1

CS101 Lecture 29:

Brief History of Computing

1

John Magee 1 August 2013

Some images courtesy Wikimedia Commons, IBM, DEC

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."

-- Ken Olson, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977

Overview/Questions

– Where did computers come from?

– When were computers first discovered?

– Why should you care about the history of computing?

2

2

Why should we care?

“Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

Is this for real?

3

Why should we care?

“Predictions are that by 2049 a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

Is this for real?

4

3

Early History of Computing

5

Abacus (2400 BC)

Ancient device to record numeric values

Above: a reconstructed Roman abacus

Early History of Computing

6

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Mechanical device to add, subtract, divide & multiply

4

Early History of Computing

7

Joseph Jacquard (1801)

Jacquard’s Loom, the punched card

Programmability

8 3

What tricks does your computer do? – Web browsing, email, instant messenger

– Play games

– Watch movies, organize photos

– Word processing, spreadsheets, database

Programmability is the ability to give a general-

purpose computer instructions so that it can

perform new tasks.

5

Difference Engine Charles Babages’ mechanical calculating

machine, designed in 1820s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8tmfcOg8l8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0anIyVGeWOI

9

Finite State Machines

– AKA Finite State Automata

– Think about a Traffic light operation

There are only a limited number of “states” – configurations of lights.

Each state transitions into a new state.

E.g. Green Yellow Red

10

6

Turing Machines

Alan Turing

Considered to be the father of Computer Science

Also known for the “Turing Test” for Artificial Intelligence

Turing Machine - 1936

A turing machine is an abstract thought experiment.

Mathematical proof of computability of algorithm.

Basis for Computer Science Theory.

11

Early Digital Computers

12

Harvard Mark I (1944)

7

Harvard Mark I

13 IBM Archives

Early Digital Computers

14

Harvard Mark I (1944)

First fully automatic digital computer to be

completed

• 51 feet wide, 8 feet high, 2 feet deep

• Built out of switches, relays, and rotating

mechanical shafts/clutches

• Storage for 72 numbers, each 23 decimal digits

in length

• Read instructions from paper tape, one at a time

8

Early Digital Computers

15

ENIAC (1946) Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer

•first general-purpose electronic computer

•80 feet wide, 8.5 feet high, 3 feet deep

•No moving parts

•Ability to conditional branch – do the next operation based

on the result of the previous operation.

•17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays,

70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million

hand-soldered joints. •5,000 Hz, 324 multiplications/second

ENIAC

16

9

First Computer Bug

17

Log of first computer bug, discovered by Grace Hopper, 1945

A Computer Science Pioneer, she later wrote the first Compiler.

Architecture

Harvard Architecture:

– Instructions separate from data.

Von Neumann Architecture:

– Instructions = data.

– All stored in the same memory.

– A program can write a program! (Compilers)

– All modern computers based on this.

18

10

Mainframes

19

Univac 1108 (1964)

IBM 704 (1954) First floating point hardware

mass produced

1960’s-1970’s

Interactive sessions

Multi-user systems

– Time-sharing

– Terminals

“mini”computers

20

DEC PDP-7

11

Rise of the PC

PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely

http://www.cs.bu.edu/courses/cs101/movies/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFL9IyJ_qHk

0 – 9:24 – Stuff about nerds. Skip it if you want.

9:24 - Cringely explains digital computing, program,

10:00 - data, instructions in binary, flipping switches, etc.

Grace Hopper, programming COBOL, mainframe computers, punch cards,

Wozniak, Jobs on programming,

12:58 - microprocessor (vacuum tubes, transistors, chips ), Intel

15:30 - Altair 8800

19:20 - Homebrew computer club

20:30 - Mellon/Garland @ computer club, binary addition by flipping switches

22:30 - programming language/basic interpreter, Paul Allen, Bill Gates // 27:00

21

Video: Triumph of the Nerds

Rise of the PC

PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely

27:00 - Microsoft in Albuquerque, basic for the Altair

29:12 - Steve Jobs, Jim Warren, sixties counter culture

31:30 - Apple Computer, Apple I, II // 35:00

35:00 - venture capital for apple, apple II, manufacture

37:10 - computer fair

40:00 - Intro VisiCalc on an Apple II

44:38 - wall street use of PC

46:15 - wrap up characters

48:50 - closing remarks

22

Video: Triumph of the Nerds

12

Rise of the PC

What happened next? – IBM PC and Microsoft

Disk Operating System (DOS)

– Apple, Amiga, Tandy, Atari, IBM…

– IBM “Clones” / PC Compatibles

– … the Internet… to be continued…

– What is a “killer app”?

– What’s next?

23

Moore’s Law

24

The number of transistors doubles every 18 months.

(Computing hardware will keep getting better, faster,

cheaper for the rest of our lives.)

13

Take-Away Points

– Mechanical Computers

– Programmability (revisited)

Jacquard’s Loom

– Digital Computers

– Moore’s Law

25

Early Personal Computers

Computer Ads: http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/002950.html

Atari 400 (1980) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sr28fygmOQ

Commodore VIC-20 (1981)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVX5cyMOGAk

Compaq portable computer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTMdXZ_QwTo

26

14

Covered in videos (more or less)

27

Additional Pictures:

First Generation Hardware (1951-1959)

28 8

Vacuum Tube Stored a single

element of

memory (on or

off)

15

First Generation Hardware (1951-1959)

29 8

Magnetic Drum Memory device that

rotated under a

read/write head

First Generation Hardware (1951-1959)

30 8

Punch Card

16

First Generation Hardware (1951-1959)

31 8

Magnetic Tape Drives Auxiliary storage devices.

Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965)

32 9

Transistor Replaced vacuum tube, fast,

small, durable, cheap

17

Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965)

33 9

Circuit Boards Transistors were

soldered together

Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965)

34 9

Magnetic

Disks

18

Third Generation Hardware (1965-1971)

35 10

Integrated Circuits Replaced circuit boards; transistor on a silicon wafer chip

– smaller, cheaper, faster, more reliable

Third Generation Hardware (1965-1971)

36 10

Terminal An input/output device with a keyboard and screen

The Digital Equipment Corporation VT05, introduced 1970

19

Fourth Generation Hardware (1971-?)

37 11

Large-scale Integration Thousands of transistors on a single chip

Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6.75 mm) in its packaging.

Released in 1992, it has 1.2 million (1.2 X 106) transistors.

Fifth Generation Hardware (1990-?)

38 11

PCs, the Commercial Market, Workstations Personal Computers and Workstations emerge

New companies emerge: Apple, Sun, Dell …

Laptops, Cellphones, PalmPilot, iPod, etc. Everyone has his/her own portable computer - or several

of them.

Internetworking Virtually all computing devices connected to the Internet.

High-speed and wireless connections are common.