My fearless padlet by Broden Canan

1930's

30cananb — 2024-08-29 13:12:21 UTC

This is called model k adder. It was made by George Stibitz. This device was created on George's kitchen table.

1940's

30cananb — 2024-09-03 13:27:44 UTC

This is the complex number calculator. It uses a connection to NYC with telephone lines

1950's

30cananb — 2024-09-04 13:08:48 UTC

This is one of the first commercial produced computers. This design packed 800 vacuum tubes into a relatively compact 12 square feet.

1960's

30cananb — 2024-09-04 13:25:15 UTC

The title of “first commercially available general-purpose computer” probably goes to Britain’s Ferranti Mark I for its sale of its first Mark I computer to Manchester University. The Mark 1 was a refinement of the experimental Manchester “Baby” and Manchester Mark 1 computers, also at Manchester University. A British government contract spurred its initial development but a change in government led to loss of funding and the second and only other Mark I was sold at a major loss to the University of Toronto, where it was re-christened FERUT.

1970's

30cananb — 2024-09-06 13:32:01 UTC

Gene Amdahl, father of the IBM System/360, starts his own company, Amdahl Corporation, to compete with IBM in mainframe computer systems. The 470V/6 was the company’s first product and ran the same software as IBM System/370 computers but cost less and was smaller and faster.

1980's

30cananb — 2024-09-06 13:34:25 UTC

Commodore releases the VIC-20 home computer as the successor to the Commodore PET personal computer. Intended to be a less expensive alternative to the PET, the VIC-20 was highly successful, becoming the first computer to sell more than a million units. Commodore even used Star Trek television star William Shatner in advertisements.

1990's

30cananb — 2024-09-06 13:36:09 UTC

IBM's 9345 hard disk drive is introduced. Codenamed "Sawmill," it was the first hard disk drive to use magneto-resistive heads. Magneto-resistive heads gave the 9345 an advantage over its competitors, as the bits could be stored more densely. The first model of this 5 ¼-inch disk drive had two 1 GB hard disk assemblies (HDAs) and the second model had two 1.5 GB HDAs.

2000's

30cananb — 2024-09-06 13:37:36 UTC

While most games see a player working towards an end-game scenario, The Sims allows players to create a home, get a job, and form relationships in a free-form world. Designed by a team at Maxis led by Wil Wright, The Sims took concepts from Wright's previous game Sim City. Characters controlled by the player were customizable, and spoke an artificial language called Simlish. The Sims became exceptionally popular with women, who accounted for more than sixty percent of players.

2010's

30cananb — 2024-09-06 13:38:54 UTC

As touchscreen-enabled tablets and smartphones proliferate, mobile games became top-sellers. In Angry Birds, players slingshot wingless birds of various kinds towards towers inhabited by green pigs in an effort to knock them to the ground. Selling for just 99 cents from an online store, Angry Birds and its sequels have had more than two billion downloads.