Computer History of New Documentary

[Music] [Music] the history of computers is not just the story of a specialized machine it's also the story of a great idea and the people who made it happen many historians place the origin of the modern computer with Charles Babbage he created the analytical engine in the late 1860's it was essentially a mechanical calculator made out of gears levers and rods like modern calculators it could add subtract multiply and divide but it was not a computer my definition of computer is anything that fulfills the four main functions that any computer has which is computational possibilities the ability to literally take numbers and do stuff with them a memory the ability to remember and to enact upon other parts a storage and input our output over time many people would improve on Babbage's ideas until December of 1941 when Konrad Zuse ax a German engineer completed his z3 calculator it was the first general-purpose calculator that was program controlled and it worked the z3 was electromechanical it used telephone relays made of iron rods and wire coils these magnetic relays acted as switches in memory and computation the z3 used a binary system of ones and zeros each unique combination of the digits 1 & 0 equal letters of the alphabet or numbers in the decimal system a bit is one of these binary digits the XIII's internal operation was based on boolean logic which has simple true and false questions that contain operations like and or and not the binary system and boolean logic are common to nearly all computers today while zeus ax was quietly building the z3 John Atanasoff at Iowa State University was getting tired of doing complicated calculations on adding machines so Atanasoff started looking for a solution there was no machine in existence suitable for my purpose and so I commenced to study the possibility of building a new machine one night professor at an Asif became very frustrated he was trying to think of a quick and easy way to do calculations he jumped in his car and drove for hours while trying to think of a solution by the end of his drive he had created in his head a blueprint for a computer during next year or so I commenced to invent the elements of this structure at an Asif completed his computer the ABC in the spring of 1942 it had a rotating drum filled with capacitors for memory capacitors are electronic components that hold electrical charges it used vacuum tubes as the switches that could represent numbers by turning off and on a switch in one position can equal to zero and in the other a one so it used the binary system and boolean logic but the ABC was not easy to program the first easily programmable calculator in the United States was developed at Harvard University the IBM automatic sequence controlled calculator became operational in August of 1944 it was more commonly known as the Harvard mark 1 because of World War 2 IBM and Harvard were unaware of Zeus's work so they assumed the Harvard mark 1 was the first program controlled calculator it was 51 feet long 8 feet high and contains 17,000 468 vacuum tubes it was primarily used for solving military problems such as firing tables and atomic bomb calculations the Navy sent lieutenant grace hopper to program the Harvard mark 1 and later the mark 2 and 3 she was a pioneer in computer programming once one of her programs was running on the mark 2 when it suddenly stopped Hopper and her co-workers discovered a dead moth caught in one of the mechanical relays this event created the term debugging a program the ENIAC was a phenomenal machine if it was not quite a computer it was a super calculator the ENIAC project involved John P Eckert as chief engineer and John Mauchly as senior consultant they began working on the ENIAC in 1943 at the University of Pennsylvania the ENIAC or electronic numerical integrator analyzer and computer could perform 5,000 additions and 360 multiplications per second ENIAC filled a room about 30 by 50 feet and had weighed nearly 30 tons it was programmed by using switches and plug boards even though by hand doing a firing table might take you 40 days on any AK you could take you a week or two to set up the problem but then just 20 minutes to crank the problem out it took a huge amount of electricity to run it many scientists claimed that just turning ENIAC on would dim the lights of Philadelphia ENIAC was completed in February of 1946 many historians say it was not the first true computer but it did open the door to the computer age [Music] computer historians are still arguing which computer was first was it Zeus a3 ABC eeny AK edvac EDSAC or the Manchester mark one before ENIAC was completed J presper eckert and John Mauchly teamed up with the famous mathematician John von Neumann to work on a computer they called edvac edvac or electronic discrete variable automatic computer utilised 3,600 vacuum tubes and was supposed to be the first stored-program computer that means the programs are stored in memory right along with the data to be processed the edvac project was begun in 1944 long before any other computer but its construction took a very long time while edie vac was being built the University of Manchester in England began and completed their computer the Manchester mark 1 it was built by Max Newman Freddie Williams and others they used many of the ideas of Eckert mark lee and von Neumann in designing and building what many believe was the first truly programmable computer the first program was run on June 21st 1948 it would be four more years before Edie vac was completed so in principle the Manchester mark 1 was the first running programmable computer but it was a prototype it's commercial version the Ferranti mark 1 wouldn't operate until february of 1951 some historians consider another british computer the EDSAC to be the first stored-program computer its construction was directed by maurice wilkes at Cambridge University Wilkes took a trip to the United States where he talked with Eckert Lockley and others about computer design and I gradually found myself being gripped by the idea that come what come May we were going to build a computer in Cambridge the EDSAC was based on the edvac design that's why Wilkes chose a similar name Edie sac was made operational in May of 19 for 39 after the Manchester mark 1 prototype but before the Ferrante mark 1 or the edvac J presper eckert and John Mark Lee left the edvac project in 1947 they formed a company to make univac the universal automatic computer but before they could build the UNIVAC computer northrop Aircraft Company hired them to build a different computer the Beinecke it was the first stored-program computer in the United States but it was not a general-purpose computer it was designed for military use by knack was actually two computers which carried out operations simultaneously and compared the results they ran in real time and responded to input immediately this was ideal for flight simulation the Beinecke computer was completed and demonstrated in August of 1949 with by knack completed Eckert and Mauchly could finish building their own univac univac was not a government-funded computer it was the first general-purpose electronic stored-program computer to be produced and sold to businesses as well as the government the first was sold to the US Census Bureau it was delivered on March 31st 1951 like EDSAC UNIVAC had a user-friendly programming language it was developed by Grace Hopper who worked to make high-level languages the standard for programmers standards make life much easier for everybody in the computer world they make it better for the vendors for the users and for everybody concerned with the computers UNIVAC was the first computer to come equipped with a magnetic tape drive and it was the first to use buffer memory it took a presidential election to make univac a household name in 1952 it accurately predicted Eisenhower as the next president J presper eckert saw the computers would become smaller faster cheaper and a big part of our lives it will be possible for machines to take over many of the boring and repetitive tasks which are properly the work of machines and human beings will then be left to use their creative ability to make use of the fruits of this more productive society back in 1949 Jay Forrester conceived of magnetic or iron core memory a magnet can have a northern polarity or a southern polarity one polarity would represent a 1 and the other a 0 after four years of development Forrester installed the new memory in an MIT designed computer called whirlwind its operating speed doubled in the late 1940s Thomas Watson senior the chairman of IBM thought that a handful of big and powerful computers was all our nation would ever need so he kept IBM out of the computer business his son Thomas Watson jr. realized the potential market for computers he eventually convinced his father to build one in 1953 IBM introduced the model 701 they were ready to compete with UNIVAC iron core memory was too new for IBM so like the UNIVAC the 701 used vacuum tubes IBM called the 701 an electronic data processing machine they wanted to avoid using the UNIVAC name of computer univac was computer so if you said univac you what you meant was the concept of the computer so people would say oh look a Los Alamos just bought a new IBM UNIVAC in May of 1954 IBM announced the model 704 it used the new iron core memory and it had floating-point arithmetic the 704 had a programming language created for it called Fortran this would allow customers to do their own programming Fortran is still in use today the transistor was invented at Bell Labs in December of 1947 but it would take years to refine it for computer use transistor works as a switch so it can be in an on or off position much like a vacuum tube of earlier generations in 1957 Phil Coe completed the first general-purpose transistorized computer it was called solo and was built for the National Security Agency there are some real benefits to using transistors they're reliable inexpensive and small in size Digital Equipment Corporation was the first company to take advantage of the transistors size they introduced the PDP one in 1960 it was the world's first interactive and transistorized mini computer it was about the size of a refrigerator while dec was thinking small with its PDP one IBM was thinking big [Music] in April of 1964 IBM announced the system/360 computer this was a major step for IBM in becoming the world leader in the business computer market the system/360 was a family of nine processors and 70 peripheral devices companies could buy a small system and upgrade it as they grew by 1968 IBM had installed over 14,000 system/360 computers this gave IBM the lead in computer manufacturing and no other company could come close not even univac Dex specialized in many computers they introduced the PDP 8 in 1965 it was designed for smaller companies and institutions that didn't need or couldn't afford a mainframe computer PDP 8 or the programmable data processor 8 from my Digital Equipment Corporation was really an important machine in that it was the first transistorized mass-produced machine to be widely available businesses universities even high schools wanted them because they were so affordable about $18,000 transistors would eventually be revolutionized into integrated circuits in the summer of 1958 Jack Kilby started working at Texas Instruments most of the workers were on vacation and he hadn't been assigned to a project so to avoid boredom he came up with his own project he designed an integrated circuit that had components like transistors resistors and capacitors all built into one block of silicon Kilby's innovation would revolutionize the computer world integrated circuits would increase the power and efficiency of future computers while greatly reducing their size Texas Instruments built the first integrated circuit computer for the airforce it weighed 10 ounces but had the same power as a 15-pound transistor computer but it wouldn't be until 1965 that the integrated circuit or chip would be used in a commercial computer they needed refinement that refinement would come from a company called Fairchild Semiconductor Robert Noyes led a team that found a practical way of designing and manufacturing integrated circuits Gordon Moore who was also on the Fairchild team determined that every 18 months the number of components that could be placed on an integrated circuit would double this is known as Moore's law throughout the 1960's integrated circuits were used in Minuteman missiles and for the Apollo space missions which had a goal of landing a human on the moon one small step for man one giant leap [Applause] [Music] as integrated circuits became smaller it was realized that an entire computer could be placed on a chip in 1971 Ted Hoff of Intel Corporation produced the first commercially available microprocessor the Intel 4004 it contained approximately 2,500 transistors and it sparked the personal computer age there were several machines that tried to be the first successful personal computer but it was the one called the Altair that caught on altair is the first real mainstream personal computer definitely the one that got out the largest was sold mass quantities and was available nationally the Altair was invented in 1974 admits an electronics company in Albuquerque New Mexico it was created by the owner of the company H Edward Roberts he's the person that coined the term personal computer Roberts used the new Intel 8080 microprocessor and built the Altair around it it had four kilobytes of memory and sold as a kit for three hundred ninety seven dollars or fully-assembled for $498 it was as powerful as any mini computer available but personal computers had three drawbacks they needed mass storage a simple program language and an operating system the storage problem is overcome by using the IBM floppy disk the software problem was overcome by two programmers Paul Allen and Bill Gates they wrote a version of basic that worked well on the altair Gates and Allen formed a software company called Microsoft the operating system for the PC was provided by gary kildall he created CP /m or control program for micros by the end of 1976 all the pieces were in place for a personal computer boom the first ripple of the boom came from a newly formed company called Apple computers the two founders of Apple were Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak they produce the Apple one single board computer it was simple yet effective and sold for the curious amount of six hundred and sixty six dollars and sixty six cents encouraged by sales of their board jobs and Wozniak unveiled the Apple 2 computer in April of 1977 it was the first personal computer to generate color graphics the Apple 2 included a keyboard power supply and attractive case it came standard with 48k memory and sold for twelve hundred and ninety eight dollars the Apple 2 was an important machine because it was easy to use so easy that children were introduced to it typically at an elementary school level and even even earlier cases of personal users Apple had competition from nearly 30 other companies with so much competition there was no single leader the one company that could take control of the personal computer business was IBM but they weren't interested in pcs yet it was four years later in August of 1981 when IBM introduced the IBM personal computer the IBM PC came with 64 kilobytes of memory and sold for thirteen hundred and sixty-five dollars or twenty eight hundred and eighty fully equipped the IBM PC also had a new operating system called PC das also known as ms-dos the MS stands for Microsoft the same company that provided basic for the Altair sales of all pcs were high and everyone was making money through most of 1983 but it didn't last long by late 1983 sales were falling fast personal computers had been oversold the software did not live up to expectations and the computers were not user-friendly they were disappointing to overcome this downturn in sales Apple computers came up with a risky plan they put the fate of the company on one product in January of 1984 Apple unveiled the Macintosh computer the Mac sold for two thousand four hundred and ninety five dollars it had a mouse keyboard graphics and icons the graphic user interface looked something like an electronic office and was user-friendly Susan Kerr was the graphic artist that gave the Mac that friendly look she created its various icons such as the grab hand pointer and watch the mouse was invented by Doug Engelbart at Stanford Research Institute let's see if the idea for a mouse came to me around 1960 that all sort of unfolded for me in a period of about four or five minutes the Mac seemed revolutionary but most of its features had been invented or developed years earlier primarily at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Xerox didn't know what to do with these features but Apple did in 1985 IBM answered Apple with an operating system for their pcs one that would compete with the Mac they hired Microsoft to create Windows Windows made all pcs easier to use and more in demand because there were more programs being written for IBM compatible pcs than for Mac's [Music] in the years that followed computers continued growing in power decreasing in cost and shrinking in size we have notebook sized computers that offer full PC functionality in a package measuring just eight and a half by eleven inches we have pocket pcs and even wristwatch PCs and of course cell phones that connect us to the internet the internet began as ARPANET in 1970 ARPANET was a system for scientific computers to share data eventually this led to the internet which is a worldwide communication business and information system it's a very key phenomena that when something gets popular enough it starts to reinforce its own popularity the more people who use the internet the more great content is there the more there's great content the more people use it the future of computers is pretty much on a line to go towards that ultimate fast cheap small the question that of course becomes well what will that allow us to do artificial intelligence is when a computer can communicate with a human like a human someday we might have a computer friend by people I assume you mean persons not People magazine artificial intelligence requires a huge amount of memory holographic memory is one option a piece of plastic the size of a CD holds 400 gigabytes of information that's about 100 feature-length films the future computer may be a quantum computer which uses laser controlled ions as bits a quantum computer has a quantum bit or a qubit where the state can be 1 or 0 or it can be both 1 and 0 at the same time then it effectively allows you to run all these calculations at the same time the future computer may not be one computer but a network of unseen specialized computers surrounding you and working together to sir review [Music]

Channel: Raihanul Islam Rigan

Views: 86,109

Keywords: Documentary (TV Genre), Computer (Industry), Computer History Museum (Museum), computer history, new documentary, World History (Field Of Study)

Id: ApJSz_0rkiA

Length: 33min 2sec (1982 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 19 2015