Chronology of Events
in the
History of Microcomputers
Last updated: 1998 March 30.
GO TO --->
[1926-1970][1971-1976][1977-1980][1981-1983][1984-1986][1987-1990][1991-1993][1994-1996][1997-1998]
1926-1970
First
Lets not forget Wilhelm Shickard, John Napier, Blaise Pascal, Gottfried
Leibnitz, Samuel Morland, Rene Grillet, and finally Charles Babbage.
1926
-
October
-
Dr. Julius Edgar Lilienfield of New York, files for a patent on a "Method
and Apparatus for Controlling Electric Currents". The application completely
describes an NPN junction transistor and its use as an amplifier.
1930
-
January
-
Dr. Lilienfield is issued a patent for the first solid-state amplifying
transistor.
1932
-
September
-
Dr. Lilienfield is issued a patent describing a multijunction NPPN or PNNP
transistor.
1933
-
March
-
Dr. Lilienfield is issued a patent showing an NPN transistor using copper-sulfide
and aluminum oxide.
1938
-
(month unknown)
-
William R. Hewlett and David Packard making electronic instrumentation,
founded Hewlett-Packard.
1947
-
December
-
Three scientists at Bell Telephone Laboratories, William Shockley, Walter
Brattain, and John Bardeen demonstrate their new invention of the point-contact
transistor amplifier.
August
-
(month unknown)
-
American computer engineer Howard Aiken predicts that only six computers
would be needed to satisfy the computing needs of the United States.
1948
-
(month unknown)
-
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Schockley of Bell Labs file
for a patent on the first transistor.
1951
-
(month unknown)
1952
-
(month unknown)
-
G. W. Dummer, a radar expert from Britain's Royal Radar Establishment presents
a paper proposing that a solid block of materials be used to connect electronic
components, with no connecting wires.
1953
-
April
-
IBM unveils the Defense Calculator, its
first computer.
1954
-
May
-
Texas Instruments announces the start of
commercial production on silicon transistors.
-
(month unknown)
-
Jack Tramiel founds Commodore as a typewriter repair service.
1955
-
(month unknown)
-
William Shockley founds Shockley Semiconductor in Palo Alto, California.
1956
-
(month unknown)
-
The Nobel Prize in physics is awarded to John Bardeen, Walter Brattain,
and William Shockley for their work on the transistor.
1957
-
August
-
(month unknown)
-
IBM introduces the IBM
608, the fist all-transistor commercial calculator.
-
(month unknown)
-
A group of eight engineers leave William Shockley's company to form Fairchild
Semiconductors.
1958
-
(month unknown)
1959
-
July
-
Fairchild Semiconductor files a patent application for the planar process
for manufacturing transistors. The process makes commercial production
of transistors possible and leads to Fairchild's introduction, in two years,
of the first integrated circuit.
-
(month unknown)
1960
-
(month unknown)
-
IBM develops the first automatic mass-production
facility for transistors, in New York.
-
(month unknown)
1962
-
April
-
Spacewar! is completed on the PDP-1.
-
May
-
Spacewar is shown to the public at the MIT Open House.
-
June
-
Teletype ships its Model 33 keyboard and punched-tape terminal, used for
input and output on many early microcomputers.
-
(month unknown)
-
Ivan Sutherland creates a graphics system called Sketchpad.
-
(month unknown)
-
Commodore Business Machines sells shares to the public for the first time.
1963
-
April
-
Charles Tandy buys the Radio Shack Corporation, for free.
1964
-
(month unknown)
-
John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop the BASIC programming language at
Dartmouth College.
-
(month unknown)
-
(month unknown)
-
IBM coins the term "word processing".
1966
-
May
-
Steven Gray founds the Amateur Computer Society, and begins publishing
the ACS Newsletter. Some consider this to be the birthdate of personal
computing.
(Month unknown)
1967
-
June
-
The first Consumer Electronics Show is held in New York City.
1968
-
(month unknown)
-
Douglas C. Engelbart, of the Stanford Research Institute, demonstrates
his system of keyboard, keypad, mouse, and windows at the Joint Computer
Conference in San Francisco's Civic Center. He demonstrates use of a word
processor, a hypertext system, and remote collaborative work with colleagues.
-
(month unknown)
-
Hewlett-Packard introduces the first programmable
scientific desktop calculator.
-
(month unknown)
-
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore leave Fairchild Semiconductors.
-
(month unknown)
-
Robert Noyce and Gordone Moore found Intel
Corporation.
-
(month unknown)
-
Ed Roberts and Forest Mims found Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems
(MITS).
May
-
Computer Automation introduces the PDC 808, it as four kbytes of 8 bit
core memory.
1969
-
October
-
Engineers from Japan's ETI company meet with Intel
to inspect work on their calculator IC project. They accept the Intel
design for a chip set, and sign an exclusive contract for the chips.
-
(month unknown)
-
(early) Intel receives a request from
Japan's ETI company to develop integrated circuits for a line of calculators.
-
(month unknown)
-
Intel's Marcian Hoff designs an integrated
circuit chip that could receive instructions, and perform simple functions
on data. The design becomes the 4004 microprocessor.
-
Intel announces a 1 KB RAM chip, which
has a significantly larger capacity than any previously produced memory
chip.
-
(month unknown)
-
Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie develop the UNIX operating system at
Bell Laboratories.
-
(month unknown)
-
Golden United Life Insurance Company begins an internal computer processing
center called "Compu-Serv". It later becomes CompuServe
Incorporated.
-
(month unknown)
-
(month unknown)
-
Bill Gates and Paul Allen, calling themselves the "Lakeside Programming
Group" sign an agreement with Computer Center Corporation to report bugs
in PDP-10 software, in exchange for computer time.
-
(month unknown)
-
(month unknown)
1970
-
December
-
Gilbert Hyatt files a patent application entitled "Single Chip Integrated
Circuit Computer Architecture", the first basic patent on the microprocessor.
-
Information Sciences contacts Bill Gates and Paul Allen, offering them
PDP-10 computer time in exchange for their programming expertise.
-
(month unknown)
-
(spring) Work begins at Intel on the
layout of the circuit for what would be the 4004 microprocessor. Federico
Faggin directs the work.
-
(month unknown)
-
Intel creates the first 4004 microprocessor.
-
(month unknown)
-
In 1970, Fairchild introduced the first 256-bit static RAM called the 4100.
-
Intel creates the 1103 chip, the first
generally available 1024-bit dynamic RAM memory chip.
End of 1926-1970
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