Computer Invention Landmarks and Their Inventors

Who invented the computers and software we use daily?

(No, the answer is not Al Gore, though I was surprised at how much he did help get the web going.)

Gary Kildall Created first MicroComputer Operating System. Photograph by Joe Wein

There are large and sharp distinctions between conceptualizing or inspiring a technology, making a working version of it, funding it and popularizing it . 

This annotated list is about those few who created the first physical equipment and software landmarks in computer technology we all depend upon today.

It is not about those who may have inspired, funded or popularized technology. In a sense this article is an attempt to correct the errors in the computer field due to Stigler’s Law – where typically the wrong people get the credit for ideas other people made first.

With appropriate respect, those who Imagine and Inspire an idea (such as H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury and Gene Roddenberry) are vital because without new ideas – we wouldn’t have fire or aircraft.

Those who Popularize (think Steve Jobs)  are valuable because maybe an invention’s value is too obscure or complex for many people to appreciate.

Funders are important to help spread ideas rapidly (whether the ideas are good for our world or not — as in “Can I serve you a glass of Thalidomide?”).

But the key people are those who actually make the first examples of working things, called Inventors, because without them — there is nothing to popularize or fund. Sometimes an inventor needs to take on all these roles.

This article celebrates the inventors of computer technology.

Jacquard Loom, 1801

First Digital Mechanical Computer: Jacquard loom, 1801, followed a generation later by the Scheutzian calculation engine, Per Georg Scheutz, 1843 (Amazingly, there is no wikipedia article about that groundbreaking invention !)

Per George’s Scheutzian Calculation Engine

 

(Note: Charles Babbage never actually built a working model of his Difference Engine or his Analytical Engine. However, Babbage’s groundbreaking ideas were the basis of Scheutz’s working engines.)

Pehr (Per) Georg Scheutz

First Logic Circuits:
George Robert Stibitz made first Boolean logic digital circuits using electromechanical relays as the switching element. 1937

First Electric Computer, Non-Programmable: Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) : John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry, 1942.

First Functional Computer: Z3, Konrad Zuse, 1946
World’s first functional program-controlled Turing-complete computer (electromechanical, not purely electric)

First Electric Computer, Programmable: ENIAC: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, 1946

First Integrated Circuit Chip: Werner Jacobi, patented a 5-transistor semiconductor amplifying device in 1949. (Jack Kilby’s device was demonstrated in 1958 and patented in 1959)

First Microprocessor: TMS 1000 : Gary Boone and Michael Cochran (Texas Instruments) in 1971, but it was not sold until 1974. The (Intel 4004 the first commercial Microprocessor, by Federico Faggin and Ted Hoff, came later in 1971, but sold that year as well and paid royalties to TI.)

First ROM: Jacquard loom using Punch Cards, 1801

First RAM (Random Access Memory): Robert Dennard, 1966
(Jay Forrester made the first magnetic Core-memory for an IBM 701 in 1953 )

The First MiniComputer: PDP-1, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1960

Kenbak-1 First Micro/Personal Computer

First Personal Computer: Kenbak-1, John Blankenbaker, 1971

(Note: Steve Wozniak’s 1976 Apple 1 was not the First Personal Computer, but his Apple 1 was key to popularizing the concept. Steve Wozniak did create the first color graphics computer: the Apple II in  1977.)

 First Hard Drive: 305 RAMAC, IBM, 1956

First Microcomputer Hard Drive: Seagate ST506, Alan Shugart, 1980

USB Connectors: Ajay Bhatt – co-inventor, 1995

WiFi: WaveLAN by NCR, 1988

II. Software

First Computer Program: The answer seems to be Heron of Alexandria in 60 AD who reportedly built machines which followed a series of instructions. (And of course, since one cannot run a program without a computer, this means the first, obviously non-electric, computers were the ones which used these programs. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the same time-frame when the Antikythera device was made.)

The Jacquard loom of 1801 used different programs – without changing the machine.

The first program using electric devices was undoubtedly a set of instructions written in machine code, but who did it is unclear. Possibly George Robert Stibitz in 1937 or Konrad Zuse in 1946.

(While Ada Lovelace-Byron did write a set of programming instructions, just like Charles Babbage who inspired her but never built a working computer, Ada’s program never ran during her lifetime).

First Operating System: Director Tape program, John Frankovich and Frank Helwig, 1952

First Operating System for Microcomputers: CP/M, Gary Kildall, 1974
Kildall created the first structured published interface between computer chips and computer components – allowing standardization. Called CPM (Control Program for Microcomputers) it is what DOS and now Windows is based on.

“Kildall was one of the first people to see microprocessors as fully capable computers rather than equipment controllers and to organize a company around this concept.”

(Note: Bill Gates/Microsoft / Tim Paterson/Seattle Computer did not invent the microcomputer operating system. Further, Tim Paterson admits he copied CP/M’s Application Programming Interface and violated CP/M’s copyright so “his” system would be compatible; to make it easier for application programmers to translate their CP/M software to the 8086 chip.)

Paterson writes “What may be most surprising about the issue is that there is no significant dispute on the actual relationship between DOS and CP/M. The relationship is simply this: DOS implements the same Application Program Interface (API) as CP/M. The API is how an application program (such as a word processor) asks the operating system to perform a task, such as to read or write a disk file.“

Some highly informed people, including the late Kildall, believed that QDOS / PC-DOS was “reverse engineered” (or disassembled/decompiled) from CP/M-86, because of its virtually identical internal structure and processes that goes far beyond just copying Kildall’s API. Of course that would mean Gates/Paterson didn’t even invent DOS. Paterson claims “To this day, I have never seen any CP/M code.“

However is this intentionally vague? Because Paterson is well aware that “code” can mean two things, source code or machine code, one of which makes his claim false. Paterson admits extreme familiarity with CP/M’s internal working mechanisms, and while he may never have seen any “Source code” – he clearly has worked with CP/M’s “machine code.”
Similarly, I had never seen any of Digital Research‘s Concurrent CP/M source code, but that did not prevent me from diagnosing and solving a problem with its hard disk routines.)

First Multi-Tasking (and Multi-user) Operating System for Microcomputers: MP/M: Tom Rolander and Cathy Stratinski, while working for Kildall’s Digital Research, 1979

Grace Murray Hopper at UNIVAC keyboard

First Compiler: “A-0”, Grace Murray Hopper, 1952

First Web and HTML: Tim Berners-Lee, 1991

III. Abilities by commercially available software

First Word Processor: Micom 2000: Dan Dang and Hung Vu (Stephen Dorsey “introduced it” but did he write it?) 1972

First PC Word Processor: Electric Pencil, Michael Shrayer, 1976

First Spreadsheet: Visicalc: Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, 1979

First Data Management program : Unknown, likely in the 1960s.

First Phone Dialer: Borland’s Sidekick, Anders Hejlsberg(?), 1983. The first program letting you look up a person’s name and dial their number.

First Contact Management : Name Processor/Instant-Office, David Dilworth, 1985. The first program to combine mail-list management and dialing. (Yes, that’s me, and I’m proud of it.)

First Email: Tom Van Vleck and Noel Morris, for the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) at MIT’s Computation Center, 1965

First Web Browser: WorldWideWeb (later renamed Nexus), Tim Berners-Lee, 1990.

First Search Engine: Archie, Alan Emtage, 1990.

(Note: Google did not invent Search Engines, they did make search dramatically better and more popular.)

First Peer-Peer: Napster, Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker, 1999

First Speech Recognition: Hidden Markov Modeling, Lenny Baum

Just for Fun:

First Portable MP3 Player: Listen Up player, Nathan Schulhof

Additions and Corrections:

If you find some vital computer invention or inventor has been overlooked here — please let me know. Thank you.