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The History of Computers

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The History of Computers

Computer Skills Preparatory Year Presented by: L. Obead Alhadreti.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

B ASIC C ONCEPTS O F C OMPUTERS Bajaj Coaching Center, Rohtak For more such slides visit bcc2000.com.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Computer History.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

11 Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Lecture 1 “History and Evolution of Computers” Informatics.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Chapter Chapter Goals Describe the layers of a computer system Describe the concept of abstraction and its relationship to computing Describe.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Technology in Action Technology in Focus: History of the PC

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Computer History Presented by Frank H. Osborne, Ph. D. © 2005 Bio 2900 Computer Applications in Biology.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Appendix The Continuing Story of the Computer Age.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Lecture 2 Computer development history. Topic History of computer development Computer generation Programming language.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

History of Computers Lecture 1. History of Computers Mechanical Computers –Abacus –Jacquard Loom –Player Piano –Difference Engine –Analytical Engine –Hollerith.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

CS 104 Introduction to Computer Science and Graphics Problems History of Computer 09/05/2008 Yang Song (Prepared by Yang Song and Suresh Solaimuthu)

powerpoint presentation history of computer

1 CSE1301 Computer Programming: Lecture 34 Introduction to the History of Computing.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

History of IT.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

1 Chapter 1 The Big Picture. 2 2 Computing systems are dynamic entities used to solve problems and interact with their environment. They consist of devices,

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Some of these slides are based on material from the ACM Computing Curricula 2005.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

End Show History of Computers Ancient Times In the beginning, man used his fingers and toes to perform simple computations such as addition and subtraction.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Prepared by: Jasper Francisco. The Early Years 1  In the early years, before the computer was invented, there were several inventions of counting machine.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

KEYBOARD – an input device used to type data.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

History of computers By Anne Perera.

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The Evolution of Computers: A Comprehensive History in PowerPoint Presentation

history and evolution of computers ppt

The History and Evolution of Computers

Computers have come a long way since their inception, evolving from simple calculating machines to the sophisticated devices we use today. Let’s take a journey through the history of computers to understand how they have evolved over time.

Early Computing Devices

The history of computers can be traced back to ancient times when devices like the abacus were used for basic calculations. In the 19th century, mechanical calculators such as Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine laid the foundation for modern computing.

The First Electronic Computers

The mid-20th century saw the development of the first electronic computers, such as ENIAC and UNIVAC, which revolutionized data processing and computation. These early computers were large, expensive, and primarily used by governments and research institutions.

The Personal Computer Revolution

In the 1970s and 1980s, the invention of microprocessors led to the rise of personal computers (PCs). Companies like Apple and IBM introduced affordable desktop computers that brought computing power into people’s homes and offices.

The Internet Age

The advent of the internet in the late 20th century transformed how we use computers. The World Wide Web enabled global communication, e-commerce, social networking, and access to vast amounts of information at our fingertips.

Modern Computing Technologies

Today, we live in an era of smartphones, tablets, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. These technologies continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with computers and shape our digital future.

In Conclusion

The history and evolution of computers is a fascinating journey that highlights human ingenuity, innovation, and progress. As we look towards the future, it is exciting to imagine what new advancements in computing technology will bring.

From Abacus to AI: Tracing the Milestones and Evolution of Computer Technology

Start with a brief overview of the history of computers, highlighting key milestones and inventions., include information about the evolution of computer hardware, from early mechanical devices to modern supercomputers., discuss the impact of major technological advancements on the development of computers over time., incorporate visuals such as images or timelines to enhance understanding and engagement., explore how different generations of computers have influenced each other and shaped today’s technology landscape., conclude with future possibilities and trends in computer evolution to provide a forward-looking perspective..

The history and evolution of computers are marked by significant milestones and groundbreaking inventions that have shaped the modern computing landscape. From the ancient abacus to Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, early computing devices laid the groundwork for the development of electronic computers like ENIAC and UNIVAC in the mid-20th century. The introduction of personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s, followed by the internet age and advancements in modern computing technologies, have propelled us into a digital era defined by innovation and progress. This tip on the history and evolution of computers PowerPoint presentation provides a comprehensive overview of these key historical moments, offering valuable insights into how far we have come in the world of computing.

In a PowerPoint presentation on the history and evolution of computers, it is essential to highlight the remarkable evolution of computer hardware. Starting from early mechanical devices like the abacus and Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, the progression of computer hardware has been monumental. Advancements in technology have led to the development of modern supercomputers that can process vast amounts of data at incredible speeds. By showcasing this evolution in hardware, audiences can appreciate how far computer technology has come and gain a deeper understanding of the impact it has had on various aspects of our lives.

When creating a PowerPoint presentation on the history and evolution of computers, it is essential to discuss the impact of major technological advancements on the development of computers over time. By highlighting key milestones such as the invention of the microprocessor, the introduction of personal computers, and the emergence of the internet, you can demonstrate how these advancements have shaped the evolution of computing technology. Exploring how innovations like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and quantum computing have further propelled the field forward will provide valuable insights into how far computers have come and where they may be headed in the future. Understanding the influence of these technological breakthroughs is crucial for appreciating the continuous growth and transformation of computers throughout history.

To enhance understanding and engagement in a PowerPoint presentation about the history and evolution of computers, it is recommended to incorporate visuals such as images or timelines. Visual aids can help illustrate key points, provide context to historical events, and make complex information more digestible for the audience. By including visuals like photographs of early computing devices, diagrams of technological advancements, or timelines showing the progression of computer development, presenters can create a more immersive and impactful learning experience for viewers. Visuals not only enhance comprehension but also keep the audience engaged and interested throughout the presentation.

By delving into the history and evolution of computers through a PowerPoint presentation, one can uncover how various generations of computers have influenced each other, leading to the shaping of today’s technology landscape. From the early mechanical calculators to the modern era of smartphones and artificial intelligence, each advancement has built upon the innovations of its predecessors, creating a rich tapestry of technological progress. Understanding this interconnected web of influences allows us to appreciate the complexity and interconnectedness of the devices we use daily, providing valuable insights into how far we have come and where future developments may lead us.

In conclusion, delving into the history and evolution of computers through a PowerPoint presentation offers valuable insights into how far we have come in the realm of technology. By reflecting on past milestones and breakthroughs, we can better appreciate the rapid pace of innovation that has shaped the computing landscape today. Looking ahead, it is intriguing to consider the future possibilities and trends in computer evolution. Advancements in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology hold immense potential to revolutionize how we interact with technology and each other. Embracing these emerging technologies will undoubtedly lead us towards a future where computers play an even more integral role in shaping our lives and society as a whole.

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ELAIYA SENGUTTUVAN

Martyn Thomas

The world's first modern computer, built in Manchester England in 1948, was followed remarkably swiftly by the first business software, but by 1968 software was in crisis and NATO called a conference. The problems were diagnosed, solutions were proposed - and largely ignored. A second Software Crisis was announced in the early 1980's and again the effective solutions were considered impractical and the practical solutions were largely ineffective. Meanwhile as Moore's Law predicted, hardware costs continued to fall exponentially, making software systems ubiquitous and leading to a third software crisis, this time of cybersecurity.

Cresent Escriber

Edmund Miller

Ndidi Opara

David Dennis

The social and organizational history of humanity is intricately entangled with the history of technology in general and the technology of information in particular. Advances in this area have often been closely involved in social and political transformations. While the contemporary period is often referred to by such names as the Computing and Information Age, this is the culmination of a series of historical transformations that have been centuries in the making. This course will provide a venue for students to learn about history through the evolution of number systems and arithmetic, calculating and computing machines, and advanced communication technology via the Internet. Students who take this course will attain a degree of technological literacy while studying core historical concepts. Students who complete this course will learn the key vocabulary of the computing discipline, which is playing a significant role in modern human thought and new media communications. The Hist...

Preprints zur Kulturgeschichte der Technik

David Gugerli , Daniela Zetti

The historicization of the computer in the second half of the 20th century can be understood as the effect of the inevitable changes in both its technological and narrative development. What interests us is how past futures and therefore history were stabilized. The development, operation, and implementation of machines and programs gave rise to a historicity of the field of computing. Whenever actors have been grouped into communities – for example, into industrial and academic developer communities – new orderings have been constructed historically. Such orderings depend on the ability to refer to archival and published documents and to develop new narratives based on them. Professional historians are particularly at home in these waters – and nevertheless can disappear into the whirlpool of digital prehistory. Toward the end of the 1980s, the first critical review of the literature on the history of computers thus offered several programmatic suggestions. It is one of the peculiar coincidences of history that the future should rear its head again just when the history of computers was flourishing as a result of massive methodological and conceptual input. The emergence of the World Wide Web in the 1990s, which caught historians totally by surprise, led to an ahistorical, anthropological, aesthetic-medial approach to digitization. The program for investigating the prehistory of the digital age was rewritten in favor of explaining the development of communication networks. Computer systems and their concepts dropped out of history. This poses a problem for the history of computers, insofar as the success of the history of technology is tied to the stability of its objects. It seems more promising to us to not attribute the problem to the object called computer or to the “disciplinary” field, but rather to focus entirely on substantive issues. An issue-oriented technological history of the 21st century should be able to do this by treating the history of computers as a refreshing source of productive friction.

IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology

John Impagliazzo

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The History of Computers - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

powerpoint presentation history of computer

The History of Computers

Past, present, and beyond. topics. famous predictions about computers ... famous quotes about computers 'i think there is a world market for ... famous ... – powerpoint ppt presentation.

  • Past, Present, and Beyond
  • Famous Predictions about Computers
  • Early History of Computers
  • The First Generation of Computers
  • The Second Generation of Computers
  • The Third Generation of Computers
  • The Fourth Generation of Computers
  • The Future of Computing
  • I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
  • Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. Popular Mechanics, 1949
  • There is no reason anyone in the right state of mind will want a computer in their home. Ken Olson, President of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977.
  • "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" - Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and HP interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer.
  • Blaise Pascal
  • Joseph Jacquard
  • Charles Babbage
  • Ada Lovelace
  • The abacus, a simple counting aid, may have been invented in Babylonia (now Iraq) in the fourth century B.C.
  • First known mechanical calculator
  • Capable of simple arithmetic
  • Born on June 19, 1623 in France
  • Builds the first operating mechanical calculator in 1642 called the Pascaline
  • Calculator limited to addition and subtraction of decimal numbers
  • Metal wheels used to enter numbers, results appear in the calculators window
  • German mathematician
  • Calculator purely mechanical with no source of power
  • Calculator capable of multiplication and division
  • Joseph-Marie Jacquard
  • Invents an automatic loom controlled by punch cards in 1801
  • First machine programmed with punched cards
  • People rioted over the loss of jobs it produced
  • Born December 26, 1792.
  • Known as the Father of Computers
  • Devises the Difference Engine in the early 1820s.
  • Mechanical, steam powered machine for calculating astronomical tables.
  • Works on the project for 20 years before the project is cancelled by the British government in 1842.
  • The Analytical Engine
  • A mechanical computer that can solve any mathematical problem.
  • Includes these features crucial to future computers
  • An input device (punch cards)
  • A storage facility to hold numbers for processing
  • A processor or number calculator
  • A control unit to direct tasks to be performed
  • An output device.
  • Countess Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace
  • Born December 10, 1815, daughter of the poet Lord Byron
  • Meets Babbage in 1833
  • Often called the first computer programmer
  • Ada Lovelace, Continued
  • Publishes an analysis of the Analytical Engine.
  • Outlines the fundamentals of computer programming, including data analysis, looping and memory addressing.
  • Herman Hollerith
  • The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)
  • The 1880 US Census took almost seven years to count.
  • Using punch cards, developed an electromechanical machine that counted the 1890 Census in six weeks.
  • Brought his punch card reader to the business world in 1896 when he founded Tabulating Machine Company, which later merged with International Business Machines (IBM).
  • Punch cards remained in use for data processing until the 1960s.
  • An electromechanical computer developed in 1944 by Howard Aiken
  • Developed to calculate ballistics charts for the US Navy
  • Was about half as long as a football field and contained 500 miles of wire
  • Used electromagnetic signals to move mechanical parts
  • Was obsolete by the time it was complete
  • The worlds first digital electronic computer.
  • Built by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry around 1940.
  • Used the binary number number system, regenerative memory, and separated memory and computing functions.
  • The worlds first large-scale, general purpose electronic computer
  • Developed in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly
  • Used 18,000 vacuum tubes
  • Occupied a 30 by 50 ft room
  • Computed at speeds up to 1,000 times faster than the Mark 1
  • Used for ballistics, weather prediction, and for atomic energy calculations.
  • To program, hundreds of wires and thousands of switches had to be set by hand
  • Stored-programming concept
  • Suggested that programs and data could be represented in the same internal memory.
  • All modern ocmputers store programs in internal memory.
  • Vacuum Tubes
  • Punch Cards
  • At the time, the primary way to enter information and programs into a computer
  • Built in 1951 by Remington Rand
  • The first computer mass produced for general use
  • Used magnetic tape instead of punch cards for input and output
  • Predicted the winner of the 1952 presidential election
  • Transistors
  • Admiral Grace Hopper
  • The transistor (on/off switch) was invented in 1948 and began to replace vacuum tubes in computers by 1956.
  • Developed by a team at Bell Labs, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956.
  • Transistors allowed computers to become smaller, faster and more reliable.
  • Today, transistors are about .25 microns in size, that is smaller than the width of a human hair.
  • Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
  • Born December 9, 1906 in New York City
  • One of the first US computer programmers
  • A leader in the field of compilers
  • Believed that programming languages should be more like English
  • Was a leading force in the development of the COBOL business programming language
  • Coined the term Debugging
  • The rise of operating systems, minicomputers, and word processing
  • Integrated Circuits
  • Development of the first computer networks
  • Integrated circuits (computer chips) began replacing transistors
  • An integrated circuit contains many transistors and electronic circuits on a single wafer of silicon or chip.
  • Developed in 1964, the first computer to use integrated circuits.
  • Became the basic model for other mainframes produced by IBM and other companies.
  • Price Up to a million dollars
  • Number sold 14,000 by 1968
  • The first microcomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Co. (DEC) in 1965.
  • Number Sold 50,000
  • The Microprocessor
  • The First Microcomputers
  • A computer chip that contains on it the entire CPU
  • Mass produced at a very low price
  • Computers become smaller and cheaper
  • Intel 4004 the first computer on a chip, more powerful than the original ENIAC.
  • 1975 - The first microcomputer, the Altair 8800 was introduced. The BASIC translator used by the Altair was developed by Bill Gates
  • 1975 The first super computer, the Cray 1, was announced
  • 1976 DEC introduces its minicomputer, the VAX
  • 1977 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak begin producing Apple computers in a garage
  • 1978 The first spreadsheet for Apple is introduced
  • 1981 IBM introduces the IBM Personal Computer. Uses the MS-DOS operating system (birth of Microsoft)
  • By 1982, 835,000 IBM PCs had been sold
  • 1982 Sun Microsystems introduces its first workstation
  • 1984 Apple produces the first Macintosh
  • 1985 Microsoft introduces Windows
  • Bleeding Edge Technology
  • Molecular Computing
  • DNA Computing
  • Biological Computing
  • Quantum Computing
  • The amount of circuitry that can be placed on a silicon chip is limited.
  • As more transistors are crammed onto a silicon chip the process becomes complex and expensive.
  • Today about 28 million transistors can be placed on a computer chip.
  • Molecules are much smaller than transistors.
  • Molecular chips that contain billions or trillions of switches and components.
  • Main Advantages
  • Potential to pack vastly more circuitry onto a microchip than will ever be possible with silicon chips
  • Astonishing fast
  • Potentially cheap and easy to produce
  • Potential Uses
  • Molecular memories with a million times the storage of todays chips
  • Supercomputers the size of a wrist watch
  • Current Work
  • Creating switches using molecules
  • Molecules do not usually carry a current
  • Small molecular devices that could be integrated with todays silicon chips
  • DNA is a unique data structure
  • Has enormous data density up to 1 million Gbits of data per inch
  • Todays best hard drive store about 7Gbits psi
  • Double stranded nature has potential for error correction
  • Massively Parallel Operations
  • Using enzymes, which operate on one DNA at the same time
  • Massively parallel operations
  • Huge memory capacity
  • Possible Uses
  • Solving computational problems that can never be solved using silicon-based computers.
  • Creating devices out of cells that can compute and be programmed
  • Probably not a replacement for traditional computers
  • Biological computing is at the stage that traditional computing was in the 1920s.
  • Process control for biochemical systems
  • Insulin delivery systems that could sense the amount of glucose in the blood and deliver the right amount
  • Devices that detect food contamination or toxins in the air
  • Computers based on quantum mechanics
  • Building block of data is the quantum bit (or qubit)
  • A qubit can exist in two states at the same time, so it can hold a value of both one and zero simultaneously
  • Potential for parallel computation
  • Disadvantages
  • Fragile and difficult to control
  • The whole system can lose coherence and collapse.
  • http//lalaland.cl.msu.edu/vanhoose/humor/0261.ht ml
  • http//aspire.virtualave.net/quotes.phtml
  • http//www.funehumor.com/fun_main/computer.htm
  • http//www.allsands.com/History/Objects/babbagecom puter_yy_gn.htm
  • http//sol.brunel.ac.uk/history/hist1910.html
  • History of Computers
  • http//www.cnet.com/techtrends/0-1544318-7-1656936 .html?tagst.cn.1.tlpg.1544318-7-1656936
  • http//www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/comp_ hd.html
  • http//www.cln.org/themes/computer_history.html
  • http//www.techreview.com/articles/may00/full_text .htm

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Ieee spectrum, follow ieee spectrum, support ieee spectrum, enjoy more free content and benefits by creating an account, saving articles to read later requires an ieee spectrum account, the institute content is only available for members, downloading full pdf issues is exclusive for ieee members, downloading this e-book is exclusive for ieee members, access to spectrum 's digital edition is exclusive for ieee members, following topics is a feature exclusive for ieee members, adding your response to an article requires an ieee spectrum account, create an account to access more content and features on ieee spectrum , including the ability to save articles to read later, download spectrum collections, and participate in conversations with readers and editors. for more exclusive content and features, consider joining ieee ., join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to all of spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, join the world’s largest professional organization devoted to engineering and applied sciences and get access to this e-book plus all of ieee spectrum’s articles, archives, pdf downloads, and other benefits. learn more →, access thousands of articles — completely free, create an account and get exclusive content and features: save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders — all free for full access and benefits, join ieee as a paying member., the improbable origins of powerpoint, here’s the surprising story behind the software that conquered the world, one slide at a time.

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Walking into the hall to deliver the speech was a “ daunting experience ," the speaker later recalled, but “we had projectors and all sorts of technology to help us make the case." The technology in question was PowerPoint, the presentation software produced by Microsoft . The speaker was Colin Powell, then the U.S. Secretary of State.

Powell's 45 slides displayed snippets of text, and some were adorned with photos or maps. A few even had embedded video clips. During the 75-⁠minute speech , the tech worked perfectly. Years later, Powell would recall, “When I was through, I felt pretty good about it."

The aim of his speech, before the United Nations Security Council on 5 February 2003, was to argue the Bush administration's final case for war with Iraq in a “powerful way." In that, he succeeded. While the president had already decided to go to war, Powell's speech—inseparable from what would become one of the most famous PowerPoint presentations of all time—did nothing to derail the plan. The following month, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland launched their invasion .

Powell's speech dramatized how PowerPoint had become, by 2003, a nearly inescapable tool of communication and persuasion in much of the world. Since then, its domination has only become more complete. The same tool used by U.S. State Department and CIA officials to pivot an international coalition toward war is also used by schoolchildren to give classroom reports on planets, penguins, and poets. Microsoft rightly boasts of 1.2 billion copies of PowerPoint at large—one copy for every seven people on earth. In any given month, approximately 200 million of these copies are used, and although nobody's really counting, our cumulative generation of PowerPoint slides surely reaches well into the billions. So profound is PowerPoint's influence that prominent figures have decried the software's effects on thinking itself . Edward Tufte , the guru of information visualization, has famously railed against the “cognitive style" of PowerPoint, which he characterizes as having a “foreshortening of evidence and thought" and a “deeply hierarchical single-⁠path structure."

PowerPoint is so ingrained in modern life that the notion of it having a history at all may seem odd. But it does have a very definite lifetime as a commercial product that came onto the scene 30 years ago, in 1987. Remarkably, the founders of the Silicon Valley firm that created PowerPoint did not set out to make presentation software, let alone build a tool that would transform group communication throughout the world. Rather, PowerPoint was a recovery from dashed hopes that pulled a struggling startup back from the brink of failure—and succeeded beyond anything its creators could have imagined.

PowerPoint was not the first software for creating presentations on personal computers. Starting in 1982, roughly a half-dozen other programs [PDF] came on the market before PowerPoint's 1987 debut. Its eventual domination was not the result of first-mover advantage. What's more, some of its most familiar features—the central motif of a slide containing text and graphics; bulleted lists; the slideshow; the slide sorter; and even the animated transitions between slides—did not originate with PowerPoint. And yet it's become the Kleenex or Scotch Tape of presentation software, as a “PowerPoint" has come to mean any presentation created with software.

With PowerPoint as well as its predecessors, the motif of the slide was, of course, lifted directly from the world of photography. Some presentation programs actually generated 35-mm slides for display with a slide projector. In most cases, though, the early programs created slides that were printed on paper for incorporation into reports, transferred to transparencies for use on overhead projectors, or saved as digital files to be displayed on computer monitors.

The upshot was that personal computer users of the 1980s, especially business users, had many options, and the market for business software was undergoing hypergrowth, with programs for generating spreadsheets, documents, databases, and business graphics each constituting a multimillion-dollar category. At the time, commentators saw the proliferation of business software as a new phase in office automation, in which computer use was spreading beyond the accounting department and the typing pool to the office elites. Both the imagined and actual users of the new business software were white-collar workers, from midlevel managers to Mahogany Row executives.

PowerPoint thus emerged during a period in which personal computing was taking over the American office. A major accelerant was the IBM Personal Computer , which Big Blue unveiled in 1981. By then, bureaucratic America—corporate and government alike—was well habituated to buying its computers from IBM. This new breed of machine, soon known simply as the PC, spread through offices like wildfire.

The groundwork for that invasion had been laid the previous decade, in the 1970s technosocial vision of the “office of the future." It started, like so much of what we now take for granted in our contemporary world of networked personal computing, at Xerox's legendary Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) [PDF]. The site was established in 1970 to invent the computing systems that would equip the future's white-collar office, an arena the company hoped to dominate in the same way it did photocopying. Many of the bright young computer scientists and engineers recruited to work at PARC knew one another from the major computer science programs funded by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UC Berkeley, the University of Utah, and SRI.

In 1972, PARC researchers began to focus on a new personal computer they called the Alto. Led by Alan Kay , Butler Lampson , Bob Taylor , and Chuck Thacker , they were captivated by an extraordinary idea: that in the office of the future, every individual would have a dedicated computer like the Alto. Moreover, these computers would be networked to one another and to other, larger computers, both locally and far away. This networking would form a web of communication and computing resources well beyond the capacity of any single personal computer. In the pursuit of this vision, Ethernet emerged , as did the PARC Universal Packet protocol [PDF], or PUP, an important predecessor of the TCP/IP standard of today's Internet.

The Alto's creators emphasized the machine's graphics capabilities, dedicating much of the computer's hardware and software to rendering high-⁠resolution imagery onscreen, including typography, drawings, digital photographs, and animations. It was a huge step up from the mainstream computers of the day, which still used punch cards, paper printouts, teletypes, and “dumb" terminals. Alto users interacted with it through a graphical interface to access, generate, and manipulate information. Even the text was treated as an image. The computer was controlled through a standard keyboard and the then-novel mouse that had emerged from Doug Engelbart 's SRI laboratory.

This graphical turn in computing was perhaps most pronounced in one of the Alto's programming languages, called Smalltalk. Developed by Kay, Dan Ingalls , Adele Goldberg , and other collaborators, Smalltalk wasn't just a programming language; it was also a programming and user environment. It introduced the graphical user interface, or GUI, to personal computing, including a metaphorical desktop with overlapping windows, contextual and pop-up menus, file browsers, scroll bars, selection by mouse clicks, and even cut, copy, and paste.

While such innovations were ostensibly proprietary, by the end of the 1970s, Xerox managers and PARC staff were routinely discussing their findings with outsiders and publishing details of the Alto system in journals. PARC researchers were, after all, still part of the broader ARPA community of computer scientists and engineers. Many visitors who saw the Alto system considered it transformative.

One such visitor was Apple cofounder Steve Jobs . Following Xerox's investment in Apple in 1979, PARC researchers gave Apple engineers and management detailed demonstrations of Smalltalk and other programs previously reserved for Xerox insiders. Jobs was so enthralled by what he saw that he decided to reorient the Lisa, a business computer Apple was developing at the time, to fully embrace the PARC idiom. A few years later, when Jobs was transferred out of the Lisa project, he seized control of another effort aimed at creating a low-cost computer and pushed it, too, toward the PARC idiom. That computer became the Macintosh.

What does all this have to do with PowerPoint? Apple lavished resources—people and cash alike—to embrace the PARC paradigm with the Lisa and the Macintosh, but not everyone at Apple was happy about that. In particular, those working to maintain the existing Apple II and III lines felt that their efforts were being shortchanged. By 1982, the product marketing manager for the Apple III, Taylor Pohlman , and the software marketing manager for the Apple II and III, Rob Campbell, had had enough. They quit and went into business together, founding the company that would create PowerPoint.

But PowerPoint was not at all in their original plan.

One thing that united Pohlman and Campbell—but alienated them at Apple—was that they were cut from a different cloth than the computer-science types working on the Lisa and the Macintosh. Though both Pohlman and Campbell were technically minded, they were also oriented toward marketing and sales. Before Apple, Pohlman had worked in marketing at Hewlett-Packard, and Campbell had run a small accounting software company.

The pair left Apple late in 1982, and by early 1983, they had secured US $600,000 in venture capital to create a software company, which they called Forethought. Ironically, the startup's aim was to bring the PARC idiom to the IBM PC and its clones—in essence, to outplay Apple at its own game. That year, the Apple Lisa appeared , priced at nearly $10,000 (more than $25,000 in today's dollars). Two years earlier, Xerox had brought its own personal computer, the Xerox Star , to market, at an even higher price. Pohlman and Campbell's idea was to bring a graphical-software environment like the Xerox Alto's to the hugely popular but graphically challenged PC.

Forethought's founders intended to go beyond the Star and the Lisa by incorporating an important dimension of Alto's Smalltalk: object-oriented programming . In simple terms, traditional programming of the day treated data and the procedures for manipulating it separately. In object-oriented programming, data and procedures are combined in “objects" that interact with each other by passing messages between them. Proponents held that the modularity of object-oriented programming made for speedier development, flexibility, and dynamic change. For example, skilled Smalltalk programmers could quickly alter the GUI while the program was running. Object-oriented programming has since become the prevailing paradigm for the most widely used programming languages.

Pohlman and Campbell envisioned an object-oriented software platform called Foundation, which was centered around documents. Each Foundation document would act like an object in Smalltalk, which a business user would stitch together with other documents to create, say, a report containing a graph of recent sales, a statistical analysis of customer traits, drawings of proposed changes to a product, and a block of explanatory text. Each element would be live, malleable, and programmable. Spreadsheets, databases, drawings, word processing—Foundation would handle it all. Users would select a document with a mouse click, and contextual menus would then offer choices appropriate for that type of document. Foundation would be, in essence, Smalltalk for the office worker.

Forethought staffed up, bringing in software developers from Xerox PARC who were familiar with object-oriented programming and WYSIWYG applications, in which the text and graphics displayed on screen look very similar to the way they will appear in print. To create certain functions, the startup inked deals with outside suppliers; Forethought also purchased a powerful VAX computer from Digital Equipment Corp. for the software-development effort.

Within a year, the company ran into difficulties. For one, the developers grew deeply concerned about which personal computers, if any, would be powerful enough to run Foundation. The Apple Lisa had the horsepower, but it was already failing in the market, while the Macintosh was deemed too feeble. And the IBM PC was still far behind where Forethought had hoped and planned it would be.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Forethought, a Silicon Valley startup, brought PowerPoint 1.0 to market in April 1987.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

More worrying was Oracle's announcement that it would need another year to deliver on its contract for the database code. This meant that the launch of Foundation would be intolerably delayed. Forethought was running perilously low on funds, and it didn't have the resources to develop a database on its own. The company was facing, literally, an existential crisis.

Rather than liquidate the firm, management and investors decided to “restart" Forethought—a “pivot" in today's Silicon Valley parlance. Work on Foundation was set aside, while the firm focused on software publishing—that is, manufacturing, marketing, and supporting computer programs written by others. Forethought's publishing arm produced software for the Apple Macintosh under the brand Macware. And it was a success. Its biggest hit, oddly enough, was a database program called FileMaker .

With brightening finances from sales of FileMaker, Forethought began to develop a new software product of its own. This new effort was the brainchild of Robert Gaskins , an accomplished computer scientist who'd been hired to lead Forethought's product development. Gaskins was a polymath who had simultaneously pursued Ph.D.s in English, linguistics, and computer science at UC Berkeley before joining industry. He in turn hired a bright young software developer named Dennis Austin , who had previously developed compilers at Burroughs and contributed to a GUI operating system at a laptop startup.

Gaskins and Austin worked closely to conceptualize, design, and specify Forethought's new product. Gaskins spotted an opportunity in presentation software and believed they could apply the PARC idiom to this application. He envisioned the user creating slides of text and graphics in a graphical, WYSIWYG environment, then outputting them to 35-mm slides, overhead transparencies, or video displays and projectors, and also sharing them electronically through networks and electronic mail. The presentation would spring directly from the mind of the business user, without having to first transit through the corporate art department.

While Gaskins's ultimate aim for this new product, called Presenter, was to get it onto IBM PCs and their clones, he and Austin soon realized that the Apple Macintosh was the more promising initial target. Designs for the first version of Presenter specified a program that would allow the user to print out slides on Apple's newly released laser printer, the LaserWriter, and photocopy the printouts onto transparencies for use with an overhead projector.

Austin quickly got to work programming Presenter in Apple Pascal on a Lisa computer, eventually switching to a Macintosh. He was joined in the effort by Tom Rudkin , an experienced developer, and the pair hewed as closely as possible to the Macintosh's user interface and modes of operation. Indeed, the source code for Presenter included Apple-provided code for handling text, which Apple used in its own word processor, MacWrite.

In April 1987, Forethought introduced its new presentation program to the market very much as it had been conceived, but with a different name. Presenter was now PowerPoint 1.0—there are conflicting accounts of the name change—and it was a proverbial overnight success with Macintosh users. In the first month, Forethought booked $1 million in sales of PowerPoint, at a net profit of $400,000, which was about what the company had spent developing it. And just over three months after PowerPoint's introduction, Microsoft purchased Forethought outright for $14 million in cash.

PowerPoint then became Microsoft's presentation software, first just for the Macintosh and later also for Windows. The Forethought team became Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, which Gaskins led for five years, while Austin and Rudkin remained the principal developers of PowerPoint for about 10 years. Wisely, Microsoft chose to keep the Graphics Business Unit in Silicon Valley rather than move it to Redmond, Wash. The unit became Microsoft's first outpost in the region, and PowerPoint is still developed there to this day.

While PowerPoint was a success from the start, it nevertheless faced stiff competition, and for several years, Lotus Freelance and Software Publishing's Harvard Graphics commanded larger market shares. The tipping point for PowerPoint came in 1990, when Microsoft unleashed its bundling strategy and began selling Microsoft Office—which combined Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—as a $1,000 set. Previously, each part had been sold separately for about $500 apiece.

Because most users of personal computers required both a word processor and a spreadsheet program, Microsoft's price for Office proved compelling. PowerPoint's competitors, on the other hand, resented the tactic as giving away PowerPoint for free. And for more than a quarter century, Microsoft's competitive logic proved unassailable.

These days, the business software market is shifting again, and Microsoft Office must now compete with similar bundles that are entirely free, from the likes of Google , LibreOffice, and others. Productivity software resides more often than not in the cloud, rather than on the user's device. Meanwhile, the dominant mode of personal computing globally has firmly shifted from the desktop and laptop to the smartphone. As yet, no new vision of personal computing like the one that came from Xerox PARC in the 1970s has emerged. And so for the moment, it appears that PowerPoint, as we know it, is here to stay.

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Blog > The History and Evolution of PowerPoint

The History and Evolution of PowerPoint

04.20.20   •  #ppt #history #versions.

On April 20, 1987, the first version of PowerPoint was released. Because we love the software so much (and we know many of you readers do, too!), we wanted to celebrate PowerPoint’s 33rd birthday with a whole article dedicated to its origins, history, and use cases! 95% of presentations are created with PowerPoint, 30 Million PowerPoint presentations are given everyday, and 500 million people all over the world are using the software. So without further ado, let’s dive into the success story of PowerPoint - with the early beginnings and the development throughout the different versions (except for version 13, which was skipped due to triskaidekaphobia concerns ).

Timeline & Version History

5. july 1984: the idea was created.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Robert Gaskins was hired by Forethought Inc. as vice president of product development. His task was to create a new software for graphical personal computers like Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh. Already 1 month later, Gaskins came up with the idea of PowerPoint. Back then, the project description was labeled as "Presentation Graphics for Overhead Projection". For the next year they continued to work on the first specification of the software.

November 1984: Start of development

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Development officially started under the name "Presenter". However, they started to work on the Macintosh version first. The first developer besides Gaskin was Thomas Rudkin, who joined after 6 months.

January 1987: Funding by Apple

To continue development, the team needed more money. Apple's Strategic Investment Group selected the company for its first investment. One month later, when they announced the software at the Personal Computer Forum in Phoenix, famous Apple CEO John Skully reportedly said "We see desktop presentation as potentially a bigger market for Apple than desktop publishing".

21. January 1987: The name PowerPoint was established

Originally, they chose to keep the name "Presenter" for the final software. However, to everyone's surprise, when they tried to register the trademark, their lawyers replied that the name was already used by another software product. The team had to find a new name quickly and thought about "SlideMaker" and "OverheadMaker". According to Gaskins, one night he came up with "Power point" randomly under the shower. Initially, nobody liked it, but when his colleague Glenn Hobin independently had the same idea (he saw a sign on an airport reading "POWER POINT"), they took it for an omen and stuck with the name. The reason why the name now is a single word with an upper-case P is that back then it was required in the naming of all Macintosh software applications. The common belief that PowerPoint got its name because it "empowers" people is therefore wrong.

20. April 1987: PowerPoint 1.0 (Macintosh)

The first 10.000 copies of the first version of PowerPoint for Macintosh shipped from manufacturing by Forethought Inc. The release was received quite well by the media, commenting it "People will buy a Macintosh just to get access to this product."

July 1987: Acquisition by Microsoft

powerpoint presentation history of computer

In early 1987 Microsoft started an internal project to develop a software to "create presentations". Shortly after, they heard that a company called Forethought had nearly finished such a software. The successful release of PowerPoint 1.0 convinced Microsoft to buy the company entirely.

May 1988: PowerPoint 2.0 (Macintosh)

powerpoint presentation history of computer

One year later, the second version of the software was introduces. It included color, more word processing features, find and replace, spell checking, color schemes for presentations, guide to color selection, ability to change color scheme retrospectively, shaded coloring for fills.

May 1990: First Windows version of PowerPoint

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Almost 3 years later, the presentation software was finally released for Windows PCs. It was announced at the same time as Windows 3.0 and was using the same version number as the current Macintosh variant (2.0).

May & September 1990: PowerPoint 3.0

powerpoint presentation history of computer

It was the first application designed exclusively for the new Windows 3.1 platform. New features were: full support for TrueType fonts (new in Windows 3.1), presentation templates, editing in outline view, new drawing, including freeform tool, flip, rotate, scale, align, and transforming imported pictures into their drawing primitives to make them editable, transitions between slides in slide show, incorporating sound and video.

February & October 1994: PowerPoint 4.0

powerpoint presentation history of computer

The new version included among others: Word tables, rehearsal mode, hidden slides. Moreover, Microsoft first introduced a standard "Microsoft Office" look and feel (shared with Word and Excel), with status bar, toolbars and tooltips.

July 1995: PowerPoint 95 (new version naming)

powerpoint presentation history of computer

To align PowerPoint with all other Office applications, Microsoft decided to skip versions 5 and 6 and instead call it PowerPoint 95.

October 2003: PowerPoint 2003

powerpoint presentation history of computer

The 2003 version was the first to include the now called "Presenter View": tools visible to presenter during slide show (notes, thumbnails, time clock, re-order and edit slides). Furthermore, it included an option to "Package for CD" to write presentation and viewer app to a CD.

January 2007: PowerPoint 2007

powerpoint presentation history of computer

It brought a new user interface (a changeable "ribbon" of tools across the top to replace menus and toolbars), SmartArt graphics, many graphical improvements in text and drawing, improved "Presenter View" and widescreen slide formats. Another major change was the transition from a binary file format, used from 1997 to 2003, to a new XML file format.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

June 2010: PowerPoint 2010

powerpoint presentation history of computer

This release added: sections within presentations, a reading view, save as video, insert video from web, embedding video and audio as well as enhanced editing for video and for pictures.

October 2012: PowerPoint for Web was released

powerpoint presentation history of computer

The first time ever, the presentation software could be used in your web browser without any installation.

January 2013: PowerPoint 2013

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Changes: online collaboration by multiple authors, user interface redesigned for multi-touch screens, improved audio, video, animations, and transitions, further changes to Presenter View. Clipart collections (and insertion tool) were removed, but were available online.

July 2013: First PowerPoint app for Android & iPhone

powerpoint presentation history of computer

Finally the famous presentation software came on your mobile device with the first versions for Android and iOS. Giving presentations but as well basic editing of slides was already supported on the small screens. However, there wasn’t an iPad optimized version just yet.

September 2015: PowerPoint 2016

powerpoint presentation history of computer

September 2018: PowerPoint 2019

powerpoint presentation history of computer

New things in 2019: Morph transition, easily remove image backgrounds, inserting 3D models and SVG icons and a handy Zoom feature.

Are you interested in even more details on the story? You're lucky! Robert Gaskins gave an interview at the 25th anniversary of PowerPoint where he reveals even more on the history of the famous presentation software.

Modern use cases of PowerPoint

Most people use PowerPoint mainly for creating presentations, but did you know that there are many other ways of using the software? PowerPoint is not just for presenting plain slides to your audience - it can do much more - here are some interesting use cases you might not know about:

Games are a great way to lighten the mood during a presentation. Also, they engage the audience. Memory, Charades, or PowerPoint Karaoke - your options are endless! You can choose whatever suits your own presentation style and preference. If you don’t feel like thinking of games yourself, check out the best PowerPoint Games article , where you will get a lot of inspiration, creative game ideas and even a Memory template.

The times of boring, uninspired PowerPoint slides are long gone! Instead, we want to see interactive elements that engage the audience in new, exciting ways! Add Q&A sessions, get your audience’s feedback, share media and capture your audience with stories and unexpected elements! If you want to learn more about audience engagement and interaction, check out our blog post on 10 tools to boost Audience Engagement ! (Also, if you want to save time and energy, you can download SlideLizard , which allows you to create polls, do Q&A sessions, share media and slides and get audience feedback - all in one place!).

Quizzes are extremely popular, and you can create them easily with PowerPoint. We promise that your audience will love them! You can even take your quiz to the next level by matching the design of your quiz to popular quiz shows, like "Who wants to be a Millionaire" (actually, we designed a Who wants to be a Millionaire template with the original design and sound effects so you don’t have to do it yourself). Our advice for quizzes: Use a PowerPoint add-on that allows you to do live quizzes, like SlideLizard . That way you can easily let your audience vote via their smartphones or laptops.

Do you know the struggle of talking in front of a shy audience that doesn’t seem to open up? If you do, you’re definitely not alone: many presenters have to cope with this issue everyday. But there’s good news: By using some icebreaker questions at the beginning of your presentation, you can - well - break the ice. From "How are you feeling today" to "What would your superpower be" you could ask anything, really. Especially funny icebreaker questions (e.g. "Have you ever…?") are known to be very effective. You could even do more than one of these questions in the beginning (to be sure the ice is really broken). We've created a list of 20 great icebreaker questions , which you can use as inspiration.

Common struggles

PowerPoint is easy and intuitive to use - which is the reason why it has become the most used presentation software in the first place. However, there are several little struggles users sometimes have to deal with. They are all easy to solve though, and we will show you how.

Sometimes, the wrong language is set in the beginning, or you would simply like to add another language to your existing one. You can easily change that in the settings. In our blog post, you will get a detailed tutorial on how to install a new language pack and switch to your desired language .

Occasionally, PowerPoint files can get really big in file size. The reason for that are usually pictures or videos within the slides. To save a lot of storage space, you can compress your PowerPoint’s file size (without losing quality!). To learn how to do it, read this detailed step-by-step tutorial on reducing PPT file size .

This problem occurs often: You design a perfect presentation with custom fonts on your computer at home, but once you want to give that presentation on a different computer, all your beautiful custom fonts are gone and replaced with default fonts. That’s really annoying, but can be solved by embedding fonts into your .pptx file .

Templates are so useful, as they save so much time. The sad thing is that not that many people actually use them. We want to contribute to changing that by teaching you how to make your own custom design template for PowerPoint . And if you don’t feel like creating a template yourself, you can download one of ours for free:

  • the wonderful Blue Alps template
  • the simplistic Elegant Architecture template
  • the fresh Caribbean template to get that summer holiday feeling

When was PowerPoint created?

The idea of PowerPoint came up in 1984. In the following years, development started under the name "Presenter". In 1987, the first version of PowerPoint for Macintosh was released. The first Windows release followed in 1990.

When did PowerPoint come out?

The first version of PowerPoint for Macintosh came out on April 20, 1987. The initial Windows version followed 3 years later, in May 1990.

Who created / invented / developed PowerPoint?

Robert Gaskins is one of the inventors of PowerPoint. He developed the first version with the help of his colleagues at Forethought Inc., Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin. Microsoft bought the company in 1987.

How old is PowerPoint?

The first version of PowerPoint was released on April 20, 1987, which means that PowerPoint celebrates its 33rd birthday in 2020. However, it was for Macintosh only, the Windows version was release in May 1990.

When did PowerPoint become popular?

According to Google Trends, PowerPoint had its peak in popularity in November 2009 (measured by number of searches). However, PowerPoint was already a popular presentation software in the 1990s.

powerpoint presentation history of computer

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Pia works in Marketing as a graphic designer and writer at SlideLizard. She uses her vivid imagination and creativity to produce good content.

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PowerPoint Online is the web version of PowerPoint. You can present and edit your PowerPoint presentation with it, without having PowerPoint installed on your computer. It's only necessary to have a Microsoft - or a Microsoft 365 account.

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    Microsoft PowerPoint, virtual presentation software developed by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin for the American computer software company Forethought, Inc. The program, initially named Presenter, was released for the Apple Macintosh in 1987. In July of that year, the Microsoft Corporation, in its first significant software acquisition, purchased the rights to PowerPoint for $14 million.

  15. Introduction and brief history of computers

    Introduction and brief history of computers. Dec 8, 2015 • Download as PPTX, PDF •. 28 likes • 36,275 views. DIrectorate of Information Technology, Govt. of KPK. introduction to computers. Education. 1 of 26. Download now. Introduction and brief history of computers - Download as a PDF or view online for free.

  16. Microsoft PowerPoint

    Archived from the original on October 8, 2015. Retrieved August 25, 2017. Microsoft PowerPoint, virtual presentation software developed by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin for the American computer software company Forethought, Inc. The program, initially named Presenter, was released for the Apple Macintosh in 1987.

  17. The Improbable Origins of PowerPoint

    PowerPoint was not the first software for creating presentations on personal computers. Starting in 1982, roughly a half-dozen other programs [PDF] came on the market before PowerPoint's 1987 debut.

  18. PPT

    Presentation Transcript. Essential Computers Today This Case is the "box" or "chassis" that holds and encloses the many parts of your computer. Its purpose is to protect them from damage and dust. The case is usually made of metal. The style and color of the case has changed somewhat over the last few years.

  19. Complete History of PowerPoint & Versions (2022)

    Contents. On April 20, 1987, the first version of PowerPoint was released. Because we love the software so much (and we know many of you readers do, too!), we wanted to celebrate PowerPoint's 33rd birthday with a whole article dedicated to its origins, history, and use cases! 95% of presentations are created with PowerPoint, 30 Million ...

  20. PPT

    1981-IBM PC IBM introduced its PC, igniting a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. 1984-Apple Macintosh Apple Computer launched the Macintosh, the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface, with a single $1. ...