Lesson 2: History of Computer

Ancient History

Abacus
- 3000 BCE, early form of beads on wires, used in China
- From semitic abaq, meaning dust.

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
- Born: December 26, 1791
- son of Benjamin Babbage a London banker
   (part of the emerging middle class: property, education, wealth, and status)
- Trinity College, Cambridge  [MA, 1817]
   with John Herschel and George Peacock, produced a translation of LaCroix’s calculus text.

Born: December 26, 1791
son of Benjamin Babbage a London banker
   (part of the emerging middle class: property, education, wealth, and status)
Trinity College, Cambridge  [MA, 1817]
   with John Herschel and George Peacock, produced a translation of LaCroix’s calculus text.

A vision of calculating by steam:
My friend Herschel, calling upon me, brought with him the calculations of the computers, and we commenced the tedious process of verification.  After a time many discrepancies occurred, and at one point these discordances were so numerous that I exclaimed, “I wish to God these calculations had been executed by steam.”  1821

Importance of the Difference Engine
1. First attempt to devise a computing machine that was automatic in action and well adapted, by its printing mechanism, to a mathematical task of considerable importance.
2. An example of government subsidization of innovation and technology development
3. Spin offs to the machine-tool “industry”

Ada Augusta Byron, 1815-1852
- born on 10 December 1815.
- named after Byron's half sister, Augusta, who had been his mistress.
- After Byron had left for the Continent with a parting shot -- 'When shall we three meet again?' -- Ada was brought up by her mother.
- Translated Menebrea’s paper into English
- Taylor’s: “The editorial notes are by the translator, the Countess of Lovelace.”
- Footnotes enhance the text and provide examples of how the Analytical Engine could be used, i.e., how it would be programmed to solve problems!
- Myth: “world’s first programmer”

Herman Hollerith
- Born: February 29, 1860
- Civil War: 1861-1865
- Columbia School of Mines (New York)
- 1879 hired at Census Office
- 1882 MIT faculty (T is for technology!)
- 1883 St. Louis (inventor)
- 1884 Patent Office (Wash, DC)
- 1885 “Expert and Solicitor of Patents”

Manchester Mark I (1948)
- Freddy Williams and Tom Kilburn
- Developed an electrostatic memory
- Prototype operational June 21, 1948 and machine to execute a stored program
- Memory: 32 words of 32 bits each
- Storage: single Williams tube (CRT)
- Fully operational: October 1949
- Ferranti Mark I delivered in February 1951

EDSAC
- Maurice Wilkes, University Mathematical Laboratory, Cambridge University
- Moore School Lectures
- Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, EDSAC operational May, 1949
- J. Lyons Company and the LEO, Lyons Electronic Office, operational fall 1951

Alan Turing (1912-1954)
- On Computable Numbers with an application to the Entscheidungs-problem
- Code breaker

Remington Rand UNIVAC
- 43 UNIVACs were delivered to government and industry
- Memory: mercury delay lines: 1000 words of 12 alphanumeric characters
- Secondary storage: metal oxide tape
- Access time: 222 microseconds (average)
- Instruction set: 45 operation codes
- Accumulators: 4
- Clock: 2.25 Mhz