Computers

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Computers A Historical Perspective
August 23-30, 2000
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• 1623 Wilhelm Schikard
• Developed a machine with sprocketed wheels to
  add, multiply and divide
• 1642 Blaise Pascal
• Invented a machine to add subtract numbers, and
  carry digits from column to column
• 50 were made, but only a curiosity for the
  wealthy
• Early 1800s Joseph-Marie Jacquard
• A computerized loom run by punch cards
• Fled for his life from hometown when weavers
  attacked him for threatening their jobs (30,000
  looms made)

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• 1820 Charles Babbage
• Developed, but never finished, the Difference
  Engine (solve math problems to 20 decimals)
• Designed, but never made, the Analytical Engine
  (could have stored instructions, use punch cards
  and print)
• Babbage was aided by Augusta Ada Byron, the
  Countess of Lovelace, among 1st female
  mathematicians

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Herman Hollerith, an inventor, helped with the
1890 American census

• Computational time was 4 times shorter
• Holleriths company merged with others to become
  International Business Machines (IBM)

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• Howard Aiken developed the Mark I
• Mechanical parts were replaced by vacuum tubes
  transistors (tiny electrical switches)

1930's

• The Electrical Numerical Integrator and Computer
  (ENIAC) was completed
• Weighed 60,000 pounds and was run by 18,000
  vacuum tubes (2000 tubes replaced per month)

1945
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1950's UNIVAC
Universal Automatic Computer First commercially
available computer
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60's-70's

• Better and smaller circuits
• Use of silicon development of microprocessor
• First PCs (personal computers) sold to people
• Altair 8800 sold in 1975 (8 bit Intel 8080
  processor)
• (inventors worked on this homebuilt kit to
  develop the machinery software we know today)