Sponsors:
The History of Computers
(and your instructor's introduction
to them)
1780 Benjamin
Franklin –American statesman, inventor and scientist - discovers the existence
of electricity
1822 Charles Babbage – English mathematician
and inventor – built a mechanical computer which he called ‘The Analytical
Engine’. His friend and colleague,
Ada Augusta (Countess of Lovelace) wrote many articles about the engine, and is
often described as the first computer programmer
1831 Michael
Faraday – English physicist and chemist – discovers how to generate electricity
using magnets
1854 George
Boole – English mathematician publishes his book on switching theory based on
mathematical logic
1872 Christopher
Latham Scholes creates a mechanical machine called the Type-Writer
1878 Remington
is contracted to produce 1000 Type-Writers
1890 The
first electronic vacuum tube (valve) switch was created
1899 Underwood
produces a new improved typewriter
1903 Nicola
Tesla – American scientist patented electronic switches
1910 Over
2 million typewriters sold in the U.S.
1912 Alan Turing born.
1915 Typewriter
manufacturers exceed 100
1920 magnetic
tape recording invented
1933 IBM
introduces the electric typewriter
1940 Computers
built from mechanical switches – could perform 100 operations (adding numbers)
per second
1946 The
ENIAC computer with 18,000 vacuum tube
(valve) switches was
constructed. ENIAC is an acronym
meaning: Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer. 5000 additions per second. The 80 ton ENIAC needed a large building with power supply, air
conditioning to house it. It was
unreliable – broke down every few hours.
It was so expensive, only governments could afford to buy one. To program the ENIAC to do its
additions it was necessary to connect hundreds of wires and arrange thousands
of switches in a certain way.
1946 Dr
John von Neuman of Princeton University proposed the concept of a stored
program computer where the instruction would be stored in computer memory
rather than in wires and switches.
1946 The
term bit – short for binary digit was used for the first time
1947 William
Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories of Murray Hill, N.J., announces the
development of the transistor switch – small, fast and reliable – needed less
power and generated less heat than the valve switches
1948 magnetic
drum data storage invented
1950 Transistors
replaced valves in computers. Computers became smaller, cheaper, faster and
more reliable. 50,000 additions per second. Companies such as Univac, Honeywell, IBM, RCA, Burroughs,
Digital Equipment, Control Data began to manufacture computers. The computers were still large, costing
millions of dollars, but could now be afforded by government departments, large
corporations and universities. These
large computers were called mainframes.
1953 Magnetic
cores used as internal memory (data storage) for the first time
1954 I
(AD) was born. Alan Turing died aged 41.
1954 IBM
documents the ‘Specifications for the IBM Mathematical FORmula TRANslating
System, FORTRAN’ which formed the basis of the FORTRAN programming Language
1956 IBM
introduces 5 megabyte disk file storage device
1957 FORTRAN
language system released for IBM 704 computer
1959 Jack
Kilby files patent for the first Integrated Circuit – using photographic reduction techniques, several
transistors were etched onto a tiny slice of silicon crystal (approx. one
quarter inch square). The chip was
born.
1960 Algol
60 programming language used in universities and defense departments
1962 sixteen transistor switches combined onto
one IC chip – transistors are
smaller, cheaper, faster
1963 ASCII
code introduced
1963 The
first ‘mouse’ invented by Doug Englebart
1967 A
RAM chip containing 1024
transistor switches (bits) introduced – the one kilobit chips.
1971 A
company called INTEL produced their INTEL 4004 microprocessor chip, and this
resulted in the manufacture of hand-held pocket calculators – originally
costing several hundred dollars - with approx. 2000 switches
1971 IBM produce
floppy disks (8") for data storage
1971 The
Pascal programming language was developed by Professor Nicklaus Wirth of
Zurich, Switzerland – the primary aim of this language was for teaching
programming.
1972 INTEL
develops the 8008 microprocessor with 4,500 switches
1972 I
(AD) start a science
degree course at university in England, and start to use the FORTRAN
programming language. I use the
university’s mainframe computer, having to write programs using punched
cards.
1973 IBM
Winchester disk drives built
1974 INTEL
develops the 8080 microprocessor with 6,000 switches
1975 In
the January 1975 issue of the magazine ‘Popular Electronics’ a computer known as the ‘Altair’ was
featured on the cover page. Based
on the INTEL 8080 microprocessor chip, it was available in kit form at a price
of $400. It was referred to as a microcomputer.
Computers smaller than mainframes, but larger than microcomputers were known as
minicomputers.
1975 I
(AD) start a PhD degree
at university and start to use a microcomputer for the first time. The computer arrived with a Startrek
game.
1975 A
young man called Bill Gates, with friend Paul Allen developed a programming
language (BASIC) interpreter program for the Altair. The Microsoft company was
born. (I wish I bought shares!)
1976 Steve
Jobs and Steve Wozniak start the APPLE Computer Corporation
1976 Shugart
5 and 1/4 " floppy drives cost $400
1977 The
Apple I computer was first built based on Motorola’s 6502 microprocessor
1977 The
Apple II was built
1978 INTEL
develops the 8086 microprocessor with approximately 30,000 switches – 1 megabyte of data storage memory
1979 VisiCalc
(statistical analysis) computer program written for the Apple II assures the
success of the computer
1979 Englishman
Clive Sinclair develops an affordable computer ‘ZX80’: $250
1980 Apple
goes public and sells 4.6 million shares in minutes
1980 I
(AD) buy my first
computer Sinclair ‘ZX80’ . It runs
the BASIC language.
1980 Seagate
produce the 5 megabyte hard drive for microcomputers
1981 IBM
starts up its microcomputer division, produces microcomputers using the INTEL
8086 chip, Tandon disk drives, SCI circuit boards and an Epson printer. The software used to control the
hardware was written by Microsoft and was called MSDOS – Microsoft Disk
Operating System.
1981 The
much improved Sinclair ‘ZX81’ arrives at $100. My BASIC skills get better.
1981 I
(AD) am awarded my PhD
in chemistry
1982 I
(AD) start to learn the
Pascal and C languages
1982 INTEL
develops the 80286 microprocessor with 135,000 switches.
Within 6 years of its release, an estimated
15 million 286-based IBM PCs (Personal Computers)
were installed around the world. These
machines were aimed initially at business users.
1983 Microsoft
announces its own mouse
1983 IBM
produce the 10 megabyte hard drive
1984 North
America has over 1 million hard drives in operation
1984 I
(AD) start a teacher
training course specializing in teaching computer programming to adults
1985 INTEL
develops the 80386 microprocessor with 275,000 switches
1988 I
(AD) completed an M.Sc. course in Computer
Science specializing in C,
Ada, and database management systems (DBMS), Intelligent Knowledge Based
Systems and Artificial Intelligence.
1989 INTEL
develops the 80486 microprocessor with 1,000,000 switches
1991 I
(AD) buy my first
decent computer – a Dell 386SX.
1991 IBM 1 Gigabyte (1,000,000,000 bytes) hard
disk drive
1993 INTEL
develops the 80586 (Pentium) microprocessor with 3,000,000 switches
1995 INTEL
develops the Pentium Pro microprocessor with 5,500,000 switches
1995 I
(AD) arrive in Canada
from England and am introduced to the Java programming language
at a Sun Microsystems seminar in Vancouver.
1996 I
(AD) buy my laptop
(notebook) computer: Pentium II MMX running W95: $4500
1996 2
gigabyte hard drives are standard
1997 INTEL
develops the 80686 Pentium II microprocessor with 7,500,000 switches
1999 INTEL develops the Pentium III microprocessor
with 9.5 million transistors
(switches)
1999 4
gigabyte and larger drives available
1999 September
1999 : my laptop computer is now only worth $2000
2000 June
2000, buy a Dell Pentium III, 700 MHz, 128MB RAM, W98, 20GB hard drive, no
monitor, $2400
2000 The
Pentium IIII is developed with more than 42 million transistors.
2004 September
2004; my laptop is now a bookend, sentimental value only :-)
2005 January
2005, take delivery of a new Dell Dimension 8400:
P4, 3.31 GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive,
Flat Panel monitor, CD R/W, DVD R/W,
256MB nVidia card,
$2300 (inclusive of tax and delivery).
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition version 5.1.2600
2006 February
2006, take delivery of a new Dell Dimension 3100:
P4, 2.8 GHz, 512MB RAM, 160GB hard
drive,
Flat Panel monitor, CD R/W, Integrated
Intel Graphics,
$740 (inclusive of tax and delivery).
Oiginal Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Current Operating System: Linux - Fedora
Core 5
2006 My
home network: the two Dell machines above, plus two Dell 386 machines,
one loaded with Windows XP, the other with
Linux - Fedora Core 3.
2006 Core
processor developed with 300
million transistors
2006 Multicore
chip processors developed with 800
million transistors
2007/8 Home
network: the two Dell machines above,
one loaded with Windows XP, the other with Ubuntu
Linux Apache
Server
2009 add a Linux Dell laptop and a Windows 7 Toshiba
netbook
2009 Intel
22nm Tri-Gate
Circuits developed with over
2.9 billion transistors
2011 Home
network: the two Dell machines above,
one (still) loaded with Windows XP, the other with
Ubuntu 11:04 Server,
Windows 7 Toshiba netbook NB200 loaded with Ubuntu
11:04,
Dell 1420 Laptop loaded with Ubuntu 11:04.
2017 32-core AMD developed with over
19.2 billion transistors
2018 onwards how
many transistors?
Intel's
Microprocessor Quick Reference Guide
Intel online exhibits
(see how chips are made, how transistors and microprocessors work, and
more...)
Copyright Anne Dawson 2018 -
All Rights Reserved