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Charles Babbage - Considered by some to be a "father of the computer"
Charles Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex electronic designs, though all the essential ideas of modern computers are to be found in Babbage's analytical engine -
Alan Turing - was a mathematician who cracked codes during World War Two. It is thought that Turing and his fellow code-breakers shortened the war by several years.
Turing's main job was to crack something called the 'Enigma' code. The Enigma was a type of machine used by the German army to send secret messages.
Turing and another code-breaker called Gordon Welchman invented a machine known as the Bombe. This device helped to significantly reduce the work of the code-breakers.
His war-time efforts had a huge influence on the development of computer science and artificial intelligence. -
Hewlett-Packard is founded by David Packard and Bill Hewlett
The company was founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and David Packard, and initially produced a line of electronic test equipment. -
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain of Bell Laboratories invent the transistor.
The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for "their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect". -
The FORTRAN programming language, an acronym for FORmula TRANslation, is developed by a team of programmers at IBM
Often referred to as a scientific language, FORTRAN was the first high-level language, using the first compiler ever developed. Prior to the development of FORTRAN computer programmers were required to program in machine/assembly code, which was an extremely difficult and time consuming task, not to mention the dreadful chore of debugging the code. -
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce unveil the integrated circuit, known as the computer chip.
The integrated circuit made it possible to incorporate a roomful of equipment into a device that could be held in the palm of the hand. It also made electronic equipment dramatically cheaper to manufacture. Microchips now control most electrical devices, including all computers. -
Douglas Engelbart. He is most well known as the inventor of the Computer Mouse
The man who invented the computer mouse and predicted the internet and video conferencing long before they became a reality.
His ambition was to change the world through computers, but his inventions did not make him rich as the mouse only became an everyday computer device after its patent expired. -
A group of developers at Bell Labs produce UNIX
Written in the C programming language, UNIX was portable across multiple platforms and became the operating system of choice among mainframes at large companies and government entities. Due to the slow nature of the system, it never quite gained traction among home PC users. -
Alan Shugart leads a team of IBM engineers who invent the "floppy disk," allowing data to be shared among computers.
The first "memory disk," better known today as the "floppy disk." It was an 8-inch flexible plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide. Computer data was written to and read from the disk's surface. The first Shugart floppy held 100 KBs of data. -
Robert Metcalfe, a member of the research staff for Xerox, develops Ethernet for connecting multiple computers and other hardware.
Robert Melancton Metcalfe is an engineer-entrepreneur from the United States who helped pioneer the Internet starting in 1970, co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com and formulated Metcalfe's law. Starting in January 2011, he is Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The University of Texas at Austin. -
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple Computers on April Fool's Day and roll out the Apple I, the first computer with a single-circuit board
Initially Jobs and Wozniak planned to design a simple micro-computer board that could be sold to small businesses. However, the
duo eventually went on to build a microcomputer kit called Apple I, the company's first product. One year later, Apple was incorporated as “Apple Computer Inc”. The Apple II, one of the first commercially successful personal computers, debuted that same year. -
Accountants rejoice at the introduction of VisiCalc, the first computerised spreadsheet program.
VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet computer program for personal computers, originally released for the Apple II by VisiCorp. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool -
The first IBM personal computer, code-named "Acorn"
It used Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system. It has an Intel chip, two floppy disks and an optional colour monitor. Sears & Roebuck and Computerland sold the machines,so for the first time a computer is available through outside distributors. It also popularises the term PC. -
Microsoft launches Windows 1.0
As the first version of the Microsoft Windows line. It runs as a graphical, 16-bit multi-tasking shell on top of an existing MS-DOS installation. It provides an environment which can run graphical programs designed for Windows, as well as existing MS-DOS software. -
Tim Berners-Lee develops HyperText Markup Language (HTML), giving rise to the World Wide Web.
In 1989, Berners Lee published a paper called 'Information Management: A Proposal' in which he married up hypertext with the Internet, to create a system for sharing and distributing information not just within a company, but globally. He named it the World Wide Web.
He also created the first web browser and editor. The world's first website, http://info.cern.ch, was launched on 6 August 1991. -
The term Wi-Fi becomes part of the computing language and users begin connecting to the Internet without wires.
WiFi was invented and first released for consumers in 1997. This lead to the creation of IEEE802.11, which refers to a set of standards that define communication for wireless local area networks (WLANs). Following this, a basic specification for WiFi was established, allowing two megabytes per second of data transfer wirelessly between devices. This sparked a development in prototype equipment (routers) to comply with IEEE802.11, and in 1999, WiFi was introduced for home use. -
Facebook, a social networking site, launches.
Founded on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes in a Harvard dorm room, Facebook has rapidly became one of the biggest social networking sites in the world. -
YouTube, a video sharing service, is founded. Google acquires Android, a Linux-based mobile phone operating system.
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.
On October 9, 2006, it was announced that the company would be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion -
Apple introduces the MacBook Pro, its first Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer, as well as an Intel-based iMac.
The new laptop adds dual-core Intel processors for the first time. The MacBook Pro immediately makes waves in the tech community. -
Apple launches the iPad
The iPad changed the way consumers view media and jump-started the dormant tablet computer segment. -
Google releases the Chromebook
The devices are primarily used to perform a variety of tasks using the Google Chrome browser, with most applications and data residing in the cloud rather than on the machine itself. -
Microsoft releases Windows 10.
Windows 10 is a series of personal computer operating systems produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows NT family of operating systems. It is the successor to Windows 8.1
