The History of the Electronic Computer

Chronology

• In 1939 John V. Atanasoff (1903-1995) and graduate student Clifford Berry of Iowa State College built an analog mechanical computer for solving linear equations.
• In 1941 Atanasoff and Berry complete another computer for solving linear equations with 60 50-bit words of memory using capacitors. The computer is later known as the ABC, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
• In December 1943 the Colossus is built at Bletchley Park. It has 2,400 vacuum tubes and is designed for the purpose of aiding in the decyphering of German secret messages.
• By 1945 Konrad Zuse (1910-1995) had developed a series of general-purpose electronic calculators, named Z1 through Z4.
• In 1946 the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was unveiled. It was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania.
• In 1947 Bell Telephone Laboratories develops the transistor.
• Howard Aiken and Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) (and IBM?) designed the Harvard Mark I, a large electromechanical computing device, unveiled 21 June 1948 The Mark V was a general-purpose electromechanical computer.
• In 1949 Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, and Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn the Manchester Mark I.
• On March 31, 1951, the US Census Bureau accepted the first UNIVAC. J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly. Remington Rand Inc, First commercial computer. 54,000 vacuum tubes, 2.25 MHz. The news media conducted a mock inquiry to UNIVAC concerning its prediction of the election outcome of the 1952 presidential election between Eisenhower and Stevenson
• John von Neumann (1903-1957) helped designed the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) which began limited operation in 1951.
• IBM 650 introduced in 1953
• IBM 7090 the first of the "second-generation" of computers build with transitors was introduced in 1958.
• Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductor both announce the integrated circuit in 1959.
• DEC PDP 8 the first minicomputer sold for $18,000 in 1963.
• The IBM 360 is introduced in April of 1964. It used integrated circuits
• In 1968 Intel is established by Robert Noyce, Grove, and Moore.
• In 1970 the floppy disk was inroduced
• 1972 -- Intel's 8008 and 8080
• 1972 -- DEC PDP 11/45
• 1976 -- Jobs and Wozniak build the Apple I
• 1978 -- DEC VAX 11/780
• 1979 -- Motorolla 68000
• 1981 -- IBM PC
• 1982 -- Compaq IBM-compatible PC
• 1984 -- Sony and Phillips CD-ROM
• 1988 -- Next computer by Steve Jobs
• 1992 -- DEC 64-bit RISC alpha
• 1993 -- Intel's Pentium

References

Books

• Augarten, Stan. Bit by Bit: An Illustrated History of Computers. Ticknor and Fields, New York, 1984.
• Goldstine, Hermann H. The Computer, from Pascal to von Neumann Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1972.
• Randell, Brian, editor. The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers, third edition. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, 1982.
• Slater, Robert. Portraits in Silicon. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987.
• Williams, Michael R. A History of Computing Technology. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1985.