History of Computers

First, everyone knows we should start with a little history. We all know what computers are (I mean, you’re probably reading this on one right now). But, can we appreciate just how far computers have come since the year they were invented? Well, considering how busy most people are, let’s condense this down. Here’s the history of computers if it happened in one day.

• 12 : 00 AM : It’s midnight. The year is 1801. In ancient France (well, ancient in this case), Joseph Marie Jacquard creates a special kind of loom. Unlike most other looms, which weave wool normally, this loom is special cause it uses a special kind of punch card to weave in a specific way. This was the origin of punch card computers, which we will get too later.
• 9 : 53 AM : Nothing much happened between midnight and 9 AM, with the ongoing exciting action happening in the world, from Napoleon to the Louisiana Purchase. However, in 1890, Herman Hollerith devised a system where the census board would use punch cards to track the population. Hollerith went on to establish a company which would eventually become IBM.
• 2 : 56 PM : If you’ve watched the ‘Imitation Game’, you know what’s happening next. Alan Turing, in order to solve the ‘Halting Problem‘, created the Turing Machine in 1936, a rudimentary computer. His work would eventually lead to the modern macbook I am typing this sentence on.
• 3 : 16 PM : David Packard and Bill Hewlett create HP (Hewlett and Packard) in a garage in Palo Alto, California.
• 3 : 29 PM : John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry create a computer capable of solving 29 equations at a time in 1941. This is also the first time a computer can store information on its memory.
• 3 : 49 PM : John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert built the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) in 1944. The thing is huge, filling a 20 X 40 foot room, and is considered the grandfather of digital computers.
• 4 : 10 PM : The transistor is created in Bell Laboratories in 1947. It is a device which is capable of blocking the flow of electricity. It can be either on or off, giving the capability for logic gates.
• 5 : 23 PM : Robert Noyce and his partner, future Nobel Prize laureate Jack Kilby, show off their latest creation : the computer chip in 1958.
• 6 : 03 PM : The first prototype computer with an actual mouse and user interface is shown by Douglas Engelbart in 1964. Now computers are no longer a specialized tool for scientists, but something that everyone can use.
• 6 : 47 PM : Developers at Bell Labs create the UNIX OS in 1969. It does not gain popularity in homes, but becomes very useful for large companies.
• 6 : 54 PM : A new company named “Intel” reveals the first dynamic access memory chip – the Intel 1103 in 1970.
• 6 : 59 PM : Alan Shugart creates the floppy disk in 1971. Now information can be shared between two computers.
• 7 : 15 PM : Robert Metcalfe creates the Ethernet to connect multiple devices to each other in 1973.
• 7 : 29 PM : In 1975, the “Altair 8080 mini computer kit”, a commercial product requires software written in the Altair BASIC language. Two guys named Paul Allen and Bill Gates offer to write the code, and after their success, start a company called “Microsoft”.
• 7 : 35 PM : Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak create “Apple Computers” and reveal the Apple 1, the first computer with a single circuit board in 1976.
• 8 : 08 PM : IBM creates its first personal computer in 1981. It uses MS-DOS from Microsoft and an Intel chip, two floppy disks and a color monitor. It is sold much more widely, and popularizes the term ‘PC’.
• 8 : 35 PM : Microsoft announces the ‘Windows’ operating system n 1985. At the same time, the first ‘dot-com’ domain name is registered, marking the beginning of the internet.
• 9 : 09 PM : A researcher at CERN named Tim Berners-Lee develops HTML and begins the World Wide Web in 1990.
• 9 : 49 PM : Sergey Brin and Larry Page create the Google Search Engine at Stanford University in 1996.
• 10 : 32 PM : It’s getting pretty late. In 2001, Apple announces the Mac OS X, and Microsoft fights back with the Windows XP. By this time, wireless connection and the word ‘wi-fi’ have become popular. The internet has begun.
• 10 : 59 PM : A video sharing platform called ‘Youtube’ is founded in 2005. At the same time, Google takes over Android, a Linux based mobile OS. Social media, like the platform ‘Facebook’ announced in 2004 is becoming more and more popular.
• 11 : 42 PM : By this time, the year is 2012. Various famous technologies like the iPhone, the Wii, the Chromebook and other OSs like Windows 7 have been released.
• 11 : 56 PM : The first reprogrammable quantum computer is created in 2016.
• 12 : 00 AM : This blog is written by some guy in San Jose, California in 2019.

Wow. That was a trip. It’s fun to try to comprehend how far computers have come over the last centuries. From weaving wool to simulating the interactions of individual particles, computing has come a long way. Hopefully, we’ll see the same growth over the coming years, from AI to other technologies. Until then, good luck.

Resources : Live science, Encyclopedia Britannica