History of Computing

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History of Computing

• The Origins of Computing

Sources Combrink, Thomas Cortina, Fergus Toolan,
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What is a Computer?

• one who computes
• a person employed to make calculations in an
  observatory, in surveying, etc.
• a programmable machine that can execute a list
  of instructions in a well-defined manner

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What is a modern computer

• A machine which can execute billions of
  instructions per second.
• Uses a stored program to execute instruction in
  a specific order to solve a problem

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Modern Computers are assemblies of components

• Six logical units of computer system
• Input unit
• Mouse, keyboard
• Output unit
• Printer, monitor, audio speakers
• Memory unit
• Retains input and processed information
• Arithmetic and logic unit (ALU)
• Performs calculations
• Central processing unit (CPU)
• Supervises operation of other devices
• Secondary storage unit
• Hard drives, floppy drives

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CPU (Microprocessor Chip)

• Brain of the computer
• Made of Integrated Circuits (ICs), which have
  millions of tiny transistors and other components
• Performs all calculations executes all
  instructions
• Example chips for PC
• Intel (Celeron, Pentium)
• AMD (K-6 and Athlon)

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Whats a Giga Hertz (GHz) ?

• A unit of measurement for CPU speed (clock speed)
• G (giga) means 1 billion, M (mega) would be 1
  million
• Hz is for frequency per second
• GHz means 1 billion clock cycles per second
• CPUs may execute multiple operations each clock
  cycle
• So what does a 2.8 GHz CPU mean?
• 2,800,000,000 clock cycles per second
• Performs at least 2,800,000,000 operations per
  second

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Main Memory (RAM)

• Stores data for programs currently running
• Temporary
• empty when power is turned off
• Fast access to CPU

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Whats a Giga Byte (GB)?

• GB measures the amount of data the it can store
• G (giga) for 1 billion
• M (mega) for 1 million
• Data quantities are measured in bytes
• 1 Bit stores a single on/off piece of
  information
• 1 Byte 8 bits
• 1 Kilobyte 210 (1,000 bytes)
• 1 Megabyte 220 (1,000,000 bytes)
• 1 Gigabyte 230 (1,000,000,000 bytes)

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Hard Drive

• Stores data and programs
• Permanent storage (theoretically)
• when you turn off the computer, it is not emptied

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Motherboard

• Connects all the components together

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How did we get here?

• In studying the history of computers, where do we
  start?
• We could go back thousands of years
• Mathematical developments
• Manufacturing developments
• Engineering innovations
• The wheel?

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Counting
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What number system do you use?

• Decimal (base-10)
• Has been in use for thousands of years
• Guesses
• first China
• then India
• then Middle East
• then Europe (introduced as late as 1200)

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Primative Calculators
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The Abbacus
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Early Computational Devices

• (Chinese) Abacus
• Used for performing arithmetic operations

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AlKhowarizmi and the algorithm

• 12th Century Tashkent Cleric
• Developed the concept of a written process for
  doing something
• Published a book on the process of algorithms
• The basis of software

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Early Computational Devices

• Napiers Bones, 1617
• For performing multiplication division

John Napier 1550-1617
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Philosopher Forefathers of Modern Computing
1600-1700

• Von Leibniz developed binary arithmetic and a
  hand cranked calculator.
• Calculator was able to add, subtract, multiply
  and divide.

• Blaise Pascal developed the Pascaline.
• Desk top calculator worked lik an odometer.

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Blaise Pascal

• Pascal (1623-62) was the son of a tax collector
  and a mathematical genius. He designed the first
  mechanical calculator (Pascaline) based on gears.
  It performed addition and subtraction.

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Early Computational Devices

• Pascaline mechanical calculator

Blaise Pascal 1623-1662
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Early Computational Devices

• Slide Calculators

William Oughtred 1574-1660
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz

• Leibnitz (1646-1716) was a German mathematician
  and built the first calculator to do
  multiplication and division. It was not reliable
  due to accuracy of contemporary parts.
• He also documented the binary number system which
  is used in all modern computers.

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Count to 8 in binary

• 0001
• 0010
• 0011
• 0100
• 0101
• 0110
• 0111
• 1000

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Modern Computers use Binary

• Why?
• Much simpler circuits needed for performing
  arithmetic

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Early Computational Devices

• Leibnizs calculating machine, 1674

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz 1646-1716
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George Boole (1815-1864)

• Invented Boolean Algebra
• System of logic using boolean values
• Used to establish inequalities
• symbolic use of lt, or gt, or ltgt
• Used in computer switching
• Modern use in library searches

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Charles Babbage

• Babbage (1792-1872) was a British inventor who
  designed an two important machines
• Difference engine
• Analytical engine
• He saw a need to replace the human computers used
  to calculate numerical tables which were prone to
  error with a more accurate machine.

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Charles Babbage

• Difference engine
• Designed to compute values of polynomial
  functions automatically
• No multiplication was needed because he used the
  method of finite differences
• He never built one
• It was built from 1989 1991 for the London
  Science Museum

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Charles Babbage Difference Engine
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Charles BabbageThe Next Leap Forward1800s
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Charles Babbage

• Analytical Engine
• Could be programmed using punch cards totally
  revolutionary idea
• Sequential control / branching / looping
• Turing complete

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The analytical engine of Charles Babbage
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Lady Ada Byron Worlds first programmer

• Countess of Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron.
• One of the first women mathematicians in England
• Documented Babbages work.
• Wrote an account of the difference engine.
• Wrote a program for the difference engine for
  computing Bernoulli numbers

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Herman Hollerith

• Hollerith developed an electromechanical
  punched-card tabulator to tabulate the data for
  1890 U.S. census. Data was entered on punched
  cards and could be sorted according to the census
  requirements. The machine was powered by
  electricity. He formed the Tabulating Machine
  Company which became International Business
  Machines (IBM). IBM is currently the largest
  computer manufacturer, employing in excess of
  300,000 people.

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Herman Hollerith punch card tabulating machine
1890 Census
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Hollerith Tables and the Census
Improved the speed of the census Reduced cost by
5 million Greater accuracy of data
collected Hollerith unemployed after the census
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Konrad Zuse - First Calculator 1938
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The War Years 1939-1945Two Primary Uses

• Artillery Tables
• Hand calculation replaced by machine calculation
• Department of the Navy
• Cryptologist
• Cryptography
• The art or process of writing in or deciphering
  secret writing
• Bletchley House
• The Enigma Codes U23

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The British Effort
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History of Computers

• Alan Turing was a British mathematician who also
  made significant contributions to the early
  development of computing, especially to the
  theory of computation.
• He developed an abstract theoretical model of a
  computer called a Turing machine which is used to
  capture the notion of computable i.e. what
  problems can and what problems cannot be
  computed.
• Not all problems can be solved on a computer.
• Note A Turing machine is an abstract model and
  not a physical computer

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Alan Turing misunderstood genius 1936

• Published a paper On Computable Numbers
• Turings machine - hypothetical computer that
  could perform any computation or logical
  operation a human could devise.

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Turings Heritage

• Code breaking was Tourings strength.
• Colossus a computer to break the German enigma
  code - 100 Billion alternatives.
• Ran at rate of 25,000 characters per second

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The United States Effort
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The II World War Years 1939 - 1945

• Calculate artillery tables.
• Used to break codes like the Colossus.
• Used to model future events - Atomic and Hydrogen
  Bombs.
• Cmdr. Grace Hooper

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Howard Aiken (1900 73)

• Aiken, a Harvard professor, with the backing of
  IBM built the Harvard Mark I computer (51ft long)
  in 1944. It was based on relays (operate in
  milliseconds) as opposed to the use of gears. It
  required 3 seconds for a multiplication.
• Aikens Mark 1. (1944) based on Babbages
  original design - built at IBM labs,
  electro-mechanical, weighed 5 tons. Admiral Grace
  Hopper worked as programmer on this computer, and
  coined the term 'bug' for a computer fault.

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HARVARD MARK - 1, 1944
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The Mark I - a dinosaur

• 51 feet long
• 3,304 electro mechanical switches
• Add or subtract 23 digit numbers in 3/10 of a
  second.
• Instructions (software) loaded by paper tape.
• The infamous Bug

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ENIAC - The Next Jump Forward - 1946

• 1st electronic digital computer
• Operated with vacuum tubes rather
  electro-mechanical switches
• 1000 times faster than Mark I
• No program storage - wired into circuitry.
• This was still based on the decimal numbering
  system.
• programmed by switches and cords

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ENIAC
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The Advent of the Semiconductor - 1947

• Developed at Bell Labs by Shockley Bardeen
  Nobel Prize
• Point Contact Transistor replaced power hungry,
  hot and short lived vacuum tubes

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History of Computers

• Von Neumann was a scientific genius and was a
  consultant on the ENIAC project. He formulated
  plans with Mauchly and Eckert for a new computer
  (EDVAC) which was to store programs as well as
  data.  
• This is called the stored program concept and Von
  Neumann is credited with it. Almost all modern
  computers are based on this idea and are referred
  to as Von Neumann machines.  
• He also concluded that the binary system was more
  suitable for computers since switches have only
  two values. He went on to design his own computer
  at Princeton which was a general purpose machine.

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First Generation Computers (1951-58)

• These machines were used in business for
  accounting and payroll applications. Valves were
  unreliable components generating a lot of heat
  (still a problem in computers). They had very
  limited memory capacity. Magnetic drums were
  developed to store information and tapes were
  also developed for secondary storage.
• They were initially programmed in machine
  language (binary). A major breakthrough was the
  development of assemblers and assembly language.

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EDVAC - Electronic Discreet Variable Automatic
Computer 1951

• Data stored internally on a magnetic drum
• Random access magnetic storage device
• First stored program computer

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The 50s the Era of Advances
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Second Generation (1959-64)

• The development of the transistor revolutionised
  the development of computers. Invented at Bell
  Labs in 1948, transistors were much smaller, more
  rugged, cheaper to make and far more reliable
  than valves.
• Core memory (non-volatile) was introduced and
  disk storage was also used. The hardware became
  smaller and more reliable, a trend that still
  continues.
• Another major feature of the second generation
  was the use of high-level programming languages
  such as Fortran and Cobol. These revolutionised
  the development of software for computers. The
  computer industry experienced explosive growth.

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Technical Advances in the 60s

• John Mccarthy coins the term Artificial
  Intelligence
• 1960 - Removable Disks appear
• 1964 - BASIC - Beginners-all purpose Symbolic
  Instruction Language
• Texas Instruments offers the first solid- state
  hand-held calculator
• 1967 - 1st issue of Computerworld published

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Third Generation (1965-71)

• ICs (Integrated Circuits) were again smaller,
  cheaper, faster and more reliable than
  transistors. Speeds went from the microsecond to
  the nanosecond (billionth) to the picosecond
  (trillionth) range. ICs were used for main memory
  despite the disadvantage of being volatile.
  Minicomputers were developed at this time.
• Terminals replaced punched cards for data entry
  and disk packs became popular for secondary
  storage.
• IBM introduced the idea of a compatible family of
  computers, 360 family, easing the problem of
  upgrading to a more powerful machine

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Third Generation(1965-71)

• Substantial operating systems were developed to
  manage and share the computing resources and time
  sharing operating systems were developed. These
  greatly improved the efficiency of computers.
• Computers had by now pervaded most areas of
  business and administration.
• The number of transistors that be fabricated on a
  chip is referred to as the scale of integration
  (SI). Early chips had SSI (small SI) of tens to a
  few hundreds. Later chips were MSI (Medium SI)
  hundreds to a few thousands,. Then came LSI chips
  (Large SI) in the thousands range.

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Moores Law

• In 1965 Gordon Moore graphed data about growth in
  memory chip performance.
• Realized each new chip roughly twice capacity of
  predecessor, and released within 2 yrs of it gt
  computing power would rise exponentially over
  relatively brief periods of time.
• Still fairly accurate. In 30 years, no of
  transistors on a chip has increased 20,000
  times, from 2,300 on the 4004 in 1971 to 42
  million on the Pentium IV.

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The 1970s - The Microprocessor Revolution

• A single chip containing all the elements of a
  computers central processing unit.
• Small, integrated, relatively cheap to
  manufacture.

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The Super Computers - 1972

• The Cray
• Parallel processing power
• Speed 100 million arithmetical functions per
  second
• Sensitive to heat - cooled with liquid nitrogen
• Very expensive

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Fourth Generation

• VLSI allowed the equivalent of tens of thousand
  of transistors to be incorporated on a single
  chip. This led to the development of the
  microprocessor a processor on a chip.
• Intel produced the 4004 which was followed by the
  8008,8080, 8088 and 8086 etc. Other companies
  developing microprocessors included Motorolla
  (6800, 68000), Texas Instruments and Zilog.

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Fourth Generation

• Personal computers were developed and IBM
  launched the IBM PC based on the 8088 and 8086
  microprocessors.
• Mainframe computers have grown in power.
• Memory chips are in the megabit range.
• VLSI chips had enough transistors to build 20
  ENIACs.
• Secondary storage has also evolved at fantastic
  rates with storage devices holding gigabytes
  (1000Mb 1 Gb) of data.

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Fourth Generation

• On the software side, more powerful operating
  systems are available such as Unix.
• Applications software has become cheaper and
  easier to use.
• Software development techniques have vastly
  improved.
• Fourth generation languages 4GLs make the
  development process much easier and faster.

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Fourth Generation

• Languages are also classified according to
  generations from machine language (1GL), assembly
  language (2GL), high level languages (3GL) to
  4GLs.
• Software is often developed as application
  packages. VisiCalc a spreadsheet program, was the
  pioneering application package and the original
  killer application.
• Killer application A piece of software that is
  so useful that people will buy a computer to use
  that application.

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The ALTAIR from a Voyage to Altair - Star Trek
-1975
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The Birth of the Micro Computer 1975

• Jobs and Wozniac develop the Apple II
• Commodore PET, programs stored on a cassette
• Tandy-Radio Shack TRS-80
• 5 1/2 inch floppy disk becomes the standard for
  software

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Finally, The Computer as Man of the Year - 1982
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Revenge of the nerds
Bill Gates
Microsoft, 1978
Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak
Alan Turing