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L0c - History of Computers

This document provides a history of computing from ancient mechanical calculating devices to modern computers. It describes the evolution of computing technology through five generations: (1) mechanical computers from 1642-1945, (2) vacuum tubes from the 1940s, (3) transistors in the 1950s, (4) integrated circuits from the 1960s enabling personal computing, and (5) parallelism and networks from the 1980s to present. Key figures and inventions that advanced computing at each stage are discussed, such as Babbage, Turing, the transistor, and microprocessor.

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Ralph Castino
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66 views25 pages

L0c - History of Computers

This document provides a history of computing from ancient mechanical calculating devices to modern computers. It describes the evolution of computing technology through five generations: (1) mechanical computers from 1642-1945, (2) vacuum tubes from the 1940s, (3) transistors in the 1950s, (4) integrated circuits from the 1960s enabling personal computing, and (5) parallelism and networks from the 1980s to present. Key figures and inventions that advanced computing at each stage are discussed, such as Babbage, Turing, the transistor, and microprocessor.

Uploaded by

Ralph Castino
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 25

History of Computing

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Computers are such an integral part of our society that it is


sometimes difficult to imagine life without them. However,
computers as we know them are relatively new devices the
first electronic computers date back only to the 1940s.

calculating devices have been around for millennia (e.g., abacus


~3,000 B.C.)
modern "computing technology" traces its roots to the 16-17th
centuries
as part of the "Scientific Revolution", people like Kepler,
Galileo, and Newton viewed the natural world as
mechanistic and understandable
this led to technological advances & innovation

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

from simple mechanical calculating devices to powerful


modern computers, computing technology has evolved
through technological breakthroughs

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0: Mechanical Computers (1642-1945)


1642 Blaise Pascal built a mechanical calculating machine
used mechanical gears, a hand-crank, dials and knobs
other similar machines followed

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)
1805 the first programmable
device was Jacquard's loom
the loom wove tapestries with
elaborate, programmable
patterns
a pattern was represented by
metal punch-cards, fed into
the loom
using the loom, it became
possible to mass-produce
tapestries, and even
reprogram it to produce
different patterns simply by
changing the cards
Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)
1821 English mathematician
Charles Babbage designs the
Difference Engine
based on Jacquards idea of
storing information as holes
punched into cards
a steam-powered mechanical
calculator for solving
mathematical equations
also called the Analytical
Engine.

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)

Although a working mode l of the Analytical Engine was never


completed, its innovative and visionary design was popularized by
the writings and patronage of Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of
Lovelace.
Ada Byron's extensive notes on the Analytical Engine included
step-by-step instructions to be carried out by the machine; it was
this contribution that has since caused the computing industry to
recognize her as the world's first programmer.

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)
1890 Herman Hollerith
invented tabulating machine
designed for tabulating
1890 U.S. Census data
similar to Jacquard's loom
and Babbage's analytical
engine, it stored data on
punch-cards, and could sort
and tabulate using
electrical pins

using Hollerith's machine, census data was tabulated in 6 weeks


(vs. 7 years for the 1880 census)
Hollerith's company would become IBM
Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)
1930's several engineers independently built "computers" using
electromagnetic relays
an electromagnetic relay is physical switch, which can be
opened/closed via electrical current

Konrad Zuse (Nazi Germany) his machines were destroyed in


WWII
John Atanasoff (Iowa State) built a partially-working machine
with his grad student
George Stibitz (Bell Labs) built the MARK I computer that
followed the designs of Babbage
limited capabilities by modern standards: could store only 72
numbers, required 1/10 sec to add, 6 sec to multiply
still, 100 times faster than previous technology

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

Generation 0 (cont.)

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

10

10

Generation 1: Vacuum Tubes


mid 1940's vacuum tubes
replaced relays
a vacuum tube is a light
bulb containing a partial
vacuum to speed
electron flow
vacuum tubes could
control the flow of
electricity faster than
relays since they had no
moving parts
invented by Lee de Forest
in 1906

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

11

1940's hybrid computers using vacuum tubes and relays were


built
COLOSSUS (1943)
first "electronic computer", built by the British govt. (based
on designs by Alan Turing)
used to decode Nazi communications during the war
the computer was top-secret, so did not influence other
researchers

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

12

Generation 1 (cont.)
ENIAC (1946)
first publiclyacknowledged "electronic
computer", built by Eckert
& Mauchly (UPenn)
contained 18,000 vacuum
tubes and 1,500 relays
weighed 30 tons,
consumed 140 kwatts

COLOSSUS and ENIAC were not general purpose computers


could enter input using dials & knobs, paper tape
but to perform a different computation, needed to reconfigure
Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

13

Generation 1 (cont.)

von Neumann popularized the idea of a "stored program"


computer
Memory stores both data and programs
Central Processing Unit (CPU) executes by loading program
instructions from memory and executing them in sequence
Input/Output devices allow for interaction with the user
virtually all modern machines follow this
von Neumann Architecture
(note: same basic design as Babbage)

programming was still difficult and tedious


each machine had its own machine language, 0's & 1's
corresponding to the settings of physical components
in 1950's, assembly languages replaced 0's & 1's with mnemonic
names
e.g., ADD instead of 00101110
Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

14

Generation 2: Transistors
mid 1950's transistors began to replace
tubes
a transistor is a piece of silicon whose
conductivity can be turned on and off
using an electric current
they performed the same switching
function of vacuum tubes, but were
smaller, faster, more reliable, and
cheaper to mass produce
invented by Bardeen, Brattain, &
Shockley in 1948 (earning them the
1956 Nobel Prize in physics)

some historians claim the transistor was


the most important invention of the
20th century

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

15

Generation 2 (cont.)
computers became commercial as cost dropped
high-level languages were designed to make programming more
natural

FORTRAN (1957, Backus at IBM)


LISP (1959, McCarthy at MIT)
BASIC (1959, Kemeny at Dartmouth)
COBOL (1960, Murray-Hopper at DOD)

the computer industry grew as businesses could afford to


buy and use computers
Eckert-Mauchly (1951), DEC (1957)
IBM became market force in 1960's

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

16

Generation 3: Integrated Circuits


mid 1960's - integrated circuits (IC) were produced
Noyce and Kilby independently developed techniques for
packaging transistors and circuitry on a silicon chip (Kilby won the
2000 Nobel Prize in physics)
this advance was made possible by miniaturization & improved
manufacturing
allowed for mass-producing useful circuitry
1971 Intel marketed the first microprocessor, the 4004, a chip
with all the circuitry for a calculator

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

17

Generation 3 (cont.)
1960's saw the rise of Operating Systems
recall: an operating system is a collection of programs that
manage peripheral devices and other resources
in the 60's, operating systems enabled time-sharing, where
users share a computer by swapping jobs in and out
as computers became affordable to small businesses,
specialized programming languages were developed
Pascal (1971, Wirth), C (1972, Ritche)

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

18

Generation 4: VLSI
late 1970's - Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)
by the late 1970's, manufacturing advances allowed placing
hundreds of thousands of transistors w/ circuitry on a chip
this "very large scale integration" resulted in mass-produced
microprocessors and other useful IC's
since computers could be constructed by simply connecting
powerful IC's and peripheral devices, they were easier to make
and more affordable

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

19

(Intel Research. SiliconMoores Law. October 2006.)


Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

20

Generation 4: VLSI (cont.)


with VLSI came the rise of personal computing
1975 - Bill Gates & Paul Allen founded Microsoft
Gates wrote a BASIC interpreter for the first PC (Altair)
1977 - Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs founded Apple
went from Jobs' garage to $120 million in sales by 1980
1980 - IBM introduced PC
Microsoft licensed the DOS operating system to IBM
1984 - Apple countered with Macintosh
introduced the modern GUI-based OS (which was mostly
developed at Xerox)
1985 - Microsoft countered with Windows

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

21

Generation 4: VLSI (cont.)


1980's - object-oriented programming began
represented a new approach to program design which views
a program as a collection of interacting software objects that
model real-world entities
Smalltalk (Kay, 1980), C++ (Stroustrup, 1985), Java (Sun,
1995)

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

22

Generation 5: Parallelism/Networks
the latest generation of computers is still hotly debated
no new switching technologies, but changes in usage have
occurred
high-end machines (e.g. Web servers) can have multiple CPU's
in 1997, highly parallel Deep Blue beat Kasparov in a chess
match
in 2003, successor Deep Junior played Kasparov to a draw

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

23

Generation 5 (cont.)
most computers today are networked
the Internet traces its roots to the 1969 ARPANet mainly used by
government & universities until the late 80s/early 90s

the Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 designed to


allow physics researchers to share data and documents not
popular until 1993 when Marc Andreessen developed a graphical
browser (Mosaic)
Andreessen would go on to found Netscape, and Internet
Explorer soon followed

Department of Computer Science | Mark


Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

24

END
Department of Computer Science | Mark
Anthony N. Manlimos

June 25, 2014

25

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