HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF THE COMPUTER
In the history of mankind have built various types of aid instruments so that man could be calculated, up to the modern digital computer. Here we will show some important milestones in this story. The evolution of computers is displayed, as well as devices for input / output and data media.
The first person to build a calculating machine was the Frenchman Blaise Pascal (1642). It was a mechanical machine which only served to add.
In 1666 Samuel Morbard creates a machine to add and subtract. Already in 1674, Baron Wilhelm von Leibniz Gottfired built in Germany a mechanical calculator that not only addition and subtraction, but can also perform multiplication and division. These calculators were mechanical, based on movements of gears, and data is entered by means of rotating spindles.
In 1801, Jacquard invents a cardboard card that makes holes used to "program" a knitting machine.
Later (1822), Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge designs and builds the "machine differences." This was a mechanical device that could add and subtract, and is used to make calculations using the finite difference method using (specifically was used to generate tables navigation). The result is recorded in a copper plate (disc-shaped) in which the results (similar to the Jacquard weaving machine) are drilled.
This calculator worked properly, but could only run a single algorithm. Babbage devoted time and economic efforts in the design of a general-purpose computer, called the "Analytical Engine" (1834). This machine, which was designed generalization machine differences, had four basic components:
A "storage" (memory) with capacity to store 50,000 decimal digits. This is used to store intermediate states, variables and results. A "computer unit" can take orders for the four basic operations, and can store results in memory.
An input unit (with punch cards). The input unit stored the set of commands that you wanted to run.
A unit-out punch cards and printed output.
Drilling different instruction sets in the input cards, it was possible that the machine perform various operations.
As this computer should be scheduled, Babbage Augusta Ada Lovelace hired (daughter of Lord Byron), which thus became the first programmer in history (1842).
The draft Babbage could never be completed due to problems with the hardware, which could not be solved until almost a century later. During this time, there were several developments that allowed the subsequent development of digital computing.
In 1844, Samuel Morse sent a message telegraph from Washington to Baltimore (USA). In 1854, George Boole publishes "An investigation of the laws of thought", describing a system of symbolic logic and reasoning (which would be the basis for the design of digital computers).
In 1858 the first telegraph cable across the Atlantic tend. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell invented and patented the telephone.
In 1889, Herman Hollerith wins, with his company, called the Electric Tabulating System, a tender for the US Census 1890. In 1893 it began selling the first mechanical four-function calculator.
In 1895, the Italian Guglielmo Marconi's first broadcast radio signal. In 1896, Hollerith Tabulating Machine Company established Company.
In 1904, John A. Fleming patented the vacuum valve, which improves radio communications. In 1908, the British Campbell Swinton describes an electronic scanning method that would be used later in the cathode ray tube TVs.
In 1911, the Hollerith Tabulating Machine Company joins two other companies, and form the Calculating, Tabulating and Recording Company (CTR & Co.). In 1919, two physicists from the US, Eccles and Jordan, invented the electronic switching circuit called flip-flop, which would be critical for electronic computing systems. In 1920, in turn, the Czech Karel Cepel first used the word "Robot" (meaning "compulsory labor") in a play.
In 1924, T. J. Watson. renames the CRT & Co. by IBM (International Business Machines). In 1928 quartz oscillators are used to achieve high precision timing mechanisms. During this decade takes effect the development of machines to perform calculations. Hartree built a "differential analyzer", which used as a basic principle, a rotating contact another disk. A constant speed motor, the distance would be elapsed time integral of the variation ratio.
In 1930, MIT (USA), Vannevar Bush differential analyzer builds another. This was an electromechanical device that could be used to integrate differential equations. The accuracy of this machine was not high (5 in 10,000), and took between 10 and 20 minutes an average integrating equation. Despite this, when comparing with human speed to perform the same tasks, an average equation may consist of approximately 750 multiplications, which would have taken a man about 7 hours.
The following significant advances were in the 30s in Germany. In 1934, Konrad Zuse, an engineering student, starts building a calculating machine electromechanical. This is built on relays, with the aim of achieving greater accuracy than existing calculators so far.
In 1935, IBM began selling electric typewriter (601) which also served as a calculator based on punched cards.
In 1936 Konrad Zuse finished building (at age 26) the Z1 computer in the living room of the house of their fathers. Their numerical representation using binary floating point. He was never operational due to the limited precision of mechanical parts, prompting Zuse later work to improve it.
Some time later (1937), in the US, John Atanasoff (Iowa State University) and George Stibbitz (Bell Labs) begin to design (each on its own) electromechanical relays based on digital computers. Computer Atanasoff was very advanced for its time: using binary arithmetic, and had a memory capacitor (requiring refreshments every so often to keep their values, exactly the same way they do today dynamic memory chips). This computer never become operational, like that of Babbage, technology problems.
Stibbitz computer was primitive, but became operational.
Also in 1937, the British mathematician Alan Turing presents the work "On Computable Numbers", introducing the concept of theoretical machine.
In the same year, Howard Aiken, a professor of physics at Harvard, IBM sends aa a proposal to build a machine for automatic calculation. This should be able to do the four arithmetic operations, and operate in a predetermined sequence. Aiken's work was based on Babbage, and the proposal was to build Babbage's design using relays instead of gears.
The first computer was built by Aiken's Harvard Mark I (also called IBM ASSC) was completed only in 1944. This computer had devices to store and operate numbers that were loaded during a calculation or were results of previous operations. Constant was 60 records, each consisting of 24 switches could manually initialized to one decimal place (zero to nine). There were 23 significant digits, and position 24 worth 0 or 9 indicating positive or negative numbers. In addition, there were 72 storage registers where arithmetic operations were made. The input and output consisted of punched paper tapes, which could be mounted on tickers for printed results. The time required to execute an instruction was 6 seconds.
Originally the computer had no branch circuits (conditional or unconditional), which were added later. A unit of multiplication / division, more storage, records and tape drive were also added. Data were completely separate instructions. This computer was active from 1944-15 years later, when it was dismantled.
Programmers used to be mathematicians working with a primer of operations. While it was common for parts of the programs that were needed and again had been written in books of notes, giving rise to program libraries. Years later, these practices were extended to sets of programs or routines (called subroutine libraries), but its origins date back to these times.
Simultaneously, Zuse continued to work in Germany. In 1938 he began work on the Z2 computer, which became operational in 1940. This was a machine purely relay. No functional replaced the mechanical parts of the relay-Z1.
In 1941, he finished the Z3, which was a programmable electromechanical computer. It contained 2600 relays, and some experts consider it as the first programmable computer history.
First Generation: Vacuum Valves (1945-1955).
By the time Howard Aiken had finished the Mark II, relay-based computers were obsolete. The main stimulus for developing electronic computers was in the Second World War. German submarines, destroying the English fleet, communicated by radio with his admirals in Berlin. The British could capture radio signals, but the messages were encrypted using a device called ENIGMA. British intelligence was able to obtain a ENIGMA machine stolen from the Germans, but to break the codes a lot of calculation should be done at high speed was necessary.
To decode these messages, the British government built a lab to build a computer called Colossus. Alan Turing, T. Flowers and built this computer M. Newman (1943), which was the first electronic computer in history. It was built in vacuum tubes and had no electromechanical devices. However, being a military secret, its construction had no further influence.
In the US, simultaneously, there was interest in the navy for tables that could be used to improve accuracy in shooting heavy artillery (particularly for aircraft weapons) since them manually was tedious and often with errors.
In 1943, John Mauchly and one of his students, a young engineer named John P. Eckert obtained a grant from the Navy to build an electronic computer, which they called Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC).
John Mauchly proposed to build a digital electronic computer to replace the differential analyzer, giving two main advantages: speed of electronics, and precision of digital principle. The computer consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 1500 relays. Consumed 140 KW / h and weighed 30 tons.
Its electronic hardware was 10 times faster than the differential analyzer 100 times faster than a human calculista: could do 5000 additions per second. The computer was programmed entirely using a similar boards plugs ancient calculating machines (enciendiendo and off keys and plugging and unplugging cables) technique. This computer was not binary, but decimal: the numbers are represented in decimal form, and arithmetic was done in the decimal system. Was 20 records that could be used as an accumulator, each of which stored 10-digit decimal numbers.
After the ENIAC was operational, and was taking considerable time to prepare a program and incorporate it into the wiring, the machine was modified so that a sequence of instructions could be read as a sequence of two-digit numbers that were put in a function table. To maintain the simple logic, one record was accumulator, and others were used as memory.
As mentioned, while the ENIAC was built in 1944 Mark I became operational. In the same year, virtually all Zuse machines were destroyed by Allied bombing Berlin, therefore, his work had no influence on later machines. The Z4 computer, which became operational in 1945, survived the bombing and helped the development of postwar scientific computers in Germany. It contained about 2200 relays and working with binary floating point numbers normalized mantissa of 22 bits. A multiplication took between 2.5 and 3 seconds. The program is read by two readers punched tape, and still had mechanical memory (to store up to 64 numbers).
In the same year, John Von Neumann introduces the concept of stored program. One thing that bothered him was that his computer programming keys and wires was slow, tedious and inflexible. He suggested that programs be stored digitally on the computer memory along with the data. On the other hand, realized that decimal arithmetic used by the ENIAC (where each digit was represented by 10 vacuum tubes - a lighted and 9 off -) could be replaced using binary arithmetic. This design, known as Von Neumann architecture has been the basis for almost all digital computers.
In 1945, Eckert and Mauchly start working on a successor to ENIAC, called EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). Also in this year, Aiken begins building the Mark II. In the same year, working with a prototype of the Mark II, Grace Murray Hopper finds the first "bug": a moth which caused a faulty relay.
In 1946, the ENIAC was operational, working at the University of Pennsylvania. Although it could not be used for its original purpose of ballistics calculations, the completion of the ENIAC caused an explosion of interest in development of electronic computers. After the war ended, a new era began for scientific computing. Resources devoted to war were released and dedicated to basic science. In particular, the Department of the Navy and the Atomic Energy Commission US decided to continue supporting the development of computers. The main applications were the NWP, fluid mechanics, avionics, the study of resistance vessels to the waves, the study of particles, nuclear, reactor calculations, modeling cars, etc.
In 1947, the Mark II was operational at Harvard. In the same year the magnetic drum, a random access device that can be used as storage for computers is introduced. In the same year William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Labs invented the resistance transfer (transfer resistor), commonly known as Transistor. The concept was based on the fact that the flow of electricity through a solid (such as silicon) can be controlled by adding impurities with appropriate electronic configurations. Vacuum tubes require cables, metal plates, a glass capsule and empty; however, the transistor is a solid state device.
In 1948, Claude Shannon introduced his "Mathematical Theory of Communication". In the same year, goes into operation the Manchester Mark I, the first stored program computer. It was designed by FC Williams and T. Kilburn at the University of Manchester, and was an experimental model to test a vacuum tube-based memory.
In 1949, Jay Forrester builds the Whirlwind computer at MIT. 5000 contain valves, 16 bit words, and was specifically designed to control devices in real time.
In the same year, the EDSAC (Electronic Delayed Storage Automatic Computer) was operational in Cambridge. It was a stored program computer, which was designed by Maurice Wilkes. This was proposed specifically to solve real problems, and could solve variety of calculations. His first program (a table of square roots) ran the May 6, 1949, and continued to operate until 1958. The EDSAC had 512 words of 17 bits.
EDSAC design was very useful for the user. A start button activated a uniselector carrying a program that was wired to the memory, and this program loaded programs that were written on paper tape in memory, and began to run. At this time the calculations were done bit by bit.
In 1949, the laboratory in Los Alamos, begins to build the MANIAC I computer, which was completed in March 1952. This computer had an auxiliary drum 10,000 words of 40 bits in parallel, and input / output had a paper tape 5 channels, and a tape drive single channel. It also had a line printer.
It is said that this year, John Mauchly develops the "Short Order Code" language that would be the first programming language high level.
In 1950 the EDVAC becomes operational, but the Remington Rand Corporation (which would become later in the Unisys Corporation) buys the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation.
In 1951, Jay Forrester presented within the Whirlwind project, a nonvolatile memory: memory cores, which would be widely disseminated.
The first UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) is launching in the US Census Bureau. This computer became number one in the commercial market.
In the same year, Grace Murray Hopper built the first compiler, called A-0. Also in this year, Maurice Wilkes concept originates firmware, a technique that provides an orderly approach to design the control unit of a computer.
In 1952, Von Neumann, along with Herman Goldstine, end of building, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (IAS - Institute of Advanced Studies) IAS computer. This computer was also built with the concept of stored program, and had other important features.
First, the overall design of the machine was as follows:
There are five basic components: memory, Arithmetic / Logic Unit Control Unit Program, and equipment / O.
The Arithmetic-Logic Unit performs basic operations, and contains a 40-bit accumulator register (which is also used used for input / output). The operations are done on binary data.
The memory stores data and instructions, and consisted of 4096 words of 40 bits. Every word instructions contained two 20-bit, or 39-bit integer with sign. The instructions used 8 bits for the type of instruction, and 12 bits to specify memory addresses.
The control unit interprets the instructions in memory, and makes it run. Equipment / out was operated by the Control Unit.
The computer operates as follows:
1. The Control Unit follows the flow of the program and makes it run;
2. The data output is made through the accumulator register;
3. binary arithmetic is used
4. The ALU does the arithmetic / logic operations using bit-parallel logic.
This year it also puts the EDVAC operational and the ILLIAC I (University of Illinois) and ORDVAC (built by the Navy) all use the Von Neumann architecture. The ILLIAC (an improved copy of the ORDVAC) had 1024 words of 40 bits. In these machines a sum we took 72 microseconds, while the fixed-point multiplications had an average of about 700 microseconds.
During all these developments, IBM had become a small company producing punch card and mechanical ordenadoras card. IBM was not interested in producing computers, until in 1952 came the IBM 701. This computer had 2K words of 36 bits, with two instructions per word. It was the first of a series of scientific computers that dominated the industry in the next decade.
In 1955 came the 704, which had 4K of memory and floating point hardware.
In 1953, the IBM 650 goes on sale, and was the first mass-produced computer.
Second Generation Transistors (1955-1965).
The first computer was purely based transistors the TX-0 (Transitorized eXperimental computer 0), at MIT. This was a device used to test the TX-2. One of the engineers working in this laboratory, Kenneth Olsen, left the laboratory to form the company DEC (Digital Equipment Company).
In 1956, IBM introduced the first hard disk. In the same year, the first commercial computer UNIVAC purely based transistors is designed.
In 1957 the EDSAC 2 was operating. It was a computer with 1024 words of 40 bits, with two orders by words. It was made with valves, and memory using ferrite cores. The ALU was bit-sliced. Floating point operations were included to make the simplest calculations, which used a 32-bit fraction and exponent of 8 bits. The computer was microprogrammed, with a ROM 768 words. The ROM allowed various useful subroutines (sine, cosine, logarithms, exponential) were always available. The fixed memory included an assembler and a set of subroutines printing allowed to do input / output.
The firmware allowed the orders could be designed carefully, less dependent on hardware accidents. The computer executing a single instruction in about 20 microseconds, and a multiplication needed 250 microseconds. The paper reading read 1000 characters per second, and the drill drilled 300 characters per second. The output is still printing to a telelimpresora.
In the same year, the ERMETH computer was built at the ETH in Zurich. He had words of 16 decimal digits, each of which contained two statements and a number of fixed point or 14-digit floating point number with 11 digits mantissa. A sum of floating point took 4 milliseconds; multiplication, 18 milliseconds. He had a magnetic drum that could store 1,000 words. The machine had about 1,900 vacuum tubes and 7000 germanium diodes.
Also in 1957, John Backus and his colleagues at IBM produced the first FORTRAN compiler (FORmula TRANslation).
In 1958 the company was founded Digital, as mentioned mainly. DEC initially sold only platelets with small circuits. In the same year, the first integrated circuits based on semiconductors (in Fairchild and Texas Instruments companies) are produced, and also the Whirlwind project extends to produce a system of air traffic control. In 1959 the Committee how Data Systems Languages (CODASYL - Commitee On Data Systems Language) to create COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), and John Mc. Carthy develops Lisp (List Processing) applications of artificial intelligence.
In 1960, DEC introduced its first computer: the PDP-1. This computer is designed based on the TX-0, and had 4K words of 18 bits. It cost $ 120,000, and had a time of about 5 microseconds processor cycle (compared to the IBM 7090 which was a high performance machine in which a processor cycle was 2.5 microseconds and its cost was $ million). It was the first machine with monitor and keyboard, ushering in minicomputers.
In 1961, Fernando Corbató at MIT develops so that multiple users can share processor time. The first industrial robot is also patented. In 1962, Steve Russell M.I.T. creates Spacewar (the first video game). In 1963, SAGE defense system is put in place, through which it could achieve many advances in the computer industry.
In 1964, the first model of the IBM 360 computer appears IBM had built a version with 709 transistors, called 7090, and subsequently 7094. This was one instruction cycle 2 microseconds, and 32K words of 36 bits. These computers dominated scientific computing in the '60s.
IBM also sold oriented computer business called 1401. This could read magnetic tapes, reading and drill cards, and print. I had no records or words of fixed length. Had 4K bytes of 8 bits each. Each byte containing a character of 6 bits, an administrative bit, and one bit to indicate end of word. The move instruction memory to memory move data from source to destination until he found the end lit bit word.
The problem was the incompatibility of both computers: it was impossible to share software, and indeed it was necessary to have two separate data centers with specialized personnel. The IBM System / 360 was a computer designed for multiple purposes. It was a family and computers with the same machine language, but more power. The software written in any of the models executed directly on the other (the only problem was that porting a program from a powerful version to an earlier version, the program could not fit in memory). IBM 360 all they provided support for multiprogramming. There were also other emulators computers to run executable versions of other machines without being modified. Had an address space of 16 megabytes.
This year is put into operation the CDC 6600 computer Control Data Corporation, founded and designed by Seymour Cray. This computer running at a speed of 9 Mflops. (ie, an order of magnitude more than the IBM 7094), and is the first commercial supercomputer. The secret of its speed was a highly parallel computer. He had several functional units doing sums, doing other multiplications and divisions doing another, all running in parallel
(could be up to 10 instructions running at once). In the same year, Douglas Engelbart invented the mouse, and John Kemeny and Thomas Kurz develop language BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code).
In 1965, the DEC produced the PDP-8, which was the first minicomputer with transistors in integrated circuit modules. This was a single bus (ie, a set of parallel wires to connect the components of the computer, instead of the multiplexed lines of traditional Von Neumann computers).
Third Generation: Integrated Circuits (1965-1980)
As mentioned, in the late 50s, engineers at Fairchild Semiconductor and Texas Instrument Co. developed the first planar transistor, and later the first planar integrated circuit. The invention of the integrated circuit revealed the potential to extend the cost and benefits of operation of transistors all circuits mass produced. The invention of the integrated circuit allowed dozens of transistors are put on the same chip. This packaging allowed to build smaller, faster and cheaper than its predecessors transistor computers. Early versions of the IBM 360 were transistorized, but later versions were not only faster and more powerful, but were built based on integrated circuits.
In 1965, Gordon Moore (founder of Fairchild, and patentee of the first integrated circuit) quantified the astonishing growth of new semiconductor technologies. Said manufacturers had doubled the density of components integrated at regular intervals (one year) circuit, and would continue to do so as the eye could see.
In 1967, Fairchild introduced a chip that contained an 8-bit ALU: the 3800. In 1968, Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and Andy Grove establish the Intel company, which was initially dedicated to producing memory chips. In the same year, the CDC 7600 computer achieves speed of 40 Mflops ..
In 1969, the Department of Defense US instructs the Arpanet network to do research on large networks, and the first four nodes (at UCLA, UCSB, SRI and University of Utah) are installed. The RS-232C standard is also introduced to facilitate the exchange between computers and peripherals.
In 1970 floppy disks and printers appear margarita. It also begins to use technology MOS (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) for smaller and cheaper integrated circuits. In 1971, Intel produced the 4004 4-bit microprocessor, the first computer on a single chip. His goal was to be used for a calculator. In 1972, Intel produced the 8008, first 8-bit microprocessor (which is replaced by 8080 due to the 16k memory limit imposed by the pins on the chip).
In 1973, techniques for large-scale integration (LSI - Large Scale Integration) allow put 10,000 components on a chip of 1 cm. square. In the same year, John Metcalfe proposes Ethernet communication protocol for local networks. In 1975, the first personal computer, the Altair 8800, appears in the magazine Popular Electronics, explaining how to build it. Also that year, IBM introduced the first laser printer.
In 1977, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer, and Apple II is announced publicly. In 1978, Intel produced the 8086, 16-bit CPU on one chip. This processor is fully contestable in 8080, and so was the 8088, which had the same architecture and run the same programs, but with an 8-bit bus instead of a 16, making it slower and cheaper. This year DEC VAX 11/780 introduces a 32-bit computer that became popular for technical and scientific applications.In 1979, Motorola introduced the 68000 processor that would later support for Macintosh, Atari, Amiga computers and other popular computers. This processor was not compatible with the 6800 or 6809. It is a hybrid architectures 16 and 32 bits, and can address 16 Mb of memory. From here on 680x0 processors remain very similar from the point of view of the programmer, with few instructions added in each new release. Also in this year's digital video discs appear.
In 1980 the first portable computer occurs: the Osborne 1. David Patterson, UC. Berkeley, introduces the concept of RISC, and along with John Hennessy, Stanford, developed the concept.
In 1981 open architecture computer IBM-PC is launched, and a year later the first "clone" is produced from this computer.
Fourth Generation: Personal computers and VLSI (1980 -).
In the 80s, the Very High Scale Integration (VLSI - Very Large Sacel Integration) was possible by putting hundreds of thousands (and subsequently million) of transistors on a chip.