75 Years of Astonishing Evolution of IT: 1946–2021

Abstract

In 1946, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) established a Committee on Large-Scale Computing. In 1951, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) established a Professional Group on Electronic Computers. In 1963, these societies merged to form the IEEE, and they combined their computing activities into a Computer Group. Finally, in 1970, the Computer Group became the Computer Society. In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the IEEE's computing activities, this article will highlight 75 Years of information technology (IT) by calling out mileposts every 25 (or so) years along the ever-changing journey of IT and the Computer Society (see Table 1). To begin, I will look ten years earlier (1936) at the creation of computer theory. Then, the first 25 years will focus on the creation of computers (1946), the next 25 years on the extraordinary development of computers (1971), and the recent 25 years on computer networking (1996). It will be seen that almost all of the enabling hardware was developed by and for the telephone system, but, not surprisingly, the software was developed for computers. Finally, I will predict that the next 25 years starting now in 2021 will focus on artificial intelligence and data.