05-04-2011, 09:45 AM
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History of Computing
• Tim Bergin
• Computing History Museum
• American University
Ancient History
• Abacus
• 3000 BCE, early form of beads on wires, used in China
• From semitic abaq, meaning dust.
• Table Abacus
100,000 ------l---l----------------------------
50,000 -----l----------------------------------
10,000 -----l--- l--- l-----------------------
5,000 -----l----------------------------------
1,000 -----l---l-----------------------------
500 -----------------------------------------
100 -----l---l---l---l-------------------- 50 -----l--- -------------------------------
10 ------------------------------------------
5 ------------------------------------------
1 -----l---l-------------------------------
• Chinese Swan Pan
• The Middle Ages
• 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.
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
Never to be completed
• December 1830, a dispute with his chief engineer, Joseph Clement, over control of the project, ends work on the difference engine
• Clement is allowed to keep all tools and drawings by English law
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”
Science Museum’s Reconstruction
• Difference Engine Number 2 (1847 to 1849) constructed according to Babbage’s original drawings (minor modifications)
• 1991 Bicentenary Celebration
• 4,000 parts
• 7 feet high, 11 feet long, 18 inches deep
• 500,000 pounds
• Science Museum Recreation 1991 (Doron Swade, Curator)
Analytical Engine
• 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.
• Ada Augusta Byron,Countess of Lovelace
• 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 and the Evolution of Electronic Accounting Machines
• Herman Hollerith (1860-1929)
• 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”
Census
• Article I, Section 2: Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several states...according to their respective numbers...(and) every ...term of ten years
• 1790: 1st US census
• Population: 3,929,214
• Census Office
• Population Growth:
• 1790 4 million
• 1840 17 million
• 1870 40 million
• 1880 50 million
fear of not being able to enumerate the census in the 10 intervening years
• 1890 63 million
• Smithsonian Exhibit (old)
Computing Tabulating Recording Company,(C-T-R)
• 1911: Charles Flint
– Computing Scale Company (Dayton, OH)
– Tabulating Machine Company, and
– International Time Recording Company (Binghamton, NY)
• Thomas J. Watson
(1874-1956)
hired as first president
• In1924, Watson renames CTR as International Business Machines
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
• 1st large scale electronic digital computer
• designed and constructed at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania
– since 1920s, faculty had worked with Aberdeen Proving Ground’s Ballistics Research Laboratory (BRL)
Inspiration and Perspiration Unite
• 1943 Mauchly and Eckert prepare a proposal for the US Army to build an Electronic Numerical Integrator
– calculate a trajectory in 1 second
• May 31, 1943 Construction of ENIAC starts
• 1944 early thoughts on stored program computers by members of the ENIAC team
• July 1944 two accumulators working