Non-Profit

the History of Computing Project

Companies that created most of the mile stones in the computing industry
Biographies of computer poioneers and inventors
Timeline of the main events in the history of computing
Hardware developments that made an impact on the development of computers
Software that set a trend in the development of computing
History of Video games

Airshipsonline houses the online archive of the Airship Heritage Trust. Inside you will find an extensive history relating to all of the British Airships from 1900 to the present day. The OnLine-Forum is open to to offer comment and share in news and knowledge between members and the public who share in the interest of lighter than air travel. The Trust is a charitable voluntary run organisation based in the U.K. We own and are responsible for the national heritage airship archive and large collection of airship artifact's and photographs relating to the British Airship Programme, from it’s early days at the turn of the century to the Skyships of the 1980’s.

The King Bridge Company of Cleveland, Ohio was founded by Zenas King in 1858 and produced bridges of iron and steel all over the county for the next 64 years. After Zenas died in 1892, his sons James and Harry took over the Company’s direction until it ended operations in 1922. Zenas had the foresight to see that there was a nationwide need for iron bridges and that a well organized system of production and delivery was required to supply it. Before the fax and telephone, Zenas had set up a network of sales agents all over the country, armed with impressive catalogues, who would secure orders for bridges, mainly from town and county authorities. From the factory in Cleveland, component parts of the bridge structure were shipped by railroad to the building site where a local crew supervised by King’s agent would undertake the assembly. In this way, by the mid 1880s the Company had produced over 5,000 bridges of all sizes and shapes, well over 200 in New York State alone, which was one of its largest markets. The Company became one of the largest and most active of the iron bridge builders during this period and its exploits in creating the nation’s transportation infrastructure are well known to bridge historians.

SIR CHARLES FOX was born at Derby on the 11th of March, 1810, and was the youngest of the four sons of Dr. Fox, who held a prominent position as a physician in that town. He was articled to his brother, Mr. Douglas Fox, then practising as a surgeon, and remained with him for some time. During this period he prepared a great deal of apparatus with his own hands for his brother's lectures at the Mechanics' Institution, and also aided in working out the process of casting in elastic moulds, for which the silver medal of the Society of Arts was awarded to Mr. D. Fox. He manifested from the first much mechanical skill, and took the deepest interest, when quite a lad, in manufactures of all kinds. The projection of the Liverpool and Manchester railway gave increased force to his natural bent, and, being released from his medical articles, he was taken as a pupil by Captain Ericsson, then of Liverpool. Whilst with that gentleman, he was engaged in experiments upon rotary engines, and in designing and constructing the "Novelty " engine, one of the three which competed at Rainhill in October 1829. Shortly afterwards, through the late Mr. Robert Stephenson, M.P., Past-President Inst. C.E., he obtained an appointment as an Assistant Engineer on the London and Birmingham railway, then in course of construction, being placed first under the late Mr. Luck, M. Inst. C.E., on the Watford section, and afterwards in charge of the Extension Works from Camden Town to Euston Square.

The Louisville-Nashville Railroad Bridge, constructed in 1857-1859 as part of the Louisville-Nashville Railway System, spans the Green River and is still used by trains of the current CSX system in its reconstructed form. During the construction of the L&N railroad, the Green River presented a formidable obstacle that had to be surmounted. A well-known construction engineer from Germany, Albert Fink, was hired to design and supervise the construction of a massive structure over the Green River. He planned to support the tracks and all trains over this bridge by constructing an elaborate trusswork of his own design supported by four enormous and intricately detailed stone piers. John W. Key of Woodsonville and his two sons, Abner David Lewis Key and John Martin Key, all stonemasons, were hired to construct the piers.

Nearly 150 years ago, William Hamilton Merritt was the man who dreamed of building the first bridge over the Niagara River. He was the same man who had planned and built the first Welland Canal making it possible for shipping to circumvent the Falls at Niagara.

In 1846, permission was received from the Governments of Upper Canada and the State of New York for the formation of two companies with the ability to construct a bridge at or near the Falls. They were the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge Company of Canada and the International Bridge Company of New York. Both companies would build and own the bridge jointly.

In the Fall of 1847, the bridge companies commissioned Charles Ellet Jr. to construct a bridge at a site selected along the Niagara River. This site was located along the Niagara Gorge above the beginning of the Whirlpool Rapids and was the narrowest point from shoreline to shoreline. This bridge would connect the site of what would become the Village of Elgin (now Niagara Falls).

Alexander Lawson's engraving, "Architectural Plan and Elevation of the Schuylkill P. Bridge," illustrates A Statistical Account of the Schuylkill Permanent Bridge, Communicated to the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture, 1806 (Philadelphia: Printed by Jane Aitken, 1807), which was bound with the first volume of the Society's Memoirs. The Society's interest in such a structure acknowledges its importance to the development of the Philadelphia region, both agriculturally and commercially.

The John A. Roebling's Sons company and its employees played an important role in the lives of many, if not all, Americans with thier power to make the impossible, possible and the impractical, practical.

This web site tells the story of one man from Prussia and his family, the people who worked for them, and the communities they built. The archive is mostly Primary Source material and is divided into four sections. For an introduction to the Company, check out The Roebling Story a history published by the company on its Centennial Anniversery. Then check out General History of the Roebling Company for more on the company and the family that built it.

One of the foremost engineers and architects in the United States had connections with both North Carolina and Rowan County in the period between 1818 and 1840. His name was Ithiel Town, a Connecticut Yankee who was born in 1784, the son of a farmer.

As a youth he worked as a carpenter and taught school. Adventuring to Boston he acquired a knowledge of architecture under Asher Benjamin, an architect and prolific writer on the subject. While there he was chosen to make improvements on the State House at Boston.

His reputation was made in 1814 when he designed Center Church on the New Haven, Connecticut green. He later designed the state capitols in Indianapolis, Indiana and in Raleigh.

On January 28, 1820 he was granted a patent for a truss bridge and from that time forward he was the best known bridge builder in the country. His return from this work was greater than from his work as an architect. He published in 1821 a book on iron and wood bridges which became the bible for bridge-building in America.

The Berlin Iron Bridge Company was Connecticut's only large-scale fabricator of metal-truss bridges in the 19th century. Some 400 employees worked at its East Berlin plant, and hundreds of others worked in the field erecting the bridges. Over 1,000 Berlin bridges are believed to have been built before 1900. Most were in the Northeast, but even today Berlin bridges survive as far away as Texas. The company mostly built small-town highway bridges using its patented lenticular or parabolic truss. However, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company was prepared to take on any kind of fabrication work, including multiple-span city bridges, suspension bridges, drawbridges, and railroad bridges.

Hundreds of Berlin bridges were built in the company's home state of Connecticut. As of this date (August, 2001) only 13 highway bridges, 2 railroad bridges, and 2 millyard bridges are known to have survived.