1843: Alexander Bain obtains the first fax patent.
1946: The first all-electronic, digital sequential computer is invented by J Presper Eckert and Dr John Mauchly. The name of this first Electronic Computer was ENIAC, an acronym for Electronic Numeric Integrated Automatic Computer, the father of all modern electronic computers.
1960: The first scanner, initially referred to as a "reading machine", is developed by Jacob Rabinow.
1960: Univac announces the first computer to be designed specifically for real-time applications.
1961: The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) is begun at MIT, allowing multiple users to log into the 7094 from remote dial-up terminals, and to store files online on disk.
1965: E-mail is started as a way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate.
1969: The ARPAnet is born. The ARPAnet, intended to link research centres across the country, provides the foundation for advanced networking and breaks a path toward the Internet.
1970: The earliest known device that bears any significant resemblance to the modern personal computer is launched. A programmable terminal called the Datapoint 2200 was made by CTC (now known as Datapoint) and was a complete system in a small case bearing the approximate footprint of an IBM Selectric typewriter.
1971: Ray Tomlinson of BBN invents an e-mail program to send messages across a distributed network.
1976: The introduction of a CRT-based word-processing system by Wang Laboratories displayed text on a CRT screen, and incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as we know them today.
1978: The first computer bulletin board system, CBBS (computerised bulletin board system), goes online.
1979: The launch of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, initially for the Apple II (and later for the Atari 8-bit family, Commodore PET and IBM PC) turned the microcomputer into a business tool.
1980: FileNet becomes the first company to create a commercially successful document imaging solution for businesses.
1980s: A number of vendors begin developing systems to manage paper-based documents, initially designed to offer mainly document imaging-level capture, storage, indexing and retrieval capabilities, the applications grew to encompass electronic documents, collaboration tools, security, and auditing capabilities.
1985: Dr Hank Magnuski, founder of GammaLink, produces the first computer fax board, called GammaFax.
1986: Code is written for a computer output to laser disk (COLD) program by Optical Image Technology (which later assembled its products under the DocFinity trade name). COLD was developed to eliminate the need to print huge green-bar reports, and instead intercept the print stream, break up the file into pages, index and store them for future retrieval.
1991: The World Wide Web is developed at CERN (Centre Europ'ean pour la Recherche Nucl'eaire; European Laboratory for Particle Physics) by Tim Berners-Lee.
2006: The paperless office is still not a reality.
Compiled by Mia Andric. Sources: History of the Internet, Christos JP Moschovitis, Hilary Poole, Tami Schuyler, Teresa M Senft; Hobbes` Internet Timeline, Robert Hobbes Zakon; Computer history; Howstuffworks; Whatis; Wikipedia; History of computers.
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