Data storage
Classification
Data storage is written or electronic information which is permanently recorded. Data storage allows communication from the past to persons in the future. History and data storage largely began in 3500 BCE with the invention of written language.
Inventions from the ORAL ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Cave paintings | image data | 50,000 BCE | Indonesia | |
| Rock art petroglyphs | Aborigine | 45,000 BCE | Australia | |
| Baboon bone | Lebombo bone, 29 tally marks | 30,000 BCE | Africa | |
| Star chart | Lascaux cave wall art | 22,000 BCE | Lascaux, France | |
| Lunar calendar | Lascaux cave wall art | 15,000 BCE | Lascaux, France | |
| Map on bone | carved map on bone | 15,000 BCE | Ukraine |
Inventions from the TOKENS ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Solar calendar | engraved on bone | 10,000 BCE | France | |
| Clay token system | proto writing system | 7500 BCE | Mesopotamia | |
| Map | painted on wall | 6500 BCE | Catalhoyak, Turkey |
Inventions from the WRITTEN ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Cuneiform | first written language | 3500 BCE | Sumer, Mesopotamia (2) | |
| Base 60 numbers | counting time, seconds, minutes | 3100 BCE | Sumer, Mesopotamia | |
| Math | number systems | 2700 BCE | Egypt | |
| Ink | for writing on papyrus | 2500 BCE | Egypt, China | |
| Map on clay tablet | navigation | 2300 BCE | Babylonia | |
| Proto semitic alphabet | consonants only, no vowels | 2000 BCE | Mesopotamia | |
| Phoenician alphabet | consonants only, no vowels | 1100 BCE | Phoenicia | |
| Dictionary | reference book | 1000 BCE | China |
Inventions from the ALPHABET ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| True alphabet | including vowels | 700 BCE | Greece (35) | |
| Musical notation | 700 BCE | India | ||
| Geometry | shapes and math | 500 BCE | Pythagoras | Greece |
| Pen | improved ink | 350 BCE | India/Egypt | |
| Comprehensive star chart | 150 BCE | Hipparchus of Nicaea | Rhodes, Greece | |
| Parchment | animal skin for writing | 150 BCE | Pergamum, Turkey | |
| Book | bound parchment | 150 BCE | Pergamum, Turkey | |
| Calendar | days, months, years | 45 BCE | Julius Caesar/Gregory XIII | Rome |
| Encyclopedia | 77 AD | Pliny the Elder | Rome | |
| Wood block printing | on paper | 220 AD | China | |
| Decimal point | 400 AD | India | ||
| Trigonometry | math angles | 450 AD | Siddhantas | India |
Inventions from the NUMBERS ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Modern fractions | 499 AD | Aryabhata | India | |
| Quill pen | feather writing | 580 | Sevilla, Spain | |
| Mathematical zero | 628 AD | Brahmagupta | India | |
| Paper currency | money | 800 AD | China (54) | |
| Hindu-Arabic numbers | base 10 modern numbers | 820 AD | India/Middle East (13) | |
| Algebra | complex math | 850 AD | Syria | |
| University | 859 AD | Fez, Morocco | ||
| Movable type printing | metal | 1088 AD | Bi Sheng, Song Dynasty | China (6) |
| True university | Europe | 1088 AD | Bologna | Italy |
| Modern musical notation | 1120 AD | Giudo d'Arezzo | Italy | |
| Bank | money storage | 1149 AD | Genoa | Italy |
Inventions from the PRINT ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Printing press | with movable metal type | 1450 AD | Johannes Gutenberg | Mainz, Germany (3) |
| Mercator projection map | for plotting navigation | 1535 AD | Geraedus Mercator | Netherlands |
| Graphite pencil | 1564 AD | Conrad von Gesner | Switzerland | |
| Gregorian calendar | 1582 AD | Pope Gregory XIII | Vatican City, Italy | |
| Calculus | 1680 AD | Isaac Newton, Gottfried Leibniz | UK/Germany | |
| Binary language | computers | 1689 AD | Gottfried Leibniz | Germany |
| Rubber eraser | 1770 AD | Joseph Priestly | UK | |
| Mechanical calculator | analytic machine, later "computer" | 1821 AD | Charles Babbage | UK (7) |
| Primitive photograph | 1822 AD | Joseph Nicephore Niepce | France (36) | |
| Camera | 1826 AD | Joseph Nicephore Niepce | France (36) | |
| Negative for photography | 1835 AD | William Henry Talbot | UK |
Inventions from the WIRED ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Pitman shorthand | data recording manually | 1837 | Isaac Pitman | UK |
| Silver based photo processing | Daguerrotype | 1837 | Louis Daguerre | France |
| Rotary printing press | 1843 | Richard Marx Hoe | USA | |
| Color photography | images in color | 1855 | James Clerk Maxwell | UK |
| Continuous roll printing press | high volume printing | 1863 | William A. Bullock | USA |
| Typewriter | QWERTY keyboard | 1866 | Christopher Latham Sholes | USA |
| Phonograph | sound recording | 1877 | Thomas Alva Edison | USA (88) |
| Ball point pen | early | 1880 | Alonzo T. Cross | USA |
| Fountain pen | no dip required | 1884 | Lewis Waterman | USA |
| Plastic film | 1884 | George Eastman | USA | |
| Typewriter ink ribbon | continuous ink for typing | 1886 | George K. Anderson | USA |
| Gramophone disc phonograph recorder | on records | 1887 | Emile Berliner | Germany/USA |
| Shellac (wax) compounds | for phonographic discs | 1887 | Emile Berliner | Germany/USA |
| Push button film camera | easy photography | 1888 | George Eastman (Kodak) | USA |
| Kinetoscope | motion pictures | 1888 | Thomas Alva Edison | USA |
| Juke box | record playing machine | 1889 | Lewis Glass | USA |
| Motion picture camera | and projector | 1895 | Auguste and Louis Lumiere | France (37) |
Inventions from the WIRELESS ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| Talking sound film | talkies | 1923 | Lee DeForest | USA |
| Leica 35 film camera | single lens reflex SLR camera | 1925 | Oskar Barnack | Germany |
| Audio tape recorder | magnetic tape sound | 1928 | Fritz Pfleumer | Germany |
| Vinyl record | disc phonograph recording | 1932 | RCA Victor | |
| Photocopying | xerography | 1937 | Chester F. Carlson | USA |
| Practical ballpoint pen | ink writing made easy, inexpensive | 1938 | Lazio and Georg Biro | Hungary |
| Bombe Enigma code breaker | universal Turing machine | 1940 | Alan Turing, Harold Keen | UK |
| Instant Poloroid photograph | black and white, 60 second | 1946 | Edwin Herbert Land | USA |
| Long playing record, 45 min | LP phonograph record | 1948 | Peter Carl Goldmark | USA |
| Holography | 3-dimensional image | 1948 | Dennis Gabor | Hungary |
| Magnetic tape storage 1951 Univac/IBM, USA (81) | ||||
| Universal bar code | 1952 | N. Joseph Woodland, Bernard Silver | USA | |
| Computer mouse | mechanical | 1952 | Douglas Englebart | USA |
| Videotape recorder | 1953 | Norikazu Sawazaki | Japan | |
| Felt tip pen | Magic Marker | 1953 | Sidney Rosenthal | USA |
| Fortran | computer programming language | 1954 | John Backus, IBM | USA |
| Hard drive memory | RAMAC 305 | 1956 | Reynold B. Johnson , IBM | USA |
| Rolodex | rotary card filing system | 1956 | Hildaur L. Neilsen, Arnold Neustadter | USA |
| Card magnetic stripe | 1958 | Forrest Parry | USA | |
| Personal computer | single user | 1958 | IBM | USA |
| Optical disc | 1961 | David Paul Gregg, James Russell | USA | |
| Audio cassette tape | 1962 | Phillips | Netherlands | |
| Color Polaroid photograph | instant color picture | 1963 | Edwin Herbert Land | USA |
| BASIC language | beginner's all purpose symbolic instruction code | 1964 | John Kemeny, Tom Kurtz | USA |
| 8 track tape | 1964 | Bill Lear | USA | |
| CD-ROM | compact disc, read only memory | 1966 | James T. Russell | USA |
| Hypertext | language of the internet | 1968 | Ted Nelson, Andries van Dam | USA |
| Graphical user interface | 1968 | Douglas Englebart | USA | |
| Microprocessor chip in credit card | improved security of data | 1968 | Helmut Grottup, Jurgen Dethloff | Germany |
| RAM | random access memory | 1968 | Robert Dennard | USA |
| ARAPANET | Dept of Defense | 1969 | Advanced Research Projects Agency | USA |
| E book | electronic book | 1969 | Alan Kay | USA |
| Pascal programming language | 1970 | Niklaus Wirth | Switzerland | |
| Video cassette recorder | VCR | 1970 | Charkes Paulson Ginsburg | USA |
| Floppy disc memory | 1971 | David L. Noble, IBM | USA | |
| Single chip microprocessor, Intel 4004 | 90,000 operations/second | 1971 | Federico Fagin, Ted Hoff | USA |
| Universal product code | UPC | 1971 | George Laverer | USA |
| Internet protocol | TCP/IP | 1973 | Vinton Cerf, Robert E. Kahn | USA |
| Voicemail | 1973 | Scott A. Jones | USA | |
| Digital camera | 1975 | Steven Sasson Kodak | USA | |
| Laptop computer, notebook | portable computer | 1975 | IBM, Compaq | USA |
| Cray supercomputer | 1976 | Seymour Cray | USA | |
| Apple II computer | 1976 | Steve Wozniak | USA | |
| Optical mouse | LED | 1980 | Steve Kirsch, Richard F. Lyon | USA |
| Flash memory | 1980 | Fujio Masuoka, Toshiba | USA | |
| Camcorder | video recorder | 1983 | Jerome Lemelson, SONY | Japan |
| Microsoft Word | digital documents | 1983 | Charles Simonyi, Richard Brodie | USA |
| Cloud storage, business, government | off site data storage | 1983 | Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider | USA |
| Apple Macintosh | mouse driven with graphic user interface | 1984 | Steve Jobs et al. | USA |
| C++ language computer programming | 1985 | Bjarne Stroustrup | Denmark | |
| Windows OS | operating system for computers | 1985 | Bill Gates, Microsoft | USA |
| Touch pad | 1988 | George Gerpheide | USA |
Inventions from the INTERNET ERA Era
| Invention | Description | Year | Inventor | Country |
| World Wide Web | internet | 1989 | Tim Berners-Lee | UK. (24) |
| MP3 compression | allows music with far less memory | 1989 | Karlheinz Brandenburg | Germany |
| USB flashdrive | small, portable memory | 1989 | Dov Moran | Israel |
| Python | computer programming language | 1989 | Guido van Rossum | Netherlands |
| Digital camera | practical, consumer | 1990 | Steven Sasson, Logitech | USA |
| Photoshop | image manipulation | 1990 | Thomas Knoll, John Knoll | USA |
| Linux operating system | Linux OS | 1991 | Linus Torvalds | Finland/USA |
| Digital video disc | DVD | 1993 | consortium of companies | Japan/USA/Netherlands |
| Mosaic XS web browser | early search engine | 1993 | Marc Andreessen, Eric Bina | USA |
| Personal cloud storage | virtually limitless offsite digital storage | 1994 | Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider | USA |
| Yahoo | search engine | 1994 | Jerry Yang, David Filo | USA |
| Compact flash memory | small, portable | 1994 | San Disk | USA |
| C-MOS image sensor | for digital camera | 1994 | Eric R. Fossum | USA |
| Java computer programming language | WORA write once, run anywhere | 1995 | James Gosling | USA |
| Digital video recorder | DVR records TV programs for later viewing | 1995 | Panasonic and SONY | Japan |
| Compact disc - reWritable | CD-RW allows changes in data stored | 1997 | James Russell | USA |
| WiFi protocol | WiFi 802.11 wireless internet | 1997 | John O'Sullivan | Australia (70) |
| Recordable digital video disc | video recorded and edited with much storage of data | 1997 | David Paul Gregg, James Russell | USA |
| popular search engine | 1998 | Larry Page, Sergey Brin | USA (55) | |
| Human radiofrequency identification chip | RFID chip with digital, retrievable data | 1998 | Charles Walton | UK/USA |
| WWW mobile phone access | internet on your phone | 1999 | NTT DoCoMo | Japan |
| TiVo | digital video recorder, smart DVR | 1999 | Jim Barton, Mike Ramsey | USA |
| Blu-Ray | enhanced video quality | 2000 | Shuji Nakamura | Japan |
| Camera phone | images anywhere, anytime | 2000 | Phillip Kahn, Sharp | France/USA/Japan |
| Solid state disc module memory | SSD card, easily transferable data | 2000 | SanDisk, Toshiba, Matsushita | USA/Japan |
| WiFi router | wireless internet in your home/office | 2000 | John O'Sullivan, Vic Hayes, William Yeager | Australia |
| Ipod | compact music, data delivery | 2001 | Tony Fadell | USA |
| Itunes | database of digital music | 2001 | Bill Kincaid | USA |
| Wikipedia | internet encyclopedia | 2001 | Larry Sanger, Jimmy Wales | USA/UK |
| Body camera | for law enforcement | 2005 | first used | Denmark |
| YouTube | personal submission video platform | 2005 | Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen | USA (95) |
| Mirrorless camera | allows smaller size, lighter body | 2005, 2008 | SONY, Panasonic | Japan |
| Printing on demand | reduces inventory | 2006 | Victor Celorio | USA |
| Netflix | internet movies and programming on demand | 2007 | Marc Randolph, Reed Hastings | USA |
| Android operating system | Android OS | 2008 | Andy Rubin,Rich Miner, Nick Sears, Chris White | USA |
| 3-dimensional 360 degrees hologram | 3D images | 2010 | SONY | Japan |
| image sharing platform | 2010 | Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger | USA | |
| Ipad | tablet computer | 2012 | Steve Jobs et al. | USA |
| Google glass | computer worn | 2012 | Sebastian Thrum | USA |