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Famous Computer Scientists and Tech History

Pioneers of computing and the milestones that shaped technology.

70 cardsGrades 6–8, Grades 9–12, College, Adult#history#computer scientists#pioneers#milestones

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70 cards
  • Ada LovelacePerson or event
    Wrote notes in 1843 with what is often called the first computer program, for Babbage's Analytical Engine
  • Charles BabbagePerson or event
    Designed the Analytical Engine, an early mechanical computer idea, in the 1830s
  • Alan TuringPerson or event
    British mathematician who defined the Turing machine and helped break the Enigma code
  • Turing machinePerson or event
    An abstract model of computation described by Turing in 1936
  • Grace HopperPerson or event
    American Navy officer who helped create the first compiler and the COBOL language
  • John von NeumannPerson or event
    Described the stored-program computer architecture
  • Claude ShannonPerson or event
    Founded information theory in 1948 and popularized the word bit
  • Katherine JohnsonPerson or event
    NASA mathematician whose calculations helped astronauts reach orbit and the Moon
  • Margaret HamiltonPerson or event
    Led software development for Apollo's guidance computers
  • Dorothy VaughanPerson or event
    NASA mathematician who became a leader in programming (FORTRAN) at Langley
  • Tim Berners-LeePerson or event
    Invented the World Wide Web in 1989
  • Vint Cerf and Bob KahnPerson or event
    Designed the TCP/IP protocols of the internet
  • Dennis RitchiePerson or event
    Created the C language and co-created Unix
  • Ken ThompsonPerson or event
    Co-creator of Unix
  • Linus TorvaldsPerson or event
    Created the Linux kernel (1991) and Git (2005)
  • Guido van RossumPerson or event
    Created Python
  • Brendan EichPerson or event
    Created JavaScript in 1995
  • James GoslingPerson or event
    Led the creation of Java
  • Bjarne StroustrupPerson or event
    Created C++
  • Yukihiro MatsumotoPerson or event
    Created Ruby
  • Bill GatesPerson or event
    Co-founded Microsoft in 1975
  • Paul AllenPerson or event
    Co-founded Microsoft
  • Steve JobsPerson or event
    Co-founded Apple in 1976
  • Steve WozniakPerson or event
    Designed the Apple I and II computers
  • Larry Page and Sergey BrinPerson or event
    Founded Google in 1998
  • Mark ZuckerbergPerson or event
    Co-founded Facebook in 2004
  • Jeff BezosPerson or event
    Founded Amazon in 1994
  • Douglas EngelbartPerson or event
    Invented the computer mouse; demonstrated it in 1968
  • Doug Engelbart's 1968 demoPerson or event
    Called the Mother of All Demos; showed the mouse, video calls and hypertext
  • Ivan SutherlandPerson or event
    Created Sketchpad (1963), an early graphics program
  • Alan KayPerson or event
    Pioneer of object-oriented programming and the personal computer
  • Donald KnuthPerson or event
    Wrote The Art of Computer Programming
  • Edsger DijkstraPerson or event
    Created a famous shortest-path algorithm
  • Barbara LiskovPerson or event
    Computer scientist who won the Turing Award for work on data abstraction
  • Radia PerlmanPerson or event
    Invented the spanning-tree protocol for networks
  • Fei-Fei LiPerson or event
    Computer scientist who helped create ImageNet
  • Geoffrey HintonPerson or event
    Pioneer of neural networks and deep learning
  • Yann LeCunPerson or event
    Pioneer of convolutional neural networks
  • Yoshua BengioPerson or event
    Pioneer of deep learning
  • Turing AwardPerson or event
    The top prize in computer science, named for Alan Turing
  • ENIACPerson or event
    One of the first general-purpose electronic computers, completed in 1945
  • ColossusPerson or event
    British code-breaking computer used in World War II
  • TransistorPerson or event
    Invented in 1947 at Bell Labs
  • Integrated circuitPerson or event
    Chip with many components, invented in the late 1950s
  • MicroprocessorPerson or event
    A whole CPU on one chip; Intel 4004 came out in 1971
  • ARPANETPerson or event
    Early network that sent its first message in 1969
  • First emailPerson or event
    Sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971
  • Personal computerPerson or event
    Home computers became popular in the late 1970s and 1980s
  • Apple IIPerson or event
    A popular early personal computer from 1977
  • IBM PCPerson or event
    Introduced in 1981
  • MacintoshPerson or event
    Apple computer launched in 1984 with a graphical interface
  • Windows 95Person or event
    Microsoft system that made the Start menu famous
  • World Wide Web goes publicPerson or event
    1991
  • Mosaic browserPerson or event
    Early graphical web browser from 1993
  • Google foundedPerson or event
    1998
  • Wikipedia launchedPerson or event
    2001
  • YouTube foundedPerson or event
    2005
  • iPhone introducedPerson or event
    2007
  • Smartphone agePerson or event
    Phones became pocket computers after 2007
  • Cloud computingPerson or event
    Rented online computing, which grew in the late 2000s
  • Bitcoin createdPerson or event
    2009 by a person or group known as Satoshi Nakamoto
  • ChatGPT releasedPerson or event
    November 2022
  • Moore's lawPerson or event
    The observation that chip transistor counts double about every two years
  • Gordon MoorePerson or event
    Co-founder of Intel who described Moore's law in 1965
  • Hedy LamarrPerson or event
    Actress and inventor who co-developed frequency hopping, an idea used in modern wireless
  • Mary Allen WilkesPerson or event
    Programmer of the LINC, an early personal computer, in the 1960s
  • Jean BartikPerson or event
    One of the six original ENIAC programmers
  • Annie EasleyPerson or event
    NASA computer scientist who worked on rocket software
  • Mark DeanPerson or event
    IBM engineer who helped design the original IBM PC and holds key patents in PC technology
  • Gladys WestPerson or event
    Mathematician whose work contributed to GPS

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