CS101 Lecture 29: Brief History of Computing "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 John Magee 1 August 2013 Some images courtesy Wikimedia Commons, IBM, DEC 1 Overview/Questions Where did computers come from? When were computers first discovered? Why should you care about the history of computing? 2 1
Why should we care? Predictions are that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capability of the human brain. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbi-363a2q Is this for real? 3 Why should we care? Predictions are that by 2049 a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the human race. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbi-363a2q Is this for real? 4 2
Early History of Computing Abacus (2400 BC) Ancient device to record numeric values Above: a reconstructed Roman abacus 5 Early History of Computing Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) Mechanical device to add, subtract, divide & multiply 6 3
Early History of Computing Joseph Jacquard (1801) Jacquard s Loom, the punched card 7 Programmability What tricks does your computer do? Web browsing, email, instant messenger Play games Watch movies, organize photos Word processing, spreadsheets, database Programmability is the ability to give a generalpurpose computer instructions so that it can perform new tasks. 8 3 4
Difference Engine Charles Babages mechanical calculating machine, designed in 1820s. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8tmfcog8l8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aniyvgewoi 9 Finite State Machines AKA Finite State Automata Think about a Traffic light operation There are only a limited number of states configurations of lights. Each state transitions into a new state. E.g. Green Yellow Red 10 5
Turing Machines Alan Turing Considered to be the father of Computer Science Also known for the Turing Test for Artificial Intelligence Turing Machine - 1936 A turing machine is an abstract thought experiment. Mathematical proof of computability of algorithm. Basis for Computer Science Theory. 11 Early Digital Computers Harvard Mark I (1944) 12 6
Harvard Mark I IBM Archives 13 Early Digital Computers Harvard Mark I (1944) First fully automatic digital computer to be completed 51 feet wide, 8 feet high, 2 feet deep Built out of switches, relays, and rotating mechanical shafts/clutches Storage for 72 numbers, each 23 decimal digits in length Read instructions from paper tape, one at a time 14 7
Early Digital Computers ENIAC (1946) Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer first general-purpose electronic computer 80 feet wide, 8.5 feet high, 3 feet deep No moving parts Ability to conditional branch do the next operation based on the result of the previous operation. 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. 5,000 Hz, 324 multiplications/second 15 ENIAC 16 8
First Computer Bug Log of first computer bug, discovered by Grace Hopper, 1945 A Computer Science Pioneer, she later wrote the first Compiler. 17 Architecture Harvard Architecture: Instructions separate from data. Von Neumann Architecture: Instructions = data. All stored in the same memory. A program can write a program! (Compilers) All modern computers based on this. 18 9
Mainframes IBM 704 (1954) First floating point hardware mass produced Univac 1108 (1964) 19 1960 s-1970 s Interactive sessions Multi-user systems Time-sharing Terminals mini computers DEC PDP-7 20 10
Video: Triumph of the Nerds PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely Rise of the PC http://www.cs.bu.edu/courses/cs101/movies/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfl9iyj_qhk 0 9:24 Stuff about nerds. Skip it if you want. 9:24 - Cringely explains digital computing, program, 10:00 - data, instructions in binary, flipping switches, etc. Grace Hopper, programming COBOL, mainframe computers, punch cards, Wozniak, Jobs on programming, 12:58 - microprocessor (vacuum tubes, transistors, chips ), Intel 15:30 - Altair 8800 19:20 - Homebrew computer club 20:30 - Mellon/Garland @ computer club, binary addition by flipping switches 22:30 - programming language/basic interpreter, Paul Allen, Bill Gates // 27:00 21 Video: Triumph of the Nerds PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely Rise of the PC 27:00 - Microsoft in Albuquerque, basic for the Altair 29:12 - Steve Jobs, Jim Warren, sixties counter culture 31:30 - Apple Computer, Apple I, II // 35:00 35:00 - venture capital for apple, apple II, manufacture 37:10 - computer fair 40:00 - Intro VisiCalc on an Apple II 44:38 - wall street use of PC 46:15 - wrap up characters 48:50 - closing remarks 22 11
Rise of the PC What happened next? IBM PC and Microsoft Disk Operating System (DOS) Apple, Amiga, Tandy, Atari, IBM IBM Clones / PC Compatibles the Internet to be continued What is a killer app? What s next? 23 Moore s Law The number of transistors doubles every 18 months. (Computing hardware will keep getting better, faster, cheaper for the rest of our lives.) 24 12
Take-Away Points Mechanical Computers Programmability (revisited) Jacquard s Loom Digital Computers Moore s Law 25 Early Personal Computers Computer Ads: http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/002950.html Atari 400 (1980) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sr28fygmoq Commodore VIC-20 (1981) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvx5cymogak Compaq portable computer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytmdxz_qwto 26 13
Additional Pictures: Covered in videos (more or less) 27 First Generation Hardware (1951-1959) Vacuum Tube Stored a single element of memory (on or off) 28 8 14
First Generation Hardware (1951-1959) Magnetic Drum Memory device that rotated under a read/write head 29 8 First Generation Hardware (1951-1959) Punch Card 30 8 15
First Generation Hardware (1951-1959) Magnetic Tape Drives Auxiliary storage devices. 31 8 Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965) Transistor Replaced vacuum tube, fast, small, durable, cheap 32 9 16
Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965) Circuit Boards Transistors were soldered together 33 9 Second Generation Hardware (1959-1965) Magnetic Disks 34 9 17
Third Generation Hardware (1965-1971) Integrated Circuits Replaced circuit boards; transistor on a silicon wafer chip smaller, cheaper, faster, more reliable 35 10 Third Generation Hardware (1965-1971) Terminal An input/output device with a keyboard and screen The Digital Equipment Corporation VT05, introduced 1970 36 10 18
Fourth Generation Hardware (1971-?) Large-scale Integration Thousands of transistors on a single chip Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12 6.75 mm) in its packaging. Released in 1992, it has 1.2 million (1.2 X 10 6 ) transistors. 37 11 Fifth Generation Hardware (1990-?) PCs, the Commercial Market, Workstations Personal Computers and Workstations emerge New companies emerge: Apple, Sun, Dell Laptops, Cellphones, PalmPilot, ipod, etc. Everyone has his/her own portable computer - or several of them. Internetworking Virtually all computing devices connected to the Internet. High-speed and wireless connections are common. 38 11 19