Transcript History of the Computer

INSM 180
5/19/2010
[email protected]
What is a Computer?
 A device for processing, storing and displaying
information

Computer. (2009). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 10, 2010, from
http://search.eb.com/eb/article?tocId=235927
 Basically any device that can help you do math
 Ie. it helps “compute” equations
The
Precursors
 Abacus or Counting Board
 Thought to be from 1100 BCE
Babylonia (modern day Iraq)
 Oldest known is the Salamis Tablet
(circa 300 BCE)
 Didn’t do the equation for you


You do the math in your head
The board acts as a place holder
Fernandes, L. (August 30, 2007). The Abacus: A brief history. May 19, 2010 from
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history.html
Abax from
http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Kythera.htm
Precursors…
 Counting and calculation machines date back to
before Leonardo DaVinci
 Items like the Antikythera device
 Found in 1900 off the Isle of Antikythera in the
Mediterranean
 Intricate device of gears, dating to ~ 100 BCE
 Calculated the position of the Sun, Moon and Zodiac
over the 29.5 day Synodic month
 YouTube Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqhuAnySPZ0
th
18
Century
 Last of the Calculators
 1820 – Charles Xavier Thomas DeColmar
 Arithmometer
 +, -, X and /
 Popular for 90 years
 Desktop sized
 Used by Larkin Soap Co.


Buffalo, NY
Larkin HQ was a DATABASE!
DeColmar’s Aritmometer. From
http://brassgoggles.co.uk/images/arithmometer.jpg
The
First
Computer
 The Jacquard Loom – 1804
 Joseph-Marie Jacquard
 French weaver
 Used punch cards to automate
weaving
 Could create incredibly complex
designs, accurately, and repeatably
 Basis for Charles Babbage’s designs
The Jacquard Loom. From
http://www.english.ucsb.edu/faculty/ayliu/courses/english25/ma
terials/jacquard-loom.jpg
Rise of the Mechanical Computer
 The Difference Engine and the Analytic Engine
 Charles Babbage – worked from 1822 to 1833
 Never actually completed either
 Designs themselves so revolutionary
 Influenced all further developers
Doron Swade Operating Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2. from
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/I033/10303322.aspx
Babbage’s Analytical Engine. From http://www03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/attic2/attic2_182.html
End of the
th
19
Century
 Industrial Revolution
 Mechanical Computers built to do calculation for
accounting cleks
 Industrial Computers to run the factories



Analog devices using punch cards, Boolean Algebra (AND, OR,
NOT, XOR)
Digital Computing with Vacuum Tubes, and Electric Circuits
Interfaces allowed long-distance communication

The Teleprinter – ticker tape – Associated Press
 Birth of Computer Industry
 International Business Machines
The 40s, 50s, 60s
 Advent of the machine we know today
 1940s – true computers
 Outputs we recognize today
 Size of a warehouse, our cell phones are more powerful
 1950s – transistors replace vacuum tubes
 Smaller, cheaper computers
 Universities began to buy them
 Programming profession arises
 1960s – Integrated circuits


Smaller, home use computers
DIY kits
The
1970s
 Early 70s late 60s
 Gates & Allen, Jobs & Wozniak
 Smaller Computers
 Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry
Systems

Enter the home market with the Altair – 1975
 Microsoft: Gates & Allen

1975 – BASIC Language for Altair
 Apple Computers: Jobs & Wozniak


1971 – 1980: capture 50% of PC market
Start with “blue boxes”, move on to the Apple II
The 1980s
 1981 - IBM enters the market
 IBM PC: using Windows Operating System
 1984 - Apple Macintosh
 Simple Graphical User Interface
 By 1989 Microsoft was reporting $1,000,000,000!
 Home market expansion
 But also business industry : Word Processing, Spreadsheets
 Apple VS Windows PC:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
 Suing the crap out of each other over “Patent Infringements”
 Sound familiar?