Polish Contributions to Computing

Timeline

This page represents many contributions made to computing over the years. Here you will find the Polish contributions and others. This helps give a perspective of how one important advancement led to another.
Red circles symbolize information on Polish contributions to computing.
Blue circles symbolize information on other developments world wide.
Instructions: Mousing over the different bars will display information about what contribution was made on this date. Clicking on the bars will open a window to view more in depth information about these contributions to computing. The Polish contributions are linked to information from our site. The other developments are mostly linked to Wikipedia topics, as they are not the focus of this site.
Move the slider along the timeline to change the 100 year window.

1614

Electronic Tube

John Napier invents an ingenious system of movable rods. These were based on logarithms and allowed the operator to multiply, divide, and calculate square and cube roots by moving the rods around.

1622

Slide Rules

William Oughtred developed slide rules based on John Napier's natural logarithms

1623

Calculating Clock

Wilhelm Schickard of Tübingen, Württemberg (now in Germany), built the first discrete automatic calculator, and thus essentially started the computer era. His device was called the "Calculating Clock".

1642

Pascaline

French mathematician Blaise Pascal built a mechanical adding machine called the "Pascaline." Despite being more limited than Schickard's Calculating Clock, Pascal's machine became more well known.

1668

Non-Decimal Adding

Sir Samuel Morland, of England, produces a non-decimal adding machine, suitable for use with english money. Instead of a carry mechanism, it registers carries on auxiliary dials, from which the user must re-enter them as addends.

1671

Binary Number System

Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician, refined the binary number system wich is used in all modern machines.

1709

First Multiplier

Giovanni Poleni builds the first multiplier which uses the principle of driver with a variable number of teeth.

1752

Electricity

Benjamin Franklin discovers electricity.

1770

Mech. Calculator

Jewna Jakobson invented a mechanical caluclating machine. One copy of the machine has been preserved and can be seen at the Lomonosov Museum of Science in St. Petersburg, Russia.

1774

Portable Calculator

Philip Matthaeus Hahn makes a successful portable calculator able to perform all four mathematical operations.

1786

Difference Engine

J.H. Mueller envisions a "difference engine" but could not find funding to build the device.

1801

Jacquard Loom

The Jacquard Loom was invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard and was made to punch holes into pasteboard punch cards to control the weaving of patterns in fabric.

1817

Calculating Machine

Invention of a calculating machine for four operations and exacting roots by Abraham Izrael Stern.

1820

Calc. Machine

Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar invents the first calculating machine which was later mass produced.

1822

Calc. Machine

Charles Babbage designed his first mechanical computer, the first prototype of the decimal difference engine for tabulating polynomials.

1835

Electromagnetic

Joseph Henry's work on the electromagnetic relay would be the basis for the electrical telegraph.

1835

Square Root Machine

Beginning of work on the arithmetic machine for four operations and a square root developed by Izrael Abraham Staffel.

1837

Telegraph

Samuel Morse invents the electric telegraph.

1840

Multiplying Machine

Invention of a machine that could multiply my Chaim Zelig Slonimski.

1848

Binary Algebra

George Boole invents Binary Algebra, that played a crucial role in computing.

1869

First Logic Machine

the first practical logic machine is built by William Stanley Jevons.

1874

Arithmometer

Willgodt Odhner constructed a mechanical arithmometer that has been produced in significant quantities.

1878

Integraph

Bruno Abdank-Abakanowicz invents the Integraph. the integraph is a noteworthy development in the history of calculation instruments.

1881

Calculating Machine

P.L. Chebyshev improves his calculating machine for four arithmetic operations.

1884

IEE

British Institute of Electrical Engineers is created, later called IEE.

1885

Comptometer

Dorr E. Felt Builds a comptometer.

1888

Printing Summation

William S. Burroughs obtains patent for his summation machine that can print results.

1889

Printing Calc

Dorr E. Felt invents the first printing desk calculator.

1889

Punch Cards

Herman Hollerith was the first to develop a mechanical tabulator based on punch cards to rapidly tabulate vast amounts of data.

1906

Electronic Tube

Electronic tube, or Electronic Valve, was developed by Lee De Forest. before this invention it would have been impossible to make digital electronic computers.

1919

Flip-Flop Circuit

William Henry Eccles and F.w. Jordan publish the first flip-flop circuit design.

1920

R.U.R

Czech writer KArel Capek writes his book "R.U.R" on robots.

1924

Polish Notation

The Polish Notation is a principle of writing mathematical expressions in an operator-first manner, while traditional notation involves placing an operator between arguments.

1928

Transistor Invented

The first patents for the transistor principle were registered in Germany in 1928 by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld

1930

Difference Engine

Vannevar Bush Builds a partly electronic Difference Engine capable of solving differential equations.

1931

Digital Counter

Welsh physicist Charles E. Wynn-Williams, at Cambridge, England, uses thyratron tubes to construct a binary digital counter for use in connection with physics experiments.

1932

Enigma Decoded

27-year-old Polish mathematician, Marian Rejewski, who had joined the Polish Cipher Bureau in September that year, made on of the most important breakthroughs in cryptologic history by using algebreic mathematical techniques.

1935

Turing Machine

Alan Turing invented his concept of an automation later named the Turing machine.

1937

Mark-1

Howard Aiken conceives an idea of Mark-1 computer (completed in 1944)

1939

Hewlett Packard

Hewlett and Packard create their company in California.

1939

Binary Computer

Zuse and Scheyer worked together to develop and build the worlds first binary digital computer.

1943

Collossus

Alan Turing and others begin the creation of Colossus.

1944

Prinston Comp.

John von Neumann formulates his "Princeton computer architecture."

1945

Plankalkül

Konrad Zuse develops Plankalkül, the first higher-level programming language.

1946

ENIAC

ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was the first large-scale, electronic, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems.

1946

AIEE

Formation of the Subcommittee on large-scale computing of the AIEE, which will later become the IEEE Computer Society.

1947

Monte Carlo Method

Stanislaw Marcin Ulam invented the Monte Carlo Method. This method is a statistical trial and error technique for solving complex problems that are otherwise intractable using analytical deterministic techniques

1948

SSEC

IBM finishes the SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator). It is the first computer to modify a stored program.

1948

Point-Contact Trans.

William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain succeeded in building the first practical point-contact transistor at Bell Labs.

1949

Magnetic Core Memory

Magnetic Core memory is an early form of computer memory. It uses polarity of the magnetic field to store information.

1950

GAM

GAM (Group for Mathematical Apparatus) established at the Mathematical Institute of the Polish Academy

1953

EMAL

Work begins on the first Polosh electronic computer EMAL (completed in 1955).

1955

Flip-Flop

First article on computing published outside Poland (Z. Pawlak on Flip-Flop as a Random Digit Generator, MTAC)

1956

Fortran

Fortran invented at IBM

1957

Algol

Work on Algol (Algorithmic Language) begins in Europe

1958

Integrated Circuit

Jack Kilby invents an integrated circuit at Texas Instruments

1958

Electronic Mach.

Two electronic machines are successfully completed in Warsaw. XYZ built by a group led by L. Lukaszewicz and Z. Sawicki and BINEG-2 (implemented in minus-2 logic) built by Z. PAwlak and A. Lazarkiewicz.

1959

Minicomputer

First minicomputer, PDP-1, built by Digital Equipment Corp.

1960

SAKO

Work begins in Warsaw on ZAM-2 and UMC-1, the first two Polish industrial scale computers. Leon Lukaszewicz and coworkers develop an automatic programming system SAKO.

1961

Polish Academy

Computer Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences is established.

1962

UNIX

UNIX is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a group of AT

1964

BASIC

BASIC invented at Dartmout College by Kemeny and Kurtz

1965

Moore's Law

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, made a prediction that the transistor density of semiconductor chips would double roughly every 18 months.

1971

4004 Microprocessor

Intel introduces its 4004 microprocessor

1972

GUI

Xerox Alto is introduced with mouse and GUI.

1973

Microprocessor

TI filed for a patent on the microprocessor. Gary Boone was awarded a U.S. Patent for the single-chip microprocessor architecture.

1974

Mark-8

John Titus makes Mark-8, the first hobby computer kit.

1975

Microcomputer

First microcomputer Altair 8800 on the market.

1979

Ada

First draft of the Ada programming language definition appears.

1981

Rough Set

Rough Set theory deals with uncertainty and decision making under circumstances with insufficient information, so it is applicable to all kinds of environments and has been used in a wide spectrum of applications.

1983

Linux

Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project to develop a Unix-like operating system with entirely free software.