History of Computers by Gavin Lux

1939 - HP is started

31luxg — 2025-09-02 15:43:21 UTC

David Packard and Bill Hewlett found their company in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first invention, the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, was a popular equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures purchase eight of the 200B model to test recording equipment and speaker systems for the 12 specially equipped theatres that showed the movie “Fantasia” in 1940.

1941- Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 Computer

31luxg — 2025-09-02 15:50:11 UTC

The Z3, an old computer built by German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from developments elsewhere, uses 2,300 relays, performs floating point binary arithmetic, and has a 22-bit word length. The Z3 was used for a aerodynamic calculations but it got destroyed in a bombing raid that hit Berlin in late 1943. Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s, which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

1954-IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator introduced

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:11:15 UTC

BM establishes the 650 as its first mass-produced computer, with the company selling 450 in only one year. Spinning at 12,500 rpm, the 650´s magnetic data-storage drum allowed much quicker access to stored information than other drum-based machines. The Model 650 was also very highly popular in universities, where a generation of students started hot to learned programming.

1965-3C DDP-116 introduced

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:13:56 UTC

Designed by the people at the engineer Gardner Hendrie for Computer Control Corporation (CCC), the DDP-116 is officially announced at the 1965 Spring Joint Computer Conference. It was the world's first commercial 16-bit minicomputer and 172 systems were sold. The basic computer cost $28,500.

1979 Atari introduces its Model 400 and 800 computers

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:16:21 UTC

Shortly after the delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designs two microcomputers with games capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The 400 served primarily as a game console, while the 800 was more of a home computer instead of a game console. Both faced strong competition from the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers. Atari's 8-bit computers were influential in the arts, especially in the emerging DemoScene culture of the 1980s and '90s.

1980 Commodore introduces the VIC-20

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:21:20 UTC

Commodore releases the VIC-20 home computer in 1980 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 for their advertisements.

1995 BeBox is released

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:25:44 UTC

Be box was founded by former Apple executive Jean Louis Gassée and a number of former Apple, Next and Sun employees, releases their very own only product – the BeBox. Using dual PowerPC 603 CPUs, and featuring a very large variety of peripheral ports, the very first devices were used for software development. While it did not sell well, the operating system, Be OS, retained a loyal following even after Be stopped producing hardware in 1997 after less than 2,000 machines were produced.

2008 The MacBook Air is released

31luxg — 2025-09-03 15:30:38 UTC

Apple introduces their first ultra notebook which is calle the macbook air. A light, thin laptop with high-capacity battery is something very big to this world. The macbook Air incorporated many of the technologies that had been associated with Apple's MacBook line of laptops, including integrated camera, and Wi-Fi capabilities. To reduce its size, the traditional hard drive was replaced with a solid-state disk, the first mass-market computer to do so is crazy.

2015-Apple Watch

31luxg — 2025-09-04 15:23:48 UTC

Building a computer into the watch form is a huge factor. It has been attempted many times but the release of the Apple Watch leads to a crazy new level of excitement. Incorporating a version of Apple's iOS operating system, as well as sensors for the environmental and health monitoring, the Apple Watch was designed to be incorporated into the Apple environment with compatibility with iPhones and Mac Books. Almost a million units were ordered on the day of release. The Watch has received with great enthusiasm, but critics took issue with the somewhat limited battery life and very high prices.