Technology Timeline

1927 Electronic television: Philo T. Farnsworth, San Francisco, 7 September 1927

1935 Magnetic audiotape recorder: AEG K1 Magnetophon, Germany

1938 Z1 computer: Konrad Zuse, Germany

1937-39 ABC computer: Atanasoff & Berry, Iowa State Univ

1940 Two-way radio: Motorola SCR 536 Handie Talkie

1944 Harvard Mark 1 computer: designed by Howard Aiken, built by IBM

1945 Memex (memory extension) machine proposed: Vannevar Bush, Manhattan Project

1946 ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, Mauchly and Eckert, Univ of Pennsylvania

1946 Television set: RCA 630-TS

1947 Transistor: invented by Bell Labs team including William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain

1948 Vinyl LP, long-playing 12-inch music disc: Columbia Records

1950 Diners Club: first payments card

1951 UNIVAC, Universal Automatic Computer, first to use magnetic tape, Mauchly and Eckert

1954 Mass-produced computer: IBM 650

1954 Solid state silicon transistor: Bell Labs

1954 Photovoltaic cell: Bell Labs. Solar power. Precursor to charge-coupled devices (CCD) and fiber-to-copper coupler

1955 Portable transistor radio: Sony TR-63

1956 Magnetic videotape recorder: Ampex VR-1000 quadruplex

1956 First generalized computer language: Fortran, IBM

1956 William Shockley founds Shockley Semiconductor in Mountain View, first to support silicon use for semiconductors. Silicon Valley pioneer.

1957 Orbital satellite: Sputnik

1957 High-fidelity stereo LP

1957 Fairchild Semiconductor: researchers leave Shockley Semi to form Fairchild

1958 ARPA: Advanced Research Projects Agency, later DARPA. Founded in response to "Sputnik Crisis"

1958 American Express charge card

1958 Revolving consumer credit: BankAmericard: Bank of America. 1966 Visa interbank consortium

1959 Silicon chip, integrated circuit: Fairchild Semi

1959 First completely transistorized mainframe computer: IBM 7090

1959 Xerographic plain paper photocopier: Xerox

1960 Laser: Hughes Research Labs et al.

1961 Packet switching: Paul Baran, RAND Corporation

1962 Intergalactic Computer Network described, J.C.R. Licklider, Bolt Beranek and Newman

1962 Augment human intellect with computers and networks: Doug Engelbart, SRI

1962 Orbital satellite + PV cells + commercial telecommunications: Telstar I

1963 Hypertext: Ted Nelson

1963 Compact audiotape cassette recorder: Philips

1963 Computer graphics program with graphical user interface: Sketchpad, Ivan Sutherland

1964 Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan

1964 On Distributed Communications Networks, Paul Baran

1964 Music synthesizer: Robert A. Moog

1965 Minicomputer: Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8

1965 Moore’s Law: Number of transistors on an integrated chip doubles every 18 months; Gordon Moore

1966 Revolving consumer credit: Interbank Card Association: 1969 Master Charge, 1979 MasterCard

1966 Visa interbank consortium

1967 The Medium is the Massage, Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore

1968 Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand

1968 The Art of Computer Programming (TAOCP), Donald Knuth

1968 Intel: Fairchild Semi veterans Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, founders

1968 December: Mouse + GUI + Hypertext + Video Conferencing: Doug Engelbart with Bill English, SRI

1969 ARPANet: Interconnects networks at SRI, UC-Santa Barbara, UCLA, Univ of Utah

1969 Future Shock, Alvin Toffler

1969 Unics: Bell Labs, renamed Unix

1969 Fiber optics: CCD converts light into digital signal, Bell Labs

1970 Xerox PARC, Palo Alto Research Center

1971 Microprocessor: Intel 4004

1971 Email: ARPANET @

1971 Handheld scientific calculator: HP 35

1972 Digital audio: Denon

1973 Personal computer + GUI + mouse: Xerox Alto, PARC

1973 TCP/IP: Vinton Cerf, Stanford Univ and Bob Kahn, DARPA

1974 Internet named: Bob Kahn, DARPA and Vint Cerf, Stanford Univ in paper on TCP

1974 Computer Lib / Dream Machines, Ted Nelson

1975 Personal computer: Altair 8800

1975 Homebrew Computer Club: Meets to demo Altair 8800, includes Gordon French, Fred Moore, Steve Wozniak

1975 Microsoft: Bill Gates and Paul Allen, Albuquerque

1975 Home videotape cassette recorder: Sony Betamax

1976 Apple Computer, Cupertino

1976 Personal computer: Apple I

1976 Home videotape cassette recorder: JVC VHS

1976 Ethernet: PARC

1976 SATNet packet program: Links US, Europe by commercial orbital satellites

1977 First successful mass-produced personal computer: Apple II

1977 Public key cryptography: Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, Leonard Adleman; later form RSA Security

1977 Wireless Internet: SRI van on Interstate 280 broadcasts TCP through satellite and wired ARPANET lines to USC, Los Angeles

1978 CBBS: Public dial-up bulletin board system

1979 USENet BBS

1979 Personal media: Sony Walkman

1979 Macintosh: Steve Jobs, Apple team visit PARC, view networked PCs, bitmapped GUI, object oriented programming

1981 Mass-produced personal computer: IBM PC 5150

1981 Digital camera with CCD: Sony Mavica

1982 Portable video camera for consumers: Sony Betamovie

1982 Portable laptop computer: GRiD Compass 1101

1983 Internet: ARPANET adopts TCP/IP for massive interconnection of unrelated networks

1983 Domain Name Server: Univ of Wisconsin

1983 Digital music: CD, Compact Disc: Sony and Philips

1983 Mobile telephony: Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

1984 Breakup of Bell System. 1994: Baby Bells acquire Internet backbone

1984 Mass-produced personal computer + GUI + mouse: Apple Macintosh

1984 Neuromancer, William Gibson

1984 "Information wants to be free," Stewart Brand

1984 "The Network Is the Computer," John Gage, Sun Microsystems

1985 The WELL: Stewart Brand et al.

1985 Desktop publishing: Aldus PageMaker

1986 Digital video: Sony DVR 1000, D-1 digital videotape

1987 Digital audio: Sony DAT, digital audio tape

1988 Digital cinema: AVID solid state non-linear video editing

1988 Cellular telephony: Global System for Mobile Communications, GSM

1988 Digital photo editing and effects: Adobe Photoshop

1989 Consumer GPS receiver: Magellan NAV 1000

1989 Mobile telephony: Motorola MicroTAC

1991 Technology: 6 August: Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau launch the World Wide Web to the public from a NeXt server at CERN, info.cern.ch

1991 Internet browser: Gopher, Paul Lindner and Mark McCahill, Univ of Minnesota

1991 Portable laptop computer: Apple PowerBook

1991 High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991

1991 Consumer digital camera: Logitech FotoMan

1992 JPEG compression standard for still images

1992 SMS text message: Neil Papworth to Richard Jarvis, Vodafone: “MERRY CHRISTMAS"

1993 MP3 compression standard for audio

1993 MPEG compression standard for video

1993 Graphical web browser: Mosaic, Marc Andreessen, Univ of Illinois + NCSA

1993 Personal digital assistant: Apple Newton

1993 Digital cinema: digital special effects integrated with live action celluloid film: Jurassic Park

1993 Digital advertising agency: Organic, Inc. 

1994 NSF auctions original four network access points to Baby Bells: MAE Washington to WorldCom; San Francisco to PacBell; Pennsauken to Sprint; Chicago to Ameritech

1994 Search + cataloging: Yahoo!

1994 Consumer modem: USRobotics Sportser

1994 Digital advertising agency: Razorfish 

1995 RSA Security splits, forms VeriSign, website verification authority

1995 Digital cinema: Toy Story

1995 Search: AltaVista

1995 Amazon.com

1995 DV: Digital video format for camcorders

1996 Mobile telephony: Motorola StarTAC, first clamshell flip-phone

1996 Blog: Scripting News, Dave Winer

1997 Wi-fi wireless radio networking protocol

1997 DVD, Digital Video Disc: Philips, Sony, Toshiba and Panasonic

1997 Home cinema: Pioneer 42-inch plasma flat screen TV

1997 Personal digital assistant: Palm Pilot

1998 Search: Google

1998 Bluetooth short-range radio protocol

1998 Personal media player: Diamond Rio PMP300

1998 Cloud computing: VMware all-OS hypervisor

1998 World Wide Web is global

1999 Digital cinema: Apple Final Cut Pro solid state non-linear video editing

1999 Blog + social network: LiveJournal

1999 Peer-to-peer payments: PayPal

1999 Peer-to-peer online media distribution: Napster

1999 Personal digital assistant: RIM Blackberry 850

1999 Personal digital assistant: Handspring Visor

2000 Consumer GPS: US government switches off selective availability limits

2001 Search + cataloging: Wikipedia

2001 Digital media marketplace, royalties and rights distribution: Apple iTunes

2001 Personal media player: Apple iPod

2001 Digital cinema: Star Wars Episode II; Once Upon a Time in Mexico live action features

2002 Peer-to-peer anonymous interbank payments: Settlenet

2002 Social network: Friendster

2003 Digital cinema: Walter Murch edits Cold Mountain on location in Final Cut Pro on Apple laptop

2003 Social network: LinkedIn

2003 Social network: Myspace

2004 Social network: Facebook

2005 Social network: YouTube

2006 Social network: Twitter

2007 Apple iPhone

2010 Apple iPad

2017 Peer-to-peer interbank payments: Zelle