Technological Milestones

We've gotten to where we are by virtue of a number of
significant milestones that have occurred thruout history.
Here are some of them.

1831

• Telegraphy pioneered by John Henry, who doesn't patent his device to put it to practical use.

1832

• Samuel Morse began development of the electric telegraph.

1837

• More patents magnetic telegraph. Code using dots and dashes is devised by Morse's assistant Alfred Lewis Vail.
• Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke patent an electric telegraph.

1876

• Telephone. Alexander Graham Bell transmits first complete sentence.

1887

• First calculating machine to automate multiplication.
• First accurate multicolumn calculating machine to be operated entirely by keys.

1896

• Guglielmo Marcroni pioneers wireless telegraphy.

1906

• Three-electrode vacuum tube amplifier, basis of electronic revolutions
• First radio broadcast of voice and music in Brant Rock, Mass.

1915

• Transcontinental telephone service, between New York and San Francisco.

1920

• World's first radio broadcasting station goes on the air (KDKA, East Pittsburgh).

1927

• Television, first successful demonstration in the USA.
• Trans-Atlantic telephone service, between London and New York.
• Talking movies: The Jazz Singer first successful full-length movie.

1928

• WGY, Schenectady, N.Y. broadcasts first regularly scheduled TV programs.

1929

• World's first tape recorder designed by Louis Blattner, who used steel tape. It's first magnetic recorder with electronic amplification.

1930

• Modern analog computer - invention of differential analyzer by Vannevar Bush, an American electrical engineer, and his colleagues. Used mechanical gears of variable speed to solve differential equations. First practical and reliable device of its kind.

1937

• Xerography pioneered by New York pre-law student. First Xerox image in 1938.

1939

• FM radio receivers go on sale.

1944

• Computer, first automatic, general purpose digital.

1946

• ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) - world's first automatic electronic digital computer.

1948

• Polaroid Land Camera goes on sale.
• Atomic time clock is developed.
• Long-playing (LP) record introduced.

1951

• First coaxial cable system carries first transcontinental U.S. TV broadcast.
• Univac computer introduced on a commercial basis for business and science.
• Transistor. First commercial application- created in 1948 by Bell Telephone Laboratories - used in truck dialing. beginning of direct-dial long-distance telephone service.

1952

• Pocket-size transistor radios introduced.

1954

• First practical silicon transistors introduced by Texas instruments.
• First color TV sets introduced by RCA.

1958

• First U.S. Earth satellite launched.

1959

• Microchip invented by Texas Instruments

1960

• Laser (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is perfected.
• World's first communications satellite, Echo 1, launched.

1962

• Telestar 1 launched. Transmits first live trans-Atlantic telecasts between USA and Britain.

1963

• Transistorized electronic touch-tone telephones introduced.
• Prerecorded audiotapes for homes and automobile use.

1964

• IBM introduces first widely used operating system - OS/360. Although preliminary systems had existed before then, OS/360 provided a single operating system that could run any program on all computers in IBM's System/360 family, allowing users to upgrade their computers to more powerful ones in the family without having to rewrite their application programs.

1965

• Video recorder introduced by Sony - Betamax.

1969

• CompuServe (first commercial on-line service).
• Internet has beginnings as a Department of Defense program. ARPA-NET (Advanced Research projects Agency Network) network for organizations engaged in defense-related research to share research information. original uses of the Internet were electronic mail (commonly called e-mail), file transfer (using ftp, or file transfer protocol), bulletin boards and newsgroups, and remote computer access (telnet),. Internet protocol development is governed by the Internet Architecture Board. The InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center) administers the naming of computers and networks.

1972

• Video game Pong

1974

• Altair - first personal computer, made by MITS using Intel 8080 microprocessor. Assembled from a kit. Popular among computer hobbyists. Commercial appeal limited.

1975

• Microsoft founded in Seattle by Bill Gates, 19, and Paul Allen, 22.
• VHS (video home system).

1976

• Apple Computer founded by Steven Wozinak, 26, and Steven Jobs, 21.
• Fax (facsimile transmission) use increases as second-generation technology cuts transmission time (from 6 minutes per page to 3) and costs decreases.

1977

• Apple II computer introduced. Requires user to use TV set as monitor and stores date on audiocassettes. One of the first pre-assembled., massed-produced PCs. Radio Shack and Commodore Business machines also introduce PCs.

1979

• Compact disc player.

1981

• IBM introduces its first personal computer. Uses MS-DOS

 1982

• Third generation fax (20 seconds per page).
• Space Shuttle deploys communications satellites.

1983

• Cellular telephones. Multiple low-power transmitters scattered across Chicago. Mobile phones existed since 1940s, but service unsatisfactory because there was only one transmitter per city.

1984

• Apple Computer introduces the Macintosh PC family. Adapted the windowing system with a mouse that was originally developed at Xerox Palo Alto research Park.
• Bell Laboratories perfects a 1-megabit random access memory chip.

1985

• Microsoft Windows introduced. Gives MS-DOS-based computers many of the same capabilities of the Macintosh. Becomes dominant operating environment for personal computers.

1986

• Superconductivity discovered (zero resistivity in a ceramic material). Opens potential for faster, more-efficient computers.
• National Science Foundation creates NSFNET. Connects supercomputer sites around the USA. Completely replaces ARPANET by 1988.
• Nintendo video games introduced (The Legend of Zelda).

1989

• Development of the World Wide Web begins. Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues at CERN, an international scientific organization based in Geneva, create HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), standardizing communication between servers and clients.

1990

• PCs become small enough to be completely portable. Include laptop computers, which could rest on one's lap; notebook computers, which were about the size of a notebook; and pocket, or palm-size, computers which would be held in one's hand.

1991

• Then-senator Al Gore introduces legislation to widen NSFNET to connect K-12 schools, community colleges and two-year colleges. Legislation results in NREN (National Research and Education Network), which also lets businesses purchase part of the network for commercial use.

1992

• General release of the www browser.

1993

• World Wide Web browser Mosaic released. Developed in the USA by Marc Andreeson and others at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois. Allowed use of point-and-click graphical manipulators.

1994

• Netscape Communications founded. Becomes the dominant Web browser.

1996

• Netscape sends a letter to the Justice Department accusing Microsoft of deliberately preventing companies such as Netscape from running some types of Internet server software on Microsoft's Windows NT 4.0 Workstation system software.

1997

• Interactive TV launched by H. Thomas Telesis.

1998

• HDTVs go on sale in the USA.