Computer History The Computer Years

What is a Computer? Before 1945, definition of a computer was a human who computes or calculates After 1945, the definition was added to include an automated electronic machine for performing calculations

Mark 1 Mark 1 was the first large-scale automatic digital computer in the U.S.A. It was devised by Howard H. Aiken and was built at IBM. Handled 23-decimal-place numbers (words) and could perform all four arithmetic operations requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a multiplication. The Mark 1 made its first calculation in 1943.

Mark I 1st successful program-controlled calculator was Electro-mechanical (a long ways from what we now know as a computer) 50 feet long, weighed 5 tons and 500 miles of wire could multiply 10-digit numbers in 3 seconds Navy used until the end of World War II

Howard Aiken Harvard Professor in 1937, started building automatic calculating machine completed the Mark I in 1944 did not believe that the use of computers would become widespread predicted in 1947, that only 6 computers would be needed to fulfill all the United States’ computing needs

ENIAC Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator 1st Electronic General-Purpose Computer could be programmed to do different functions funded by US Army completed December 1945 built by John Mauchly & JP Eckert Jr. 100 feet long, 10 feet high, 3 feet deep weighed 30 tons

ENIAC used 18,000 vacuum tubes & 6000 switches operating instructions fed externally (had to be re-wired) No memory, could not store information only mechanical elements were external, needed to be electrical to be as fast as possible street lights dimmed in Philadelphia when first turned on Patent on its design was rejected

ENIAC A Nuclear Physics problem was the first to be solved took 2 hours to solve it would have taken 100 mathematicians using mechanical calculators 1 year to solve working on the problem 24/7 300 times faster than the Mark I

Vacuum Tubes Vacuum tubes are sealed glass used in electronic circuitry to control the electrons sealed inside the tubes. They are used for: the amplification of weak currents, rectification of an altering current to direct current (AC to DC), generating of oscillating radio-frequency power for radio, radar, and more. Some of the earliest forms of a vacuum tube were recorded in the late 17th century but it wasn’t until 1850 when they created sophisticated versions of vacuum tubes. Some of the first computers were made out of vacuum tubes. (1946)

Vacuum Tubes 18,000 vacuum tubes was used in the ENIAC Key component of the First Generation computers replaced switches in the electro-mechanical computer making electronic and faster

John Mauchly in 1942, wrote a memo proposing a general purpose electronic computer contracted by the Army to build the ENIAC he and JP Eckert started the 1st Computer company he and Eckert would build ENIAC EDVAC BINAC UNIVAC

JP ECKERT JR. invented the first general-purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC Worked with John William Mauchly They together invented the UNIVAC born in 1919, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Moore Engineering School at the University of Pennsylvania

JP Eckert Jr was at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering when Mauchly proposed the ENIAC he and Mauchly would start the 1st Computer company he and Mauchly would build ENIAC EDVAC BINAC UNIVAC

John von Neumann Lived from 1903-1957, and was born in Hungary In between 1945 and 1955 he developed the MANIAC, (mathematical analyzer numerical integrator and computer), which at the time was the fastest computer of its time. Which just so happened to run on lots of vacuum tubes.

John von Neumann proposed the internally programmed computer in 1945 computer would accept & store a set of instructions programmed by a set of cards containing instructions tested with sample data before using actual data would be self-directing, NO human intervention 2 computers would be the first to do this: EDVAC EDSAC beginning of the Computer Age

EDVAC 1950 in the United States vast improvement on the ENIAC Mauchly & Eckert started to work on it, 2 years before ENIAC was down it had Internal memory so it could store its program von Neumann helped with program but came in conflict with Eckert

EDSAC Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator. Performed its first calculation in May 1949. Inspired by John Von Neumann Made in England

Beginning of the “Computer Age” EDSAC – 1949 (England) EDVAC – 1950 (U.S.) These 2 computers mark the beginning of “Computer Age” because every computer since them has focused on” Speed Size Cost

More Important People in the History of Computers

Alan Turing 1912-1954 By Chris Woof Alan Turing’s importance to computers is the inventing of the Turing machine. The Turing machine is a theatrical but simple device that can be adapted to simulate the logic of any computer. Also particularly useful in explaining the functions of the CPU. 1912-1954 By Chris Woof

Alan Turing British Code breaker thought computers should be Logical thinkers not just calculating machines

Konrad Zuse He was born in 1910 and died in 1995. Made the worlds first functional program. Invented Z1,Z2,Z3, and Z4.Also invented the first high-level programming language “Plankalkül.”

Konrad Zuse German engineer came up with the idea of using “Binary Digits” in computing built a electro-mechanical computer (Z3) because he was “Lazy”

Grace Hopper Born in New York City on December 9, 1906 Hopper was a American computer scientist. She developed the first complier for a computer programming language.

Grace Hopper one of the first programmers coined the word ‘Debug’ helped develop the COBOL programming language in 1955 pushed programming languages to use English and be more people-friendly pushed for computers to be accessible to everyone not just the military

Thomas Watson Jr. Thomas Watson Jr. was chairman and chief executive during IBM’s most explosive period of growth. He was President of IBM from 1952—1971. During his leadership IBM became one of the largest industrial corporations in the world. By the time he stepped down IBM had a gross revenue of $8.3 billion.(January 14,1914--December 31, 1993)

Thomas Watson Jr. despite protest from his father, pushed IBM into the Computer Age in the 1950s during the 1960s & ’70s, 70% of the world’s computers had an IBM logo

Doug Engelbart invented the Computer mouse in 1967 also promoted the use of online conferencing and collaboration also developed ‘hypertext’

Bill Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen in 1975 one of the best-known entrepreneurs of the personal computer revolution released the first version of “Windows” in 1985

Steven Jobs Steven was also known as Steve Jobs. He was born February 24, 1955. In the late 1970s Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozinak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. Jobs was among the first to see the mouse- driven graphical user interface.

continue of Steven Jobs Until recently, Bill Gates has been viewed as the villain of the tech world, while his archrival, Steve Jobs, enjoys an almost saintly reputation. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets.

Steven Wozniak Steven Wozniak was born in San Jose California 1950 He made the first apple computer in 1976 In 1980 he went public with his computer and became a millionaire

Steven Jobs & Steven Wozniak friends in High School both very interested in electronics & technology both dropped out of college joined the “Homebrew Computer Club” started Apple in 1977 with release of Apple II by 1982, Apple was worth $401 million (the Fastest Growing Company ever)

Important Computers

BINAC 1949 built by Mauchly & Eckert 1st computer to use Magnetic tape instead of punch cards

built by the J. Lyons and Company which was the leading Danish & Pastry company in UK built in 1951 became the leading Computer company in UK LEO

UNIVAC AKA THE Universal Automatic Computer First US commercial computer Made by Dr. Presper Eckert and Dr. John Mauchly, the pair that invented the ENIAC computer The US Census Beuru needed a computer to deal with the baby boom population April 1946 they recived a 300,000 dollar grant for the univac

UNIVAC INSTALLED UNIVAC was delivered to the United States Census Bureau on March 31, 1951, and was dedicated on June 14 that year The 5th computer of the series was given to the US energy Commission which was used to predict the US Election Had slow sales because it couldn’t read punch cards 1951-1954 these 46 systems were installed at 1.5 million dollars a piece UNIVAC I used 5,200 vacuum tubes weighed 29,000 pounds

UNIVAC 1951 built by Mauchly & Eckert First Commercial Computer predicted the 1952 U.S. Presidential Election, Eisenhower to win in a Landslide

IBM 650 IBM 650 was one of IBM’s first computers and the wolds first mass produced

IBM 650 1954 1st truly Mass-Produced computer inexpensive for the time widely accepted by the Business world IBM had a Great Sales Force still used the punch cards not nearly as good as a computer as the UNIVAC

Altair The first MITS Altair 8800 was made on January 1,1975. Altair was the first machine to run Microsoft software.

Altair 1974 1st commercially successful micro (personal) computer came in a kit that you assembled yourself for $400 MITS, Inc hoped to sell 200 to break-even, but in 3 months had over 4000 orders no keyboard, printer or input device little internal memory & no external memory difficult to assemble & operate

Apple I built by Steven Wozniak in 1976 used parts “borrowed” from Hewitt-Packard where worked not taken very seriously Steven Jobs was very impressed & wanted to market it Both men quit their jobs and sold prized possessions (Volkswagon van – Jobs, scientific calculator – Woz) to finance their new company and build…

Apple II 1977 made personal computers a household term had a plastic case could do color graphics