Chapter 23: Machines that think Electronic Computers

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Chapter 23 Machines that think? Electronic
Computers

• BY
• Abby Heineman
• Catherine Yeager

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General Information

• Electronic computers were not around until the
  mid twentieth century.
• In the early days, computers were large, slow,
  and clumsy.
• Its nickname was the dinosaur.

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The Story starts about 5,000 years ago

• With the Oriental Abacus, a calculating device of
  beads and rods.
• Still in use today, in some countries.
• However, its more appropriate to trace computers,
  modern computers, back to the 17th century in
  Europe.

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1630

• Scottish Scientist, John Napier, implemented a
  new system of logarithms and a set of movable
  sticks.
• These sticks were numbered in a way that by
  sliding them in relation to each other,
  multiplication was done automatically.
• These sticks were often made of Ivory.
• These sticks became known as Napiers Bones.

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Napier's Bones
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Early seventeenth century

• Hindu-Arabic replaced Roman Numerals as the
  system of choice for writing numerals in Europe.
• Also, this system made it easier for writing and
  doing algorithms for doing elementary arithmetic,
  which was fairly well developed.

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1642 1652

• Blaise Pascal, famous French mathematician,
  designed and completed a machine for adding and
  subtracting.
• This was called the Pascaline and it is similar
  to a cars odometer.
• Used the base ten principle of dials, numbered
  zero to nine. It was geared so one full
  revolution on one dial would automatically move
  the next dial to the next number.
• Numbers, added or subtracted, were dialed in and
  the machine did the rest.

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The Pascaline
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Major difficulty in making mechanical devices

• Gears, pivots, or precision devices had to be
  individually made by hand.
• Machines were not able to be produced in large
  quantities and each one was made one by one.
• Therefore, the success of the machine was held
  hostage in the metalworker, not the inventor.

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Gottfried Leibniz

• One inventor of Calculus that devised an
  improvement on the Pascaline.
• The improvement was multiplication (by repeated
  adding) and division (by repeated subtracting).
• Leibnizs machine was called the Stepped
  Reckoner, that represented a major theoretical
  advancement over the Pascaline.
• This was because its computations were done in
  binary (base 2) arithmetic (AKA-modern computer
  language).
• Craftsmanship of 1694, not yet up to making
  reliable quantities, so its success was delayed
  150 years.

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Stepped Reckoner
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Early 19th century

• Charles Babbage, a Cambridge math professor,
  began work on a machine for generating accurate
  logarithmic and astrology tables.
• This was very important for navigation.
• In 1822, British government took interest in his
  work.
• He created the Difference Engine, which created
  tables with six place accuracy.
• After many set backs, this project was set aside.

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1862

• Charles de Colmar of France improved a version of
  the Stepped Reckoner called the Arithmometer,
  which won a gold metal at the 1862 international
  exhibit in London.
• Due to mass production techniques from the
  industrial revolution, it was manufactured and
  sold in quantity well into the 20th century.
• Promoters claimed that the Arithmometer could
• 1. Multiply 2 eight digit numbers in 18
  seconds.
• 2. Divide a sixteen digit number by eight
  digits in 24 seconds.
• 3. Find the square root of a sixteen digit
  number in one minute.
• Its slow by todays standards, but fast compared
  to hand calculations, at that time.

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Mid 1800s

• George Boole, professor of math at Queens College
  in Ireland, published two works in machine logic
• 1. The Mathematical Analysis of Logic
  (1847)
• 2. The Laws of Thought ( 1854)
• Boole explained logic processes could be
  expressed by ones and zeros, now called Boolean
  Algebra.
• It became the theoretical key to all the
  circuitry of todays computers.

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1880

• Herman Hollerith, who was a Census Employee,
  created a machine that used electricity to sort
  and tabulate data that had been recorded on
  punched cards.
• Reduced the sorting time from eight years to two
  and a half years.
• Hollerith also founded the Tabulating Machine
  Company, which eventually became IBM.

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1937

• Max Newman worked at the British code-breaking
  center and devised a way to break German complex
  code.
• However, the process was far to slow to be
  practical.
• His concept was then presented to Thomas Flowers
  electronic engineer who worked at the British
  Post Office.
• In less than one year (March 1943 January
  1944), he built a machine that used 1500 vacuum
  tubes to run the decoding process.
• Machine was dubbed the Colosses, which could
  decode German messages in hours instead of weeks
  or months.
• The design made it twice as fast as some modern
  Pentium PCs doing the same task.
• 10 machines were then built to decode messages
  these machines are thought to have shortened WWII
  by months and saved thousands of lives.

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1944

• The first American, general purpose computer was
  designed.
• It was called the Mark I and was built by Howard
  Aiken and IBM engineers at Harvard.
• It used mechanical electromagnetic relays and got
  instructions from paper punch tape.
• Mark I was more than 50 feet long it contained
  800,000 parts and 500 miles of wire.

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Mark I
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1946

• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and
  Calculator) was built by J. Presper Eckert and
  John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania.
• ENIAC intended to help war efforts by calculating
  naval artillery firing charts.
• Weighing in at 30 tons, it contained
• 42 panels that measured 9 by 2 by 1 foot
• 18,000 vacuum tubes
• 1500 electrical relays
• Its use of vacuum tubes, instead of mechanical
  relays, was a major improvement compared to the
  Mark I (about 500 times faster).
• However, like light bulbs, vacuum tubes burn out
  with use.
• Programming was done manually by rearranging
  external wiring and by flipping switches.
• ENIAC had no data storage capacity.

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ENIAC
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1950-1960

• Vacuum tube technology, like in the ENIAC, was
  costly in dependability, cost, and space.
• However, this changed when Bell Labs invented
  the transistor in the mid-1950s.
• Computers used this second generation
  technology and became smaller, faster, more
  powerful, and economical.
• The third generation introduced integrated
  circuitry in the mid-1960s.
• Also, personal computers became more affordable
  and have decreased in size from minis all the way
  to desktops, laptops, and palmtops.

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Brief History of Calculators

• The discovery of calculators is given to the
  French Mathematician Blaise Pascal this machine
  was called the Arithmetic Machine.
• German mathematician, Wilhelm Schickard, wrote a
  letter to Johannes Kepler he wrote about a
  machine that immediately computes the given
  numbers automatically (adds, subtracts,
  multiplies and divides). No working copies of
  his machine were ever found, but working models
  have been made from his notes.
• Heinz Nixdorf, in 1953, built the first
  electronic calculator that resembles todays
  models it performed basic arithmetic
  calculations.
• After this time, our current calculator
  competitors emerged at various times (Texas
  Instruments, Casio, and Hewlett Packard).
• Technology was developed into todays calculators
  by the rivalry between these three companies.

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Come on down, youre the next contestant
Which early computer is this?
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Name this one too
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And last, but not least
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Timeline

• 1630--John Napier, implemented a new system of
  logarithms and a set of movable sticks.
• 1642 1652-- Blaise Pascal designed the
  Pascaline
• 1694 Leibnizs machine, The Stepped
  Reckoner
• 1822 Babbage created the Difference Engine
• 1862 de Colmar created the Arithmometer
• Mid-1800s Boole/Boolean Algebra

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Timeline contd

• 1880 Hollerith founded the Machine Tabulating
  Co.
• 1937 Max Newman created the Colosses
• 1944 Aiken created Mark I
• 1946 ENIAC created by Eckert and Mauchly

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References

• A History of Computers. 15 Nov. 2005
  http//www.maxmon.com/history.htm.
• A History of Computers Part 1. 15 Nov. 2005.
  http//www.hitmill.com/computers/history/index.ht
  ml.
• Aspray, William ed. Computing Before Computers.
  Iowa State University Press. Ames IA. 1990.
• Goldstein, Herman. The Computer from Pascal to
  von Neumann. Princeton University Press.
  Princeton, NJ. 1972.
• Hoyle, Michelle A. The History of Computing
  Science. 15 Nov. 2005 http//www.eingang.org/Lect
  ure/toc.html.