Computer chronology:

1644: Blaise Pascal’s “calculating box”--rotary mech. calculator, for adding and subtracting to 100 million

17th cent.: Gottfried Leibnitz’s dial machine could divide and multiply as well

Mid-19th century: Charles Babbage’s “Difference Engine”; his “Analytical Engine” was a more ambitious design, with punched-card input, programming, memory

1890: Herman Hollerith’s electric sorting machine (with punched cards)

World War I: Analytical computers used for fire-control on battleships and for other systems controls (electric power, etc.)

1930: Vannevar Bush’s “Differential Analyzer”

World War II:

•Howard Aiken’s Harvard Mark I digital computer

•Eckert & Mauchly’s ENIAC [Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer]--18,000 vacuum tubes, enormous air conditioning system, 1,000 sq.ft. of space

1947: Invention of the transistor by Brattain, Bardeen and Shockley at Bell Laboratories

1950: UNIVAC [1952--used to predict outcome of Eisenhower-Stevenson contest]

1958: Invention of the integrated circuit by Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments and, independently, Robert Noyce of Fairchild

1971: Ted Hoff of Intel devises the microprocessor

1975: Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs introduce the Apple personal computer

1983: ARPANET network opened to civilian access—beginnings of the Internet (separate open civilian system—1990)

1990: Tim Berners-Lee designs the first World Wide Web server and browser, working at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN)

1994: World Wide Web Consortium is organized: the Web goes public