“The path to modern-day computing is longer than many suspect and strewn with interesting nuggets of information,” Holden Frith blogs for Times Online’s “Tech Central.”
Top 25 Days in Computing History:
• December 23, 1834: Charles Babbage announces the analytical engine
• October 22, 1925: The transistor is patented
• January 1, 1939: Hewlett-Packard is founded, giving birth to Silicon Valley
• November 25, 1943: Colossus comes to life
• February 14, 1946: ENIAC is unveiled
• December 1954: Casio’s prototype desktop calculator
• September 4, 1956: The launch of the IBM 305 RAMAC (5MB hard drive weighed one ton)
• October 29, 1969: The dawning of the internet era
• November-December 1971: The first e-mail is sent
• April 16, 1977: Apple II heralds the age of the home computer
• May 22, 1980: The birth of Pac-Man
• April 3, 1981: The first portable computer (Osborne 1)
• August 12, 1981: IBM launches the “PC”
• March 3, 1981: The BBC Microcomputer
• January 24, 1984: Apple Mac popularises the graphical user interface
• November 13, 1990: Tim Berners-Lee writes the first web page (on a NeXT Computer, forerunner to Apple’s Mac OS X)
• March 14, 1993: Mosaic opens up the web
• March 16, 1995: The first Wiki is announced
• July 4, 1996: Hotmail arrives (launched in 1996; acquired by Microsoft in 1997 for an estimated $400 million)
• May 11, 1997: Machine takes on man, and wins (IBM’s Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov, the Russian grandmaster, in Chess)
• November 18, 1997: Wi-fi standards laid down (Apple’s iBook G3 was the first mainstream computer with integrated wireless networking, July 21, 1999)
• September 7, 1998: Google founded
• June 1, 1999: Shawn Fanning releases Napster
• January 1, 2000: The world continues (Y2K fizzle)
• February 15, 2005: YouTube comes online
• July 11, 2008: Apple launches the iPhone App Store
MacDailyNews Take: Uh, Holden, that was 26 days, but that’s easily forgiven as your list is refreshingly and rightfully Microsoft-free.
Full article here.
IBM incorporated in 1911, started making calculators in 1896.
Good list
Yes! A very good list. I do think that iPhone would have earned a place on that list, if made ten years from now. This is the dawn of pocket computers and Apple made it happen.
“It’s an iPod – It’s a phone – It’s a web browser – It’s the iPhone” Steve said.
Now we have the AppStore and we have just begun!…
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The Apple-bashing comments on that article are amusing.
First programmable computer. The Z1 originally created by Germany’s Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1936 to 1938 is considered to be the first electrical binary programmable computer.
You can’t have this kind of list without mentioning the name, Alan Turing.
Then of course, who can forget the inventor of the internet? — Ta Dah ALGORE.
Very important in the history of computing but usually left off these lists is the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. It was the world’s first electronic digital computer built by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937-42
What is going on here!!!!
Where are all Microsoft’s innovations? (sarcasm)
They seem to have missed a couple of things, like the introduction of the Amiga in 1985, ushering in the ideas of pre-emptive multitasking, multimedia, animation, full-color…….
July 27, 1993: The birth of the Windows registry.
August 24, 1995: Microsoft Windows 95 intruduces longfilenames to the PeeCee community.
What about Netscape’s IPO?? 8/9/95
How about:
100 BC – the mysterious Antikythera mechanism—one of the world’s oldest computers.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/11/061129-ancient-greece.html
But Microsoft will have it’s own very special place in history:
1. Copying
2. Ruining competitors
3. Shafting partners..
4. And customers
They must be proud.
“100 BC – the mysterious Antikythera mechanism—one of the world’s oldest computers.”
Don’t you know that the elitists have decided that saying ‘BC’ isn’t PC.
No mention of the hockey puck mouse??
@ Ron
Once again, Al Gore never said he invented the internet. Get informed.
Pacman?
Hotmail?
Napster?
The BBC Microcomputer?
The list would have been better without those.
What about Visicalc?
What about the IC?
Those are just 2 things I can think of and I just got out of bed and have yet to have my second sip of coffee.
Go read the comments of the original artical. The Microturds are up in arms because M$ is not mentioned in it.
… original articel. sorry
@JohnLee and @Ron,
Here’s a link that backs up what John Lee said about Gore:
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
However, Gore did claim to be responsible for the research that led to the internet and therefore was guilty of being a self serving politician. (What’s new.)
It’s really a fine line and I think Ron has every reason to make the statement he did. Just look at the actual quote in that link. He’s taking credit (or partial credit) for bringing the internet to the world.
Pacman? … Hotmail? … Napster? … The BBC Microcomputer? Surely the authors jest?
The list would have been better without those.
What about Visicalc itself? What about the Integrated Circuit?
Those are just 2 things I can think of and I just got out of bed and have yet to have my second sip of coffee.
Alan Mathison Turing… 1936??? Jesting they are…
The list only lacking the great contributions by Commodore, but they always get left out for some odd reason!
MACDAILYNEWS
Please fix:
TImes to Times in the headline.
Or contact a local 4th grade English class to help with spelling and grammar.
“October 22, 1925: the transistor is patented”. Huh? A quick internet search says it was invented in Nov-Dec, 1947. So what is this he’s referring to?
The Times is saving mention of Microsoft for the follow-on list “Top 25 darkest days in computing history”. Redmond completely dominates that list.
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Let’s not forget Oct 16th 2008: Woopid Launches – People finally figure out how to use their computer.
“However, Gore did claim to be responsible for the research that led to the internet and therefore was guilty of being a self serving politician. (What’s new.)”
The only problem is that the stuff he claims he did happened before he was a senator.
ron (et al), Al Gore was ONE OF the people who helped bring the Internet to life. His role was more substantial than mine, less so than some of the people I worked with. I worked at DEC and BB&N;at the time. A truly tiny cog, but involved enough to make the claim that I was “part of it”.
Every time you repeat the lie, “I invented the Internet”, you are a) not being truthful and b) insulting the thousands of us who also had a finger in it.
On Topic: I don’t believe the “App Store” deserves any more of a mention than a) iTMS, b) podcasting, c) web casting, d) video casting and the like that pre-dated the “App” store.
Algore inventor of the internet and Global Warming – since downgraded to Climate Change. Dream on.
Who really cares what Al Gore said and what he meant. He is irrelevant at this point. It was a clumsy and misleading statement. The reality is his claiming, “I took the initiative in creating the internet” is ridiculous at best.
He personally did nothing to “create the internet”. He may as well clain he took initiative in creating the VCR as well…or the DVD player. Simply being part of the government and opening doors for others does not entitle you to this type of preposterous claim. By his measure, John Hancock should have equal claim to inventing the internet. Had he not signed the Declaration of Independence, none of the other chain of events that led to the invention would have happened…..Wait, the creator of the internet should be Adam, without him…….
1837: Charles Babbage with his steam-driven analytical engine sets a vaporware record that leaves his 21st-century competitors in the dust — 171 years and counting.
ron.
For your ongoing edumacation –
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/03/09/president.2000/transcript.gore/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore's_contributions_to_the_Internet_and_technology
(I can’t be arsed to make them into links)
The Wiki page might seem sugar coated, but having read the discussions page and the archive within, it seems fairly neutral.
Typically, this issue is about someone being misquoted and through the ensuing dialogue, people cling to whatever suits them personally, be it factual or not.
It’s all about two things –
Context and edumacating yourself about the facts.
“A truth scintillates from a fluoresce of a truth and therefor visible to all, regardless of their comportment”
~ SKY LARK
Disclaimer:
In respect that Al Gore sits on the board of Apple Inc, I have no other interest in him per se.
Wot, with being a POM n’ all.
Hmm … forgot about the autolink thingamabob.
Quad Core – Ha, more like VACUUM tube mate.
Those brilliant few day in ’69 that gifted us Unix and C, via Bell Labs (Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie et al). Even Jobs hasn’t left as big a footprint, yet, in computing philosophy as those guys did. Do yourself (some of you that is) a favour one day and read up the structures, nomenclature and conventions (and not just the codes) paved out by these great, GREAT men. To this day we use their notion of logical reality in so many and far away fields. Yes, I know, father of that is maybe Gauss et al, but I won’t go there. Ken and Dennis had their own inspirations as well. And yes, the paradigm will shift, and should, and hopefully soon. But recognise these gifts will only enhance our participation in this modern era.
Oh, and an honourable mention goes to Cisco as well. Maybe Amazon too, but Hotmail? Why not Yahoo then, or even AOL – Apple helped co-develop it. Wi-fi standardisaton, what about tcp/ip protocols? Or the great farce that was Rockwell 56k Flex that harassed the legitimate and real USRobotics 56k Fax modems. Or the incredible research materials on Modem technology by Hayes that were made available to all for free. Hayes finally went belly up against the pretenders one day. Locked up shack and didn’t whine once.
Thank even Al Gore, if you want. Not just for that silly internet babble. I read one of his papers once in the very early 90s, without knowing who he was or going to be. It was on the possibilities and implementation of the Nash equilibrium in the modern businesses, namely the upcoming computer revolution, and legislature that can help implement it. That alone was incredible how he could see it that far ahead for what it offered. Although that was the business aspect that he was mostly referring to, how companies can learn each others hands in advance and still carry on dialogues in the bargaining table, and it was implemented by mid 90s. But more so, it was implemented brilliantly by Cisco in the technology side, how data is divided up between nodes, and ‘predict’ and use the alternate routes intelligently and not go for the same sweet point all at the same time. Talk about revolution. I would also give a silent nod to HyperCard and Mr. Bill Atkinson. I guess, in fairness, Apple deserves a giant global nod for all its apparent and not so apparent contributions in so many fields around the globe.
Surely, Intel should have a few prominent spots as well. Linus and his rag-tag gangs as well, even the FOSS loonies.
How about the behind scene architecture, apart from consumers. Server rack revolutions? Grid computing? Quantum computing? Data model behaviours that are about to get a serious make over any day now.
Yes, Windows 95 was Mac OS 7x (or even 6x) re-packaged. But it was highly influential still, bringing in the mass (via hype, perception, cost and ads mostly) to personal computing revolution and even the internet boom later on.
Eh, long list and too much babbling, I’ll go back to my day job now, whatever that is.