The Development of Personal Computers

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The Development of Personal Computers

• Computers in Business

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The Development of Personal Computing

• Imagine a modern personal computer. It has a
  direct-manipulation, WYSIWYG user interface, and
  programs for drawing, painting, writing, and
  other tasks. It is connected to a LAN with email,
  database, print, and other services. The LAN may
  be connected to other LANs, forming an internet,
  and it may be connected to a wide-area network
  like the Internet.
• That also describes the Xerox Palo Alto Research
  Center (PARC) nearly 20 years ago
• Larry Press, Before the Altair -- The History of
  Personal Computing Communications of the ACM,
  September, 1993, vol 36, no 9, pp 27-33.

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Early computational machines

• Abacus emerged 5, 000 years ago in Asia Minor
  (still in use today)
• Pascaline, invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642,
  used eight movable dials to add up sums eight
  figures long.
• 1694 Gottfried Wilhem von Leibniz improved the
  Pascaline so it could do multiplication.
• Arithometer invented in 1820 could perform four
  basic arithmetic calculations, add, divide,
  multiply and subtract.
• 1822 Charles Babbage devised the Difference
  Engine to perform differential calculations, in
  1830 Babbage started work on the Analytical
  Engine which would have been the first
  general-purpose computer. The analytical engine
  was never built.
• 1889 Herman Hollerith devised a punch card
  tabulating machine to help compile the US Census
  results, reduced time from 10 years to 6 weeks.
  Foundered the Tabulating Machine Company in 1896,
  later to become International Business Machines
  (IBM) in 1924.

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First generation computers 1940 - 1956

• 1941 German engineer devised the Z3 computer to
  design airplanes and missiles.
• 1943 British designed the Collossus to decode
  German messages.
• 1944 the Harvard-IBM Automatic Sequence
  Controlled Calculator (Mark 1) all electric
  calculator developed to create ballistic charts
  for the US Navy.
• 1944 Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
  (ENIAC) produced by a partnership between US
  government and the University of Pennsylvania.
• Consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000
  resistors, and 5 million soldered joints.
  Consumed 160 kilowatts of electricity. Operated
  at 1,000 times the speed of the Mark 1.
• 1945 John von Newman developed the EDVAC
  (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic
  Computer), first to have a stored memory. Also
  introduced the idea of a single central
  processing unit (CPU), through which all computer
  functions are coordinated through a single
  source.
• 1951 Remington Rand manufactured the UNIVAC
  (Universal Automatic Computer) the first
  commercial computer, to have a CPU and stored
  memory.

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First Generation Computers Characteristics

• Operating instructions were made-to-order for the
  specific task for which the computer was to be
  used.
• Each computer had a different binary-coded
  program called a machine language that told it
  how to operate.
• This made the computer difficult to program and
  limited its versatility and speed.
• Use of vacuum tubes led to massive size.
• Used magnetic drums for data storage
• Punch cards to input instructions.

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The transistor

• Developed in December 1947 at Bell laboratories
  by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
  Shockly.
• Led directly to the miniaturisation of
  electronics by replacing vacuum tubes.
• Became available for commercial use in 1956
  following a lengthy legal battle.
• Because it drastically reduced the size and heat
  considerations of the vacuum tube, the transistor
  enabled the computer to become a viable tool for
  business and government.
• The transistor was first at work in a computer in
  1956.

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Second Generation Computers 1956 - 1963

• Advances such as the transistor, and developments
  in magnetic-core memory meant that second
  generation computers were smaller, faster, more
  reliable and more energy-efficient than their
  predecessors.
• Stretch (IBM) and Larc (Sperry-Rand) first
  computers to use transistors, two supercomputers
  developed for use by the atomic energy
  laboratories.
• Computers two costly for commercial use, only two
  Larcs were ever installed.
• Second generation computers replaced machine
  language with assembly language, allowing
  abbreviated programming codes to replace long
  binary codes
• Second generation computers were solid state (all
  transistor) and consisted of many components
  found in todays computers
• printers, tape storage, disk storage, memory,
  operating systems, and stored programs.
• 1998 the fiftieth anniversary of the stored
  program (University of Manchester 1948)

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Second Generation Computers 1956 - 1963

• A number of commercially successful second
  generation computers introduced in business,
  universities and government from manufacturers
  such as Burroughs, Control Data, Honeywell, IBM,
  Sperry-Rand.
• 1952 the IBM 701 introduced as a business
  computer. It consisted of several units that
  could be shipped to customers, rather than the
  massive units that had to be assembled on-site.
• 1959 the IBM 7090 was the first mass produced
  solid state computer
• the stored program meant that instructions to run
  a computer for a specific function (program) were
  held inside a computers memory, rather than on
  punch cards or tape, and could quickly be
  replaced by a set of different instructions for a
  different function.
• Higher level programming languages such as COBOL
  (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FORTRAN
  (Formula Translator) replaces binary machine code
  to make programming easier.

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Main events 1947 - 1970

• 1947 Three scientists at Bell Telephone
  Laboratories, William Shockley, Walter Brattain,
  and John Bardeen demonstrate their new invention
  of the point-contact transistor amplifier.
• 1948 John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William
  Schockley of Bell Labs file for a patent on the
  first transistor.
• 1952 G. W. Dummer, a radar expert from Britain's
  Royal Radar Establishment presents a paper
  proposing that a solid block of materials be used
  to connect electronic components, with no
  connecting wires.
• 1954 Texas Instruments announces the start of
  commercial production on silicon transistors.
• 1955 William Shockley founds Shockley
  Semiconductor in Palo Alto, California.
• 1956 The first transistorized computer is
  completed, the TX-O (Transistorized Experimental
  computer), at the Massachusetts Institute of
  Technology.
• 1958 At Texas Instruments, Jack St. Clair Kilby
  comes up with the idea of creating a monolithic
  device (integrated circuit) on a single piece of
  silicon.
• At Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby completes
  building the first integrated circuit, containing
  five components on a piece of germanium half an
  inch long and thinner than a toothpick.
• 1960 IBM develops the first automatic
  mass-production facility for transistors, in New
  York.
• 1961 Fairchild Semiconductor releases the first
  commercial integrated circuit.
• 1962 Teletype ships its Model 33 keyboard and
  punched-tape terminal, used for input and output
  on many early microcomputers.
• Ivan Sutherland creates a graphics system called
  Sketchpad.

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• 1963 Douglas Engelbart receives a patent on the
  mouse pointing device for computers. 651.79
• Digital Equipment sells its first minicomputer,
  to Atomic Energy of Canada. 615.69
• 1964 John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz develop the
  BASIC programming language at Dartmouth College.
• Texas Instruments receives a patent on the
  integrated circuit.
• 1966 Steven Gray founds the Amateur Computer
  Society, and begins publishing the ACS
  Newsletter. Some consider this to be the birthday
  of personal computing. 208.64
• IBM introduces the first disk storage system, the
  IBM RAMAC 305. It holds 5 MB of data on 50 2-foot
  wide platters.
• 1967 IBM builds the first floppy disk. 444.80
• 1968 Douglas C. Engelbart, of the Stanford
  Research Institute, demonstrates his system of
  keyboard, keypad, mouse, and windows at the Joint
  Computer Conference in San Francisco's Civic
  Centre. He demonstrates use of a word processor,
  a hypertext system, and remote collaborative work
  with colleagues.
• 1969 Intel's Marcian (Ted) Hoff designs an
  integrated circuit chip that could receive
  instructions, and perform simple functions on
  data. The design becomes the 4004 microprocessor.
• Intel announces a 1 KB RAM chip, which has a
  significantly larger capacity than any previously
  produced memory chip.
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen, calling themselves the
  "Lakeside Programming Group" sign an agreement
  with Computer Center Corporation to report bugs
  in PDP-10 software, in exchange for computer
  time.
• Unix is developed at ATT's Bell Laboratories.
• Xerox opens the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC).
  
• Gilbert Hyatt files a patent application entitled
  "Single Chip Integrated Circuit Computer
  Architecture", the first basic patent on the
  microprocessor., (spring) Work begins at Intel on
  the layout of the circuit for what would be the
  4004 microprocessor. Intel creates the first 4004
  microprocessor.

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Douglas Engelbarts Work Station circa 1965
Engelbarts mouse 1964
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The Microcomputer(1975- present)

• 1975 the first personal computer the MITS Altair
  8800 sold as a kit, for users to build.
• The Altair had no input or output (I/O) devices,
  no monitor, no keyboard, no printer and no memory
  - demand soon exceeded supply.
• Bill gates and Paul Allen write a version of
  BASIC for the Altair.
• 1975 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak start Apple
  Computers.
• 1976 Apple I sold as a kit
• 1977 Apple II introduced as a pre-assembled
  computer with a colour monitor, keyboard, sound
  and graphics.

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PC Development

• 1977 the Radio Shack TRS-80 introduced, also the
  Commodore PET
• Apple II had 16K RAM and 16K ROM, TRS had 4K RAM
  and 4K ROM, PET had 4K RAM and 14K ROM.
• 1979 VisiCal, the first spreadsheet program
  introduced for the Apple II
• non-computer enthusiasts began to see the
  usefulness of PCs
• 1980 ZX-80 introduced by Sinclair Technologies
• personal computing became affordable.
• 1981 IBM introduced the IBM PC
• used INTEL 8088 microprocessor, and had 16K RAM
  expandable to 256 K, a 5.25 inch disk drive and a
  choice of operating systems the CP/M-86 or IBM
  PC-DOS developed by Microsoft.
• IBM had secretly provided software developers
  with prototype PCs so software could be available
  for the launch.
• 1981 Hayes Micromodem introduced.

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PC Development

• 1982 the first IBM-compatible PC introduced by
  COMPAC
• 1983 Apple introduced the LISA, the first PC to
  have a Graphical User Interface (GUI), the LISA
  was too expensive (over 15,000).
• 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh, with a GUI
  and a mouse - the first user friendly PC. In
  1985 Apple LaserWriter based on Adobe Systems
  PostScript page description language introduced.
  The start of What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get
  (WYSIWYG) desk-top publishing born.
• Microsoft developed the Windows operating system
  for IBM-compatible PCs to compete with the Apple
  Mac.
• The decision to allow companies access to their
  computer architecture meant that IBM-compatible
  PCs exceeded Apple Mac sales to become the
  standard in personal computing.

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Main factors that contribute to the universal
acceptance of PCs

• The development of software that is useful to
  business and home users - Wordstar, VisiCalc,
  Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Office etc.
• Low cost peripherals , storage, printers,
  input/output devices
• Mass productionlow unit cost
• Developments in microprocessors, more power, low
  cost.
• Low cost storage media.
• PC as a communication device - LANS/WANS, the
  INTERNET
• Multimedia capability - video, sound, graphics.