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Pascal Adding Machine
The first workable calculator, the Pascal Adding Machine, was created by Blaise Pascal. This was a significant advancement from tables and mechanical devices because the device does the computing. I take a lot of math classes and have even declared it as a minor, so this was a huge milestone to head-start the extremely advanced calculators that we have today. -
COBOL
Grace Hopper created the first high-level programming language for computer programmers in 1952. This was called COBOL, the first language to run on multiple types of computers. With computer science as my major, this is a crucial milestone. -
Soft Contact Lenses
Millions of people are visually impaired, with some need of glasses or contacts. The first FDA-approved soft contact lenses in the US were created in 1971. This brand happened to be Bausch + Lomb, the same brand of contacts that I use today. This type of contacts greatly increased the amount of people to wear contacts. -
World Wide Web
World Wide Web was built at the CERN physics laboratory, led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It launched a year later, thus the first web browser was created. This helped to drive the entire internet age. This is a huge milestone for me because I use web browsers for basically everything, and I've never lived in a time where they did not exist. -
Smartphone
In 1992, IBM unveiled the very first smartphone, which was a huge advancement to personal cellphones. It was called the Simon Personal Communicator (SPC). It wasn't very compact, but still featured several elements that became staples to every smartphone that followed, including a touch screen and even predictive messaging. Since my sophomore year of high school, I have owned a smartphone, and there are few times that I am somewhere without it. -
Fully Public GPS
GPS had been in use by the military since 1978, but was restricted for civilians. On May 1, 2000, President Clinton lifted the restrictions, and announced that the option to degrade civil GPS signals during emergencies would be phased out by 2010. -
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Image Sources
https://www.madisonvisionclinicsd.com/products/contacts-and-solutions
https://www.tpr.org/post/how-cobol-still-powers-global-economy-60-years-old
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator
https://www.fortinet.com/blog/industry-trends
https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-first-smartphone-simon-launched-before-iphone-2015-6
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/garmin-drive-51-lm-5-gps-with-lifetime-map-updates-black/5715643.p?skuId=5715643
