History of Computer – From 1800s to Now

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The history of computers is scattered in different eras and years. While most people believe that it began in the 1800s, that is just the half truth. The history dates back to several thousand years back with minor inventions we don’t even remember now.

It began with the invention of the abacus 4000 years ago as the first computer. The arithmetic calculation device was the first step towards the invention of computing machines. John Napier in 1617 came up with Napier’s Bones, a tool for simple multiplication and division using a decimal point. 

In 1644, Pascaline, an arithmetic machine entered the market becoming the first mechanical and automatic calculator. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz worked on Pascaline’s design making it a digital mechanical calculator called stepped reckoner.

These were some of the initial inventions which lead to the introduction of the proper mechanical computer. It is after this when Charles Babbage entered the frame. The history of the computer is important and thus we have divided it year-wise to make it easier for you to understand. Let us get to the complete history of computer now:

Computers in the 1800s

1801 – A merchant named Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a loom in France that used wooden punch cards automating the women’s fabric design. The computer in the earliest form used a similar punch card approach.

1822 – Charles Babbage with the fund provided by the English government came up with a steam-driven calculating machine. He was the father of computers for inventing the machine that could compute tables of numbers.

1890 – The 1880 US Census was the turning point when Herman Hollerith designed a punch card system helping the government with the census. His three years of work helped the government save 5 million dollars. Little did he know that IBM would be his own company.

Computers from the 1900-1930s

1936 – The idea of a universal machine put forward by Alan Turning came into place. This turning machine can compute anything computable and thus the modern computers found their base.

1937 – The development of the very first computer takes place with J.V. Atanasoff, a physics and mathematics professor, who made it without cams, belts, gears, or shafts.

1939 – Hewlett-Packard came into existence in a California garage with Bill Hewlett and David Packard putting their resources together. HP 200A Audio Oscillator was their first project that became popular with the engineers as well.

Walt Disney also bought eight of these to test recording equipment and speaker systems that showed Fantasia in 1940. George Stibitz also managed to design the Complex Number Calculator in the same year.

Computers in the 1940s

1941 – Continuing his research J.V. Atanasoff with a student Clifford Berry designed a computer that solved 29 equations simultaneously and the first one with its memory.

Konrad Zuse, a German engineer also invented the Z3 computers made with 2300 relays and it performed floating-point binary arithmetic. But the bombing raid in Berlin eventually destroyed the computer.

Alan Turing and Harold Keen came up with British Bombe decrypting Nazi military communications during World War II.

1943 – The first digital computer, Electronic Numerical Integrator, and Calculator were by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 20-foot by 40-foot dimensions.

The same year, the US Army tested the M9 director with the Bell Laboratories to improve their defense system. A delay-based calculator enabled the process and this led to the invention of relay interpolators.

1944 – Colossus to break the Nazi World War code by Tommy Flowers saved the war. This shortened the time of breaking the code from weeks to hours eventually shortening the span of the war. The Harvard mark also came out the same year invented by Howard Aiken.

1945 – The first draft of the EDVAC report by John von Neumann reshaped the functioning of a stored-program computer.

1946 – The first commercial computer for government and business built by Mauchly and Eckert as UNIVAC. The idea of a worldwide network came out with Will F. Jenkins’ story – A Logic Named Joe.

1947 – A transistor was invented by Bell Laboratories allowing them to use solid material to make electric switches instead of vacuums. Walter Brattain, William Shockley, and John Bradeen were the scientists behind.

1948 – To test the new memory technology, a Small-Scale Experimental Machine came out with high-speed electronic access memory. Frederick Williams, Geoff Toothill, and Tom Kilburn developed this first program running on all computer types.

Computers in the 1950s

1950 – The first stored-program computer, the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer was invented in the US. It was to test components and systems while setting computer standards in the country.

1953 – The first computer language, COBOL is developed by Grace Hopper allowing computers to use English words instead of binary languages. A study of 1997 also reveals that over 200 billion lines of COBOL code are still in use.

Thomas Johnson Watson Jr. came up with IBM 701 EDPM to keep tabs on Korea during the war.

1954 – The FORTRAN programming language by John Backus comes into existence as a team of programmers at IBM works on it. They also create 650 computers for the mass and manage to sell 450 out of them.

1958 – The invention of integrated circuits takes place by Jack Kirby and Robert Noyce calling it a computer chip. Kilby also received a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000.

Computers in the 1960s

1962 – The 1311 Disk Storage Drive was announced becoming the first removable disk weighing 10 pounds and with a capacity of 2 million characters. The fastest computer of that time, Atlas computers also came out this year.

1964 – A prototype of a modern computer with a mouse and graphical user interface is revealed by Douglas Engelbart. This is also the point where computers are becoming available for the general public. SABRE comes out connecting 2,000 terminals in 65 cities enabling the reservation system with American Airlines.

1968 – Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, A Space Odyssey reaches the masses, leaving the audience with the imagination of voice and visual recognition, human-computer interaction, and much more.

1969 – The Bell Labs unveil UNIX, a C programming language system addressing compatibility issues within programs.

Computers in the 1970s

1970 – the first Intel 1103 comes out with the first-ever Dynamic Access Memory (DRAM) chip.

1971 – The invention of the floppy disk takes place by Alan Shugart allowing computers to share data. The laser printer by Xerox also comes out starting the new era of computer printing. Email also becomes relevant to create computer networks.

1973 – Robert Metcalfe develops Ethernet, allowing computers and hardware to connect.

1974 – The era of personal computers begins with Scelbi & Mark-8 Altair, IBM 5100, and Radio Shack’s TRS-80 taking over the market.

1975 – The world’s first microcomputer kit, Altair 8800 is introduced by Popular Electronics magazine. Paul Allen and Bill Gates launch their own software company, Microsoft.

1976 – The Apple computer comes out with a single circuit board as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started the company. The same year, Queen Elizabeth sent out an email to show how technology works.

1977 – Jobs and Wozniak reveals the Apple II with color graphics and an audio cassette drive. Millions of these devices were sold between 1977 and 1993, becoming the longest-lived lines of personal computers.

1978 – The white house gets its first computer during the Carter administration with the staff getting access to Hewlett-Packard HP3000. The first computerized spreadsheet called VisiCalc comes out. LaserDisc also hits the market in the same year.

1979 – MicroPro International reveals WordStar, a program for word processing.

Computers in the 1980s

1981 – Acorn, a personal computer by IBM comes out with an Intel chip and floppy disks.

1982 – Times Magazine introduces computer as Machine of the Year.

1983 – The CD ROM enters the market with a feature to hold 550 megabytes of data. Many companies work on the drives enabling mass to access a variety of information.

Microsoft also introduced MS Word in the same year with the name – Multi-Tool Word.

1984 – Macintosh comes out with a mouse and graphical interface sold at $2,500.

1985 – Microsoft announces Windows allowing users to multi-task with a graphical user interface. The first dot-com domain name is also registered the same year as Symbolics.com.

1986 – Lucasfilm creates computer-animated portions of popular films, like Star Trek II and Job later renamed it Pixar.

Computers in the 1990s

1990 – The Hypertext markup language enters the frame as Tim Berners-Lee developed it. He also suggests the name WorldWideWeb featuring a server, HTML, URLs, and the browser.

1991 – The Power Book by Apple comes out with an in-built trackball, floppy disk, and palm rests.

1993 – The personal data assistant, Newton is launched by Apple; its poor performance led to its discontinuation in 1998.

1995 – Thinkpad 701C by IBM comes out with an expanding full-sized keyboard made with three interlocking pieces. The concept of DVD and CD also enters the market.

Windows 95 by Microsoft also became available the same year. Java 1.0 is by Sun Microsystems and JavaScript by Netscape Communications followed the market later in the year.

1996 – Sergey Brin and Larry Page develop Google changing the era of technology yet once again. Palm Idiot, personal data assistance also came out in the same year. Sony Vaio series has a 3d interface along with windows attracting a new range of customers.

1997 – Microsoft and Apple get into a legal battle over copyrights of their operating systems.

1998 – IMac by Apple enters the market selling for $1,300 with 4GB hard drive, 32MB Ram, and a 15-inch monitor.

1999 – Wifi enters the market and Apple takes the first-mover advantage with “Airport”, a Wi-Fi router for Macs.

Computers from 2000-2010

2000 – the first camera phone, the J phone by SoftBank hits the market shelves in Japan. The flip phone version followed this invention shortly. The same year saw the introduction of flash drives with more data storage, faster speed, and more features.

2001 – Mac OS X operating system by Apple becomes available. Windows XP enters the frame soon after. The Itunes feature also came out the same year.

2003 – Apple releases iTunes music store allowing users to purchase songs with a week of debut. This year, Blu- ray optical discs also took over the DVD trend. Myspace also took over the social media front later in the year.

2004 – The Internet Explorer became active in the form of Mozilla’s Firefox 1.0. That same year, Facebook came out as a social networking site.

2005 – Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley introduced Youtube. Google acquired the Android operating system.

2006 – Macbook Pro becomes the first Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer by Apple.

2007 – The first iPhone comes out with computer-like features in a palm. Features like – web browser, a music player, and a cell phone were all together in one device. Kindle and Dropbox also hit the market in the same year.

2008 – MacBook Air, the first ultra notebook comes out with the device size getting smaller and smaller.

2009 – Microsoft launches Windows 7.

2010 – Apple releases the iPad, a tablet computer minus the phone.

Computers from 2011 – present day

2011 – Google Chrome Ios laptop, Chromebook comes out. Nest Learning Thermostat also becomes relevant by sending power consumption reports. The feature of Siri gets added to the iPhone family.

2012 – Facebook acquires Instagram hitting 1 billion users. Raspberry Pi, a card size computer also enters the market.

2014 – The University of Michigan Micro Mote (M3) is invented as the smallest computer available in three types. Two for measuring temperature or pressure, and one for images. Apple pay feature also comes out later in the year.

2015 – Apple Watch comes out with Ios and health monitoring features. Microsoft follows with Windows 10.

2016 – The first reprogrammable quantum computer comes into existence.

2019 – Apple announces iPad, the iPad’s very own operating system with features like a computer more than a phone.

Conclusion

This was the brief history of computers. All the important inventions, inventors, and dates are covered above. Exams like SBI PO, IBPS, RRB, etc have computer aptitude as a section where questions from this topic can appear. This makes it very important for all Bank aspirants and Railway exam applicants to go through this article attentively. The events are divided era-wise making it easy for the readers to grasp and re-read for revision purposes.

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1 Response

  1. Subrata Das says:

    Good News

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