Year Event
1960 IBMs 1400 series machines, aimed at the business market begin to be distributed.
1960 The Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) programming language is invented.
1960 Psychologist Frank Rosenblatt creates the Mark I Perception, which has an "eye" that can learn to identify its ABCs.
1960 NASA launches TIROS, the first weather satellite into space.
1960 Bob Bemer introduced the backslash.
1960 Physicist Theodore Maiman creates the first laser May 16, 1960.
1960 AT&T introduces the dataphone and the first known MODEM.
1960 RS-232 is introduced by EIA.
1960 IFIP is founded.
1960 Digital introduces the PDP-1 the first minicomputer.
1961 Hewlett-Packard stock is accepted by the New York Stock Exchange for national and international trading.
1961 Leonard Kleinrock publishes his first paper entitled "Information Flow in Large Communication Nets" is published May 31, 1961.
1961 General Motors puts the first industrial robot the 4,000 pound Unimate to work in a New Jersey factory.
1961 Accredited Standards Committee is founded, this committee later becomes the INCITS.
1961 P.Z. Ingerman develops a thunk.
1961 ECMA is established.
1961 The first transcontinental telegraph line began operation October 24, 1961.
1961 The programming language FORTRAN IV is created.
1962 Steve Russell creates "SpaceWar!" and releases it in February 1962. This game is considered the first game intended for computers.
1962 Philippe Kahn is born March 16, 1962.
1962 Leonard Kleinrock releases his paper talking about packetization.
1962 AT&T places first commercial communications Satellite, the Telstar I into orbit.
1962 Paul Baran suggests transmission of data using fixed size message blocks.
1962 J.C.R. Licklider becomes the first Director of IPTO and gives his vision of a galactic network.
1962 Philips invents the compact audio cassette tape.
1962 The NASA rocket, the Mariner II, is equipped with a Motorola transmitter on it's trip to Venus.
1962 Sharp is founded.
1963 IEEE is founded.
1963 The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is developed to standardize data exchange among computers.
1963 Kevin Mitnick is born August 6, 1963.
1963 Bell Telephone introduces the push button telephone November 18, 1963.
1964 Jeff Bezos is born January 12, 1964.
1964 Dartmouth Universitys John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language (BASIC) and run it for the first time May 1, 1964.
1964 Baran publishes reports "On Distributed Communications."
1964 AT&T starts the practice of monitoring telephone calls in the hopes of identifying phreakers.
1964 The TRANSIT system becomes operational on U.S. Polaris submarines. This system later becomes known as GPS.
1964 On April 7, 1964 IBM introduces its System/360, the first of its computers to use interchangeable software and peripheral equipment.
1964 Leonard Kleinrock publishes his first book on packet nets entitled Communication Nets: Stochastic Message Flow and Design.
1964 The first computerized encyclopedia is invented at the Systems Development Corporation.
1965 Ted Nelson coins the term "hypertext," which refers to text that is not necessarily linear.
1965 Hypermedia is coined by Ted Nelson.
1965 Donald Davies coins the word "Packet."
1965 Engineers at TRW Corporation develop a Generalized Information Retrieval Language and System which later develops to the Pick Database Management System used today on Unix and Windows systems.
1965 Michael Dell is born February 23, 1965.
1965 Millions watch for the first time a space probe crashing into the moon on March 24, 1965.
1965 Texas Instruments develops the transistor-transistor logic (TTL).
1965 Lawrence G. Roberts with MIT performs the first long distant dial-up connection between a TX-2 computer n Massachusetts and a Q-32 in California.
1965 Gordon Moore makes an observation in a April 19, 1965 paper that later becomes widely known as Moore's Law.
1966 MITs Joseph Weizenbaum writes a program called Eliza, that makes the computer act as a psychotherapist.
1966 Lawrence G. Roberts and Tom Marill publish a paper about their earlier success at connecting over dial-up.
1966 David Filo is born April 20, 1966.
1966 Stephen Gray establishes the first personal computer club, the Amateur Computer Society.
1966 Robert Taylor joins ARPA and brings Larry Roberts there to develop ARPANET.
1966 The programming language BCPL is created.
1967 IBM creates the first floppy disk.
1967 The first CES is held in New York from the July 24 to 28, 1967.
1967 Donald Davies creates 1-node NPL packet net.
1967 Wes Clark suggests use of a minicomputer for network packet switch.
1967 The LOGO programming language is developed and is later known as "turtle graphics," a simplified interface useful for teaching children computers.
1967 Donald Davies creates 1-node NPL packet net.
1967 Ralph Baer creates "Chase", the first video game that was capable of being played on a television.
1967 HES is developed at the Brown University.
1967 Nokia is formed.
1967 GPS becomes available for commercial use.
1967 ISACA is established.
1968 Intel Corporation is founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore.
1968 The first Network Working Group (NWG) meeting is held.
1968 Bob Propst invents the office cubicle.
1968 Larry Roberts publishes ARPANET program plan on June 3, 1968.
1968 On June 4, 1968 Dr. Robert Dennard at the IBM T.J. Watson Research center is granted U.S. patent 3,387,286 describing a one-transistor DRAM cell.
1968 First RFP for a network goes out.
1968 UCLA is selected to be the first node on the Internet as we know it today and serve as the Network Msmnt Center.
1968 The movie "2001: A Space Odyssey" is released.
1968 SHRDLU is created.
1968 Seiko markets a miniature printer for use with calculators.
1968 Sony invents Trinitron.
1968 Jerry Yang is born November 6, 1968.
1968 Doug Englebart publicly demonstrates Hypertext on the NLS on December 9, 1968.
1969 Control Data Corporation led by Seymour Cray, release the CDC 7600, considered by most to be the first supercomputer.
1969 AT&T Bell Laboratories develop Unix.
1969 Steve Crocker releases RFC #1 on April 7, 1979 introducing the Host-to-Host and talking about the IMP software.
1969 AMD is founded on May 1, 1969.
1969 Gary Starkweather, while working with Xerox invents the laser printer.
1969 UCLA puts out a press release introducing the public to the Internet on July 3, 1969.
1969 Ralph Baer files for a US Patent on August 21, 1969 that describes playing games on a television and would later be a part of the Magnavox Odyssey.
1969 On August 29, 1969 the first network switch and the first piece of network equipment (called "IMP", which is short for Interface Message Processor) is sent to UCLA.
1969 The first U.S. bank ATM went into service at 9:00am on September 2, 1969.
1969 On September 2, 1969 the first data moves from UCLA host to the IMP switch.
1969 Charley Kline a UCLA student tries to send "login", the first message over ARPANET at 10:30 p.m on October 29, 1969. The system transmitted "l" and then "o" but then crashed making today the first day a message was sent over the Internet and the first network crash.
1969 CompuServe, the first commercial online service, is established.
1969 Linus Torvalds is born December 28, 1969.
1970 Western Digital is founded.
1970 Steve Crocker and UCLA team releases NCP.
1970 Intel announces the 1103, a new DRAM memory chip containing more than 1,000 bits of information. This chip is classified as random-access memory (RAM).
1970 The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) is established to perform basic computing and electronic research.
1970 The forth programming language is created by Charles H. Moore.
1970 U.S. Department of Defense develops ada a computer programming language capable of designing missile guidance systems.
1970 Intel introduces the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004 on November 15, 1971.
1970 The Sealed Lead Acid battery begins being used for commercial use.
1970 Jack Kilby is awarded the National Medal of Science.
1970 Philips introduces the VCR.
1970 Centronics introduces the first dot matrix printer.
1970 Douglas Englebart gets a patent for the first computer mouse on November 17, 1970.
1970 IBM introduces the System/370, which included the use of Virtual Memory and utilized memory chips instead of magnetic core technology.
1971 The first 8" floppy diskette drive was introduced.
1971 Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail, the first messaging system to send messages across a network to other users.
1971 The first laser printer is developed at Xerox PARC.
1971 FTP is first purposed.
1971 IBM introduces its first speech recognition program capable of recognizing about 5,000 words.
1971 Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney create the first arcade game called "Computer Space."
1971 SMC is founded.
1971 Steve Wozniak and Bill Fernandez develop a computer called the Cream Soda Computer.
1971 Schadt and Helfrich develop twisted nematic.
1971 Niklaus Wirth invents the Pascal programming language.
1971 Intel develops the the first processor, the 4004
1971 First edition of Unix released November 03, 1971. The first edition of the "Unix PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie." It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat (concatenate files); chdir (change working directory); chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner); cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word count); who (who is one the system). The main thing missing was pipes.
1972 Intel introduces the 8008 processor on April 1, 1972.
1972 The first video game console called the Magnavox Odyssey is demonstrated May 24, 1972 and later released by Magnavox and sold for $100.00 USD.
1972 ARPA is renamed to DARPA.
1972 The programming language FORTRAN 66 is created.
1972 Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs invents the C programming language.
1972 Edsger Dijkstra is awarded the ACM Turning Award.
1972 The compact disc is invented in the United States.
1972 Cray Research Inc. is founded.
1972 Atari releases Pong, the first commercial video game on November 29, 1972.
1972 First public demo of ARPANET.
1972 Whetstone is first released in November 1972.
1972 Norm Abramson' Alohanet connected to ARPANET: packet radio nets.
1973 Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn design TCP during 1973 and later publish it with the help of Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine in December of 1974 in RFC 675.
1973 ARPA deploys SATNET the first international connection.
1973 Dr. Martin Cooper makes the first handheld cellular phone call to Dr. Joel S. Engel April 3, 1973.
1973 Robert Metcalfe creates the Ethernet at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on May 22, 1973.
1973 The first VoIP call is made.
1973 IBM introduces its 3660 Supermarket System, which uses a laser to read grocery prices.
1973 Interactive laser discs make their debut.
1973 The ICCP is founded.
1973 Judge awards John Vincent Atanasoff as the inventor of the first electronic digital computer on October 19, 1973.
1974 Intel's improved microprocessor chip is introduced April 1, 1974, the 8080 becomes a standard in the computer industry.
1974 The U.S. government starts its antitrust suit against AT&T and doesn't end until 1982 when AT&T agrees to divest itself of the wholly owned Bell operating companies that provided local exchange service.
1974 John Draper aka Captain Crunch discovers a breakfast cereal children's whistle creates a 2600 hertz tone. Using this whistle and a blue box he's able to successfully get into AT&T's phone network and make free calls anywhere in the world.
1974 The first Toshiba floppy disk drive is introduced.
1974 The IBM MVS operating system is introduced.
1974 A commercial version of ARPANET known as Telenet is introduced and considered by many to be the first Internet Service Provider (ISP).
1974 IBM develops SEQUEL, which today is known as SQL today.
1974 IBM introduces SNA.
1974 Charles Simonyi coins the term WYSIWYG.
1974 Altair 8800 kits start going on sale December 19, 1974.
1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen Establish Microsoft April 4, 1975.
1975 Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Monte Davidoff announce Altair BASIC.
1975 MITS ships one of the first PCs, the Altair 8800 with one kilobyte (KB) of memory. The computer is ordered as a mail-order kit for $397.00.
1975 A flight simulator demo is first shown.
1975 Paul Allen and Bill Gates write the first computer language program for personal computers, which is a form of BASIC designed for the Altair. Gates later drops out of Harvard and founds Microsoft with Allen.
1975 Xerox exits the computer market on July 21, 1975.
1975 The Byte Shop, one of the first computer stores, open in California.
1975 EPSON enters the US market.
1975 IMS Associates begin shipping its IMSAI 8080 computer kits on December 16, 1975.
1976 On February 3, 1976 David Bunnell publishes an article by Bill Gates complaining about software piracy in his Computer Notes Altair newsletter.
1976 Intel introduces the 8085 processor on March 1976.
1976 Steve Wozniak designs the first Apple, the Apple I computer in 1976, later Wozniak and Steve Jobs co-found Apple Computers on April Fools day.
1976 The first 5.25-inch floppy disk is invented.
1976 Microsoft introduces an improved version of BASIC.
1976 The First Annual World Altair Computer convention and first convention of computer hobbyists is held in New Mexico on March 26, 1976.
1976 The term meme is first defined in the book The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
1976 The first Public Key Cryptography known as the Deffie-Hellman is developed by Whitfield Deffie and Martin Hellman.
1976 The Intel 8086 is introduced June 8, 1976.
1976 The NASA Viking 2 lands on Mars September 3, 1976 and transmits pictures and soil analysis.
1976 The original Apple computer company logo of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree is replaced by the well known rainbow colored apple with a bite out of it.
1976 Matrox is founded.
1976 DES is approved as a federal standard in November 1976.
1976 Jack Dorsey is born November 19, 1976.
1976 Microsoft officially drops the hyphen in Micro-soft and trademarks the Microsoft name November 26, 1976.
1976 In December of 1976 Bill Gates drops out of Harvard to devote all his time to Microsoft.
1977 Ward Christansen develops a popular modem transfer modem called Xmodem.
1977 Apple Computer becomes Incorporated January 4, 1977
1977 Apple Computer Inc., Radio Shack, and Commodore all introduce mass-market computers.
1977 Kevin Rose is born February 21, 1977.
1977 The First West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco's Brooks Civic Auditorium is held on April 15, 1977.
1977 Apple Computers Apple II, the first personal computer with color graphics is demonstrated.
1977 ARCNET the first commercially network is developed
1977 Zoom Telephonics is founded.
1977 Commodore announces that the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) will be a self-contained unit, with a CPU, RAM, ROM, keyboard, monitor and tape recorder all for $495.00
1977 Microsoft sells the license for BASIC to Radio Shack and Apple and introduces the program in Japan.
1977 Tandy announces it will manufacture the TRS-80, the first mass-produced computer on August 3, 1977.
1977 BSD is introduced.
1978 Dan Bricklin creates VisiCalc.
1978 The first BBS is put online February 16, 1978.
1978 TCP splits into TCP/IP driven by Danny Cohen, David Reed, and John Shoch to support real-time traffic. This allows the creation of UDP.
1978 Epson introduces the TX-80, which becomes the first successful dot matrix printer for personal computers.
1978 OSI is developed by ISO.
1978 Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle create the first MUD.
1978 The first spam e-mail was sent by Gary Thuerk in May 1, 1978 an employee at Digital who was advertising the new DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T on ARPAnet.
1978 Microsoft introduces a new version of COBOL.
1978 The 5.25-inch floppy disk becomes an industry standard.
1978 In June of 1978 Apple introduces Apple DOS 3.1, the first operating system for the Apple computers.
1978 Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss have the first major microcomputer bulletin board up and running in Chicago.
1978 ETA is founded.
1978 John Shoch and Jon Hupp at Xerox PARC develop the first worm.
1979 Robert Williams of Michigan became the first human to be killed by a robot at the Ford Motors company on January 25, 1979. Resulting in a $10 million dollar lawsuit.
1979 Software Arts Incorporated VisiCalc becomes the first electronic spreadsheet and business program for PCs.
1979 Epson releases the MX-80 which soon becomes an industry standard for dot matrix printers.
1979 SCO is founded.
1979 Sierra is founded.
1979 The Intel 8088 is released on June 1, 1979.
1979 Bit 3 is founded.
1979 Texas Instruments enters the computer market with the TI 99/4 personal computer that sells for $1,500.
1979 Hayes markets its first modem which becomes the industry standard for modems.
1979 Atari introduces a coin-operated version of Asteroids.
1979 More than half a million computers are in use in the United States.
1979 3COM is founded by Robert Metcalfe.
1979 Oracle introduces the first commercial version of SQL.
1979 The programming language DoD-1 is officially changed to Ada.
1979 The Motorola 68000 is released and is later chosen as the processor for the Apple Macintosh.
1979 Phoenix is founded.
1979 VMS is introduced.
1979 CompuServe becomes the first commercial online service offering dial-up connection to anyone September 24, 1979.
1979 Usenet is first started.
1979 Bit 3 is established.
1979 Seagate is founded.
1979 Saitek is founded
1979 Oracle is founded.
1979 Novell Data System is established as an operating system developer. Later in 1983 the company becomes the Novell company.
Today in computer history
2004 - IBM sells its computing division to Lenovo Group for $1.75 billion.
Back to the games boys and girls.
