A History of Information Technology and Systems: Part Two

• Four basic periods
  Characterized by a principal technology used to solve the input, processing, output and communication problems of the time:
  1. Premechanical,
  2. Mechanical,
  3. Electromechanical, and
  4. Electronic

D. The Electronic Age: 1940 - Present.

1. First Tries.
   • Early 1940s
   • Electronic vacuum tubes.
2. Eckert and Mauchly.
   1. The First High-Speed, General-Purpose Computer Using Vacuum Tubes:
      Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
      The ENIAC team (Feb 14, 1946). Left to right: J. Presper Eckert, Jr.; John Grist Brainerd; Sam Feltman; Herman H. Goldstine; John W. Mauchly; Harold Pender; Major General G. L. Barnes; Colonel Paul N. Gillon.
      
      
      Rear view (note vacuum tubes).
      
      • Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
        • 1946.
        • Used vacuum tubes (not mechanical devices) to do its calculations.
          • Hence, first electronic computer.
        • Developers John Mauchly, a physicist, and J. Prosper Eckert, an electrical engineer
          • The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania
        • Funded by the U.S. Army.
        • But it could not store its programs (its set of instructions)
   2. The First Stored-Program Computer(s)
      
      The Manchester University Mark I (prototype).
      
      • Early 1940s, Mauchly and Eckert began to design the EDVAC - the Electronic Discreet Variable Computer.
      • John von Neumann's influential report in June 1945:
        • "The Report on the EDVAC"
      • British scientists used this report and outpaced the Americans.
        • Max Newman headed up the effort at Manchester University
          • Where the Manchester Mark I went into operation in June 1948--becoming the first stored-program computer.
        • Maurice Wilkes, a British scientist at Cambridge University, completed the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) in 1949--two years before EDVAC was finished.
          • Thus, EDSAC became the first stored-program computer in general use (i.e., not a prototype).
   3. The First General-Purpose Computer for Commercial Use: Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC).
      
      UNIVAC publicity photo.
      
      • Late 1940s, Eckert and Mauchly began the development of a computer called UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer)
        • Remington Rand.
        • First UNIVAC delivered to Census Bureau in 1951.
      • But, a machine called LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) went into action a few months before UNIVAC and became the world's first commercial computer.
3. The Four Generations of Digital Computing.
   1. The First Generation (1951-1958).
      1. Vacuum tubes as their main logic elements.
      2. Punch cards to input and externally store data.
      3. Rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data and programs
         • Programs written in
           • Machine language
           • Assembly language
             • Requires a compiler.
   2. The Second Generation (1959-1963).
      1. Vacuum tubes replaced by transistors as main logic element.
         • AT&T's Bell Laboratories, in the 1940s
         • Crystalline mineral materials called semiconductors could be used in the design of a device called a transistor
      2. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices.
      3. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal storage technology.
         • High-level programming languages
           • E.g., FORTRAN and COBOL
   3. The Third Generation (1964-1979).
      
      
      1. Individual transistors were replaced by integrated circuits.
      2. Magnetic tape and disks completely replace punch cards as external storage devices.
      3. Magnetic core internal memories began to give way to a new form, metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) memory, which, like integrated circuits, used silicon-backed chips.
         • Operating systems
         • Advanced programming languages like BASIC developed.
           • Which is where Bill Gates and Microsoft got their start in 1975.
   4. The Fourth Generation (1979- Present).
      1. Large-scale and very large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs and VLSICs)
      2. Microprocessors that contained memory, logic, and control circuits (an entire CPU = Central Processing Unit) on a single chip.
         • Which allowed for home-use personal computers or PCs, like the Apple (II and Mac) and IBM PC.
           • Apple II released to public in 1977, by Stephen Wozniak and Steven Jobs.
             • Initially sold for $1,195 (without a monitor); had 16k RAM.
           • First Apple Mac released in 1984.
           • IBM PC introduced in 1981.
             • Debuts with MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System)
         • Fourth generation language software products
           • E.g., Visicalc, Lotus 1-2-3, dBase, Microsoft Word, and many others.
           • Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) for PCs arrive in early 1980s
             • MS Windows debuts in 1983, but is quite a clunker.
               
               • Windows wouldn't take off until version 3 was released in 1990
                 
             • Apple's GUI (on the first Mac) debuts in 1984,
               
               with a one-time only Super Bowl ad.
               

Bibliography

1. Kenneth C. Laudon, Carol Guercio Traver, Jane P. Laudon, Information Technology and Systems, Cambridge, MA: Course Technology, 1996.
2. Stan Augarten, BIT By BIT: An Illustrated History of Computers (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1984).
3. R. Moreau, The Computer Comes of Age: The People, the Hardware, and the Software, translated by J. Howlett (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1984).
4. Telephone History Web Site. http://www.cybercomm.net/~chuck/phones.html
5. Microsoft Museum. http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/museum/home.asp
6. Philip B. Meggs, A History of Graphic Design, 2nd ed., New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992.