SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENTS IN BOLD.
1960
- Digital Equipment Corporation [DEC], led by co-founder Kenneth Olsen, introduces the state-of-the art PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor), the first commercial computer with a keyboard and a monitor. Said to have stimulated the hacker culture and inspired the first video game Spacewar!
- Edsger W. Dijkstra and Jaap A. Zonneveld produce the first (X1) implementation of the ALGOL 60 programming language.
- John McCarthy of MIT publishes LISP, the second-oldest programming language in widespread use today behind only Fortran, developed by IBM in 1957. LISP became a program of choice for the development of artificial intelligence applications.
- Project Xanadu founded by Ted Nelson (first hypertext project)
- Paul Baran of the Rand Corporation develops the principle of “packet switching” attempting to design a decentralized, redundant communications system survivable in a nuclear attack. Work summarized in an 11-volume report entitled On Distributed Communications, published by Rand, 1964
- The first computerized travel reservation system, SABRE, begins at American Airlines; designed by IBM.
1961
- Rolf Landauer first formulates Landauer’s principle having to do with logically-reversible computation, entropy, and heat – key to quantum computing and information.
- John McCarthy promotes the idea of a multiple-access computer (MAC) with several users of a computer at the same time.
1962
- Psychologist and computer scientist, J.C.R. Licklider of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BNN) co-presents a paper on “On-Line Man-Computer Communication.” He begins to refer to an “Intergalactic Computer Network,” effectively conceptualizing what will become the Internet and cloud computing. In October, Licklider becomes the first head of the computer research program at the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA); starts work on the idea of time-sharing computer systems.
- At MIT, Ivan Sutherland uses the TX-2 computer to write Sketchpad, the origin of graphical programs used for computer-aided design.
- Roger Tomlinsonleads development of the Canada Geographic Information System, the world’s first geographic information system (GIS).
- Light-emitting-diode (LED) invented by Nick Holonyak,Jr.
1963
- Ivan Sutherland writes the revolutionary Sketchpad program and runs it on the Lincoln TX-2computer at MIT.First computer mouse (Bill English and Douglas Engelbart).
- The computer language, BASIC, developed at Dartmouth College.
- John McCarthy established the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL)
1964
- IBM announces the System/360 in six models with 32-bit architecture.
- John George Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz run the first program created in BASIC (Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), an easy to learn high level programming language that will eventually be included on many computers and even some games consoles.
- PL/I(Programming Language I), a block-structured computer language, is created by George Radin while at IBM.
- Programma 101 is announced at the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, NY. Invented by the Italian engineer Pier Giogio Perotto. It is the first commercial programmable desktop computer.
1965
- Douglas Davies at UK’s National Physical Laboratory pioneers the development of “packet switching” based on the “bursty” nature of computer network traffic – independently of Paul Baran’s theoretical work at Rand in 1960.
- Gordon Moore describes the exponential growth in computing power which will become known as Moore’s Law (Ted Nelson asserts Douglas Engelbart gave Moore the idea)
- Computer scientists and chemists join in DENDRAL (dendritic algorithms) begins at Stanford University to help chemists identify organic molecules. Pioneers artificial intelligence in the United States and spawns computer software expert system.
- Niklaus Wirth develops the dynamically-typed programming language, Euler.
1966
- Donald Davies first describes the concept of an “Interface computer” at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory – something we know today as a router – that sits between the user equipment and the packet network (which he described in 1965)
- Roger MacGown and Frederick Ordway first suggest the concept of machine superorganisms in Intelligence in the Universe.
- Martin Richards designs the BCPL programming language.
1967
- Engineer Jack Kilby designs the first IC-based electronic calculator; gains Texas Instruments valuable patents.
1968
- First book printed completely using electronic composition, the American edition of Andrew Garve’s thriller The Long Short Cut.
- Federico Faggin & Tim Klein develop method at Fairchild Semiconductor to increase density and speed of transistors on an integrated circuit called “silicon (opposed to aluminum) gate technology;” leads to Intel’s 4004 chip in 1971.
- Intel is founded by Gordon E. Moore and Robert Noyce in Mountain View, California.
- In what became known as “The Mother of All Demos,” Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute’s Augmentation Research Center demonstrates for the first time the computer mouse, the video conference, teleconferencing, hypertext, word processing, hypermedia, object addressing, the dynamic linker, and a collaborative real-time editor using NLS.
- First volume of Donald Knuth’s The Art of Computer Programming appears.
1969
- The first ARPANET message is sent between computers at UCLA and the Stanford Research Institute (October). The first permanent ARPANET link is established, between Interface Message Processors at UCLA and Stanford.
- Gary Starkweather invents the laser printer at Xerox Corp.
- The first operating system, UNIX OS, released.
- The charged-coupled device (CCD) is invented at AT&T Bell Labs, used as the electronic imager in still and video cameras.
- Machine-Readable Cataloguing (MARC) systems installed in the Library of Congress under the leadership of Henriette Avram; put 3×5 card catalog files into electronic form; becomes national library standard in 1971, international standard in 1973; a landmark in turning librarianship into information science.
1970
- Palo Alto Research Center opens (XeroxPARC)
- Datapoint 2200 announced. A mass-produced programmable terminal, designed by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) founders Phil Ray and Gus Roche.
- Swiss computer scientist Niklaus Wirth publishes the Pascal programming language.
1971
- Michael Hart posts the first e-book, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, on the University of Illinois’s mainframe computer, the origin of Project Gutenberg.
- The Unix Programmer’s Manualis published.
- Intel Corporation releases the world’s first commercially available monolithic microprocessor, the 4004 (design team led by Federico Faggin)
- Ray Tomlinson of Bolt, Beranek, and Newman (BNN) sends the first e-mail between host computers and introduces the @ sign.
- IBM debuts a “floppy disk” 8 inches square – the first portable storage device
- “Silicon Valley” first used as a term in print, Electronic News, January 11.
1972
- Invented by Ralph H. Baer, Magnavox Corporation releases the first video game console connectable to a television set.
- The First International Conference on Computer Communications is held in Washington DC, and hosts the first public demonstration of ARPANET.
- Atari releases Pong, one of the first video games; devised by Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn.
1973
- Xerox PARC releases the Xerox Alto, the first computer designed to support an operating system based on a graphical user interface.
1974
- Derek J. de Solla Price and Greek nuclear physicist Charalampos Karakalos publish a paper in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society called “Gears of the Greeks” detailing their treatment of the 82 fragments of the Antikythera Mechanism by X rays and gamma rays; dated to between 1st and 3rd c. BC, found originally as part of a shipwreck off the island of Antikythera in 1901; considered ancient Greek analog computer used for astronomical calculations.
1975
- Altair 8800 is released, sparking the era of the “personal computer.”
- The MOS Technology 6502 is introduced with an 8-bit processor designed by a team led by Chuck Peddle, the cheapest full-featured processor on the market.
- The so-called “Jargon File” created at Stanford, a first dictionary of slang for computer programmers.
- William Gates III takes a leave of absence from Harvard.