1930	The 1/4 abacus appeared in Japan and is still in use today.
1943	First generation computers appear. They use punch cards and vacuum valves. Colossus was the first programmable electronic computer, built in the UK to decipher the German Enigma Code. 10 machines were built and then destroyed after work was completed.
1946	ENIAC --the first Universal Electronic computer--was completed. It took 3 years to finish and was used for calculating ballistic trajectories of the hydrogen bomb.
1947	The transistor was invented by Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain at the bellsouth laboratories in the USA.
1948	The fist computer to store both its programs and data in RAM format was produced in the UK at Manchester University. It was named SSEM, or 'Baby'. By the end of 1949 it had acquired a magnetic drum and was manufactured for commercial sale.
1949	A year of in computing: ESDAC (the first stored-program computer), and EDVAC (first computer to use magnetic tape).