Construction of the ENIAC, one of the first electronic computers, is completed. ENIAC filled an entire room, weighed thirty tons, and consumed two hundred kilowatts of power.

IBM introduces IBM 701, the first commercial scientific computer.

One of the first general purpose mainframe computers, the IBM System/360, is announced.

Beginner's All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code (BASIC) is developed at Dartmouth College.

IBM's Cambridge Research Lab begins the CP-40 project to build the first VM (virtual machine) timesharing system.

Introduction of DIGITAL's PDP-8, the world's first mass-produced minicomputer.

IBM System/370 is introduced. The 370 is one of the first lines of computers to implement the notion of a virtual machine, allowing users to share mainframe resources.

PDP-11 the first of DIGITAL's 16-bit family of machines is delivered.

UNIX Time Sharing System First Edition is patented by Bell Labs.

The programming languages C and FORTRAN 66 are created.

Atari releases Pong, the first commercial video game.

Intel introduces its 200-KHz 8008 chip, the first commercial 8-bit microprocessor. This sparks the development of smaller, faster, and cheaper computers.

Xerox Alto is the first personal computer with a built-in mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI) from which most modern GUIs are derived.

The Altair 8800 is sold as a kit. Its creator, Ed Roberts, coins the term "personal computer."

The Kurzweil Reading Machine combines omni-font OCR, flat-bed scanners, and text-to-speech synthesis to create the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind. This is the first practical application of OCR technology.

First appearance of an interpreted BASIC programming language.

Steve Wozniak and Randy Wigginton demonstrate the first prototype Apple II at a Homebrew Computer Club meeting.

The world's first supercomputer, the Cray-1, is introduced.

The Commodore PET, Apple II, and Radio Shack's TRS-80 are all released.

Introduction of the VAX-11/780 "supermini" computer.

CP/M Operating system developed by Digital Research Corporation becomes the dominant standard for the personal computer in business, but incompatible floppy disk formats and the success of MS-DOS and the IBM PC in 1981 eventually led to its demise.

The VMS 1.0 operating system is designed by Digital in conjunction with their 32-bit VAX processor for use in time sharing, batch processing, and transaction processing.

Philips releases the laserdisc player.

WordStar software becomes the first commercially successful word processor.

FORTRAN 77 programming language is created.

Digital faxes using uniform data standards appear.

Commodore ships the VIC-20.

The IBM PC 8080 is introduced.

MSDOS 1.0 operating system is released.

The Commodore 64 is sold with 64KB of RAM and Microsoft BASIC.

VAX-11/730 is released.

Sony and Philips introduce the first CD player.

Apple's Lisa is introduced, the first commercial microcomputer with a graphical user interface.

Apple Macintosh is introduced, the first mainstream commercial computer with a graphical user interface. In six months sales of the computer reach 100,000.

As personal computers become more powerful, people become accustomed to faster machines and graphical interfaces. Use shifts from centralized mainframes to personal computers distributed over a network.

Philips and Sony introduce CD-ROM technology.

The combination of Aldus PageMaker for the Macintosh and the Apple LaserWriter laser printer usher in the era of desktop publishing.

A Carnegie Mellon doctoral student named Feng-hsiung Hsu begins to develop a chess-playing computer called "Chiptest," which evolves into Deep Blue.

Microsoft Windows 1.0 is created, representing a shift from the DOS operating system.

NCSA develops NCSA telnet, making it easier to connect to a remote computer.

IBM sends clone manufacturers letters demanding retroactive licensing fees.

IBM AS/400, a minicomputer for small business and departmental users, is released.

VAX 6200 is released.

Archie software for searching FTP sites is released.

Microsoft Windows 3.0 is released, beginning the era of Microsoft's domination of the software industry.

Veronica, a Gopher search engine, is released.

First graphical browser for the web, Mosaic, is introduced.

Windows NT is released, providing advanced network connectivity.

Netscape 1.0 web browser is introduced, replacing Mosaic.

Java, an object-oriented programming language, is announced by Sun.

Netscape announces Javascript, an object-oriented scripting language.

The Xerox DocuTech Publishing System is designed for "print-on-demand" network accessed document publishing.

The Kodak DC40 and the Apple QuickTake 100 become the first digital cameras marketed for consumers.

Internet Explorer 2.0 web browser is introduced.

IEEE1394, a.k.a Firewire, is introduced as a new standard for connecting computer devices. Initially proposed as a successor to SCSI, Firewire’s fast data transfer speeds made it well suited for video devices, such as digital camcorders, and hard drives.

MP-3 players for downloaded Internet audio appear.

Microsoft Windows 98 is released.

Apple introduces the iMac, which revolutionized the PC industry with its design, along with some key features such as the inclusion of USB ports and the purposeful exclusion of a floppy drive.

Macintosh OS-X is released.

A commercial Digital Video Recording (DVR) system is developed by TiVo, Inc. Reruns of Columbo can now be recorded digitally, saved, and viewed anytime.

Windows XP is released.

After 21 years of selling hard drives, Quantum switches to higher-level storage products and services.

QuickTime 6.0 is released.

DVD players outsell VCRs.

Universal Serial Bus 2.0 (USB) is released. Building on USB 1.0 introduced in 1995, this serial bus can connect up to 127 devices, supports speeds of up to 480Mbps, allows plug-and-play and hot-swapping.