Student Center | Instructor Center | Information Center | Home

I-Series Computing Concepts

Stephen Haag, University of Denver
Maeve Cummings, Pittsburg State University
Alan I Rea, Jr., Western Michigan University

Modules A-F

LLL/D

THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

How Did We Get Here?

Technology is certainly changing at a feverish pace.

Today, we are in what is considered to be the fourth generation of technology. Tomorrow’s technology generation will be characterized by technologies that we grow (called membrane-based technologies), have intelligence, are minuscule in size, and are wireless and powerless.

As you move forward with technology, it’s often helpful to have a little historical perspective so you can better understand how we got here today and the directions in which we may move tomorrow.

This Life-Long Learning Module will help you do just that.

You should understand that, as we moved through various generations of technology, people today argue about specific dates. For example, when exactly did we leave the first generation of technology and start the second generation? We’ll certainly not debate that here — so our time periods for each generation start and end in groupings of years.

Click on the links below.

Pre-Technology (3000 BC — mid 1940s)
First Generation (mid 1940s — mid 1950s)
Second Generation (mid 1950s — mid 1960s)
Third Generation (mid 1960s — early 1970s)
Fourth Generation (early 1970s — today)
The Generation to Come (today — tomorrow)

Pre-Technology (3000 BC — mid 1940s)

It does help to understand technology from a historical perspective. Of course, we don’t need to go all the way back to the stone age and discuss how people used rocks for counting. But let’s look at some early forms of technology (which are not really technologies at all as we understand them today).

3000 BC — the abacus in Asia and most parts of Europe was widely used as a device for quickly adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers.

1642 - Blaise Pascal invented a numerical wheel calculator. It had eight movable dials, so you could add sums up to eight figures long. Of course, it was completely manual and could only add numbers.

1694 — Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a machine that could also multiply. It is known as Leibniz’s mechanical multiplier.

1820 — Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar refined Leibniz’s mechanical multiplier so that it could perform all the four basic functions of mathematics. It is known as Colmar’s mechanical calculator.

1822 — Charles Babbage invented the Difference Engine. This machine was powered by steam and could store a program, perform calculations, and automatically print the results. In about 1832, with the help of Augusta Ada King, he refined the Difference Engine and created the Analytical Engine. As a side note, Ada became such an important historical figure in the development of technology that the U.S. Defense Department named a programming language after her in 1980.

1889 — Herman Hollerith developed a machine capable of reading information from a punched card. This machine was based on the simple concept of a loom in milling operations. Herman was an entrepreneur and created the Tabulating Machine Company based on his punched card concept. The Tabulating Machine Company later became IBM after a series of mergers in 1924.

1940 — John Atanasoff developed the first truly all-electronic computer. However, John lost funding for his project and it never fully matured. It did, though, usher in the first generation of computing technology.

Back to the top

First Generation (mid 1940s — mid 1950s)

World War II greatly increased the need for technology. All countries participating in WWII sought to create technologies to aid in plane and missile designs, code deciphering, and missile projections.

Technology in this first generation was based on vacuum tubes and magnetic drums for data storage. Their immense size, girth, and weight required that entire buildings be devoted to just holding the "computer."

Some important dates and people of the first generation of technology are listed below.

1941 — Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, built the Z3 computer to design missiles and airplanes.

1943 — the British built Colossus, a computer for decoding German messages.

1944 — Howard Aiken, an American, built the Mark I computer, an all-electronic calculator. It could perform calculations at a rate of 3 to 5 seconds per calculation.

ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) — developed by the U.S. government and the University of Pennsylvania during WWII. It was composed of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 70,000 resistors. When turned on, it required so much electricity that it dimmed the lights in an entire section of Philadelphia.

EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) — developed by John Von Neumann. The EDVAC is significant because its "stored memory" (holding both information and instructions) could be stopped at any point and then resumed.

1951 — Remington Rand built the UNIVAC I, the first commercially available computer. The U.S. Census Bureau was the first to purchase the UNIVAC I.

Back to the top

Second Generation (mid 1950s — mid 1960s)

In 1948, a new development changed technology and ushered in the second generation.

It was the transistor.

Because of the transistor, technology became smaller (relative to first generation technologies), faster, more reliable, and more energy-efficient.

Up through the mid 1960’s, transistor-based computers became more widespread in the business world and their applications increased. Most notably, computers took on the important business functions of processing financial and accounting transactions.

Third-generation programming languages such as COBOL and ForTran surfaced during this period. This new generation of languages made it easier and faster to write software.

Not the most exciting generation of technology.

Back to the top

Third Generation (mid 1960s — early 1970s)

The third generation of computer technologies was marked by the invention of the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit once again was better in all ways than the transistor.

So, we witnessed another period of computer revolution with smaller, better, more reliable, cheaper, and more energy-efficient technologies.

Computers were now in widespread use at all major corporations. These computers were known as mainframe computers. Some could perform as many as 500,000 instructions per second.

However, most organizations had only one mainframe computer, and everyone had to share it. On a daily basis (or perhaps even weekly or monthly), transactions were "batched" as they came in and then processed at 2AM. So, "real-time" processing was not yet a reality.

Back to the top

Fourth Generation (early 1970s — today)

Here we are today (and already moving into the next generation).

The fourth generation of technology is based on VLSI, or very-large scale introduction, and ULSI, or ultra-large scale integration.

In the 1970’s, organizations began to purchase more than one computer. These new smaller, faster, and cheaper computers were known as minicomputers. With this new technology basis, organizations could now split processing capabilities (and software and information) and locate it within various functional units. Personal computers sitting on desktops were still not a reality.

But that changed in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Although other companies first brought microcomputers to the market, IBM is credited with officially ushering in the microcomputer with its introduction of the IBM PC in 1981. The IBM PC was capable of performing an amazing 330,000 instructions per second, all while sitting on a desktop (something no one ever thought would happen).

Ten years later in 1991, the number of microcomputers stood at an unbelievable 65 million.

And from there, you know most of the story. Apple battled IBM. Both eventually lost to IBM-compatibles like Dell and Gateway. Microsoft sprung up and captured the operating system market. It would not be until about 1996 that Microsoft controlled the word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and database personal productivity software markets.

We also began to network computers together, first with local area networks (LANs) and then with metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks (WANs).

Today, we have Web-accessing and light-weight notebooks, PDAs, and cell phones. We can’t imagine life without them.

We also witnessed in the 1990s the birth of the World Wide Web as we know it today (the Internet had been around for many years under government control).

Back to the top

The Generation to Come (today — tomorrow)

In the generation to come (which has already started), we’ll see some of the most unbelievable and dramatic changes. Heretofore, changes in technology have really just focused on speed, size, and other efficiency issues. While those are all important, tomorrow’s technology will have more far-reaching consequences. Key topics here include:

Intelligence
Size
Growing technologies
Wireless
Powerless

We’ll only briefly discuss these here.

To learn more about the future of technology, read Life-Long Learning Module F Computers in Your LifeTomorrow.

To learn more about some really new and exciting technologies that are surfacing even as we speak, read Life-Long Learning Module E New Technologies Impacting Your Life.

Intelligence

The most dramatic and far-reaching change in the technology of tomorrow is that it will have true intelligence. Right now, the key term in "artificial intelligence" is artificial.

In the future generation of technology, you’ll have intelligent technologies that learn right along with you throughout your life.

Can you imagine getting a computer at birth that becomes your life-long companion?

Size

Needless to say, technology will become increasingly smaller, and — at the same time — more powerful and cheaper.

Of course, decreases in size leads to more portability. And you need to rethink your version of portability. Technology will become so small that your wrist watch may have a CPU capable of performing 20 billion instructions per second. And you may wear some of your technology in your clothes (we discussed this possibility in Chapter 9).

Growing Technologies

As it stands right now, technology is based on metals and artificial component parts.

Tomorrow’s technology will be grown in the laboratory and will be similar to human tissue. That’s right. Researchers are working diligently on growing tissue and controlling the information each individual cell contains.

Don’t worry — this is not genetic cloning or anything like that. Think of the immense capacity of the human brain and its relatively small size. If we can develop technologies that are membrane-based, size will not be an issue at all. Read more about membrane-based technologies in Life-Long Learning Module F Computers in Your Life Tomorrow.

Wireless

Wireless technologies are a "no brainer." We’ve all seen it coming. What we haven’t seen is high-speed, reliable wireless technology.

That should come to pass within the next 5 years or so on a widespread basis. Once again, when it does, we’ll have to rethink our version of portability.

Powerless

One of the significant drawbacks to technology that most people simply accept as "a part of life" is that technology needs power, either directly from the wall or from a battery.

Of course, all electrical devices need power. So, we simply accept that they must have a battery or that we must plug them into a wall outlet.

In the coming years, you can expect to see dramatic changes in the way in which we "power" our technology. In the short term, expect to begin seeing batteries that have a longer life. That is, we believe that within the next couple of years battery-powered notebooks will be able to operate for more than 24 hours before needing recharging.

In the longer term, we believe that we’ll be able to harness the electrical energy of the human body. Did you know that the human body produces enough electrical power to support all the electrical devices of a typical home?

Of course, we’ll have to determine how to get that electrical energy from our bodies and into a computer. But you’ll most likely see it come to pass in your lifetime.

Back to the top

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
Any use is subject to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
McGraw-Hill Higher Education is one of the many fine businesses of The McGraw-Hill Companies.