history of computers

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History of computer Page 1 History of Computers INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER The computer is the most useful and versatile tool yet developed .It has changed the information needs of the most people not the people of advanced countries but also the peoples of third countries .Computer has influenced the international trade pattern of employment, industrial productivity, home life, health and scientific research technological advances are usually a mixed blessing, neutral between good and evil. The computer is no exception. We have used it for both. Thus benefits of computer depend upon the use of computer. The first computers were people! That is, electronic computers were given this name because they performed the work that had previously been assigned to people. "Computer" was originally a job title: it was used to describe those human beings (predominantly women) whose job it was to perform the repetitive calculations required to compute such things as navigational tables, tide charts, and planetary positions for astronomical almanacs. Therefore, inventors have been searching for hundreds of years for a way to mechanize this task. o EARLY DEVELOPMENT It is difficult to say when man started counting. The development of numbers, which we use for counting or calculations have passed through any stages. The concept of numbers and counting is believed to develop first by the herdsman. BACK GROUND OF COMPUTING THE BEGINNINGS 4000-1200 BC, inhabitants of Sumer Clay Tablets for trade records University of education-Lower Mall campus Lahore

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Page 1: History of Computers

History of computer Page 1

History of Computers

INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTER

The computer is the most useful and versatile tool yet developed .It has changed the information needs of the most people not the people of advanced countries but also the peoples of third countries .Computer has influenced the international trade pattern of employment, industrial productivity, home life, health and scientific research technological advances are usually a mixed blessing, neutral between good and evil. The computer is no exception. We have used it for both. Thus benefits of computer depend upon the use of computer. The first computers were people! That is, electronic computers were given this name because they performed the work that had previously been assigned to people. "Computer" was originally a job title: it was used to describe those human beings (predominantly women) whose job it was to perform the repetitive calculations required to compute such things as navigational tables, tide charts, and planetary positions for astronomical almanacs. Therefore, inventors have been searching for hundreds of years for a way to mechanize this task.

o EARLY DEVELOPMENT

It is difficult to say when man started counting. The development of numbers, which we use for counting or calculations have passed through any stages. The concept of numbers and counting is believed to develop first by the herdsman.

BACK GROUND OF COMPUTING THE BEGINNINGS

• 4000-1200 BC, inhabitants of Sumer Clay Tablets for trade records

• Origin unknown (used in Babylon, later in Arab world, Europe, China and Japan) Abacus.One of the earliest and the simplest computing device is abacus which can be explain follow

ABACUS

The abacus was an early aid for mathematical computations. Its only value is that it aids the memory of the human performing the calculation. A skilled abacus operator can work on addition and subtraction problems at the speed of a person equipped with a hand calculator (multiplication and division are slower). The abacus is often wrongly attributed to China. In fact, the oldest surviving abacus was used in 300 B.C. by the Babylonians. The abacus is still in use today, principally in the Far East. A modern abacus consists of rings that slide over rods, but the

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older one pictured below dates from the time when pebbles were used for counting (the word "calculus" comes from the Latin word for pebble).

A very old abacus modern abacus

Napier's Bones

• 1570-80, John Napier (1550-1617, Scotland) Logarithm Bones

In 1617 an eccentric Scotsman named John Napier invented logarithms, which are a technology that allows multiplication to be performed via addition. The magic ingredient is the logarithm of each operand, which was originally obtained from a printed table. But Napier also invented an alternative to tables, where the logarithm values were carved on ivory sticks which are now called Napier's bones

An original set of Napier's bones A more modern set of Napier's bones

• 1620, Edmund Gunter, (1581-1626, England)

Slide Rule

Napier's invention led directly to the slide rule, first built in England in 1620 and still in use in the 1960's by the NASA engineers of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs which landed men on the moon.

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A slide rule

MECHANICAL ERA (1623-1945)

1623, Wilhelm Schick hard (1592-1633, Germany)

Schick hard Calculating Clock

The first gear-driven calculating machine to actually be built was probably the calculating clock, so named by its inventor, the German professor Wilhelm Schick hard in 1623. This device got little publicity because Schick hard died soon afterward in the bubonic plague

Schick hard Calculating Clock

Pascal's Pascaline 1642, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662, France)

In 1642 Blaise Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid for his father who was a tax collector. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven one-function calculator but couldn't sell many because of their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate. Up until the present age when car dashboards went digital, the odometer portion of a car's speedometer used the very same mechanism as the Pascaline to increment the next wheel after each full revolution of the prior wheel. Pascal was a child prodigy. At the age of 12, he was discovered doing his version of Euclid's thirty-second proposition on the kitchen floor. Pascal went on to invent probability theory, the hydraulic press, and the syringe. Shown below are an 8 digit version of the Pascaline, and two views of a 6 digit version:

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Pascal's Pascaline A 6 digit model for those who couldn't afford the 8 digit model

i. 1668 Samuel Moorland of England invents non decimal adding machine

Stepped reckoner 1671, Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716, Germany)

Just a few years after Pascal, the German Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (co-inventor with Newton of calculus) managed to build a four-function (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) calculator that he called the stepped reckoner because, instead of gears, it employed fluted drums having ten flutes arranged around their circumference in a stair-step fashion. Although the stepped reckoner employed the decimal number system (each drum had 10 flutes), Leibniz was the first to advocate use of the binary number system which is fundamental to the operation of modern computers. Leibniz is considered one of the greatest of the philosophers but he died poor and alone.

Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner

1. 1714 Henry Mill patents the typewriter in England 2. 1786 Mueller conceives Difference Engine, special purpose calculator for

tabulating values of polynomial 3. 1821 Michael Faraday, the Father of Electricity, builds first two electric motors

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Invention of Charles Babagge

By 1822 the English mathematician Charles Babbage was proposing a steam driven calculating machine the size of a room, which he called the Difference Engine. This machine would be able to compute tables of numbers, such as logarithm tables. He obtained government funding for this project due to the importance of numeric tables in ocean navigation. By promoting their commercial and military navies, the British government had managed to become the earth's greatest empire. But in that time frame the British government was publishing a seven volume set of navigation tables which came with a companion volume of corrections which showed that the set had over 1000 numerical errors. It was hoped that Babbage’s machine could eliminate errors in these types of tables. But construction of Babbage's Difference Engine proved exceedingly difficult and the project soon became the most expensive government funded project up to that point in English history. Ten years later the device was still nowhere near complete, acrimony abounded between all involved, and funding dried up. The device was never finished.

A small section of the type of mechanism employed in Babbage's Difference

Babbage was not deterred, and by then was on to his next brainstorm, which he called the Analytic Engine. It was a machine for general purpose use. It could be programmed to evaluate a wide range of arithmetic expressions .The machine was to be fully automatic .Babbage design included several features present in today computer. His Analytical engine consisted of five units gives below

1 STORE this part was to store the numbers fed to the machine and also those numbers that were generated during the process of problems solving, along with the instructions.

2 MILL this was the arithmetic unit, which had to perform all the arithmetic operations automatically by rotations of gears and wheels

3 CONTROL This unit was to supervise all the other units and direct their working .The other task assigned to this unit was to transfer the numbers and the instructions from the store to the mill and vice versa, by rotation of gears and wheels

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4 INPUT the input unit of the analytical engine had to supply data and instructions to the store. The input media was in this form of punched cards

5 OUTPUT the output unit had to display the results of calculations.

Babbage called the two main parts of his Analytic Engine the "Store" and the "Mill", as both terms are used in the weaving industry. In a modern computer these same parts are called the memory unit and the central processing unit (CPU).

1. 1835 Joseph Henry invents electrical relay2. 1844 Samuel B. Morse sends the first telegram3. 1861 San Francisco and New York are connected by a telegraph line4. 1876 First telephone call from Bell to Watson5. 1867 First commercial typewriter6. 1874 Christopher Sholes invents Sholes (QWERTY) keyboard allowing fast typing

without jamming the keys7. 1878 First shift key typewriter

8. 1885 Boston and New York are connected by telephone

9. 1888 William Burroughs patents adding machine

International Business Machines Corp. (IBM)

Hollerith desk

1890, Herman Hollerith (1860 - 1926, USA), (1890 Census)

The next breakthrough occurred in America. The U.S. Constitution states that a census should be taken of all U.S. citizens every 10 years in order to determine the representation of the states in Congress. While the very first census of 1790 had only required 9 months, by 1880 the U.S.

Population had grown so much that the count for the 1880 census took 7.5 years. Automation was clearly needed for the next census. The census bureau offered a prize for an inventor to help with the 1890 census and this prize was won by Herman Hollerith .Hollerith's invention, known as the Hollerith desk, consisted of a card reader which sensed the holes in the cards, a gear driven mechanism which could count and a large wall of dial indicators to display the results of the count.

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Working at Hollerith Desk

Hollerith's technique was successful and the 1890 census was completed in only 3 years at a savings of 5 million dollars. Hollerith also introduced modern computerized punched card which was early invented by Jacquard loom. Hollerith built a company, the Tabulating Machine Company which, after a few buyouts, eventually became International Business Machines, known today as IBM. IBM grew rapidly and punched cards became ubiquitous. The main focus of IBM is to develop mechanical calculators.

1. 1894 Guglielmo Marconi receives first patent for radio

Punched cards

Punching Cards, Tabulating Machine Electric Tabulating System Tabulating Machine Co. (1896) Computation-Tabulating Recording Co. (1911) International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) (1924)

OTHER INVENTIONS

1. 1900 World connected by telegraph2. 1904 John Ambrose Fleming patents first vacuum tube3. 1923 Vladimir Zworkin demonstrates electronic television camera tube4. 1924 CTR changed to International Business Machine (IBM)5. 1927 Philo T. Farnsworth, using Zworkin’s technology, invents television6. 1929 FM radio introduced7. 1935 IBM releases 601, a punch card machine, can multiply in 1 second8. 1936 BBC begins first public television broadcasts using tube developed by John Logie

Baird9. 1937 Alan Turing publishes “On Computable Numbers,” introducing the Turing

Machine, a theoretical model of a computer

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10. Summer 1941 Atanasoff and assistant Berry invent Atanasoff-Berry Computer, special purpose calculator for solving problems of simultaneous linear equations

Electronic Scanning Method for Cathode-Ray Tube • 1912-30, Monroe, Baldwin, Friedan, Merchant, etc. Four Functions Calculators

• 1930-50 KONRAD ZUSE (1934-1943) 1934 Zuse proposes to build a electromechanical calculating machine. 1936 Zuse files a patent application for the automatic execution of calculations, including

a binary "combination memory Zuse's Z-series of computers

1938 Z1 mechanical computer 1940 Z2 uses telephone relays instead of mechanical logical circuits 1941 Z3 first fully functional program-controlled electro-mechanical calculator 1945 Z4 survives WW II and helps launching post-war development of scientific

computers in Germany 1937, Howard Aiken (USA) submitted to IBM a proposal for a digital calculating

machine Capable of performing The four arithmetic operations and some other functions 1943, British built code-breaking Vacuum Tube Computer called Colossus ELECTROMECHANICAL COMPUTING MACHINES

All the early calculators were mechanical devices . Most of these were heavy, bulky, and slow. Several elect mechanical machines using relays were developed .The first relay computer was complex calculator and is believed to have been the first computer to employ binary system. Another early electromechanical machine was designed by Howard Aiken in 1944. This computer was developed after years of hard work and was named Automatic Sequence controlled calculator (ASCC) or Mark1. The development of this machine was the first advancement since Babbage work

The Harvard Mark 1

IBM continued to develop mechanical calculators for sale to businesses to help with financial accounting and inventory accounting. One early success was the Harvard Mark I computer which was built as a partnership between Harvard and IBM in 1944. This was the first programmable digital computer made in the U.S. But it was not a purely electronic computer. Instead the Mark I was constructed out of switches, relays, rotating shafts, and clutches. The machine weighed 5 tons, incorporated 500 miles of wire, was 8 feet tall and 51 feet long, and had a 50 ft rotating shaft running its length, turned by a 5 horsepower electric motor. The Mark I ran non-stop for 15 years, sounding like a roomful of ladies knitting.

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The Harvard Mark I: an electro-mechanical computer

After the WW II a great amount of activity began and the era of the modern computer resulted

Outlines

1. 1943-46, ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) by J.Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, first general purpose electronic computer

2. •1945, John von Neumann introduces the concept of a stored program.3. • 1947, first transistor designed by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley

for Bell Labs (Nobel prize in 1956)4. •1947- 48, magnetic drum memory is introduced5. 1948, Claude Shannon publishes A Mathematical Theory of Communication6. 1948, Richard Hamming designs the Hamming code for error correction in data blocks7. 1949, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was developed at

Cambridge University in England by Maurice Wilkes8. 1949, Whirlwind computer by Jay Forrester (MIT) with 5000 vacuum tubes9. 1950, EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was based on ideas

Developed at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Princeton University.10. 1951, UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was built by Eckert and Mauchly

using vacuum tubes (mainly triodes and pentodes). Memory access Time 0.5 ms.

ENIAC and EDVAC

The title of forefather of today's all-electronic digital computers is usually awarded to ENIAC, which stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator. ENIAC was built at the University of Pennsylvania between 1943 and 1945 by two professors, John Mauchly and the 24 year old J. Presper Eckert, who got funding from the war department after promising they could build a machine that would replace all the "computers", meaning the women who were employed calculating the firing tables for the army's artillery guns. The day that Mauchly and Eckert saw the first small piece of ENIAC work, the persons they ran to bring to their lab to show off their progress were some of these female computers (one of whom remarked, "I was astounded that it took all this equipment to multiply 5 by 1000").

ENIAC filled a 20 by 40 foot room, weighed 30 tons, and used more than 18,000 vacuum tubes. Like the Mark I, ENIAC employed paper card readers obtained from IBM (these were a regular product for IBM, as they were a long established part of business accounting machines, IBM's

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forte). When operating, the ENIAC was silent but you knew it was on as the 18,000 vacuum tubes each generated waste heat like a light bulb and all this heat (174,000 watts of heat) meant that the computer could only be operated in a specially designed room with its own heavy duty air conditioning system. Only the left half of ENIAC is visible in the first picture, the right half was basically a mirror image of what's visible.

Two views of ENIAC: the "Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator" (note that it wasn't even given the name of computer since "computers" were people)

ENIAC was complicated and also very much costly. Once ENIAC was finished and proved worthy of the cost of its development, its designers set about to eliminate the obnoxious fact that reprogramming the computer required a physical modification of all the patch cords and switches. It took days to change ENIAC's program. Eckert and Mauchly's next teamed up with the mathematician John von Neumann to design EDVAC, which pioneered the stored program. Because he was the first to publish a description of this new computer, von Neumann is often wrongly credited with the realization that the program (that is, the sequence of computation steps) could be represented electronically just as the data was. But this major breakthrough can be found in Eckert's notes long before he ever started working with von Neumann. Eckert was no slouch: while in high school Eckert had scored the second highest math SAT score in the entire country.

UNIVAC-1

IN 1946 ENKERT AND MAUCHLY, The designers of ENIAC established a new company. The first machine UNIVAC -1 universal automatic computer was made operational in 1951, Univac-1 could work 24 hours a day. It was a self checking computer and used magnetic tape as input media.

(1951-TO ONWARDS) Outlines

1. 1951, Maurice Wilkes introduces microprogramming2. 1951, Jay Forrester's matrix core memory

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3. 1951-52, Grace Murray Hooper develops A-0 (1st compiler)4. 1952, John Neumann's IAS bit-parallel machine5. 1953, IBM 650 - 1st mass-produced computer6. 1953, Kenneth Olsen uses Jay Forrester's core-memory to build the Memory Test

Computer7. 1954, Texas Instruments introduces the silicon transistor1956, Fuji Photo Film Co.

(Japan) develops a 1700 vacuum-tube computer for lens design calculation8. 1956, Univac with transistors9. 1957, John Backus and colleagues at IBM deliver the 1st FORTRAN compiler10. 1957, NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Co., Japan) develops Musasino-1 (first

parametric-computer)11. 1958, Jack Kilby (Texas Instruments) and Robert Noyce (Fairchild) develop first

semiconductor ICs separately12. 1959, The Committee on Data Systems Languages is formed to create COBOL (Common

Business Oriented Language)13. 1960 AT&T invents modem 14. 1960 Sony introduces first all transistor portable television 15. 1960 DEC builds PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor), its first minicomputer and first

computer with video screen, producing 50 machines costing $120,000

16. 1962, Stanford and Purdue Universities establish first departments of Computer Science FTP (File Transfer Protocol), to send data over the nets

17. 1965 Texas Instruments patents integrated circuit 18. 1965 DEC produces PDP8, first computer to use integrated circuit19. 1965 Sony introduces Portapak, the first home video system20. 1966 San Francisco Oracle first published21. 1967 IBM builds first floppy22. 1968 Engineering firm Bolt Beranek Newman hired by Defense Department to build

ARPANET a network of computers23. 1968 Bob Noyce, inventor of first integrated circuit, leaves Fairchild Semiconductor to

start own business called INTEL24. 1969 Thompson and Ritchie of Bell Labs introduce UNIX25. 1975, IBM introduces the laser printer26. 1975, Intel introduces 8-bit microprocessor (8008, 8080)27. 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak build the Apple I28. 1976 Microsoft trade name registered29. 1977, Bill Gates and Paul Allen Partnership found Microsoft30. 1977 Microsoft releases FORTRAN31. 1981, IBM introduces its model of PC32. 1983 Microsoft mouse released 33. 1983 Microsoft incorporated 34. 1983 Microsoft releases Windows35. 1984, Sony and Phillips introduce the CD-ROM36. 1984, NEC manufactures the 256-Kbit RAM and IBM introduces a 1-Mbit RAM37. 1984, IBM uses Intel's 80286 for the new PC ATs

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38. 1986 Microsoft releases Windows 1.039. 1987 Windows 2.0 40. 1987 DOS 3.341. 1988 DOS 4.042. 1990 Windows 3.043. 1991 DOS 5.044. 1991 Windows 3.145. 1991 World Wide Web released by CERN46. 1993, first graphical web-browser Mosaic is created at University of Illinois47. 1993 Dos 6.248. 1994 David Filo and Jerry Yang, two Stanford doctoral students, compile an online

database of web sites soon to be known as Yahoo!49. 1994 Linux 1.0 released 50. 1994 Windows 3.1151. 1995, initial public offering of Netscape

52. 1995 MP3 format developed53. 1995 Windows 95 released54. 1995 Amazon.com goes live55. 1997 Intel Pentium II56. 1997 Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 57. 1998 Windows 98 58. 1998 Apple releases iMac59. 1998 DVD drives become available 60. 1998 Microsoft’s Internet Explorer overtakes Netscape61. 1998 Larry Page and Serge Brin launch Google from a garage in Menlo Park, California62. 1999 Intel Pentium III63. 2001 Apple introduces iPod64. 2002 Microsoft releases XP65. 2004 Mozilla browser Firefox launches ADVANCES IN 1950

Early in the 50’s two important engineering discoveries changed the image of the electronic computer field, from one of fast but unreliable hardware to an image of relatively high reliability and even more capability. These discoveries were the magnetic core memory and the Transistor – Circuit Element. These technical discoveries quickly found their way into new models of digital computers RAM capacities increased from 8,000 to 64,000 words in commercially available machines by the 1960’s, with access times of 2 to 3 MS (Milliseconds). These machines were very expensive to purchase or even to rent and were particularly expensive to operate because of the cost of expanding programming. Such computers were mostly found in large computer centers operated by industry, government, and private laboratories - staffed with many programmers and support personnel

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One such mode is batch processing, in which problems are prepared and then held ready for Computation on a relatively cheap storage medium. Magnetic drums, magnetic - disk packs, or Magnetic tapes were usually used. When the computer finishes with a problem, it "dumps" the whole Problem (program and results) on one of these peripheral storage units and starts on a new problem. Another mode for fast, powerful machines is called time-sharing. In time-sharing, the computer Processes many jobs in such rapid succession that each job runs as if the other jobs did not exist, thus keeping each "customer" satisfied. Such operating modes need elaborate executable programs to attend to the administration of the various tasks

ADVANES IN 1960

In the 1960’s, efforts to design and develop the fastest possible computer with the greatest capacity reached a turning point with the LARC machine, built for the Livermore Radiation Laboratories of then University of California by the Sperry - Rand Corporation, and the Stretch computer by IBM. The LARC had a base memory of 98,000 words and multiplied in 10 Greek MU seconds. Stretch was made with several degrees of memory having slower access for the ranks of greater capacity, the fastest access time being less then 1 Greek MU Second and the total capacity in the vicinity of 100,000,000 words. During this period, the major computer manufacturers began to offer a range of capabilities and prices, as well as accessories such as: Consoles Card Feeders Page Printers Cathode - ray - tube displays Graphing devices These were widely used in businesses for such things as: Accounting Payroll Inventory control Ordering Supplies Billing

CPU’s for these uses did not have to be very fast arithmetically and were usually used to access large amounts of records on file, keeping these up to date. By far, the most number of computer systems were sold for the more simple uses, such as hospitals (keeping track of patient records, medications, and treatments given). They were also used in libraries, such as the National Medical Library retrieval system, and in the Chemical Abstracts System, where computer records on file now cover nearly all known chemical compounds.

ADVANCES IN 1970 TO ONWARDS The trend during the 1970's was, to some extent, moving away from very powerful, single – purpose Computers and toward a larger range of applications for cheaper computer systems. Most continuous process manufacturing, such as petroleum refining and electrical-power distribution systems, now Used computers of smaller capability for controlling and regulating their jobs. In the 1960’s, the problems in programming applications were an obstacle to the independence of medium sized on-site computers, but gains in applications programming language technologies removed these obstacles. Applications languages were now available for

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controlling a great range of manufacturing processes, for using machine tools with computers, and for many other things. Moreover, a new revolution in computer hardware was under way, involving shrinking of computer logic circuitry and of components by what are called large-scale integration (LSI) techniques. In the 1950s it was realized that "scaling down" the size of electronic digital computer circuits and parts would increase speed and efficiency and by that, improve performance, if they could only find a way to do this. About 1960 photo printing of conductive circuit boards to eliminate wiring became more developed. Then it became possible to build resistors and capacitors into the circuitry by the same process. In the 1970’s, vacuum deposition of transistors became the norm, and entire assemblies, with adders, shifting registers, and counters, became available on tiny "chips.

In the 1980’s, very large scale integration (VLSI), in which hundreds of thousands of transistors were placed on a single chip, became more and more common. Many companies, some new to the computer Field, introduced in the 1970s programmable minicomputers supplied with software packages. The "Shrinking" trend continued with the introduction of personal computers (PC’s), which are programmable machines small enough and inexpensive enough to be purchased and used byIndividuals.

Many companies, such as Apple Computer and Radio Shack, introduced very successful PC’s in the 1970s encouraged in part by a fad in computer (video) games. In the 1980s some friction occurred in The crowded PC field, with Apple and IBM keeping strong. In the manufacturing of semiconductor Chips, the Intel and Motorola Corporations were very competitive into the 1980s, although Japanese Firms were making strong economic advances, especially in the area of memory chips. By the late 1980s, some personal computers were run by microprocessors that, handling 32 bits of data at a time, Could process about 4,000,000 instructions per second.

Microprocessors equipped with read-only memory (ROM), which stores constantly used, unchanging programs, now performed an increased number of process-control, testing, monitoring, and diagnosing functions, like automobile ignition systems, automobile-engine diagnosis, and production-line inspection duties. Cray Research and Control Data Inc. dominated the field of supercomputers, or the most powerful computer systems, through the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1980s, however, the Japanese government announced a gigantic plan to design and build a new generation of supercomputers. This new generation, the so-called "fifth" generation, is using new technologies in very large integration, along with new programming languages, and will be capable of amazing feats in the area of artificial intelligence, such as voice recognition. Progress in the area of software has not matched the great advances in hardware. Software has become the major cost of many systems because programming productivity has not increased very quickly. New programming techniques, such as object-oriented programming, have been developed to help relieve this problem. Despite difficulties with software, however, the cost per calculation of computers is rapidly lessening, and their convenience and efficiency are expected to increase in the early future. The computer field continues to experience huge growth. Computer networking, computer mail, and electronic publishing are just a few of the applications that have grown in recent years. Advances in technologies continue to produce

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cheaper and more powerful computers offering the promise that in the near future, computers or terminals will reside in most, if not all homes, offices, and schools

In 1955 IBM was selling more computers than UNIVAC and by the 1960's the group of eight companies selling computers was known as "IBM and the seven dwarfs". IBM grew so dominant that the federal government pursued anti-trust proceedings against them from 1969 to 1982 . You might wonder what type of event is required to dislodge an industry heavyweight. In IBM's case it was their own decision to hire an unknown but aggressive firm called Microsoft to provide the software for their personal computer (PC).

If you learned computer programming in the 1970's, you deal with what today are called mainframe computers, such as the IBM 7090 , IBM 360, or IBM 370.

Models

The IBM 7094, a typical mainframe computer An IBM Key Punch machine

The Altair 8800, the first PC The original IBM Personal Computer (PC)

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EXPLANATION

The first pc was named as the Altair 8800 model forms rapidly change the nature working of modern era .A Harvard freshman by the name of Bill Gates decided to drop out of college so he could concentrate all his time writing programs for this computer. This early experienced put Bill Gates in the right place at the right time once IBM decided to standardize on the Intel microprocessors for their line of PCs in 1981. The Intel Pentium 4 used in today's PCs is still compatible with the Intel 8088 used in IBM's first PC. Sony and Phillips introduce the CD-ROM.NEC manufactures the 256-Kbit RAM and IBM introduces a 1-Mbit RAM. IBM uses Intel's 80286 for the new PC ATs.Cray 2 and Thinking Machines' parallel-processor Connection Machine reach 1 billion Per/second.Berners-Lee writes the WWW prototype: URL (Unified Resource Locator), HTML (Hyper Text Multilanguage), HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). First graphical web-browser Mosaic is created at University of Illinois. Initial public offering of Netscape

THE END

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