|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
From Gutenberg to the Internet Timeline An Annotated Chronology of the History of Information from about 30,000 B.C.E. to the present, by Jeremy M. Norman. |
| 1920194019501960 |
|
1951 |
IBM decides to produce their first electronic computer, the 701. It is a machine for scientific applications based on the Princeton IAS design. |
| David Shepard, a cryptanalyst at AFSA, the forerunner of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), builds in "Gismo" in his spare time. Gismo is a machine to convert printed messages into machine language for processing by computer-- the first optical character recognition (OCR) system. | |
|
Three-dimensional magnetic-core memory replaces electrostatic memory on the Whirlwind I, leading to increased performance and reliability. |
| Louis N. Ridenour, Ralph R. Shaw, and Albert G. Hill publish a thin volume entitled Bibliography in an Age of Science. It consists of three lectures delivered at the University of Illinois the previous year. Though it is preceded by journal articles and technical reports, this may be the first separately published book to address the problems of applying new technologies to the searching and storage of printed information in libraries. Shaw's article includes illustrations on pp. 60-61 of the Rapid Selector prototype which is in operation at this time. This machine, which applies the ideas of Emanuel Goldberg (1928-1931) and the Memex idea of Vannevar Bush (1938-1945), stores 72,000 frames of information on a 2,000 foot reel of film. The prototype can search through the data at the rate of 78,000 "codes per minute." "Improvement of this searching speed to 120,000 codes per minute is now in sight." | |
January 8-13 |
The Paris symposium on “Calculating Machines and Human Thought” takes place. Unlike the other early computer conferences, there is no demonstration of a stored-program electronic digital computer. Louis Couffignal demonstrates the prototype of his non-stored-program machine. |
February |
The first Ferranti Mark I version of the Manchester University machine is delivered to Manchester University. Except for the unique BINAC delivered to Northrop Aviation in the United States, the Mark I is the first commercially produced electronic digital computer delivered to a customer. |
March 31 |
UNIVAC I, serial 1, is signed over to the United States Census Bureau. The official dedication occurs on June 14, 1951. Excluding the unique BINAC, the UNIVAC I is the first electronic computer to be commercially manufactured in the United States. Its development precedes the British Ferranti Mark I, but this British machine is actually delivered to its first customer one month earlier than the UNIVAC I. Though the United States Census Bureau owns UNIVAC I, serial 1, Eckert -Mauchly division of Remington Rand retains it in Philadelphia for sales demonstration purposes, and does not actually install it at government offices for twenty-one months. |
April |
Whirlwind I begins operation. It includes the first primitive graphics display on its vectorscope screen. (See Reading 8.7.) |
July 9-12 |
The second English electronic computer conference is held at Manchester to inaugurate the first Ferranti Mark I. There Wilkes introduces the term microprogramming, referring to the design of control circuits. The idea is not widely accepted until the following decade. (See Reading 8.8.) |
July 9-12 |
Bertram V. Bowden, the first computer salesman in England, discusses “The application of calculating machines to business and commerce” at the second English electronic computer conference. (See Reading 10.2.) |
July 9-12 |
At the same conference J. M. Bennett and John Kendrew describe their use of the Cambridge EDSAC for the computation of Fourier Syntheses in the calculation of structure factors of the protein molecule myoglobin. This is the first application of an electronic computer to computational biology. (See Reading 10.3.) |
November 17 |
LEO I (Lyons Electronic Office) runs a program to "evaluate costs, prices and margins of that week's baked output" at tea shop operator J. Lyons and Company in England. This adaptation of the EDSAC is the first stored-program electronic computer to run business programs on a routine basis. “LEO’s early success owed less to its hardware than to its highly innovative systems-oriented approach to programming, devised and led by David Caminer.” |
|
| 1920194019501960 |
(This page was last revised on
June 29, 2008. Please report errors
and broken links to jnorman@jnorman.com.) |
Home | About this Book | Timeline ©2005-2006
| historyofscience.com
| normanpublishing.com Site design and development by tikibobpublishing.com |
