Well, I guess no one found this bit of trivia as interesting as I did. Anyway, here is the answer: 1804 - Joseph-Marie Jacquard invents an automated loom which uses punched cards to reproduce complex patterns. However, I guess the very first forerunner to computer technology was the abacus, which was invented in about 3000 B.C. http://www.warbaby.com/FG_test/Timeline.html