Stone to Silicon

Timeline · 118 technologies

Computing

c. 500 BCE to February 2026. Each one is placed by when it first worked.

Open the living tree

  1. c. 500 BCEAbacusBeads and counters turn arithmetic into movement you can see and repeat.
  2. c. 150 BCEAntikythera mechanismA shoebox of bronze gears that predicted eclipses two thousand years ago.
  3. c. 1200SuanpanThe Chinese bead abacus, fast enough to rival electronic calculators in skilled hands.
  4. 1617Napier's bonesNumbered rods that reduce multiplication to reading off sums.
  5. 1622Slide ruleTwo sliding logarithmic scales that powered engineering for 350 years.
  6. 1642PascalineA teenager's geared adding machine built to spare his tax-collector father.
  7. 1694Stepped reckonerLeibniz's machine that could multiply, thanks to the stepped drum.
  8. 1703Binary arithmeticEverything written with just 0 and 1.
  9. 1725Bouchon's punched paper loomA loom controlled by holes punched in a paper roll.
  10. 1804Jacquard punched cardsChains of punched cards that let a loom weave any pattern automatically.
  11. 1822Difference engineBabbage's plan to print error-free mathematical tables by machine.
  12. 1837Analytical EngineThe first design for a general-purpose, programmable computer.
  13. 1843Lovelace's Note GThe first published algorithm meant for a machine to run.
  14. 1851ArithmometerThe first mechanical calculator sold in volume to offices.
  15. 1890Hollerith tabulatorElectrical card reading that counted the 1890 US census in record time.
  16. 1904Vacuum tubeA glass bulb that could switch and amplify electric current.
  17. 1918Flip-flop circuitTwo tubes that remember one bit.
  18. 1931Differential analyzerA room of shafts and wheel integrators that solved differential equations.
  19. 1936Turing machineA thought experiment that defined what it means to compute.
  20. 1937Switching circuit theoryShannon shows that relay circuits can do Boolean algebra.
  21. 1941Zuse Z3The first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer.
  22. 1944ColossusBletchley Park's tube machine that broke Hitler's high-command cipher.
  23. 1945ENIACEighteen thousand tubes computing a thousand times faster than relays.
  24. 1945Stored-program architectureKeep the program in the same memory as the data.
  25. 1947TransistorA solid-state switch that replaced the vacuum tube.
  26. 1948Manchester BabyThe first computer to run a program stored in its own electronic memory.
  27. 1949EDSACThe first practical stored-program computer in regular service.
  28. 1951Magnetic tape data storageReels of tape replace boxes of punched cards.
  29. 1951UNIVAC IThe first commercial computer in the US, famous for calling an election.
  30. 1952A-0 compilerGrace Hopper's program that writes programs.
  31. 1953Magnetic-core memoryTiny ferrite rings that held the world's data for twenty years.
  32. 1956Hard disk driveFifty spinning platters offering random access to 5 million characters.
  33. 1957FORTRANThe first widely used high-level programming language.
  34. 1957PhotolithographyPrinting circuits with light, the way photographs are printed.
  35. 1958Integrated circuitA whole circuit on one piece of semiconductor.
  36. 1958LISPThe language of symbols, lists and early AI.
  37. 1959COBOLA language for business, written almost like English.
  38. 1959MOSFETThe transistor design that became the most manufactured object in history.
  39. 1959Planar processFlat, oxide-protected transistors that made mass production possible.
  40. 1961Time-sharingMany users at once, each feeling they own the computer.
  41. 1963CMOSPaired transistors that draw power only when switching.
  42. 1964CDC 6600Seymour Cray's machine, the first successful supercomputer.
  43. 1964IBM System/360One compatible family of computers, from small to huge.
  44. 1965Moore's lawThe prediction that transistor counts double on a steady schedule.
  45. 1967Virtual machinesOne computer pretending to be many.
  46. 1968Silicon-gate MOSSilicon gates that made dense, fast MOS chips possible.
  47. 1968The Mother of All DemosMouse, hypertext and video conferencing, all shown in one afternoon.
  48. 1969UnixA small, elegant operating system that spread everywhere.
  49. 1970DRAMOne transistor and one capacitor per bit.
  50. 1970Relational modelData as tables, queried by what you want, not how to find it.
  51. 1971Microprocessor (Intel 4004)A whole computer processor on one chip.
  52. 1972CA portable systems language close to the machine.
  53. 1973Xerox AltoThe first computer built around a graphical desktop.
  54. 1974Dennard scalingShrink a transistor and it gets faster while using the same power per area.
  55. 1974Intel 8080The 8-bit chip that launched the home computer.
  56. 1974SQLA plain query language for relational data.
  57. 1975Altair 8800A $439 kit computer that ignited the hobbyist revolution.
  58. 1976Cray-1A horseshoe-shaped vector supercomputer running at 160 megaFLOPS.
  59. 1977Personal computerA ready-to-use computer for home and office.
  60. 1978Wafer stepperA machine that exposes chip patterns one die at a time.
  61. 1978x86 (Intel 8086)The instruction set that still runs most PCs and servers.
  62. 1980RISCFewer, simpler instructions, executed very fast.
  63. 1981IBM PCAn open, cloneable design that became the PC standard.
  64. 1982Excimer laser lithographyDeep-ultraviolet laser light for sharper chip patterns.
  65. 1982Quantum computing proposalFeynman suggests simulating nature with quantum computers.
  66. 1983GNU ProjectA free Unix-like system, and the idea of free software.
  67. 1984MacintoshThe graphical interface reaches the mass market.
  68. 1985ARM architectureA low-power processor design that now ships in the tens of billions.
  69. 1985C++C with classes, for large, fast systems.
  70. 1987Flash memoryChips that remember with the power off.
  71. 1987Pure-play foundry (TSMC)A company that makes chips for others, and designs none itself.
  72. 1991LinuxA free kernel that came to run most of the world's servers.
  73. 1991PythonA readable language that became the lingua franca of data and AI.
  74. 1994Shor's algorithmA quantum algorithm that could break RSA encryption.
  75. 1995Quantum error correctionProtecting fragile qubits by spreading information across many.
  76. 1995Trapped-ion quantum gateThe first quantum logic gate, built on a single trapped ion.
  77. 1996ASCI RedThe first computer to exceed one teraFLOPS.
  78. 1998Open sourceShared code as a development method.
  79. 1999GPU (GeForce 256)A dedicated chip for 3D graphics, and later for everything parallel.
  80. 1999Superconducting qubitA qubit made from a tiny superconducting circuit.
  81. 1999x86 virtualizationVirtual machines come to ordinary PCs and servers.
  82. 2001Programmable shadersGraphics hardware that runs small programs.
  83. 2005Multi-core processorsWhen clock speeds stalled, chips gained more cores.
  84. 2006Cloud computingRent computing by the hour instead of buying servers.
  85. 2006Immersion lithographyA layer of water sharpens the light.
  86. 2007CUDAGPUs become general-purpose parallel computers.
  87. 2007High-k metal gateA new gate material to stop transistors from leaking.
  88. 2008RoadrunnerThe first computer to sustain one petaFLOPS.
  89. 2010RISC-VAn open instruction set anyone can use.
  90. 2010Smartphone SoC (Apple A4)A whole computer on one low-power chip for phones.
  91. 2012FinFETA 3D transistor with the channel as a raised fin.
  92. 2013Containers (Docker)Package software with everything it needs to run.
  93. 2013High Bandwidth MemoryStacked DRAM right beside the processor.
  94. 2015Tensor Processing UnitGoogle's chip built only for neural networks.
  95. 2017Tensor Cores (Volta)Dedicated matrix units inside the GPU.
  96. 2019ChipletsBig chips assembled from smaller ones.
  97. 2019EUV lithography13.5 nm light to print the smallest features.
  98. 2019Quantum advantage demo (Sycamore)A quantum chip beats classical supercomputers on one task.
  99. 20205 nm processOver 170 million transistors per square millimeter.
  100. 2020Apple M1ARM laptops with class-leading performance per watt.
  101. 20223 nm processThe last FinFET generation at TSMC.
  102. 2022Frontier (exascale)The first computer to exceed one exaFLOPS.
  103. 2022Gate-all-around transistorThe gate wraps the channel on all four sides.
  104. 2022Nvidia H100The GPU that trained the generative AI boom.
  105. 2023High-NA EUVA bigger lens for even finer EUV lines.
  106. 2024Nvidia BlackwellTwo dies joined as one GPU with 208 billion transistors.
  107. 2024Post-quantum cryptography standardsNew encryption designed to survive quantum computers.
  108. 2024Willow (below-threshold QEC)Adding qubits reduces errors, for the first time.
  109. 20252 nm processTSMC's first gate-all-around process enters production.
  110. October 2025Verifiable quantum advantageA quantum computer outruns supercomputers on a result that can be checked.
  111. November 2025Quantinuum Helios98 trapped-ion qubits and 48 error-corrected logical qubits.
  112. November 2025Ironwood TPUGoogle's inference chip scales to 9,216 chips in one pod.
  113. November 2025IBM Nighthawk and LoonIBM shows every hardware piece a fault-tolerant machine will need.
  114. November 2025448-atom fault-tolerant architectureNeutral atoms combine all the parts of an error-corrected computer.
  115. January 2026Nvidia Vera RubinSix new chips designed as one rack-scale AI computer.
  116. January 2026Intel 18A Panther LakeIntel's first high-volume chip on its 18A gate-all-around process.
  117. January 2026Colossus 2 gigawatt clusterThe first AI training cluster to draw a gigawatt.
  118. February 2026HBM4 memoryStacked memory reaches 3.3 TB/s per stack.

Projections 3

  1. around 2032Fault-tolerant quantum computerError-corrected logical qubits run long algorithms that no classical machine can.
  2. around 2035Zettascale computingA single system performs a thousand times more operations per second than the first exascale machines.
  3. around 2036Orbital data centresSolar-powered compute clusters in orbit run AI workloads with near-continuous sunlight.