1843: Lovelace's Note G
Ada Lovelace publishes Note G, a step-by-step procedure for computing Bernoulli numbers on Babbage's Analytical Engine, widely regarded as the first published computer program.
Milestones
The events that shaped programming, in order - from Lovelace to today.
58 entries, all primary-sourced
FORTRAN Released for the IBM 704
In 1957 IBM released the FORTRAN automatic coding system for the IBM 704, making the first widely used high-level language available to programmers.
CODASYL and the COBOL-60 Specification
In 1959-60 the CODASYL committee defined a common business language, published as the COBOL-60 report.
Sketchpad (1963)
Ivan Sutherland's 1963 Sketchpad was the first interactive graphical system, using a light pen and a constraint solver, and is regarded as the ancestor of computer graphics, CAD, and the graphical user interface.
IBM CP/CMS and the System/360 Model 67
IBM's late-1960s CP/CMS system, running on the System/360 Model 67, pioneered full-machine virtualization and time-sharing and is the ancestor of all later virtual machines.
The 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference
A 1968 meeting in Garmisch, Germany that named the software crisis and helped establish software engineering as a discipline.
Unix Created on a PDP-7 (1969)
In 1969 Ken Thompson wrote the first version of Unix on a cast-off PDP-7 at Bell Labs.
First ARPANET Host-to-Host Message (1969)
On October 29, 1969, the first message was sent over the ARPANET from UCLA to SRI, the network of Interface Message Processors that grew into the Internet.
1970: The Relational Model Is Published
Codd's June 1970 publication of the relational model redirected database research away from hierarchical and network systems and toward relational databases.
The creation of C (around 1972)
Around 1972 Dennis Ritchie created the C programming language at Bell Labs, in step with the early development of Unix.
Atari releases Pong (1972)
In 1972 Atari released Pong, a coin-operated table-tennis game that became the arcade industry's first mass hit; it built on Ralph Baer's earlier television-game patent and led to a landmark patent dispute.
Unix Rewritten in C (1973)
In 1973 the Unix kernel was rewritten in C, turning a machine-specific system into a portable one and helping it spread across the industry.
The January 1975 Popular Electronics Altair Cover
The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, whose cover story on the MITS Altair 8800 kit reached hobbyists nationwide and is widely credited with igniting the personal-computer revolution.
Altair BASIC
Altair BASIC, demonstrated in early 1975, was the BASIC interpreter Gates and Allen wrote for the Altair 8800 and the first product of Micro-Soft, the company that became Microsoft.
The 1977 Trinity
In 1977 three fully assembled personal computers reached the mass market in the same year: the Apple II, the Commodore PET, and the Radio Shack TRS-80, the trio later nicknamed the 1977 trinity.
K&R: 'The C Programming Language' is published (1978)
In 1978 Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie published 'The C Programming Language,' the book that taught a generation of programmers C and gave the language its first widely available reference.
Namco releases Pac-Man (1980)
Pac-Man, designed by Toru Iwatani and released by Namco in 1980, broke from the era's shoot-em-up template with a non-violent maze-chase game and became the best-selling arcade game and a global cultural phenomenon.
The 1981 IBM PC Announcement
On August 12, 1981 IBM announced the Personal Computer, lending corporate legitimacy to a hobbyist market and making the personal computer a credible tool for business.
Internet Flag Day (1983)
On January 1, 1983, the ARPANET cut over from the Network Control Program to TCP/IP, retiring the old host-host protocol and establishing the modern internet protocol base.
Stallman Announces the GNU Project (1983)
Richard Stallman's September 27, 1983 Usenet message announcing GNU, a complete free Unix-compatible system, launching the free software movement.
The launch of Turbo Pascal (1983)
In November 1983 Borland released Turbo Pascal, a fast and inexpensive integrated Pascal compiler that brought professional development tools to hobbyist machines.
The 1984 Macintosh Launch
The January 1984 introduction of the Apple Macintosh, preceded two days earlier by the famous '1984' television commercial. The unveiling at Apple's shareholder meeting is recorded in firsthand folklore.org accounts.
The First SQL Standard
ANSI adopted SQL as a standard in 1986 and ISO followed in 1987, making the language portable across database vendors and cementing its dominance.
NSFNET (1986-1995)
The NSF-funded NSFNET backbone connected supercomputer centers and regional networks, scaled the internet far beyond the ARPANET, and set up the transition to a commercial internet when it was decommissioned in 1995.
The 1989 World Wide Web Proposal
Tim Berners-Lee's March 1989 proposal at CERN, 'Information Management: A Proposal,' that laid out the idea for the World Wide Web.
CVS Emerges as Networked Multi-Developer Version Control
Built on RCS as a set of shell scripts and then rewritten in C, CVS turned single-file version control into networked, multi-developer collaboration that defined open source for a decade.
Python 0.9.0 Released to alt.sources (1991)
On February 20, 1991, Guido van Rossum posted Python 0.9.0 to the alt.sources Usenet newsgroup, the language's first public release.
The World Wide Web Goes Public (1991)
On August 6, 1991, Tim Berners-Lee posted a public summary of the WorldWideWeb project to the alt.hypertext newsgroup, opening the Web to the world.
Torvalds Announces Linux (1991)
On August 25, 1991, Linus Torvalds posted to comp.os.minix that he was writing a free operating system as 'just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu.'
Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
id Software's Wolfenstein 3D, released in 1992, used a fast ray-casting technique to render a textured pseudo-3D world on ordinary PCs, establishing the template for the first-person shooter genre.
NCSA Mosaic Brings the Web to the Masses (1993)
The 1993 release of NCSA Mosaic, the moment the World Wide Web became usable for ordinary people.
Windows NT 3.1 Released (1993)
Microsoft shipped Windows NT 3.1 on July 27, 1993, a from-scratch 32-bit operating system that became the foundation of all later Windows.
Doom (1993)
id Software's Doom, released in December 1993, used BSP-based rendering to deliver fast pseudo-3D corridors on ordinary PCs, spread through shareware, popularized deathmatch networked play, and built a vast modding culture later reinforced by its open source release.
The W3C Is Founded (1994)
Tim Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in October 1994 to lead the development of open web standards.
Sun launches Java (1995)
In May 1995 Sun Microsystems publicly announced Java and the HotJava browser at the SunWorld conference, introducing the portable language and runtime to the world.
PHP Created (1995)
On June 8, 1995, Rasmus Lerdorf publicly announced Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools) version 1.0, the release that began PHP.
Toy Story (1995)
The first feature-length film rendered entirely with computer-generated imagery, produced by Pixar using its RenderMan rendering software.
1995: JavaScript Created at Netscape
Brendan Eich built the first JavaScript prototype in about ten days in May 1995; Netscape and Sun named it JavaScript that December 4.
Quake (1996)
id Software's Quake, released in 1996, delivered the first widely successful true real-time 3D polygonal game engine, with full six-degrees-of-freedom worlds, client-server networking for internet play, and the QuakeC scripting language for gameplay modding.
The Term 'Open Source' Is Coined
At a February 3, 1998 strategy meeting in Palo Alto, held days after Netscape's source-release announcement, the label 'open source' was adopted to brand free software in pragmatic, business-friendly terms.
Netscape Open-Sources Its Browser, Creating Mozilla
On March 31, 1998, Netscape released the source code of its Communicator browser, launching the Mozilla project and becoming a landmark moment for open source.
VMware Workstation Released (1999)
In 1999 VMware shipped Workstation, the first product to run multiple x86 operating systems at once on an ordinary PC.
The Red Hat IPO
Red Hat's August 1999 stock-market debut, one of the biggest first-day gains in Wall Street history at the time, which proved to investors that a company built on freely-licensed open-source software could be valuable.
GeForce 256, the World's First GPU (1999)
In 1999 NVIDIA launched the GeForce 256, marketing it as the world's first GPU: a single-chip processor that integrated hardware transform and lighting alongside triangle setup and rendering, moving the geometry stage off the CPU.
Subversion Begun as a Better CVS (2000)
In 2000 CollabNet started Subversion as a replacement for CVS, keeping CVS's ideas while fixing its flaws.
2002: .NET Framework 1.0 and C# 1.0 Released
In early 2002 Microsoft shipped .NET Framework 1.0, the C# language, and Visual Studio .NET, launching a managed-code platform as its answer to Java.
Ajax Is Coined (2005)
Jesse James Garrett's February 18, 2005 essay 'Ajax: A New Approach to Web Applications' gave a name to the technique of fetching data in the background without reloading the page.
Git Is Created (2005)
In April 2005 Linus Torvalds wrote git in a matter of days, after the Linux kernel lost free use of the proprietary BitKeeper tool it had depended on.