User:ABWarrick

This “meta-article” shows the chronology of computer hardware and software as a series of tables:
 * Each table has four columns of data.
 * The columns to show the year in which information technology and commercial developments occurred.
 * The table rows are timelines of the following aspects of information technology.
 * 1) 	Computer Systems or hardware innovations
 * 2) 	Microprocessors
 * 3) 	High Level Languages
 * 4) 	Operating Systems
 * 5) 	Networking hardware, software and applications
 * 6) 	Computer Graphics hardware, algorithms and applications
 * 7) 	Spreadsheets
 * 8) 	Word Processing
 * 9) 	Computer Aided Design
 * 10)       Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category
 * 1) 	Computer Graphics hardware, algorithms and applications
 * 2) 	Spreadsheets
 * 3) 	Word Processing
 * 4) 	Computer Aided Design
 * 5)       Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category
 * 1) 	Word Processing
 * 2) 	Computer Aided Design
 * 3)       Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category
 * 1)       Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category
 * 1)       Business Events, normally bankruptcy or selling to another company at a price substantially lower than the company's peak value. Company founding years are shown in the most appropriate category

One of “Moore’s Law's” implications is that computer power per dollar, as measured by Instructions per Second or Floating Point Operations per second, increased considerably over the four years covered in each table. "Moore's Law" is not really a law, it is observation first noted in 1965 by Gordon Moore. Moore published a paper with a graph showing that the number of transistors per integrated circuits had been doubling every year (later modified to every two years). Similar improvements are to be found in hard disk capacity, network capacity, and pixel density. In addition to improvements in computer processors, academic and commercial research in computer science developed better technology in:


 * 1) 	Structured and Object Oriented programming
 * 2) 	Data structures
 * 3) 	Analysis of Algorithms
 * 4) 	Formal languages and compiler construction
 * 5)         Computer Graphics Algorithms
 * 6)         Sorting and Searching
 * 7)         Numerical Methods, Optimization and Statistics
 * 8)         Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
 * 1)         Computer Graphics Algorithms
 * 2)         Sorting and Searching
 * 3)         Numerical Methods, Optimization and Statistics
 * 4)         Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
 * 1)         Numerical Methods, Optimization and Statistics
 * 2)         Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
 * 1)         Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Although there are earlier examples of military computers such as the Harvard Mark I and the Colossus computer at Bletchley Park, the table starts in 1951 with the beginnings of commercial computers and high level languages.

1951-1958
The latter half of the 1950s saw the founding of a few important companies and development of a number of computer languages that form the basis of languages still in use more than five decades later. Academic and commercial computer users develop operating systems.

1959-1966
The early sixties are when computers began to use transistors rather than magnetic memory. Operating systems began to handle multiple users and processes through time sharing. AT&T developed the modem in 1960 to allow communications between computers.

The mid 1960s experienced important contributions in hardware, languages and algorithms for drawing and hiding lines in 3D computer graphics. During this time the business of computers was described as "IBM and the seven dwarfs" before consolidation removed GE and RCA and changed the description to "IBM and the BUNCH" (Burroughs, Univac, NCR, Control Data and Honeywell). This was when companies began to develop mini-computers.

1967-1974
The later years of the ‘60s saw innovations in mini computer systems, like the DEC PDP 11 and Data General Nova. Other innovations include the B and Pascal languages, the Unix operating systems, Arapnet and several computer graphics algorithms.

The early part of the ‘70s showed substantial progress in microprocessors, computer languages, and computer graphics.

1975-1982
The later years in the 70’s introduce personal computers using the MOS Tehnology 6502 and the Zilog Z80. Microprocessors continue to becoming less expensive and faster. Although the processors listed below differ considerably, they all can be considered Complex Instruction Set CPUs.

The high level of innovation in the industry may have contributed to the numberous business failures or reversals in which businesses were sold for a small portion of their peak market capitalization. This trend began to show up in the early ‘80s and accelerated with the demise of most companies making IBM PC compatible “clones.” This period saw the introduction of the Reduced Instruction Set computer (RISC) that accelerated in future years.

1983-1990
The Apple Lisa and Macintosh introduce the first personal computers based on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which was previously developed by Xerox PARC for their Alto and Star systems.

The latter years of the ‘80s continued developments in supercomputing, microprocessors, word processors and spreadsheets. Business failures and consolidation accelerated during this time period.

1991-1998
Microprocessor performance continued to improve for both Reduced and Complex Instruction sets and it was not clear if one or the other would ultimately prevail in the market place. This period saw the demise of two supercomputer companies located in Cambridge, MA, USA that developed massively parallel machines: Thinking Machines and Kendall Square Research.

The latter part of the ‘90s was a very active and competitive time for microprocessor and graphics processor development. Word processing and spreadsheet development slowed as these technologies matured and Microsoft dominated commercial products. IBM’s Deep Blue surprised many by beating the current world chess champion, Gary Kasparov.

1999-2006
The end of the nineties and the beginning of the 2000’s was a period that showed continual improvement in microprocessor, but developments in other areas seemed to be simply incremental. Nvidia and ATI became the only remaining contenders in graphic chips.

Innovations in spreadsheets and word processing slowed as the Microsoft’s Word and Open Office continued to dominate. Gmail and Facebook were launched during 2004. Consolidation quickens in the business of computer aided design.

2007-2014
The launch of the iPhone in 2007 and the iPad in 2010 set Apple computer on a new course where tight integration of hardware and software. Larry Ellison announces that Oracle will focus on integrating hardware and software, purchasing Sun Microsystems in 2010.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system was designed to work on both personal computers and tablets. It was released to a “mixed reception.”