 that it is making the source code of its StarOffice available for download with the intention of building an open source development community around the software. The free office suite, referred to as OpenOffice, includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database applications. OpenOffice competes directly with Microsoft Office.
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Intel

Intel is founded on July 18, 1968 by former Fairchild Semiconductor Company engineers Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore. The name Intel is a shortened version of "Integrated Electronics." The company's first money making product is the 3101 Schottky bipolar 64-bit static random access memory (SRAM) chip.
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CGI

The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is invented at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1993. This advancement enables a web browser to request data from a program executed on a web server. CGI moves the web from a reading and viewing mechanism to a truly interactive experience.
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Texas Instruments

The Geophysical Services Company changes its name to Texas Instruments in 1951, reflecting its focus on transistors. The company was established in 1930 by Clarence Karcher and Eugene McDermott, mainly producing soil analysis for oil companies in the U.S. and the Middle East. During the 1940s, the company began building radar installations and became a leading manufacturer of transistors.
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Altair 8800

Considered by many to be the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair 8800 is released in 1974. Developed by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the $495 Altair has a 2 MHz Intel 8080 processor, 256 bytes of RAM, and interfaces with the user through octal front panel switches. There is no keyboard, video terminal or paper tape reader.
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Pascal

Professor Niklaus Wirth develops the original Pascal programming language in 1970. Pascal is based on the ALGOL programming language and is named in honor of mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. The goal of Pascal is to provide a language suitable for teaching programming and whose implementation is reliable and efficient. Variants of Pascal are still widely used today.
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Hypertext

The history of Hypertext begins in July 1945 when Dr. Vannevar Bush publishes his article "As We May Think" in The Atlantic Monthly. In the article, he outlines the ideas for a machine that would have the capacity to store textual and graphical information in such a way that any piece of information could be arbitrarily linked to any other piece.
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RISC

IBM, Stanford, and UC-Berkeley announce the first Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) projects in the early 1980s. RISC processors provide advantages to applications that benefit from faster instruction execution, such as engineering and graphics workstations, and parallel-processing systems. The first commercially available RISC processors hit the market around 1990.
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Pablo Picasso

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
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EDVAC

IBM delivers its first commercial computer in 1953. The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Calculator (EDVAC), later renamed the IBM 701, has a clock speed of 1 Mhz and is capable of 2,200 multiplications per second. Developed primarily for military use, IBM eventually sells nineteen of the 701 computers.
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COBOL

During the 1940s, Navy reservist Grace Murray Hopper devotes most of her waking hours to programming the Mark I and its successors, the Mark II and Mark III while working with a team of Harvard and IBM scientists. The first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Mathematics is also credited with having written the first high-level language compiler, and for leading the effort to develop the COBOL programming language.
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Arithmometer

French mathematician Thomas de Colmar develops the Arithmometer in 1820. The patented Arithmometer performs basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It is the first mass produced and commercially successful calculator. It stays in use up through the early 1900s.
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SimCity

The software gaming company Maxis releases the classic SimCity in 1989. Will Wright and Jeff Braun establish Maxis after no takers are found to distribute the game. Inspired by the complex interactions in the growth of cities, Wright studies urban planning and incorporates what he learns into the game. SimCity sells millions of copies and captures media attention, spawning three sequels and many imitations.
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Trade sanctions of PCs

The U.S. Commerce Department lifts its trade sanctions of PCs with Communist bloc nations in July 1989. Despite stringent controls directed by the Department of Defense, the Soviet Union and China are able to import systems from Brazil, India and Taiwan. The decision opens the door for American computer makers to market PC desktops and laptops computers to the previously restricted regions.
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Xerox Alto

The Xerox Alto computer is developed in 1972. Regarded as the precursor to today's PC, it has a bitmap screen display, windows, drop-down menus, hard disk, a mouse, a software productivity suite with a word processor, and even email. As Xerox focuses on copier technology and patents, the Alto researchers eventually move on to Microsoft, IBM, and Apple, taking with them their Alto knowledge and technology.
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ENIAC

The ENIAC is built at the University of Pennsylvania in 1945. The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer is the first all-electronic computer designed to be capable of being reprogrammed by rewiring to solve a full range of computing problems. The ENIAC has a clock speed of 100 kHz and is used for military purposes, such as calculating ballistic firing tables and designing atomic weapons.
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The Mythical Man Month

The classic book "The Mythical Man Month" is published by Fred Brooks in 1975. Brooks reflects on the mistakes made and lessons learned while working as a project manager at IBM. The book cites the fallacy in the attempt to add more workers to a project that is falling behind schedule. His observation, known as Brooks' Law, is simple: adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
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PARC

The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) officially opens its doors at 3180 Porter Drive in Palo Alto, California on July 1, 1970. The center's mission is to research and create "the architecture of information." The center's most notable development, among others, is the WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointers) paradigm, which spawns the Macintosh, OS/2, and Windows graphical user interfaces.
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