Computer Hardware Timeline

The development of computing devices in chronological order. (This list is an ongoing project and subject to change, there is still a lot to do, but if you would like to add anything please contact me)

Abacus (Babylonia)

Antikythera mechanism Early Analog device.
Astrolabe (Greece)

Slide rule Analog device

Pascals Calculator Analog device

Bouchon -Paper tape First use of paper tape to program looms

J.H. Muller Difference Engine Engineer in the Hessian army conceived the idea of a difference engine
(Muller never received funding to build this engine)

Jacquard punch card Chain of punch cards to program looms

Arithmometer First digital mechanical calculator

Babbage Difference Engine Proposed mechanical general purpose computer
(Babbage recieve £1700 from government to start project but it was abandonned in 1842)

Babbage Analytical Engine Proposed mechanical general purpose computer
(Charles Babbage never actual built this device)

Hollerith tabulator Electromechanial puncard tabulating machine

Alan Turing Principles of modern computing described in the seminal paper.

Computing-Tabulating-Recording CompanyThe start of IBM

IBM name adopted CTR changes name to Internationl Business Machines.

Konrad Zuse -Z3 Worlds first electromechanical computer.

Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC) First Automatic electronic digital computer
(The ABC was not programmable nor Turing complete)

Colossus Computer World’s first programmable, electronic, digital computer

IBM Harvard Mark I IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator(ASCC)

ENIAC -Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer Was the first electronic general-purpose programmable computer.

Depending who you talk to there are some opinions about who made the first
working digital computer, for a more in-depth discussion follow this link.

Comparisons with other early programmable digital computers

WITCH Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell (WITCH)

Manchester Transistor digital computer
IBM 701 mainframes IBM’s 700 series Mainframe coputers (Valve based)

TRIDIC Transistor digital computer

Metrovick 950 Built from 1956 onwards by British company Metropolitan-Vickers

IBM 7000 mainframes IBM’s 7000 series Mainframe coputers (Transistor based)

DEC PDP1 First computer in Digital Equipment Corporation’s PDP series

Atlas Computer Development between the University of Manchester, Ferranti, and Plessey

IBM System 360 IBM’s highly suscesful mainframe computer.
CDC 6600 computer Control Data Corporations flagship mainframe
IBM Data Cell Drive Announced Random access device that could store up to 400 million alphanumeric characters

DEC PDP 8 The first successful commercial minicomputer. DEC introduced it on March 22, 1965 for a price of $18,500
IBM 1130 IBM’s least expensive computer at the time, more info at IBM1130.org

HP 2116A Hewlett-Packard entered the mini computer market
ILLIAC IV First attempts at a massively parallel computer system

Mouse The first ball-based computer mouse in 1968, Telefunken Rollkugel RKS 100-86 for their TR 86 process computer system.

Data General Nova The Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General it was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks.

Honeywell 316 The H-316 was used by Charles H. Moore to develop the first complete, stand-alone implementation of Forth at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, they were also used as ARPANET Interface Message Processor

DEC PDP 11

8” floppy diskThe first floppy disks, developed in the late 1960s & came available in IBM PC’s

Atari founded
Cray Research founded

Micral first microprocessor PC

Altair 8800
Data General Eclipse

Olivetti P6060

Tandem Computers
5.25” floppy disk Shugart Associates introduve the first 5.25” floppy

Apple II
5.25” floppy

DEC VAX 11

Atari 400, 800

Seagate hard disk drive

IBM PC

Commodore 64
3.5” floppy Sony introduce the 3.5” floppy diskette, used in the Sony SMC70, it quickely became the de-facto standard for perosnal computers.

Apple Lisa

Apple Mac
Apple Lisa 2

PC Limited

Tandem Nonstop VLX

Thinking Machine CM2
Tera Computer Founded

Dell founded
[3.5” disk]

NeXT Founded

ETA10
CD-R

Apple Switches to PowerPC

HP 95LX
Palmtop PC

Intel PPGA

VESA Local Bus

IBM Deep Blue chess computer

USB 1.0

Compaq buys Tandem
CD-RW

iMac

USB 2

Apple iPod

Mac Mini

Apple transition to Intel processor

Apple iPhone 1

USB 3.0

Apple iPad
Apple iPhone 4

Apple iPhone 4s

Apple iPhone 5
Raspberry Pi 1
MicroSoft Surface

Apple iPhone 5C & 5S

Apple iPhone 6 & 6+

Apple Watch Apple iPhone 6S& 6S+

Apple iPhone SE
Raspberry Pi 3
BBC Microbit