This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing: from prehistory until 1949. For narratives explaining the overall developments, see History of computing.
Prehistory Date Event 35,000 BCE Approximate date of the Lebombo bone, a piece of baboon fibula with twenty-nine notches that resemble calendar sticks still used by the San of Namibia. This may represent the earliest mathematical artifact. 8,000 BCE Latest date of the Ishango bone, which appears to exhibit tallying marks, hypothesized as a lunar phase count or as an arithmetical game.
Before modernity Antiquity Date Event c. 2300 BC Latest estimated date for the invention of the Sumerian abacus.It was a wooden or clay board divided into columns labeled with the orders of magnitude of a base-60 number system and operated with uniform tokens. before 1600 BC The Senkereh Tablet is produced, which contains a list of squares and was probably used as a ready reckoner. c. 400 BC Date given by Sinologist Joseph Needham for the invention of the armillary sphere. c. 400 BC The estimated date of construction for the oldest surviving counting board, made in white marble on the island of Salamis. c. 1st century BC Date given by Sinologist Christopher Cullen for the invention of the armillary sphere.Christopher Cullen, "Joseph Needham on Chinese Astronomy", Past and Present, No. 87 (May, 1980), pp. 39–53 (45) c. 125 BC The Antikythera mechanism: A clockwork, analog computer believed to have been designed and built in the Corinthian colony of Syracuse. The mechanism contained a differential gear and was capable of tracking the relative positions of all then-known heavenly bodies. 2nd century AD Apuleius of Madaura creates the earliest known depiction of the square of opposition, based on Aristotle's logic. Irving H. Anellis describes the square of opposition as an ancient contribution to the graphical aspect of automated theorem proving. 3rd century AD Lifetime of Porphyry of Tyre, a Phoenecian Platonist philosopher who developed the Porphyrian tree. Irving H. Anellis describes this as a precursor to the graphical aspect of automated theorem proving. before 405 AD Theon of Alexandria () wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, now lost but referred to by the Suda and some Arabic sources.James Evans, (1998), The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy, page 156. Oxford University Press.
Medieval Date Event 725 Bede writes De Temporum Ratione, a treatise on early medieval computus which describes a method of finger reckoning. 844 Pacificus of Verona, head of the scriptorium at Verona Cathedral, dies. He invented a horologium nocturnum (a sort of nocturnal astrolabe) which consisted of a sighting tube and disk. 850 The Banū Mūsā brothers, in their Book of Ingenious Devices, invented "the earliest known mechanical musical instrument", in this case a hydropowered organ which played interchangeable cylinders automatically. This "cylinder with raised pins on the surface remained the basic device to produce and reproduce music mechanically until the second half of the nineteenth century." They also invented an automatic flute player which appears to have been the first programmable machine. c. 980 Gerbert of Aurillac, later Pope Silvester II, writes a short tract on the abacus, Regulae de numerorum abaci rationibus. Gerbert's abacus was a large table of 27 columns, used with jetons inscribed with characters. It could express the value of any number from to . It is likely that Gerbert introduced the practice of marking counters with Arabic numberals, however none of the surviving early texts include diagrams of the instrument. An abacus board on the Echternach Bible may be an example of Gerbert's abacus, based on descriptions by his pupil Richer and the Liber abaci of Bernelinus of Paris. According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Gerbert also developed a tube (fistula) and "observed the guide star of the mariners" (stella nautarum duce), which may be a description of a nocturnal astrolabe. c. 1000 Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invents a form of orthographic astrolabe.G. Wiet, V. Elisseeff, P. Wolff, J. Naudu (1975). History of Mankind, Vol 3: The Great medieval Civilisations, p. 649. George Allen & Unwin Ltd, UNESCO. "He wrote about the astrolabe, the planisphere and the armillary sphere; he invented an astrolabe which he called cylindrical, but which is now referred to as orthographical." He also described a mechanical lunisolar calendar, the "Box of the Moon", apparently derived from Hellenistic or Byzantine precursors, which employed a gear train and eight gear-wheels. "It is therefore significant that he makes no such acknowledgment for the geared calendar, which he calls 'The Box of the Moon', and we can therefore infer that the instrument was well known from its Hellenistic of Byzantine origins and that the name of its inventor was not known." c. 1080 AD The earliest attestation of the south-pointing chariot. They may have been made during the Han dynasty; legendary accounts attribute its invention to the Yellow Emperor and Zhou Gong in antiquity. c. 1081 Arab astronomer, Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī (Arzachel) of al-Andalus, composes two treatises on the construction and use of the equatorium. His differs from the earlier model design by Ibn-al-Samh in that it represents all the planetary deferents on a single plate, and a second plate bears the epicycles. 12th century Hugo of Santalla translates or writes the Ars geomantiae, which introduces geomancy into Europe. Geomancy, a form of divination which involves the addition and transposition of binary figures, forms an Abelian group over those figures. For this reason, the mathematician Maino Pedrazzi calls it perhaps "the first algebraicized science". c. 1150 Arab astronomer, Jabir ibn Aflah (Geber), may have invented or inspired the torquetum. It was designed to take and convert measurements made in three sets of coordinates: horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic. 1202 Leonardo Pisano Bigollo, better known as Fibonacci completes the Liber Abaci. This book contains an explanation of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system, an algorithm for multiplication, and discussions of arithmetic series and proportions of numbers. 1206 Arab engineer, Al-Jazari, invented numerous automata and made numerous other technological innovations. One of these is a design for a programmable humanoid-shaped mannequin: this seems to have been the first serious, scientific (as opposed to magical) plan for a robot.A 13th Century Programmable Robot , University of Sheffield He also invented the "castle clock", an astronomical clock which is considered to be the earliest programmable analog computer. It displayed the zodiac, the solar and lunar orbits, a crescent moon-shaped pointer travelling across a gateway causing automatic doors to open every hour,Howard R. Turner (1997), Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction, p. 184, University of Texas Press, Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64–9 (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering ) and five robotic musicians who play music when struck by levers operated by a camshaft attached to a water wheel. The length of day and night could be re-programmed every day in order to account for the changing lengths of day and night throughout the year. 1235 Persian astronomer Abi Bakr of Isfahan invented a brass astrolabe with a geared calendar movement based on the design of Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī's mechanical calendar analog computer. Abi Bakr's geared astrolabe uses a set of gear-wheels and is the oldest surviving complete mechanical geared machine in existence. 1259 The death of Matthew Paris and thus the final entry in his Chronica majora, a chronicle he composed at St. Albans Abbey. The original autograph (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Ms. 26) contains perhaps the earliest example of a volvelle, Ronald I. Ives describes volvelles as "a form of circular slide-rule", while Nick Kanas calls them early paper astronomical computers. c. 1274 Ramon Llull composes the , the first stage of his combinatorial art. Llull is often identified as a forefather of computer science for his algorithmic and semi-mechanical approach to reasoning, which influenced Leibniz. Anthony Bonner identified elements of graph theory and lattice theory in the early phases of his work. Irving H. Anellis describes Llull's diagrams as a medieval contribution to the graphical aspect of automated theorem proving. Jessica Helfand writes that Llull's "then-unorthodox views on logic reflect perhaps our earliest record of hypertextual thinking, predating Vannevar Bush by a good 600 years". 1326 Richard of Wallingford develops the Rectangulus and Albion, astronomical instruments intended to improve on the armillary sphere, astrolabe, and torquetum. H. A. Evesham identifies the Rectangulus as a precursor to nomography. c. 1416 Jamshīd al-Kāshī invented the Plate of Conjunctions, an instrument used to determine the time of day at which planetary conjunctions will occur, and for performing linear interpolation. He also invented a mechanical "planetary computer" which he called the Plate of Zones, which could graphically solve a number of planetary problems, including the prediction of the true positions in longitude of the Sun and Moon, and the planets; the latitudes of the Sun, Moon, and planets; and the ecliptic of the Sun. The instrument also incorporated an alhidade and ruler.
Early modernity