1642
- Blaise Pascal introduces Pascaline Digital Adding Machine
1822
- Charles Babbage introduces the Difference Engine & later the Analytical Engine, a true general-purpose computing machine
1906
- Lee DeForest patents the Vacuum Tube Triode, used as an electronic switch in the first electronic computer
1936
- Konrad Zuse begins work on a series of computers, considered the first electric binary computers, using electromechnical switches and relays
- Alan Turing publishes "On Computable Numbers" a paper in which he conceives an imaginary computer called the Turing Machine, considered one of the foundations of modern computing
1937
- John V. Atanasoff begins work on the Atanasoff-Berry Computer officially credited as first electronic computer
1945
- John von Neumann writes "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" which outlines the architecture of the modern stored-program computer
1946
- John Mauchly & J. Presper Eckert introduce ENIAC - an electronic computing machine.
1947
- William Shockley, Walter Brattain & John Bardeen successfully test the point-contact transistor, setting off the semiconductor revolution.
1949
- Maurice Wilkes assembles the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer.
1953
- IBM ships it's first electronic computer the 701.
1954
- Gordon Teal (Texas Instruments) perfects the silicon-based transistor, bring a tremendous reduction in costs.
1955
- Bell Laboratories announces the first fully transistorized computer, the TRADIC.
1956
- MIT researchers build the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer built with transistors.
- IBM - ushers in the era of magnetic disk storage, with shipment of a 305 RAMAC to Zellerbach Paper in San Francisco.
1958
- Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) creates the first integrated circuit to prove that resistors and capacitators can exist on the same piece of semiconductor material.
1959
- IBM releases its 7000 series mainframes and are the company's first transistorized computer.
- Robert Noyce creates practical integrated circuit. Allowing printing of conducting channels directly on the silicon surface.
- Bell Laboratories designs it's Dataphone, the first commercial modem, converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across it's long distance network.
1965
- Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) introduces the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer.
1969
- Department of Defense establishes four nodes on the ARPA network, in what will become the internet.
- The Unix operating system is conceived and implemented at AT&T's Bell Laboratories by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchies, Douglas McIlroy and Joe Ossanna.
1971
- Intel advertises first microprocessor, intel 4004
- Scientific American - advertises the KENBAK-1 for $750.00 USD, one of the first personal computers.
- Unix is released, entirely written in Assembly language.
1972
- Intel debuts the 8008 microprocessor
1973
- Robert Metcalfe (Xerox) devises the ethernet method of network connection.
- The Micral - the earliest non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor, the Intel 8008.
- Dennis Ritchie rewrites Unix in the C programming language, except for the kernel and I/O.
1974
- Xerox designs the Alto. The first workstation with a built in mouse for input.
1975
- Telenet, the first commercial packet-switching network and civilian equivalent of ARPA net.
- Popular Electronics features the Altair 8800 which is based on Intel's 8080 microprocessor.
1976
- Steve Wozniak designs the Apple I, a single-board computer
- Shugart Associates introduce the 5 1/4" floppy disk
1977
- Tandy Radioshack introduce the TRS-80
- Commodore introduces the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor)
1979
- Motorola introduces the 68000 microprocessor
1980
- Seagate Technology creates the first hard disk drive for microcomputers, the ST-506.
1981
- Xerox introduces the first personal computer with a graphical interface, called the Star.
- IBM introduces it's P.C (considered the Grandfather of modern P.C's)
- Sony debuts & ships the first 3 1/2" floppy disk drive.
- Phillips & Sony introduce the CD-DA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) format.
- Chase Bishop designs the first model of an electronic device and project "Interface Manager" (birth of Windows)
1983
- Apple releases Lisa.
- Richard Stallman announces and begins the GNU project.
- Microsoft announces Windows.
1984
- Apple launches Macintosh, with a mouse driven GUI
1985
- IBM releases PC-AT (Advanced Technology) 3x faster than original P.C
- s and is based on the Intel 286 chip. The AT introduces the 16-Bit ISA Bus & is the computer on which all modern P.C's are based.
- Microsoft introduces an operating environment named Windows 1.0 as an add-on to MS-DOS.
1986
- Compaq announces desktop 386 first computer on the market to use Intel's 32-Bit 386 chip.
1987
- IBM introduces PS/2 machines, making 3 1/2" floppy disk drives & VGA video standard for P.C's. PS/2 introduces microchannel architecture (MCA) bus, the first Plug N' Play bus for PC's.
- Andrew S. Tanenbaum releases MINIX, a Unix-like computer operating system based on microkernel architecture.
- Windows 2.0 is released.
1988
- Compaq and other P.C clone makers develop Enhanced Industry Standard Architecture (EISA) which unlike MCA, retains backward compatibility with the existing ISA Bus.
1989
- Intel releases the 486 (P4) microprocessor and also introduces the 486 motherboard chipsets.
- Richard Stallman writes and releases the GNU GPL.
1990
- Tim Berners-Lee (CERN) develops Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and with it, the WWW is born.
1991
- Linus Torvalds develops the Linux kernel.
1993
- Intel releases the Pentium (P5) processor with numbers having been changed to names due to trademarks. Intel also releases "Complete" motherboards.
... and the list goes on !
