The one-sentence summary

Innovation occurs when ripe seed falls on fertile ground.

Want to buy the book? CLICK HERE

WHAT THE BOOK SAYS

  • This is all about the hackers, geniuses and geeks that created the digital revolution. It is almost impossible to summarise. Instead, here is a condensed chronology of how all the modern computing capability we take for granted came to be.

    • 1843: Ada Lovelace publishes notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine.
    • 1847: George Boole creates a system using algebra for logical reasoning.
    • 1890: The census is tabulated using Herman Hollerith’s punch-card machines.
    • 1931: Vannevar Bush devises the Differential Analyzer, an analogue electromechanical computer.
    • 1935: Tommy Flowers pioneers use of vacuum tubes as on-off switches in circuits.
    • 1937: Alan Turing publishes “On Computable Numbers”, describing a universal computer.
    • 1938: William Hewlett and David Packard form a company in a Palo Alto garage.
    • John Atanasoff finishes model of electronic computer with mechanical storage drums.
    • 1941: Konrad Zuse completes Z3, a fully functional electromechanical programmable digital computer.
    • 1943: Colossus, a vacuum-tube computer to break German codes, is completed at Bletchley Park.
    • 1945: John von Neumann describes a stored-program computer.
    • 1947: The transistor is invented at bell Labs.
    • 1954: Texas Instruments introduces silicon transistor.
    • 1957: Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore form Fairchild semiconductor.
    • 1958: Jack Kilby demonstrates the integrated circuit, or microchip.
    • 1960: Paul Baran at RAND devises packet switching.
    • 1965: Ted nelson publishes first article about hypertext.
    • 1971: Ray Tomlinson invents email.
    • 1973: Ethernet developed by Bob Metcalfe at Xerox PARC.
    • 1973; Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn complete TCP/IP protocols for the internet.
    • 1975: Paul Allen and Bill Gates write first version of BASIC.
    • 1983: Microsoft announces Windows.
    • 1991: Tim Berners-Lee announces World Wide Web.
    • 1994: Justin Hall posts first web log.
    • 1995: IBM’s Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov at chess.
    • 1998: Larry Page and Sergey Brin launch Google.
    • 2001: Jimmy Swales launches Wikipedia.