A short and condensed history of computing Part II: Birth of the electronic computer

1. A short and condensed history of computingPart II: Birth of the electronic computer 1930-1951

2. The Pioneers • John Atanasoff (U. of Iowa, USA) • Clifford Berry (England) • ABC • First automatic electronic computer • KonradZuse (Germany) • Z3 computer • First programmable computer

3. ABC Computer

4. Z1 & Z3 Computers Z3 Binary Programmable Fully automated Punched film input Z1 Binary Electrically driven Punch card input

5. Alan M. Turing (1912-1954) • Computer scientist • Led WWII research group that broke the Enigma machine (Colossus computer) • Proposed a simple abstract universal machine model for defining computability: the “Turing machine” • Devised the “Turing test” for AI

6. The Enigma machine and Colossus

7. IBM Harvard Mark I – 1944 • The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, installed at Harvard University in 1944. It is 51 feet long, weighs 5 tons, incorporates 750,000 parts

8. Mauchly and Eckert • John W. Mauchly (1907-1980) • J. Presper Eckert (1919-1995) • Headed the ENIAC team at the University of Pennsylvania • ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), the first electronic general-purpose digital computer • Commissioned by the Army for computing ballistic firing tables

9. ENIAC • Massive scale and redundant design • Decimal internal coding • Operational in 1946 • Replacing a bad tube meant checking 19,000 possibilities

10. ENIAC • Programming meant literally re-wiring the computer • Slow, tedious and repetitious

11. John Von Neumann (1903-1954) • Von Neumann visits the University of Pennsylvania in 1944 • Prepares a draft for an automatic programmable device (later called EDVAC) • Concept of “stored program”  instruction is a form of data and can be used in the same memory, adding great flexibility to a computer’s architecture • Designed the IAS machine (Institute for Advanced Studies) which became operational in 1951

12. Von Neumann architecture • “stored program” • Serial uniprocessor design • Binary internal encoding • CPU-Memory-I/O organization • “fetch-decode-execute” instruction cycle

13. Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) • The first real computer scientist • Invented the first compiler because she was tired of doing it by hand, vastly improving programming speed and efficiency

14. UNIVAC I • First commercial general-purpose computer • Delivered in 1951 • Used to “forecast” the 1952 presidential election (computed statistics from polling results)

15. A short and condensed history of computingPart III: Age of the mainframe 1951-1970

16. Even in the 1950’s, computers got smaller over time • Four different generations of tube computer circuits showing the reduction in size over several generations of systems during the 1950’s

17. Advances in the 1950’s 1947 Shockley, Brattain & Bardeen 1958 Jack St. Clair Kilby & Robert Noyce Integrated Circuit Place many transistors in a small area Transistor Freedom from vacuum tubes (bulky, power hungry and unreliable) Both of these advances enabled machines to become smaller and more economical to build and maintain

18. Early Bell Labs transistors 1947 / 1952 The most important invention of the 20th century

19. Earliest implementations of the transistor 1954 – first transistor radio available in US 1952 – first transistor hearing aid (+2 tubes) 1954 – 97% of hearing aids made only with transistors

20. Earliest implementations of the integrated circuit 1964 – Widlar & Fairchild op-amp 1961 – Kilby & pocket calculator

21. 1960’s – IBM’s System/360 • Built using solid-state circuitry • Family of computer systems with backward compatibility • Established the standard for mainframes for a decade

22. 1960’s Companion to the mainframe • 1956 – IBM 305 RAMAC • 5 million characters stored • Weighed a ton • Random access • 1962 – IBM 1311 • Size of a washing machine • 2 million characters stored • Removable disk pack

23. Gordon Bell, father of the minicomputer, DEC • Developed first “Mini” computers, 1960-83 • Brought computing to small businesses • Created major competition for IBM & UNIVAC, who only built mainframes at the time

24. DEC PDP series • “minicomputers” • Offered mainframe performance at a fraction of the cost • PDP-8 $20,000, vs $1M for a mainframe

25. IBM fights back! • IBM 1130, their “small” computer, was designed to compete with DEC’s minis

26. Specialized supercomputers • First developed in the late 1970’s • High-performance systems used for scientific applications • Advanced special purpose designs • Control Data Corporation, Cray Research, NEC, IBM and others

27. A short and condensed history of computingPart IV: Age of the Personal Computer 1970-

28. Intel 4004 Microprocessor – 1972 • First commercially available microprocessor – first used in a programmable calculator • Contains 2300 transistors and ran at 100 kHz • This technology made the personal computer possible

29. Desktop and portable computers since 1975 • Microprocessors • All-in-one designs • Price/performance trade-offs • Aimed at mass audiences • Personal computers • Workstations

30. Altair 8800, the first kit microcomputer – 1975

31. Microsoft Bill Gates and Paul Allen in 1975 approached Ed Robers of MITS (company developing the Altair), and promised to deliver a BASIC compiler. They did so, and from the sale, Microsoft was born.

32. Apple computers Developed in the family garage, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with the firs Apple Computer – 1976

33. Radio Shack TRS-80 – 1978 • The first plug and play personal computer available at retail • Programmed in BASIC • Very successful • Very affordable • Limited commercial software

34. The Apple II – 1978 • The first commercially available Apple • Initially sold to Wall St. bankers who wanted the spreadsheet program Visicalc which ran on the Apple II • Put Apple on the map

35. The Osborne I – 1981 • The first “portable” personal computer • Came with lots of software bundled • Only weighed 40 lbs and sold for $1,795 • Note the large 5” screen!

36. IBM PC – 1982 • IBM’s first PC • Signaled a significant shift for the giant manufacturer • Established a new standard which is still being built on today • Open architecture • Operating system written by Bill Gates & Co. at Microsoft

37. The computer company that wasn’t – Xerox • Many of the innovations that became part of the Personal Computer scene were actually invented at XEROX Parc (Palo Alto Research Center) • Xerox was never able to successfully exploit those innovations that included the mouse, graphic user interface and the concept of WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get)

38. Apple Macintosh – 1984 • First PC with GUI interface • Adopted from the work that was done at Xerox • Designed to be a computer appliance for “Real People” • Introduced at the 1984 Superbowl

39. 1984 Macintosh Ad • Directed by Ridley Scott • Alien, Blade Runner • Cost $1.5M • Shown only once during the 1984 Superbowl at a cost of $500K • Considered to be the best TV ad ever! • Launched the Mac in grand style!

40. Some of the companies that defined the Personal Computer business early on • Xerox • IBM • Commodore • Texas Instrument • Osborne • MITS • AT&T • Compaq • Toshiba • Hitachi • Sinclair • Hewlett Packard • Sony • Apple • Microsoft • SWTP

41. Comparison shopping How do they rate in cost and performance?

42. Moore’s Law • In 1965, Gordon Moore predicted that the number of transistors that can be integrated on a die would double every 18 to 24 months (exponential growth) • Million transistor/chip barrier was crossed in the 1980’s • 2300 transistors, 100 kHz clock – Intel 4004, 1971 • 42M transistors, 2 GHz clock – Intel P4, 2001 • 1.4B transistors inc. 4 cores and GPU, 4.4 GHz clock – Intel Core i7, 2014

43. Moore’s Law

44. Clock frequency Frequency, MHz Nuclear Reactor Hot Plate

45. Exponential growth of technologies

46. Growth of a hard disk drive

47. Today’s Price/Performance • Over 3 Billion operations per second costs less than $1,000 • Memory is measured in Gigabytes, not kilobytes • Magnetic storage is measured in Terabytes • Communication speeds are measured in Megabits per second, not bits per second And it continues!