Lecture 2 History/Evolution of Computers CSCS100 - Fall 2009 – Forman Christian College Asher Imtiaz *Several of these slides have been adapted and modified from LUMS CS101 course (Dr Sohaib Khan and Dr Arif Zaman), VU CS101 slides (Dr. Altaf A. Khan) and Peter Norton’s supplementary material.
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Lecture 2 History/Evolution of Computers CSCS100 - Fall 2009 – Forman Christian College Asher Imtiaz *Several of these slides have been adapted and modified.
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Lecture 2History/Evolution of ComputersCSCS100 - Fall 2009 – Forman Christian CollegeAsher Imtiaz
*Several of these slides have been adapted and modified from LUMS CS101 course (Dr Sohaib Khan and Dr Arif Zaman), VU CS101 slides (Dr. Altaf A. Khan) and Peter Norton’s supplementary material.
“If you want to understand today, you have to search
yesterday.” Pearl Buck
Goals• To look at how computers evolved to take
the form that they have today.• To discuss key milestones in the history
of computers to:• Learn lessons from the successes, as well as
failures• Discover patterns of evolution• Draw inspiration for the future
Abacus – Computer?
Not really a computer, but Not really a computer, but rather a rather a computing aidcomputing aid
Babbage’s Analytical Engine - 1833 • First Mechanical, Digital,
general-purpose computer
• Crank-driven • Store instructions • Perform mathematical
• UNIVersal Automatic Computer • Echert & Mauchly Computer Company • First computer designed for commercial
applications • First computer that could not only
manipulate numbers but text data as well • Max speed: 1905 operations/sec • Cost: US$1,000,000 • 5000 tubes. 943 cu ft. 8 tons. 100
kilowatts • Between 1951-57, 48 were sold
ARPANET - 1969
• A network of networks • The grand-daddy of the today’s global
Internet • A network of around 60,000 computers
developed by the US Dept of Defense to facilitate communications between research organizations and universities
Intel 4004 - 1971
• The first microprocessor • Microprocessor: A complete computer on
a chip • Speed: 750 kHz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004
Altair 8800 - 1975
• The commercially available 1st PC
• Based on the Intel 8080
• Cost $397 • Had 256 bytes of
memory; my PC at home has a million times more RAM (Random Access Memory)
Cray 1 - 1976• The first commercial
supercomputer • Supercomputers are state-of-
the-art machines designed to perform calculations as fast as the current technology allows
• Used to solve extremely complex tasks: weather prediction, simulation of atomic explosions; aircraft design; movie animation
• Cray 1 could do 167 million calculations a second; the current state-of the-art machines can do many trillion (1012) calculations per second
IBM PC & MS DOS - 1981
• IBM PC: The tremendously popular PC; precursor of 95% of the PC’s in use today.
• MS DOS: The tremendously popular operating system that came bundled with the IBM PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC
Apple Macintosh - 1984
• Based on the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointing Device) ideas first developed for the Star computer at Xerox PARC (1981)
•The first popular, user-friendly, WIMP-based PC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_macintosh
World Wide Web -1989
• Tim Berners Lee – British physicist • 1989 – At the European Center for
Nuclear Energy Research (CERN) in Geneva
• 1993 - The 1st major browser “Mosaic” was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Deep Blue -vs- Kasparov - 1997
• In 1997 Deep Blue, a supercomputer designed by IBM, beat Gary Kasparov, the World Chess Champion
That computer was exceptionally fast, did not get tired or bored. It just kept on analyzing the situation and kept on searching until it found the perfect move from its list of possible moves
The next milestone?
• Mechanical computing • Electro-mechanical computing • Vacuum tube computing • Transistor computing (the current state-of the-art) • Quantum computing
The Future – Quantum Computing?• QUANTUM MECHANICS is the branch of physics which
describes the activity of subatomic particles, i.e. the particles that make up atoms
• Quantum computers may one day be millions of times more efficient than the current state-of-the-art computers. • For example, finding the largest from a list of four
numbers: • current computers require on average 2 to 3 steps to
get to the answer • Whereas, the quantum computer may be able to do