1950s Date Place Event Sweden BARK was finished in Sweden. Next to come was BESK in 1953. US SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) demonstrated at US NBS in Washington, DC – was the first fully functional stored-program computer in the U.S. It was the first computer to do most of its logic with a solid-state device, the diode.UKThe Pilot ACE computer, with 800 vacuum tubes, and mercury delay lines for its main memory, became operational on 10 May 1950 at the National Physical Laboratory near London. It was a preliminary version of the full ACE, which had been designed by Alan Turing. US SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) demonstrated at UCLA in Los Angeles; fastest computer in the world until IAS machine. GER Konrad Zuse leased his Z4 machine to the ETH Zurich for five years. Z4 was a relay-based machine. The corresponding contract was signed in the fall of 1949, and the machine reassembled in Zurich after its arrival in July 1950. The Z4 was replaced by ERMETH, a computer developed at the ETH in Switzerland from 1953 to 1956, one of the first electronic computers on the European continent. Oct UK Turing TestThe British mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing published a paper describing the potential development of human and computer intelligence and communication. The paper would come later to be called the Turing Test. US TIME magazine cover story on the Harvard "Mark III: Can man build a superman?" includes a quote from Howard Aiken, commenting on "calculators" (computers) then under construction: "We'll have to think up bigger problems if we want to keep them busy." US The first commercially successful electronic computer, UNIVAC, was also the first general-purpose computerdesigned to handle both numeric and textual information. Designed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, whose corporation subsequently passed to Remington Rand. The implementation of this machine marked the real beginning of the computer era. Remington Rand delivered the first UNIVAC machine to the U.S. Bureau of Census. This machine used magnetic tape for input. US Whirlwind, the first real-time computer was built at MIT by the team of Jay Forrester for the US Air Defense System, became operational. This computer is the first to allow interactive computing, allowing users to interact with it using a keyboard and a cathode-ray tube. The Whirlwind design was later developed into SAGE, a comprehensive system of real-time computers used for early warning of air attacks. UK J. Lyons, a United Kingdom food company, famous for its tea, made history by running the first business application on an electronic computer. A payroll system was run on Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) a computer system designed by Maurice Wilkes who had previously worked on EDSAC. UK The oldest known recordings of computer generated music were played by the Ferranti Mark 1 computer. The Mark 1 is a commercial version of the Manchester Mark 1 machine from the University of Manchester. The music program was written by Christopher Strachey. US EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer). The first computer to use magnetic tape. EDVAC could have new programs loaded from the tape. It was built by the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, and delivered to the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. Australia CSIRAC used to play musicthe first time a computer was used as a musical instrument. US The A-0 high-level compiler is invented by Grace Murray Hopper. US IBM introduces the IBM 701, the first computer in its 700 and 7000 series of large scale machines with varied scientific and commercial architectures, but common electronics and peripherals. Some computers in this series remained in service until the 1980s. US IAS machine completed at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, US (by Von Neumann and others).1952FranceBull introduces the Gamma 3. A dual-mode decimal and binary computer that sold over 1200 units, becoming the first computer produced in over 1000 units. USSR BESM-1 is completed. Only one BESM-1 machine was built. The machine used approximately 5,000 vacuum tubes. UK The University of Manchester team complete the first transistorised computer. US Arthur Andersen was hired to program the payroll for General Electric (GE)'s Appliance Park manufacturing facility near Louisville, Kentucky. As a result, GE purchased UNIVAC I which became the first-ever commercial computer in the US. Joe Glickauf was Arthur Andersen's project leader for the GE engagement. World Estimate that there are 100 computers in the world. US Magnetic-core memory developed. US FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation), the first high-level programming language development, was begun by John Backus and his team at IBM. The development continued until 1957. It is still in use for scientific programming. Before being run, a FORTRAN program needs to be converted into a machine program by a compiler, itself a program. US The IBM 650 is introduced. A relatively inexpensive decimal machine with drum storage, it becomes the first computer produced over 2000 units. US The NORC was delivered by IBM to the US Navy.1955USCarl Frosch and Lincoln Derick discover surface passivation by silicon dioxide. US First conference on artificial intelligence held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. US The Bendix G-15 computer was introduced by the Bendix Corporation. NED Edsger Dijkstra invented an efficient algorithm for shortest paths in graphs as a demonstration of the abilities of the ARMAC computer. The example used was the Dutch railway system. The problem was chosen because it could be explained quickly and the result checked. Dijkstra also made important contributions to many areas of computing – in particular on problems relating to concurrency, such as the invention of the semaphore.1957USFrosch and Derick manufacture the first semiconductor oxide(SiO2) field effect transistors; the first planar transistors, in which drain and source were adjacent at the same surface. US First dot matrix printer marketed by IBM.1957FranceThe Gamma 60 is announced by Bull, becoming the first computer featuring an architecture specially designed for parallelism. US FORTRAN development finished. See 1954. US US Programming language LISP (interpreted) developed, Finished in 1960. LISP stands for 'LISt Processing'. Used in AI development. Developed by John McCarthy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. USSR Setun, a balanced ternary computer developed in 1958 at Moscow State University. US The integrated circuit invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments. Robert Noyce, who later set up Intel, also worked separately on the invention. Intel later went on to perfect the microprocessor. The patent was applied for in 1959 and granted in 1964. This patent was not accepted by Japan so Japanese businesses could avoid paying any fees, but in 1989after a 30-year legal battleJapan granted the patent; so all Japanese companies paid fees up until the year 2001long after the patent became obsolete in the rest of the world. –1964 World Computers based on discrete transistors and printed circuits are regarded as second-generation computers which are typically smaller, more powerful and more reliable. Early examples include Philco Corporation Transac S-2000 (1958)Transac S-2000 computerhistory.org and RCA 501 (1959).Harman, Alvin J. (1971) The International Computer Industry: Innovation and Comparative Advantage Harvard University Press p11,8 UKChristopher Strachey, who became Oxford University's first professor of computation, filed a patent application for time-sharing. He passed the concept on to J. C. R. Licklider at a UNESCO-sponsored conference on Information Processing in Paris that year. US COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language) developed by Grace Murray Hopper as the successor to FLOW-MATIC, finished in 1961. USSR Minsk mainframe computer development and production begun in the USSR. Stopped in 1975.1959USFollowing Frosch and Derick research at Bell Labs, Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng proposed a silicon MOS transistor in 1959. US The silicon integrated circuit developed by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor, using Jean Hoerni's planar process. In contrast to Kilby's germanium integrated circuit, Noyce developed a silicon integrated circuit, using Jean Hoerni's planar process. US Douglas E. Eastwood and Douglas McIlroy of Bell Labs created Macro SAP, the first programming language with advanced macro capabilities. The following year McIlroy published a seminal paper in the fields of macro processors and programming language extensibility.
1960s Date Place Event1960USA working MOSFET is built by a team at Bell Labs. E. E. LaBate and E. I. Povilonis made the device; M. O. Thurston, L. A. D’Asaro, and J. R. Ligenza developed the diffusion processes, and H. K. Gummel and R. Lindner characterized the device. USEUR ALGOL, first structured, procedural, programming language to be released. UK The first compiler-compiler is released. US APL programming language released by Kenneth Iverson at IBM. US The AN/UYK-1 (TRW-130) computer was designed with rounded edges to fit through the hatch of ballistic missile submarines, as part of the first satellite navigation system, Transit.1961USThe Molecular Electronic Computer, the first integrated circuits general-purpose computer (built for demonstration purposes, programmed to simulate a desk calculator), was built by Texas Instruments for the US Air Force. UK ATLAS is completed by the University of Manchester team. This machine introduced many modern architectural concepts: spooling, interrupts, pipelining, interleaved memory, virtual memory and paging. It was the most powerful machine in the world at the time of release. US Work begun on the LINC, the brainchild of the MIT physicist Wesley A. Clark in May 1961. It was the first functional prototype of a computer scaled down to be optimized and priced for the individual user (about $43,600). Used for the first time at the National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland in 1963. Many consider it to be the first personal computer, despite the big dimension of some elements, e.g. the memory rack. US Spacewar!, an early and highly influential computer game, is written by MIT student Steve Russell. The game ran on a DEC PDP-1. Competing players fired at each other's space ships using an early version of a joystick. US Mouse conceived by Douglas Engelbart.