The history of the development of the computer

the first electronic computers——ENIAC

ENIAC(electronic numberical integrator and calculator) was built by J.Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. And it was widely accepted to be the world’s first operational electronic, general-purpose computer.
1944 John von Neumann helped crystallize the ideas and wrote a memo proposing a stored-program computer called EDVAC(Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer).
1949 the EDSAC designed by Maurice Wilkes, became operational. And it was the world’s first full-scale, operational, stored-program computer.
Commercial Developments
1947 Eckert and Mauchly formed Ecket-mauchly Computer Corporation and built the BINAC.
Then their firm was acquired by Remington-Rand, and they built the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer), which sold for about $1 million and was the first successful commercial computer.
1952, the first IBM computer, the IBM 701 shipped.
1964, IBM made a bold move with the announcement of the system/360. the System/360 and its successors dominated the large computer market.
1965 the DEC(Digital Equipment Corporation) unveiled the PDP-8, the first commercial minicomputer.
1963 the Cray announced the Control Data Corporation CDC 6600(the first supercomputer).
1977 the Apple IIe from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak set standards for low cost, high volume, and high reliability that defined the personal computer industry.
1981 The IBM Personal Computer announced. Its success gave Intel the most popular microprocessor and Microsoft the most popular operating system.
The computer that inspired many of the architectural and software concepts that characterize the modern desktop machines was the Xerox Alto.
Measuring Performance
first: the instruction mix
second: the average instruction execution time
third: benchmark use synthetic programs(the Whetstone synthetic program)
forth: SPECulate