ARPA

In response to the arrival of the Soviet made satellite Sputnik in orbit, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower formed the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). They’re given free reign to develop advanced technology with long term potential. Eventually the Internet would form from the ARPANet project. Eisenhower, a progressive president who…

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Control Data Corporation

In 1957, Seymour Cray and William Norris form the Control Data Corp (CDC), to design and build supercomputers. Intended to be used for scientific calculation, many considered it a risky endeavor. Originally working for Sperry Rand designing the successors to the UNIVAC, Cray’s desire to push the limits of computing…

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Westinghouse

From Westinghouse’s Company History: It began in the Age of Steam, a 19th century success story that resonates in the 21st century. George Westinghouse, a spunky teenager with a head full of ideas, seizes opportunity after opportunity to make technology better, faster, more efficient. In the process, he helps improve…

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FORTRAN

There is a debate about who designed the first high-level programming language, i.e. the first one to be compiled. FORTRAN is usually credited, Knuth and Pardo in 1977 credit Alick E. Glennie for his Autocode compiler for the Manchester I computer in 1952. Backus gives credit to Laning and Zierler…

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