1960s Computer Inventions

  • DEC PDP-1

    The DEC PDP-1 was the first interactive, small computer in the world. It sold for a whopping $120,000. At the time it came out, it was actually one of the most inexpensive computers yet. Digital Equipment Corporation is credited with the invention of this computer.
  • Unimate

    The Unimate was the first industrial robot to work in a large assembly line. In 1961, it was installed in and began working at General Motors. George Devol, "the Father of Robotics," is credited with this invention.
  • Sketchpad

    Sketchpad was Ivan Sutherland's thesis at MIT. It was a real-time computer drawing program, that has influenced our computer graphics and sketch programs to this day. At the time, it was mostly used for engineering drawings.
  • Olivetti Programma 101

    The P101 was one of the first desktop all-in-one programmable calculators. It was announced at the 1964 World's Fair and went on sale in 1965. They sold 10 of these calculators to NASA.
  • IBM 1360 Photo-Digital Storage System

    The IBM 1360 was installed in the Lawrence Livermore National Library. It was a large, online archive system for data centers. It was the first system in the world that could read and write up to a trillion-bits of information at a time.