History of Computers by | Emma S. |

Hewlett-Packard is founded (1939)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:04:32 UTC

David Packard and Bill Hewlett found their company in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product, the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, became a popular piece of test equipment for engineers.

Bell Labs Relay Interpolator is completed (1943)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:10:13 UTC

The US Army asked Bell Laboratories to design a machine to accommodate in testing its M-9 gun director, a type of analog computer that aims large guns to their targets. Mathematician George Stibitz recommends using a relay-based calculator for the project. The result was the Relay Interpolator, later called the Bell Labs Model II.

Ferranti Mark 1 sold (1951)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:13:30 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.

CDC 6600 supercomputer introduced (1964)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:14:52 UTC

The Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6600 performs up to 3 million instructions per second —three times faster than that of its closest competitor, the IBM 7030 supercomputer.

First Kenbak-1 sold (1971)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:16:42 UTC

Designed by John V. Blankenbaker using standard medium-- and small-scale integrated circuits, the Kenbak-1 relied on switches for input and lights for output from its 256-byte memory.

Commodore introduces the Commodore 64(1982)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:18:39 UTC

The C64, as it is better known, sells for $595, comes with 64 KB of RAM and features impressive graphics

Powerbook series of laptops is introduced (1991)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:20:09 UTC

Apple's Macintosh Portable meets with little success in the marketplace and leads to a complete redesign of Apple's line of portable computers.

The Amazon Kindle is released (2007)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:22:11 UTC

Many companies have attempted to release electronic reading systems dating back to the early 1990s. Online retailer Amazon released the Kindle, one of the first to gain a large following among consumers.

Apple Watch (2015)

29smithe — 2023-11-03 12:23:07 UTC

Building a computer into the watch form factor has been attempted many times but the release of the Apple Watch leads to a new level of excitement.