Amir's Bloggy: December 2013

What is a Computer?

A computer is a programmable machine. The two principal characteristics of a computer are: it responds to a specific set of instructions in a well-defined manner and it can execute a prerecorded list of instructions (a program).

1. First Generation (1939-1954) - vacuum tube

1937 - John V. Atanasoff designed the first digital electronic computer

1939 - Atanasoff and Clifford Berry demonstrate in Nov. the ABC prototype

1941 - Konrad Zuse in Germany developed in secret the Z3

1943 - In Britain, the Colossus was designed in secret at Bletchley Park to decode German messages

1944 - Howard Aiken developed the Harvard Mark I mechanical computer for the Navy

1945 - John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert built ENIAC at U of PA for the U.S. Army

1946 - Mauchly and Eckert start Electronic Control Co., received grant from National Bureau of Standards to build a ENIAC-type computer with magnetic tape input/output, renamed UNIVAC in 1947 but run out of money, formed in Dec. 1947 the new company Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation (EMCC).

1948 - Howard Aiken developed the Harvard Mark III electronic computer with 5000 tubes

1948 - U of Manchester in Britain developed the SSEM Baby electronic computer with CRT memory

1949 - Mauchly and Eckert in March successfully tested the BINAC stored-program computer for Northrop Aircraft, with mercury delay line memory and a primitive magentic tape drive; Remington Rand bought EMCC Feb. 1950 and provided funds to finish UNIVAC

1950- Commander William C. Norris led Engineering Research Associates to develop the Atlas, based on the secret code-breaking computers used by the Navy in WWII; the Atlas was 38 feet long, 20 feet wide, and used 2700 vacuum tubes

1951 - S. A. Lebedev developed the MESM computer in Russia

1951 - Remington Rand successfully tested UNIVAC March 30, 1951, and announced to the public its sale to the Census Bureau June 14, 1951, the first commercial computer to feature a magnetic tape storage system, the eight UNISERVO tape drives that stood separate from the CPU and control console on the other side of a garage-size room. Each tape drive was six feet high and three feet wide, used 1/2-inch metal tape of nickel-plated bronze 1200 feet long, recorded data on eight channels at 100 inches per second with a transfer rate of 7,200 characters per second. The complete UNIVAC system weighed 29,000 pounds, included 5200 vacuum tubes, and an offline typewriter-printer UNIPRINTER with an attached metal tape drive. Later, a punched card-to-tape machine was added to read IBM 80-column and Remington Rand 90-column cards.

1952 - Remington Rand bought the ERA in Dec. 1951 and combined the UNIVAC product line in 1952: the ERA 1101 computer became the UNIVAC 1101. The UNIVAC I was used in November to calculate the presidential election returns and successfully predict the winner, although it was not trusted by the TV networks who refused to use the prediction.

1954 - The SAGE aircraft-warning system was the largest vacuum tube computer system ever built. It began in 1954 at MIT's Lincoln Lab with funding from the Air Force. The first of 23 Direction Centers went online in Nov. 1956, and the last in 1962. Each Center had two 55,000-tube computers built by IBM, MIT, AND Bell Labs. The 275-ton computers known as "Clyde" were based on Jay Forrester's Whirlwind I and had magnetic core memory, magentic drum and magnetic tape storage. The Centers were connected by an early network, and pioneered development of the modem and graphics display.

Atanasoff-Berry Computer 1939, from IEEE

magnetic drum memory of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer 1939, from Smithsonian NMAH

Whirlwind core memory 1951, from IEEE

first computer bug 1945, from IEEE

UNIVAC 1951, from Smithsonian NMAH

UNIVAC I ca. 1955, from Smithsonian

UNIVAC ad 1955/01/17 from Time

UNIVAC ad 1955/02/28 from Time

UNIVAC I of 1951 was the first business computer made in the U.S. "Many people saw a computer for the first time on television when UNIVAC I predicted the outcome of the 1952 presidential elections."

Bendix G-15 of 1956, inexpensive at $60,000, for science and industry but could also be used by a single user; several hundred were built - used magnetic tape drive and key punch terminal

IBM 650 that "became the most popular medium-sized computer in America in the 1950's" - rental cost was $5000 per month - 1500 were installed - able to read punched cards or magnetic tape - used rotating magnetic drum main memory unit that could store 4000 words, from Smithsonian NMAH

2.Second Generation Computers (1954 -1959) - transistor

Tom Watson, Jr.

1950 - National Bureau of Standards (NBS) introduced its Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) with 10,000 newly developed germanium diodes in its logic circuits, and the first magnetic disk drive designed by Jacob Rabinow
1953 - Tom Watson, Jr., led IBM to introduce the model 604 computer, its first with transistors, that became the basis of the model 608 of 1957, the first solid-state computer for the commercial market. Transistors were expensive at first, cost $8 vs. $.75 for a vacuum tube. But Watson was impressed with the new transistor radios and gave them to his engineers to study. IBM also developed the 650 Magnetic Drum Calculator, the first by IBM to use magnetic drum memory rather punched cards, and began shipment of the 701 scientific "Defense Calculator" that was the first of the Model 700 line that dominated main frame computers for the next decade
1955 - IBM introduced the 702 business computer; Watson on the cover of Time magazine March 28
1956 - Bendix G-15A small business computer sold for only $45,000, designed by Harry Huskey of NBS
1959 - General Electric Corporation delivered its Electronic Recording Machine Accounting (ERMA) computing system to the Bank of America in California; based on a design by SRI, the ERMA system employed Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) as the means to capture data from the checks and introduced automation in banking that continued with ATM machines in 1974

transistor, from Smithsonian NMAH

"First transistor (model), December 1947. Constructed by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley at Bell Laboratories," from Smithsonian NMAH

Regency transistor radio 1954 (TL), Zenith transistor hearing aid 1952, from Smithsonian NMAH

Regency transistor radio 1954, from Smithsonian NMAH

Philco and Emerson transistor radios, from Smithsonian NMAH

transistor radios, from Smithsonian NMAH

Maico hearing aid before and after transistors, from Fortune 1953/03

Morton, Shockley, White who developed transistor, from Fortune 1953/03

RCA transistor ad, from Fortune 1953/03

3. Third Generation Computers (1959 -1971) - IC

1959 - Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments patented the first integrated circuit in Feb. 1959; Kilby had made his first germanium IC in Oct. 1958; Robert Noyce at Fairchild used planar process to make connections of components within a silicon IC in early 1959; the first commercial product using IC was the hearing aid in Dec. 1963; General Instrument made LSI chip (100+ components) for Hammond organs 1968
1964 - IBM produced SABRE, the first airline reservation tracking system for American Airlines; IBM announced the System/360 all-purpose computer, using 8-bit character word length (a "byte") that was pioneered in the 7030 of April 1961 that grew out of the AF contract of Oct. 1958 following Sputnik to develop transistor computers for BMEWS
1968 - DEC introduced the first "mini-computer", the PDP-8, named after the mini-skirt; DEC was founded in 1957 by Kenneth H. Olsen who came for the SAGE project at MIT and began sales of the PDP-1 in 1960
1969 - Development began on ARPAnet, funded by the DOD
1971 - Intel produced large scale integrated (LSI) circuits that were used in the digital delay line, the first digital audio device

IC, from Smithsonian NMAH

Polaroid IC 1961, from Smithsonian NMAH

DEC PDP-1 of 1960, from CHM

DEC PDP8/E minicomputer 1973 from SDCM -cu

Anderson Jacobson ADC 260 acoustic coupler 1963, from SDCM

early transistor calculators - Casio "Mini" used chips from TI (left); TI SR-10 calculator showing circuit in transparent case, used a single chip 1972, from Smithsonian NMAH

IC, from Smithsonian NMAH

4. Fourth Generation (1971-Present) - microprocessor

1971 - Gilbert Hyatt at Micro Computer Co. patented the microprocessor; Ted Hoff at Intel in February introduced the 4-bit 4004, a VSLI of 2300 components, for the Japanese company Busicom to create a single chip for a calculator; IBM introduced the first 8-inch "memory disk", as it was called then, or the "floppy disk" later; Hoffmann-La Roche patented the passive LCD display for calculators and watches; in November Intel announced the first microcomputer, the MCS-4; Nolan Bushnell designed the first commercial arcade video game "Computer Space"
1972 - Intel made the 8-bit 8008 and 8080 microprocessors; Gary Kildall wrote his Control Program/Microprocessor (CP/M) disk operating system to provide instructions for floppy disk drives to work with the 8080 processor. He offered it to Intel, but was turned down, so he sold it on his own, and soon CP/M was the standard operating system for 8-bit microcomputers; Bushnell created Atari and introduced the successful "Pong" game
1973 - IBM developed the first true sealed hard disk drive, called the "Winchester" after the rifle company, using two 30 Mb platters; Robert Metcalfe at Xerox PARC created Ethernet as the basis for a local area network, and later founded 3COM
1974 - Xerox developed the Alto workstation at PARC, with a monitor, a graphical user interface, a mouse, and an ethernet card for networking
1975 - the Altair personal computer is sold in kit form, and influenced Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
1976 - Jobs and Wozniak developed the Apple personal computer; Alan Shugart introduced the 5.25-inch floppy disk
1977 - Nintendo in Japan began to make computer games that stored the data on chips inside a game cartridge that sold for around $40 but only cost a few dollars to manufacture. It introduced its most popular game "Donkey Kong" in 1981, Super Mario Bros in 1985
1978 - Visicalc spreadsheet software was written by Daniel Bricklin and Bob Frankston
1979 - Micropro released Wordstar that set the standard for word processing software
1980 - IBM signed a contract with the Microsoft Co. of Bill Gates and Paul Allen and Steve Ballmer to supply an operating system for IBM's new PC model. Microsoft paid $25,000 to Seattle Computer for the rights to QDOS that became Microsoft DOS, and Microsoft began its climb to become the dominant computer company in the world.
1984 - Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh personal computer January 24.
1987 - Bill Atkinson of Apple Computers created a software program called HyperCard that was bundled free with all Macintosh computers. This program for the first time made hypertext popular and useable to a wide number of people. Ted Nelson coined the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" in 1965 based on the pre-computer ideas of Vannevar Bushpublished in his "As We May Think" article in the July 1945 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

Intel 4004 microprocessor in 1971, from Intel Museum

Apple I of 1976 , from Smithsonian NMAH

Wozniak and Jobs introduced Apple II in 1977, from History of Apple

MITS Altair 8800A 1975 from SDCM - cu

Apple II personal computer 1978 with 5.25-inch Disk drives, from SDCM - cu

IBM 5151 personal computer 1981, from SDCM - cu

Seagate ST-251 5-inch 40 MB hard drive 1978, from SDCM - cu

Memorex Model 101 hard drive, 10 MB, 1983, from SDCM - cu

5. Fifth Generation (Present and Beyond)

1991 - World-Wide Web (WWW) was developed by Tim Berners-Lee and released by CERN.
1993 - The first Web browser called Mosaic was created by student Marc Andreesen and programmer Eric Bina at NCSA in the first 3 months of 1993. The beta version 0.5 of X Mosaic for UNIX was released Jan. 23 1993 and was instant success. The PC and Mac versions of Mosaic followed quickly in 1993. Mosaic was the first software to interpret a new IMG tag, and to display graphics along with text. Berners-Lee objected to the IMG tag, considered it frivolous, but image display became one of the most used features of the Web. The Web grew fast because the infrastructure was already in place: the Internet, desktop PC, home modems connected to online services such as AOL and Compuserve
1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released Dec. 1994, and was given away free, soon gaining 75% of world browser market.
1996 - Microsoft failed to recognized the importance of the Web, but finally released the much imporoved browser Explorer 3.0 in the summer.