| 15,000-13,000
BC
Images painted on the walls of caves in the Grotte de Lasceaux,
France
3,000 BC
First written languages developed by Sumerians and Egyptians
3,000 BC
Chinese entertainers project silhouettes of puppets onto
a screen using firelight
65 BC
Roman poet Lucretius discovers the persistence of vision
This is a phenomenon allowing eyes to see a series of rapid stills
as one moving picture, and formed the future basis of motion pictures
105
Paper invented
Paper, invented in China, was first used for wrapping, clothing
and personal hygiene. Only later was it used to write on. Widespread
distribution of paper in Europe during the Middle Ages replaced
parchment as the medium of choice for writing.
1455
Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press, allowing
mass production of documents
1702
First English daily newspaper begins publication
1780
Franklin discovers electricity
1822
Charles Babbage
designs the Difference Engine
1834
Babbage designs
the Analytical Machine, the first general-purpose computer
Babbage is best known for his meticulous plans for his calculating
engines: the Difference Engines, designed to make tables, and the
Analytical Engines, punch-card controlled general purpose calculators
which had many of the features later found in modern stored program
computers. However, none of his machines were ever constructed.
1837
Samuel Morse devises
the telegraph receiver and transmitter
Louis Daguerre invents the daguerreotype, which produced photographs
using a paper negatives
1839
Lithographs and woodcuts produced from daguerreotypes first published
in magazines
1841
The Calotype, a negative-positive photo process, patented
by William Talbot
1851
Sir David Brewster exhibits the Stereoscope, a three-dimensional
picture viewer, at London's Crystal Palace
1854
George Boole develops Boolean Algebra, a binary mathematical
language of 1's and 0's
1858
Europe and North America linked by a transatlantic telegraph
cable
1866
Manual typewriter developed
1876
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
1877
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph
1878
Edison invents the incandescent light bulb
1888
George Eastman introduces the Kodak camera and roll film
First moving picture: sequential photographs with sprockets manually
pulled through a projector
1890
Herman Hollerith invents an electromechanical tabulating machine
Hollerith, a statistician,
invented a punch-card tabulation machine system that read
holes in perforated cards. This innovation changed the world of
statistical computation. During the 1890 US Census, Hollerith's
system was used, thereby saving $5 million and 2 years' time. In
1896 he founded the Tabulating Machine Company, which later changed
its name to IBM.
1901
Gugliemo Marconi perfects a wireless radio system that transmits
Morse Code over the Atlantic Ocean
1903
German scientist Arthur Korn invents the fax machine
1906
Animation is introduced to film by James Stuart Blackton
in his short Humorous Phases of Funny Faces
1914
The teletype is introduced
1915
DW Griffith releases The Birth of a Nation, considered the
first modern film
Transcontinental telephone
service established between New York and San Francisco
1920
First commercial radio station: KDKA-AM Pittsburg
1925
Electronically recorded sound disks
1926
J L Baird debuts the first practical television system; this
is followed two years later the first colour TV is introduced
1927
First synchronization
of sound and film, producing the first "talkie"
The Jazz Singer, starring
Al Jolson, is the first film to feature spoken dialogue
Telephone service established
between New York and London
Philo Farnsworth transmits
the first electronic TV program
1928
Walt Disney releases Steamboat Willy, the first carton with
a fully synchronized soundtrack
1931
Konrad Zuse develops the first electromechanical binary computer
1932
BASF introduces magnetic tape recording
1936
Alan Turing, known as the father of computer science, invents "Turing's
Machine," defined as capable of computing any calculable
function
Turing is generally regarded as the founder of computer science
and originator of the dominant technology of the late 20th century.
The concept of the Turikng machine has become the foundation of
the modern theory of computation and computability.
1937-42
John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry design the Atanasoff-Berry
Computer (ABC), the first electronic digital computer
1940
First colour TV broadcast
1941
NBC and CBS launch commercial TV stations
1942
Zuse-23: First machine to work on a binary rather than a
decimal system
1945
In an article in The Atlantic Monthly entitled "As we may think,"
Vannevar Bush outlines "Memex," a proto-hypertext/encyclopedia
system
1946
ENIAC, Electronic Numerator Integrator and Calculator, the
first successful high speed digital computer, based on the concepts
Atanasoff and Berry used to build the ABC computer
1947
The transistor is developed at Bell Telephone Company
1951
UNIVAC, Universal Automatic Computer, using magnetic tape for
buffer memory, built for US government and business use
1952
IBM 701: First electronic stored computer that used vacuum tubes,
RAM, punch cards and was the size of a piano
1953
Electric typewriter invented
1956
First Transatlantic telephone cable
1957
Sputnik launched
1958
First fully transistorized supercomputer developed
Development of the integrated
circuit by Texas Instruments
An integrated circuit chip, smaller and thinner than a baby's fingernail,
is equivalent to thousands of electronic components working at the
same time. It is central to the electronic equipment that has changed
life in the latter half of the 20th century: computers, pocket calculators,
digital watches and sound systems, word processors and communication
networks, to name a few.
1959
Second generation computer, using transistors instead of
vacuum tubes, is introduced by IBM
1962
Telstar, the first communications satellite, is launched
into orbit
1963
CAD (Computer Aided Design)
Sketchpad uses the first
light pen
Phillips introduces the
first compact audio-cassette
First home video tape
recording
1964
Third generation of computers included the photoprinting
of conductive circuit boards to eliminate wiring
1965
IBM introduces the word processor
1966
Rock bands begin to add visual effects to their performances
(The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and others)
1969
Hypertext editing system developed
First man on the moon,
with such technological innovations as laptop computers,
small solid-state lasers (the precursors to Compact Discs),
and solar power cells
ARPANET, the predecessor
of the Internet, established by the US Department of Defense
1970
Fourth generation computer by IBM uses chips to reduce
size and cost
1971
Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first email message
1972
PONG, the first commercial video game, introduced
by Nolan Bushnell and Atari
1974
MITS releases the first successful personal computer, using
Intel Corporation's 8080 microprocessor
1975
Bill Gates and Paul Allen adapt BASIC to run on
the Altair 8800, creating the first computer language program
written for the PC. They form the company Microsoft.
1976
JVC introduces VHS format
1977
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple (name licensed from
the Beatles). The Apple II is the first PC to use colour graphics
1977
Email provided to 100 researchers
1978
First commercially available cellular phone
1979
Wordstar word processing package released
First MUD, MUDI, by Richard
Bartle and Roy Trubshaw at the U of Essex
Beginning of on-line
services with CompuServe and The Source
1980
SONY introduces the consumer camcorder
1981
IBM releases its first PC
MS-DOS, or Microsoft
Disc Operating System
1982
First digital audio 5" compact disc
1983
Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) introduced
Internet is created
The Compact Disc
is introduced
1984
Apple Computers introduces the Macintosh with the first mouse
driven GUI (Graphical User Interface)
3 ½" microfloppy
diskette introduced
Voicemail developed
DWS: domain name
server introduced
1985
The first true multimedia computer, the Commodore Amiga,
combines advanced graphics, sound and video capabilities
CD-ROMs evolve
from CD's on which music is recorded
Debut of desktop publishing
1986
First CD-ROM encyclopedia developed
1987
First digital audio tape players
Hypercard: includes
authority system tool for building interactive hypermedia documents
1988
3D Graphics: 3D graphical supercomputers
1989
British physicist Tim Bernes-Lee proposes a global hypertext
system, the World Wide Web, and develops the standards for
URL, HTML and HTTP
Fully functional battery
powered notebook computer developed
1991
The World Wide Web introduced on the internet
MP3 digital audio
compression format invented
1992
Debut of HTML (Hypertext markup language), which allows users
the tools to create their own personal Web page
1993
Mosaic, the first graphical Web browser, is developed by
M. Andreessen
1994
The Internet becomes interactive, permitting shopping, radio
broadcasting, spamming, banking, live concerts and other activities
1995
Streaming audio brought to the Web by RealAudio, soon followed
by streaming video
Netscape becomes
public
1996 DVD video
is introduced
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