Overview/Questions Where did computers come from? When were - PDF document

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 general- purpose 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 13 IBM Archives 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) E lectronic N umerical I ntegrator A nd C omputer • 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

Rise of the PC Video: Triumph of the Nerds PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely 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 Rise of the PC Video: Triumph of the Nerds PBS Series hosted by Bob Cringely 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