Computers contain chips made of silicon. Each chip is made of thousands of switches,
which can either be 0 (or) 1. Everything a computer does is done using
just 0s and 1s.
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1642
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Blaise Pascal, France, makes a numerical wheel calculator, an early mechanical adding machine.
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1694
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Gottfried von Leibniz, Germany, makes a machine that can multiply numbers
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1820
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Charles Xavier de Colmar, France, makes a machine an "Arithometer" that can add, subtract, multiply and divide.
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1822
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Charles Babbage, England, devises his Difference Engine.
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1829
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Wheatstone uses punched paper tape to store date.
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1834
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Babbage conceives the Analytical Engine.
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1889
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Hollerith's punch card machine used in US Census.
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1928
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IBM adopts 80-column punched card.
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1944
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Harvard's Mark I, first digital computer
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1952
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Univac computer accurately predicts the US presidential election winner.
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1953
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First IBM electronic digital computer (IBM 701)
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1956
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First hard disk drive (IBM) .Term "artificial intelligence" devised.
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1958
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First chess game between computer & human.
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1967
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IBM releases floppy disk.
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1970
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Douglas Engelbart patents first computer mouse.
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1971
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Intel builds the microprocessor, "computer on a chip". Wang 1200, world's first word processor.
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1972
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E-mail invented by Ray Tomlinson. First electronic video game, pong.
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1975
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Microsoft founded by William H. Gates, later to become the world's richest person.
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1976
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First Apple computer. Cray-1, first supercomputer.
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1979
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Compuserve launches first commercial Bulletin Board (BBN) service.
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1980
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First laptop computers.
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1981
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First Nintendo home video game. Commercial introduction of the computer mouse. Microsoft introduces software for IBM personal computers.
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1982
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Worldwide, 200 computers connected the internet.
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1984
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Apple Macintosh computers launched.
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1985
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Microsoft ships Windows 1.0
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1989
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100,000 hosts on the net.
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1990
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World Wide Web described by Tim Berners-Lee. First palmtop computers.
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1991
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First use of the phrase "surfing the net", by Jean Armour Polly
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1993
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Mosaic, the first graphical Internet browser, launched.
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1994
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135 million PCs worldwide. First ads on the World Wide Web (ad for Wired magazine claimed as first).
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1995
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Amazon.com Internet booksellers founded. Microsoft Internet Explorer browser launched.
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1999
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150 million people use the Internet world wide.
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2002
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ipod digital music players launched.
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2005
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Nearly 200 million broadband lines world wide.
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2006
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Sales of ipods exceed 40 million. More than 1 billion people use the Internet world wide.
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