History of Computer Development

• Computers are great technological advancements and impact people's lives in numerous ways
• The history of computer development, electronics, and mathematics explain how it works

Earliest Computing Devices

• Abacus: A manual data processing device developed in China
• It has a frame with beads strung on wires or rods
• Arithmetic calculations are performed by manipulating the beads
• It's popular because it's simple and effective
• Napier's Bone: Created by John Napier, a Scottish mathematician known for his invention of logarithms
• Using logs reduces multiplication to addition
• Bones are sets of eleven rods with numbers marked on them
• Placing rods side by side obtains products and quotients of large numbers
• Sticks are called "bones" because they were first made of bone or ivory
• Oughtred's Slide Rule: Invented by English mathematician William Oughtred
• It consists of two movable rulers placed side by side
• Rulers are marked so distances are proportional to the logarithms of the numbers printed
• Sliding the ruler multiplies and divides quickly
• Calculating Clock: Created by Wilhelm Schickard
• A 6-digit machine that added and subtracted
• Indicated overflow by ringing a bell
• Used by Johannes Kepler
• Pascaline: Created by Blaise Pascal in 1645
• A calculating machine that added and subtracted numbers
• Operated by dialing a series of wheels
• The Reckoner: Created by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
• Utilized the same techniques for addition and subtraction as Pascal's device
• Performs multiplication and division
• Extracts square roots
• Difference Engine and Analytical Engine: Created by Charles Babbage
• Babbage is considered the "Father of the Modern Computer"
• Difference Engine operated on 6-digit numbers and solved 2nd order difference equations
• Analytical Engine had 5 crucial features to future computers:
• Input device
• Storage facility for numbers
• Processor/number calculator
• Control unit to direct tasks
• Output device
• This machine was never realized owing to unavailable funding and technology for manufacturing exact technical parts
• Jacquard's Loom: Invented by Joseph-Marie Jacquard
• Used punched boards that controlled the patterns to be woven to create a design
• Hollerith's Punched-card Machine: Created by Herman Hollerith in the 1880s
• Completed a set of machines to help process the results of the 1890 census
• Used 3x5 inch punch cards to record data
• Constructed an electromagnetic counting machine to sort and tabulate data manually
• Hollerith's machine used data coded as holes in cards, passed between metal pins and mercury-filled cups
• The pin touched the mercury, closed an electric circuit, and activated a counting mechanism
• The first commercially successful data processing machine sorted 300 cards/minute

Early Developments in Electronic Data Processing

• Early machines (except for Babbage's) were single-purpose devices
• Modern innovation: the capability to automatically perform a long sequence of varied arithmetical and logical operations
• Atanasoff-Berry Computer (1900-1945): Created by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry
• Solved systems of partial differential equations, specifically 29 simultaneous equations with 29 unknowns
• It was not programmable and was more of an electronic calculator
• MARK I: Created by Howard Aiken with assistance from IBM from 1937 to 1942
• Also known as the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator
• 51 ft. long and 8 ft. high
• Consisted of 750,000 moving parts and several hundred miles of wiring
• Controlled by pre-punched paper tape
• Carried out addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and reference to previous results
• Had special subroutines for logarithms and trigonometric functions using 23 decimal places
• Stored and counted mechanically using 3000 decimal storage wheels, 1400 rotary dial switches, and 500 miles of wire
• Electromagnetic relays classified the machine as a relay computer
• Output displayed on an electric typewriter
• By today's standards, the Mark I was slow, requiring 3-5 seconds for a multiplication operation
• ENIAC I: Created by John Mauchly and J Presper Eckert in 1946
• U.S. military sponsored research for artillery-firing tables
• The Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, 1,500 relays, 6,000 manual switches and 5 million soldered joints
• It weighed 30 tons, consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power, and caused brownouts in Philadelphia
• The principal drawback was its size and processing ability
• Could perform 5,000 additions, 357 multiplications or 38 divisions in one second
• Not a quick machine to re-program
• EDSAC: Completed by Maurice Wilkes at Cambridge University two years before EDVAC was finished
• The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator became the first stored-program computer in general use
• EDVAC: Proposed by John von Neumann in 1946; a modified version of the ENIAC
• The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer used binary arithmetic
• It had stored programs

Microcomputers

• Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) introduced the ALTAIR 8800 in 1975
• Programmed by flicking switches
• Came as a kit and had to be soldered together
• No software programs
• Personal computer available for a few thousand dollars when most computer companies were charging ten thousands of dollars
• APPLE 1 was invented in 1976 by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
• Mass production began in 1979, and by the end of 1981, it was the fastest-selling of all personal computers
• TRS-80 was introduced in 1977 by Tandy/Radio Shack
• One of the most popular computers during the late seventies
• IBM made its presence felt in the PC market on August 12, 1981
• Introducing the IBM Personal Computer
• Osborne - 1: The first portable computer, invented by Adam Osborne
• PDA (Personal Digital Assistant): The smallest personal computer currently available
• Apple's Newton was introduced in 1993

Computer Generations

• First Generation Computers (1951-1959)
• Characterized by the use of vacuum tubes
• Vacuum tubes required much electricity and made computers enormously bulky
• Vacuum tubes required air conditioning and special insulation
• The appearance of the first commercial computer, the UNIVAC, in 1951, marked the beginning of computers belonging to the first generation computers
• Second Generation Computers (1960-1964)
• Solid-state components (transistors and diodes) and magnetic core storage formed the basis
• New transistor technology made transistors obsolete by vacuum tubes
• Computers became smaller, faster, more reliable, and much greater in processing capacity
• Built-in error detecting devices were installed
• More efficient means was developed to input data into and retrieve data from the computer
• More efficient programming methods became available
• Third Generation Computers (1965-1969)
• Integrated Circuitry, solid-state technology, extreme miniaturization and improved secondary storage devices, and new input/output devices
• Arithmetic and logical operations were performed in microseconds
• More than one program can run with faster processing speeds at same time
• Fourth Generation Computers (1970-1984)
• Major innovations were in the development of microelectronics
• Development of different areas in computer technology such as: multiprocessing, multiprogramming, miniaturization, time-sharing, operating speed and virtual storage
• Because of microprocessors, fourth-generation computers are much faster, less expensive, and of much greater data processing capacity
• Inexpensive minicomputers and microcomputers proliferated
• Fourth-generation computers also employed optical readers, audio response terminals, and graphic display terminals
• Fifth Generation Computers (1984-present)
• With artificial intelligence, computers hold conversations with their human operators, use visual input, and learn from their own experiences
• These computers use recent engineering advances for voice recognition and imitate human reasoning
• The ability to translate a foreign language is also moderately possible
• Two engineering advances coming together to enable fifth-generation computers:
• Parallel processing replaces von Neumann's single central processing unit design with a system harnessing the power of many CPUs to work as one
• Superconductor technology allows the flow of electricity with little or no resistance, greatly improving the speed of information flow
• Expert systems assist doctors in making diagnoses by applying the problem-solving steps a doctor might use in assessing a patient's needs

Biographical History of Computing

• Goerge Boole (1800's): A self-taught British mathematician, devised an algebra of logic later became a key tool in computer design. (Boolean operators)
• Charles Babbage (1800's): A British Mathematician and engineer; regarded as the Father of the Computer
• Augusta Ada Byron (1800's): A mathematician and a colleague of Charles Babbage regarded as the First Computer Programmer
• Herman Hollerith (1800's): The founder of a company that later became IBM; at the age of 20, he devised a computer that made it possible to process data for the U.S. Census
• Alan Turing (1930's): A gifted and far-sighted British mathematician; made fundamental contributions to the theory of computer science
• John Atanasoff (1940's): A mathematician and physicist as Lowe State University; the inventor of the first electronic digital special-purpose computer
• Howard Aiken (1940's): A professor at Harvard University; built the Mark I, a large scale computer similar to “analytical engine" in 5 years
• Grace Hopper (1940's): She introduced the term "debugging" for finding errors. She developed and used "COBOL" programming
• John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert (1940's): Electrical engineers are working at the University of Pennsylvania; built the first large-scale electronic digital general purpose computer
• John von Neumann (1940's): A mathematical genius he introduced the use of flowchart in programming
• Stanislaw Ulam (1940's): American research mathematician and educator, pioneered the application of random numbers and computers to the solution of mathematical problems
• Maurice V. Wilkes (1940's): An electrical engineer at Cambridge University; built the EDSAC
• John Bardeen Walter Brattain and William Shockley (1940's): Physicist at Bell labs; developed the transistor
• John Backus (1950's): He introduced FORTRAN language
• Donald L. Shell (1950's): Published an efficient algorithm for ordering (or sorting) lists of data
• John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz (1960's): Professors of mathematics at Dartmouth College and inventors of BASIC
• Corrado Bohm and Guiseppe Jacopini (1960's): European mathematicians; proved that any program can be written with three structures – sequences, decisions and loops
• Ted Hoff, Stan Mazer, Roger Noyce and Fererico Faggin (1970's): Engineers at the Intel Corporation; develop the first Microprocessor Chip
• Ted Codd (1970's): Laid the groundwork for relational database
• Paul Allen and Bill Gates (1970's): Co-founders of Microsoft Corporation; developed operating system for IBM PC
• Stephen Wozniak and Stephen Jobs (1970's): Co-founders of Apple Computer Inc. who started microcomputer revolution
• Dan Bricklin and Dan Fylstra (1970's): Co-founders of Software Arts; wrote VisiCalc - the 1st electronic spreadsheet program
• Robert Barnaby (1980's): A dedicated programmer, best known for writing Wordstar – popular word processing
• William L. Sydnes (1980's): Manager of IBM Entry Systems Boca engineering group
• Mitchelle D. Kapor (1980's): Co-founder of Lotus Corporation; wrote the Lotus 1-2-3- business software program (spreadsheet, database, and graphics)
• Tim Berners-Lee (1980's): British computer scientist proposed the World Wide Web project in 1980
• Marc Andreessen (1990's): Graduate student at the University of Illinois, develop Mosaic - program used to move around the World Wide Web

Additional Highlights of Evolution: Information Age

• Linus Torvalds: 1991 – graduate of University of Helsinki develops the Linux
• Apple: 1992 - introduces the Newton Message Pad – a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
• Introduction: 1993 - of computer systems with Intel's Pentium microprocessor
• Microsoft: 1995 - releases Windows 95
• More than 50 million: 1996 - PCs sold and more than 250 million PCs in use worldwide
• Microsoft: 1997 - releases Office 97
• Microsoft: 1998 - releases Office 98 integrating with Internet Explorer 4.0
• Microsoft: 1999 - releases Office 2000, soon followed by Windows 2000
• Y2K: 2000 - bug
• Microsoft: 2001 - releases Windows XP and Office XP
• Microsoft: 2002 - initiates its .NET platform. Also, Amazon.com recognized as the largest online retailer
• Apple: 2003 - opens iTunes music store
• Google: 2004 - release Gmail, its e-mail service
• Wireless connections: 2005 - (WiFi) to the internet, called hotspots, becomes available to the public
• Google: 2006 - purchased YouTube.com for $1.65 billion
• Microsoft: 2007 - releases Windows Vista. Apple release iPhones
• Intel: 2008 - announces new low-power Atom microprocessor
• Wireless device: 2009 - move to 3G network with speeds up to 1.4 mbps
• Microsoft: 2010 - releases Office 2010