A Brief History of Computers Kevin Harville Instructor -- CSUS Web Development Program Owner -- New Eras Media

3000 BC to 500 BC We calculated by drawing lines in the sand, or in sand trays. In 500 BC the wire and bead Abacus was invented in Egypt. Counting boards such as the Salamis Tablet appeared around 300 BC The Abacus continued to evolve

1600 - 1700 Various calculating machines were built that added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. Key inventors were Wilhelm Schickard, Blaise Pascal, and Gottfried Leibniz. Blaise Pascal invented an adding machine to help his father calculate taxes. He became an esteemed mathemetician.

1822 - 1842 Charles Babbage, designs the Analytical Machine in 1822. It is too complicated to be built, but he has success in 1833.

Babbage and Lady Ada Byron In 1833 his Analytical Machine becomes the first general purpose computer. It follows instructions from punch cards. Some of the technology, such as the use of punch cards, was taken from the loom! Lady Ada Byron becomes the first computer programmer.

1886 - 1924 1886 - William Burroughs develops a commercially successful adding machine. 1889 - Dr. Herman Hollerith patents the Hollerith tablulating machine. He constructs a machine for use in the census.

The Founding of IBM In 1896 Hollerith founds the Tabulating Machine Co. This passes through several mergers and in 1924 becomes International Business Machines

1920's and 30's 1927 - Television is introduced. Radio - Telephone becomes operational between New York and London. 1928 - Vladimir Zworykin invents the Cathode Ray Tube (CRT). 1933 - The first talking machine is invented by Homer W. Dudley.

The Voder

1936 - The Turing Machine Alan M. Turing of Princeton University invents a machine design supposedly capable of any known calculation. This led to principles used in digital computers. Turing built machines to counter the German Enigma code machines.

1938 - 44 1938 -- Hewlett-Packard is formed, planting seeds of the "Silicon Valley" 1940 -- George Stibitz at Bell Labs invents what many consider to be the first digital computer. 1940 -- The computer terminal is invented 1944 -- Turing and colleagues build "Collossus" -- a programmable computer

1944 - 49 1946 -- Binac, the first computer to operate in real time, rather than using punch cards, is invented. 1944 IMB Mark I is created. 1946 -- ENIAC, 8 by 100 feet and 80 tons is built for the University of Pennsylvania. It is phenominally slower than today's computers.

Grace Hopper 1944 -- Grace Hopper starts her naval career as a programmer. Her colleagues laugh when she proposes that programming could be done in a computer language, rather than machine code.

Grace Hopper Her work leads to COBOL. She coins the term "Computer Bug" when a moth short-circuits a computer. The USS Grace Hopper

1948 - 1956 1948 -- William Shockley and associates invent the Transistor at Bell Laboratories. 1953 - 1956 -- RCA develops Bizmac with iron core memory.

1953 IBM invents magnetic tape with 100 characters per inch. The tape moves at 75 inches per second. IBM Ships a stored program computer, the 701. It still uses vacuum tubes. IBM Introduces the Hard Drive --5 MB

1958 Seymour Cray builds the first fully transistorized supercomputer for Control Data Corp. Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments creates the first integrated circuit.

1960's COBOL runs on several computers. 1960 -- Digital Equipmnet introduces the $120,000 minicomputer (with monitor and keyboard) 1961 -- IBM creates the Stretch computer. It is the first to use eight-bit bytes. 1962 -- H. Ross Perot founds Electronic Data Systems (EDS). 1964 -- Tom Kurtz and John Kemeny invent a simple language, BASIC. 1968 -- Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce found Intel. 1969 -- Intel's rival AMD is founded

Other notes about the 60's 1960 -- Ted Nelson starts the Xanadu Project, proposing hypertext. 1960 -- Douglas Englebart invents the mouse. 1968 -- Douglas Englebart demonstrates a system using a keyboard, keypad, mouse, and windows. He uses a word processr, hypertext stystem, and remote connectivity. 1968 -- RAM is invented

Into the 1970's 1971-- The floppy disk is introduced. 1972 -- Cray Research is founded. 1972 -- Pocket Calculator is introduced.

Various "Home" computers 1969 -- Honeywell's "Kitchen Computer" $10,600 1970 -- IBM ships the System 370 1975 -- MITS introduces the Altair personal computer: $397, $439 assembled. 1975 -- The first personal computer stores open.

Microsoft 1974 -- Paul Allen notices the Altair and shows it to Bill Gates. They contact Ed Roberts of MITS and say they have written BASIC for the Altair and wish to license it. Then they write it Fortunately, even though they have not previously touched an Altair, it works. 1975 -- Micro-Soft is formed. Paul Allen has to quit his job to focus on Microsoft. Bill Gates drops out of Harvard.

Apple 1976 -- Steve Wozniak tries to get HP to produce the Apple. They decline. Steve Jobs tries to get Atari to create a home computer. They decline. April Fools Day --- Apple computer is formed. Wozniak and Jobs quit their jobs... Mike Makkula joins and invests in Apple.

Various Personal Computers Commodore PET, Vic20, 64 Atari Apple TRS-80

1984 Apple introduces the Macintosh computer. Many of the ideas were openly taken from PARC, Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. Xerox lost an infringement lawsuit since these inventions had priviously been demonstrated. Microsoft bases windows on the Macintosh. Apple later loses a lawsuit.

1980's 1982 -- Microsoft licenses it's operating system, which they purchased for around $50,000, to IBM BBS and online services appear 1988 -- A nondestructive "worm" brings several thousand computers down.

1990's 1990 -- Windows 3.0 1992 -- Windows 3.1 1992 -- Tim Berners-Lee introduces World Wide Web protocols 1993 -- Mosaic is the first "browser" 1994 -- Internet Backbone opened up to commercial enterprises

The Future Who knows?? Nobody could have predicted where we are.

Conclusion The computer field is a lot more than staring at lines of code. It is a field that has a profound effect on our daily lives.