Milestones in the History of Computers

Below is a list of famous people and computers in the history of computing. The list is divided into five categories or generations based on the type of technology used in the construction of the computers or computing devices.

0th Generation - Mechanical & Electro-mechanical

Up until the outbreak of the Second World War, computing devices were mechanical or electro-mechanical. The first "known" mechanical calculator (aside from the abacus) was Wilhelm Schickard's "Calculating Clock" (1623). This device was lost early on so for many years it was believed that a calculator invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642 was the first mechanical calculator. Pascal's Pascaline could only add and subtract and although Pascal tried to market his invention, its high cost and technical unreliability did not make it a "best seller".

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz also invented a calculator, one that could also multiply (using repeated addition). Again, the technology of the time did not make for a reliable device although Liebniz's ideas were basically sound.

Charlies Babbage, a 19th century "polymath" devised a calculating machine, the Difference Engine I (1823) which could be used to mechanically generate mathematical tables. He even obtained funding from the British government to build it. Unfortunately, the machine was never completed partly because of the technological diffculties inherent in constructing so complex a mechanical device and perhaps partly due to Babbage's becoming interested in buildling a more ambituous calculating machine, the Analytic Engine (also never constructed). The Analytic Engine was essentially a general purpose calculating device. It had a "store" which could store numbers and a "mill" which would perform a sequence of calculations. A friend of his, Augusta Ada Byron, later the Countess of Lovelace, became interested in Babbage's work and did much to popularize his device. She even wrote a "program" for the Analytic Engine and thus she is considered to be the first computer programmer.
 
 

Mechanical Calculators
  1. "Calculating Clock" (1623) - Wilhelm Schickard
  2. Pascaline (1642) - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
  3. Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
  4. Charles Babbage (1792-1871)
Electro-Mechanical "Computers"
  1. Hermann Hollerith and Punch Card Tabulating Machines (1890 Census)
  2. Z1 - Z4 (electro-mechanical, binary; 1930') Konrad Zuse
  3. John Atanasoff (& Clifford Berry); Atanasoff-Berry Computer; Iowa State University in Ames,1937-42
  4. George Stibbitz and the Complex Calculator (1940)
  5. Howard Aiken and the Mark I (1944)
  6. IBM SSEC

1st Generation - Vacuum Tubes

  1. Colossus (Bletchley Park England); ENIGMA Machine
  2. ENIAC (John Mauchley & Presper Eckert; 1944-46
  3. Manchester Mark I (1948)
  4. EDVAC - Electronic Discreet Variable Computer
  5. EDSAC - Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (Maurice Wilkes, Cambridge Univ, UK)
  6. Univac - Universal Automatic Computer (1951)
  7. John von Neumann; "stored program concept"; IAS machine (1 address architecture)
  8. Whirlwind I (MIT)
  9. IBM 701 "Defense Computer" (1953); 704, 709

2nd Generation - Transistors (invented 1948)

  1. MIT's Lincoln Labs TX-0, TX-2
  2. Kenneth Olsen founded Digital Equip Corp (DEC) in 1957
  3. IBM Computers
  4. CDC 6600 (1964)

3rd Generation - Integrated Circuits

  1. IBM System 360 (1964)
  2. DEC PDP-11

4th Generation - VLSI

  1. Intel founded 1968
  2. IBM PC based on 8088 (1981)
  3. Motorola 6800 (mid 1970's) and 68000 (1979) family

For more information on the History of Computing, check out the Virtual Museum of Computing in Oxford England.

The IEEE Computer Society has an excellent web site on the history of computing including an excellent timeline.

Tour Data General Corporation's "Generations - The Evolution of Computers"
Note: This link may be obsolete

Another good site for information on the history of computers is Computers : History and Development from Jones Multimedia Encyclopedia

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