What Is A Computer? History of Computers Egyptian Numbersagents.csie.ntu.edu.tw/~yjhsu/courses/IntroCS/2008... · ¥1844 Telegraph by Samuel Morse ¥DC -> Baltimore ¥1900 John A.

History of ComputersIntroduction to Computers

Adapted from slides by Prof. Polly Huang and Prof. KM Chao (National Taiwan University)

• com·put·er

• Pronunciation: kâm-'pyü-terFunction: nounUsage: often attributiveDate: 1646: one that computes; specifically : aprogrammable usually electronic device that canstore, retrieve, and process data

• (Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/ )

What Is A Computer?

Ancient Tools for Computation Egyptian Numbers

• It is difficult to imagine a world withoutnumbers, but there was a time when numbersdidn’t exist. So our ancestors used their fingersinstead. Then, as bigger numbers (larger thanwhat ten fingers could represent) were counted,things such as pebbles were used to help count.Until numbers were invented, counting devicessuch as the abacus were invented to helpeveryday mathematical problems.

The Timeline of the Abacus

The First Computing Devices

• da Vinci (1500 AD) was a genius: painter,musician, sculptor, architect, and engineer.

• Notebooks discovered in 1967

• First mechanical calculator

Leonardo da Vinci's Calculator

• 1642: Pascaline Adder

• Blaise Pascal (French)

• 16xx: John Napier

• Napier’s Bones

• 1671: Multiplication/division

• Leibniz

• 1801: Jacquard Loom

• Joseph-Marie Jacquard

• punched card controlled weaving machine

• 1822: Difference Engine

• Babbage

• http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap1.htm

Events in History

•Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871)

•Polynomial evaluation by finite differences

•automatic tables

•engrave plates

•powered by a steam engine

•15 digit numbers

•25,000 parts

•a demonstration piece consisting of about 2,000parts assembled in 1832

•But, he never completed it!

Difference Engine (1822)

What is the function?

• x=0, y=5

• x=1, y=0

• x=2, y=1

• x=3, y=20

• x=4, y=69

• x=5, y=160

• x=6, y=305

Finite Difference

• x y diff1 diff2 diff3 diff4

• 0 5

• 1 0

• 2 1

• 3 20

• 4 69

• 5 160

• 6 305

Polynomials

• It can be shown that for an n-degree polynomial,the nth difference is constant (and the (n+1)thdifference is 0).

• So our function is probably a 3rd degreepolynomial.

• The equation is y=2x^3-3x^2-4x+5.

The Analytical Engine (1834)

• a general-purpose programmable computingengine

• The Engine had a 'Store' where numbers andintermediate results could be held, and aseparate 'Mill' where the arithmetic processingwas performed.

• programmable using punched cards

Difference Engine No.2 (1949)

•Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 has'registers' to hold one number from eachof the columns in the table (for example20, 7, 2). It would add the seconddifference to the first, then add thatresult to the function value to computethe next entry in the table. There wereenough 'registers' for seven differences,allowing it to compute 31-digit valuesfor polynomials with terms up to x^7.

• Subject: numbers

• Manipulation: arithmetic, functions

• Special purpose computing device

Calculator

• Subject: data

• number, text, audio/visual

• Manipulation: programmable

• storing, retrieving, all sorts of processing

• General purpose computing device

Modern Computer

Who invented the modern computer?

Not a question with a simple answer!

• 1844 Telegraph by Samuel Morse

• DC -> Baltimore

• 1900 John A. Fleming invented the vacuum tube

• 1926 Dr. Lilienfield filed a patent for semiconductor transistor

• 1937 Alan Turing invented the Turing Machine

• 1945 Point- contact germanium transistor (Shockley et al.)

• 1950 Bipolar junction (silicon) transistors (Shockley)

• 1959 Integrated circuits (Hoerni and Noyce)

• 1971 First microprocessor (Intel 4004)

The Foundation Electronic Devices

• 1939 John V. Atanasoff & Clifford Berry

• special-purpose

• electronic digital computer

• 1941 Konrad Zuse

• Z1, Z3, and Z4

• general purpose computation

• used the binary system

• 1943 Alan Turing

• COLOSSUS

The Early Computers• 1943-46 The first general-purpose electronic

computer -- ENIAC

• 1945 The "first" computer bug

• 1960 The first mini-computer

• 1969 The first computer on the ARPANET(later grew into the Internet)

• 1971 The first microprocessor: the 4004

• 1975 The first PC, MITS Altair 8800

• 1984 The first Macintosh (Apple)

• More athttp://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm

Rest of the Story

• A model for a computing machine that uses asingle storage structure to hold both the set ofinstructions on how to perform the computationand the data required or generated by thecomputation.

• Such machines are also known as stored-program computers.

• The separation of storage from the processingunit is implicit in this model.

• Collaborators: John von Neumann, John WilliamMauchly and J. Presper Eckert

von Neumann Architecture

• The first all-electronic computerdesigned to be Turing-complete

• Conceived/designed by J.Presper Eckert and JohnWilliam Mauchly of theUniversity of Pennsylvania.

• Built by the U.S. Army

• Unveiled on February 14, 1946

ENIACElectronic Numerical

Integrator And Computer

• In 1960 Digital Equipmentintroduced the first minicomputer,the PDP-1, for $120,000. It was thefirst commercial computer equippedwith a keyboard and monitor. PDPstands for Program, Data, Processor.

• Later, in 1984, Apple Computersintroduced the first MacintoshComputer, with 128k in speed.

• Introduced in April, 1981, TheOsborne 1 was the first portablecomputer. It was priced at $1795,had 4MHz and weighed 24.5 pounds.

Macintosh128k

Personal Computers (PCs) • 1889 Herman Hollerith designed punch cards to store andsort data.

• Census data processing takes 2.5 years instead of 7.5years

• 1896 Tabulating Machine Company was founded

• 02/04/1924 TMC was renamed IBM!InternationalBusiness Machines Corporation"

• 1964 IBM System/360 mainframe computer

• 1975 IBM 5100 Portable Computer (50lb,64K,>$8975)

• 1981 IBM PC (Man of the year, Time Magazine)

• 2004 The PC division was sold to Lenovo (China)

IBM

• 1938~9

• Founded by WilliamHewlett & DavidPackard

• From a Palo Altogarage

• 1999 Spin off Agilent

• 2002

• Controversial mergerwith Compaq

HP• Mac Mini

• Introduced in January 2005

• No monitor, mouse or keyboard

• 6.5 inch square box

• Intel Core Duo

• Server: Mac Pro

• Introduced in September 2006

• Two 2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon

• Desktop: iMac

• Intel Core 2 Duo

• Laptops: MacBook and MacBook Pro

• Portable: iPod, iPhone

• Software

• OS X 10.4 Tiger

• iLife, iWeb etc.

Apple

• Founded in 1982.

• 1982 First workstation w/ TCP/IP

• 1984 NFS technology introduced

• 1987 Unix System V Release 4

• 1989 SPARCstation -- the first pizza box

• 1995 Java technology

• Looking Glass (LG3D)

• The network is the computer.

Sun• 1957 Mass production of transistors (Fairchild)

• 1968 Founded by Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore

• 1971 Intel 4004 (2,300 transistors)

• 1975 Intel 8080 utilized in Altair 8800 ($439)

• 1981 Intel 8088 (29,000 transistors)

• $3,000 IBM PC for word processing and spreadsheet

• 1985 Intel 386

• 1989 Intel 486 (1.18M transistors)

• 1993 Intel Pentium (3.1M transistors)

• 1997 Intel Pentium II (7.5M transistors)

• 1999 Intel Pentium III (24M transistors)

• 2000 Intel Pentium IV (42M transistors)

• 2003 Intel Centrino

• 2006 Intel Core (Solo, Duo)

• 2007 Intel Core 2 Duo

Intel

•The complexity for minimum componentcosts has increased at a rate of roughly afactor of two per year ... Certainly over theshort term this rate can be expected tocontinue, if not to increase. Over the longerterm, the rate of increase is a bit moreuncertain, although there is no reason tobelieve it will not remain nearly constant forat least 10 years. That means by 1975, thenumber of components per integrated circuitfor minimum cost will be 65,000. I believethat such a large circuit can be built on asingle wafer.

Moore’s Law Transistor Density

Microelectronic silicon computer “chips” have grown in capability from a single transistor inthe 1950s to hundreds of millions of transistors per chip on today’s microprocessor andmemory devices. From the first documented semiconductor effect in 1833 to the transitionfrom transistors to integrated circuits in the 1960s and 70s, this website explores keymilestones in the development of these extraordinary engines that power the computing andcommunications revolution of the information age.*Source: “Moore’s Law: Raising the Bar” (Intel Corporation 2005)Photo credits: Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation, Intel Corporation (Note that images are not to scale)

• Computer history

• http://www.scsite.com/dc2005/ch1/timeline

• http://www.maxmon.com/history.htm

• http://www.dei.isep.ipp.pt/docs/arpa.html

• http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm

• Alan Turing, Enigma

• http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/

• http://www.alanturing.net/turing_archive/

Reference

Questions?