overview

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dates

to 1900

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2005 -

     1950 to 1959

This page highlights ICT industry developments from 1950 to 1959.

It covers -

• 1950
• 1952
• 1954
• 1956
• 1958

Context is provided by the broader media and communications timeline elsewhere on this site.

    1950

• Turing's Computing Machinery & Intelligence
• Berkner Report on S&T information in the US
• Remington-Rand acquires Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp
• Polaroid begins to photograph CRT displays, precursor of computer output microfilm (COM)

    1951

• US Defence Department establishes ASTIA
• Briet's Qu'est-ce que la documentation?
• Wang Laboratories founded
• Geophysical Service Inc becomes Texas Instruments
• Manchester Mark 1 computer in UK
• Perry & Casey's Punched Cards: Their Application to Science & Industry
• coaxial cable reaches coast to coast in the US
• Engineering Research Associates (ERA) merges with Remington Rand

    1952

• Nixdorf Computer founded
• Turing's chess-playing program
• US government sues IBM for monopolizing punched-card machine industry
• US National Science Foundation establishes Office of Scientific Information (OSI)
• Institute of Scientific Information established by Soviet Academy of Sciences
• Sony produces first transistor radios
• Univac projects the winner of the presidential election on CBS
• Zenith proposes pay-TV system using punched cards
• John Diebold's Automation, the advent of the automatic factory
• MIT Symposium on Machine Techniques for Information Selection

    1953

• IBM 701 is first IBM electronic digital computer
• National Cash Register enters computer market through purchase of Computer Research Corporation
• Dean Wooldridge (1919-2006) and Simon Ramo (1913- ) form Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation

    1954

• FORTRAN created by John Backus
• IBM markets 650 computer, using drum storage
• UNIVAC I becomes commercially available
• USSR launches Sputnik
• Texas Instruments launches transistor 'shirt-pocket radio'
• Eastman Kodak announces Minicard System
• Commodore founded
• first demonstration of computer-based searching of bibliographic file on regular basis

    1955

• Remington-Rand & Sperry Gyroscope merge as Sperry-Rand
• Kubie & Sheldon found Computer Usage Corporation (CUC)
• William Shockley founds Shockley Semiconductor
• Sony releases transistor radio

    1956

• first transatlantic telephone cable
• first hard disk drive at IBM
• launch of Australian National Bibliographic Centre
• IBM settles punch card dispute through DOJ consent decree
• Australia's SILLIAC and UTECOM computers go live
• term 'artificial intelligence' devised
• Burroughs Adding Machine Company enters computer market through purchase of Electrodata
• Rank-Xerox established

    1957

• Control Data Corporation (CDC) formed
• Sony enters US market with TR-63 transistor radio
• Digital Equipment (DEC) formed
• Fairchild Semiconductor formed by Kleiner, Noyce, Moore, Blank, Grinich, Hoerni, Last and Roberts
• Soviet Union's Sputnik sends signals from space
• first Japanese car sold in US
• FORTRAN becomes first high-level computer language
• UNIVAC II marketed
• Chomsky's Syntactic Structures
• Datamation launched
• RAND establishes SDC

    1958

• US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) founded
• US National Federation of Science Abstracting & Indexing Services founded
• first chess game between computer and human
• Minsky founds AI Lab at MIT
• IBM's Robert Bemer introduces backslash character
• UNIMATE is first industrial robot
• laser invented at Bell Labs
• AMP adopts IBM 650
• Ramo-Wooldridge merges with financial backer Thompson Products as Thompson Ramo Wooldridge (TRW)
• AT&T markets first modems
• BA publishes first computerized subject index
• International Computers & Tabulators Ltd (ICT) formed in UK through merger of Powas-Samas and BTM

    1959

• Olivetti buys Underwood
• Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) founded
• CSC sells first packaged program
• National Semiconductor formed
• Control Data 1604 mainframe computer
• IBM 1401 computer
• Kilby files 'solid circuit' patent (later refused)
• Applied Data Research (ADR) founded
• DEC develops first minicomputer, PDP 1

   next page (1960 to 1969)