1939
Computers
David Packard and Bill Hewlett in their Palo Alto, California Garage
Hewlett-Packard is Founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model to use as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie “Fantasia.”
Computers
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC)
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype connected via special telephone lines. This is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing.
1941
Computers
The Zuse Z3 Computer
Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 computer. The Z3 was an early computer built by German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from developments elsewhere. Using 2,300 relays, the Z3 used floating point binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. The original Z3 was destroyed in a bombing raid of Berlin in late 1943. However, Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Bombe replica, Bletchley Park, U.K.
The first Bombe is completed. Based partly on the design of the Polish “Bomba,” a mechanical means of decrypting Nazi military communications during WWII, the British Bombe design was greatly influenced by the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and others. Many bombes were built. Together they dramatically improved the intelligence gathering and processing capabilities of Allied forces. [Computers]
1942
Computers
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is completed. After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in 1939, Atanasoff received funds to build the full-scale machine. Built at Iowa State College (now University), the ABC was designed and built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. The ABC was at the center of a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the ABC shortly after it became functional.
The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared un-patentable and thus was freely open to all. This result has been referred to as the "dis-invention of the computer." A full-scale reconstruction of the ABC was completed in 1997 and proved that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasoff had claimed.
1943
Computers
Whirlwind installation at MIT
Project Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital computer. By the time the Whirlwind was completed in 1951, the Navy had lost interest in the project, though the U.S. Air Force would eventually support the project which would influence the design of the SAGE program.
George Stibitz circa 1940
The Relay Interpolator is completed. The U.S. Army asked Bell Labs to design a machine to assist in testing its M-9 Gun Director. Bell Labs mathematician George Stibitz recommended using a relay-based calculator for the project. The result was the Relay Interpolator, later called the Bell Labs Model II. The Relay Interpolator used 440 relays and since it was programmable by paper tape, it was used for other applications following the war.
1944
Computers
Harvard Mark-I in use, 1944
Harvard Mark-1 is completed. Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator. The machine had a fifty-foot long camshaft that synchronized the machine’s thousands of component parts. The Mark-1 was used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored program computers.
The Colossus at Work At Bletchley Park
The first Colossus is operational at Bletchley Park. Designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers, the Colossus was designed to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis during WWII. A total of ten Colossi were delivered to Bletchley, each using 1,500 vacuum tubes and a series of pulleys transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing possible solutions to a particular code. Colossus reduced the time to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. The machine’s existence was not made public until the 1970s
1945
Computers
John von Neumann
John von Neumann wrote "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in which he outlined the architecture of a stored-program computer. Electronic storage of programming information and data eliminated the need for the more clumsy methods of programming, such as punched paper tape — a concept that has characterized mainstream computer development since 1945. Hungarian-born von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics, and the use of mechanical devices for computation. After the war, he concentrated on the development of Princeton´s Institute for Advanced Studies computer and its copies around the world.
People & Pop Culture
Grace Hopper
On September 9th, Grace Hopper recorded the first actual computer "bug" — a moth stuck between the relays and logged at 15:45 hours on the Harvard Mark II. Hopper, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, enjoyed successful careers in academia, business, and the military while making history in the computer field. She helped program the Harvard Mark I and II and developed the first compiler, A-0. Her subsequent work on programming languages led to COBOL, a language specified to operate on machines of different manufacturers.
Software & Languages
Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse began work on Plankalkul (Plan Calculus), the first algorithmic programming language, with an aim of creating the theoretical preconditions for the formulation of problems of a general nature. Seven years earlier, Zuse had developed and built the world´s first binary digital computer, the Z1. He completed the first fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer, the Z3, in 1941. Only the Z4 — the most sophisticated of his creations — survived World War II.
1946
Computers
ENIAC
In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries.
Start of project: 1943
Completed: 1946
Programmed: plug board and switches
Speed: 5,000 operations per second
Input/output: cards, lights, switches, plugs
Floor space: 1,000 square feet
Project leaders: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
AVIDAC
An inspiring summer school on computing at the University of Pennsylvania´s Moore School of Electrical Engineering stimulated construction of stored-program computers at universities and research institutions. This free, public set of lectures inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, later, IAS machine clones like the AVIDAC. Here, Warren Kelleher completes the wiring of the arithmetic unit components of the AVIDAC at Argonne National Laboratory. Robert Dennis installs the inter-unit wiring as James Woody Jr. adjusts the deflection control circuits of the memory unit.
1947
Components
Williams tube
The Williams tube won the race for a practical random-access memory. Sir Frederick Williams of Manchester University modified a cathode-ray tube to paint dots and dashes of phosphorescent electrical charge on the screen, representing binary ones and zeros. Vacuum tube machines, such as the IBM 701, used the Williams tube as primary memory.
Point-contact transistor
On December 23, William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen successfully tested this point-contact transistor, setting off the semiconductor revolution. Improved models of the transistor, developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories, supplanted vacuum tubes used on computers at the time.
Companies
Eckert and Mauchly with the ENIAC
Computer pioneers Presper Eckert and John Mauchly founded the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. to construct machines based on their experience with ENIAC and EDVAC. The only machine the company built was BINAC. Before completing the UNIVAC, the company became a division of Remington Rand.
1948
Computers
IBM´s SSEC
IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in public display near the company´s Manhattan headquarters. Before its decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
Speed: 50 multiplications per second
Input/output: cards, punched tape
Memory type: punched tape, vacuum tubes, relays
Technology: 20,000 relays, 12,500 vacuum tubes
Floor space: 25 feet by 40 feet
Project leader: Wallace Eckert
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener published "Cybernetics," a major influence on later research into artificial intelligence. He drew on his World War II experiments with anti-aircraft systems that anticipated the course of enemy planes by interpreting radar images. Wiener coined the term "cybernetics" from the Greek word for "steersman."
In addition to "cybernetics," historians note Wiener for his analysis of brain waves and for his exploration of the similarities between the human brain and the modern computing machine capable of memory association, choice, and decision making.
Software & Languages
Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon´s "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" showed engineers how to code data so they could check for accuracy after transmission between computers. Shannon identified the bit as the fundamental unit of data and, coincidentally, the basic unit of computation.
1949
Computers
Wilkes with the EDSAC
Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University. His ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended three years earlier.
For programming the EDSAC, Wilkes established a library of short programs called subroutines stored on punched paper tapes.
Technology: vacuum tubes
Memory: 1K words, 17 bits, mercury delay line
Speed: 714 operations per second
Manchester Mark I
The Manchester Mark I computer functioned as a complete system using the Williams tube for memory. This University machine became the prototype for Ferranti Corp.´s first computer.
Start of project: 1947
Completed: 1949
Add time: 1.8 microseconds
Input/output: paper tape, teleprinter, switches
Memory size: 128 + 1024 40-digit words
Memory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum
Technology: 1,300 vacuum tubes
Floor space: medium room
Project leaders: Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn
People & Pop Culture
Thomas Watson Jr., speaking to an IBM sales meeting, predicted all moving parts in machines would be replaced by electronics within a decade.
1950
Computers
ERA 1101 drum memory
Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101, the first commercially produced computer; the company´s first customer was the U.S. Navy. It held 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, the earliest magnetic storage devices. Drums registered information as magnetic pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. Read/write heads both recorded and recovered the data. Drums eventually stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second.
SEAC
The National Bureau of Standards constructed the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) in Washington as a laboratory for testing components and systems for setting computer standards. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units (shown on the right of this photo) stored programming information, coded subroutines, numerical data, and output.
SWAC
The National Bureau of Standards completed its SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles. Rather than testing components like its companion, the SEAC, the SWAC had an objective of computing using already-developed technology.
Pilot ACE
Alan Turing´s philosophy directed design of Britain´s Pilot ACE at the National Physical Laboratory. "We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus," Turing said at a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery in 1947 in Cambridge, Mass.
Start of project: 1948
Completed: 1950
Add time: 1.8 microseconds
Input/output: cards
Memory size: 352 32-digit words
Memory type: delay lines
Technology: 800 vacuum tubes
Floor space: 12 square feet
Project leader: J. H. Wilkinson
1951
Computers
MIT Whirlwind
MIT´s Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow´s "See It Now" television series. Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a "reliable operating system," running 35 hours a week at 90-percent utility using an electrostatic tube memory.
Start of project: 1945
Completed: 1951
Add time: .05 microseconds
Input/output: cathode ray tube, paper tape, magnetic tape
Memory size: 2048 16-digit words
Memory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum, tape (1953 - core memory)
Technology: 4,500 vacuum tubes, 14,800 diodes
Floor space: 3,100 square feet
Project leaders: Jay Forrester and Robert Everett
LEO
England´s first commercial computer, the Lyons Electronic Office, solved clerical problems. The president of Lyons Tea Co. had the computer, modeled after the EDSAC, built to solve the problem of daily scheduling production and delivery of cakes to the Lyons tea shops. After the success of the first LEO, Lyons went into business manufacturing computers to meet the growing need for data processing systems.
UNIVAC I
The UNIVAC I delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau was the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. Although manufactured by Remington Rand, the machine often was mistakenly referred to as the "IBM UNIVAC." Remington Rand eventually sold 46 machines at more than $1 million each.F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed printer.
Speed: 1,905 operations per second
Input/output: magnetic tape, unityper, printer
Memory size: 1,000 12-digit words in delay lines
Memory type: delay lines, magnetic tape
Technology: serial vacuum tubes, delay lines, magnetic tape
Floor space: 943 cubic feet
Cost: F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed printer
Project leaders: J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly
1952
Companies
Heinz Nixdorf founded Nixdorf Computer Corp. in Germany. It remained an independent corporation until merging with Siemens in 1990.
Computers
Los Alamos MANIAC
John von Neumann´s IAS computer became operational at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J. Contract obliged the builders to share their designs with other research institutes. This resulted in a number of clones: the MANIAC at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the ILLIAC at the University of Illinois, the Johnniac at Rand Corp., the SILLIAC in Australia, and others.
People & Pop Culture
Cronkite with UNIVAC
On election night, November 4, CBS News borrowed a UNIVAC to make a scientific prediction of the outcome of the race for the presidency between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. The opinion polls predicted a landslide in favor of Stevenson, but the UNIVAC´s analysis of early returns showed a clear victory for Eisenhower. Its sharp divergence from public opinion made newscasters Walter Cronkite and Charles Collingwood question the validity of the computer´s forecast, so they postponed announcing UNIVAC´s prediction until very late.
Software & Languages
Grace Hopper with UNIVAC 1
Grace Hopper completes the A-0 Compiler. In 1952, mathematician Grace Hopper completed what is considered to be the first compiler, a program that allows a computer user to use English-like words instead of numbers. Other compilers based on A-0 followed: ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC [software]
Storage
IBM 726 Dual Tape Drives
Magnetic tape allows for inexpensive mass storage of information and so is a key part of the computer revolution. The IBM 726 was one of the first practical high-speed magnetic tape systems for electronic digital computers. Announced on May 21, 1952, the system used a unique ‘vacuum channel’ method of keeping a loop of tape circulating between two points allowing the tape drive to start and stop the tape in a split-second. The Model 726 was first sold with IBM’s first electronic digital computer the Model 701 and could store 2 million digits per tape—an enormous amount at the time. It rented for $850 a month.
1953
Components
Core memory
At MIT, Jay Forrester installed magnetic core memory on the Whirlwind computer. Core memory made computers more reliable, faster, and easier to make. Such a system of storage remained popular until the development of semiconductors in the 1970s.
Computers
IBM 701
IBM shipped its first electronic computer, the 701. During three years of production, IBM sold 19 machines to research laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government.
Software & Languages
IBM 701
John Backus completed speedcoding for IBM´s 701 computer. Although speedcoding demanded more memory and compute time, it trimmed weeks off of the programming schedule.
1954
Components
First production silicon junction transistors
A silicon-based junction transistor, perfected by Gordon Teal of Texas Instruments Inc., brought the price of this component down to $2.50. A Texas Instruments news release from May 10, 1954, read, "Electronic "brains" approaching the human brain in scope and reliability came much closer to reality today with the announcement by Texas Instruments Incorporated of the first commercial production of silicon transistors kernel-sized substitutes for vacuum tubes."
The company became a household name when the first transistor radio incorporated Teal´s invention. The radio, sold by Regency Electronics for $50, launched the world into a global village of instant news and pop music.
Computers
IBM 650
The IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator established itself as the first mass-produced computer, with the company selling 450 in one year. Spinning at 12,500 rpm, the 650´s magnetic data-storage drum allowed much faster access to stored material than drum memory machines.
People & Pop Culture
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was found dead at age 42. He had published his seminal paper, "On Computable Numbers," in 1936, as well as posing significant questions about judging "human intelligence" and programming and working on the design of several computers during the course of his career.
A mathematical genius, Turing proved instrumental in code-breaking efforts during World War II. His application of logic to that realm would emerge even more significantly in his development of the concept of a "universal machine."
1955
Components
Felker and Harris program TRADIC
Felker and Harris program TRADIC, AT&T Bell Laboratories announced the first fully transistorized computer, TRADIC. It contained nearly 800 transistors instead of vacuum tubes. Transistors — completely cold, highly efficient amplifying devices invented at Bell Labs — enabled the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts, or one-twentieth the power required by comparable vacuum tube computers.
In this photograph, J. H. Felker (left) gives instructions to the TRADIC computer by means of a plug-in unit while J. R. Harris places numbers into the machine by flipping simple switches. The computer occupied only 3 cubic feet.
People & Pop Culture
First meeting of SHARE, the IBM users group, convened. User groups became a significant educational force allowing companies to communicate innovations and users to trade information.
Software & Languages
Herbert Simon and Allen Newell unveiled Logic Theorist software that supplied rules of reasoning and proved symbolic logic theorems. The release of Logic Theorist marked a milestone in establishing the field of artificial intelligence.
1956
Companies
ElectroData computer in use, 1955
Burroughs buys Electrodata. Calculator manufacturer Burroughs gained entry to the computer industry by purchasing the southern California company Electrodata Corporation. The combined firm became a giant in the calculating machine business and expanded into electronics and digital computers when these technologies developed. Burroughs created many computer systems in the 1960s and 1970s and eventually merged with the makers of the Sperry Rand (maker of Univac computers) to form Unisys.
Computers
MIT TX0
MIT researchers built the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer built with transistors. For easy replacement, designers placed each transistor circuit inside a "bottle," similar to a vacuum tube. Constructed at MIT´s Lincoln Laboratory, the TX-0 moved to the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, where it hosted some early imaginative tests of programming, including a Western movie shown on TV, 3-D tic-tac-toe, and a maze in which mouse found martinis and became increasingly inebriated.
Software & Languages
In the mid-fifties resources for scientific and engineering computing were in short supply and were very precious. The first operating system for the IBM 704 reflected the cooperation of Bob Patrick of General Motors Research and Owen Mock of North American Aviation. Called the GM-NAA I/O System, it provided batch processing and increased the number of completed jobs per shift with no increase in cost. Some version of the system was used in about forty 704 installations.
MIT Whirlwind
At MIT, researchers began experimentation on direct keyboard input on computers, a precursor to today´s normal mode of operation. Doug Ross wrote a memo advocating direct access in February; five months later, the Whirlwind aided in such an experiment.
Storage
IBM's Rey Johnson in front of RAMAC 350 Disk File
The era of magnetic disk storage dawned with IBM´s shipment of a 305 RAMAC to Zellerbach Paper in San Francisco. The IBM 350 disk file served as the storage component for the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control. It consisted of 50 magnetically coated metal platters with 5 million bytes of data. The platters, stacked one on top of the other, rotated with a common drive shaft.
1957
Companies
Digital Equipment Corp.
A group of engineers led by Ken Olsen left MIT´s Lincoln Laboratory founded a company based on the new transistor technology. In August, they formally created Digital Equipment Corp. It initially set up shop in a largely vacant woolen mill in Maynard, Mass., where all aspects of product development — from management to manufacturing — took place.
CDC 1604
In Minneapolis, the original Engineering Research Associates group led by Bill Norris left Sperry Rand to form a new company, Control Data Corp., which soon released its model 1604 computer.
Software & Languages
UNIVAC MATH-MATIC
Sperry Rand released a commercial compiler for its UNIVAC. Developed by Grace Hopper as a refinement of her earlier innovation, the A-0 compiler, the new version was called MATH-MATIC. Earlier work on the A-0 and A-2 compilers led to the development of the first English-language business data processing compiler, B-0 (FLOW-MATIC), also completed in 1957. FLOW-MATIC served as a model on which to build with input from other sources.
IBM 704 FORTRAN
A new language, FORTRAN (short for FORmula TRANslator), enabled a computer to perform a repetitive task from a single set of instructions by using loops. The first commercial FORTRAN program ran at Westinghouse, producing a missing comma diagnostic. A successful attempt followed.
1958
Components
Kilby integrated circuit
Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments to prove that resistors and capacitors could exist on the same piece of semiconductor material. His circuit consisted of a sliver of germanium with five components linked by wires.
Computers
SAGE operator station
SAGE — Semi-Automatic Ground Environment — linked hundreds of radar stations in the United States and Canada in the first large-scale computer communications network. An operator directed actions by touching a light gun to the screen.
The air defense system operated on the AN/FSQ-7 computer (known as Whirlwind II during its development at MIT) as its central computer. Each computer used a full megawatt of power to drive its 55,000 vacuum tubes, 175,000 diodes and 13,000 transistors.
Japan´s NEC built the country´s first electronic computer, the NEAC 1101.
1959
Components
First Planar transistor
Jean Hoerni's Planar process, invented at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp., protects transistor junctions with a layer of oxide. This improves reliability and, by allowing printing of conducting channels directly on the silicon surface, enabled Robert Noyce's invention of the monolithic integrated circuit.
Computers
IBM STRETCH
IBM´s 7000 series mainframes were the company´s first transistorized computers. At the top of the line of computers — all of which emerged significantly faster and more dependable than vacuum tube machines — sat the 7030, also known as the "Stretch." Nine of the computers, which featured a 64-bit word and other innovations, were sold to national laboratories and other scientific users. L. R. Johnson first used the term "architecture" in describing the Stretch.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
APT ashtray
MIT´s Servomechanisms Laboratory demonstrated computer-assisted manufacturing. The school´s Automatically Programmed Tools project created a language, APT, used to instruct milling machine operations. At the demonstration, the machine produced an ashtray for each attendee.
Software & Languages
ERMA characters
ERMA, the Electronic Recording Method of Accounting, digitized checking for the Bank of America by creating a computer-readable font. A special scanner read account numbers preprinted on checks in magnetic ink.
1960
Computers
DEC PDP-1
The precursor to the minicomputer, DEC´s PDP-1 sold for $120,000. One of 50 built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic display, needed no air conditioning and required only one operator. It´s large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first computerized video game, SpaceWar!, for it. The SpaceWar! creators then used the game as a standard demonstration on all 50 computers.
Networking
AT&T Dataphone
AT&T designed its Dataphone, the first commercial modem, specifically for converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across its long distance network. Outside manufacturers incorporated Bell Laboratories´ digital data sets into commercial products. The development of equalization techniques and bandwidth-conserving modulation systems improved transmission efficiency in national and global systems.
Software & Languages
COBOL design team
A team drawn from several computer manufacturers and the Pentagon developed COBOL, Common Business Oriented Language. Designed for business use, early COBOL efforts aimed for easy readability of computer programs and as much machine independence as possible. Designers hoped a COBOL program would run on any computer for which a compiler existed with only minimal modifications.
Howard Bromberg, an impatient member of the committee in charge of creating COBOL, had this tombstone made out of fear that the language had no future. However, COBOL has survived to this day.
LISP Programmer´s Reference
LISP made its debut as the first computer language designed for writing artificial intelligence programs. Created by John McCarthy, LISP offered programmers flexibility in organization.
C.A.R. Hoare circa 1965
Quicksort is developed. Working for the British computer company Elliott Brothers, C. A. R. Hoare developed Quicksort, an algorithm that would go on to become the most used sorting method in the world. Quicksort used a series of elements called “pivots” that allowed for fast sorting. C.A.R. Hoare was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000.
Components
RTL integrated circuit
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. invented the resistor-transistor logic (RTL) product, a set/reset flip-flop and the first integrated circuit available as a monolithic chip.
Computers
IBM 1401
According to Datamation magazine, IBM had an 81.2-percent share of the computer market in 1961, the year in which it introduced the 1400 Series. The 1401 mainframe, the first in the series, replaced the vacuum tube with smaller, more reliable transistors and used a magnetic core memory.
Demand called for more than 12,000 of the 1401 computers, and the machine´s success made a strong case for using general-purpose computers rather than specialized systems.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
UNIMATE
UNIMATE, the first industrial robot, began work at General Motors. Obeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum, the 4,000-pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.
The brainchild of Joe Engelberger and George Devol, UNIMATE originally automated the manufacture of TV picture tubes.
Storage
The IBM 1301 Disk Storage System
IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit is released. The IBM 1301 Disk Drive was announced on June 2nd, 1961 for use with IBM’s 7000-series of mainframe computers. Maximum capacity was 28 million characters and the disks rotated at 1,800 R.P.M. The 1301 leased for $2,100 per month or could be purchased for $115,500. The drive had one read/write arm for each disk as well as flying heads, both of which are still used in today’s disk drives.
1962
Components
Fairchild NPN transistor
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. produced the first widely accepted epitaxial gold-doped NPN transistor. The NPN transistor served as the industry workhouse for discrete logic.
Computers
Wes Clark with LINC
The LINC (Laboratory Instrumentation Computer) offered the first real time laboratory data processing. Designed by Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corp. later commercialized it as the LINC-8.
Research faculty came to a workshop at MIT to build their own machines, most of which they used in biomedical studies. DEC supplied components.
Software & Languages
Spacewar! on PDP-1
MIT students Slug Russell, Shag Graetz, and Alan Kotok wrote SpaceWar!, considered the first interactive computer game. First played at MIT on DEC´s PDP-1, the large-scope display featured interactive, shoot´em-up graphics that inspired future video games. Dueling players fired at each other´s spaceships and used early versions of joysticks to manipulate away from the central gravitational force of a sun as well as from the enemy ship.
Ken Iverson lecturing at blackboard.
Published in 1962, Kenneth Iverson’s book A Programming Language detailed a form of mathematical notation that he had developed in the late 1950s while an assistant professor at Harvard University. IBM hired Iverson and it was there that APL evolved into a practical programming language. APL was widely used in scientific, financial, and especially actuarial applications. Powerful functions and operators in APL are expressed with special characters, resulting in very concise programs.
Storage
Tom Kilburn in front of Manchester Atlas console
Virtual memory emerged from a team under the direction of Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester on its Atlas computer (1962). Virtual memory permitted a computer to use its storage capacity to switch rapidly among multiple programs or users and is a key requirement for timesharing.
Four Views of the IBM 1311 Including Removable Disk Pack
IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive is announced. Announced on October 11, 1962, the IBM 1311 was the first disk drive IBM made with a removable disk pack. Each pack weighed about ten pounds, held six disks, and had a capacity of 2 million char
Computers
David Packard and Bill Hewlett in their Palo Alto, California Garage
Hewlett-Packard is Founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model to use as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie “Fantasia.”
Computers
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC)
The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype connected via special telephone lines. This is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing.
1941
Computers
The Zuse Z3 Computer
Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 computer. The Z3 was an early computer built by German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from developments elsewhere. Using 2,300 relays, the Z3 used floating point binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. The original Z3 was destroyed in a bombing raid of Berlin in late 1943. However, Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
Bombe replica, Bletchley Park, U.K.
The first Bombe is completed. Based partly on the design of the Polish “Bomba,” a mechanical means of decrypting Nazi military communications during WWII, the British Bombe design was greatly influenced by the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and others. Many bombes were built. Together they dramatically improved the intelligence gathering and processing capabilities of Allied forces. [Computers]
1942
Computers
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is completed. After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in 1939, Atanasoff received funds to build the full-scale machine. Built at Iowa State College (now University), the ABC was designed and built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. The ABC was at the center of a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the ABC shortly after it became functional.
The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared un-patentable and thus was freely open to all. This result has been referred to as the "dis-invention of the computer." A full-scale reconstruction of the ABC was completed in 1997 and proved that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasoff had claimed.
1943
Computers
Whirlwind installation at MIT
Project Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital computer. By the time the Whirlwind was completed in 1951, the Navy had lost interest in the project, though the U.S. Air Force would eventually support the project which would influence the design of the SAGE program.
George Stibitz circa 1940
The Relay Interpolator is completed. The U.S. Army asked Bell Labs to design a machine to assist in testing its M-9 Gun Director. Bell Labs mathematician George Stibitz recommended using a relay-based calculator for the project. The result was the Relay Interpolator, later called the Bell Labs Model II. The Relay Interpolator used 440 relays and since it was programmable by paper tape, it was used for other applications following the war.
1944
Computers
Harvard Mark-I in use, 1944
Harvard Mark-1 is completed. Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator. The machine had a fifty-foot long camshaft that synchronized the machine’s thousands of component parts. The Mark-1 was used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored program computers.
The Colossus at Work At Bletchley Park
The first Colossus is operational at Bletchley Park. Designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers, the Colossus was designed to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis during WWII. A total of ten Colossi were delivered to Bletchley, each using 1,500 vacuum tubes and a series of pulleys transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing possible solutions to a particular code. Colossus reduced the time to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. The machine’s existence was not made public until the 1970s
1945
Computers
John von Neumann
John von Neumann wrote "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in which he outlined the architecture of a stored-program computer. Electronic storage of programming information and data eliminated the need for the more clumsy methods of programming, such as punched paper tape — a concept that has characterized mainstream computer development since 1945. Hungarian-born von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics, and the use of mechanical devices for computation. After the war, he concentrated on the development of Princeton´s Institute for Advanced Studies computer and its copies around the world.
People & Pop Culture
Grace Hopper
On September 9th, Grace Hopper recorded the first actual computer "bug" — a moth stuck between the relays and logged at 15:45 hours on the Harvard Mark II. Hopper, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, enjoyed successful careers in academia, business, and the military while making history in the computer field. She helped program the Harvard Mark I and II and developed the first compiler, A-0. Her subsequent work on programming languages led to COBOL, a language specified to operate on machines of different manufacturers.
Software & Languages
Konrad Zuse
Konrad Zuse began work on Plankalkul (Plan Calculus), the first algorithmic programming language, with an aim of creating the theoretical preconditions for the formulation of problems of a general nature. Seven years earlier, Zuse had developed and built the world´s first binary digital computer, the Z1. He completed the first fully functional program-controlled electromechanical digital computer, the Z3, in 1941. Only the Z4 — the most sophisticated of his creations — survived World War II.
1946
Computers
ENIAC
In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries.
Start of project: 1943
Completed: 1946
Programmed: plug board and switches
Speed: 5,000 operations per second
Input/output: cards, lights, switches, plugs
Floor space: 1,000 square feet
Project leaders: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
AVIDAC
An inspiring summer school on computing at the University of Pennsylvania´s Moore School of Electrical Engineering stimulated construction of stored-program computers at universities and research institutions. This free, public set of lectures inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, later, IAS machine clones like the AVIDAC. Here, Warren Kelleher completes the wiring of the arithmetic unit components of the AVIDAC at Argonne National Laboratory. Robert Dennis installs the inter-unit wiring as James Woody Jr. adjusts the deflection control circuits of the memory unit.
1947
Components
Williams tube
The Williams tube won the race for a practical random-access memory. Sir Frederick Williams of Manchester University modified a cathode-ray tube to paint dots and dashes of phosphorescent electrical charge on the screen, representing binary ones and zeros. Vacuum tube machines, such as the IBM 701, used the Williams tube as primary memory.
Point-contact transistor
On December 23, William Shockley, Walter Brattain, and John Bardeen successfully tested this point-contact transistor, setting off the semiconductor revolution. Improved models of the transistor, developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories, supplanted vacuum tubes used on computers at the time.
Companies
Eckert and Mauchly with the ENIAC
Computer pioneers Presper Eckert and John Mauchly founded the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. to construct machines based on their experience with ENIAC and EDVAC. The only machine the company built was BINAC. Before completing the UNIVAC, the company became a division of Remington Rand.
1948
Computers
IBM´s SSEC
IBM´s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in public display near the company´s Manhattan headquarters. Before its decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
Speed: 50 multiplications per second
Input/output: cards, punched tape
Memory type: punched tape, vacuum tubes, relays
Technology: 20,000 relays, 12,500 vacuum tubes
Floor space: 25 feet by 40 feet
Project leader: Wallace Eckert
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener published "Cybernetics," a major influence on later research into artificial intelligence. He drew on his World War II experiments with anti-aircraft systems that anticipated the course of enemy planes by interpreting radar images. Wiener coined the term "cybernetics" from the Greek word for "steersman."
In addition to "cybernetics," historians note Wiener for his analysis of brain waves and for his exploration of the similarities between the human brain and the modern computing machine capable of memory association, choice, and decision making.
Software & Languages
Claude Shannon
Claude Shannon´s "The Mathematical Theory of Communication" showed engineers how to code data so they could check for accuracy after transmission between computers. Shannon identified the bit as the fundamental unit of data and, coincidentally, the basic unit of computation.
1949
Computers
Wilkes with the EDSAC
Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University. His ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended three years earlier.
For programming the EDSAC, Wilkes established a library of short programs called subroutines stored on punched paper tapes.
Technology: vacuum tubes
Memory: 1K words, 17 bits, mercury delay line
Speed: 714 operations per second
Manchester Mark I
The Manchester Mark I computer functioned as a complete system using the Williams tube for memory. This University machine became the prototype for Ferranti Corp.´s first computer.
Start of project: 1947
Completed: 1949
Add time: 1.8 microseconds
Input/output: paper tape, teleprinter, switches
Memory size: 128 + 1024 40-digit words
Memory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum
Technology: 1,300 vacuum tubes
Floor space: medium room
Project leaders: Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn
People & Pop Culture
Thomas Watson Jr., speaking to an IBM sales meeting, predicted all moving parts in machines would be replaced by electronics within a decade.
1950
Computers
ERA 1101 drum memory
Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101, the first commercially produced computer; the company´s first customer was the U.S. Navy. It held 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, the earliest magnetic storage devices. Drums registered information as magnetic pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. Read/write heads both recorded and recovered the data. Drums eventually stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second.
SEAC
The National Bureau of Standards constructed the SEAC (Standards Eastern Automatic Computer) in Washington as a laboratory for testing components and systems for setting computer standards. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units (shown on the right of this photo) stored programming information, coded subroutines, numerical data, and output.
SWAC
The National Bureau of Standards completed its SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles. Rather than testing components like its companion, the SEAC, the SWAC had an objective of computing using already-developed technology.
Pilot ACE
Alan Turing´s philosophy directed design of Britain´s Pilot ACE at the National Physical Laboratory. "We are trying to build a machine to do all kinds of different things simply by programming rather than by the addition of extra apparatus," Turing said at a symposium on large-scale digital calculating machinery in 1947 in Cambridge, Mass.
Start of project: 1948
Completed: 1950
Add time: 1.8 microseconds
Input/output: cards
Memory size: 352 32-digit words
Memory type: delay lines
Technology: 800 vacuum tubes
Floor space: 12 square feet
Project leader: J. H. Wilkinson
1951
Computers
MIT Whirlwind
MIT´s Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow´s "See It Now" television series. Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a "reliable operating system," running 35 hours a week at 90-percent utility using an electrostatic tube memory.
Start of project: 1945
Completed: 1951
Add time: .05 microseconds
Input/output: cathode ray tube, paper tape, magnetic tape
Memory size: 2048 16-digit words
Memory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum, tape (1953 - core memory)
Technology: 4,500 vacuum tubes, 14,800 diodes
Floor space: 3,100 square feet
Project leaders: Jay Forrester and Robert Everett
LEO
England´s first commercial computer, the Lyons Electronic Office, solved clerical problems. The president of Lyons Tea Co. had the computer, modeled after the EDSAC, built to solve the problem of daily scheduling production and delivery of cakes to the Lyons tea shops. After the success of the first LEO, Lyons went into business manufacturing computers to meet the growing need for data processing systems.
UNIVAC I
The UNIVAC I delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau was the first commercial computer to attract widespread public attention. Although manufactured by Remington Rand, the machine often was mistakenly referred to as the "IBM UNIVAC." Remington Rand eventually sold 46 machines at more than $1 million each.F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed printer.
Speed: 1,905 operations per second
Input/output: magnetic tape, unityper, printer
Memory size: 1,000 12-digit words in delay lines
Memory type: delay lines, magnetic tape
Technology: serial vacuum tubes, delay lines, magnetic tape
Floor space: 943 cubic feet
Cost: F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed printer
Project leaders: J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly
1952
Companies
Heinz Nixdorf founded Nixdorf Computer Corp. in Germany. It remained an independent corporation until merging with Siemens in 1990.
Computers
Los Alamos MANIAC
John von Neumann´s IAS computer became operational at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J. Contract obliged the builders to share their designs with other research institutes. This resulted in a number of clones: the MANIAC at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the ILLIAC at the University of Illinois, the Johnniac at Rand Corp., the SILLIAC in Australia, and others.
People & Pop Culture
Cronkite with UNIVAC
On election night, November 4, CBS News borrowed a UNIVAC to make a scientific prediction of the outcome of the race for the presidency between Dwight D. Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson. The opinion polls predicted a landslide in favor of Stevenson, but the UNIVAC´s analysis of early returns showed a clear victory for Eisenhower. Its sharp divergence from public opinion made newscasters Walter Cronkite and Charles Collingwood question the validity of the computer´s forecast, so they postponed announcing UNIVAC´s prediction until very late.
Software & Languages
Grace Hopper with UNIVAC 1
Grace Hopper completes the A-0 Compiler. In 1952, mathematician Grace Hopper completed what is considered to be the first compiler, a program that allows a computer user to use English-like words instead of numbers. Other compilers based on A-0 followed: ARITH-MATIC, MATH-MATIC and FLOW-MATIC [software]
Storage
IBM 726 Dual Tape Drives
Magnetic tape allows for inexpensive mass storage of information and so is a key part of the computer revolution. The IBM 726 was one of the first practical high-speed magnetic tape systems for electronic digital computers. Announced on May 21, 1952, the system used a unique ‘vacuum channel’ method of keeping a loop of tape circulating between two points allowing the tape drive to start and stop the tape in a split-second. The Model 726 was first sold with IBM’s first electronic digital computer the Model 701 and could store 2 million digits per tape—an enormous amount at the time. It rented for $850 a month.
1953
Components
Core memory
At MIT, Jay Forrester installed magnetic core memory on the Whirlwind computer. Core memory made computers more reliable, faster, and easier to make. Such a system of storage remained popular until the development of semiconductors in the 1970s.
Computers
IBM 701
IBM shipped its first electronic computer, the 701. During three years of production, IBM sold 19 machines to research laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government.
Software & Languages
IBM 701
John Backus completed speedcoding for IBM´s 701 computer. Although speedcoding demanded more memory and compute time, it trimmed weeks off of the programming schedule.
1954
Components
First production silicon junction transistors
A silicon-based junction transistor, perfected by Gordon Teal of Texas Instruments Inc., brought the price of this component down to $2.50. A Texas Instruments news release from May 10, 1954, read, "Electronic "brains" approaching the human brain in scope and reliability came much closer to reality today with the announcement by Texas Instruments Incorporated of the first commercial production of silicon transistors kernel-sized substitutes for vacuum tubes."
The company became a household name when the first transistor radio incorporated Teal´s invention. The radio, sold by Regency Electronics for $50, launched the world into a global village of instant news and pop music.
Computers
IBM 650
The IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator established itself as the first mass-produced computer, with the company selling 450 in one year. Spinning at 12,500 rpm, the 650´s magnetic data-storage drum allowed much faster access to stored material than drum memory machines.
People & Pop Culture
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was found dead at age 42. He had published his seminal paper, "On Computable Numbers," in 1936, as well as posing significant questions about judging "human intelligence" and programming and working on the design of several computers during the course of his career.
A mathematical genius, Turing proved instrumental in code-breaking efforts during World War II. His application of logic to that realm would emerge even more significantly in his development of the concept of a "universal machine."
1955
Components
Felker and Harris program TRADIC
Felker and Harris program TRADIC, AT&T Bell Laboratories announced the first fully transistorized computer, TRADIC. It contained nearly 800 transistors instead of vacuum tubes. Transistors — completely cold, highly efficient amplifying devices invented at Bell Labs — enabled the machine to operate on fewer than 100 watts, or one-twentieth the power required by comparable vacuum tube computers.
In this photograph, J. H. Felker (left) gives instructions to the TRADIC computer by means of a plug-in unit while J. R. Harris places numbers into the machine by flipping simple switches. The computer occupied only 3 cubic feet.
People & Pop Culture
First meeting of SHARE, the IBM users group, convened. User groups became a significant educational force allowing companies to communicate innovations and users to trade information.
Software & Languages
Herbert Simon and Allen Newell unveiled Logic Theorist software that supplied rules of reasoning and proved symbolic logic theorems. The release of Logic Theorist marked a milestone in establishing the field of artificial intelligence.
1956
Companies
ElectroData computer in use, 1955
Burroughs buys Electrodata. Calculator manufacturer Burroughs gained entry to the computer industry by purchasing the southern California company Electrodata Corporation. The combined firm became a giant in the calculating machine business and expanded into electronics and digital computers when these technologies developed. Burroughs created many computer systems in the 1960s and 1970s and eventually merged with the makers of the Sperry Rand (maker of Univac computers) to form Unisys.
Computers
MIT TX0
MIT researchers built the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer built with transistors. For easy replacement, designers placed each transistor circuit inside a "bottle," similar to a vacuum tube. Constructed at MIT´s Lincoln Laboratory, the TX-0 moved to the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, where it hosted some early imaginative tests of programming, including a Western movie shown on TV, 3-D tic-tac-toe, and a maze in which mouse found martinis and became increasingly inebriated.
Software & Languages
In the mid-fifties resources for scientific and engineering computing were in short supply and were very precious. The first operating system for the IBM 704 reflected the cooperation of Bob Patrick of General Motors Research and Owen Mock of North American Aviation. Called the GM-NAA I/O System, it provided batch processing and increased the number of completed jobs per shift with no increase in cost. Some version of the system was used in about forty 704 installations.
MIT Whirlwind
At MIT, researchers began experimentation on direct keyboard input on computers, a precursor to today´s normal mode of operation. Doug Ross wrote a memo advocating direct access in February; five months later, the Whirlwind aided in such an experiment.
Storage
IBM's Rey Johnson in front of RAMAC 350 Disk File
The era of magnetic disk storage dawned with IBM´s shipment of a 305 RAMAC to Zellerbach Paper in San Francisco. The IBM 350 disk file served as the storage component for the Random Access Method of Accounting and Control. It consisted of 50 magnetically coated metal platters with 5 million bytes of data. The platters, stacked one on top of the other, rotated with a common drive shaft.
1957
Companies
Digital Equipment Corp.
A group of engineers led by Ken Olsen left MIT´s Lincoln Laboratory founded a company based on the new transistor technology. In August, they formally created Digital Equipment Corp. It initially set up shop in a largely vacant woolen mill in Maynard, Mass., where all aspects of product development — from management to manufacturing — took place.
CDC 1604
In Minneapolis, the original Engineering Research Associates group led by Bill Norris left Sperry Rand to form a new company, Control Data Corp., which soon released its model 1604 computer.
Software & Languages
UNIVAC MATH-MATIC
Sperry Rand released a commercial compiler for its UNIVAC. Developed by Grace Hopper as a refinement of her earlier innovation, the A-0 compiler, the new version was called MATH-MATIC. Earlier work on the A-0 and A-2 compilers led to the development of the first English-language business data processing compiler, B-0 (FLOW-MATIC), also completed in 1957. FLOW-MATIC served as a model on which to build with input from other sources.
IBM 704 FORTRAN
A new language, FORTRAN (short for FORmula TRANslator), enabled a computer to perform a repetitive task from a single set of instructions by using loops. The first commercial FORTRAN program ran at Westinghouse, producing a missing comma diagnostic. A successful attempt followed.
1958
Components
Kilby integrated circuit
Jack Kilby created the first integrated circuit at Texas Instruments to prove that resistors and capacitors could exist on the same piece of semiconductor material. His circuit consisted of a sliver of germanium with five components linked by wires.
Computers
SAGE operator station
SAGE — Semi-Automatic Ground Environment — linked hundreds of radar stations in the United States and Canada in the first large-scale computer communications network. An operator directed actions by touching a light gun to the screen.
The air defense system operated on the AN/FSQ-7 computer (known as Whirlwind II during its development at MIT) as its central computer. Each computer used a full megawatt of power to drive its 55,000 vacuum tubes, 175,000 diodes and 13,000 transistors.
Japan´s NEC built the country´s first electronic computer, the NEAC 1101.
1959
Components
First Planar transistor
Jean Hoerni's Planar process, invented at Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp., protects transistor junctions with a layer of oxide. This improves reliability and, by allowing printing of conducting channels directly on the silicon surface, enabled Robert Noyce's invention of the monolithic integrated circuit.
Computers
IBM STRETCH
IBM´s 7000 series mainframes were the company´s first transistorized computers. At the top of the line of computers — all of which emerged significantly faster and more dependable than vacuum tube machines — sat the 7030, also known as the "Stretch." Nine of the computers, which featured a 64-bit word and other innovations, were sold to national laboratories and other scientific users. L. R. Johnson first used the term "architecture" in describing the Stretch.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
APT ashtray
MIT´s Servomechanisms Laboratory demonstrated computer-assisted manufacturing. The school´s Automatically Programmed Tools project created a language, APT, used to instruct milling machine operations. At the demonstration, the machine produced an ashtray for each attendee.
Software & Languages
ERMA characters
ERMA, the Electronic Recording Method of Accounting, digitized checking for the Bank of America by creating a computer-readable font. A special scanner read account numbers preprinted on checks in magnetic ink.
1960
Computers
DEC PDP-1
The precursor to the minicomputer, DEC´s PDP-1 sold for $120,000. One of 50 built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic display, needed no air conditioning and required only one operator. It´s large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first computerized video game, SpaceWar!, for it. The SpaceWar! creators then used the game as a standard demonstration on all 50 computers.
Networking
AT&T Dataphone
AT&T designed its Dataphone, the first commercial modem, specifically for converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across its long distance network. Outside manufacturers incorporated Bell Laboratories´ digital data sets into commercial products. The development of equalization techniques and bandwidth-conserving modulation systems improved transmission efficiency in national and global systems.
Software & Languages
COBOL design team
A team drawn from several computer manufacturers and the Pentagon developed COBOL, Common Business Oriented Language. Designed for business use, early COBOL efforts aimed for easy readability of computer programs and as much machine independence as possible. Designers hoped a COBOL program would run on any computer for which a compiler existed with only minimal modifications.
Howard Bromberg, an impatient member of the committee in charge of creating COBOL, had this tombstone made out of fear that the language had no future. However, COBOL has survived to this day.
LISP Programmer´s Reference
LISP made its debut as the first computer language designed for writing artificial intelligence programs. Created by John McCarthy, LISP offered programmers flexibility in organization.
C.A.R. Hoare circa 1965
Quicksort is developed. Working for the British computer company Elliott Brothers, C. A. R. Hoare developed Quicksort, an algorithm that would go on to become the most used sorting method in the world. Quicksort used a series of elements called “pivots” that allowed for fast sorting. C.A.R. Hoare was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000.
Components
RTL integrated circuit
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. invented the resistor-transistor logic (RTL) product, a set/reset flip-flop and the first integrated circuit available as a monolithic chip.
Computers
IBM 1401
According to Datamation magazine, IBM had an 81.2-percent share of the computer market in 1961, the year in which it introduced the 1400 Series. The 1401 mainframe, the first in the series, replaced the vacuum tube with smaller, more reliable transistors and used a magnetic core memory.
Demand called for more than 12,000 of the 1401 computers, and the machine´s success made a strong case for using general-purpose computers rather than specialized systems.
Robots & Artificial Intelligence
UNIMATE
UNIMATE, the first industrial robot, began work at General Motors. Obeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum, the 4,000-pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.
The brainchild of Joe Engelberger and George Devol, UNIMATE originally automated the manufacture of TV picture tubes.
Storage
The IBM 1301 Disk Storage System
IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit is released. The IBM 1301 Disk Drive was announced on June 2nd, 1961 for use with IBM’s 7000-series of mainframe computers. Maximum capacity was 28 million characters and the disks rotated at 1,800 R.P.M. The 1301 leased for $2,100 per month or could be purchased for $115,500. The drive had one read/write arm for each disk as well as flying heads, both of which are still used in today’s disk drives.
1962
Components
Fairchild NPN transistor
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corp. produced the first widely accepted epitaxial gold-doped NPN transistor. The NPN transistor served as the industry workhouse for discrete logic.
Computers
Wes Clark with LINC
The LINC (Laboratory Instrumentation Computer) offered the first real time laboratory data processing. Designed by Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corp. later commercialized it as the LINC-8.
Research faculty came to a workshop at MIT to build their own machines, most of which they used in biomedical studies. DEC supplied components.
Software & Languages
Spacewar! on PDP-1
MIT students Slug Russell, Shag Graetz, and Alan Kotok wrote SpaceWar!, considered the first interactive computer game. First played at MIT on DEC´s PDP-1, the large-scope display featured interactive, shoot´em-up graphics that inspired future video games. Dueling players fired at each other´s spaceships and used early versions of joysticks to manipulate away from the central gravitational force of a sun as well as from the enemy ship.
Ken Iverson lecturing at blackboard.
Published in 1962, Kenneth Iverson’s book A Programming Language detailed a form of mathematical notation that he had developed in the late 1950s while an assistant professor at Harvard University. IBM hired Iverson and it was there that APL evolved into a practical programming language. APL was widely used in scientific, financial, and especially actuarial applications. Powerful functions and operators in APL are expressed with special characters, resulting in very concise programs.
Storage
Tom Kilburn in front of Manchester Atlas console
Virtual memory emerged from a team under the direction of Tom Kilburn at the University of Manchester on its Atlas computer (1962). Virtual memory permitted a computer to use its storage capacity to switch rapidly among multiple programs or users and is a key requirement for timesharing.
Four Views of the IBM 1311 Including Removable Disk Pack
IBM 1311 Disk Storage Drive is announced. Announced on October 11, 1962, the IBM 1311 was the first disk drive IBM made with a removable disk pack. Each pack weighed about ten pounds, held six disks, and had a capacity of 2 million char
No comments:
Post a Comment