History of Computing Machines
CSC 2001
TTU
Disclaimer
lots of stuff will be left out
enabling discoveries/inventions
electricity, vacuum tube, relays, typewriter,
etc…
some theoretical developments
Motivation
For most of history, computation has
been a labor intensive (and therefore
expensive) process.
drive down cost of labor (ethics?)
get work done faster
Timeline: 1621
Calculator rulers (pre-cursors of sliderulers)
More modern one…
Timeline: 1623
Mechanical adding machine
could count past 9
Timeline: 1642
Blaise Pascal
mechanism to calculate with 8 figures and
carrying of 10's , 100's, and 1000's etc
not popular - hard to manufacture
only Pascal and one of his workmen could
fix them
Timeline: 1660
Watch making technology makes Pascal
calculator more possible
Timeline: 1672
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
devise machine that could divide and multiply
also wanted to develop a generalized symbolic
language and an algebra to go with his machines,
so that: "the truth of any proposition in any field
of human inquiry could be determined by simple
calculation."
failed at that, but what else did Leibniz do?
Leibniz
"It is unworthy of excellent men to lose
hours like slaves in the labor of
calculation which could safely be
relegated to anyone else if machines
were used.”
For most around this time, calculators
were useless curiosities
Timeline: 1694
Leibniz
built a machine that beside the
basic calculations also could take the root
from a number
Timeline: 1728
Falcon (France)
first programmable loom. He used wooden
punched cards tied together with ropes. This was
the first punched card ever.
The combinations of the holes in the cards were
the instructions to the loom mechanism. This is
what we now usually call the first program ever.
The invention of the punched card meant the
beginning of automation - a machine can perform
a sequence of actions without interference of a
human being. (ethics)
Timeline: 1769
Chess playing machine hoax
Timeline:1784
Johann Mueller
described intentions to build machine that
could calculate and print results
Timeline: 1799
Luddites
???
Timeline: 1822
Charles Babbage
designed a calculator. The concept of this
machine was that it's operated by punched
cards and the results printed on paper
thought technology needed was too
advanced to actually build
Timeline: 1832
Georg and Edvard Scheutz (Sweden)
decide to build Babbage’s Difference
Engine
completed in 1853
Timeline: 1834
Charles Babbage
begins work on Analytical Engine
It was to be capable of carrying out any
mathematical operation.
Instructions would tell it what operation to
perform and in what order.
It would have a memory with a capacity of onethousand 50-digit numbers, it would draw on
auxiliary functions such as logarithm tables (of
which it would possess its own library) and
subroutines.
Analytical Engine
Countess Ada Augusta Lovelace
daughter of Lord Byron
worked closely with Babbage
planned his computational problems
has been called the world's first programmer
designs some of the first examples of a computer
programs (1843)
How was she commemorated by the U.S DoD?
Timeline: 1857
Sir Charles Wheatstone
introduced the first application of paper
tapes as a medium for the preparation,
storage, and transmission of data
also the inventor of the accordion
Timeline: 1869
William Stanley Jevons
first practical logical machine that is based
on the principles of Boolean algebra
(True/False)
Timeline: 1887
Dorr E. Felt
Comptometer
“The Machine Gun of the Office”
Timeline: 1888
William S. Burroughs
more successful than Felt
really starts the office calculator industry
(1892)
still manually powered
first version: hard to operate
with one exception…
“a field agent who operated his calculator so well he
refused to sell it, preferring to haul it from saloon to
saloon in a wheelbarrow betting drinks on his accuracy.”
Burroughs
later versions could print results
Timeline: 1889
Herman Hollerith (MIT)
first electromechanical adding and sorting
machine
had to win a contest to prove its utility
first major use??
started the Tabulating and Recording
Company (what did that become?)
Timeline: 1889
Multiplier machine
Leon Bollee
huge and impractical
Timeline: 1893
Otto Steiger introduces the Millionaire
a multiplier designed for big business but
also used by scientists
Timeline: 1900
Jevon’s Logical Piano
could solve a problem faster than by hand
Timeline: 1902
The Dalton
2, 4, 5, 7, 9
1, 3, 0, 6, 8
modern keyboard
design?
Timeline: 1914
Thomas Watson
joins the Tabulating Machine Company.
He transforms it into IBM.
Timeline: 1917
“ROBOT”
in a play called R.U.R
(Rossum's Universal
Robots) by Czech
dramatist Karel Capek.
intelligent machines
meant to serve their
human makers
take over the world and
destroy humanity
Timeline: 1918
Enigma machine first used
significance???
Timeline: 1920
The first cash register that prints
numbers is introduced on the market by
C-T-R (later IBM).
Timeline: 1935
IBM 601
a punch card machine with an arithmetic
unit based on relays.
capable of doing a multiplication in 1
second
about 1500 of them will eventually be
made
Timeline: 1936
Konrad Zuse
started to construct the Z1, world's first
programmable computer, in his bedroom.
This machine became so large that it
occupied his parents’ living room as well.
Timeline: 1936
Alan Turing
publishes 'On Computable Numbers'
explained his ideas on the 'Universal Turing
Machine', an electronic calculator that
could make any calculation or logical
operation
his ideas will determine the internal
architecture of computers in the future
Turing Award
Timeline: 1937
Claude E. Shannon
writes his master's thesis on machine logic
realizes that an electric circuit used the same
concept as Boolean Algebra. If an electric circuit is
designed according to Boolean rules, it can be
used to represent logic. Expressions can be
validated and calculations be made.
It became clear that information could be
manipulated by a machine
Timeline: 1939
George R. Stibitz
makes a call to a computer hundreds of
kilometers away with a teletype console
The "Model K" at the other side rattles for
some time as well. The program that ran at
the other side then sends the result back. It
all takes less than a minute.
 The machine is built on a kitchen table.
Timeline: 1942
Dr. John V.
Atanasoff and his
assistant Clifford
Berry
build the first
electronic digital
computer, named
ABC (some
controversy)
not
programmable
Timeline: 1942
Konrad Zuse
An improved version of the Z4 is used to
calculate the aerodynamic characteristics of
wings and rudders. Nonetheless the Z4 is
still a mechanical machine.
Hitler put project on hold.
Timeline: 1942
Dr. John Mauchly and John Eckert
commissioned to design a electronic
machine that could compute trajectory
table quickly for US Army
results in ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer) in 1946
Timeline: 1943
Howard Aiken
first programmable calculator MARK I
HUGE!!
 few tons of ice per day for its cooling,
multiplication of 2 numbers of 23 digits is
done in 3 seconds
Timeline: 1943
 John von Neumann
develops the first programmable calculator
with a memory
von Neumann architecture
Timeline: 1951
first generation of modern programmed
electronic computers
included UNIVAC (Universal Automatic
Computer)
Timeline: 1951
Wang Labs founded
first invention is the ferrite core memory - a
system of copper wires mounted on a frame. At
cross points a ferrite core is mounted. When a
cross point becomes conductive (electrical current
is running through the wires) the ferrite core
becomes magnetic.
By detecting which core is magnetic and which not
one could "determinate" certain values.
made by hand
more solid and reliable than vacuum tubes
Timeline: 1952
IBM
Model 701
1 Kb RAM
first machine to use a tape drive
Timeline: 1952
Grace Hopper
published "The Education of a Computer”
developed the first software that could
translate symbols of higher computer
languages into machine language
What is that kind of program called?
COMPILER
Grace Hopper
PhD mathematics from Yale
Eventually a Rear Admiral in the Navy
first bug (1951)
COBOL (1959)
Common Business Oriented Language
Timeline: 1954
John Backus
an employee of IBM designed the
programming language FORTRAN
(FORmula TRANslator)
challenge for it to be accepted
Timeline: 1955
John McCarthy
coins term “Artificial Intelligence”
Timeline: 1956
Bob Patrick and Owen Mock
first Operating System is designed
GM/NAA-I/O
IBM 704
Timeline: 1958
Control Data Corporation
created their contribution to the
supercomputer market with the fully
transistorized -- CDC 1604
Seymour Cray was the chief architect
Timeline: 1960
DEC
released its first mini computer: PDP-1
priced at $125,000 to $250,000
first in a very famous family of computers
first commercial modem
Bell Dataphone 103 with the speed of 300
bps (bits per second = appr 30 characters
per second)
Timeline: 1963
audio cassette is invented by Phillips
Timeline: 1964
SABRE
first commercial network by IBM
six years to build this air reservation
program and the hardware belonging to it
BASIC developed (Beginner’s Allpurpose Symbolic Instruction Code)
CAD (IBM and GM)
First Local Area Network
Timeline: 1965
mouse invented
Timeline: 1968
field of Software Engineering start
NATO
first demo of keyboard, keypad, mouse
and windows
showed the use of a word processor, a
hypertext system, and remote collaborative
work
priced too high
Timeline: 1969
Arpanet
Honeywell H316 "Kitchen Computer"
sold via a Neiman- Marcus 1969 catalog
over $10,000
The computer can be programmed to keep
track of various things like golf scores,
investments. It can also plan dinners and
keep membership lists of charity
organizations.
Timeline: 1970
Ken Thompson develops the
programming language 'B’
Relational Database by Ted Codd
Pascal (Niklaus Wirth)
first computer chips from Intel
Timeline: 1971-75
UNIX
Kernighan and Ritchie develop “C”
Atari - Pong
Internet now has 25 computers
Z80
Motorola 6800
Microsoft founded
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Timeline: 1976-77
Ethernet described
CRAY-1 invented
Apple II released
Digital came out with first VAX (VAX11/780)
TRS-80 model 1
my first computer
Timeline: 1978-80
TCP/IP
Intel’s 8086 and 8087
First commercial spreadsheet (VisiCalc)
Three students at two campuses of
UNC used the Unix to Unix Copy
Program (uucp) to put messages in a
newsgroup. Usenet was born.
Timeline: 1981-84
Microsoft buys QDOS
Apple introduces its first hard drive (5MB
$3500)
IBM PCs
3.5 inch floppy
TRON
Commodore 64
Microsoft Word announced
Macintosh
IBM-AT/MS-DOS 3.0
Timeline: 1985-88
Windows, MS-DOS 3.1
OS/2
NeXT
386 processors
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) invented
Internet worm
Timeline: 1989-90
486
WWW and HTML (Tim Berners-Lee)
CERN
Timeline: 1991-93
Linux (Linus Torvalds)
Pentium
NCSA Mosaic
Windows 3.1
PowerPC chip
Adobe Acrobat
Apple Newton
References
http://www.thocp.net/
http://www.computerhistory.org/
 http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/cmhistory.htm
Lesson
Appreciate what we have and what it
took to get us here!!