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Humanity has used devices to aid in computation for millennia; an example is the abacus. The first machines that could arrive at the answer to an arithmetical question more or less autonomously started to appear in the 1600's, limited to addition and subtraction at first, but later also able to perform multiplications. The difference engines of the 1800s could carry out a long sequence of such calculations in order to construct mathematical tables, but were not widely used. |
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Humanity has used devices to aid in computation for millennia; an example is the abacus. The first machines that could arrive at the answer to an arithmetical question more or less autonomously started to appear in the 1600's, limited to addition and subtraction at first, but later also able to perform multiplications. These devices used techniques such as cogs and gears first developed for clocks. The difference engines of the 1800s could carry out a long sequence of such calculations in order to construct mathematical tables, but were not widely used. |
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One of the defining features of a computer is programmability, which is the execution of a stored sequence of instructions. This basic attribute of computing has roots going back hundreds of years to mechanical clocks that performed complicated sequences of actions to ring chimes and move mechanical figures. These actions, implemented in cogs and gears, were the first forms of stored sequences of instructions, but were fixed and so were not programmable. |
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One of the defining features of a computer is programmability, which is the ability to execute a stored sequence of instructions. |
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In 1890 the United States Census Bureau realized that tabulating the Census of 1890 would take more than ten years. In other words, the Census would not be done before the next Census had to be taken. Herman Hollerith, an employee of the Census Bureau, devised a way to record the information by punching paper (like Jacquard's loom) and then tabulating the data by machine. The inspiration for this invention was Hollerith's observation of railroad conductors during a trip in the western US; they encoded a crude description of the passenger (tall, bald, male) in the way they punched the ticket. Hollerith founded a company which was merged with two others in 1911, and subsequently renamed IBM. |
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The United States Census of 1890 employed a punch card design devised by Herman Hollerith who would later to on to found IBM. |
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The punching and tabulating machines which Hollerith rented to the Census Bureau worked very well; initial results were available late the same year as the Census was taken. The tabulators were able to be reconfigured to compute different totals by re-wiring. They used mechanical relays (solenoids) to increment mechanical counters. The paper records had to be placed by hand, one at a time, into the tabulator. |
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were in wide use, and many thought they were the future of computing. Analog computers use physical quantities, such as voltages or currents, or speeds of rotation of shafts, to represent the quantities being computed upon. Unlike modern digital computers, they are not very flexible, and need to be reprogramming or reconfigured manually to switch them from working on one problem to another. Analog computers had the advantage over early digital computers that they could be used to solve more complex problems. But as digital computers have gotten much faster, they have almost entirely displaced analog computers. |
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were in wide use, and many thought they were the future of computing. Analog computers use continuously varying amounts of physical quantities, such as voltages or currents, or speeds of rotation of shafts, to represent the quantities being computed upon. Unlike modern digital computers, they are not very flexible, and need to be reprogrammed or reconfigured manually to switch them from working on one problem to another. Analog computers had the advantage over early digital computers that they could be used to solve more complex problems. But as digital computers have gotten much faster, they have almost entirely displaced analog computers. |
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The first high level general purpose programming language, FORTRAN, was also being developed around this time. |
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The explosion in the use of computers began with 'Third Generation' computers. These relied on Jack St. Claire Kilby's invention - the integrated circuit or microchip. The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. While large 'mainframes' such as the IBM System/360 increased storage and processing capabilities further, the integrated circuit allowed the development of Minicomputers that began to bring computing into many smaller businesses. |
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The explosion in the use of computers began with 'Third Generation' computers. These relied on Jack St. Claire Kilby's invention - the integrated circuit or microchip. The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. While large 'mainframes' such as the IBM System/360 increased storage and processing capabilities further, the integrated circuit allowed the development of Minicomputers that began to bring computing into many smaller businesses. |
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Large scale integration of circuits led to the development of very small processing units, an early example of this is the processor used for analysing flight data in the US Navy's F14A `TomCat' fighter jet. This |
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Large scale integration of circuits led to the development of very small processing units, an early example of this is the processor used for analysing flight data in the US Navy's F14A `TomCat' fighter jet. This |
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only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them BASIC, ALGOL?, and FORTRAN. |
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only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them BASIC, ALGOL, and FORTRAN. |
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In 1973 the TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first |
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In 1973 the TV Typewriter, designed by [Don Lancaster]?, provided the first |
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You can't talk about computer history without mentioning the Altair. The Altair was on the cover of Popular Electronics for January, 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080 processor. The new computer from tiny Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems was the brainchild of its president, Ed Roberts. MITS was in dire straits as its calculator business failure had left the company heavily in debt. Roberts decided to go for broke and build a kit computer -- an unprecedented and highly unlikely product at the time. He was able to obtain the Intel 8080 microprocessor at a volume cost of $75 apiece and put his idea into production. The Altair was the first computer designed with an "open" architecture, based on the S-100 expansion bus. The public domain S-100 specifications allowed other companies and individuals to design video cards, memory and other add-in boards, creating a new industry. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who developed a full-featured Basic interpreter for the machine. 10,000 were shipped at a kit price of $397 each. |
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You can't talk about computer history without mentioning the Altair. The Altair was on the cover of Popular Electronics for January, 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080 processor. It was a huge success and 10,000 Altairs were shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who developed a full-featured Basic interpreter for the machine. |
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Apple's commercial played on the theme of George Orwell's "1984" and featured the destruction of Big Brother with the power of personal computing found in a Macintosh. Applications that came as part of the package included MacPaint?, which made use of the mouse, and MacWrite?, which demonstrated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing. In 1984 Commodore released the VIC-20 which had 2.5k of usable memory. Magazines became available which contained the code for various utilities and games. A 5.25 inch disk drive was available, along with a cassette storage system which used standard audio cassette tapes. Also available were a number of games, a color plotter which printed on 6" wide paper tape, a graphics tablet (the Koala pad). |
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Applications that came with the Macintosh included MacPaint?, which made use of the mouse, and MacWrite?, which demonstrated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing. |
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In 1985 the Intel 80386 CPU was released. In 1986 Commodore released the C64?, with better graphics and 64k of memory. In 1989 the 80486 Intel CPU was released with more than 1 million transistors. In 1993 the Pentium Intel CPU was released with more than 3 million transistors. In 1995 the Pentium Pro was released with more than 5.5 million transistors. |
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Another popular personal computer to be connected to a TV was released by Commodore in 1984: the VIC-20. It had 2.5k of usable memory and was cheaper than Apple's offerings. Magazines became available which contained the code for various utilities and games. It was followed in 1986 by the more powerful C64?. |
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