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History
of Innovation
Massachusetts, The.commonwealth, boasts a culture
of entrepreneurial dynamism. We are the birthplace of America's
Industrial Revolution, and home to corporate, educational and
professional institutions with a 200-year history of business and
scientific leadership.
Massachusetts has a long history of innovation:
- Samuel Morse invents the telegraph in
1837.
- Alexander Graham Bell invents the
telephone in 1875.
- First local telephone exchange connects
Boston and Cambridge in 1877.
- First long distance phone service
connects Boston and New York in 1884.
- First computer, the differential
analyzer, developed at MIT in 1928.
- MIT's Project Whirlwind pioneers
real-time computing in 1944.
- Raytheon Corp. invents the microwave oven
in 1947.
- Ken Olsen founds Digital Equipment Corp.
in 1957.
- Mitre deploys SAGE air defense and
develops air traffic control software in 1958.
- Grace Hopper develops Flow-Matic
compiler, precursor to COBOL, in 1950.
- Kenneth Iverson develops APL programming
language in 1959.
- Douglas Ross develops first numerically
controlled machines at MIT in 1959.
- Grace Hopper's work on business
programming languages results in COBOL, 1959.
- Digital Equipment launches PDP-1, the
first interactive minicomputer, in 1960.
- Fernando Corbato unveils first
time-sharing computer in 1961.
- Data General is founded in 1968.
- Bolt Beranek & Newman deploys
ARPANET, precursor to the Internet, in 1969.
- Computervision develops first commercial
CAD software in 1969.
- Atex Inc. launches first electronic
publishing pre-press systems in 1973.
- Bill Gates and Paul Allen develop BASIC
for the Altair PC in 1975.
- Wang Laboratories launches WPS
word-processing system in 1976.
- The Kurzweil Reading Machine, the first
successful AI product, appears in 1976.
- Digital introduces the VAX 11/780 32-bit
minicomputer in 1977.
- Daniel Bricklin develops the first
PC-based electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, in 1979.
- Wes Kussmaul offers the
first commercially available computerized encyclopedia in 1981.
- Bitstream becomes the first independent
digital type foundry in 1981.
- Interleaf and Xyvision unveil first
corporate electronic publishing systems in 1981.
- Cullinet Software becomes the first
software company to be listed on NYSE in 1982.
- Lotus Development Corp. unveils 1-2-3
spreadsheet for the IBM PC in 1983.
- Wes Kussmaul's online encyclopedia is transformed into Delphi, the world's first social network in 1983.
- Macpublisher is the first desktop
publishing program for the Apple Macintosh in 1984.
- Index Technology introduces Excellerator,
the first CASE tool for PCs, in 1984.
- Digital introduces the VAX 9000 mainframe
in 1989.
- PictureTel completes first overseas
dial-up videoconference in 1989.
- Lotus Development Corp. introduces Notes,
the first groupware product, in 1990.
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