User:ABWarrick
This “meta-article” shows the chronology of computer hardware and software as a series of tables:
- Each table has four columns of data.
- The columns to show the year in which information technology and commercial developments occurred.
- The table rows are timelines of the following aspects of information technology.
- Computer Systems or hardware innovations[1]
- Microprocessors[2]
- High Level Languages[3][4]
- Operating Systems[5]
- Networking hardware, software and applications[6]
- Computer Graphics hardware, algorithms and applications[7][8]
- Spreadsheets
- Word Processing
- Computer Aided Design[9]
- Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category
One of “Moore’s Law's” implications is that computer power per dollar, as measured by Instructions per Second or Floating Point Operations per second, increased considerably over the four years covered in each table. "Moore's Law" is not really a law, it is observation first noted in 1965 by Gordon Moore. Moore published a paper with a graph showing that the number of transistors per integrated circuits had been doubling every year (later modified to every two years).[10][11][12] Similar improvements are to be found in hard disk capacity, network capacity, and pixel density. In addition to improvements in computer processors, academic and commercial research in computer science developed better technology in:
- Structured and Object Oriented programming[13]
- Data structures[14]
- Analysis of Algorithms[15]
- Formal languages[16] and compiler construction[17]
- Computer Graphics Algorithms[18]
- Sorting and Searching[19]
- Numerical Methods,[20] Optimization and Statistics[21]
- Artificial Intelligence[22] and Machine Learning[23]
Although there are earlier examples of military computers such as the Harvard Mark I and the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park, the table starts in 1951 with the beginnings of commercial computers and high level languages.
1951-1958[edit]
| 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | EDVAC Whirlwind |
IBM 701 | Univac | IBM 650 |
| Computer Language | ALGAE Boehm unnamed coding system Intermediate Programming Language Klammerausdrücke OMNIBAC Symbolic Assembler Regional Assembly Language Rochester assembler Sort Merge Generator Stanislaus Superplan Whirlwind assembler Short Code |
Autocode COMPOOL |
Information Processing Language |
ARITH-MATIC Fortran IPL I Laning and Zierler system Mark I Autocode MATH-MATIC MATRIX MATH |
| Operating System | LEO I Lyons Electronic Office |
DYSEAC |
The latter half of the 1950s saw the founding of a few important companies and development of a number of computer languages that form the basis of languages still in use more than five decades later. Academic and commercial computer users develop operating systems.
| 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Sperry Rand Founded |
IBM 305 RAMAC | Digital Equipment Founded |
Integrated Circuit |
| Computer Language | BACAIC FLOW-MATIC Freiburger Code IT PACT I Sequentielle Formelübersetzung |
COMTRAN | LISP | COMIT COMTRAN FACT Fortran I |
| Operating System | GM OS for IBM 701 |
GM-NAA for IBM 704 |
Atlas Supervisor |
U. Michigan for IBM 704, 709, and 7090 |
1959-1966[edit]
The early sixties are when computers began to use transistors rather than magnetic memory. Operating systems began to handle multiple users and processes through time sharing. AT&T developed the modem in 1960 to allow communications between computers.
| 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | IBM First Transistor Computer | DEC PDP 1 | Fairchild resistor- transistor logic |
NPN Transistor |
| Computer Language | COBOL JOVIAL LISP MAD – Michigan Algorithm Decoder RPG TRAC |
ALGOL 60 COBOL 61 |
COMIT | APL Fortran IV Simula SNOBOL |
| Operating System | SHARE Operating System | IBSYS | MIT Timeshare IBM 7094 |
|
| Computer Networks | AT&T Develops Modem |
The mid 1960s experienced important contributions in hardware, languages and algorithms for drawing and hiding lines in 3D computer graphics. During this time the business of computers was described as "IBM and the seven dwarfs" before consolidation removed GE and RCA and changed the description to "IBM and the BUNCH" (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell).[24][25] This was when companies began to develop mini-computers.
| 1963 | 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Mouse CMOS Patented |
CDC 6600 IBM Data Cell Drive |
DEC PDP 8 IBM 1130 |
ILLIAC IV |
| Computer Language | ALGOL CPL JOSS I SNOBOL3 |
BASIC COWSEL IBM RPG IITRAN Mark-IV MIMIC P′′ PL/I Speakeasy-2 TRAC |
Atlas Autocode MAD/I RPG II TELCOMP |
ALGOL W APL CORAL66 FORTRAN 66 ISWIM JOSSII |
| Operating System | AN/FSQ-32 | KDF9 Timesharing Direct | THE Multiprogramming System |
OS/360 |
| Computer Networks | SABRE Reservation System |
|||
| Computer Graphics | Bresenham line plotting algorithm |
Loutrel hidden line algorithm |
1967-1974[edit]
The later years of the ‘60s saw innovations in mini computer systems, like the DEC PDP 11 and Data General Nova. Other innovations include the B and Pascal languages, the Unix operating systems, Arapnet and several computer graphics algorithms.
| 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Fairchild built first MOS Englebart applies for mouse patent. |
Data General Nova |
Honeywell 316 | DEC PDP 11 |
| Microprocessor | Garret AiResarch MP944 | |||
| Computer Language | BCPL InterLisp MUMPS Simula 67 SNOBOL4 XPL |
ALGOL 68 DIBOL-8 Forth LOGO MAPPER POP-1 REFAL TTM |
B Edinburgh IMP PL/I PPL SETL TUTOR |
BLISS Forth Pascal POP-2 |
| Operating System | DEC MS/8 |
IBM Airline Control Program |
Multics Tenex Unix |
|
| Computer Networks | ARPANET UCSB UCLA SRI Utah |
|||
| Computer Graphics | Coons Surface Patch | Evans and Sutherland | Computervision | Watkins Visible Surface Algorithm |
| CAD/CAM | M&S Computing |
The early part of the ‘70s showed substantial progress in microprocessors, computer languages, and computer graphics.
| 1971 | 1972 | 1973 | 1974 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | 8" Floppy Disk | Atari Founded Cray Research Founded |
Micral first Microprocessor PC |
Altair 8800 Data General Eclipse |
| Microprocessor | Intel 4004 | Fairchild PPS-25 Intel 8008 Rockwell PPS-4 |
Burroughs Mini-D National IMP-16 NEC µCOM |
General Instrument CP1600 Intel 4040, 8080 Mostek 5065 Motorola 6800 National IMP-4, IMP-8, ISP-8A/500, PACE Texas Instruments TMS 1000 Toshiba TLCS-12 |
| Computer Language | CDL KRL Sue |
C INTERCAL PL/M Prolog Smalltalk SQL |
COMAL LIS ML Speakeasy-3 |
BASIC FOUR CLU GRASS PROSE |
| Operating System | DEC RSTS-11 | Data General RDOS |
Soviet ALGOL 68 | DEC DOS-11 |
| Computer Networks | Wozniak's Blue Box |
Bob Metcalfe develops Ethernet |
||
| Computer Graphics | Newell & Sancha visible surface algorithm |
Catmull & Straber develop z-buffer | ||
| CAD/CAM | MCS Founded | ADAM | Auto-Draft | Tektronix 4014 |
1975-1982[edit]
The later years in the 70’s introduce personal computers using the MOS Tehnology 6502 and the Zilog Z80. Microprocessors continue to becoming less expensive and faster. Although the processors listed below differ considerably, they all can be considered Complex Instruction Set CPUs.
| 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Olivetti P6060 | Tandem Computer | Apple ][ 5.25" Floppy |
DEC VAX 11 |
| Microprocessor | Fairchild F-8 Hewlett Packard BPC Intersil 6100 MOS Technology 6502 RCA CDP 1801 Rockwell PPS-8 Signetics 2650 |
RCA CDP 1802 Signetics 8x300 Texas Instruments TMS9900 Zilog Z-80 |
Intel 8085 | Intel 8086 Motorola 6801, 6809 |
| Computer Language | ABC Altair BASIC CS-4 Modula Scheme |
Mesa Plus Ratfor S SAM76 SAS Smalltalk-76 |
Blue Bourne Shell Commodore BASIC FP Icon IDL Red Standard MUMPS Yellow IDL |
C shell HAL/S MATLAB RPG III SMALL VisiCalc SQL |
| Operating System | CP/M | Cambridge CAP | 1BSD | 2BSD Apple DOS |
| Computer Networks | Telenet Packet Switching |
|||
| Computer Graphics | EDS Founded | Antialiasing | ||
| Word Processor | Electric Pencil | AppleWriter | ||
| CAD/CAM | Solid Modeling | McDonnell Douglas Purchases Unigraphics |
Forerunner to CATIA | Raster Display |
The high level of innovation in the industry may have contributed to the numberous business failures or reversals in which businesses were sold for a small portion of their peak market capitalization. This trend began to show up in the early ‘80s and accelerated with the demise of most companies making IBM PC compatible “clones.” This period saw the introduction of the Reduced Instruction Set computer (RISC) that accelerated in future years.[26]
| 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Atari 400 & 800 | Seagate Hard Disk |
IBM PC | Commodore 64 |
| Microprocessor | Intel 8088 Motorola 68000 Zilog Z8000 |
National Semi 16032 Intel 8087 |
DEC T-11 Harris 6120 IBM ROMP |
Hewlett Packard FOCUS Intel 80186, 80188, 80286 Berkeley RISC-I |
| Computer Language | AWK Icon Modula-2 REXX Vulcan dBase-II |
Ada 80 C with classes CBASIC |
BBC BASIC IBM BASICA |
Draco PostScript Speakeasy-IV |
| Operating System | Atari DOS | 86 DOS | MS-DOS 1 Acorn MOS |
Commodore DOS |
| Computer Networks | USENET | TCP/IP | ||
| Computer Graphics | Silicon Graphics Founded | |||
| Word Processor | Wordstar | Wordperfect for DG Mini |
Bank Street AppleWriter II |
WordStar 3.0 |
| Spreadsheet | VisiCalc | Lotus 123 | ||
| CAD/CAM | IGES | VersaCAD | Dassault Systems | Autodesk Founded |
1983-1990[edit]
The Apple Lisa and Macintosh introduce the first personal computers based on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which was previously developed by Xerox PARC for their Alto and Star systems.
The latter years of the ‘80s continued developments in supercomputing, microprocessors, word processors and spreadsheets. Business failures and consolidation accelerated during this time period.
1991-1998[edit]
Microprocessor performance continued to improve for both Reduced and Complex Instruction sets and it was not clear if one or the other would ultimately prevail in the market place. This period saw the demise of two supercomputer companies located in Cambridge, MA, USA that developed massively parallel machines: Thinking Machines and Kendall Square Research.
The latter part of the ‘90s was a very active and competitive time for microprocessor and graphics processor development. Word processing and spreadsheet development slowed as these technologies matured and Microsoft dominated commercial products. IBM’s Deep Blue surprised many by beating the current world chess champion, Gary Kasparov.
1999-2006[edit]
The end of the nineties and the beginning of the 2000’s was a period that showed continual improvement in microprocessor, but developments in other areas seemed to be simply incremental. Nvidia and ATI became the only remaining contenders in graphic chips.
| 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | USB 2 | Apple iPod | ||
| Microprocessor | AMD Athlon IBM RS64-III Intel Pentium III Motorola PowerPC 7400 |
AMD Athlon XP Duron Fujitsu SPARC64 IV IBM RS64-IV z900 Intel Pentium 4 |
IBM POWER4 Intel Itanium Motorola PowerPC 7450 SGI MIPS R14000 Sun UltraSPARC III |
Fujitsu SPARC64 V Intel Itanium 2 |
| Computer Language | D GameMaker Language Harbour XSLT |
ActionScript C# Ferite Join Java Joy XL Visual Basic .net |
AspectJ GDScript Processing RPG IV |
Gosu Io |
| Operating System | Mac OS X Server 1.0 | Windows 2000 Apple V10.0 Cheetah |
V10.1 Puma | Windows XP 64 V10.2 Jaguar |
| Computer Networks | Blackberry 850 | Mosaic web browser | Netware 4 | Netscape Navigator |
| Computer Graphics | S3 Savage 4 | ATI Radeon DDR | Nvidia Kyro II GeForce 3 |
|
| Word Processor | Sun buys StarDivision | |||
| CAD/CAM | Pro/Engineer 2000 | AutoCAD 2000 | EDS buys SDRC | Unigraphics NX Autodesk buys Revit |
| Business Events | Acorn Computers Fujitsu buys Siemens IT business |
Quantex Microsystems | International Computers Ltd Compaq |
Innovations in spreadsheets and word processing slowed as the Microsoft’s Word and Open Office continued to dominate. Gmail and Facebook were launched during 2004. Consolidation quickens in the business of computer aided design.
| 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Power Mac G5 | iMac G5 |
Mac Mini | Apple transition to Intel |
| Microprocessor | AMD Opteron IBM PowerPC 970 Intel Pentium M |
IBM POWER5 PowerPC BGL |
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Opteron Athens IBM PowerPC 970MP Xenon Intel Pentium D Sun UltraSPARC IV UltraSPARC T1 |
IBM Cell/B.E. Intel Core 2 Core Duo Itanium Montecito |
| Computer Language | Factor Falcon Nemerle Scala Squirrel |
Alma-0 Boo FreeBASIC Groovy Little b Subtext |
F# Seed7 |
Cobra Links OptimJ Windows PowerShell |
| Operating System | V10.3 Panther Red Hat Enterprise Linux |
V10.4 Tiger Ubuntu 5 |
||
| Computer Networks | 802.11g | Gmail Facebook launched |
BlackBerry Pearl 8100 | |
| Computer Graphics | Adobe buys Macromedia |
AMD buys ATI Disney buys Pixar | ||
| Word Processor | Writely | Google buys Upstartle | ||
| CAD/CAM | Dassault integrates VBA |
EDS PLM Solutions goes private |
UGS buys Tecnomatix |
SolidWorks 2007 |
| Business Events | Lenovo buys IBM PC Business |
2007-2014[edit]
The launch of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 set Apple computer on a new course where tight integration of hardware and software. Larry Ellison announces that Oracle will focus on integrating hardware and software, purchasing Sun Microsystems in 2010.[27]
Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system was designed to work on both personal computers and tablets. It was released to a “mixed reception.”
| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware | Iphone 4S | iPhone 5 IBM zEnterprise System |
iPhone 5c & 5s | iPhone 6 |
| Microprocessor | AMD FX Bulldozer, Interlagos,Llano Fujitsu SPARC64 VIIIfx Freescale PowerPC_e6500 Intel Sandy Bridge, Xeon E7 Oracle SPARC T4 |
Fujitsu SPARC64 IXfx IBM POWER7+, zEC12 Intel Itanium Poulson |
Fujitsu SPARC64 X Intel Haswell Oracle SPARC T5 |
IBM POWER8 |
| Computer Language | Dart | Elixir Julia TypeScript |
Hack Swift | |
| Operating System | V10.7 Lion Android 3.0 Android 4.0 |
Windows 8 V10.8 Mountain Lion |
V10.9 Mavericks | V10.10 Yosemite Android 5.0 |
| Computer Networks | 802.11ac | |||
| Computer Graphics | "Hugo" wins Oscar Visual Effects |
|||
| Word Processor | ||||
| CAD/CAM | ||||
| Business Events | eMachines | Research Machines |
References[edit]
- ^ O'Regan, Gerard, (2012). A Brief History of Computing, Springer
- ^ Malone, Michael S.(2012) The Microprocessor: A Biography
- ^ Aaby, Anthony (2004). Introduction to Programming Languages
- ^ Wexelblat, Richard L. History of Programming Languages
- ^ Stallings (2005). Operating Systems, Internals and Design Principles. Pearson
- ^ Kurose, James; Ross, Kieth (2005). Computer Networking: A Top-Down Approach. Pearson.
- ^ Wayne Carlson (2003) A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation
- ^ Ferguson, R. Stuart. (2013) Practical Algorithms for 3D Computer Graphics
- ^ Narayan, K. Lalit (2008). Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing. Prentice Hall
- ^ Moore, Gordon E. (1965). "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits,"Electronics Magazine".
- ^ Brock, David C., ed. (2006). Understanding Moore's law : four decades of innovation. Chemical Heritage Press. ISBN 0941901416
- ^ "1965 – "Moore's Law" Predicts the Future of Integrated Circuits". Computer History Museum
- ^ Booch, Grady (1997). Object-Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications. Addison-Wesley.
- ^ Peter Brass. (2008) Advanced Data Structures, Cambridge University Press
- ^ Cormen, Thomas H.; Leiserson, Charles E.; Rivest, Ronald L. & Stein, Clifford. (2001) Introduction to Algorithms, MIT Press and McGraw-Hill.
- ^ Hopcroft, John E. and Jeffrey D. Ullman, (1979) Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation
- ^ Aho, Alfred V., Sethi, Ravi, and Ullman, Jeffrey D. (1988). Compilers — Principles, Techniques, and Tools. Addison-Wesley.
- ^ Shirley, Peter. (2009) Fundamentals of Computer Graphics - 3rd edition
- ^ Knuth, Donald. (1998) The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 3: Sorting and Searching
- ^ Press, William H., Saul A. Teukolsky, William T. Vetterling, Brian P. Flannery. (2007) Numerical Recipes 3rd Edition: The Art of Scientific Computing
- ^ Baron, Michael. (2006) Probability and Statistics for Computer Scientists
- ^ Russell, Stuart. (2009) Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition)
- ^ Mitchell, Tom. (1997) Machine Learning.
- ^ Jones, Douglas (1997). "University of Iowa Department of Computer Science, 22C:18, Lecture 28, Summer 1997"
- ^ Hamm, Steve (2004-06-14). "Thomas J. Watson Jr.: Junior Achievement". Business Week
- ^ Patterson, D. A.; Ditzel, D. R. (October 1980). "The case for the reduced instruction set computer". SIGARCH Computer Architecture News
- ^ http://www.computerworld.com/article/2502595/database-administration/ellison-hardware-software-integration-key-apple-is-best-example.html