Research

1837 Software (Babbage’s Analytical Engine) Charles Babbage was an eminent scientist; he was elected Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge in 1828 (the same chair held by Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking). In 1837 he publicly described an analytical engine, a mechanical device that would take instructions from a program instead of being designed to do only one task. Babbage had apparently been thinking about the problem for some time before this; as with many innovations, pinning down a single date is difficult. This appears to be the first time the concept of software (computing instructions for a mechanical device) is seriously contemplated. Babbage even notes that the instructions can be reused (a key concept in how today’s software works).

Articles on Computers.

Tandem Computers was an early manufacturer of fault tolerant computer systems, marketed to the growing number of transaction processing customers who used them for ATMs, banks, stock exchanges and other similar needs. Tandem systems used a number of redundant processors and storage devices to provide high-speed "failover" in the case of a hardware failure, an architecture that they called NonStop. Over the two decades from the 1970s into the mid-90s, Tandem systems evolved from custom hardware to commodity CPU designs. The company was eventually purchased by Compaq in 1997 in order to provide that company with more robust server offerings. Today it is still known as NonStop, as a separate product line offered by Hewlett-Packard, ironically the company that the original founders left to form Tandem in the first place.

1976 January Corporate: Steve Wozniak (26) is working at Hewlett-Packard and Steve Jobs (21) is at Atari. March Product: Wozniak and Jobs finish work on a preassembled computer circuit board. It has no keyboard, case, sound or graphics. They call it the Apple® I. April Corporate: Wozniak and Jobs form the Apple Computer Company on April Fool's Day. Product: The Apple I debuts at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

In order to define UNIX, it helps to look at its history. In 1969, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and others started work on what was to become UNIX on a "little-used PDP-7 in a corner" at AT&T Bell Labs. For ten years, the development of UNIX proceeded at AT&T in numbered versions. V4 (1974) was re-written in C -- a major milestone for the operating system's portability among different systems. V6 (1975) was the first to become available outside Bell Labs -- it became the basis of the first version of UNIX developed at the University of California Berkeley.

An attempt at charting the trajectory of digital technology, with special attention to graphical applications. Comments solicited, corrections gladly considered, links and images most graciously desired. (Special note: those attributed as inventors or creators more often were joined by many others, some named, some not. And dates are often only approximations.)

I have compiled dates and events from several sources, both online and paper documents. Even though I found a couple of conflicts between sources over exact dates, for the most part these can be considered accurate. Color coded dates in the timeline indicate which reference was used for each event.

Welcome to The History of Microsoft. A video series that gives you a rare glimpse into the story behind the software giant. Using rare footage and never-before-seen photos we break down Microsoft's history by year. Every Thursday we will air a brand new episode beginning with 1975 where The History of Microsoft begins when the ALTAIR 8800 appeared on the cover of Popular Electronics inspiring two young men Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop BASIC language software for it. Tune in.

Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White.

Computer viruses have a relatively short history, but the damages caused by some of them pushed cyber-experts to opening a new chapter on computer viruses. Some viruses led to serious damages and affected a large number of companies, universities and even governments.