4. HISTORY OF COMPUTERS
The first computer were people. That
is, electronic computers (and the earlier
mechanical computers) were given this
name because they performed the
work that had previously been assigned
to people.
5. HISTORY OF COMPUTERS
"Computer" was originally a job title: it
was used to describe those human
beings (predominantly women) whose
job it was to perform the repetitive
calculations required to compute such
things as navigational tables, tide
charts, and planetary positions for
astronomical almanacs.
6. History of Computers
This picture shows what were known as "counting
tables" [photo courtesy of IBM]
A typical computer operation back when computers
were people.
8. A more modern abacus. Note how the
abacus is really just a representation of the
human fingers: the 5 lower rings on each rod
represent the 5 fingers and the 2 upper rings
represent the 2 hands
9. History of Computers
In 1617 an eccentric (some say mad) Scotsman
named John Napier invented logarithms, which
are a technology that allows multiplication
to be performed via addition. The magic
ingredient is the logarithm of each operand,
which was originally obtained from a
printed table. But Napier also invented an
alternative to tables, where the logarithm
values were carved on ivory sticks which are
now called Napier's Bones.
10. History of Computers
An original set of A more modern set of
Napier's Bones [photo Napier's Bones
courtesy IBM]
11. History of Computers
Napier's invention led directly to the slide rule,
first built in England in 1632 and still in use
in the 1960's by the NASA engineers of the
Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs which
landed men on the moon.
12. History of Computers
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) made
drawings of gear-driven calculating
machines but apparently never built any.
A Leonardo da Vinci drawing showing gears arranged for
computing
13. History of Computers
The first gear-driven calculating machine to actually
be built was probably the calculating clock, so named
by its inventor, the German professor Wilhelm
Schickard in 1623. This device got little publicity
because Schickard died soon afterward in the bubonic
plague.
14. History of Computers
In 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19,
invented the Pascaline as an aid for his
father who was a tax collector. Pascal
built 50 of this gear-driven one-function
calculator (it could only add) but
couldn't sell many because of their
exorbitant cost and because they really
weren't that accurate (at that time it
was not possible to fabricate gears with
the required precision).
17. History of Computers
A Pascaline opened up so you can observe the gears and cylinders
which rotated to display the numerical result
18. History of Computers
Just a few years after Pascal, the German Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz (co-inventor with Newton of calculus)
managed to build a four-function (addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division) calculator that he called the
stepped reckoner because, instead of gears, it employed
fluted drums having ten flutes arranged around their
circumference in a stair-step fashion. Although the
stepped reckoner employed the decimal number system
(each drum had 10 flutes), Leibniz was the first to
advocate use of the binary number system which is
fundamental to the operation of modern computers.
Leibniz is considered one of the greatest of the
philosophers but he died poor and alone
20. History of Computers
In 1801 the Frenchman Joseph Marie
Jacquard invented a power loom that could
base its weave (and hence the design on the
fabric) upon a pattern automatically read
from punched wooden cards, held together
in a long row by rope. Descendents of these
punched cards have been in use ever
since (remember the "hanging chad"
from the Florida presidential ballots of
the year 2000?).
24. History of Computers
This tapestry was woven by
a Jacquard loom
Jacquard's technology was a real
boon to mill owners, but put many
loom operators out of work. Angry
mobs smashed Jacquard looms
and once attacked Jacquard
himself. History is full of examples
of labor unrest following
technological innovation yet most
studies show that, overall,
technology has actually increased
the number of jobs.
25. History of Computers
By 1822 the English
mathematician Charles Babbage
was proposing a steam driven
calculating machine the size of a
room, which he called the
Difference Engine. This machine
would be able to compute tables
of numbers, such as logarithm
tables.
27. History of Computers
Babbage was not deterred, and by then was on to
his next brainstorm, which he called the Analytic
Engine.
This device, large as a house and powered by 6
steam engines, would be more general purpose in
nature because it would be programmable, thanks
to the punched card technology of Jacquard.
But it was Babbage who made an important
intellectual leap regarding the punched cards. In
the Jacquard loom, the presence or absence of
each hole in the card physically allows a colored
thread to pass or stops that thread (you can see
this clearly in the earlier photo).
28. History of Computers
Babbage saw that the pattern of
holes could be used to represent
an abstract idea such as a problem
statement or the raw data required
for that problem's solution.
Babbage saw that there was no
requirement that the problem
matter itself physically pass thru
the holes.
29. History of Computers
Furthermore, Babbage realized that punched paper
could be employed as a storage mechanism,
holding computed numbers for future reference.
Because of the connection to the Jacquard loom,
Babbage called the two main parts of his Analytic
Engine the "Store" and the "Mill", as both terms are
used in the weaving industry.
The Store was where numbers were held and the
Mill was where they were "woven" into new results.
In a modern computer these same parts are called
the memory unit and the central processing
unit (CPU).
30. History of Computers
Babbage befriended Ada Byron, the daughter
of the famous poet Lord Byron (Ada would
later become the Countess Lady Lovelace by
marriage).
Though she was only 19, she was fascinated
by Babbage's ideas and thru letters and
meetings with Babbage she learned enough
about the design of the Analytic Engine to
begin fashioning programs for the still
unbuilt machine.
31. History of Computers
While Babbage refused to publish his
knowledge for another 30 years, Ada
wrote a series of "Notes" wherein she
detailed sequences of instructions she
had prepared for the Analytic Engine.
The Analytic Engine remained unbuilt
(the British government refused to get
involved with this one) but Ada earned
her spot in history as the first
computer programmer.
32. History of Computers
Ada invented the subroutine and
was the first to recognize the
importance of looping. Babbage
himself went on to invent the
modern postal system,
cowcatchers on trains, and the
ophthalmoscope, which is still
used today to treat the eye.
33. History of Computers
Hollerith's invention, known as the
Hollerith desk, consisted of a card
reader which sensed the holes in the
cards, a gear driven mechanism which
could count (using Pascal's mechanism
which we still see in car odometers),
and a large wall of dial indicators (a car
speedometer is a dial indicator) to
display the results of the count.
37. History of Computers
A central shaft driven by an outside waterwheel and
connected to each machine by overhead belts was
the customary power source for all the machines in a
factory
38. History of Computers
Here's a close-up of one of the Mark I's four paper tape readers. A paper
tape was an improvement over a box of punched cards as anyone who
has ever dropped -- and thus shuffled -- his "stack" knows.
39. History of Computers
One of the primary programmers for the
Mark I was a woman, Grace Hopper.
Hopper found the first computer "bug":
a dead moth that had gotten into the
Mark I and whose wings were blocking
the reading of the holes in the paper
tape. The word "bug" had been used to
describe a defect since at least 1889
but Hopper is credited with coining the
word "debugging" to describe the work
to eliminate program faults.
40. COMPUTER GENERATIONS
The history of computer development is
often referred to in reference to the
different generations of computing
devices. A generation refers to the
state of improvement in the product
development process. This term is also
used in the different advancements of
new computer technology.
41. COMPUTER GENERATIONS
Each generation of computers is
characterized by major technological
development that fundamentally
changed the way computers operate,
resulting in increasingly smaller,
cheaper, more powerful and more
efficient and reliable devices.
42. FIRST GENERATION
1940 – 1956 VACUUM TUBES
The first
computers used
vacuum tubes for
circuitry and
magnetic drums
for memory, and
were often
enormous, taking
up entire rooms.
45. FIRST GENERATION
The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer Using Vacuum Tubes:
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
The ENIAC team (Feb 14, 1946). Left to right: J. Presper Eckert, Jr.; John Grist Brainerd;
Sam Feltman; Herman H. Goldstine; John W. Mauchly; Harold Pender; Major General G. L.
Barnes; Colonel Paul N. Gillon.
46. FIRST GENERATION
Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer (ENIAC)
1946
Used vacuum tubes (not mechanical devices)
to do its calculations
The first electronic computer
Funded by the U.S. Army
Could not stored programs (its set of
instructions)
49. FIRST GENERATION
Max Newman headed up for the effort
at Manchester University
Where the Manchester Mark I went into
operation in June 1948 – becoming the
First Stored-Program Computer
Maurice Wilkes, a British scientist at
Cambridge University completed the
EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage
Automatic Calculator) in 1949 – two years
before EDVAC was finished
51. History of Computers
On a humorous note, the principal designer
of the Mark I, Howard Aiken of Harvard,
estimated in 1947 that six electronic digital
computers would be sufficient to satisfy the
computing needs of the entire United States.
IBM had commissioned this study to
determine whether it should bother
developing this new invention into one of its
standard products (up until then computers
were one-of-a-kind items built by special
arrangement).
54. History of Computers
The Apple 1 which was sold as a do-it-yourself kit (without the lovely case seen
here)
55. History of Computers
Typical
wiring in an
early
mainframe
computer
[photo
courtesy The
Computer
Museum]
56. History of Computers
It's humorous to remember that in between the Stretch machine (which
would be called a mainframe today) and the Apple I (a desktop
computer) there was an entire industry segment referred to as mini-
computers such as the following PDP-12 computer of 1969:
58. History of Computers
Another candidate for granddaddy of the modern
computer was Colossus, built during World War II by
Britain for the purpose of breaking the cryptographic
codes used by Germany.
Britain led the world in designing and building
electronic machines dedicated to code breaking, and
was routinely able to read coded Germany radio
transmissions.
But Colossus was definitely not a general purpose,
reprogrammable machine. Note the presence of
pulleys in the two photos of Colossus below:
61. History of Computers
The Harvard Mark I, the Atanasoff-Berry
computer, and the British Colossus all made
important contributions.
American and British computer pioneers
were still arguing over who was first to do
what, when in 1965 the work of the German
Konrad Zuse was published for the first time
in English.
Scooped! Zuse had built a sequence of
general purpose computers in Nazi Germany.
The first, the Z1, was built between 1936
and 1938 in the parlor of his parent's home.
63. History of Computers
The title of forefather of today's
all-electronic digital computers is
usually awarded to ENIAC,
which stood for Electronic
Numerical Integrator and
Calculator.
64. History of Computers
ENIAC was built at the University of
Pennsylvania between 1943 and 1945 by
two professors, John Mauchly and the 24
year old J. Presper Eckert, who got
funding from the war department after
promising they could build a machine
that would replace all the "computers",
meaning the women who were
employed calculating the firing tables for
the army's artillery guns.
65. History of Computers
The day that Mauchly and Eckert
saw the first small piece of ENIAC
work, the persons they ran to bring
to their lab to show off their
progress were some of these female
computers (one of whom remarked,
"I was astounded that it took all this
equipment to multiply 5 by 1000").
67. History of Computers
To perform this computation on ENIAC you had to
rearrange a large number of patch cords and then
locate three particular knobs on that vast wall of
knobs and set them to 3, 1, and 4.
70. SECOND GENERATION
Crystalline mineral materials called
semiconductors could be used in the
design of a device called TRANSISTOR
Transistor replaced vacuum tubes
Transistor is a device composed of
semi-conductor material that amplifies
a signal or opens or closes a circuit
Invented in 1947 at Bell Labs
72. SECOND GENERATION
Magnetic cores (very small donut –
shaped magnets that could polarized in
one of two directions to represent data)
strung on wire within the computer
became the primary internal storage
technology
Uses high level programming languages
FORTRAN
COBOL
74. THIRD GENERATION
The development of the
integrated circuit was the
hallmark of the third
generation of computers.
Transistors were
miniaturized and placed on
silicon chips, called
semiconductors, which
drastically increased the
speed and efficiency of
computers.
77. THIRD GENERATION
Magnetic core internal memories began
to give way to a new form, METAL
OXIDE SEMICONDUCTOR (MOS)
memory
Operating System was born
Advanced programming language like
BASIC was developed
Bill Gates and Microsoft started in 1975
79. THIRD GENERATION
The First Microprocessor in
1971
Intel 4004 had 2,250 transistors
Four-bit chunks (four 1’s and 0’s)
108 KHz
0.6 Mips (million
instructions/sec)
Pentium 133 – 300 Mips
Called MICROCHIP
80. THIRD GENERATION
The Birth of Personal
Computer
MITS ALTAIR – 1975
256 byte memory
2 MHz Intel 8080 chip
Just a box with flashing lights
Cost $395 kit, $495 assembled
82. FOURTH GENERATION
The
microelectronics
revolution is what
allowed the
amount of hand-
crafted wiring seen
in the prior photo
to be mass-
produced as an
integrated circuit
which is a small
sliver of silicon the
size of your
thumbnail .
83. FOURTH GENERATION
Large Scale and Very Large Scale
Integrated Circuits
Microprocessors that contained
memory, logic and control circuits (an
entire CPU) on a single chip
Apple II was released to public in 1977
by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs
Initially sold for $1,195 (no monitor) had
16k RAM
84. FOURTH GENERATION
IBM PC was introduced in 1981
Debut with MS – DOS (Microsoft Disk
Operating System)
First Apple Mac was released in 1984
Fourth generation language was
released
Visicalc, Lotus 123, dBase, MS Word, etc.
GUI was used in PC’s
86. FIFTH GENERATION
Fifth generation computing devices,
based on artificial intelligence, are still
in development, though there are some
applications, such as voice recognition,
that are being used today.
87. FIFTH GENERATION
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer
science focusing on creating machines that can engage
on behaviors that humans consider intelligent. The
ability to create intelligent machines has intrigued
humans since ancient times, and today with the advent
of the computer and 50 years of research into AI
programming techniques, the dream of smart machines
is becoming a reality. Researchers are creating systems
which can mimic human thought, understand speech,
beat the best human chess player, and countless other
feats never before possible. Find out how the military is
applying AI logic to its hi-tech systems, and how in the
near future Artificial Intelligence may impact our lives.
88. FIFTH GENERATION
Artificial Intelligence is the branch of computer
science concerned with making computers behave
like humans. The term was coined in 1956 by John
McCarthy at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Artificial intelligence includes:
Games Playing
Expert Systems
Natural Language
Neural Networks
Robotics
90. COMPUTER GENERATIONS
Bibliography
Kenneth C. Laudon, Carol Guercio Traver, Jane P. Laudon, Information
Technology and Systems, Cambridge, MA: Course Technology, 1996.
Stan Augarten, BIT By BIT: An Illustrated History of Computers (New
York: Ticknor & Fields, 1984).
R. Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware,
and the Software, translated by J. Howlett (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1984).
Telephone History Web Site.
http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/phones.html
Microsoft Museum.
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/museum/home.asp
Philip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design, 2nd ed., New York: Van
Nostrand Reinhold, 1992.
