History of Computer

8-Bit Operating Systems (Armory.Com)

Classic 8-bit Computers
 


-A-


A Brief History of Computers and Networks (GoldenInk.Com)



A Chronology of Computer History (Cyberstreet.Com)


A Chronology of Personal Computers (kpolsson - islandnet.com)

A Few Quotes from Silicon Valley History

A Journey Through the History of Information Technology

Photos: History of Computing Information


Artificial Intelligence, History of

A Timeline of Computer and Internet History
 


ABACUS

The Abacus  (Hitmill.com: Good pictures, overview, brief history, definition, counting boards, bibliography, and links for further study)


 

AIKEN, HOWARD HATHAWAY



Howard Hathaway Aiken and the Mark I


Howard Aiken: Makin' A Computer Wonder

Howard Hathaway Aiken, Computer Pioneer

Howard Aiken's Harvard Mark I
 



ALTAIR Computer

Altair 8800 (Wikipedia)


Introduction The Revolution Begins (David Bunnell)

The Altair 8800 and Ed Roberts

Altair History (onlineethics.org)

Early History of the Personal Computer (by Thayer Watkins at San Jose State University)

Brief History of the Altair (highgate.comm.sfu.ca)

The Virtual Altair Museum"

Ed Roberts Interview (virualaltair.com)


What Good is a Computer Without Software? (virtualaltair.com)

How the Personal Computer Was Born (sas.org)

Looking Back on Nearly Three Decades of Personal Computing (by Forrest M. Mims III)

Ed Roberts and the MITS Altair

How the Altair Began (by Stan Veit, the Computer Editor of Popular Electronics Magazine)

Chronology of Personal Computers 1975

Open Letter to Hobbyists from Bill Gates, February 3, 1976


PDF copy of An Open Letter To Hobbyists

Ramblings From Ed Roberts, March 1976


 





ANALYTICAL ENGINE

The Analytical Engine, Table of Contents

Analytical Engine/Babbage
 

APPLE/MACINTOSH


Apple Computer history (apple-history.com)

Steve Jobs Information Page

Woz.org

Making the Macintosh (stanford.edu)

The Apple Museum (theapplemuseum.com)


Books on Apple History

MacPicks (Mac News, Reviews, E-zines)

MacPlaces
 



ARPA, Forerunner of ARPANET and the Internet

ARPA: The Early Days of ARPA, Forerunner of the Internet
 


ATANASOFF, JOHN VINCENT

The John Vincent Atanasoff Virtual Archive

Iowa State University Department of Computer Science, birthplace of the electronic digital computer.

Atanasoff Biography (Hien Chris Do)

Washington Post Obituary

Secret of a Genius: Drive Fast and Don't Look Back
(This is an article about John Atanasoff.)


Inventors of the Modern Computer
This article from the Minining Company discusses the Atanasoff-Berry Computer,
John Vincent Atanasoff, and Clifford Berry.

ATANASOFF-BERRY COMPUTER


Reconstruction of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer
(Article from Ames Lab)

ABC Public Showings: November 1996 and October 1997
 


-B-
 


BABBAGE, CHARLES


Pioneers: Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage Biographical Notes

The Babbage Pges: Biography

Babbage's Analytical Engine

Charles Babbage Institute (U. of Minn.)

Charles Babbage - Bibliographical notes
 (cs.vt.edu)


Picture of Charles Babbage (cs.vt.edu)
 

BACKUS, JOHN

Biography of John Backus  Leader of the team that
developed Fortran programming language


John Backus, Recipient of Alan M. Turing Award
 




BELL, GORDON

Gordon Bell Microsoft Bay Area Research Center; worked on design of PDP-6 at DEC, an antecedent of the PDP-10, one of the first mPs and the first time-sharing computer.


MyLifeBits Project: Vannevar Bush's 1945 Memex Vision Fulfilled (research.microsoft.com)
 



BOOLE, GEORGE


George Boole - Genius of Lincoln (Roger Parsons)


The Calculus of Logic by George Boole (maths.tcd.ie)


Papers by George Boole (ucc.ie - University Library County Cork, Ireland)

George Boole Invents Boolean Algebra

George Boole, Biographical Notes (st-and.ac.uk)
 



BRICKLIN, DANIEL (Co-Creator of VisiCalc)


Daniel Bricklin, First Spreadsheet,VisiCalc

Daniel Bricklin's Web Page

Daniel Bricklin Biography, Long Form


 



BUNNELL, DAVID (Altair, MITS, PC Mag., PC World, MacWorld)

The Third Culture: David Bunnell (edge.org)

Prosumer Media


Upside Tech Magazine's Downside (S.F. Chronicle)



 



BUSH, VANNEVAR


As We May Think (by permission of theatlantic.com)
Article of 1945 by Vannevar Bush

Vannevar Bush Biographical Notes (www.iath.virginia.edu)


Vannevar Bush (livinginternet.com)
 



BYRON, LADY AUGUSTA ADA

Ada Byron (Yale.edu, contributed by Dr. Betty Toole)

Ada's Notes Contributed by Dr. Betty Toole, Yale.Edu

The Birth of the Computer Revolution Yale.edu

Pictures of Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace
 



-C-
 


Calculator Reference, Research Page

Chronology of Computer History (cyberstreet.com)

Chronology of Personal Computers (Ken Polsson)


Computing Science, History of

Computers: From the Past to the Present
 

C++ Programming Language

History of the C++ Programming Language (hitmill.com)

History of C++ (cplusplus.com)
 


CALCULATORS

Timeline History of Calculators


 



CERF, VINTON G. Co-inventor of TCP/IP Protocol for the Internet

ICANN Biographical Notes about Vinton G. Cerf

Vint's Personal Home Page Read about the first 35 years of the "Internet"

How the Internet Came to Be as told by Vinton Cerf

Vinton G. Cerf (isoc.org)


Vinton G. Cerf (Wikipedia page)

Vinton Cerf on the future of e-mail (ComputerWorld: 2001 article)

From Inventing the Enterprise: Vinton G. Cerf (cio.com)


 



CODD, EDGAR F. Database Pioneer, Key Theorist of Databases

Edgar Codd, Database Pioneer, Dead at 79 (usatoday.com)


Edgar Codd, Key Theorist of Databases Dies at 79 in Florida
 


COLOSSUS

The Colossus Rebuild Project (codesandciphers.org.uk)

The Colossus Rebuild Project (project-x.org.uk)

Lorenz Ciphers and the Colossus

1940-1944 The Colossus

Colossus Electronic Programmable (to a limited extent) Computer


Colossus Computer


 



Computer Conservation Society

Computer Conservation Society
 



-D-



DIJKSTRA, EDSGER WYBE Mathematician, Computer Scientist,
  Shortest Path Algorithm, Computer Programmer, Educator

Biographical Notes: Edsger W. Dijkstra (Wipikedia.org)

Edsger Dijkstra, The shortest-path algorithm

Dijkstra's Algorith (Wikipedia.org)

E. W. Dijkstra Archive (utexas.edu)

Dijkstra's Algorith (uwa.edu.au)


GoTo Statement Considered Harmful by Edsger Dijkstra, 1968;
   Article began the structured programming movement.

How Do We Tell Truths that Might Hurt? by Edsger Dijkstra, 1975:
  On old problems in programming

Edsger Dijkstra on universities

Edsger Dijkstra:RIP (death notice)

 





DIGITAL IMAGING

Mona Lisa, Digital Image from 1965

A Brief History of Digital Imaging
 


-E-

ECKERT, J. PRESPER


J. Presper Eckert Interview

The Eckert/ENIAC Collection

 

ENGLEBART, DOUGLAS C.

AUGMENTING HUMAN INTELLECT: A Conceptual Framework A summary report prepared by Douglas C. Englebart for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, October 1962.

Original Computer Mouse Patent

Computer Mouse Demo (video info.)


Facts About the Invention of the Computer Mouse

The Computer Mouse

The Mousesite - a resource for exploring the history of human computer interaction beginning with the pioneering work of Douglas Engelbart and his colleagues at Stanford Research Institute in the 1960s.
 


ENIAC

The ENIAC Story (army.mil)

A Report on the ENAIC (army.mil)

ENAIC - The Army Sponsored Revolution (army.mil)


John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer (upenn.edu)

The Eniac (about.com)

ENIAC Computer Invention (ideafinder.com)

Jean Bartik, The First ENIAC Programmer

 


Ethernet

Networking With Ethernet (entertainmentdesignmag.com)


 



-F-



Fibonnaci Numbers

Fibonnaci Numbers Definition

Fibonnaci Numbers and the Golden Section
 





-F, G-

First, Second, Third, and Fourth Generation Computers
Features of each generation are discussed.
 



-G-
 

Google.Com's Computer History Links


Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present

Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century
 

GATES, WILLIAM H III

An Open Letter To Hobbyists, by Bill Gates

Bill Gate's Web Page at Microsoft

Bill Gates: Biog. notes and p;icture

The "Unofficial" Bill Gates page

Focus Magazine's Interview with Bill Gates


Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation


An Open Letter to Hobbyists - by Bill Gates, 1976 (blinkenlights.com)

William H. Gates III Before Microsoft


Bill Gates Wealth Index
 

GOOD, IRVING JOHN (JACK)

Roanoke Times Article about Jack Good, a memeber of the team that broke the ENIGMA code during WWII


Irving John (Jack) Good Cryptologist, statistician
 



GORE, AL

Al Gore's Support of the Internet
    by Robert E. Kahn and Vinton G. Cerf

Gore to Get Lifetime Award for Internet

Gore Never Did Claim That He Invented the Internet
 



GOSLING, JAMES wrote the Java programming language
From Inventing the Enterprise: James Gosling (cio.com)

James Gosling, On the Java Road

Java - James Gosling (about.com)


 



Graphical User Interface


Graphical User Interface

History of the Graphical User Interface

Graphical User Interface, GUI (apple-history.com)

Mac OS X

Aqua Human Interface Guidelines (developer.apple.com)

GUI Gallery

The History of Graphical User Interfaces
 





-H-
 

Historic Computer Images (army.mil)


History of Computers Article by aleembawany.com


History of Computer Viruses and Attacks (securityfocus.com)


History of Computing (ei.cs.vt.edu)
A compiled directory of categorical links.

History of Computing: Virtual Museum of Computing (VMoC)
This site is a virtual museum which includes an eclectic collection of WWW hyperlinks connected with the history of computing and on-line computer-based exhibits.

History of the Internet (Roads and Crossroads of Internet History (Gregory Gromov's site)

History of the Web Beginning at CERN
 

HOPPER, GRACE



Grace Hopper

The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper

Inventing the Enterprise: Grace Murray Hopper (cio.com)
 


Hewlett-Packard


Hewlett-Packard, History -- Founding Fathers

The Making of Hewlitt-Packard


Dave Packard's 11 Simple Rules
 



-I-
 

IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

Internet History: Roads and Crossroads of Internet History (Gregory Gromov)
 

IBM


IBM Vintage Personal Computers
 


IEEE

IEEE/ISTO Industry Standards and Technology Organization

IEEE Computer Society Home Portal

IEEE Computer Society History of Computing

IEEE Annals of Computer History

IEEE 802.11b - Wireless Ethernet Article by Al Petrick, Vice Chairman of the IEEE 802.11 Standards Committee
 


Internet Explorer

The History of Internet Explorer
 


-J-


JACQUARD, JOSEPH-MARIE


Book: 
Jacquard's Web: How a Hand Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age by James Essinger. Read about this book at Amazon.com


Jacquard Loom

The Jacquard Loom (columbia.edu)

Jacquard's Punched Card

Industrial Revolution: Timeline of Textile Machinery

Biographical Note on Joseph-Marie Jacquard

Biography of Joseph-Marie Jacquard
 




JOBS, STEVE PAUL



Steve Paul Jobs Bio.
 



-K-


KAHN, ROBERT E (co-inventor of TCP/IP Technology for Internet)

Robert E. Kahn Biographical Notes


Robert E. Kahn Awarded National Medal of Technology
 


KING, ADA BYRON

(See BYRON, AUGUSTA ADA)
 

KLEINROCK, LEONARD

Leonard Kleinrock Biography: The Birth of the Internet (ucla.edu)
Leonard Kleinrock was the inventor of the Internet technology known as packet-switching.

Leonard Kleinrock's home page
 


-L-


LEIBNITZ, GOTFRIED von


Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716)
 

LICKLIDER, J.C.R.

Man-Computer Symbiosis by J.C.R. Licklider (PDF file, Memex.org)

The Computer as a Communication Device (PDF file, Memex.org)

by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor (of ARPA)

JCR Licklider (columbia.edu)


J.C.R. Licklider Biography (thocp.net)

J.C.R. Licklider (livinginternet.com)

Six degrees of J.C.R. Licklider traces computer evolution (St.Louis Post Dispatch/wustl.edu)

J.C.R. Licklider in Memoriam (MIT.edu)

The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal (book, by M. Mitchell Waldrop -- see Amazon.com book site)
 




-M-
 

Mind Machine Museum (SFSU.edu)


 

MAUCHLY, JOHN W.

John W. Mauchly and the Development of the ENIAC Computer
 



METCALF, ROBERT M. Ethernet


From Inventing the Enterprise: Robert M. Metcalf (cio.com)

Ethernet (acm.org)

Ethernet PDF Paper: IEEE 802.3


 


Mouse

(See also: Englebart, Douglas)

The Mouse Site
 



-N-

NELSON, TED


Project Xanadu
The original hypertext project...

Ted Nelson home page
 

NYGAARD, KRISTEN


Notes About Kristen Nygaard

 


-O-
 

 



-P-
 

Past Notable Women of Computing and Mathematics


PC Computers, Pre-IBM

Pioneers (Wired Magazine's List of Pioneers of Computing)

Pioneers of Computing
 



PASCAL, BLAISE


Blaise Pascal Quotes to Inspire You


Blaise Pascal Biography
 

PDP Computers

What is a PDP? (Ken Olson/DEC)

PDP-8 (pdp8.net)

PDP-11 History (telnet.hu)
 



-Q-
 


-R-

RITCHIE, DENNIS


Dennis Ritchie Home Page

Interview with Dennis M. Ritchie

Dennis M. Ritchie timeline

Dennis M. Ritchie: From Inventing the Enterprise
 



-S-
 

Shareware, History of

Silicon Valley History (netvalley.com)

Smithsonian Institute's Computer History Collection

 


Shortest Path Algorith


See Dijkstra, Edsger
 





STIBITZ, GEORGE R.


George R. Stibitz, Computer Inventor (1904-1995)

George R. Stibitz in Inventors Hall of Fame

George R. Stibitz Curriculum Vitae

George R. Stibitz, Biography


George R. Stibitz, 1904-1995

 

SYSTEM R

System R (mcjones.org)

System R led to the introduction of the SQL language
 


-T-
 

Tech. History (si.edu)


The Charles Babbage Institute
This is located at the University of Minnesota
Many computer subjects including the history of computers...

The Evolution of the Computer

The History of Shareware

The IEEE Annals of the History of Computing

The Revolutionaries

The Smithsonian Computer History and Information Technology


Timeline: The History of Computers (Maxmon.com)

Well done! Events influencing the history and development of computing.


Tools for Thought (Howard Rheingold)

 

TURING, ALAN


The Alan Turing Home Page

Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954)


Alan Turing and COLOSSUS
 

-U-

UNIVAC COMPUTER

Univac Memories (fourmilab.ch)

Book: The Unsung Heroes of the PC Age
 


-V-
 

Virtual Museum of Computing


Viruses: History of Computer Viruses

Wearable Computing at media.MIT.edu

What was the first computer and who built it?"

Wired Magazine:Browse by Person
This is a list not to be missed. Enjoy.
 

von NEUMANN, JOHN LOUIS


John Lewis von Neumann (1903-1957)



John von Neumann

(Click on hardware in the background of this next reference)

von Neumann Digital Computer
 



-W-

WANG, AN

Dr. An Wang (Magnetic Core Memory) (mit.edu)


An Wang, Hall of Fame Inventor Profile

Book: Dr. an Wang Computer Pioneer

The Doctor and His Calculators

About Wang

An Wang: The Core of the Computer Era

Wang system photos

Photo 1968 Wang Calculator

Wang 363E Calculator


Wang BASIC vs. Microsoft BASIC


 


WILKES, MAURICE VINCENT

Maurice Vincent Wilkes (vt.edu)

Maurice Vincent Wilkes, Brief Biography
 

WIRTH, NIKLAUS

Niklaus Wirth (kzoo.edu)


Niklaus Wirth was the inventor of Pascal, and other languages.
 



WOZNIAK, STEVEN


Steven Wozniak Bio. (cs.vt.edu)

Official Website of the "WOZ"

Apple Computer history
 

-X-


XANADU

Project Xanadu
The original hypertext project...

Xanadu Australia: Problem Definition

Xanadu Secrets Become Udanax Open-Source (1999)

Marc Steigler's 1989 Article Published in the February 1990 Edition of Unix Review is about Hypertext Publishing

 

-Y-


-Z-


 ZUSE, KONRAD

Konrad Zuse
(Use the search engine at this next site to put in the name of Konrad Zuse, in order to navigate to this topic.)

A photograph of Konrad Zuse

Konrad Zuse's Z3 Computer

Konrad Zuse And His Computers