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Milestones in Computer
DevelopmentFall 2007
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Milestones in Computer Development 2000 B.C.: Abacus first used in computation
Ancient abacuses
(images are from http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history)
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Milestones in Computer Development 2000 B.C.: Abacus first used in computation
Medieval abacuses
(images are from http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history)
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Milestones in Computer Development 2000 B.C.: Abacus first used in computation
Modern abacuses
(images are from http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1642 A.D.: Blaise Pascal (French) creates a
mechanical adding machine -- the “Pascalene” -- for tax computations
(image is from http://www.webcom.com/calc/CalcMach.html)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1671 A.D.: Gottfried von Leibniz (German)
creates a more reliable adding machine that adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides, and calculates square roots -- the "Staffelwalze"
(image is from http://www.fmeurope.org)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1842 A.D.: Charles
Babbage designs analytical engine to perform calculations automatically; Ada, countess of Lovelace, programs this machine
(image is from http://www.ashfield-dc.gov.uk)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1890 A.D.: Herman
Hollerith designs census recording system that uses punched cards; starts a company that later becomes IBM
(image is from http://www.ausbcomp.com/~bbott)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1939 A.D.: John
Atanasoff designs and builds first electronic digital computer (w/ graduate student Clifford Berry); called the ABC
(image is from http://www.iastate.edu)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1946 A.D.: J. Presper Eckert and John
Mauchly design and build the ENIAC; considered the first modern computer, used vacuum tubes
(image is from http://www.zianet.com/kromeke/pastcomp)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1946 A.D.: John von Neumann proposes
stored program architecture that bears his name
(image is from http://home.swipnet.se/~w-27237)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1951 A.D.: Eckert & Mauchly build the first
general-purpose computer, the UNIVAC I
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Milestones in Computer Development 1957 A.D.: John Backus and his IBM team
complete the first compiler (Fortran)
PROGRAM TEST INTEGER N N = N + 1 PRINT *, N STOP END
(image is from http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kis/support/cit/fortran/photos)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1958: IBM introduces the 7090 series, first
to use transistors
(image is from http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/archives)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1964 A.D.: IBM
announces the 360, first to use integrated circuitry (IC)
(image is from http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Book/chap5)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1972 A.D.: Dennis
Ritchie at Bell Labs develops the C Programming Language; precursor of Java
(image is from livinginternet.com )
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Milestones in Computer Development 1975 A.D.: The Altair,
the first microcomputer, is introduced
(image is from http://www.digicamhistory.com)
1975 A.D.: The Cray-1, the first supercomputer, is announced
(image is from http://www.computerthai.or.th/About_Us)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1976 A.D.: DEC
introduces its popular minicomputer, the VAX 11/780
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Milestones in Computer Development 1977 A.D.: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs
release the Apple I on April Fool’s Day, and found Apple Computers
(image is from http://apple2history.org/museum/images)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1981 A.D.: IBM
introduces its own PC
(images are from http://www.pattosoft.com.au/jason/Articles/HistoryOfComputers)
1984 A.D.: Apple introduces the Macintosh
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Milestones in Computer Development 1985 A.D.: Bjarne
Stroustrup at Bell Labs develops the C++ Programming Language; the Object-Oriented extension of C; precursor of Java
(image is from http://www.hitmill.com/programming/cpp)
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Milestones in Computer Development 1991 A.D.: The
internet is commercialized
1994: Netscape Navigator 1.0 is released; the WWW takes off
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Milestones in Computer Development 1995 A.D.: Sun releases
Java 1.0; object-oriented programming takes off
1997 A.D.: UNO CS Department adopts Java as object-oriented language support