The History of Computing - Mehran University of Engineering

1/10/2012
The History of Computing
• 3000 B.C.: The Abacus
• 1623-1662: Blaise Pascal
– French mathematician and philosopher
– Built the Pascaline in 1642
– The original mechanical counting device
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1642: The Pascaline
– A counting-wheel design
• A single revolution of one wheel would engage
gears that turned the wheel one tenth of a revolution
to its immediate left
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
– Jacquard Loom Salesman’s Model
• 1801: Jacquard’s loom
– Frenchman Joseph-Marie Jacquard (1753-1871)
– Weaving loom
– The first significant use of binary automation
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1793-1871: Charles Babbage
– Envisioned a steam-powered difference engine
and then an analytical engine
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
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• 1842: Bassage’s Difference Engine and the
Analytical Engine
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1890: Hollerith’s Tabulating Machine
• 1860-1929: Herman Hollerith
– Devised a punched-card tabulating machine to
speed up the 1890 U.S. census
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
– A Pantograph Punch
– Used a hand punch to enter data onto cards
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1874-1956: Thomas Watson, Sr.
– In 1896 Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine
Company, which merged in 1911 with several other company to
form the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. It was
renamed the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
by company president Thomas J. Watson in 1924.
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1920s-1950s: The Electro-Mechanical
Accounting Machine Era
– Punched-card technology
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
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• Punched Card Office
• 1903-1995: Dr. John V. Atanasoff and His
ABC (Atanasoff Berry Computer)
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
• 1946: The Electronic ENIAC Computer
• 1942: The First Elecronic Digital Computer:
The ABC
– Dr. John W. Mauchly (middle) collaborated with J.
Presper Ecjert, Jr. (foreground) at the University of
Pennsylvania to develop a machine that would compute
trajectory tables for the U.S. Army.
– Used vacuum tubes
– ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1951: The UNIVAC I and the First
Generation of Computers
– Used vacuum tubes in the first generation of computers
(1951-1959)
– The Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC I) was
developed by Mauchly and Eckert for the RemingtonRand Corporation
– The first commercially viable electronic digital
computer
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
• 1954: The IBM 650
– IBM’s first entry into the commercial computer market
was the IBM 701 in 1953
– IBM 650, introduced in 1954, was designed as a logical
upgrade to existing punched-card machines
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
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• 1907-1992: “Amazing” Grace Murray
Hopper
– In 1959, Dr. Hopper led an effort that laid the
foundation for the development of COBOL
– Found the first “bug” in a computer—a real one. She
repaired the Mark II by removing a moth that was
caught in Relay Number II.
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
• 1963: The PDP-8 Minicomputer
– In 1963 Digital Equipment Corporation introduced the
PDP-8
– The first successful minicomputer
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
• 1964: BASIC-More Than a Beginner’s
Programming Language
– Dr. Thomas Kurtz and Dr. John Kemeny of Dartmouth
College developed a programming language that a
beginner could learn and use quickly
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1958: The First Integrated Circuit
– The first integrated circuit, a phase-shift oscillator, was
invented in 1958 by Jack S. Kilby of Texas Instruments.
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1964: The IBM System/360 and the Third
Generation of Computers
– The third generation was characterized by computers
built around integrated circuits
– A family of computers with upward compatibility;
when a company outgrew one model it could move up
to the next model without worrying about converting its
data
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1969: ARPANET and the Unbundling of
Hardware and Software
– A U.S. Department of Defense’s Advanced
Research Project Agency (ARPA)
sponsorship of a project, named ARPANET,
was underway to unite a community of
geographically dispersed scientists by
technology
– When IBM unbundled and sold software
separately, the software industry began to
flourish
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
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• 1975: Microsoft and Bill Gates
– Bill gates and Paul Allen formed Microsoft Corporation,
now the largest and most influential software company
in the world
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
• 1981: The IBM PC
– IBM tossed its hat into the personal computer ring with
its announcement of the IBM Personal Computer
• 1976: The Apple I
– Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, along with Ronald G.
Wayne formed the Apple Computer Company
Source: http://apple.computerhistory.org/stories
• 1982: Mitchell Kapor Designs Lotus 1-2-3
– In 1982, Kapor founded Lotus Development Company.
Kapor and the company introduced an electronic
spread-sheet product, Lotus 1-2-3
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1984: The Macintosh and Graphical User
Interfaces
• 1985-Present: Microsoft Windows
– Microsoft introduced Windows, a GUI for IBM PCcompatible computers in 1985
– Apple Computer introduced the Macintosh desktop
computer with a very friendly graphical user interface
Source: http://archive.computerhistory.org/
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
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• 1989: The World Wide Web
– Berners-Lee and a small team of scientists conceived
HTML (the language of the Internet), URLs (Internet
addresses), and put up the first server supporting the
neq World Wide Web format
• 1993: The Internet Browser
– The development in 1993 of the graphical browser Mosaic by
Marc Andreesen and his team at the National Center For
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) made the web accessible
to everyone.
– Marc Andreesen and entrepreneur Jim Clark founded Netscape
in 1994 to create a web browser based on the Mosaic project.
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
• 1996: The Handheld Computer
– The PalmPilot handheld computer was introduced by
Palm Computing, Inc.
Problem Transformation into
Calculations
• Many real problems can be transformed into
calculations. Then, these calculations can
be conducted in computers.
– Examples: Image processing, optimization,
ciphering and deciphering, simulations in
dynamic systems
Image courtesy of Computer History Museum, http://www.computerhistory.org
Personal Computers to
Supercomputers
– Notebook PC
• Personal Computer (PC)
– Desktop PC
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– Tablet PC
– Wearable PC
Source: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/publicfeature/oct00/wear.html
• Workstation
• Handheld Computer
• Server Computers
– Applications in business financial, customer
management solutions, decision support data
warehouse, e-commerce, and enterprise
resource planning
– To visualize and solve complex, technical
problems.
• Supercomputer
– In a six-game match, a chess-playing IBM computer
known as Deep Blue defeats chess grandmaster Garry
Kasparov - the first time a reigning world champion
loses a match to a computer opponent in tournament
play. Deep Blue is an IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer
capable of calculating 200 million chess positions per
second.
Source: http://www-1.ibm.com/ibm/history/history/year_1997.html
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Information Systems
• Data processing systems
– Transaction handling, record keeping
– Primarily for clerical personnel and
operational-level managers
• Management information system
– Uses an integrated database and supports a
variety of functional areas
– Structured information (for example, a weekly
inventory status report with predefined content
and format)
– Applications in hospitals (patient accounting,
point-of-care processing), insurance (claimsprocessing systems, policy administration,
actuarial statistics), and colleges (student
registration, placement)
Source: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
• Decision support system
– Helps the decision makers, especially those at
the tactical and strategic levels, in the decisionmaking process
– Interactive system
• Artificial intelligence
– Expert systems, simulation of human sensory
capabilities, neural networks, intelligent agents,
robots and robotics
Source: http://asimo.honda.com/index.asp
Source: http://cdss.state.co.us
• Virtual reality
– Combines computer graphics with special
hardware to immerse users in an artificial threedimensional world
References
• A Short History of Computing
– Tim Bergin, Computing History Museum American University,
http://www.computinghistorymuseum.org/
• Computer History Museum
– http://www.computerhistory.org
• Computers
– Larry Long & Nancy Long, Twelfth Edition, Pearson Education,
Inc.
• http://archive.computerhistory.org/
Source: http://human-factors.arc.nasa.gov
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