A Brief History of Computing between 1950 and 1959

1950

Floppy Disk invented at the Imperial University in Tokyo by Doctor Yoshiro Nakamats, the sales license for the disk was granted to IBM.

1950

The British mathematician and computer pioneer Alan Turing declared that one day there would be a machine that could duplicate human intelligence in every way and prove it by passing a specialized test. In this test, a computer and a human hidden from view would be asked random identical questions. If the computer were successful, the questioner would be unable to distinguish the machine from the person by the answers.

1951

High level language compiler invented my Grace Murray Hopper.

1951

Whirlwind, the first real-time computer was built for the US Air Defence System.

1951

UNIVAC-1. The first commercially available electronic computer, UNIVAC I, was also the first general purpose computer - designed 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 in 1951.

1952

EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer) completed at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, USA (by Von Neumann and others).

1953

Estimate that there are 100 computers in the world.

1953

Magnetic Core Memory developed.

1954

FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) development started by John Backus and his team at IBM -continuing until 1957. FORTRAN is a programming language, used for Scientific programming.

1956

First conference on Artificial Intellegence held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

1957

First Dot Matrix printer marketed by IBM.

1957

FORTRAN developement finsihed. See 1954.

1957

"I have travelled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall.

1958

LISP (interpreted language) developed, Finished in 1960. LISP stands for 'LISt Processing', but some call it 'Lots of Irritating and Stupid Parenthesis' due to the huge number of confusing nested brackets used in LISP programs. Used in A.I. developement. Developed by John McCarthy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

1958 - September 12

The integrated circuit invented by Jack St Clair Kilby at Texas Instruments. Robert Noyce, who later set up Intel, also worked separately on the invention. Intel later went on to invent perfect the microprocessor. The patent was applied for in 1959 and granted in 1964. This patent wasn't accepted by Japan so Japanese businesses could avoid paying any fees, but in 1989 - after a 30 year legal battle - Japan granted the patent; so all Japanese companies will pay fees up until the year 2001 - long after the patent became obsolete in the rest of the World!

1959

Computers built between 1959 and 1964 are often regarded as 'Second Generation' computers, based on transistors and printed circuits - resulting in much smaller computers. More powerful, the second generation of computers could handle interpreters such as FORTRAN (for science) or COBOL (for business), that accepting English-like commands, and so were much more flexible in their applications.

1959

COBOL (COmmon Business-Orientated Language) developed by Grace Murray Hopper, finished in 1961.