600BC The abacus is developed in China.

It was later adopted by the Japanese and

the Russians.
600AD Arabic numbers -- including the zero (represented by a dot) -- were invented
in India. Arabic translations of Indian math texts brought these numbers to
the attention of the Europeans.
1150 Muhammad ibn Musa Al'Khowarizmi, a 12th century Tashkent cleric,
developed the concept of a written process to be followed to achieve some
goal and gave it is modern name - algorithm.
1612 John Napier made the first printed use of the decimal point and invented
logarithms and several machines for multiplication. Best known of his
machines was the "Napierian Bones".
1622 William Oughtred created the slide rule (originally circular) based on
Napier's logarithms, which was to be the primary calculator of engineers
through the 19th and early 20th centuries.
1642 Blaise Pascal created an adding machine with automatic carries from one
position to the next.
1673 Using a stepped cylindrical gear, Gottfried Leibniz built a calculator
capable of multiplication in which a number was repeatedly and
automatically added into an accumulator.
1801 Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented an automatic loom using punched cards
for the control of the patterns in the fabrics.
1822 Charles Babbage recognised that the most common of calculating devices -
- mathematical, celestial, and navigation tables -- are full of errors and
leading to the loss of ships. Studying at Cambridge University he suggests
that it should be possible to compute the table entries using a steam engine
and he begins to design the Difference Engine.
1833 Charles Babbage temporarily abandoned work on the Difference Engine,
realising that it was a special-purpose machine capable of only a single
operation. He designed the Analytical Engine that had the basic components
of a modern computer, and has led to Babbage being described as the
"Father of the Computer".
1842 Ada Augusta King, Countess of Lovelace, translates Menabrea's pamphlet
on the Analytical Engine, adding her own notes, and becomes the world's
first programmer.
1847-49 Babbage returned to his plans for the Difference Engine and completed 21
drawings for the construction of the second version, but did not complete the
manufacture himself. In 1991 the Science Museum in London built a copy
from those drawings, only finding a small number of very obvious errors.
The Museum used only techniques available in the mid-1800's and built a
copy that operated correctly.
1854 George Boole describes his system for symbolic and logical reasoning that
becomes later the basis for computer design.
1890 The increasing population in the US, and the desire to ask more questions in
each census, meant that it was anticipated that the 1890 census data would
not be processed before the 1900 census was due. Herman Hollerith won
the competition for the delivery of data processing equipment to assist in the
 processing of the data from the 1890 US Census. The company he founded,
Hollerith Tabulating Company, eventually became one of the three that
composed the Calculating-Tabulating-Recording (C-T-R) company in 1914,
and eventually was renamed IBM in 1924.
1925 Vannevar Bush built a large-scale differential analyser with the additional
capabilities of integration and differentiation.
1936-39 John Vincent Atanasoff and John Berry developed the machine called the
ABC - the Atanasoff-Berry Computer - at Iowa State University, USA as a
machine to solve sets of linear equations in Physics. This is the earliest
example of an electronic calculator.
1937 Alan Turing developed the idea of a "Universal Machine" capable of
executing any describable algorithm, and forming the basis for the concept
of "computability".
1940-44 The need to decrypt the intercepted messages of the German forces
encrypted using the ENIGMA machine led to a team at Bletchley Park,
including Alan Turing, building a series of machines culminating in 1943
with Colossus Mark 1. It became operational in 1944, decrypting messages
to assist in the planning for D-Day later that year. The existence of Colossus
was a secret until 1970 and the algorithms of decryption are still a secret
today.
1943 Work on ENIAC was started at the University of Pennsylvania.
1944 The first large scale, automatic, general purpose, electromechanical
calculator was the Harvard Mark I implemented by IBM. This was not a
stored program machine but instead was driven by a paper tape containing
the instructions.
1945 Grace Murray Hopper, working at Harvard University on the Mark II
computer, found the first computer bug beaten to death in the jaws of a
relay. She glued it into the logbook of the computer and thereafter when the
machine stops (frequently) they say they are "debugging" the computer.
John von Neumann wrote the "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" that
set the stage for the architectural design of several generations of computers.
The architectural style became known as the "von Neumann architecture"
and is the source of the concept of the "stored program".
1946 ENIAC was unveiled in Philadelphia. It was programmed through the
rewiring the interconnections between the various components and included
the capability of parallel computation. It was later to be modified into a
stored program machine.
1948 On June 21, at Manchester University, Douglas Hartree, Freddy Williams,
Tom Kilburn and Max Newsman operated their prototype machine, the
"Baby" for the first time and the world truly moved from the domain of
calculators to the domain of computers. Williams, Kilburn, and Newman
continued to build a full scale machine they designated the Manchester
Mark I.
1949 The first large-scale, fully functional, stored-program electronic digital
computer was developed by Maurice Wilkes and the staff of the
Mathematical Laboratory at Cambridge University. It was named EDSAC
 (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer); the primary storage system
was a set of mercury baths (tubes filled with mercury) through which
generated and regenerated acoustic pulses represented the bits of data.
1954 John Backus proposed the development of a programming language that
would allow uses to express problems in commonly understood
mathematical formulae -- later named FORTRAN.
1957 Backus and his colleagues delivered the first FORTRAN program compiler
for the IBM 704, and almost immediately the first error message was
encountered -- a missing comma in a GOTO statement.
1959 IBM announced the availability of two desk-size machines for the small user
-- the IBM 1401 for the business user and the IBM 1620 for the scientist.
Both machines were supported by an arithmetic unit that used decimal table-
look-up instead of binary adders. Initially IBM had intended to name the
1620 as the CADET, but when this was translated into "Can't Add, Doesn't
Even Try" the name was dropped.
1960 An industry-wide team - Conference on Data System Languages
(CODASYL) - developed a new language in a very short time and created
the first standardised business computer programming language, COBOL
(Common Business Oriented Language). The same year the second of the
mathematical languages, ALGOL 60 was developed.
1963 The process of standardisation of the elements of the industry was becoming
prevalent and among the first was a standard for a code for information
interchange (ASCII).
1964 The Dartmouth Time Sharing System became operational with BASIC as
principle language for student program development. Developed by John
Kemeny and Tom Kurtz, together with lots of help from undergraduates.
1967 Seven years after Fairchild Corp. had delivered the first commercial
integrated circuit the first computers to use the technology arrive.
1969 UNIX developed.
Intel's Ted Hoff and Stan Mazor design a 4-bit CPU chip set architecture
that could receive instructions and perform simple functions on data. This
becomes the 4004 microprocessor.
1971 Intel Corporation produced the 108KHz 4004 the first commercially
available microprocessor. It is a 4-bit chip comprised of 2300 transistors and
can use 640 bytes of memory.
1972 The first digital microcomputer available for personal use was the MITS
(Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) 816.
1974 Intel releases its 2 MHz 8080 chip, an 8-bit microprocessor. It can access 64
KB of memory. It uses 6000 transistors, based on 6-micron technology.
Speed is 0.64 MIPS.
Gary Kildall introduces CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) as the first
operating system to run (almost) independent of the platform.
Motorola introduces the 6800 chip, an 8-bit microprocessor designed by
Chuck Peddle and Charlie Melear.
1975 The MITS Altair 8800 (named after a planet on a Star Trek episode) based
on the Intel 8080 chip. It had no keyboard, no display, and no auxiliary
 storage device. Later, Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote their first product for
the Altair -- a BASIC interpreter.
IBM produced their first "personal computer", the 5100. The CPU is an IBM
circuit module.
Seymour Cray, the principal architect for CDC, started the trend toward
modern supercomputers and computational architectures.
1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak found the Apple Corporation (April 1st).
Intel introduces the 5MHz 8085 microprocessor. Speed is 0.37 MIPS. It uses
6500 transistors, based on 3-micron technology, an 8-bit bus, and operates
on a single 5-volt power supply.
MOS Technology introduces the 6502 microprocessor developed by Chuck
Peddle but are taken over by Commodore later in the year.
1977 Commodore Business Machines launch the PET computer. It includes a
6502 CPU, 4 KB RAM, 14 KB ROM, keyboard, display, and tape drive
Apple introduces the Apple II. The computer features a 6502 CPU, 4 KB
RAM, 16 KB ROM, keyboard, 8-slot motherboard, game paddles. The first
PC with colour graphics.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen sign a partnership agreement to officially create
the Microsoft company.
1978 Visicalc, the first spreadsheet program, written by Daniel Bricklin and Bob
Frankston. It was not released until 1979.
Intel introduces the 4.77 MHz 8086 microprocessor. It uses 16-bit registers,
a 16-bit data bus, and 29,000 transistors, using 3-micron technology. It can
access 1 MB of memory.
Atari announces the Atari 400 and 800 personal computers, both using the
6502 chip.
1979 Micropro International released Wordstar.
Intel introduces the 4.77 MHz 8088 microprocessor. It operates on 16 bits
internally, contains 29,000 transistors, using 3-micron technology, and can
address 1 MB of memory.
Motorola introduces the 68000 16-bit microprocessor using 68,000
transistors.
1980 Sinclair Research announces the ZX80 computer. It uses a 3.25 MHz NEC
Technologies 780-1 8-bit microprocessor, and comes with 1 KB RAM and 4
KB ROM.
Microsoft's Paul Allen contacts Seattle Computer Products' Tim Patterson,
asking for the rights to sell SCP's DOS to an unnamed client (IBM).
Microsoft pays less than US$100,000.
1981 Commodore launch the VIC-20, with full-size 61-key plus four function key
keyboard, 5 KB RAM expandable to 32 KB, 6502A CPU and colour
graphics.
Launch of the IBM 5150 "PC" using the Intel 8088 chip and supported by
the DOS operating system developed under an agreement that gave
Microsoft all the profits in exchange for the development costs having been
borne by Microsoft. Also included is Microsoft BASIC, VisiCalc, UCSD
Pascal, CP/M-86, and Easywriter 1.0.
 Microsoft begins work on a graphical user interface for MS-DOS, initially
called Interface Manager, because it would effectively hide the interface
between programs and devices like printers and video cards. This is the
beginning of Windows.
1982 Commodore Business Machines announces the Commodore 64
microcomputer.
Intel introduces the 6 MHz 80286 microprocessor. It uses a 16-bit data bus
and 134,000 transistors (1.5 microns). It can access 16 MB of memory, or 1
GB of virtual memory.
The first IBM PC clone, the MPC, is released by Columbia Data Products.
1983 Apple officially unveils the Lisa computer. It features a 5 MHz 68000
microprocessor, 1 MB RAM, 2 MB ROM, 12 inch B/W monitor, 720x364
graphics, dual 5.25-inch 860 KB floppy drives, 5 MB Profile hard drive, and
six integrated programs. It is slow, but innovative, the first personal
computer with a graphical user interface (GUI). "Lisa" stands for Local
Integrated Software Architecture.
Microsoft gives a "smoke-and-mirrors" demonstration of Interface Manager
that consists entirely of overlapping windows, appearing to be running
programs simultaneously.
Borland International releases Turbo Pascal for CP/M and 8086-based
computers.
1984 Apple announces the Macintosh. The mouse and the icon became the major
tools for computer interaction. It features a 7.83 MHz 32-bit Motorola 68000
CPU, built-in 9-inch monochrome screen, 512x342 graphics, mouse and 128
KB RAM.
Microsoft releases MS-DOS 3.0 for PCs. It adds support for 1.2 MB floppy
disks, and bigger (than 10 MB) hard disks.
1985 Computers in various locations were being attacked by what the press came
to label as "hackers". Using personal computers, young people tapping into
the resources of corporate systems. A break-in to a computer at the Los
Alamos National Laboratory was quickly tracked back to a group of
teenagers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who were to be come known as the
"414" hackers - a reference to their telephone area code.
Intel introduces the 16 MHz 80386 microprocessor. It uses 32-bit registers
and a 32-bit (16 MHz) data bus, and incorporates 275,000 transistors (1.5
microns). It can access 4 gigabytes of physical memory, or up to 64
terabytes of virtual memory.
Microsoft ships Microsoft Windows 1.0, two years after the initial
announcement.
1987 IBM unveils its Video Graphics Array (VGA), offering 256 simultaneous
colours at a resolution of 320x200, and 16 colours at 640x480.
Motorola unveils the 68030 microprocessor.
1989 Intel announces the 25 MHz 486 microprocessor. It integrates the 386, 387
maths coprocessor, and adds an 8 KB primary cache. It uses 1.2 million
transistors, employing 1-micron technology. Speed is 20 MIPS. Bus speed is
 25 MHz.

Apple Computer announces the Macintosh Portable, featuring a 16 MHz

Motorola 68000 CMOS processor, 1 MB RAM, 40 MB hard drive,
keyboard, trackball, 9.8 inch active matrix 640x400 monochrome LCD
screen. Weight is 17 pounds; size is 15.25 x 14.3 x 4 inches. The system
runs for about 8 hours on a lead-acid gel battery pack.
1990 Motorola formally announces the 32-bit 25 MHz 68040 microprocessor.
Microsoft introduces and ships Microsoft Windows 3.0 on May 22nd.
Advanced Micro Devices introduces the Am386DX, its first clone chips of
Intel's i386DX.
1991 Microsoft releases MS-DOS 5.0. It adds a full-screen editor, undelete and
unformat utilities, and task swapping. GW-BASIC is replaced with Qbasic,
based on Microsoft's QuickBASIC.
Linus Torvalds develops Linux, a UNIX operating system variant, in
Finland.
1993 Intel introduces the Pentium processor. It uses 32-bit registers, with a 64-bit
(60 MHz) data bus, giving it an address space of 4 GB. It incorporates 3.1
million transistors, using 0.8-micron BiCMOS technology. Speeds are 60
MHz (100 MIPS) and 66 MHz (112 MIPS).
Motorola begins shipping its PowerPC 601 processors, in 50 MHz and 66
MHz speeds. The processors feature 32 KB cache, and incorporate 2.8
million transistors.
Microsoft formally launches the Windows NT operating system. Initial
version is 3.1.
Apple Computer launches the Newton MessagePad 100 personal digital
assistant. It features 640 KB RAM, 3 MB of ROM storing applications and
the operating system, a low-voltage 20 MHz 32-bit ARM 610
microprocessor, 240x336 resolution (85 dpi) 2.8 x 4-inch LCD screen.
1994 Apple introduces the Power Macintosh 6100/60 computer. It features a 60
MHz PowerPC 601 processor, 8 MB RAM, 160 MB hard drive and a 14
inch monitor.
1995 1994 Microsoft releases Windows 95 on August 24th.
Intel announces the Pentium Pro microprocessor, at speeds of 150-, 180-,
and 200 MHz. The processor uses 5.5 million transistors. Performance of the
200-MHz processor is 440 MIPS.
1996 Microsoft releases Windows NT 4.0.
CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) is announced. The technology was developed by
a five-company consortium.
1998 1998 Intel releases the 333, 350 and 400 MHz Pentium II processors.
Microsoft releases Windows 98 on June 25th.
Motorola officially introduces the G4 processor. Speed should be 400 MHz.
1999 Intel announces the Pentium III processor in January. Each processor will
have a unique identity code that can be accessed over the Internet.
In August, Apple Computer releases the Power Mac G4 computer. It
features a 400 MHz PowerPC G4, 64 MB RAM, CD-ROM drive, 10 GB
 hard disk.
Intel announces development of the Itanium processor, designed to
incorporate 64-bit addressing. It is a move away from the x86 architecture
and relies of parallelism rather than clock speed and cache memory for its
performance.
In December, Microsoft releases Windows 2000 to manufacturing.
2000 In February Intel demonstrates an upcoming 32-bit processor, code-named
“Willamette”, running at 1.5 GHz. Later in the year it announces that the
processor will formally be called Pentium 4.
AMD released an Athlon clocked at 1.0 GHz.
2001 Apple released Mac OS X. At its heart is Darwin, an Open Source operating
system based on BSD. Mac OS X finally gave Mac users the stability
benefits of a protected memory architecture along many other
enhancements, such as pre-emptive multitasking.
The BSD base also makes porting Unix applications to Mac OS easier and
gives Mac users a full-featured command line interface alongside their GUI.
IBM releases the first Itanium-based computers.
Microsoft release Windows XP on October 25th.
2002 Some of Microsoft's competitors start to meet to share concerns about the
increasing dominance of Gates' company.
Forbes declares Bill Gates to be the richest man in America, worth $6.3bn.
2003 Windows server 2003 is released.
Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe found MySpace.com, one of the world's
most popular online social networking services.
2004 Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is released. It competes with Microsoft Internet
Explorer.
2005 Apple announces their new range of Macintosh computers will be using
Intel processors.
AMD starts shipping their first dual-core 64-bit desktop processor, the
Athlon 64 X2.
2006 Intel announces plans for an 80-core processor that would exceed 1 TFLOP,
planned to be available in 2011.
Intel launches the Intel® Core™2 Duo processor for drastically improved
performance and energy efficiency. The Intel Core 2 desktop processors
provide up to a 40 percent increase in performance and are more than 40
percent more energy efficient versus Intel's previous best processor.
2007 Microsoft Corporation launches Windows Vista more than 5 years after
Windows XP.
2008 Windows server 2008 is released by Microsoft.
2009 Windows 7 is released by Microsoft, after experiencing disappointing results
with Windows Vista.
The European Commission finds Intel guilty of anti-competitive in Europe,
including giving rebates to OEMs conditional on not buying, or limiting
purchase of, AMD x86 processors.
2010