In 1979, two M.I.T. computer-science alumni and a Harvard Business School graduate launched a new piece of computer software for the Apple II machine, an early home computer. Called VisiCalc, short ...

C. 2500 BCE: Sumerian abacus -- c. 700 BC: Scytale -- c. 150: Antikythera mechanism -- c. 60: Programmable robot -- c. 850: "On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages ...

For years now, that’s been a hugely popular stance. It’s led to educational initiatives as effortless sounding as the Hour of ...

The first electronic computer was built during the 1940s by John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State University, and one of his students, Clifford E. Berry. But the ...

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. This ...

Despite their brief history, computers and AI have fundamentally changed what we see, what we know, and what we do. Little is as important for the world’s future and our own lives as how this history ...

The invention of the computer is often articulated like a three-act play: the idea of the computer arrives, then there is the process of how to make the computer and, finally, there is the creation.

The Homebrew Computer Club where the Apple I got its start is deservedly famous—but it’s far from tech history’s only community gathering centered on CPUs. Throughout the 70s and into the 90s, groups ...