Programming History – See also History of Computing
See: Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition, The: Essays On Software Engineering 2nd Edition
Return to Timeline of the History of Computers
Fair Credit Reporting Act
Alan Westin (1929–2013)
“In March 1970, a (“limited hangout“) professor from Columbia University testified before the US Congress about shadowy American businesses that were maintaining secret databases on American citizens. These files, said Alan Westin, “may include ‘facts, statistics, inaccuracies and rumors’ . . . about virtually every phase of a person’s life: his marital troubles, jobs, school history, childhood, sex life, and political activities.”
The files were used by American banks, department stores, and other firms to determine who should be given credit to buy a house, a car, or even a furniture set. The databanks, Westin explained, were also used by companies evaluating job applicants and underwriting insurance. And they couldn’t be outlawed: without credit and the ability to pay for major purchases with installments, many people couldn’t otherwise afford such things.
Westin was well known to the US Congress: he had testified on multiple occasions before congressional committees investigating the credit-reporting industry, and he had published a book, Privacy and Freedom (1967), in which he argued that freedom in the information age required that individuals have control over how their data are used by governments and businesses. Westin defined privacy as “the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.” And he coined the phrase data shadow to describe the trail of information that people leave behind in the modern world.
On October 26, 1970, Congress enacted the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which gave Americans, for the first time, the right to see the consumer files that businesses used to decide who should get credit and insurance. The FCRA also gave consumers the right to force the credit bureaus to investigate a claim that the consumer felt was inaccurate, and the ability to insert a statement in the file, telling his or her side of the story.
The FCRA was one of the first laws in the world regulating what private businesses could do with data that they collect—the beginning of what is now called data protection, an idea that eventually spread worldwide.
Today there are privacy commissioners in almost every developed country. The passage of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) marked the most far-reaching privacy law on the planet.”
SEE ALSO Relational Database (1970)
Columbia professor Alan Westin was concerned about American businesses keeping secret databases on American citizens.
Return to Timeline of the History of Computers
The Byte
Werner Buchholz (b. 1922), Louis G. Dooley (dates unavailable)
“Designers of the early binary computers faced a fundamental question: how should the computers’ storage be organized? The computers stored information in bits, but computer users didn’t want to write programs that manipulated bits; they wanted to solve math problems, crack codes, and generally work with larger units of information. The memory of decimal computers such as ENIAC and the UNIVAC I was organized in groups of 10 alphanumeric digits, called words. The binary computers also organized their memory into words, but these groups of bits were called bytes.”
| byte | |
|---|---|
| Unit system | units derived from bit |
| Unit of | digital information, data size |
| Symbol | B or (when referring to exactly 8 bits) o |
“It appears that the word byte was coined simultaneously in 1956 by Werner Buchholz at IBM, working on the IBM STRETCH (the world’s first supercomputer), and by Louis G. Dooley and others at MIT Lincoln Lab working on the SAGE air-defense system. In both cases, they used the word byte to describe the inputs and outputs of machine instructions that could operate on less than a full word. The STRETCH had 60-bit words and used 8-bit bytes to represent characters for its input/output system; the SAGE had instructions that could operate on 4-bit bytes.”
“The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer[1][2] and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures. To disambiguate arbitrarily sized bytes from the common 8-bit definition, network protocol documents such as The Internet Protocol (RFC 791)(1981) refer to an 8-bit byte as an octet.[3]“
“Over the next 20 years, the definition of a byte was somewhat fluid. IBM used 8-bit bytes with its System/360 architecture, and 8-bit groups were the standard for AT&T’s long-distance digital telephone lines. DEC, on the other hand, successfully marketed a series of computers with 18-bit and 36-bit words, including the PDP-7 and the PDP-10, which both utilized 9-bit bytes.”
“This lack of consistency resulted in the early Internet standards avoiding the word byte entirely. Instead, the word octet is used to describe a group of 8 bits sent over a computer network, a usage that survives to this day in Internet standards.”
“Nevertheless, by the 1980s, the acceptance of 8-bit bytes was almost universal—largely a result of the microcomputer revolution, because micros used 8-bit bytes almost exclusively. In part, that’s because 8 bits is an even power of 2, which makes it somewhat easier to design computer hardware with 8-bit bytes than with 9-bit bytes.”
“Today the era of 9-bit bytes is all but forgotten. And what about collections of 4 bits? Today these are called a nibble (sometimes spelled nybble).”
Multiples of bytes:
| 1000 | kB | kilobyte |
| 10002 | MB | megabyte |
| 10003 | GB | gigabyte |
| 10004 | TB | terabyte |
| 10005 | PB | petabyte |
| 10006 | EB | exabyte |
| 10007 | ZB | zettabyte |
| 10008 | YB | yottabyte |
| 1000 | 103 | k | kilo |
| 10002 | 106 | M | mega |
| 10003 | 109 | G | giga |
| 10004 | 1012 | T | tera |
| 10005 | 1015 | P | peta |
| 10006 | 1018 | E | exa |
| 10007 | 1021 | Z | zetta |
| 10008 | 1024 | Y | yotta |
SEE ALSO:
“Today’s computers most frequently use bytes consisting of 8 bits, represented by 1s and 0s.”
See also: List of pioneers in computer science and Timeline of the History of Computers
” (WP)
” (WP)
See also: Timeline of the History of Computers
” (WP)
This article presents a list of individuals who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do.
To put the list in chronological order, click the small “up-down” icon in the Date column. The Person column can also be sorted alphabetically, up-down.
| Achievement date | Person | Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| 830~ | Al-Khwarizmi | The term “algorithm” is derived from the algorism, the technique of performing arithmetic with Hindu–Arabic numerals popularised by al-Khwarizmi in his book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals.[1][2][3] |
| 1944 | Aiken, Howard | Conceived and codesigned the Harvard Mark I. |
| 1970, 1989 | Allen, Frances E. | Developed bit vector notation and program control-flow graphs. Became the first female IBM Fellow in 1989. In 2006, she became the first female recipient of the ACM’s Turing Award. |
| 1939 | Atanasoff, John | Built the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, though it was neither programmable nor Turing-complete. |
| 1822, 1837 | Babbage, Charles | Originated the concept of a programmable general-purpose computer. Designed the Analytical Engine and built a prototype for a less powerful mechanical calculator. |
| 1954, 1963 | Backus, John | Led the team that created FORTRAN (Formula Translation), the first practical high-level programming language, and he formulated the Backus–Naur form that described the formal language syntax. |
| 1964 | Baran, Paul | One of two independent inventors of the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet.[4][5] Baran published a series of briefings and papers about dividing information into “message blocks” and sending it over distributed networks between 1960 and 1964.[6][7] |
| 1874 | Baudot, Émile | A French telegraphic engineer patents the Baudot code, the first means of digital communication.[8] The modem speed unit baud is named after him. |
| 1989, 1990 | Berners-Lee, Tim | Invented World Wide Web. With Robert Cailliau, sent first HTTP communication between client and server. |
| 1966 | Böhm, Corrado | Theorized of the concept of structured programming. |
| 1847, 1854 | Boole, George | Formalized Boolean algebra, the basis for digital logic and computer science. |
| 1947 | Booth, Kathleen | Invented the first assembly language. |
| 1969, 1978 | Brinch Hansen, Per | Developed the RC 4000 multiprogramming system which introduced the concept of an operating system kernel and the separation of policy and mechanism, effectively the first microkernel architecture.[9] Co-developed the monitor with Tony Hoare, and created the first monitor implementation.[10] Implemented the first form of remote procedure call in the RC 4000,[9] and was first to propose remote procedure calls as a structuring concept for distributed computing.[11] |
| 1959, 1995 | Brooks, Fred | Manager of IBM System/360 and OS/360 projects; author of The Mythical Man-Month. |
| 1908 | Brouwer, Luitzen Egbertus Jan | Founded intuitionistic logic which later came to prevalent use in proof assistants. |
| 1930 | Bush, Vannevar | Analogue computing pioneer. Originator of the Memex concept, which led to the development of Hypertext. |
| 1951 | Caminer, David | With John Pinkerton, developed the LEO computer, the first business computer, for J. Lyons and Co |
| 1978 | Cerf, Vint | With Bob Kahn, designed the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the primary data communication protocols of the Internet and other computer networks. |
| 1956 | Chomsky, Noam | Made contributions to computer science with his work in linguistics. He developed Chomsky hierarchy, a discovery which has directly impacted programming language theory and other branches of computer science. |
| 1936 | Church, Alonzo | Made fundamental contributions to theoretical computer science, specifically in the development of computability theory in the form of lambda calculus. Independently of Alan Turing, he formulated what is now known as Church-Turing Thesis and proved that first-order logic is undecidable. |
| 1962 | Clark, Wesley A. | Designed LINC, the first functional computer scaled down and priced for the individual user. Put in service in 1963, many of its features are seen as prototypes of what were to be essential elements of personal computers. |
| 1981 | Clarke, Edmund M. | Developed model checking and formal verification of software and hardware together with E. Allen Emerson. |
| 1970 | Codd, Edgar F. | Proposed and formalized the relational model of data management, the theoretical basis of relational databases. |
| 1971 | Conway, Lynn | Superscalar architecture with multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling. |
| 1967 | Cook, Stephen | Formalized the notion of NP-completeness, inspiring a great deal of research in computational complexity theory. |
| 1965 | Cooley, James | With John W. Tukey, created the fast Fourier transform. |
| 1965 | Davies, Donald | One of two independent inventors of the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet.[4][12] Davies conceived of and named the concept of packet switching in data communication networks in 1965 and 1966.[13][14] |
| 1962 | Dahl, Ole-Johan | With Kristen Nygaard, invented the proto-object oriented language SIMULA. |
| 1968 | Dijkstra, Edsger | Made advances in algorithms, pioneered and coined the term structured programming, invented the semaphore, and famously suggested that the GOTO statement should be considered harmful. |
| 1918 | Eccles, William and Jordan, Frank Wilfred | British physicists patent the Eccles–Jordan trigger circuit.[15] The so-called bistable flip-flop, this circuit is a building block of all digital memory cells. Built from Vacuum tubes, their concept was essential for the success of the Colossus codebreaking computer. |
| 1943, 1951 | Eckert, J. Presper | With John Mauchly, designed and built the ENIAC, the first modern (all electronic, Turing-complete) computer, and the UNIVAC I, the first commercially available computer. |
| 1981 | Emerson, E. Allen | Developed model checking and formal verification of software and hardware together with Edmund M. Clarke. |
| 1963 | Engelbart, Douglas | Best known for inventing the computer mouse (in a joint effort with Bill English); as a pioneer of human–computer interaction whose Augment team developed hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs. |
| 1973 | Thacker, Charles P. | Pioneering design and realization of the Xerox Alto, the first modern personal computer, and in addition for his contributions to the Ethernet and the Tablet PC. |
| 1971 | Faggin, Federico | Designed the first commercial microprocessor (Intel 4004). |
| 1974 | Feinler, Elizabeth | Her team defined a simple text file format for Internet host names. The list evolved into the Domain Name System and her group became the naming authority for the top-level domains of .mil, .gov, .edu, .org, and .com. |
| 1943 | Flowers, Tommy | Designed and built the Mark 1 and the ten improved Mark 2 Colossus computers, the world’s first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices. |
| 1994 | Floyd, Sally | Founded the field of Active Queue Management and co-invented Random Early Detection which is used in almost all Internet routers. |
| 1879 | Frege, Gottlob | Extended Aristotelian logic with first-order predicate calculus, independently of Charles Sanders Peirce, a crucial precursor in computability theory. Also relevant to early work on artificial intelligence, logic programming. |
| 1880, 1898 | Sanders Peirce, Charles | Proved the functional completeness of the NOR gate. Proposed the implementation of logic via electrical circuits, decades before Claude Shannon. Extended Aristotelian logic with first-order predicate calculus, independently of Gottlob Frege, a crucial precursor in computability theory. Also relevant to early work on artificial intelligence, logic programming. |
| 1985 | Furber, Stephen Sophie Wilson | Are known for their work on creating ARM 32bit RISC microprocessor.[16] |
| 1958, 1961, 1967 | Ginsburg, Seymour | Proved “don’t-care” circuit minimization does not necessarily yield optimal results, proved that the ALGOL programming language is context-free (thus linking formal language theory to the problem of compiler writing), and invented AFL Theory. |
| 1931 | Gödel, Kurt | Proved that Peano arithmetic could not be both logically consistent and complete in first-order predicate calculus. Church, Kleene, and Turing developed the foundations of computation theory based on corollaries to Gödel’s work. |
| 1989 | Goldwasser, Shafi | Zero-knowledge proofs invented by Goldwasser, Micali and Rackoff. Goldwasser and Micali awarded the Turing Award in 2012 for this and other work. |
| 2011 | Graham, Susan L. | Awarded the 2009 IEEE John von Neumann Medal for “contributions to programming language design and implementation and for exemplary service to the discipline of computer science”. |
| 1953 | Gray, Frank | Physicist and researcher at Bell Labs, developed the reflected binary code (RBC) or Gray code.[17] Gray’s methodologies are used for error detection and correction in digital communication systems, such as QAM in digital subscriber line networks. |
| 1974, 2005 | Gray, Jim | Innovator in database systems and transaction processing implementation. |
| 1986, 1990 | Grosz, Barbara[undue weight? – discuss] | Created the first computational model of discourse, which established the field of research and influenced language-processing technologies. Also developed SharedPlans model for collaboration in multi-agent systems. |
| 1988, 2015 | Gustafson, John | Proved the viability of parallel computing experimentally and theoretically Gustafson’s Law. Developed high-efficiency formats for representing real numbers Unum and Posit. |
| 1971 | Hamilton, Margaret | Developed the concepts of asynchronous software, priority scheduling, end-to-end testing, and human-in-the-loop decision capability, such as priority displays which then became the foundation for ultra reliable software design. |
| 1950 | Hamming, Richard | Created the mathematical field of error-correcting code, Hamming code, Hamming matrix, the Hamming window, Hamming numbers, sphere-packing (or Hamming bound), and the Hamming distance.[18][19] He established concept of perfect code.[20][21] |
| 1972, 1973 | Thi, André Truong Trong and François Gernelle[undue weight? – discuss] | Invention of the Micral N, the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor. |
| 1981, 1995, 1999 | Hejlsberg, Anders | Author of Turbo Pascal while at Borland, the chief architect of Delphi, and designer and lead architect of C# at Microsoft. |
| 2008, 2012, 2018 | Hinton, Geoffrey | Popularized and enabled the use of artificial neural networks and deep learning, which rank among the most successful tools in modern artificial intelligence efforts. Received the Turing Award in 2018 for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.[22] |
| 1961, 1969, 1978, 1980 | Hoare, C.A.R. | Developed the formal language Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP), Hoare logic for verifying program correctness, and Quicksort. Fundamental contributions to the definition and design of programming languages. |
| 1968 | Holberton, Betty | Wrote the first mainframe sort merge on the Univac |
| 1889 | Hollerith, Herman | Widely regarded as the father of modern machine data processing. His invention of the punched card tabulating machine marks the beginning of the era of semiautomatic data processing systems. |
| 1952 | Hopper, Grace | Pioneered work on the necessity for high-level programming languages, which she termed automatic programming, and wrote the A-O compiler, which heavily influenced the COBOL language. |
| 1997 | Hsu Feng-hsiung | Work led to the creation of the Deep Thought chess computer, and the architect and the principal designer of the IBM Deep Blue chess computer which defeated the reigning World Chess Champion, Garry Kasparov, in 1997. |
| 1952 | Hurd, Cuthbert | Helped the International Business Machines Corporation develop its first general-purpose computer, the IBM 701. |
| 1945, 1953 | Huskey, Harry | Early computer design including contributions to the ENIAC, EDVAC, Pilot ACE, EDVAC, SEAC, SWAC, and Bendix G-15 computers. The G-15 has been described as the first personal computer, being operable by one person. |
| 1954, 1962 | Iverson, Kenneth | Assisted in establishing the first graduate course in computer science (at Harvard) and taught that course; invented the APL programming language and made contribution to interactive computing. |
| 1801 | Jacquard, Joseph Marie | Built and demonstrated the Jacquard loom, a programmable mechanized loom controlled by a tape constructed from punched cards. |
| 1206 | Al-Jazari | Invented programmable machines, including programmable humanoid robots,[23] and the castle clock, an astronomical clock considered the first programmable analog computer.[24] |
| 1953 | Spärck Jones, Karen[undue weight? – discuss] | One of the pioneers of information retrieval and natural language processing. |
| 1970, 1990 | Karnaugh, Maurice | Inventor of the Karnaugh map, used for logic function minimization. |
| 1973 | Karpinski, Jacek | Developed the first differential analyzer that used transistors, and developed one of the first machine learning algorithms for character and image recognition. Also was the inventor of one of the first minicomputers, the K-202. |
| 1970~ | Kay, Alan | Pioneered many of the ideas at the root of object-oriented programming languages, led the team that developed Smalltalk, and made fundamental contributions to personal computing. |
| 1957 | Kirsch, Russell Gray | Whilst working for the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), Kirsch used a recently developed image scanner to scan and store the first digital photograph.[25] His scanned photo of his three-month-old son was deemed by Life magazine as one the “100 Photographs That Changed The World.” |
| 1936 | Kleene, Stephen Cole | Pioneered work with Alonzo Church on the Lambda Calculus that first laid down the foundations of computation theory. |
| 1968, 1989 | Knuth, Donald | Wrote The Art of Computer Programming and created TeX. Coined the term “analysis of algorithms” and made major contributions to that field, including popularizing Big O notation. |
| 1974, 1978 | Lamport, Leslie | Formulated algorithms to solve many fundamental problems in distributed systems (e.g. the bakery algorithm). Developed the concept of a logical clock, enabling synchronization between distributed entities based on the events through which they communicate. Created LaTeX. |
| 1951 | Lebedev, Sergei Alekseyevich | Independently designed the first electronic computer in the Soviet Union, MESM, in Kiev, Ukraine. |
| 1670~ | Leibniz, Gottfried | Made advances in symbolic logic, such as the Calculus ratiocinator, that were heavily influential on Gottlob Frege. He anticipated later developments in first-order predicate calculus, which were crucial for the theoretical foundations of computer science. |
| 1960 | Licklider, J. C. R. | Began the investigation of human–computer interaction, leading to many advances in computer interfaces as well as in cybernetics and artificial intelligence. |
| 1987 | Liskov, Barbara | Developed the Liskov substitution principle, which guarantees semantic interoperability of data types in a hierarchy. |
| 1300~ | Llull, Ramon | Designed multiple symbolic representations machines, and pioneered notions of symbolic representation and manipulation to produce knowledge—both of which were major influences on Leibniz. |
| 1852 | Lovelace, Ada | An English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognize that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and created the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first to recognize the full potential of a “computing machine” and the first computer programmer. |
| 1909 | Ludgate, Percy | Charles Babbage in 1843 and Percy Ludgate in 1909 designed the first two Analytical Engines in history. Ludgate’s engine used multiplication as its basis (using his own discrete “Irish logarithms”), had the first multiplier-accumulator (MAC), was first to exploit a MAC to perform division, stored numbers as displacements of rods in shuttles, and had several other novel features, including for program control. |
| 1971 | Martin-Löf, Per | Published an early draft on the type theory that many proof assistants build on. |
| 1943, 1951 | Mauchly, John | With J. Presper Eckert, designed and built the ENIAC, the first modern (all electronic, Turing-complete) computer, and the UNIVAC I, the first commercially available computer. Also worked on BINAC(1949), EDVAC(1949), UNIVAC(1951) with Grace Hopper and Jean Bartik, to develop early stored program computers. |
| 1958 | McCarthy, John | Invented LISP, a functional programming language. |
| 1956, 2012 | McCluskey, Edward J. | Fundamental contributions that shaped the design and testing of digital systems, including the first algorithm for digital logic synthesis, the Quine-McCluskey logic minimization method. |
| 1986 | Meyer, Bertrand | Developed design by contract in the guise of the Eiffel programming language. |
| 1963 | Minsky, Marvin | Co-founder of Artificial Intelligence Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author of several texts on AI and philosophy. Critic of the perceptron. |
| 850~ | Banū Mūsā | The Banū Mūsā brothers wrote the Book of Ingenious Devices, where they described what appears to be the first programmable machine, an automatic flute player.[26] |
| 1950, 1960 | Nakamatsu Yoshirō | Invented the first floppy disk at Tokyo Imperial University in 1950,[27][28] receiving a 1952 Japanese patent[29][30] and 1958 US patent for his floppy magnetic disk sheet invention,[31] and licensed to Nippon Columbia in 1960[32] and IBM in the 1970s.[29][27] |
| 2008 | Nakamoto, Satoshi | The anonymous creator or creators of Bitcoin, the first peer-to-peer digital currency. Nakamoto’s 2008 white-paper introduced the concept of the blockchain, a database structure that allows full trust in the decentralized and distributed public transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency.[33] |
| 1934, 1938 | Nakashima Akira | NEC engineer introduced switching circuit theory in papers from 1934 to 1936, laying the foundations for digital circuit design, in digital computers and other areas of modern technology. |
| 1960 | Naur, Peter | Edited the ALGOL 60 Revised Report, introducing Backus-Naur form |
| 1945 | Neumann, John von | Formulated the von Neumann architecture upon which most modern computers are based. |
| 1956 | Newell, Allen | Together with J. C. Shaw[34] and Herbert Simon, the three co-wrote the Logic Theorist, the first true AI program, in the first list-processing language, which influenced LISP. |
| 1943 | Newman, Max | Instigated the production of the Colossus computers at Bletchley Park. After the war he established the Computing Machine Laboratory at the University of Manchester where he created the project that built the world’s first stored-program computer, the Manchester Baby. |
| 1962 | Nygaard, Kristen | With Ole-Johan Dahl, invented the proto-object oriented language SIMULA. |
| 500 BC ~ | Pāṇini | Ashtadhyayi Sanskrit grammar was systematised and technical, using metarules, transformations, and recursions, a forerunner to formal language theory and basis for Panini-Backus form used to describe programming languages. |
| 1642 | Pascal, Blaise | Invented the mechanical calculator. |
| 1952 | Perlis, Alan | On Project Whirlwind, member of the team that developed the ALGOL programming language, and the first recipient of the Turing Award |
| 1985 | Perlman, Radia | Invented the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, while working for Digital Equipment Corporation. Has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. She received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007, among numerous others. |
| 1964 | Perotto, Pier Giorgio[undue weight? – discuss] | Computer designer for Olivetti, designed one of the first electronic programmable calculators, the Programma 101[35][36][37] |
| 1932 | Péter, Rózsa | Published a series of papers grounding recursion theory as a separate area of mathematical research, setting the foundation for theoretical computer science. |
| 1995 | Picard, Rosalind[undue weight? – discuss] | Founded Affective Computing, and laid the foundations for giving computers skills of emotional intelligence. |
| 1936 | Post, Emil L. | Developed the Post machine as a model of computation, independently of Turing. Known also for developing truth tables, the Post correspondence problem used in recursion theory as well as proving what is known as Post’s theorem. |
| 1967–2011 | Ritchie, Dennis | With Ken Thompson, pioneered the C programming language and the Unix computer operating system at Bell Labs. |
| 1958–1960 | Rosen, Saul | Designed the software of the first transistor-based computer. Also influenced the ALGOL programming language. |
| 1910 | Russell, Bertrand | Made contributions to computer science with his work on mathematical logic (example: truth function). Introduced the notion of type theory. He also introduced type system (along with Alfred North Whitehead) in his work, Principia Mathematica. |
| 1975 | Salton, Gerard[undue weight? – discuss] | A pioneer of automatic information retrieval, who proposed the vector space model and the inverted index. |
| 1962 | Sammet, Jean E. | Developed the FORMAC programming language. She was also the first to write extensively about the history and categorization of programming languages in 1969, and became the first female president of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1974. |
| 1963, 1973 | Sasaki Tadashi | Sharp engineer who conceived a single-chip microprocessor CPU, presenting the idea to Busicom and Intel in 1968. This influenced the first commercial microprocessor, the Intel 4004; before Busicom, Intel was a memory manufacturer. Tadashi Sasaki also developed LCD calculators at Sharp.[38] |
| 1937, 1948 | Shannon, Claude | Founded information theory, and laid foundations for practical digital circuit design. |
| 1968, 1980 | Shima Masatoshi | Designed the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor,[39][40] as well as the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Zilog Z8000 microprocessors, and the Intel 8259, 8255, 8253, 8257 and 8251 chips.[41] |
| 1956, 1957 | Simon, Herbert A. | A political scientist and economist who pioneered artificial intelligence. Co-creator of the Logic Theory Machine and the General Problem Solver programs. |
| 1972 | Stallman, Richard | Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to create a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software. With this, he also launched the free software movement. |
| 1982 | Stonebraker, Michael | Researcher at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) who revolutionized the field of database management systems (DBMSs) and founded multiple successful database companies |
| 1979 | Stroustrup, Bjarne | Invented C++ at Bell Labs |
| 1963 | Sutherland, Ivan | Author of Sketchpad, the ancestor of modern computer-aided drafting (CAD) programs and one of the early examples of object-oriented programming. |
| 1967 | Thompson, Ken | Created the Unix operating system, the B programming language, Plan 9 operating system, the first machine to achieve a Master rating in chess, and the UTF-8 encoding at Bell Labs and the Go programming language at Google. |
| 1993 | Toh Chai Keong | Created mobile ad hoc networking; Implemented the first working wireless ad hoc network of laptop computers in 1998 using Linux OS, Lucent WaveLan 802.11 radios, and a new distributed routing protocol transparent to TCP/UDP/IP. |
| 1991 | Torvalds, Linus | Created the first version of the Linux kernel. |
| 1912, 1914, 1920 | Torres Quevedo, Leonardo | In 1912, Leonardo Torres Quevedo built El Ajedrecista (the chess player), one of the first autonomous machines capable of playing chess. As opposed to the human-operated The Turk and Ajeeb, El Ajedrecista was a true automaton built to play chess without human guidance. It played an endgame with three chess pieces, automatically moving a white king and a rook to checkmate the black king moved by a human opponent. In his work Essays on Automatics, published in 1914, Torres Quevedo formulates what will be a new branch of engineering: automation. This work also included floating-point arithmetic. In 1920, Torres Quevedo was the first in history to build an early electromechanical version of the Analytical Engine. |
| 1965 | Tukey, John W. | With James Cooley, created the fast Fourier transform. He invented the term “bit”.[42] |
| 1936 | Turing, Alan | Made several foundamental contributions to theoretical computer science, including the Turing machine computational model, the conceiving of the stored program concept and the designing of the high-speed ACE design. Independently of Alonzo Church, he formulated the Church-Turing thesis and proved that first-order logic is undecidable. He also explored the philosophical issues concerning artificial intelligence, proposing what is now known as Turing test. |
| 1950~ | Wang An | Made key contributions to the development of magnetic core memory. |
| 1955, 1960s, 1974 | Ware, Willis | Co-designer of JOHNNIAC. Chaired committee that developed the Code of Fair Information Practice and led to the Privacy Act of 1974. Vice-chair of the Privacy Protection Study Commission. |
| 1968 | Wijngaarden, Adriaan van | Developer of the W-grammar first used in the definition of ALGOL 68 |
| 1949 | Wilkes, Maurice | Built the first practical stored program computer (EDSAC) to be completed and for being credited with the ideas of several high-level programming language constructs. |
| 1970, 1978 | Wirth, Niklaus | Designed the Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon programming languages. |
| 1875, 1875 | Verea, Ramón | Designed and patented the Verea Direct Multiplier, the first mechanical direct multiplier. |
| 1938, 1945 | Zuse, Konrad | Built the first digital freely programmable computer, the Z1. Built the first functional program-controlled computer, the Z3.[43] The Z3 was proven to be Turing-complete in 1998. Produced the world’s first commercial computer, the Z4. Designed the first high-level programming language, Plankalkül. |
| 1970 | Wilkinson, James H. | Research in numerical analysis to facilitate the use of the high-speed digital computer, having received special recognition for his work in computations in linear algebra and “backward” error analysis.[44] |
| 1973 | Bachman, Charles | Outstanding contributions to database technology.[45] |
| 1976 | Rabin, Michael O. | The joint paper “Finite Automata and Their Decision Problems,”[46] which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines, which has proved to be an enormously valuable concept. Their (Scott & Rabin) classic paper has been a continuous source of inspiration for subsequent work in this field.[47][48] |
| 1976 | Scott, Dana | The joint paper “Finite Automata and Their Decision Problems,”[46] which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines, which has proved to be an enormously valuable concept. Their (Scott & Rabin) classic paper has been a continuous source of inspiration for subsequent work in this field.[47][48] |
| 1978 | Floyd, Robert W. | Having a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software, and helping to found the following important subfields of computer science: the theory of parsing, the semantics of programming languages, automatic program verification, automatic program synthesis, and analysis of algorithms.[49] |
| 1985 | Karp, Richard M. | Contributions to the theory of algorithms including the development of efficient algorithms for network flow and other combinatorial optimization problems, the identification of polynomial-time computability with the intuitive notion of algorithmic efficiency, and, most notably, contributions to the theory of NP-completeness. |
| 1986 | Hopcroft, John | Fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. |
| 1986 | Tarjan, Robert | Fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. |
| 1987 | Cocke, John | Significant contributions in the design and theory of compilers, the architecture of large systems and the development of reduced instruction set computers (RISC). |
| 1989 | Kahan, William | Fundamental contributions to numerical analysis. One of the foremost experts on floating-point computations. Kahan has dedicated himself to “making the world safe for numerical computations. |
| 1989 | Corbató, Fernando J. | Pioneering work organizing the concepts and leading the development of the general-purpose, large-scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems, CTSS and Multics. |
| 1991 | Milner, Robin | 1) LCF, the mechanization of Scott’s Logic of Computable Functions, probably the first theoretically based yet practical tool for machine assisted proof construction; 2) ML, the first language to include polymorphic type inference together with a type-safe exception-handling mechanism; 3) CCS, a general theory of concurrency. In addition, he formulated and strongly advanced full abstraction, the study of the relationship between operational and denotational semantics.[50] |
| 1992 | Lampson, Butler W. | Development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security and document publishing. |
| 1993 | Hartmanis, Juris | Foundations for the field of computational complexity theory.[51] |
| 1993 | Stearns, Richard E. | Foundations for the field of computational complexity theory.[51] |
| 1994 | Feigenbaum, Edward | Pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology.[52] |
| 1994 | Reddy, Raj | Pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology.[52] |
| 1995 | Blum, Manuel | Contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking.[53] |
| 1996 | Pnueli, Amir | Introducing temporal logic into computing science and for outstanding contributions to program and systems verification.[54] |
| 2000 | Yao, Andrew | Fundamental contributions to the theory of computation, including the complexity-based theory of pseudorandom number generation, cryptography, and communication complexity. |
| 1977 | Rivest, Ron | Ingenious contribution and making public-key cryptography useful in practice. |
| 1977 | Shamir, Adi | Ingenious contribution and making public-key cryptography useful in practice. |
| 1977 | Adleman, Leonard | Ingenious contribution and making public-key cryptography useful in practice. |
| 1978 | Kahn, Bob | Designed the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the primary data communication protocols of the Internet and other computer networks. |
| 2007 | Sifakis, Joseph | Developing model checking into a highly effective verification technology, widely adopted in the hardware and software industries.[55] |
| 2010 | Valiant, Leslie | Transformative contributions to the theory of computation, including the theory of probably approximately correct (PAC) learning, the complexity of enumeration and of algebraic computation, and the theory of parallel and distributed computing. |
| 2011 | Pearl, Judea | Fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning.[56] |
| 1976 | Hellman, Martin | Fundamental contributions to modern cryptography. Diffie and Hellman’s groundbreaking 1976 paper, “New Directions in Cryptography,”[57] introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the foundation for most regularly-used security protocols on the Internet today.[58] |
| 1976 | Diffie, Whitfield | Fundamental contributions to modern cryptography. Diffie and Hellman’s groundbreaking 1976 paper, “New Directions in Cryptography,”[57] introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the foundation for most regularly-used security protocols on the Internet today.[59] |
| 2018 | Bengio, Yoshua, Hinton Geoffrey, Lecun Yann | Conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing.[22] |
| 2012 | Silvio Micali | For transformative work that laid the complexity-theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory. |
| 2017 | John L. Hennessy | For pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. |
| 2017 | David Patterson | For pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry. |
| 2019 | Edwin Catmull | For fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications |
| 2019 | Pat Hanrahan | For fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications |
~ Items marked with a tilde are circa dates.
Historians credit seminal insights to Welsh scientist Donald W. Davies and American engineer Paul Baran
Essentially all the work was defined by 1961, and fleshed out and put into formal written form in 1962. The idea of hot potato routing dates from late 1960.
Almost immediately after the 1965 meeting, Donald Davies conceived of the details of a store-and-forward packet switching system; Roberts, Dr. Lawrence G. (May 1995). “The ARPANET & Computer Networks”. Archived from the original on March 24, 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
Then in June 1966, Davies wrote a second internal paper, “Proposal for a Digital Communication Network” In which he coined the word packet,- a small sub part of the message the user wants to send, and also introduced the concept of an “Interface computer” to sit between the user equipment and the packet network.
technically, the machine was a programmable calculator, not a computer.
It appears that the Mathatronics Mathatron calculator preceeded [sic] the Programma 101 to market.
” (WP)
Know your History, It repeats itself! See also Timeline of the History of Computers and This Year in History
History in the year of:
Return to History or This Year in History
c. 2500 BC – Sumerian Abacus
c. 700 BC – Scytale
c. 150 BC – Antikythera Mechanism
c. 60 – Programmable Robot
c. 850 – On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages
c. 1470 – Cipher Disk
1613 – First Recorded Use of the Word Computer
1621 – Slide Rule
1703 – Binary Arithmetic
1758 – Human Computers Predict Halley’s Comet
1770 – The “Mechanical Turk”
1792 – Optical Telegraph
1801 – The Jacquard Loom
1822 – The Difference Engine
1833 – Michael Faraday discovered silver sulfide became a better conductor when heated
1836 – Electrical Telegraph
1843 – Ada Lovelace Writes a Computer Program
1843 – Fax Machine Patented
1843 – Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold-Bug”
1849 to early 1900s – Silicon Valley After the Gold Rush
1851 – Thomas Arithmometer
1854 – Boolean Algebra
1864 – First Electromagnetic Spam Message
1870 – Mitsubishi founded
1874 – Baudot Code
1874 – Semiconductor Diode conceived of
1876 – Ericsson Corporation founded in Sweden
1885 – Stanford University
1885 – William Burroughs’ adding machine
1890 – Herman Hollerith Tabulating the US Census
1890 – Toshiba founded in Japan
1891 – Strowger Step-by-Step Switch
1898 – Nippon Electric Limited Partnership – NEC Corporation founded in Japan
1890s to 1930s – Radio Engineering
Early 1900s – Electrical Engineering
1904 – “Diode” or Two-Element Amplifier actually invented
1904 – Three-Element Amplifier or “Triode”
1906 – Vacuum Tube or “Audion”
1907 – Lee DeForest coins the term “radio” to refer to wireless transmission when he formed his DeForest Radio Telephone Company
1909 – Charles Herrold in San Jose started first radio station in USA with regularly scheduled programming, including songs, using an arc transmitter of his own design. Herrold was one of Stanford’s earliest students and founded his own College of Wireless and Engineering in San Jose
1910 – Radio Broadcasting business pioneered by Lee DeForest with broadcast from New York of a live performance by Italian tenor Enrico Caruso
1910 – Hitachi founded in Japan
1912 – Sharp Corporation founded in Japan and takes its name from one of its founder’s first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil
1914 – Floating-Point Numbers
1917 – Vernam Cipher
1918 – Panasonic, then Matsushita Electric, founded in Japan
1920 – Rossum’s Universal Robots
1927 – Fritz Lang’s Metropolis
1927 – First LED
1928 – Electronic Speech Synthesis
1930 – The Enigma Machine
1931 – Differential Analyzer
1935 – Fujitsu founded as Fuji Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturing in Japan. Fujitsu is the second oldest IT company after IBM and before Hewlett-Packard
1936 – Church-Turing Thesis
1939 – Hewlett-Packard founded in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California by Bill Hewlett and David Packard
1939 – Toshiba founded in Japan
1942 – Atanasoff-Berry Computer
1942 – Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics
1942 – Seiko Corporation founded in Japan
1945 – Vannevar Bush‘s “As We May Think”
1945 – EDVAC First Draft Report – The von Neumann architecture
1946 – Trackball
1946 – Williams Tube Random Access Memory
1947 – Actual Bug Found – First “debugging”
1947 – William Shockley’s Silicon Transistor
1948 – The Bit – Binary Digit 0 or 1
1948 – Curta Calculator
1948 – Manchester SSEM
1949 – Whirlwind Computer
1950 – Error-Correcting Codes (ECC)
1951 – Turing Test of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
1951 – Magnetic Tape Used for Computers
1951 – Core Memory
1951 – Microprogramming
1952 – Computer Speech Recognition
1953 – First Transistorized Computer
1955 – Artificial Intelligence (AI) Coined
1955 – Computer Proves Mathematical Theorem
1956 – First Disk Storage Unit
1956 – The Byte
1956 – Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet
1957 – FORTRAN Programming Language
1957 – First Digital Image
1958 – The Bell 101 Modem
1958 – SAGE Computer Operational
1959 – IBM 1401 Computer
1959 – DEC PDP-1
1959 – Quicksort Algorithm
1959 – SABRE Airline Reservation System
1960 – COBOL Programming Language
1960 – Recommended Standard 232 (RS-232)
1961 – ANITA Electronic Calculator
1961 – Unimate – First Mass-Produced Robot
1961 – Time-Sharing – The Original “Cloud Computing“
1961 – Shinshu Seiki Company founded in Japan (now called Seiko Epson Corporation) as a subsidiary of Seiko to supply precision parts for Seiko watches.
1962 – Spacewar! Video Game
1962 – Virtual Memory
1962 – Digital Long Distance Telephone Calls
1963 – Sketchpad Interactive Computer Graphics
1963 – ASCII Character Encoding
1963 – Seiko Corporation in Japan developed world’s first portable quartz timer (Seiko QC-951)
1964 – RAND Tablet Computer
1964 – Teletype Model 33 ASR
1964 – IBM System/360 Mainframe Computer
1964 – BASIC Programming Language
1965 – First Liquid-Crystal Display (LCD)
1965 – Fiber Optics – Optical-Fiber
1965 – DENDRAL Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Project
1965 – ELIZA – The First “Chatbot” – 1965
1965 – Touchscreen
1966 – Star Trek Premieres
1966 – Dynamic RAM
1966 – Linear predictive coding (LPC) proposed by Fumitada Itakura of Nagoya University and Shuzo Saito of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT).[71]
1967 – Object-Oriented Programming
1967 – First ATM Machine
1967 – Head-Mounted Display
1967 – Programming for Children
1967 – The Mouse
1968 – Carterfone Decision
1968 – Software Engineering
1968 – HAL 9000 Computer from 2001: A Space Odyssey
1968 – First “Spacecraft” “Guided by Computer”
1968 – Cyberspace Coined—and Re-Coined
1968 – Mother of All Demos
1968 – Dot Matrix Printer – Shinshu Seiki (now called Seiko Epson Corporation) launched the world’s first mini-printer, the EP-101 (“EP” for Electronic Printer,) which was soon incorporated into many calculators
1968 – Interface Message Processor (IMP)
1969 – ARPANET / Internet
1969 – Digital Imaging
1969 – Network Working Group Request for Comments (RFC): 1
1969 – Utility Computing – Early “Cloud Computing“
1969 – Perceptrons Book – Dark Ages of Neural Networks Artificial Intelligence (AI)
1969 – UNIX Operating System
1969 – Seiko Epson Corporation in Japan developed world’s first quartz watch timepiece (Seiko Quartz Astron 35SQ)
1970 – Fair Credit Reporting Act
1970 – Relational Databases
1970 – Floppy Disk
1971 – Laser Printer
1971 – NP-Completeness
1971 – @Mail Electronic Mail
1971 – First Microprocessor – General-Purpose CPU – “Computer on a Chip”
1971 – First Wireless Network
1972 – C Programming Language
1972 – Cray Research Supercomputers – High-Performance Computing (HPC)
1972 – Game of Life – Early Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research
1972 – HP-35 Calculator
1972 – Pong Game from Atari – Nolan Bushnell
1973 – First Cell Phone Call
1973 – Danny Cohen first demonstrated a form of packet voice as part of a flight simulator application, which operated across the early ARPANET.[69][70]
1973 – Xerox Alto from Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)
1973 – Sharp Corporation produced the first LCD calculator
1974 – Data Encryption Standard (DES)
1974 – The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) publishes a paper entitled “A Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection”.[82]
1974 – Network Voice Protocol (NVP) tested over ARPANET in August 1974, carrying barely audible 16 kpbs CVSD encoded voice.[71]
1974 – The first successful real-time conversation over ARPANET achieved using 2.4 kpbs LPC, between Culler-Harrison Incorporated in Goleta, California, and MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts.[71]
1974 – First Personal Computer: The Altair 8800 Invented by MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico
1975 – Colossal Cave Adventure – Text-based “Video” Game
1975 – The Shockwave Rider SciFi Book – A Prelude of the 21st Century Big Tech Police State
1975 – AI Medical Diagnosis – Artificial Intelligence in Medicine
1975 – BYTE Magazine
1975 – Homebrew Computer Club
1975 – The Mythical Man-Month
1975 – The name Epson was coined for the next generation of printers based on the EP-101 which was released to the public. (EPSON:E-P-SON: SON of Electronic Printer).[7] Epson America Inc. was established to sell printers for Shinshu Seiki Co.
1976 – Public Key Cryptography
1976 – Acer founded
1976 – Tandem NonStop
1976 – Dr. Dobb’s Journal
1977 – RSA Encryption
1977 – Apple II Computer
1977 – Danny Cohen and Jon Postel of the USC Information Sciences Institute, and Vint Cerf of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), agree to separate IP from TCP, and create UDP for carrying real-time traffic.
1978 – First Internet Spam Message
1978 – France’s Minitel Videotext
1979 – Secret Sharing for Encryption
1979 – Dan Bricklin Invents VisiCalc Spreadsheet
1980 – Timex Sinclair ZX80 Computer
1980 – Flash Memory
1980 – RISC Microprocessors – Reduced Instruction Set Computer CPUs
1980 – Commercially Available Ethernet Invented by Robert Metcalfe of 3Com
1980 – Usenet
1981 – IBM Personal Computer – IBM PC
1981 – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Email
1981 – Japan’s Fifth Generation Computer Systems – Japan
1982 – Sun Microsystems was founded on February 24, 1982.[2]
1982 – AutoCAD
1982 – First Commercial UNIX Workstation
1982 – PostScript
1982 – Microsoft and the IBM PC Clones
1982 – First CGI Sequence in Feature Film – Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
1982 – National Geographic Moves the Pyramids – Precursor to Photoshop
1982 – Secure Multi-Party Computation
1982 – TRON Movie
1982 – Home Computer Named Machine of the Year by Time Magazine
1983 – The Qubit – Quantum Computers
1983 – WarGames
1983 – 3-D Printing
1983 – Computerization of the Local Telephone Network
1983 – First Laptop
1983 – MIDI Computer Music Interface
1983 – Microsoft Word
1983 – Nintendo Entertainment System – Video Games
1983 – Domain Name System (DNS)
1983 – IPv4 Flag Day – TCP/IP
1984 – Text-to-Speech (TTS)
1984 – Apple Macintosh
1984 – VPL Research, Inc. – Virtual Reality (VR)
1984 – Quantum Cryptography
1984 – Telebit TrailBlazer Modems Break 9600 bps
1984 – Verilog Language
1984 – Dell founded by Michael Dell
1984 – Cisco Systems was founded in December 1984
1985 – Connection Machine – Parallelization
1985 – First Computer-Generated TV Host – Max Headroom – CGI
1985 – Zero-Knowledge Mathematical Proofs
1985 – FCC Approves Unlicensed Wireless Spread Spectrum
1985 – NSFNET National Science Foundation “Internet”
1985 – Desktop Publishing – with Macintosh, Aldus PageMaker, LaserJet, LaserWriter and PostScript
1985 – Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA)
1985 – GNU Manifesto from Richard Stallman
1985 – AFIS Stops a Serial Killer – Automated Fingerprint Identification System
1986 – Software Bug Fatalities
1986 – Pixar Animation Studios
1986 – D-Link Corporation founded in Taipei, Taiwan
1987 – Digital Video Editing
1987 – GIF – Graphics Interchange Format
1988 – MPEG – Moving Picture Experts Group – Coding-Compressing Audio-Video
1988 – CD-ROM
1988 – Morris Worm Internet Computer Virus
1988 – Linksys founded
1989 – World Wide Web-HTML-HTTP Invented by Tim Berners-Lee
1989 – Asus was founded in Taipei, Taiwan
1989 – SimCity Video Game
1989 – ISP Provides Internet Access to the Public
1990 – GPS Is Operational – Global Positioning System
1990 – Digital Money is Invented – DigiCash – Precursor to Bitcoin
1991 – Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
1991 – DARPA’s Report “Computers at Risk: Safe Computing in the Information Age“
1991 – Linux Kernel Operating System Invented by Linus Torvalds
1992 – Boston Dynamics Robotics Company Founded
1992 – JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group
1992 – First Mass-Market Web Browser NCSA Mosaic Invented by Marc Andreessen
1992 – Unicode Character Encoding
1993 – Apple Newton
1994 – First Banner Ad – Wired Magazine
1994 – RSA-129 Encryption Cracked
1995 – DVD
1995 – E-Commerce Startups – eBay, Amazon and DoubleClick Launched
1995 – AltaVista Web Search Engine
1995 – Gartner Hype Cycle
1996 – Universal Serial Bus (USB)
1996 – Juniper Networks founded
1997 – IBM Computer Is World Chess Champion
1997 – PalmPilot
1997 – E Ink
1998 – Diamond Rio MP3 Player
1998 – Google
1999 – Collaborative Software Development
1999 – Blog Is Coined
1999 – Napster P2P Music and File Sharing
2000 – USB Flash Drive
2000 – Sharp Corporation’s Mobile Communications Division created the world’s first commercial camera phone, the J-SH04, in Japan
2000 – Fortinet founded
2001 – Wikipedia
2001 – Apple iTunes
2001 – Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
2001 – Quantum Computer Factors “15”
2002 – Home-Cleaning Robot
2003 – CAPTCHA
2004 – Product Tracking
2004 – Facebook
2004 – First International Meeting on Synthetic Biology
2005 – Video Game Enables Research into Real-World Pandemics
2006 – Apache Hadoop Makes Big Data Possible
2006 – Differential Privacy
2007 – Apple iPhone
2008 – Bitcoin
2010 – Air Force Builds Supercomputer with Gaming Consoles
2010 – Cyber Weapons
2011 – Smart Homes via the Internet of Things (IoT)
2011 – IBM Watson Wins Jeopardy!
2011 – World IPv6 Day
2011 – Social Media Enables the Arab Spring
2012 – DNA Data Storage
2013 – Algorithm Influences Prison Sentence
2013 – Subscription Software “Popularized”
2014 – Data Breaches
2014 – Over-the-Air Vehicle Software Updates
2015 – Google Releases TensorFlow
2016 – Augmented Reality Goes Mainstream
2016 – Computer Beats Master at Game of Go
~2050 -Hahahaha! – Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
~9999 – The Limits of Computation?
Return to Timeline of the History of Computers or History
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Kahn, Robert E., Steven A. Gronemeyer, Jerry Burchfiel, and Ronald C. Kunzelman. “Advances in Packet Radio Technology.” Proceedings of the IEEE, November 1978.
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Kleinrock, Leonard. “Principles and Lessons in Packet Communications.” Proceedings of the IEEE, November 1978.
Landweber, Lawrence H., Dennis M. Jennings, and Ira Fuchs. “Research Computer Networks and Their Interconnection.” IEEE Communications Magazine, June 1986.
Lee, J. A. N., and Robert F. Rosin.“The CTSS Interviews.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 14, no. 1, 1992.
———.“The Project MAC Interviews.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 14, no. 2, 1992.
Licklider, J. C. R. “A Gridless, Wireless Rat-Shocker.” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 44, 1951.
———. “Man-Computer Symbiosis.” Reprint. In Memoriam: J. C. R. Licklider. Digital Equipment Corporation Systems Research Center, 7 August 1990.
Licklider, J. C. R., and Albert Vezza. “Applications of Information Networks.” Proceedings of the IEEE, November 1978.
Licklider, J. C. R., and Robert W. Taylor. “The Computer as a Communication Device.” Reprint. In Memoriam: J. C. R. Licklider. Digital Equipment Corporation Systems Research Center, 7 August 1990.
Markoff, John. “Up from the Computer Underground.” The NewYork Times, 27 August 1993.
McKenzie, Alexander A., and B. P. Cosell, J. M. McQuillan, M. J. Thrope. “The Network Control Center for the ARPA Network.” Proceedings of the IEEE, 1972.
Mier, Edwin E. “Defense Department Readying Network Ramparts.” Data Communications, October 1983.
Mills, Jeffrey. “Electronic Mail.” Associated Press, 4 January 1976.
———.“Electronic Mail.” Associated Press, 19 June 1976.
———. “Postal Service Tests Electronic Message Service.” Associated Press, 28 March 1978.
Mills, Kay.“The Public Concern: Mail.” Newhouse News Service, 27 July 1976.
Mohl, Bruce A. “2 Bolt, Beranek Officials Collapse in Federal Court.” The Boston Globe, 31 October 1980.
Pallesen, Gayle. “Consultant Firm on PBIA Faces Criminal Charges.” Palm Beach (Florida) Post, 8 November 1980.
Pearse, Ben. “Defense Chief in the Sputnik Age.” The NewYork Times Magazine, 10 November 1957.
Pool, Bob. “Inventing the Future: UCLA Scientist Who Helped Create Internet Isn’t Done Yet.” Los Angeles Times, 11 August 1994.
Quarterman, John S., and Josiah C. Hoskins. “Notable Computer Networks.” Communications of the ACM, October 1986.
Roberts, Lawrence G. “ARPA Network Implications.” Educom, Bulletin of the Interuniversity Communications Council, fall 1971.
Salus, Peter. “Pioneers of the Internet.” Internet World, September 1994.
“Scanning the Issues,” IEEE Spectrum, August 1964.
Schonberg, Harold C. “4 Acoustics Experts to Urge Revisions in Auditorium.” The NewYork Times, 4 April 1963.
———.“Acoustics Again: Philharmonic Hall Has Some Defects, But Also Has a Poetry of Its Own.” The NewYork Times, 9 December 1962.
Selling It. Consumer Reports, June 1977.
Space Agencies. “ARPA Shapes Military Space Research.” Aviation Week, 16 June 1958.
Sterling, Bruce. “Internet.” Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1993.
Swartzlander, Earl. “Time-Sharing at MIT.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 14, no. 1, 1992.
“Transforming BB&N: ARPANET’s Architect Targets Non-Military Networks.” Data Communications, April 1984.
Wilson, David McKay. “BBN Executives Collapse in Court.” Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, 6 November 1980.
———. “Consulting Co. Admits Overcharge.” Cambridge (Mass.) Chronicle, 30 October 1980.
Zitner, Aaron. “A Quiet Leap Forward in Cyberspace.” The Boston Globe, 11 September 1994.
Zuckerman, Laurence.“BBN Steps Out of the Shadows and into the Limelight.” The NewYork Times, 17 July 1995.Edit
”Act One.” Symposium on the history of the ARPANET held at the University of California at Los Angeles, 17 August 1989. Transcript.
ARPA Network Information Center, Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif. “Scenarios for Using the ARPANET.” Booklet. Prepared for the International Conference on Computer Communication, Washington, D.C., October 1972.
Baran, Paul. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 5 March 1990.
Barlow, John Perry. “Crime and Puzzlement.” Pinedale, Wyo., June 1990.
BBN Systems and Technologies Corporation. “Annual Report of the Science Development Program.” Cambridge, Mass., 1988.
Bhushan, A. K. “Comments on the File Transfer Protocol.” Request for Comments 385. Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., August 1972.
———.“The File Transfer Protocol.” Request for Comments 354. Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., July 1972.
Bhushan, Abhay, Ken Pogran, Ray Tomlinson, and Jim White. “Standardizing Network Mail Headers.” Request for Comments 561. MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 5 September 1973.
Blue, Allan. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 12 June 1989.
Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. “ARPANET Completion Report: Draft.” Cambridge, Mass., September 1977.
———.“BBN Proposal No. IMP P69-IST-5: Interface Message Processors for the ARPA Computer Network.” Design proposal. Submitted to the Department of the Army, Defense Supply Service, in response to RFQ No. DAHC15 69 Q 0002. Washington, D.C., 6 September 1968.
———. “BBN Report No. 1763: Initial Design for Interface Message Processors for the ARPA Computer Network.” Design proposal. Submitted to the Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract no. DAHC 15-69-C-0179. Washington, D.C., 6 January 1969.
———. “BBN Report No. 1822: Interface Message Processor.” Technical report. Cambridge, Mass., 1969.
———.“Interface Message Processors for the ARPA Computer Network.” Quarterly technical reports. Submitted to the Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract no. DAHC 15-69-C-0179 and contract no. F08606-73-C-0027. Washington, D.C., 1969–1973.
———. “Operating Manual for Interface Message Processors: 516 IMP, 316 IMP, TEP.” Revised. Submitted to the Advanced Research Projects Agency under ARPA order no. 1260, contract no. DAHC15-69-C-0179. Arlington,Va., April 1973.
———. “Report No. 4799: A History of the ARPANET: The First Decade.” Submitted to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Arlington,Va., April 1981.
———.“The Four Cities Plan.” Draft proposal and cost analysis for maintenance of IMPs and TIPs in Boston, Washington, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Papers of BBN Division 6. Cambridge, Mass., April 1974.
———. Internal memoranda and papers relating to the work of Division 6. Cambridge, Mass., 1971–1972.
Carr, C. Stephen, Stephen D. Crocker, and Vinton G. Cerf. “HOST-HOST Communication Protocol in the ARPA Network.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1970.
Catton, Major General, USAF, Jack. Letter to F. R. Collbohm of RAND Corporation, 11 October 1965. Referring the preliminary technical development plan for message-block network to the Defense Communications Agency.
Cerf,Vinton G.“Confessions of a Hearing-Impaired Engineer.” Unpublished.
———.“PARRY Encounters the Doctor.” Request for Comments 439 (NIC 13771). Network Working Group, 21 January 1973.
Cerf, Vinton G., and Jonathan B. Postel. “Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Protocol: TCP Version 3.” Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, January 1978.
Cerf, Vinton G. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/ IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 24 April 1990.
Cerf, Vinton G., and Robert Kahn. “HOST and PROCESS Level Protocols for Internetwork Communication.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 39, 13 September 1973.
Clark, Wesley. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 3 May 1990.
Crocker, David H. “Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages.” Request for Comments 822. Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Delaware, 13 August 1982.
Crocker, David H., John J. Vittal, Kenneth T. Pogran, and D. Austin Henderson Jr. “Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Text Messages.” Request for Comments 733. The RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif., 21 November 1977.
Crowther, William. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 12 March 1990.
Crowther, William, and David Walden. “CurrentViews of Timing.” Memorandum to Frank E. Heart, Cambridge, Mass., 8 July 1969.
Davies, Donald W. “Further Speculations on Data Transmission.” Private papers. London, 16 November 1965.
———.“Proposal for a Digital Communication Network.” Private papers, photocopied and widely circulated. London, June 1966.
———. “Proposal for the Development of a National Communications Service for On-Line Data Processing.” Private papers. London, 15 December 1965.
———. “Remote On-line Data Processing and Its Communication Needs.” Private papers. London, 10 November 1965.
Davies, Donald W. Interview by Martin Campbell-Kelly. National Physical Laboratory, U.K., 17 March 1986.
Davies, Donald W., Keith Bartlett, Roger Scantlebury, and Peter Wilkinson. “A Digital Communications Network for Computers Giving Rapid Response at Remote Terminals.” Paper presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Symposium on Operating System Principles, Gatlinburg, Tenn., October 1967.
Davis, Ruth M. “Comments and Recommendations Concerning the ARPA Network.” Center for Computer Sciences and Technology, U.S. National Bureau of Standards, 6 October 1971.
Digital Equipment Corporation. “Interface Message Processors for the ARPA Computer Network.” Design proposal. Submitted to the Department of the Army, Defense Supply Service, in RFQ no. DAHC15 69 Q 002, 5 September 1968.
Frank, Howard. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 30 March 1990.
Goldstein, Paul. “The Proposed ARPANET Divestiture: Legal Questions and Economic Issues.” Working Paper, Cabledata Associates, Inc., CAWP no. 101, 27 July 1973.
Hauben, Michael, and Ronda Hauben. The Netizens Netbook page can be found at http://www.columbia.edu/∼hauben/netbook/. The Haubens’ work has also appeared in the Amateur Computerist Newsletter, available from ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/acn/.
Heart, F. E., R. E. Kahn, S. M. Ornstein, W. R. Crowther, and D. C. Walden. “The Interface Message Processor for the ARPA Computer Network.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1970.
Heart, Frank E. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 13 March 1990.
Herzfeld, Charles. Interview by Arthur Norberg. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 6 August 1990.
Honeywell, Inc. “Honeywell at Bolt Beranek and Newman, Inc.” Brochure. Published for the ARPA Network demonstration at the International Conference on Computer Communication, Washington, D.C., October 1972.
Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California. “DOD Standard Transmission Control Protocol.” Request for Comments 761. Prepared for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Processing Techniques Office, Arlington,Va., January 1980.
International Data Corporation. “ARPA Computer Network Provides Communications Technology for Computer/Computer Interaction Within Special Research Community.” Industry report and market review. Newtonville, Mass., 3 March 1972.
Kahn, Robert. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 24 April 1990.
Kahn, Robert. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 22 March 1989.
Kleinrock, Leonard. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 3 April 1990.
Kryter, Karl D. “Lick as a Psychoacoustician and Physioacoustician.” Presentation honoring J. C. R. Licklider at the Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Baltimore, Md., 30 April 1991.
———. Obituary of J. C. R. Licklider, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, December 1990.
Licklider, J. C. R., and Welden E. Clark. “On-Line Man-Computer Communication.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1962.
Licklider, J. C. R. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 28 October 1988.
Lukasik, Stephen. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 17 October 1991.
Marill, Thomas, and Lawrence G. Roberts. “Toward a Cooperative Network of Time-Shared Computers.” Paper presented at the Fall Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1966.
McCarthy, J., S. Boilen, E. Fredkin, and J. C. R. Licklider. “A Time-Sharing Debugging System for a Small Computer.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1963.
McKenzie, Alexander A. “The ARPA Network Control Center.” Paper presented at the Fourth Data Communications Symposium of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers, October 1975.
McKenzie, Alexander A. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 13 March 1990.
Message Group. The full text of more than 2,600 e-mail messages sent by members of the Message Group (or MsgGroup), one of the first electronic mailing lists, relating to the development of e-mail. The Computer Museum, Boston, Mass., June 1975–June 1986. Electronic document. (http://www.tcm.org/msgroup)
Metcalfe, Robert. “Some Historic Moments in Networking.” Request for Comments 89. Network Working Group, 19 January 1971.
Myer, T. H., and D. A. Henderson. “Message Transmission Protocol.” Request for Comments 680. Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., 1975.
National Research Council, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems. “Transport Protocols for Department of Defense Data Networks.” Report to the Department of Defense and the National Bureau of Standards, Board on Telecommunication and Computer Applications, 1985.
Neigus, N.J. “File Transfer Protocol.” Request for Comments 542. Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge, Mass., 12 July 1973.
Norberg, Arthur L., and Judy E. O’Neill. “A History of the Information Processing Techniques Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.” Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minn., 1992.
Ornstein, Severo M., F. E. Heart, W. R. Crowther, H. K. Rising, S. B. Russell, and A. Michel. “The Terminal IMP for the ARPA Network.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, Atlantic City, N.J., May 1972.
Ornstein, Severo. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 6 March 1990.
Pogran, Ken, John Vittal, Dave Crowther, and Austin Henderson. “Proposed Official Standard for the Format of ARPA Network Messages.” Request for Comments 724. MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 12 May 1977.
Postel, Jonathan B. “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.” Request for Comments 821. Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, August 1982.
———. “Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Protocol: TCP Version 4.” Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, September 1978.
———. “TCP and IP Bake Off.” Request for Comments 1025. Network Working Group, September 1987.
Pouzin, Louis. “Network Protocols.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 50, September 1973.
———.“Presentation and Major Design Aspects of the Cyclades Computer Network.” Paper presented at the IEEE Third Data Communications Symposium (Data Networks: Analysis and Design), November 1973.
———. “Experimental Communication Protocol: Basic Message Frame.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 48, January 1974.
———.“Interconnection of Packet Switching Networks.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 42, October 1973.
———. “Network Architecture and Components.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 49, August 1973.
RAND Corporation. “Development of the Distributed Adaptive Message-Block Network.” Recommendation to the Air Staff, 30 August 1965.
RCA Service Company, Government Services Division. “ARPANET Study Final Report.” Submitted under contract no. F08606-73-C-0018. 24 November 1972.
Richard J. Barber Associates, Inc. “The Advanced Research Projects Agency: 1958–1974.” A study for the Advanced Research Projects Agency under contract no. MDA-903-74-C-0096. Washington, D.C., December 1975. Photocopy.
Roberts, Lawrence G. “Extensions of Packet Communications Technology to a Hand-Held Personal Terminal.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, May 1972.
———. “Multiple Computer Networks and Intercomputer Communication.” Paper presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Symposium on Operating System Principles, October 1967.
Roberts, Lawrence G., and Barry D. Wessler. “Computer Network Development to Achieve Resource Sharing.” Paper presented at the Spring Joint Computer Conference of the American Federation of Information Processing Societies, 1970.
Roberts, Lawrence G. Interview by Arthur Norberg. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 4 April 1989.
Ruina, Jack. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 20 April 1989.
Sutherland, Ivan. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 1 May 1989.
Taylor, Robert. Interview by William Aspray. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 28 February 1989.
U.S. Postal Service. “Electronic Message Systems for the U.S. Postal Service.” Report of the U.S.P.S. Support Panel, Committee on Telecommunications, Washington, D.C., January 1977.
Walden, David C. “Experiences in Building, Operating, and Using the ARPA Network.” Paper presented at the Second USA-Japan Computer Conference, Tokyo, Japan, August 1975.
Walden, David. Interview by Judy O’Neill. Charles Babbage Institute, DARPA/IPTO Oral History Collection, University of Minnesota Center for the History of Information Processing, Minneapolis, Minn., 6 February 1990.
Walker, Stephen T. “Completion Report: ARPA Network Development.” Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Information Processing Techniques Office, Washington, D.C., 4 January 1978.
Weik, Martin H. “A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems.” Ballistic Research Laboratories, report no. 1115, March 1961.
White, Jim. “Proposed Mail Protocol.” Request for Comments 524. Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., 13 June 1973.
Zimmermann, H., and M. Elie. “Proposed Standard Host-Host Protocol for Heterogeneous Computer Networks: Transport Protocol.” Notes of the International Network Working Group 43, December 1973.Edit
Charles Babbage Institute, Center for the History of Information Processing, University of Minnesota. Large archival collection relating to the history of computing. More information can be obtained via the CBI Web site at http://cbi.itdean.umn.edu/cbi/welcome.html or via e-mail addressed to [email protected].
Computer Museum, Boston, Massachusetts. Large collection relating to the history of computing, including the archives of the Message Group concerning the early development of e-mail. The archive is available via the homepage at http://www.tcm.org/msgroup.
Information Sciences Institute, University of Southern California. Collection includes up-to-date indexes and tests of Internet standards, protocols, Requests for Comments (RFCs), and various other technical notes available via the ISI Web site: http://www.isi.edu. Some of the earlier RFCs are not available electronically, but are archived off-line in meticulous fashion by RFC editor Jon Postel. A searchable archive is maintained at http://info.internet.isi.edu:80/in-notes/rfc.
Ohio State University, Department of Computer and Information Science. The CIS Web Server offers access to RFCs and various other technical and historical documents related to the Internet via http://www.cis. ohio-state.edu:80/hypertext/information/rfc.html.
Primary Fair Use Source: B000FC0WP6
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Where Wizards Stay Up Late – The Origins Of The Internet by Matthew Lyon and Katie Hafner
by Matthew Lyon and Katie Hafner
“Twenty five years ago, it didn’t exist. Today, twenty million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone.”
“In the 1960’s, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices. With Defense Department funds, he and a band of visionary computer whizzes began work on a nationwide, interlocking network of computers. Taking readers behind the scenes, Where Wizards Stay Up Late captures the hard work, genius, and happy accidents of their daring, stunningly successful venture.”Edit
To the memory of J. C. R. Licklider and to the memory of Cary Lu
“Los Alamos’ lights where wizards stay up late, (Stay in the car, forget the gate), To save the world or end it, time will tell” — James Merrill, “Under Libra: Weights and Measures”
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1999
Collaborative Software Development
“Despite the reputation of software developers as solitary, introverted people, much of their time is spent socializing and collaborating with colleagues and like-skilled experts to solve common problems or work on common projects. By the late 1990s, a combination of factors led to the emergence of collaborative development environments (CDEs), wherein geographically dispersed developers, some connected by corporations, others simply by challenges, would collaborate in virtual space using a variety of features to advance open source projects and develop code.
As software development efforts for web-based platforms grew, so did the need for greater productivity and innovation in meeting the growing demands of these systems and their ever-changing requirements. CDEs evolved in part to meet these demands and to help coders realize the network effects of leveraging expertise and social engagement beyond one’s own community or organization. The company that led the charge in this era was SourceForge®, a free service for software developers to manage their code development that came on the scene in 1999. A number of other platforms entered the market soon after.
Collaborative software development has dramatically accelerated the pace of developing open source projects. Without these capabilities, the rate of evolution would have been much slower, and without the benefit of as many perspectives and diverse inputs, the quality would not be nearly so high. One example of this is the Apache Software Foundation’s big data software stack, including Hadoop, Apache Spark, and others—which was collaboratively developed by programmers at dozens of different corporations and universities. In large part, the success and vibrancy of these projects is measured not just by their adoption but also by the number of active developers who are improving the code base.
Over time, CDEs incorporated additional features into their platforms beyond simple version control, including threaded discussion forums, calendaring and scheduling, electronic document routing and workflow, projects dashboards, and configuration control of shared artifacts, among others.”
SEE ALSO: GNU Manifesto (1985), Wikipedia (2001)
Services like SourceForge and GitHub make it possible for many people to work on the same piece of software at the same time, dramatically increasing the rate of software innovation.
Brown, A. W., and Grady Booch. “Collaborative Development Environments.” Advances in Computers 53 (June 2003): 1–29.
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| Graydon Hoare started development of the Rust programming language around 2010. After contributions from hundreds of people, it was officially released as version 1.0.0 alpha by Mozilla research on January 9, 2015. |
Rust is a multi-paradigm programming language designed for performance and safety, especially safe concurrency.[16][17] Rust is syntactically similar to C++,[18] but can guarantee memory safety by using a borrow checker to validate references.[19] Rust achieves memory safety without garbage collection, and reference counting is optional.[20][21]
Rust was originally designed by Graydon Hoare at Mozilla Research, with contributions from Dave Herman, Brendan Eich, and others.[22][23] The designers refined the language while writing the Servo layout or browser engine,[24] and the Rust compiler. It has gained increasing use in industry, and Microsoft has been experimenting with the language for secure and safety-critical software components.[25][26]
Rust has been voted the “most loved programming language” in the Stack Overflow Developer Survey every year since 2016.[27]
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Babel is a free and open-source JavaScript transcompiler that is mainly used to convert ECMAScript 2015+ (ES6+) code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript that can be run by older JavaScript engines. Babel is a popular tool for using the newest features of the JavaScript programming language.[3]
Developers can use new JavaScript language features by using Babel to convert their source code into versions of JavaScript that evolving browsers are able to process.[4] The core version of Babel was downloaded 5 million times a month as of 2016, increasing to 16 million times per week as of 2019.[5][6]
Babel plugins are used to transform syntax that is not widely supported into a backwards-compatible version. For example, arrow functions, which are specified in ES6, are converted into regular function declarations.[7] Non-standard JavaScript syntax such as JSX can also be transformed.[8][9]
Babel provides polyfills to provide support for features that are missing entirely from JavaScript environments. For example, static methods like Array.from and built-ins like Promise are only available in ES6+, but they can be used in older environments if a Babel polyfill is used.[10]
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TypeScript Programming Language
TypeScript is a programming language developed and maintained by Microsoft. It is a strict syntactical superset of JavaScript and adds optional static typing to the language. TypeScript is designed for development of large applications and transcompiles to JavaScript.[4] As TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, existing JavaScript programs are also valid TypeScript programs.
TypeScript may be used to develop JavaScript applications for both client-side and server-side execution (as with Node.js or Deno). There are multiple options available for transcompilation. Either the default TypeScript Checker can be used,[5] or the Babel compiler can be invoked to convert TypeScript to JavaScript.
TypeScript supports definition files that can contain type information of existing JavaScript libraries, much like C++ header files can describe the structure of existing object files. This enables other programs to use the values defined in the files as if they were statically typed TypeScript entities. There are third-party header files for popular libraries such as jQuery, MongoDB, and D3.js. TypeScript headers for the Node.js basic modules are also available, allowing development of Node.js programs within TypeScript.[6]
The TypeScript compiler is itself written in TypeScript and compiled to JavaScript. It is licensed under the Apache License 2.0. TypeScript is included as a first-class programming language in Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 and later, beside C# and other Microsoft languages.[7] An official extension allows Visual Studio 2012 to support TypeScript as well.[8] Anders Hejlsberg, lead architect of C# and creator of Delphi and Turbo Pascal, has worked on the development of TypeScript.[9][10][11][12]
