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.

中文翻译：

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IT 75 年的惊人演变：1946 年至 2021 年


1946年，美国电气工程师学会（AIEE）成立了大规模计算委员会。 1951年，无线电工程师学会（IRE）成立了电子计算机专业组。 1963 年，这些协会合并成立了 IEEE，并将其计算活动合并为一个计算机组。最后，在 1970 年，计算机小组更名为计算机协会。为了庆祝 IEEE 计算活动成立 75 周年，本文将通过在 IT 和计算机社会不断变化的历程中每 25 年（左右）一次的里程碑来强调信息技术 (IT) 的 75 年（见表） 1).首先，我将回顾十年前（1936 年）计算机理论的创建。然后，前25年将重点关注计算机的创造（1946年），接下来的25年将重点关注计算机的非凡发展（1971年），最近25年将重点关注计算机网络（1996年）。可以看出，几乎所有支持硬件都是由电话系统开发的，并且是为电话系统开发的，但毫不奇怪，软件是为计算机开发的。最后，我预测从2021年开始的未来25年将重点关注人工智能和数据。