The Development of Communication Technology

By r07384
  • Period: to

    History of Computers

  • First freely progammable computer

    Konrad Zuse created the Z1 Computer. It was a binary electrically driven mechanical calculator with limited programmability, reading instructions from punched tape. It was completed in 1938 and financed completely from private funds. This computer was destroyed in the bombardment of Berlin in December 1943, during World War II, together with all construction plans.

  • The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is completed

    The ABC was at the center of a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the ABC shortly after it became functional.

  • The ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries.

    Start of project: 1943
    Completed: 1946
    Programmed: plug board and switches
    Speed: 5,000 operations per second
    Input/output: cards, lights, switches, plugs
    Floor space: 1,000 square feet
    Project leaders: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.

  • Harvard Mark-1 is completed

    Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator. The machine had a fifty-foot long camshaft that synchronized the machine’s thousands of component parts. The Mark-1 was used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored program computers.

  • Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University.

    For programming the EDSAC, Wilkes established a library of short programs called subroutines stored on punched paper tapes.
    Technology: vacuum tubes
    Memory: 1K words, 17 bits, mercury delay line
    Speed: 714 operations per second

  • MIT´s Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow´s "See It Now" television series

    Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a "reliable operating system," running 35 hours a week at 90-percent utility using an electrostatic tube memory.
    Start of project: 1945
    Completed: 1951
    Add time: .05 microseconds
    Input/output: cathode ray tube, paper tape, magnetic tape
    Memory size: 2048 16-digit words
    Memory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum, tape (1953 - core memory)
    Technology: 4,500 vacuum tubes, 14,800 diodes
    Floor space: 3,100 square feet
    Project leaders: Jay For

  • IBM shipped its first electronic computer, the 701

    During three years of production, IBM sold 19 machines to research laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government.

  • The air defense system operated on the AN/FSQ-7 computer (known as Whirlwind II during its development at MIT) as its central computer.

    Each computer used a full megawatt of power to drive its 55,000 vacuum tubes, 175,000 diodes and 13,000 transistors.

  • First laptop created

    It was invented in 1968 Dr. Alan Kay at XEROX PARC. In his vision he referred to it as the Dynabook - for a "dynamic book"

  • First netbook made

    Netbooks are also called SubNotebooks or small netbooks or miniLaptops. The concept of Netbook was there in 1990s. Apple introduced the first netbook called eMate 300. After that many companies started manufacturing it.

  • First smartphone made

    The first smartphone was invented by IBM in 1992. It was nicknamed, “Simon,” and had a plethora of features including a calendar, address book, calculator, email service, and even a touch screen. At $899.00, though, most people could not afford it.

  • First PDA made

    The bulky device is the Apple Newton MessagePad. Introduced in 1993, it was the first Personal Digital Assistant.
    The Newton was very ambitious for its time, featuring full Handwriting Recognition, plug-in memory cards, fax and email (with optional modem), IR communications, and a degree of intelligence we still have to see in later PDA's.

  • First MP3 player made

    April 1989 - Fraunhofer received a German patent for MP3.
    1992 - Fraunhofer's and Dieter Seitzer’s audio coding algorithm was integrated into MPEG-1.
    1993 - MPEG-1 standard published.
    1994 - MPEG-2 developed and published a year later.
    November 26, 1996 - United States patent issued for MP3.
    September 1998 - Fraunhofer started to enforce their patent rights. All developers of MP3 encoders or rippers and decoders/players now have to pay a licensing fee to Fraunhofer.

  • First tablet made

    Though the first models were desktop-based, tablet PCs became portable almost immediately after Microsoft coined the term in 2002. Early portable tablets were bulky and had limited battery life, but smaller tablets were soon produced.