Transcript Week 9 Slides, Lect. 2 - Faculty of Humanities, McMaster University

A Short History of Computers
Geoffrey M. Rockwell
x 24072
Togo Salmon 309A
[email protected]
URL: http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hccrs/ihchome.htm
McMaster University
Administration
 Homework
3 is up. Complete by next
Wednesday.
Review - Types of Storage
Storage
Permanent
Removable
CD-ROM
RAM
Fixed
ROM
Floppy
Temporary
Hard Drive
Magneto-Optical
Storage typically measured in
K (Kilobytes),
MB (Megabytes) or
GB (Gigabytes)
Kbps = Kilobits per second
Storage (bits and bytes)
• Computer is digital.
• Information has to be
digitized. (binary digits)
• Bits and Bytes
•
•
•
•
•
Number Binary
0
0
1
1
2
10
3
11
4
100
5
101
Bit - 0 or 1/On or Off/
Byte - Eight Bits 00110011
K (Kilobyte) 1024 bytes
MB (Megabyte) about 1000 K Letter ASCII
A
01000001
GB (Gigabyte) about 1000
B
01000010
MB
Review - From letters to bytes
(8 Bits)
“A”
1 Byte
01000001
Laser
CD-ROM
Floppy Disk
Brief History of Computing
 Prehistory
- Babbage and Lovelace
 The first computer? - ENIAC
 The first home computer? - Altair
 Accessible computing - Apple
 Micros go business - IBM PC
Babbage and Lovelace
 Charles
Babbage (1791-1871)
 Difference Engine 1833
 1835 Analytical Engine
Programmable (Cards)
Mechanical
 Ada
Lovelace
“It weaves algebraic patterns
just as the Jacquard loom
weaves flowers and leaves”
(Ada Lovelace)
Gibson - “The Difference Engine”
ENIAC
 Mauchly
and Eckert - 1943 proposal to
Army
 ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Computer) working in 1945 (after the
war)
 von Neumann - EDVAC
 Transistor invented in 1947
 ICs - Integrated Circuits
 Microprocessor (Intel 4004) 1971
Printer
ENIAC Pictures
Programming with switches
Engineers
The initiating and cycling units of ENIAC
Altair - the Microcomputer
 MITS
- Altair
 Uses the Intel 8080
 Cover of Popular Electronics
Jan. 1975
 MITS
hires Allen (and Gates)
Apple
 Steve
Wozniak (the Woz)
 Steven Jobs
 Homebrew Computer Club
 Apple I - MOS 6502 chip
 1976 Mike Markkula bought in
Apple Founded
 1977
the Apple II
 1984 the Macintosh
IBM PC
 Built
on the Intel 8088
 Operating System from Microsoft (and others)
 Put together with existing components
 Open to cards and software
 Released in 1981
An IBM Clone
Key Innovations
 Calculating
device
 General Purpose Device - Programmability
 Digital Device
 Electrical Device
 Integrated Circuits - Transistors
 Interface from Commands to GUI
 Multiuser/Shared Computer to Personal
Computer
History of the Net
 Sputnik
and The Space Race
 ARPA and the ARPANET
 E-Mail and the subversion of the Net
 Who has access, really?
Birth of the Internet
 Sputnik
- 1957
 Advanced Research
Project Agency - 1958
 RFP for Interface
Message Processors
(IMPs) - 1968
 UCLA and SRI
connected in 1969
IMP
Evolution of the Internet
 Ethernet
- Bob Metcalfe - 1973
 ARPANET splits off MILNET - 1983
113 nodes, 45 go to ARPANET
 TCP/IP -
1978, ARPANET switches in 1983
 ARPANET replaced by NSF backbone 1985
History of E-mail and Web
MAILBOX on MIT time-sharing system, early
1960s
 Ray Tomlinson - MAIL - @ symbol - 1972
 3/4 of ARPANET traffic is e-mail in 1973

 1990
- World Wide Web
Tim Berners-Lee, CERN
 1995
- Netscape. Netscape Corp is traded
on the stock market.
Internet Census
1997
1991
Current State of the Net
Who has access? Who doesn’t?
End