Walter Isaacson - The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

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HOW A GROUP OF HACKERS, GENIUSES, AND GEEKS CREATED THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION

1843

Ada, Countess of Lovelace, publishes Notes on Babbages Analytical Engine.

1847

George Boole creates a system using algebra for logical reasoning.

1890

The census is tabulated with Herman Holleriths punch-card machines.

1931

Vannevar Bush devises the Differential Analyzer, an analog electromechanical computer.

1935

Tommy Flowers pioneers use of vacuum tubes as on-off switches in circuits.

1937

Alan Turing publishes On Computable Numbers, describing a universal computer.

Claude Shannon describes how circuits of switches can perform tasks of Boolean algebra.

Bell Labs George Stibitz proposes a calculator using an electric circuit.

Howard Aiken proposes construction of large digital computer and discovers parts of Babbages Difference Engine at Harvard.

John Vincent Atanasoff puts together concepts for an electronic computer during a long December nights drive.

1938

William Hewlett and David Packard form company in Palo Alto garage.

1939

Atanasoff finishes model of electronic computer with mechanical storage drums.

Turing arrives at Bletchley Park to work on breaking German codes.

1941

Konrad Zuse completes Z3, a fully functional electromechanical programmable digital computer.

John Mauchly visits Atanasoff in Iowa, sees computer demonstrated.

1942

Atanasoff completes partly working computer with three hundred vacuum tubes, leaves for Navy.

1943

Colossus, a vacuum-tube computer to break German codes, is completed at Bletchley Park.

1944

Harvard Mark I goes into operation.

John von Neumann goes to Penn to work on ENIAC.

1945

Von Neumann writes First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC describing a stored-program computer.

Six women programmers of ENIAC are sent to Aberdeen for training.

Vannevar Bush publishes As We May Think, describing personal computer.

Bush publishes Science, the Endless Frontier, proposing government funding of academic and industrial research.

ENIAC is fully operational.

1947

Transistor invented at Bell Labs.

1950

Turing publishes article describing a test for artificial intelligence.

1952

Grace Hopper develops first computer compiler.

Von Neumann completes modern computer at the Institute for Advanced Study.

UNIVAC predicts Eisenhower election victory.

1954

Turing commits suicide.

Texas Instruments introduces silicon transistor and helps launch Regency radio.

1956

Shockley Semiconductor founded.

First artificial intelligence conference.

1957

Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and others form Fairchild Semiconductor.

Russia launches Sputnik .

1958

Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) announced.