The one-sentence summary
Innovation occurs when ripe seed falls on fertile ground.
WHAT THE BOOK SAYS ![THE INNOVATORS](https://greatesthitsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/THE-INNOVATORS-194x300.jpg)
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.