1936

Konrad Zuse invents Z 1, first freely programmable computer.

1942

John Atanasoff & Clifford Berry develop ABC Computer.

1944

Howard Aiken & Grace Hopper develop Harvard Mark I Computer.

1946

John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly ENIAC 1 Computer with 20 000 vacuum tubes more as the previous computer.

1948

Frederic Williams & Tom Kilburn develop Manchester Baby Computer & The Williams Tube.

John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & Wiliam Shockley invented The Transistor.

1951

John Presper Eckert & John W. Mauchly developed UNIVAC Computer. First commercial computer & able to pick presidential winners.

1953

International Business Machines, IBM enters into 'The History of Computers with IBM 701 EDPM Computer.

1954

John Backus & IBM  develop FORTRAN Computer Programming Language. The first successful high level programming language.

1955

Stanford Research Institute, Bank of America,  and General Electric developed ERMA and MICR. The first bank industry computer - also MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) for reading checks.

1958

Jack Kilby & Robert Noyce invent The Integrated Circuit. Also known as The Chip.

1962

Steve Russell & MIT invent the first computer game called Spacewar.

1964

Douglas Engelbart develops Computer Mouse & Windows. Nicknamed the mouse because the tail came out the end.

1969

Arpanet, the original Internet.

Summer 1969 UNIX was developed. 

Linus Torvalds is born.

1970

Intel 1103 Computer Memory, the world's first available dynamic RAM chip.

1971

Faggin, Hoff & Mazor develope the first Intel 4004 Computer Microprocessor.

Alan Shugart &IBM invent the "Floppy" Disk, nicknamed the "Floppy" for its flexibility.

First edition of UNIX released 11/03/1971. The first edition of the "UNIX PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie" is also dated "November 3, 1971".

1972

Second edition of UNIX released 12/06/1972.

Ritchie rewrote B and called the new language C.

1973

Robert Metcalfe & Xerox develop first Ethernet Computer Networking.

UNIX had been installed on 16 sites (all within AT&T/Western Electric); it was publically unveiled at a conference in October.

Third edition of UNIX released February 1973

Forth edition of UNIX released November 1973

1974 / 1975

Scelbi  & Mark-8 develope Altair & IBM 5100 Computers. The first consumer computers.

IBM introduced the first laser printer, called the 3800, which was designed for high-speed printing.

Fifth edition of UNIX released June 1974.

Sixth edition of UNIX released May 1975.

Bourne Shell is introduced begins being added onto.

1976 / 1977

Apple I, II & TRS-80 & Commodore Pet Computers come out for sale to consumers.

Ink-jet printing announced by IBM.

1978

Dan Bricklin & Bob Frankston develop VisiCalc Spreadsheet Software. Any product that pays for itself in two weeks is a surefire winner.

1979

Seymour Rubenstein & Rob Barnaby develop WordStar Software, the first word processor.

Seventh edition of UNIX released January 1979.

SCO founded by Doug and Larry Michels as UNIX porting and consulting company.

1980

Phototypesetting can be done by laser.

1981

IBM brings out the IBM PC - Home Computer

MS-DOS 1.0 was released August 1981.

The laptop computer is introduced.

1982

MS-DOS 1.25 was released August 1982.

From Japan, a camera with electronic picture storage, no film.

1983

MS-DOS 2.0 was released March 1983.

Microsoft Windows was announced in November.

Apple Lisa Computer, the first home computer with a GUI, graphical user interface.

SCO delivers its first packaged UNIX system called SCO XENIX System V for Intel 8086 and 8088 processor-based PCs.

1984

MS-DOS 3 was released for IBM PC and

MS-DOS 3.1 for networks.

Apple Macintosh Computer, the more affordable home computer with a GUI.

Domain Name Server (DNS) introduced.

Moderated newsgroups introduced on USENET.

Microtek introduced the MS-300A, the first desktop halftone scanner.

Hewlett-Packard announced the first desktop laser printer, called the LaserJet.

Ultrix 1.0 was released.

1985

Microsoft Windows 1.0 is introduced in November.

Digital image processing for editing stills bit by bit.

Adobe introduces PostScript.

Aldus introduced PageMaker.

Able to hold 550 megabytes of prerecorded data, the new CD-ROMs grew out of regular CDs on which music is recorded.

Eighth edition of UNIX released February 1985.

1986

MS-DOS 3.2 was released in April.

Ninth edition of UNIX released September 1986.

1987

MS-DOS 3.3 was released in April.

Microsoft Windows 2.0 was released in December 9.

Microsoft Windows 386 is introduced in December 9.

1988

Microsoft Windows 286 is introduced in June.

MS-DOS 4.0 was released in July.

MS-DOS 4.01 was release in November.

1989

SCO ships SCO UNIX System V/386, the first volume commercial product licensed by AT&T to use the UNIX System trademark.

Tenth edition of UNIX released October 1989.

1990

Microsoft Windows 3.0 was released in May 22.

Adobe first sold Photoshop for the Mac (it was developed in 1988 by Thomas Knoll for his thesis. Thanks to Marc Pawliger for this information).

1991

MS-DOS 5.0 was released in June.

Microsoft Windows 3.0a with multimedia was release in October.

World-Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN; Tim Berners-Lee developer.

SUN unveils Solaris 2 operating environment, specially tuned for symetric multiprocessing.

Linux is introduced by Linus Torvalds, a student in Finland. Who post to the comp.os.minix newsgroup with the words: Hello everybody out there using minix - I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

1992

Microsoft Windows 3.1 was release in April and sells more than 1 million copies within two months.

Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was release in October.

Adobe Systems launched its Carousel product, the precursor to Adobe Acrobat.

1993

MS-DOS 6.0 was released in August.

Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 was release in August.

MS-DOS 6.2 was released in November.

The number of licensed users of Microsoft Windows now total more than 25 Million.

InterNIC created by NSF to provide specific Internet services, including registration of Domain Names.

The first version of Photoshop becomes available for Windows.

1994

Microsoft Windows 3.11 for Workgroups was released in February.

MS-DOS 6.21 was release in March.

MS-DOS 6.22 was release in April.

Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 was released in September.

After 25 years, U.S. government privatizes Internet management.

The first of the consumer-oriented digital camera was released by Kodak in 1994: the DC-40, which offered 24-bit color and the ability to connect to a computer with a serial cable.

Red Hat Linux is introduced.

Caldera, Inc was founded in 1994 by Ransom Love and Bryan Sparks.

1995

Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 was released in June.

Microsoft Windows 95 was released in August and sells more than 1 Million copies in 4 days.

Registration of domain names is no longer free.

Major U.S. dailies create national on-line newspaper network.

SCO acquires UNIX Systems source technology business from Novell Corporation (which had acquired it from AT&T's UNIX System Laboratories). SCO also acquires UnixWare 2 operating system from Novell.

1996

Microsoft Windows NT 4 was released in August.

Microsoft Windows CE 1.0 was release in November.

1997

Microsoft Windows CE 2.0 was release in November.

Caldera ships OpenLinux Standard 1.1 May 5, 1997, the second offering in Caldera's OpenLinux product line. 

1998

Microsoft Windows 98 was released in June.

Microsoft Windows CE 2.1 was released in July.

SCO delivers UnixWare 7 operating system.

Sun Solaris 7 operating system released.

1999

Microsoft Windows 98 SE was release in May

Microsoft Windows CE 3.0 was released in August.

2000

Microsoft Windows 2000 was released in February.

Microsoft Windows ME released in July.

Caldera Systems Inc. announces that Caldera Systems has entered into agreement to acquire the SCO Server Software Division and the Professional Services Division.