Transcript History With Chips - Welcome to Nyssen Central!

Do You Want Chips With That?
A Brief History Of The Computer
Written by Chrissie Nyssen
Prepared for D3475P
Computer Architecture
First Years
December 2002
The First Capacitor - 1746
A student, Cuneus, at the
University of Leiden in Holland,
was given the task of “electrifying”
some water in a jar.
He was shocked (!) to discover that
electricity and water do not mix!
His Professor, Muschenbroeck,
repeated Cuneus's experiment;
and between them, they invented
the Leyden Jar.
Nowadays we would call this a
condenser or capacitor.
The First Externally Programmed Computer - 1835
The Difference Engine on display at the London
Science Museum.
Charles Babbage's design
of 1822, for his "Difference
Engine", is regarded by
many as being the
blueprint of the world's first
true computer.
Despite the first
Government-funded IT
grant in history, Babbage
was plagued by debt and
family problems, and the
computer was never built.
The First Externally Programmed Computer - 1835
Babbage redesigned his invention as
the Analytical Engine, but the
Government refused to put up any
more money.
Babbage continued to redesign and
refine his plans until his death. It was
finally built in part by his son, Major
Henry Babbage, in 1906.
The first program was to calculate and
print the first 25 multiples of  to 29
decimal places, to demonstrate that it
worked.
The First Vacuum Valve - c1901
The first true valve was developed by John
Ambrose Fleming, an English physicist, who was
attempting to improve the reception of wireless
radio signals.
It consisted of a glass bulb with two electrodes in
it, and a metal filament (cathode) heated to the
point where it fired electrons.
This action caused a current to flow in one direction only hence the name “valve”. Nowadays we would refer to this
device as a diode.
This effect had already been discovered by the American
inventor Thomas Edison, but he had discarded the idea as
worthless.
The First Vacuum Valve - c1901
The first American computer,
the ENIAC, used 19,000
glass valves, filled several
large rooms and consumed
enough power to light ten
homes.
The vacuum tube's cathode
required phenomenal
amounts of power in order to
boil out electrons - almost all
the electricity in a tube is
converted to heat.
Because of this, tubes frequently
burned out and had to be replaced.
The First Triode - 1906
In 1906 the American inventor, Lee
DeForest, added an extra component to
Fleming's vacuum tube. It was a third
electrode, called a grid, a network of small
wires surrounding the cathode.
DeForest found that he could both control
and amplify the current flow - he had
invented the “Audion” valve, or triode.
High power transmitters still use valves,
and cathode ray tubes are still used in their
millions. By the 1960’s, however, valves
were largely being replaced by solid-state
technology.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Mechanical) - 1936-8
The first freely programmable
computer was built between
1936 and 1938, financed
completely from private
funds.
The rebuilt Z2, on display at the Deutsche
Techniksmuseum in Berlin
The inventor, Konrad Zuse,
had already approached the
government to try and obtain
backing for his invention, but
the government of the day Hitler's National Socialists could see no value in it, and
sent Herr Zuse on his way.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Mechanical) - 1936-8
Undeterred, Konrad began building his computer in the living room of
his parents' flat.
His original
mechanical Z1 had a
control unit, nanoprocessor, 64-bit
memory and a
floating point unit. It
ran at 1 Hertz, used
22-bit registers and
took approximately 5
seconds to multiply
two numbers.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Mechanical) - 1936-8
Unfortunately the Z1 was not
very reliable, because it used
20,000 hand-sawn metal
plates, which were bulky,
complex and fragile.
All the work and plans were
destroyed in the Allied
bombing of Berlin in 1943.
Herr Zuse finally obtained a Government grant to reconstruct
the computer. It was completed in 1989, shortly before his
death.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1946 (American Version)
.
The US Dept. of Defense’s
Electrical Numerical Integrator
and Computer (ENIAC) was
developed during WW2 to
calculate trajectories for artillery.
ENIAC weighed in at just over 30
tons with almost 19000 valves,
1500 mechanical relays and
hundreds of thousands of
resistors, capacitors and
inductors.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1946 (American Version)
. Unfortunately ENIAC was
not was completed until the
end of the war. But by then
the Army had thought of
many more possibilities for
it.
The most famous and classic shot of ENIAC at
the Moore School.
ENIAC went online at the
Moore School of Electrical
Engineering at the
University of Pennsylvania
on February 15, 1946.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1946 (American Version)
As well as military
applications, ENIAC went
on to do weather
predictions, atomic energy
calculations, cosmic ray
studies, thermal ignition,
random number studies
and wind tunnel design.
ENIAC was finally decommissioned on October 2, 1955.
Part of it is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1943 (Correct Version)
.
At the start of WW2, Hitler’s
forces were using a device, first
patented in 1919, which could
encrypt and encode telegraphed
messages.
This device was called Enigma. It
looked and behaved much like a
mechanical typewriter, but with a
couple of major differences….
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1943 (Correct Version)
Each typed letter was encrypted by
using wheels and circuits. When a
key was pressed, an entirely different
letter would appear on a lighted
keyboard above.
This device enabled Hitlers’ forces to
send important information in
complete secrecy.
Finally in 1941 the Polish Resistance
managed to capture the blueprints.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1943 (Correct Version)
The British Ministry of War
already had a team of
codebreakers working at
Bletchley Park, now part of
Milton Keynes. But the
high-quality codes could
take up to 5 months to
decrypt.
One of the mathematicians in the team, Dr Alan Turing, and
talented Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, began to build
an electronic calculating device to speed up the process.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1943 (Correct Version)
.
The result was
the worlds’ first
electronic
computer Colossus.
10 Colossi in
all were built,
reducing the
decoding time
to a matter of
hours.
The First Freely Programmable Computer
(Electrical) - 1943 (Correct Version)
.
At the end of the
war, the
codebreakers
were sworn to
secrecy, the
computers were
dismantled and all
the technical
drawings and
diagrams were
burned.
Their existence was to remain a
secret for nearly 30 years.
The First Transistor - 1947
In December of 1947
three research scientists
at Bell Labs invented a
solid state device that they
called a transistor.
This was based on a piece
of germanium crystal, with
a pointed "cat's whisker"
touching its surface.
The First Transistor - 1947
In 1956 the three men, Shockley,
Bardeen and Brattain were
awarded the Nobel Prize for
Physics.
Alan Shockley explains how his
transistor works.
In the same year, the Western
Electric Company began to
supply all sorts of electrical
manufacturers with the new solid
state devices.
Within the next 25 years, valve technology would be virtually
dead.
The First Transistor - 1947
The first transistor was about
1 ½ cm high. Today, a processor
such as a Pentium can contain up
to 27 million of them….
The latest transistors are fashioned from a
single molecule of carbon-60 between two
gold electrodes.
These “Buckyballs” are so tiny that, as transistors, they only permit one
electron at a time to move through them. This opens the door to the study of
single-electron transport effects.
The First Video Game - 1972
The first true Video Game was
invented in 1971 by the two-man team
of Nolan Bushell and Al Acorn.
Nolan’s contract was with Atari, a
fledgling games company who
actively promoted themselves as a
much bigger organisation than they
really were.
In 1977 Warner Brothers bought out
Nolan Bushnell for $30m - a large
amount of money even today.
How Chips Are Made
Microchips are made from
silicon, one of the most
prolific materials on Earth.
Unlike the sand on the
beach, however, it must
be 99.9999% pure!
First, the silicon is
compressed into a
cylinder and baked at
1000ºC. Then other
elements such as boron,
arsenic and phosphorous
are added.
Chips must be produced in sterile
conditions as even a microscopic
speck of dust would ruin them.
How Chips Are Made
The rod is then sliced into
thin strips with a diamond
saw. The circuit pattern is
laid on the surface and the
background etched away
with acids. This process will
be repeated many times until
the circuit is complete.
This 10cm slice contains 500 chips,
each of which contains about 50,000
transistors.
How Chips Are Made
The chips are then tested
- even if only 1 of the
transistors is defective,
the whole chip will be
thrown away. Ferranti
once estimated that only
1 in 20 of their chips
actually made it!
The lucky ones are then mounted in a ceramic or plastic
“package” with microscopically fine soldered gold wires.
The whole thing is then soldered into a machine.
Some More Amazing Chip Pictures
A chip next to some grains of salt...
…and a human hair.
Acknowledgements
Tupperware Leyden Jar © Strathclyde University
Analytical & Difference Engines, Enigma in wooden case © London Science Museum
Edison Lightbulb © Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC
ENIAC at the Moore, Lady Programmers © US Army, from ARL Technical Library
Konrad Zuse and the Z2 © Deutsche Technikmuseum, Berlin
First transistor, Alan Shockley © Bell Labs, Berkeley, California
Buckeyball © Berkeley University
Sterile conditions, Chips on silicon slice © Ferranti Electronics
Chip on Finger, Chips with Salt, Chips with Hair © Scholastic Book Clubs
John Mauchly with ENIAC © Mauchly Estate
German Sailors with Enigma © Zud-Deutsche Rundfunk Archives
Colossus Rebuild Photos © Bletchley Park Trust