Evolution
Of Computing
The Pre-historic Age of Computing: 1800s to 1950s
Pre-historic age for Man dates back to billions of years ago, but for computing with its quicksilver evolution, the 1950s and before were pretty much pre-historic.
A replica of the Difference Engine (photo credit: IBM archives)
1834-5
In the 1800s mechanical calculators are the inventions of the day. In the mid-1830s, inventor Charles Babbage conceives the idea of the Analytical Engine, the closest resemblance to the idea of a modern digital computer during his time. He attempts to build it but has to ditch it as a result of insufficient funds, probably because no one can appreciate what he's trying to do.
1868
The first QWERTY keyboard is designed by Charles Sholes, the inventor of the typewriter.
1883
Thomas Edison discovers that electricity can flow through a vacuum.
Hollerith's Tabulator and Sorter Box (photo credit: IBM archives)
1889
Herman Hollerith constructs the first electromechanical adding and sorting machine which will be used in the US Census in 1890.
1895
Guglielmo Marconi transmits the radio signal with a transmitter he builds.
1897
Sir Joseph John Tompson discovers the electron.
1904
John Fleming patents the diode vacuum tube, the first such in the world.
1906
Lee de Forest adds a third electrode to control current flow to create the triode vacuum tube.
1919
W.H. Eccles and F.W. Jordan discover that two triode valves can be connected to form a circuit possessing two stable states, a construction capable of storing binary information.
1937
John V. Atanasoff designed the first digital electronic computer.
1939
The first vacuum tube computer is created by John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It is called the ABC or Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
1941
Konrad Zuse in Germany secretly completes the Z3, the first programmable electromechanical digital computer.
The Harvard Mark I (photo credit: IBM archives)
1944
IBM builds the Harvard Mark 1 Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, the first general purpose automatic digital computer
1946
The ENIAC, created to help the US Army calculate artillery firing tables, is set in operation at the University of Pennsylvania. It contains 17,468 vacuum tubes, 5 million hand-soldered joints, occupies 1800sq ft of space and weighs 30 tons. It consumes 180kwh, the energy of a small village in an hour. Data is entered by punch cards. Programming for typical calculations can take from half an hour to a day. A human calculator would need 100 years to do what the ENIAC does in just 2 hours. It's a marvel in its own time.
1947
The transistor is discovered by William B. Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The transistor will eventually replace the vacuum tubes as the building blocks of electronic circuitry in computers.
1948
IBM launches the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) as the first calculator to execute commands sequentially and able to change the program depending on the results it produces during its processing. The SSEC is 250 times faster then the MARK I, but the machine still contains 12.500 tubes and 21.400 relays and is 36m long, generating a lot of heat and noise.
The IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machines (photo credit: IBM archives)
1952
IBM announces its first fully electronic data-processing system, the IBM 701. The four years between the SSEC and the 701 produces great advances in information technology. The 701 is only one-quarter the size of the SSEC and 25 times faster.
1955
The end of the old era of vacumm tubes and electromechanical computers, and the start of the new world of transistors. IBM launches the IBM 702, the first commercial machines on transistors. In the same year, the ENIAC is finally retired, having done more arithmetic than the entire human race has done prior to its birth in 1945.
1956
The first operating system is created and installed in the IBM 704.
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