Date

Event

1823

Babbage develops the design for his Difference Engine Card input, CPU (MIU), Memory (Store), Output (Printer)

1833

Charles Babbage - Analytical Engine design (A decimal machine)

1837

Samuel Morse demos the Telegraph

1844

First telegraph message sent between Baltimore and Washington DC "What hath God wrought"

1850

Concept of Facsimile reproduction documented

1861

East and west coasts of US linked with Telegraph

1876

Alexander Graham Bell patented the Telephone - also experimented with transmitting sound on a beam of lght

1879

Emile Berliner invents the carbon microphone - sold patent to Bell

1881

Bell forms the National geographic Society

1882

Hollerith (MIT) designes a counting machines using Punched Tape based on Jacquard's Loom Design

1883

Ada Byron Lovelace develops a program for Babbage's Analytical Engine -Bernoulli Number Table

1884

Hollerith Designs Unit Record equipment using punched cards for Bureau of the Census

1885

Wm. Burroughs develops the first desk calculator (electro-mechanical)

1895

JJ Thompson Discovers the Electron

1895

Guglielmo Marconi tests the wireless telegraph or radio

1886

Herman Hollerith forms the Tabluating Machine Company (TMC)

1886

Wm Stanley invents induction coil (transformer) used in AC systems - Only DC up to that time (Westinghouse Pittsburgh)

1901

Radio signals transmitted and received by Marconi across the Atlantic

1902

Lee Deforst invents the audion amplifier - modification of Flemings Electronic Valve (only a rectifier no amplification)

1906

Ernst Alexanderson demoed High Frequency Alternator used in Radio communications

1908

Thomas Edison demo motion picture camera

1911

Hollerith's TMC merged with Computing Scale Co. and International Time Recording Co. to form Comp. Tabulating Record Co.

1920

Television first demonstrated

1922

Philco Farnsworth works out the concepts for electronic television at the age of 14.

1924

Computing and Tabulating Recording Co. renamed International Business Machine Co. (IBM)

1924

Ernst Alexanderson - Transmits facsimile across Atlantic - also a TV pioneer

1927

Ernst Alexanderson demos TV at home in Schenectady, NY

1928

First public demo of TV

1928

Harold Black invents negative feedback amplifier to eliminate distortion in Telephone calls (western Electric - Bell Labs forerunne)

1933

Edwin Armstrong invents wide-band frequency Modulator for FM Radio

1934

Communication Act by Congress forming the FCC

1936

Alan Turing writes a paper "On Computable Numbers" which describes a Turing Machine

1936

Wm Hewlett invents audio signal generator (oscillator) (low frequency generation) - met Dave Packard in grad school at MIT

1938

Chester Carlson patents Xerographic Process called the "Dry Copy Process"

1938

Marvin Camras invents wire recorder and invents over 500 devices for tape recorders, video recorders, magnetic sound, etc.

1939

George Stibitz at Bell Labs develops the first 2-digit binary adder and incorporates into a full scale calculator

1943

Thomas J. Watson of IBM says "Only Need 5 computers for entire USA

1943

Robert Rines develops basics for high-definition Radar and Sonar

1944

Mark I built by Howard Aiken at Harvard with IBM support - Electronmechanical - Navigational Tables

1944

Haloid company formed by Carlson - later becomes Xerox

1945

John Von Neumann writes report on EDVAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer) - Stored Program Computer Concept

1945

Television shows some comercial success

1945

Vannevar Bush publishes article "As We May Think" describing Memex a hyperlinked text system like WWW except using optical technologies

1945

Alan Turing works on the Enigma Code Breaking Machine

1945

WWII ends and German and Allies Scientific Information Needs organized, analyzed, stored, retrieved - Kent part of team

1946

Eckert and Muchly develop the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) at U of Penn - 18000 tubes, 30 tons, 70,000 registers, punched cards

1946

Louis Parker invents the intercarrier sound system for TV for coordinating sound and picture

1947

Haloid Company renamed Xerox

1947

ACM Formed

1947

Transistor Invented at Bell Laboratories

1947

MarK II by Aiken at Harvard is first all electronic calculator

1948

Eckert and Muchly form a corporation to manufacture computers - Becomes UNIVAC

1948

JW Forrester invents Magnetic Core Memory

1948

Louis Moyroud and Rene Higonnet introduce the first practical Phototypesetter in America (from France)

1949

Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver publish "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"

1949

EDSAC - the first useful computer is developed at Cambridge U in England

1950

Univac and IBM produce commercially useful computetrsystems

1950

National Science Foundation (NSF) formed based on V. Bush's paper

1951

Wirlwind I all digital computer developed at MIT by JJ Forrester

1951

Marvin Minski at MIT develops a Neural Network Simulator

1951

Charles Townes invents the MASER - used in comunications, radar, surgery, navigation, etc.)

1953

Charles Ginsburg heads team that develops first Video tape recorder

1955

H. Simone and H. Newell at CMU develop "Logical Theorist" Program to discover proofs for logical theorms

1956

Dartmouth Conference on AI with Minski and John McCarthy (LISP)

1956

J.W. Forrester invent random Access Core memory

1956

SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) for controlling Continental Air Defense - Designed by JJ Forrester

1956

Wm Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invent the transistor - solid state equivalent of the vacuum tube (amplifier)

1957

Newell, Simone, and Shaw publish "General Problem Solver"

1957

Flowmatic developed as first english language processing compiler

1957

First Magnetic Disk (RAMAC 350) from IBM - 1000 bits/in**2 in 1996 1 billion bits/in**2

1957

Fortran Language specified by John Backus and Peter Naur for IBM 704 computers (BNF)

1957

COBOL language and compiler adopted as a standard

1957

Scientific and Technical Information Program Funded by US Government (STI) Scientific knowledge

1957

Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) formed by Ken Olsen

1957

Gordon Gould documents the concepts for the LASER (light Amplfication by Stimulated Emission of Radiation)

1959

Jack Kilby Invents the monolithic integrated circuit at Texas Instruments

1959

Minsky starts AI lab at MIT

1960

ALGOL introduced as an improved Fortran

1960

First CS depts are formed in Universities

1960

IBM, UNIVAC, GE, Burroughs, RCA, ICL, NCR have commercially available computers for sale

1960

Integrated Circuit - Mass produce chips

1960

JCR Licklider uses the phrase "Man-Machine Symbiosis"

1960

DEC PDP I developed - first minicomputer with interactive capabilities

1960

Ted Maiman invents the first operable LASER the Ruby Laser

1962

ARPA funds Doug Englebart at SRI Augmentation Research Center (Augment human intellect via on-line system

1962

ARPA is formed

1962

Robert Hall invents the semiconductor injection LASER used in compact disks, laser printers, and optical Communications

1963

Allen Kent writes first textbook for IS called Mechanized Information Retrieval

1963

Allen Kent starts program in Information Science at Pitt

1963

John McCarthy Introduces LISP AI Language at Stanford.

1963

Ian Sutherland MIT PhD Thesis: Sketch Pad: Man-Machine Graphical Communication System (GUI and CAD)

1963

First Color Television

1964

First Commercial DBMs - IDS by GE developed by Bachman

1964

Knowledge Availability Systems Center Established at Pitt - NASA Technology Transfer by Allen Kent

1964

IBM System 360 Announced - Mythical Man Month - Fred Brooks

1964

IBM introduces 1400 series machines (1401, 1440)

1965

First DEC Minicomputer PDP-12

1965

An Wang produces desktop computer (LOCI) and was forerunner of Wang electronic desk calclator - Office automation

1965

Edsger Dijkstra - Shortest Path Algorithm (GoTOless programming)

1965

DENDRAL Expert system developed at Stanford - find molecular structure of compounds

1965

Ted Nelson Introduces the concept of Hypertext and Hypermedia

1965

Edward Feigenbaum (Stanford) starts the Heuristic Programming Project-AI project

1965

DEC produced the PDP-8

1967

Doug Engelbart at Xero PARC introduces the mouse as an interface device

1968

Doug Engelbart at Xero PARC introduces Personal workstation with Mouse, Hypermedia, and video conferencing

1968

Kenneth Boulding proposes "General Systems Theory"

1968

von Bertalanfty writes general system theory concepts

1968

Pitt starts the IDIS PhD program - Allen Kent and Tony Debons

1968

JCR Licklider presents his vision of ARPAnet with 4 hosts (MIT, Stanford, CMU and Utah) became Internet

1969

Alan Kay proposes first Graphical Object Oriented Compuetr System

1969

Bachman Diagrams introduced to document DBMS Schema relationships

1970

Robert Taylor heads up Xerox PARC and initiates Client/Server Computing and development of the ALTO workstation

1970

Edgar Codd presents paper on Relational Data Model and introduces normalization

1970

Department of Information Science begun at Pitt - Allen Kent head

1970

DEC produces the PDP-11

1970

Robert Maurer, Donald Keck, Peter Schutz (Corning) produce optical fiber with loss low enough for telecommunication

1971

C West Churchman writes "The Design of Inquiring Systems" a philosophical basis for information systems

1971

Marcian Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Federico Faggin develop the first working single Chip CPU at Intel (4004)

1972

Newell and Simone publish "Human Problem Solving" paper

1972

first handheld calculator - 1 K DRAM memory chip

1972

Alan Kay develops Smalltak object oriented system at Xerox PARC

1972

Russel Ackoff provides system definitions

1973

Laser Printer introduced by Xerox

1973

ALTO workstation introduced at Xerox PARC

1973

Ethernet introduced at Xerox PARC and is developed by Xerox, DEC and Intel

1974

Pitt Starts MSIS Program under Allen Kent

1974

Codd presents 12 principles for RDBMS Design

1974

Marshall Yovits presents his model of Information as a system, commodity, etc.

1975

4K DRAM Chip announced

1975

Unix OS developed at Bell Labs by Kernigan and Richey

1975

First speech Synthesis device capable of reading text to blind and performing Telephone Voice Response

1975

Bill Gates and Allen form Microsoft

1975

Microsoft buys and modifies MS Basic

1975

DEC introduces 16bit PDP-11 Minicomputer

1975

Klaus Otten publishes his model of Information Science (Information and Communication)

1976

ACT theory by John Anderson at CMU - Declaration and procedural Knowledge structure integration

1976

Apple I computer bu Jobs and Wozniak (based on Human Associative Memory)

1976

Ray Damadian demonstrated the MRI concept, 1978 forms FONAR to manfacture RI devices, 1984 DA approval

1977

First PC introduced

1977

DEC introduces the 32 bit VAX architecture and the VMS operating System

1977

Ken Olsen of DEC declares there will be no home use for OC

1977

Apple II by Jobs and Wozniak

1978

Debons formulates EATPUT model for Information Science

1978

16K DRAM Chip

1978

Dec VAX announced with VMS operating System

1978

JG Miller defines information systems as living systems

1979

Microsoft buys and modifies MS DOS for IBM PC

1979

Ted Nelson Introduces the Xanadu project - a Universal Hypertext Library

1981

IBM PC is placed on the market - Frank Carey CEO at IBM - Personal Project

1981

STAR workstation and server with ethernet, mouse, laser printer, WYSIWYG and 3270 emulation announced

1981

Heinrich Roher and Karl Binnig invent the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) - image individual atoms (IBM labs)

1983

Thinking Machine Company formed by Daniel Hillis - Paralel supercomputer, 64000 cpu connection machine - student of Minsky

1983

Fred Machlup analyzes meanings associated with the word Information

1984

Minix Microkernel OS by Andrew Tannebaum (Amoeba Project - distributed Object Oriented OS)

1984

Apple MacIntosh introduced with graphics, music, games, ease of use

1984

AT&T broken up by Judge Green

1985

Jobs fired as CEO of Apple

1985

LaTex typesetting system by Leslie Lamport

1986

SOAR project at CMU by Alan Newell - a system environment for AI system development

1986

Robert Taylor of Syracuse U publishes his definition of Information Systems (Value added Process)

1988

Donald Norman publishes the Design of Everyday Things - Gulf of Execution

1990

E.F. Codd expands 12 principles to 333 principles for RDBMS

1992

Electro-optical 1 GB disk

1992

World wide Web becomes to widespread use

1995

Nextstep company formed by jobs

1996

64 Mbps DRAM Chip

1996

Communications act of 1934 revised to be in touch with current technologies

1997

Steve Jobs return as CEO of Apple

1998

Compaq buys DEC