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Computers |
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1939
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Hewlett and Packard in the garage workshop courtesy HP Archives
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Hewlett-Packard
is Founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a
Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio
Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for
engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model to use
as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie “Fantasia.” |
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1940
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The Complex Number Calculator (CNC)
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The
Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone
Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George
Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American
Mathematical Society conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz
stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC
(located in New York City) using a Teletype connected via special
telephone lines. This is considered to be the first demonstration of
remote access computing. |
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1941
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The Zuse Z3 Computer
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Konrad
Zuse finishes the Z3 computer. The Z3 was an early computer built by
German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from
developments elsewhere. Using 2,300 relays, the Z3 used floating point
binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. The original Z3 was
destroyed in a bombing raid of Berlin in late 1943. However, Zuse later
supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently
on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. |
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1942
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The Atanasoff-Berry Computer
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The
Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is completed. After successfully
demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in 1939, Atanasoff received
funds to build the full-scale machine. Built at Iowa State College (now
University), the ABC was designed and built by Professor John Vincent
Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. The
ABC was at the center of a patent dispute relating to the invention of
the computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that ENIAC
co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the ABC shortly after it
became functional.
The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was
declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, but the
computer as a concept was declared un-patentable and thus was freely
open to all. This result has been referred to as the "dis-invention of
the computer." A full-scale reconstruction of the ABC was completed in
1997 and proved that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasoff had
claimed. |
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1943
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Whirlwind installation at MIT
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Project
Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the U.S. Navy approached the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight
simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog
computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a
demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital
computer. By the time the Whirlwind was completed in 1951, the Navy had
lost interest in the project, though the U.S. Air Force would eventually
support the project which would influence the design of the SAGE
program.
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1944
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Harvard Mark-I in use, 1944
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Harvard
Mark-1 is completed. Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and
designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized,
relay-based calculator. The machine had a fifty-foot long camshaft that
synchronized the machine’s thousands of component parts. The Mark-1 was
used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored
program computers. |
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1945
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John von Neumann
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John
von Neumann wrote "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in which he
outlined the architecture of a stored-program computer. Electronic
storage of programming information and data eliminated the need for the
more clumsy methods of programming, such as punched paper tape — a
concept that has characterized mainstream computer development since
1945. Hungarian-born von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in
hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics, and the
use of mechanical devices for computation. After the war, he
concentrated on the development of Princeton´s Institute for Advanced
Studies computer and its copies around the world. |
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1946
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ENIAC
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In
February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine
built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times
on the speed of its contemporaries.
| Start of project: | 1943 |
| Completed: | 1946 |
| Programmed: | plug board and switches |
| Speed: | 5,000 operations per second |
| Input/output: | cards, lights, switches, plugs |
| Floor space: | 1,000 square feet |
| Project leaders: | John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. |
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1948
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IBM´s SSEC
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IBM´s
Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in
public display near the company´s Manhattan headquarters. Before its
decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used
for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
| Speed: | 50 multiplications per second |
| Input/output: | cards, punched tape |
| Memory type: | punched tape, vacuum tubes, relays |
| Technology: | 20,000 relays, 12,500 vacuum tubes |
| Floor space: | 25 feet by 40 feet |
| Project leader: | Wallace Eckert |
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1949
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Wilkes with the EDSAC
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Maurice
Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program
computer, at Cambridge University. His ideas grew out of the Moore
School lectures he had attended three years earlier.
For programming the EDSAC, Wilkes established a library of short programs called subroutines stored on punched paper tapes.
| Technology: | vacuum tubes |
| Memory: | 1K words, 17 bits, mercury delay line |
| Speed: | 714 operations per second |
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1950
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ERA 1101 drum memory
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Engineering
Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101, the first
commercially produced computer; the company´s first customer was the
U.S. Navy. It held 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, the earliest
magnetic storage devices. Drums registered information as magnetic
pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. Read/write heads both
recorded and recovered the data. Drums eventually stored as many as
4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as
five-thousandths of a second. |
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1951
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MIT Whirlwind
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MIT´s
Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow´s "See It Now" television series.
Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a "reliable
operating system," running 35 hours a week at 90-percent utility using
an electrostatic tube memory.
| Start of project: | 1945 |
| Completed: | 1951 |
| Add time: | Approx. 16 microseconds |
| Input/output: | cathode ray tube, paper tape, magnetic tape |
| Memory size: | 2048 16-digit words |
| Memory type: | cathode ray tube, magnetic drum, tape (1953 - core memory) |
| Technology: | 4,500 vacuum tubes, 14,800 diodes |
| Floor space: | 3,100 square feet |
| Project leaders: | Jay Forrester and Robert Everett |
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UNIVAC I
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The
UNIVAC I delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau was the first commercial
computer to attract widespread public attention. Although manufactured
by Remington Rand, the machine often was mistakenly referred to as the
"IBM UNIVAC." Remington Rand eventually sold 46 machines at more than
$1 million each.F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed
printer.
| Speed: | 1,905 operations per second |
| Input/output: | magnetic tape, unityper, printer |
| Memory size: | 1,000 12-digit words in delay lines |
| Memory type: | delay lines, magnetic tape |
| Technology: | serial vacuum tubes, delay lines, magnetic tape |
| Floor space: | 943 cubic feet |
| Cost: | F.O.B. factory $750,000 plus $185,000 for a high speed printer |
| Project leaders: | J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly |
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1952
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Los Alamos MANIAC
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John
von Neumann´s IAS computer became operational at the Institute for
Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J. Contract obliged the builders to
share their designs with other research institutes. This resulted in a
number of clones: the MANIAC at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the
ILLIAC at the University of Illinois, the Johnniac at Rand Corp., the
SILLIAC in Australia, and others. |
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1953
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IBM 701
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IBM
shipped its first electronic computer, the 701. During three years of
production, IBM sold 19 machines to research laboratories, aircraft
companies, and the federal government. |
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1954
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IBM 650
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The
IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator established itself as the first
mass-produced computer, with the company selling 450 in one year.
Spinning at 12,500 rpm, the 650´s magnetic data-storage drum allowed
much faster access to stored material than drum memory machines. |
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1956
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MIT TX0
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MIT
researchers built the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable
computer built with transistors. For easy replacement, designers placed
each transistor circuit inside a "bottle," similar to a vacuum tube.
Constructed at MIT´s Lincoln Laboratory, the TX-0 moved to the MIT
Research Laboratory of Electronics, where it hosted some early
imaginative tests of programming, including a Western movie shown on TV,
3-D tic-tac-toe, and a maze in which mouse found martinis and became
increasingly inebriated. |
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1959
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IBM STRETCH
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IBM´s
7000 series mainframes were the company´s first transistorized
computers. At the top of the line of computers — all of which emerged
significantly faster and more dependable than vacuum tube machines — sat
the 7030, also known as the "Stretch." Nine of the computers, which
featured a 64-bit word and other innovations, were sold to national
laboratories and other scientific users. L. R. Johnson first used the
term "architecture" in describing the Stretch. |
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1960
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DEC PDP-1
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The
precursor to the minicomputer, DEC´s PDP-1 sold for $120,000. One of
50 built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic
display, needed no air conditioning and required only one operator.
It´s large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first
computerized video game, SpaceWar!, for it. The SpaceWar! creators then
used the game as a standard demonstration on all 50 computers. |
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1961
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IBM 1401
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According
to Datamation magazine, IBM had an 81.2-percent share of the computer
market in 1961, the year in which it introduced the 1400 Series. The
1401 mainframe, the first in the series, replaced the vacuum tube with
smaller, more reliable transistors and used a magnetic core memory.
Demand
called for more than 12,000 of the 1401 computers, and the machine´s
success made a strong case for using general-purpose computers rather
than specialized systems. |
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1962
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Wes Clark with LINC
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The
LINC (Laboratory Instrumentation Computer) offered the first real time
laboratory data processing. Designed by Wesley Clark at Lincoln
Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corp. later commercialized it as the
LINC-8.
Research faculty came to a workshop at MIT to build their
own machines, most of which they used in biomedical studies. DEC
supplied components. |
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1964
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IBM System/360
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IBM
announced the System/360, a family of six mutually compatible computers
and 40 peripherals that could work together. The initial investment of
$5 billion was quickly returned as orders for the system climbed to
1,000 per month within two years. At the time IBM released the
System/360, the company was making a transition from discrete
transistors to integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue
moved from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems. |
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1965
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DEC PDP-8
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Digital
Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful
minicomputer. The PDP-8 sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a
small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost
enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small
businesses, and scientific laboratories. |
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1966
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ILLIAC IV
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The
Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracted with
the University of Illinois to build a large parallel processing
computer, the ILLIAC IV, which did not operate until 1972 at NASA´s Ames
Research Center. The first large-scale array computer, the ILLIAC IV
achieved a computation speed of 200 million instructions per second,
about 300 million operations per second, and 1 billion bits per second
of I/O transfer via a unique combination of parallel architecture and
the overlapping or "pipe-lining" structure of its 64 processing
elements.
This photograph shows one of the ILLIAC´s 13 Burroughs
disks, the debugging computer, the central unit, and the processing unit
cabinet with a processing element. |
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1968
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Ed deCastro and Nova
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Data
General Corp., started by a group of engineers that had left Digital
Equipment Corp., introduced the Nova, with 32 kilobytes of memory, for
$8,000.
In the photograph, Ed deCastro, president and founder of
Data General, sits with a Nova minicomputer. The simple architecture of
the Nova instruction set inspired Steve Wozniak´s Apple I board eight
years later. |
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1971
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Kenbak-1
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The
Kenbak-1, the first personal computer, advertised for $750 in
Scientific American. Designed by John V. Blankenbaker using standard
medium-scale and small-scale integrated circuits, the Kenbak-1 relied on
switches for input and lights for output from its 256-byte memory. In
1973, after selling only 40 machines, Kenbak Corp. closed its doors. |
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1972
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HP-35
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Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule"
with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer. The HP-35
distinguished itself from its competitors by its ability to perform a
broad variety of logarithmic and trigonometric functions, to store more
intermediate solutions for later use, and to accept and display entries
in a form similar to standard scientific notation. |
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1973
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TV Typewriter
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The
TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first display of
alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120
worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue
of Radio Electronics. The original design included two memory boards
and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32
characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for
about 100 pages of text. |
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1974
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Xerox Alto
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Researchers
at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto — the first
work station with a built-in mouse for input. The Alto stored several
files simultaneously in windows, offered menus and icons, and could link
to a local area network. Although Xerox never sold the Alto
commercially, it gave a number of them to universities. Engineers later
incorporated its features into work stations and personal computers. |
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1975
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MITS Altair
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The
January edition of Popular Electronics featured the Altair 8800
computer kit, based on Intel´s 8080 microprocessor, on its cover.
Within weeks of the computer´s debut, customers inundated the
manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen
licensed BASIC as the software language for the Altair. Ed Roberts
invented the 8800 — which sold for $297, or $395 with a case — and
coined the term "personal computer." The machine came with 256 bytes of
memory (expandable to 64K) and an open 100-line bus structure that
evolved into the S-100 standard. In 1977, MITS sold out to Pertec,
which continued producing Altairs through 1978. |
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1976
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Apple-1, signed by Steve Wozniak
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Steve
Wozniak, a young American electronics expert, designed the Apple-1, a
single-board computer for hobbyists. With an order for 50 assembled
systems from Mountain View, California computer store The Byte Shop in
hand, he and best friend Steve Jobs started a new company, naming it
Apple Computer, Inc. In all, about 200 of the boards were sold before
Apple announced the follow-on Apple II a year later as a ready-to-use
computer for consumers, a model which sold in the millions. |
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1977
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Commodore PET
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The
Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) — the first of several
personal computers released in 1977 — came fully assembled and was
straightforward to operate, with either 4 or 8 kilobytes of memory, two
built-in cassette drives, and a membrane "chiclet" keyboard. |
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TRS-80
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In
the first month after its release, Tandy Radio Shack´s first desktop
computer — the TRS-80 — sold 10,000 units, well more than the company´s
projected sales of 3,000 units for one year. Priced at $599.95, the
machine included a Z80 based microprocessor, a video display, 4
kilobytes of memory, BASIC, cassette storage, and easy-to-understand
manuals that assumed no prior knowledge on the part of the consumer. |
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1978
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VAX 11/780
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The
VAX 11/780 from Digital Equipment Corp. featured the ability to address
up to 4.3 gigabytes of virtual memory, providing hundreds of times the
capacity of most minicomputers. |
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1979
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Advertisment for Atari 400 and 800 computers
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Atari
introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of
the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game
capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built
with the idea that the 400 would serve primarily as a game console while
the 800 would be more of a home computer. Both sold well, though they
had technical and marketing problems, and faced strong competition from
the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers. |
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1981
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IBM
introduced its PC, igniting a fast growth of the personal computer
market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and
used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. |
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1982
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The
Cray XMP, first produced in this year, almost doubled the operating
speed of competing machines with a parallel processing system that ran
at 420 million floating-point operations per second, or megaflops.
Arranging two Crays to work together on different parts of the same
problem achieved the faster speed. Defense and scientific research
institutes also heavily used Crays. |
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1983
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Apple
introduced its Lisa. The first personal computer with a graphical user
interface, its development was central in the move to such systems for
personal computers. The Lisa´s sloth and high price ($10,000) led to
its ultimate failure.
The Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000
microprocessor and came equipped with 1 megabyte of RAM, a 12-inch
black-and-white monitor, dual 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives and a 5
megabyte Profile hard drive. The Xerox Star — which included a system
called Smalltalk that involved a mouse, windows, and pop-up menus —
inspired the Lisa´s designers. |
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1984
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Apple Macintosh
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Apple
Computer launched the Macintosh, the first successful mouse-driven
computer with a graphic user interface, with a single $1.5 million
commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl. Based on the Motorola 68000
microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa´s features at a
much more affordable price: $2,500.
Apple´s commercial played on
the theme of George Orwell´s "1984" and featured the destruction of Big
Brother with the power of personal computing found in a Macintosh.
Applications that came as part of the package included MacPaint, which
made use of the mouse, and MacWrite, which demonstrated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing. |
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1985
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Amiga 1000 with Seiko Music Keyboard
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The
Amiga 1000 is released. Commodore’s Amiga 1000 sold for $1,295 dollars
(without monitor) and had audio and video capabilities beyond those
found in most other personal computers. It developed a very loyal
following and add-on components allowed it to be upgraded easily. The
inside of the case is engraved with the signatures of the Amiga
designers, including Jay Miner as well as the paw print of his dog
Mitchy. |
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1987
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IBM PS/2
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IBM
introduced its PS/2 machines, which made the 3 1/2-inch floppy disk
drive and video graphics array standard for IBM computers. The first
IBMs to include Intel´s 80386 chip, the company had shipped more than 1
million units by the end of the year. IBM released a new operating
system, OS/2, at the same time, allowing the use of a mouse with IBMs
for the first time. |
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1988
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NeXT
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Apple
cofounder Steve Jobs, who left Apple to form his own company, unveiled
the NeXT. The computer he created failed but was recognized as an
important innovation. At a base price of $6,500, the NeXT ran too
slowly to be popular.
The significance of the NeXT rested in its
place as the first personal computer to incorporate a drive for an
optical storage disk, a built-in digital signal processor that allowed
voice recognition, and object-oriented languages to simplify
programming. The NeXT offered Motorola 68030 microprocessors, 8
megabytes of RAM, and a 256-megabyte read/write optical disk storage. |
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Watch the video (2:39). Need help?
A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information, or "data." It has the ability to store, retrieve, and process data. You can use a computer to type documents, send email, and browse the internet. You can also use it to handle spreadsheets, accounting, database management, presentations, games, and more.
Watch the video to learn about different types of computers.
A motherboard (hardware)
Microsoft Word (software)
Anything you buy for your computer can be classified as either hardware or software. Once you learn more about these items, computers are actually very straightforward.
The first electronic computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was developed in 1946. It took up 1,800 square feet and weighed 30 tons.
A desktop computer
A laptop computer
A server room
The iPad, a type of tablet computer
A PC
A Mac
