Americas And Its Computer Industry 18482

History of the Computer Industry in America America and the Computer Industry Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such adevice that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special one, indeed. A machine that hasdone all this and more now exists in nearly every business in the U.

S. and one out of every twohouseholds (Hall, 156). This incredible invention is the computer. The electronic computer hasbeen around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been around for 2000 years.

However,only in the last 40 years has it changed the American society. From the first wooden abacus to thelatest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly every aspect of people+s livesfor the better. The very earliest existence of the modern day computer+s ancestor is the abacus. These date backto almost 2000 years ago. It is simply a wooden rack holding parallel wires on which beads arestrung. When these beads are moved along the wire according to "programming" rules that theuser must memorize, all ordinary arithmetic operations can be performed (Soma, 14).

The nextinnovation in computers took place in 1694 when Blaise Pascal invented the first +digitalcalculating machine+. It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by turning dials. Itwas designed to help Pascal+s father who was a tax collector (Soma, 32). In the early 1800+s, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage designed an automaticcalculation machine. It was steam powered and could store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built into his machine were operations that included everything a modern general-purpose computerwould need.

It was programmed by--and stored data on--cards with holes punched in them,appropriately called +punchcards+. His inventions were failures for the most part because of thelack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of demand for such a device(Soma, 46). After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers. However, between 1850and 1900 there were great advances in mathematics and physics that began to rekindle the interest(Osborne, 45). Many of these new advances involved complex calculations and formulas thatwere very time consuming for human calculation. The first major use for a computer in the U.

S.was during the 1890 census. Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers, developed a newpunched-card system that could automatically read information on cards without humanintervention (Gulliver, 82). Since the population of the U.S.

was increasing so fast, the computerwas an essential tool in tabulating the totals. These advantages were noted by commercial industries and soon led to the development ofimproved punch-card business-machine systems by International Business Machines (IBM),Remington-Rand, Burroughs, and other corporations. By modern standards the punched-cardmachines were slow, typically processing from 50 to 250 cards per minute, with each card holdingup to 80 digits. At the time, however, punched cards were an enormous step forward; theyprovided a means of input, output, and memory storage on a massive scale. For more than 50years following their first use, punched-card machines did the bulk of the world's businesscomputing and a good portion of the computing work in science (Chposky, 73).

By the late 1930s punched-card machine techniques had become so well established and reliablethat Howard Hathaway Aiken, in collaboration with engineers at IBM, undertook construction ofa large automatic digital computer based on standard IBM electromechanical parts. Aiken'smachine, called the Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all fourarithmetic operations. Also, it had special built-in programs to handle logarithms andtrigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from prepunched paper tape.

Output was bycard punch and electric typewriter. It was slow, requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a multiplication, butit was fully automatic and could complete long computations without human intervention(Chposky, 103). The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate need for computingcapability, especially for the military. New weapons systems were produced which neededtrajectory tables and other essential data.

In 1942, John P. Eckert, John W. Mauchley, and theirassociates at the University of Pennsylvania decided to build a high-speed electronic computer todo the job. This machine became known as ENIAC, for "Electrical Numerical Integrator AndCalculator". It could multiply two numbers at the rate of 300 products per second, by finding thevalue of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory. ENIAC was thus about1,000 times faster than the previous generation of computers (Dolotta, 47).

ENIAC used 18,000standard vacuum tubes, occupied 1800 square feet of floor space, and used about 180,000 wattsof electricity. It used punched-card input and output. The ENIAC was very difficult to programbecause one had to essentially re-wire it to perform whatever task he wanted the computer to do.It was, however, efficient in handling the particular programs for which it had been designed.ENIAC is generally accepted as the first successful high-speed electronic digital computer andwas used in many applications from 1946 to 1955 (Dolotta, 50). Mathematician John vonNeumann was very interested in the ENIAC.

In 1945 he undertook a theoretical study ofcomputation that demonstrated that a computer could have a very simple and yet be able toexecute any kind of computation effectively by means of proper programmed control without theneed for any changes in hardware. Von Neumann came up with incredible ideas for methods ofbuilding and organizing practical, fast computers. These ideas, which came to be referred to as thestored-program technique, became fundamental for future generations of high-speed digitalcomputers and were universally adopted (Hall, 73). The first wave of modern programmedelectronic computers to take advantage of these improvements appeared in 1947. This groupincluded computers using random access memory (RAM), which is a memory designed to givealmost constant access to any particular piece of information (Hall, 75). These machines hadpunched-card or punched-tape input and output devices and RAMs of 1000-word capacity.

Physically, they were much more compact than ENIAC: some were about the size of a grandpiano and required 2500 small electron tubes. This was quite an improvement over the earliermachines. The first-generation stored-program computers required considerable maintenance,usually attained 70% to 80% reliable operation, and were used for 8 to 12 years. Typically, theywere programmed directly in machine language, although by the mid-1950s progress had beenmade in several aspects of advanced programming. This group of machines included EDVAC andUNIVAC, the first commercially available computers (Hazewindus, 102). The UNIVAC wasdeveloped by John W.

Mauchley and John Eckert, Jr. in the 1950+s. Together they had formedthe Mauchley-Eckert Computer Corporation, America+s first computer company in the 1940+s.During the development of the UNIVAC, they began to run short on funds and sold theircompany to the larger Remington-Rand Corporation. Eventually they built a working UNIVACcomputer.

It was delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951 where it was used to help tabulatethe U.S. population (Hazewindus, 124). Early in the 1950s two important engineering discoverieschanged the electronic computer field.

The first computers were made with vacuum tubes, but bythe late 1950+s computers were being made out of transistors, which were smaller, lessexpensive, more reliable, and more efficient (Shallis, 40). In 1959, Robert Noyce, a physicist atthe Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, invented the integrated circuit, a tiny chip of silicon thatcontained an entire electronic circuit. Gone was the bulky, unreliable, but fast machine; nowcomputers began to become more compact, more reliable and have more capacity (Shallis, 49).These new technical discoveries rapidly found their way into new models of digital computers.Memory storage capacities increased 800% in commercially available machines by the early 1960sand speeds increased by an equally large margin.

These machines were very expensive to purchaseor to rent and were especially expensive to operate because of the cost of hiring programmers toperform the complex operations the computers ran. Such computers were typically found in large computer centers--operated by industry, government, and private laboratories--staffed with manyprogrammers and support personnel (Rogers, 77). By 1956, 76 of IBM+s large computermainframes were in use, compared with only 46 UNIVAC+s (Chposky, 125). In the 1960s effortsto design and develop the fastest possible computers with the greatest capacity reached a turningpoint with the completion of the LARC machine for Livermore Radiation Laboratories by theSperry-Rand Corporation, and the Stretch computer by IBM. The LARC had a core memory of98,000 words and multiplied in 10 microseconds. Stretch was provided with several ranks ofmemory having slower access for the ranks of greater capacity, the fastest access time being lessthan 1 microseconds and the total capacity in the vicinity of 100 million words (Chposky, 147).

During this time the major computer manufacturers began to offer a range of computercapabilities, as well as various computer-related equipment. These included input means such asconsoles and card feeders; output means such as page printers, cathode-ray-tube displays, andgraphing devices; and optional magnetic-tape and magnetic-disk file storage. These found wideuse in business for such applications as accounting, payroll, inventory control, ordering supplies,and billing. Central processing units (CPUs) for such purposes did not need to be very fastarithmetically and were primarily used to access large amounts of records on file. The greatestnumber of computer systems were delivered for the larger applications, such as in hospitals forkeeping track of patient records, medications, and treatments given. They were also used inautomated library systems and in database systems such as the Chemical Abstracts system, wherecomputer records now on file cover nearly all known chemical compounds (Rogers, 98).

Thetrend during the 1970s was, to some extent, away from extremely powerful, centralizedcomputational centers and toward a broader range of applications for less-costly computersystems. Most continuous-process manufacturing, such as petroleum refining and electrical-powerdistribution systems, began using computers of relatively modest capability for controlling andregulating their activities. In the 1960s the programming of applications problems was an obstacleto the self-sufficiency of moderate-sized on-site computer installations, but great advances inapplications programming languages removed these obstacles. Applications languages becameavailable for controlling a great range of manufacturing processes, for computer operation ofmachine tools, and for many other tasks (Osborne, 146). In 1971 Marcian E. Hoff, Jr.

, anengineer at the Intel Corporation, invented the microprocessor and another stage in thedeveopment of the computer began (Shallis, 121). A new revolution in computer hardware wasnow well under way, involving miniaturization of computer-logic circuitry and of componentmanufacture by what are called large-scale integration techniques. In the 1950s it was realizedthat "scaling down" the size of electronic digital computer circuits and parts would increase speedand efficiency and improve performance. However, at that time the manufacturing methods werenot good enough to accomplish such a task. About 1960 photoprinting of conductive circuitboards to eliminate wiring became highly developed. Then it became possible to build resistorsand capacitors into the circuitry by photographic means (Rogers, 142).

In the 1970s entireassemblies, such as adders, shifting registers, and counters, became available on tiny chips ofsilicon. In the 1980s very large scale integration (VLSI), in which hundreds of thousands oftransistors are placed on a single chip, became increasingly common. Many companies, some newto the computer field, introduced in the 1970s programmable minicomputers supplied withsoftware packages. The size-reduction trend continued with the introduction of personalcomputers, which are programmable machines small enough and inexpensive enough to bepurchased and used by individuals (Rogers, 153). One of the first of such machines wasintroduced in January 1975. Popular Electronics magazine provided plans that would allow anyelectronics wizard to build his own small, programmable computer for about $380 (Rose, 32).

The computer was called the +Altair 8800+. Its programming involved pushing buttons andflipping switches on the front of the box. It didn+t include a monitor or keyboard, and itsapplications were very limited (Jacobs, 53). Even though, many orders came in for it and severalfamous owners of computer and software manufacturing companies got their start in computingthrough the Altair.

For example, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer,built a much cheaper, yet more productive version of the Altair and turned their hobby into abusiness (Fluegelman, 16). After the introduction of the Altair 8800, the personal computerindustry became a fierce battleground of competition. IBM had been the computer industrystandard for well over a half-century. They held their position as the standard when theyintroduced their first personal computer, the IBM Model 60 in 1975 (Chposky, 156).

However,the newly formed Apple Computer company was releasing its own personal computer, the AppleII (The Apple I was the first computer designed by Jobs and Wozniak in Wozniak+s garage,which was not produced on a wide scale). Software was needed to run the computers as well.Microsoft developed a Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) for the IBM computer while Appledeveloped its own software system (Rose, 37). Because Microsoft had now set the softwarestandard for IBMs, every software manufacturer had to make their software compatible withMicrosoft+s.

This would lead to huge profits for Microsoft (Cringley, 163). The main goal of thecomputer manufacturers was to make the computer as affordable as possible while increasingspeed, reliability, and capacity. Nearly every computer manufacturer accomplished this andcomputers popped up everywhere. Computers were in businesses keeping track of inventories.

Computers were in colleges aiding students in research. Computers were in laboratories makingcomplex calculations at high speeds for scientists and physicists. The computer had made its markeverywhere in society and built up a huge industry (Cringley, 174). The future is promising for thecomputer industry and its technology.

The speed of processors is expected to double every yearand a half in the coming years. As manufacturing techniques are further perfected the prices ofcomputer systems are expected to steadily fall. However, since the microprocessor technologywill be increasing, it+s higher costs will offset the drop in price of older processors. In otherwords, the price of a new computer will stay about the same from year to year, but technologywill steadily increase (Zachary, 42) Since the end of World War II, the computer industry hasgrown from a standing start into one of the biggest and most profitable industries in the UnitedStates.

It now comprises thousands of companies, making everything from multi-million dollarhigh-speed supercomputers to printout paper and floppy disks. It employs millions of people andgenerates tens of billions of dollars in sales each year (Malone, 192). Surely, the computer hasimpacted every aspect of people+s lives. It has affected the way people work and play.

It hasmade everyone+s life easier by doing difficult work for people. The computer truly is one of themost incredible inventions in history. Works Cited Chposky, James. Blue Magic. New York:Facts on File Publishing.

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Microelectronics Industry. New York: Pergamon Press,1988. Jacobs, Christopher W. +The Altair 8800+, Popular Electronics.

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