Inspired by A New History of Modern Computing by Thomas Haigh and Paul E. Ceruzzi. But the selection of key events in the journey from ENIAC to Tesla, from Data Processing to Big Data, is mine.
April 1945 John von Neumann’s “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC,” often called the founding document of modern computing, defines “the stored program concept.”
July 1945 Vannevar Bush publishes “As We May Think,” in which he envisions the “Memex,” a memory extension device serving as a large personal repository of information that could be instantly retrieved through associative links.
December 1945 ENIAC, the first electronic, general purpose programmable computer, runs hydrogen bomb calculations. It was developed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, under a U.S. Army contract.
PROMOTED
1947 Statistician John W. Tukey coins the term “bit” to designate a binary digit, a unit of information stored in a computer.
September 1947 Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) founded.
November 1947 At Bell Labs, Walter H. Brattain and John A. Bardeen, under the direction of William B. Shockley, discover the transistor effect, developing and demonstrating a point-contact germanium transistor, later leading to small, low-power electronic devices and eventually low-cost integrated circuits.
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