3500 - 3000 B.C. Number systems. Null. Babylonians, Egyptians.
3000 B.C. Abacus ("Rechenbrett").
500 B.C. Pythagoras
300 B.C. Euclid
? Early calculating machine by Leonardo da Vinci (1452 -1519). Codex Madrid. No real evidence.
1518/1522 Adam Riese (Ries, Risen) (1492 - 1559). Arithmetic books ("Rechenbücher"). Decimal number system.
1588 Jost Bürgi (1552 - 1632, ingenious Swiss watchmaker, mathematician and astronomer, worked for count Wilhelm IV. in Kassel) Logarithm. Also, independently, 1614 John Napier (Neper) (1550 - 1617). 1615 Henry Briggs (1561 - 1630). Decadic logarithm.
1623 Wilhelm Schickard (1592-04-22 - 1635-10-24). Calculating machine + -.
1642 Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662). Calculating machine + -.
1672/1673 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716). Calculating machine, decimal, + - * /, Leibniz wheel ("Staffelwalze"). 1675 Calculus ("Infinitesimalrechnung") (also Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727). Priority?). 1697 Binary number system.
1801 Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855). Computation of the orbit of the planet Ceres. Least squares approximation.
1801 Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1752 - 1834). Punched cards for automatic pattern looms. 1884 Herman Hollerith (1860-02-29 - 1929-11-17). 1890 US census. Punched tape. Music box. Welte-Piano.
1821 Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871). Difference Engine. 1827 Table of logarithms 1 - 108000. 1856 Analytical Engine.
1906/1910 Robert von Lieben (1878-09-05 - 1913-02-20). Valve (tube). (1899 for 1 year with Walther Nernst, IPC, Göttingen.)
1934/1938 Konrad Zuse (1910-06-22 - 1995-12-18). Z1.
1934 James W. Bryce. "Floating point" numbers. IBM 601, 604 (1948). 1985 IEEE Standard for Binary Floating-Point Arithmetic. IEEE Std. 754-1985.
1936 Alan Turing (1912-06-23 - 1954-06-07). Abstract Turing machine.
1945 ENIAC. 18000 valves (tubes), decimal.
1945 Zuse Z4 in Göttingen, subsequently ETH Zürich until 1955.
1945 John von Neumann. Stored-program computer.
1945 Transistor. Bell Labs. Bardeen, Brattain, Shockley. Nobel Prize 1956. 1955 mass production.
1951 Prof. Heinz Billing, MPI für Physik, Göttingen. G1. Valves (tubes) and relays. Very fast: 2 operations per second, 26 words of 32 bit RAM. 1955 G2. 1961 G3. Fast magnetic drum storage.
1954/1957 John W. Backus, IBM. Fortran. IBM 704. 1958 Fortran II. 1962 Fortran IV. Fortran 66. Fortran V. Fortran 77. Fortran 90, Fortran 95, Fortran 2003.
1957 Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) founded.
1958 Integrated circuit (IC, "chip"). Texas Instruments. Jack Kilby. Nobel Prize 2000.
1958 Algol language (for mathematical algorithms). 1960 Algol60. 1968 Algol68. 1970/1971 Prof. Niklaus Wirth, ETH Zürich. Pascal. Apple Macintosh. Borland Turbo Pascal, Delphi. 1979 Modula-2. 1985 N. Wirth and J. Gutknecht. Oberon.
1959 John W. Backus. BNF notation (Backus Normal Form). 1960 Peter Naur. BNF (Backus-Naur Form). Later EBNF (Extended Backus-Naur Form). A formalism used to define programming language syntax; first used for Algol60.
1959 COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language). 1968 ANSI COBOL (American National Standards Institute).
1960 LISP language for artificial intelligence programs.
1962 APL. "A Programming Language". IBM.
1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange).
1963/1964 PL/I (PL/1). IBM. Originally NPL (New Programming Language).
1964 BASIC language (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).
1965 Univac 1108. Sperry. In use at GWDG in 1972.
1965 Gordon E. Moore's Law. Fairchild Semiconductor. Doubling number of transistors per area every 1.5 years (from 1960 on). Speed increases with (1/length)^2 (laws of diffusion, Einstein, 1905).
1967 Teletype ASR-33. 110 bps (10 characters per second). Keyboard, printer, paper tape punch and reader. Hundreds of thousands sold.
1968 Intel founded. Gordon Moore. 1971 Intel 4004. 1972 Intel 8008. 1974 Intel 8080.
1970/1971 Unix operating system. Bell Labs, AT&T. 1967/1972 Programming language B. DEC PDP-7. 1991 Linus Torvald. Linux.
1972 Hewlett-Packard HP-35 pocket calculator. Price 395 USD. 1974 HP-65 programmable.
1975 Microsoft founded. Bill Gates and Paul Allen. 1980 MS Xenix (Unix). 1981 MS DOS (IBM PC). 1985 MS Windows.
1976 Cray I. 83 MHz, 166 MFlops. 1982 Cray XMP. 420 MFlops.
1976 Apple I. 1977 Apple II.
1977 DEC VMS, VAX-11/780. 1993 MS Windows NT.
1978 C language. Unix, DEC PDP-11. 1988/1989 ANSI C, X3.159-1989. 1985 Bjarne Stroustrup. C++, "object oriented programming" (OOP), in contrast to "procederal programming". 1990/1994 Java language. Sun Microsystems.
1978 DEC VT100 terminal. Intel 8085 CPU. 19200 bps.
1981 IBM PC. Intel 8088 CPU, 4.77 MHz, 64 KB RAM, 2 Floppy disk drives. Price 3200 USD. 1984 IBM AT PC. Intel 80286 CPU.
1982 Postscript language. Adobe.
1983 Ada language, named after Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace.
1983 Donald E. Knuth. TeX. Encyclopedia The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP).
Revised 2005-10-25