Computer History

Hewlett-Packard

"HP" - founded 1947 in Palo Alto by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard; leading PC manufacturer now; first handheld scientific electronic calculator 1972; Wozniak offered HP the Apple 1, but HP refused

Altair

1975; 1st personal home computer; sold by mail order for $395 (for the kit); could be purchased already assembled; sold by MITS; ignited the microcomputer revolution

Storage devices (floppy disk, Zip disk, USB, etc.)

1983-IBM created internal storage on hard drive (10 mg); early PC - save everything to floppy disk; CD - 71 min of audio; cloud-virtual saving

ASCI White

Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative; Supercomputer; used for large-scale computations; weighed 106 tons; built by US Dept. of Energy in Poughkeepsie, NY, 2000; decommissioned 2006

Charles Babbage

Born 1791; "father of the computer;" worked with Ada Lovelace

George Boole

Born 1815; Boolean logic - became the basis of the modern digital computer; now used as method for searching the internet

Herman Hollerith

Born 1860; developed mechanical tabulator that used punch cards; founded Tabulating Machine Company - later became IBM; built machines for Census Office to tabulate data

Thomas J. Watson, Sr.

Born 1874; chairman/CEO of IBM; company was based on punched card tabulating machines; built IBM into dominant company

Howard Aiken

Born 1900; original designer of IBM's Mark 1 computer; inspired by Babbage's work; introduced master's program for Computer Science at Harvard

ENIAC

Created for the military; used until about 1957; weighed about 30 tons; created at the Univ of PA; cost=$400,000; created by Mauckley & Eckert

Moore's Law

Described in 1965; over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every 2 years; named after Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore

BASIC

Developed 1964; easy-to-learn computer programming language used on personal computers; "morphed" into Visual Basic, which is still used by many programmers.

Vacuum Tube

Device that controls electric current through a vacuum in a sealed container; critical to developing electronic technology; replaced by transistors

Spacewar!

Earliest known digital computer game; 1961

Alan Shugart

Floppy disk creator; helped data be portable; 1st online reservations system; started at IBM;

Fortran

Formula Translating System; general-purpose programming language suited to numeric and scientific computation

Blu-ray

Greater capacity for storing info; uses blue laser; single layer=25 gb; more layers, more storage (normal DVD=6.7 gb)

Apple Macintosh

Launched - April 1, 1976; Jobs/Wozniak; LISA - Local Integrated Software Arch - used GUI and printer; Jobs returned in 90's; first color digital camera

IBM mainframe and PC

Mainframe - large computer systems built by IBM in 1952; used primarily by corporate and gov't organizations (census, etc.); PC - 1981; microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products

Grace Hopper

Oldest woman in the Navy; rank of Admiral; worked at Sperry Rand - 1st woman to have the title of Senior Programmer; worked with Howard Aiken at IBM on the Mark 1 computer

PDA's and Smartphones

Personal Digital Assistant - 1980's-1990's; did everything but make phone calls; 1st PDA in 1994; Blackberry

UNIVAC

UNIVersal Automatic Computer; intended for the military; very expensive; 1.3 megahertz processor; took up an entire building

Ada Lovelace

Worked with Charles Babbage on the Analytical Engine; translated an article and supplemented with her own notes; notes contained the 1st computer program;

Bill Gates

Worked with Paul Allen to develop BASIC computer language; Microsoft; developed Disk Operating System (DOS)

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium - main international standards organization for WWW; founded by Berners-Lee 1994; enforces compatibility of HTML so Web pages display the same

Transistor

Building block of modern electronic devices; developed in 1947; paved the way for smaller cheaper radios, calculators, computers, etc.

Integrated Circuit

Electronic circuit on 1 small plate of silicon ("chip"); in all electronic equipment; revolutionized the world of electronics; several billion transistors and other electronic components in an area the size of a fingernail

Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook launched-2004; created "Fashmash;" Harvard dropout; created "Coursematch" - choose college courses based on others' choices

Alan Turing

Father of artificial intelligence; broke German code in WWII; influential in developing computer science

John Von Neumann

Chemical Engineer; involved in development of stored info on the computer; developed CPU, input/output devices, memory; helped build atomic bomb

Steve Jobs

Co-founder of Apple (called Apple because he worked at an apple orchard); 1978 - 1st Apple; cost=$666; Apple 2 - in 3 years sales grew by 170%; founded Pixar; 100 most influential people

Steven Wozniak

Co-founder of Apple; modified the floppy disk; built "blue box" to make free international phone calls (illegal); rec'd electrical engineer degree

Larry Page

Computer Engineering degree from U of Mich; developed Google search engine with Sergey Bin; inventor of PageRank - basis of Google's search ranking

Java

Computer language released in 1995 by Sun Microsystems; interactive with many websites; reads multiple computer languages

Microprocessor

Computer on a chip; electronic signals turned into binary code; developed in early 1970's

Colossus

First electronic digital computer that was programmable; developed to break German code, but wasn't finished until after the war;

Tim Berners-Lee

Invented WWW 1989; Physics major at Oxford Univ in England; web users went from 600,000 to 40 million in 5 years

Blaise Pascal

Invented the mechanical calculator; born 1623; contributed to a programming language