History of Computers

• • Source – IEEE 50 th computing timeline anniversary of modern http://www.computer.org/history/development/index.html

• Up to 50 years ago 1

History of Computing

• 1612 – John Napier made the first printed use of the decimal point • 1622 – William Oughtred created the

slide rule

(originally circular) based on Napier's logarithms that was to be the primary calculator of engineers through the 19th and early 20th centuries. 2

1642

• Blaise Pascal created an adding machine with automatic carries from one position to the next. 3

1822

• Charles Babbage – design the Difference Engine for computing the entries in navigation and other tables.

• Users did not have to understand underlying algorithm 4

1833

• Babbage realizes difference engine is special purpose • Begins work on Analytic Engine – Has basic components of a modern computer • BUT – Did not document well – Ideas unaccepted due to lack of communication 5

1935-1938

• Conrad Zuse – developed his Z 1 computer in his parent's living room, a relay computer, using binary arithmetic.

• Didn’t get funding.

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1943

• John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert • Worked on ENIAC at Penn – Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator • First general purpose computer 7

1944

• Harvard Mark I • First large scale, automatic, general purpose, electromechanical calculator • Same purpose as Babbage’s machine 8

1946 - ENIAC

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• Eckert on left and Goldstine (army liason) on right, holding an arithmetic unit from the ENIAC

ENIAC

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ENIAC

• Eckert and Mauchly • represented a stepping stone towards the true computer • not the ultimate in the state-of-the-art technology • BUT … construction was completed • programmed by rewiring interconnections 11

• EDSAC – Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer • Stored program computer • Four others being built at the same time

1948

12

von Neumann

• Von Neumann, Burks, and Goldstine wrote memos/drafts on the first logical design of computers • Didn’t credit Mauchly and Eckert • Basic architecture is still widely used 50 years later 13

The Mark I computer

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