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Colossus: British Code-Breaking Computer
Colossus was created by Thomas Flowers for use in World War II. This first British computer was used to intercept German codes. Source -
UNIVAC: Universal Automatic Computer
SourceThe UNIVAC was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and was the world's first commercially produced electronic digital computer. It weighed 16,000 pounds, utilized 5,000 vacuum tubes and had the ability to perform around 1,000 calculations per second. This computer is famous for correctly predicting Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential election after receiving only a small percentage of the votes on November 4, 1952. -
LINC: Laboratory Instrument Computer
SourceThe LINC was designed and produced by MIT employees, Wes Clark, Walter Rosenblith, and Charles Molnar. The National Academy of Sciences funded the construction of more LINCs for science laboratories. The LINC had built in analog to digital and digital to analog converters, an oscilloscope for displaying signals, text, and programs, and LINCtape to store programs and data. -
PDP-8: Digital Equipment Corporation
SourceThe PDP-8 was created by DEC engineers C. Gordon Bell and Edson de Castro. The PDP-8 was a general purpose computer with random access memory used for time sharing, signal analysis, lighting control, etc. It had a 1.6-microsecond cycle time for computation and 4096-word core memory. This was the first major minicomputer. -
ARPANET: The First Internet
SourceThe US Department of Defense created the first network for military purposes. The TCP/IP protocol was made and we still use this protocol today. -
Kenbak-1: The First PC
The Kenbak-1 was designed in 1971 by John Blankenbaker's Kenbak Company. This first PC did not have a microprocessor but did have a 256 byte memory. It also used small and medium integrated circuits on a single circuit board. The PC with a microprocessor was the Micral 3, which had the Intel 8008 microprocessor.
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Telenet
The Telenet was developed by Telenet, Inc. founded by Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN). It was the first packet-switched network service available to the public. Source -
Apple II
The Apple II was originally debuted in 1977, but came with some major updates in 1979. This famous PC was designed by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. It featured a user-friendly design that used a television as the monitor, BASIC language for the memory, keyboard and power supply within itself, floppy disk drives, and the spreadsheet program, VisiCalc. Source -
The IBM PC
This PC was designed and promoted by the company, IBM. IBM's famous personal computer introduced the Microsoft Disk Operating System to the business world. This PC was bought in bulk by major companies for its unique design and incorporation of other companies' hardware and software. Source -
NSFNet
The National Science Foundation Network was originally a private academic network available to few universities for research purposes. However, by 1992, its T3 service linked sixteen cities and more than 3,500 networks. In 1994, the World Wide Web switched to commercial networks, so NSFNet went back to being a research-only network. Source -
NEC UltraLite
The NEC UltraLite made its debut towards the end of 1988. It was the lightest PC yet, weighing around 4.4 pounds. It did not have a disk drive, but it did have a whopping 2-MB RAM drive. Source -
Apple Powerbook
The Apple Powerbook was, at the time of its debut, the smallest, lightest and most portable laptop. It did not possess an internal floppy disk drive, but its keyboard was something to write home about. The keyboard was positioned more backwards, towards the screen and the excess space was filled with a palmrest and trackball in the middle. Source -
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Toshiba Portege 2000
This was extremely lightweight and thin for its time. Its thickness was no more than 3/4 of an inch wide. It contained the world's first 1.8 inch, 20 GB hard disk. Source -
HP TouchSmart tx2
HP's TouchSmart tx2 Notebook was a revolutionary debut for consumer notebooks. It was the first multi-touch notebook and tablet PC for consumers. Source
