Communication & Computers
- Optical Telegraph by Claude Chappe in 1792.
- Modern pencil by Nicolas-Jacques Conté in 1795.
- Paper machine by Louis-Nicolas Robert in 1799.
- Fresnel lens by Augustin-Jean Fresnel
- Jean-François Champollion first deciphered the Rosetta Stone (1822) : modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Braille in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman: first digital form of writing.
- Pencil sharpener by Bernard Lassimone in 1828. Therry des Estwaux created an improved mechanical sharpener in 1847.
- Baudot code by Émile Baudot in 1870.
- Coherer by Édouard Branly around 1890.
- Belinograph (Wirephoto) by Édouard Belin in 1913.
- Bic Cristal in 1949.
- Computer-aided manufacturing by Pierre Bézier in 1971 as an engineer at Renault.
- Micral, earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor, by André Truong Trong Thi and François Gernelle in June 1972.
- Datagrams and CYCLADES in 1972-1973 by Louis Pouzin (which inspired Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf when they invented the TCP/IP several years later).
- Smart Card by Roland Moreno in 1974 after the automated chip card.
- Minitel in 1980.
- Camera phone by Philippe Kahn in 1997.
- Several Programming languages (non-exhaustive list) :
- Prolog (Logic programming) by a group around Alain Colmerauer in 1972 in Marseille.
- LSE, Langage Symbolique d'Enseignement, a French, pedagogical, programming language designed in the 1970s at Supélec.
- Ada (multi-paradigm) by Jean Ichbiah (who also created LIS and Green) in 1980.
- Caml (OCaml by Xavier Leroy, Damien Doligez) developed at INRIA and formerly at ENS since 1985.
- Eiffel (object-oriented) by Bertrand Meyer in 1986.
- STOS BASIC on the Atari ST in 1988 and AMOS BASIC on the Amiga in 1990 by François Lionet and Constantin Sotiropoulos (dialects of BASIC).
- Several keyboards :
- AZERTY in the last decade of the 19th century.
- FITALY by Jean Ichbiah in 1996.
- BÉPO since 2003.
Read more about this topic: French Inventions