Important Events in the Development of Computers
Other timelines: Semiconductor Industry Association, ComputerHistory.Org, History of Digital Storage, Micron [PDF],
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Year |
Event |
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1946 |
ENIAC, First Digital, Electronic Computer Completed. Price: $486,804.22. The project contracted by the Army for ballistic missle calculations to for use in World War II, but the project wasn't completed until the war was over.
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1951 |
Univac, First Commercial Computer. Prices vary from $159,00 to 1,500,000. One was purchased in 1954 by John Hancock Insutrance for about $1,500,000.
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1956 |
IBM Sells First Hard Drive, 5 MB for $50,000, $10,000 per megabyte. Developed at IBM labs in San Jose, CA.
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1958 |
Tennis for Two, First Video Game Developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory |
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1965 |
Moore’s Law Published, predicting significant cost reductions related to about a doubling of
transitors per chip every one to two years. In the video at right, Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel, talks about the manufacturing process and factors driving cost reductions in the computer industry. The Moore's Law page at Intel presents innovations driving the industry and a graph of the number of transistors per chip. The wikipedia article notes that the name Moore's Law was coined by Caltech Professor Carver Mead. This link to the Intel on-line museum shows some of the original long-term average cost curves sketched by Gordon Moore that became the basis for Moore's Law.
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1968 |
George Meilmeir develops the first modern LCD display at RCA’s David Sarnoff Research Center |
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1971 |
Intel’s first processor (4004) introduced for the calculator market with 2,300 transistors and running at 400 KHz. Cost a little less than $100 when marketed, about 4.4 cents per transistor. Developed at Intel in Santa Clara, CA. |
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1972 |
Release of the first commercial video games,Magnavox Odessy followed by Atari Pong. Video game timeline |
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1973 |
IBM's Winchester Hard Disk Drive introduced (named after the project manager’s gun), the first closed environment drive |
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1976 |
Adventure, First Computer Game Software |
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1976 |
Apple I Introduced for $666, An Early Personal Computer
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1978 |
 Intel introduces the first processor for the personal computer marketthe 8086 running a 5 MHz with 29,000 transistors andpriced at $360, about 1.2 cents ($0.012414) per transistor (see Computer Chronicles sponsored by Oracle for this and other information about the years 1972 to 1981) |
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1980 |
Microsoft introduces Flight Simulator software (link to Youtube Video showing screen of early Flight Simulator) |
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1981 |
3COM (company history) ships the first Ethernet Network Robert Metcalf, who worked at Xerox Parc, gets most of the credit for the idea of developing a simple, cheap networking technolgoy to connect Xerox copying machines. The idea didn't catch on a Xerox, so Metcalf formed his own company. At right are images of an early ethernet card and sketches for the ethernet network. Technical ethernet history. |
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1982 |
Intel introduces the second generation personal computer processor 80286,  |
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1985 |
Intel introduces the third generation personal computer processor, the 80386 running at 16 MHz with 275,000 transistors, priced at $299. |
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1991 |
Intel introduces the fourth generation processor, the 80486  running at 25 MHz with 900,000 transistors |
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1993 |
Intel introduces the fifth general personal computer processor,  |
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1999 |
Panasonic introduces a four foot plasma display for $22,000. |
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2001 |
Intel introduces the eight generation personal computer processors (Pentium 4), running at 1.5 GHz with 42 million transistors. |
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2001 |
In an unsuccessful attempt to depart from the X86 standard,  |
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2003 |
Intel fails to deliver on its promised 4GHz processor,  |
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2008 |
Western Digital introduces a one terabyte drive for personal computers |
Interface Card (NIC).