Main events in computer history
Obsviously, this subject could fit into encyclopediae. I don’t pretend to tell you the history of computers, but here are some events and facts I like to keep notes on.
Notable date :
- 1837 : The first general-purpose and Turing complete computer is described by Charles Babbage and it’s called the Analytical Engine. Unfortunately, never built.
- Late 1880 : The rise of Hertzian wave wireless telegraphy and radiotelegraphy that would allow people to communicate wirelessly with telegraph devices.
- 1945 : ENIAC, which was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose and Turing-complete digital computer. Built with vaccuum tubes and switches.
- 1945 : Memex, an hypothetical machine in the form of a desk to store all of ones books, records and communications, envised by Vannevar Bush.
- 1947 : The Transistor is invented at Bell Labs by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain under the management of William Shockley.
- 1969 : ARPANET is born, and it’s first wide-area packet-switching network and the first to implement TCP/IP protocol suite which are both technology at the technical foundation of Internet.
- 1974 : The introduction of the first true personal comptuer, the Altair 8800 which
- 1991 : The World Wide Web is released to the general public and invented 2 years before by Tim Berners Lee. This allow people access documents and web resources from anywhere in the world, over the Internet.