"Computer"

The term computer commonly refers to a multi-purpose, solid-state machine. Up through the 1940s, the term "computer" referred to a job description to describe the array of activities performed by people in calculating numerical answers by the use of tables and primitive calculators.
More Computer History

Commodore

Commodore files for liquidation in April 1994, concluding a long, rich history that begins when Holocaust survivor Jack Tramiel starts a typewriter repair business in New York in 1954. By 1962, Commodore is selling adding machines and later electronic calculators. During the 1980s, Commodore produces several well-received PCs including the Vic-20, Commodore 64 and the Commodore PC.
More Computer History

Gottfried von Leibniz

"It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation, which could be safely relegated to anyone else if machines were used." - Gottfried von Leibniz.
More Computer History

First high-speed printer

Remington-Rand develops the first high-speed printer for use on the Univac computer in 1953. The high-speed printer is comprised of four cabinets: a power supply, the printing machine, a control and checking device, and a tape reader. The tape fed printer produces six hundred lines of type per minute.
More Computer History

Robert N. Noyce

Robert N. Noyce of Intel Corp receives the National Medal of Technology in 1987. He is credited for his semiconductor inventions and for his leadership in the research and development of the microprocessor, which has led to wider use of more powerful computers. These accomplishments are cited as having profound consequences both in the United States and throughout the world.
More Computer History

SABRE System

The Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment (SABRE) system goes online in 1960 to serve the travel industry. The system was created by American Airlines and IBM in the 1950s and features the debut of online transaction processing. By 1964, SABRE is the largest private data processing system in the world. Today, Travelocity serves as the web front-end interface to the system.
More Computer History

Huffman Coding

MIT student David Huffman conceptualizes the idea of using a frequency-sorted binary tree algorithm for loss-less data compression in 1951. Huffman comes up with the idea in response to his professor's term paper assignment. Today, "Huffman Coding" is used within several notable data compression products such as PKZIP, as well as the JPEG and MP3 file coding formats.
More Computer History

Lenovo

The New Technology Developer begins in China in 1984. The organization later becomes The Legend Group. After six years of importing computer products, the company begins selling its Legend PC. By 1999, Legend becomes the top PC vendor in Asia. In 2003, Legend is renamed Lenovo on the heels of an agreement by which it will acquire IBM’s Personal Computing Division.
More Computer History

Classical computer science

Stanford University computer scientist Donald E. Knuth publishes his classic computer science volumes titled "The Art of Computer Programming Volumes 1-3" in 1998. The three volumes are widely recognized as the definitive description of classical computer science. In 1999, American Scientist named these books among the best physical science monographs of the 20th century.
More Computer History

Generalized Markup Language

IBM researcher Charles Goldfarb develops the Generalized Markup Language in 1969. This language consists of a set of tags and is used as a means for allowing subsystems to share documents. Goldfarb follows up this work with the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML) in 1974, which forms the foundation for the web's HTML and XML language sets.
More Computer History

"Software engineering"

Computer scientist Friedrich Ludwig Bauer coins the term "software engineering" during a presentation at the 1968 NATO Software Conference. "The whole trouble comes from the fact that there is so much tinkering with software. It is not made in a clean fabrication process, which it should be. What we need is software engineering." - F.L. Bauer, 1968.
More Computer History

Solitaire

Microsoft adds the Solitaire game to Microsoft Windows in 1990. The Klondike Solitaire game is developed by Wes Cherry, an intern for Microsoft, as a means to help users learn Windows. Shipped with millions of Windows installations, the computer game may be the most played in the world. Since Cherry develops the program for free, he never receives any compensation or royalties.
More Computer History

Natural Keyboard

Microsoft introduces its Natural Keyboard in 1995. The keyboard is split with each half separated and tilted inwards towards the center of the keyboard. This key arrangement is ergonomically designed to prevent Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and other repetitive strain injuries associated with typing for long periods of time.
More Computer History

Vaporware

Technology consultant Esther Dyson et. al. coin the phrase "Vaporware" in 1984. Vaporware is defined as software that is announced by a company in advance of its actual release, but never materializes. The term comes in response to the grand product announcement for Ovation, an integrated software package for MS-DOS, which is never developed.
More Computer History

Hungarian notation

Charles Simonyi invents Hungarian notation in the mid 1970s. Hungarian notation is a computer programming variable naming convention in which the name of an object indicates its data type and intended use. The notation's first major use is with the BCPL programming language. The Hungarian name comes from Simonyi's nation of origin.
More Computer History

Micro-soft

In late 1974, Paul Allen and Bill Gates begin work on their BASIC language interpreter. Eight weeks later, they enter the program into the Altair and it works perfectly. MITS arranges a deal with Gates and Allen to buy the rights to their BASIC language. Bill Gates and Paul Allen are convinced of an emerging software market. Within the ensuing year, "Micro-soft" will be founded.
More Computer History

Epson

The Epson Company begins in 1961 as a subsidiary of the Seiko watch company. The company is awarded a contract to make precision timers for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as well as work to build a printer. Epson's EP-101, released in 1968, is one of the first printers for electronic calculators. Epson's first dot matrix printer, the TX-80, is introduced in 1978.
More Computer History

First floppy disk drive

IBM engineers develop the first commercial floppy disk drive system in the late 1960s. The read-only 8-inch disk and drive, called the 23FD, debuts in IBM’s System 370 computer in 1971. IBM soon realizes that a read- and write-capable disk drive can replace punch cards as a data entry device. This leads to the 33FD, a 243-kilobyte, 8-inch disk drive that is sold in 1973.
More Computer History

William Oughtred

English clergyman and scholar William Oughtred invents the slide rule in 1622. The slide rule is a portable device consisting of three interlocking calibrated strips and a sliding cursor used to record intermediate results. This practical invention will be used for the next 350 years until it is made obsolete for most purposes by electronic calculators.
More Computer History

Dr. Jay Forrester

Dr. Jay Forrester holds the patent for magnetic core memory, which for many years is the standard memory device for digital computers. Dr. Forrester developed the idea of magnetic core memory while working on the Memory Test Computer project at MIT in the 1950s. Dr. Forrester is also credited as the founder of the field of System Dynamics.
More Computer History

TI-99/4

Texas Instruments introduces its first personal computer in 1979. The TI-99/4 has a 3 MHz TMS9900 processor, 16K of memory, a ROM cartridge slot for loading software, a cassette tape input for loading programs and data, and joystick ports. Two years later, an improved version, the TI-99/4A, with a full-size keyboard and better graphics is produced.
More Computer History

Hewlett-Packard

William Hewlett and David Packard make their first commercial sale to Walt Disney Studios in 1939. Disney purchases eight oscillators for use in making the animated film Fantasia. Eight years later, Hewlett-Packard incorporates as a company with 111 employees on its payroll and annual sales of $679,000.
More Computer History

Traf-O-Data

Bill Gates and Paul Allen start the Traf-O-Data Company in 1972. The two young aspiring computer programmers develop an 8008-based computer hardware/software system for recording automobile traffic flow on a highway, earning them $20,000. Although Traf-O-Data is not a big success, it does lead to a job offer to work with a software development group at TRW.
More Computer History

System/360

Considered by many to be the biggest business gamble of all time, IBM launches System/360 on April 7, 1964. At the height of IBM's success, CEO Thomas J. Watson, Jr. invests $5 billion in a family of six mutually compatible computers that would help revolutionize modern organizations. Within two years, orders for the System/360 reach 1,000 per month.
More Computer History

SAP

Five former IBM employees establish Systemanalyse und Programmentwicklung (SAP) in Mannheim, Germany in April 1972. The organization's vision is to develop and market standard enterprise software to integrate all business processes. The idea comes to the group when they notice that client after client is developing the same, or very similar, enterprise computer programs.
More Computer History

Microsoft Word

The development of Microsoft Word begins in April 1983. Richard Brodie, Microsoft's 77th employee, develops the program while Microsoft Windows is being developed. Word is completed in 1985. To market the new word processor, Microsoft distributes 450,000 demo disks in the November issue of PC World magazine.
More Computer History

HyperCard

Apple introduces HyperCard in 1987. Created by Bill Atkinson, HyperCard allows programmers to store graphical and textual information in a series of cards. HyperCard is interactive and is geared toward the construction of user interfaces rather than the processing of data. Apple bundles the program free with Macintosh computers until 1992.
More Computer History

AutoCAD

Autodesk is founded in April 1982 in California. The company's goal is to create a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program that runs on a PC and sells for $1,000. The initial product release is called AutoCAD and is a big commercial success. Through subsequent product releases, AutoCAD is established as the de-facto standard for computer aided design on PCs.
More Computer History

ICQ

The first version of the interpersonal chat program ICQ is introduced by Israel-based Mirabilis in November 1996. The instant messaging application is enthusiastically received by hundreds of thousands of users. ICQ achieves one of the largest download rates for a start-up company in the history of the Internet. America Online acquired Mirabilis in June 1998.
More Computer History

Apple

The Apple Computer Company is born on April 1, 1975. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs design the first Apple computer in Jobs' home. Jobs is able to convince a local electronic retailer to order 25 Apple I computers. In order to raise the money to make these machines, Jobs sells his Volkswagen microbus and Wozniak sells his HP scientific calculator, enabling them to raise $1,300.
More Computer History