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Charles Babbage comes up with an idea for steam-driven machines that could have computing capabilities
Charles Babbage, an English mathematician, designed several machines which he called "difference engines" that would've been able to compute tables of numbers, effectively eliminating human error. Although the machines he made never ended up working properly, his ideas would inspire the creation of the first computers in the 1900's. Charles Babbage Biography -
Alan Turing presents the "Turing Machine"
In his paper "On Computable Numbers...", Turing proposed a machine capable of computing anything that was capable of being computed. He would later use these ideas to create a German code-breaking electro-mechanical computer during WWII that was the first "computer" with electrical and mechanical components. The popular movie "The Imitation Game" was made about his life. Alan Turing Biography -
The first all-electrical computer/calculator, the ENIAC, is created
John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert proposed an all-electronic calculating machine that the Army, in need of a simpler way to do complex calculations, then financed, creating the EINAC. It filled a 20-by-40ft room and was able to many different types of calculations, with reprogramming. ENIAC History -
William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invent the transistor
Prior to the transistor, electrical switches were created by vacuums. The creation of the transistor allowed for electrical switches to be created with solid component. These components were markedly smaller than the vacuums and allowed for the size of these computers, and the cost, to drastically decrease. Transistor History -
A prototype of the first modern computer is presented, and features a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI)
Douglas Engelbart created what is considered to be the first computer "mouse" and presented the first modern computer with a GUI. This marked the beginning of the "computer" to be more accessible to the public, and not made for just mathematicians and scientists. Douglas Engelbart Biography -
The software company Microsoft is created.
After reading about the Altair 8080 (a new mini-computer kit) in a magazine, Paul Allen and Bill Gates offer to write software for the computer, and with it's success they start the Microsoft software company. Microsoft History Timeline -
The "Apple Computers" company is created by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the Apple I, the first computer with a single circuit board, is released
In the next year, they presented the Apple II, a computer which boasted color graphics and an audio cassette tape for storage. It was very popular. History of Apple Computers -
The first "IBM personal computer", nicknamed Acorn, is released.
The PC boasted a Microsoft operating system (MC-DOS) and had an intel chip, two floppy disks, and an optional color monitor. It was the first computer that was sold by/available through outside distributors, and it also popularized the term "PC". More info on the IBM personal computer -
Microsoft announces Windows in response to Apple's first GUI on it's personal computer, "Lisa"
Apple's and Microsoft's first GUI included drop-down menus and icons, make computers even more accessible to the general public.More info on the first Windows -
HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is created, giving rise to the World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist in Geneva, invented HTML, allowing for the creation of webpages and hyperlinks via tags and "markups". This became the language of the world wide web and spawned the creation of "browsers", which allowed one to find/access different web pages. More info on HTML history
