Did you know that the term "Computer" once meant a profession? And what did people or computers actually do? They computed mathematical problems. Some problems were tedious and error prone. And it is not surprising that people started to develop machines to aid in the effort. The first mechanical computers were actually created to get rid of errors in human computation. Then came tabulating machines and cash registers. It was not until telephone companies were well established that computing machines became practical. First computers were huge mainframes, but soon minicomputers like DEC’s PDP started to appear. The transistor was introduced in 1947, but its usefulness was not truly realized until in 1958 when the integrated circuit was invented. This led to the invention of the microprocessor. Intel, in 1971, marketed the 4004 – and the personal computer revolution started. One of the first Personal Computers was MITS’ Altair. This was a simple device and soon others saw the opportunities. In this lecture we start our coverage of computing and look at some of the early machines and the impact they had.

1. LECTURE L13
RISE OF THE MACHINE

2. “I can assure you on the highest authority that the data
processing is a fad and won’t last out the year.”
Editor-in-charge of business books, Prentice-Hall 1957

3. Q1
Define the term computer

5. dictionary.com

6. 71 years ago
“I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers.”
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

7. 40 years ago
“There is no reason for any individual to have a
computer in their home.”
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp., 1977

8. Think about this
How many computers do you
have in your household?

9. Q2
What were the two main reasons
to build calculating machines?

10. History
Computing is time consuming and error prone
Demands for computation were increasing with more organised societies
Industrial revolution and the Napoleonic reforms
Impetus came from Government: Taxing and Defense

11. Efforts to speed calculations started early
Use of logarithmic tables and trigonometry to speed calculations
The Counting Business

12. The Slide Rule by William Oughtred in 1625
Built using logarithms, multiplication of two numbers could be done easier
a*b = 10^(log(a)+log(b))
Much quicker than manual calculation
The Counting Business

13. Early Machines
Wilhelm Schickard (1592 -1635)
German professor of Hebrew and Astronomy
University of Tüblingen, Germany
Built a calculating machine in 1620s
Documented in letters to Johannes Kepler
1623 and 24

14. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
French mathematician, physicist, and
religious philosopher
Built an adding machine in1642-44
Tried to commercialize the machine but
labor was too cheap
Early Machines

15. Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716)
German mathematician and philosopher
Built a machine, the Leibniz Wheel that
could multiply and divide
Early Machines

16. Q3
Why did early machines not get
widespread?

17. History
Workmanship for building complex machines lacked
In late eighteenth century demand for calculation was growing
Calculations were done by hand
Tedious, slow and error-prone and tables of logarithms were riddled
with errors

18. Think about this
How long does it take to compute
707 decimal places of PI?
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803
4825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521
1055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234
6034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436
7892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611
7931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213
9494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526
3560827785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585371050792279689258923

20. Think about this
The idea of calculating with steam was to many
impossible - machines could never take over this
human activity
Yet it did. Can you think of a task done today that
will be taken over by machine in the future?

21. Charles Babbage
(1791 – 1871)
Sometimes called Inventor of
the Computer
Wanted to remove the inevitable
human errors from computing
Believed that machines could
replace laborious and
error-prone calculations

22. Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871)
Designed the Difference Engine
Machine to compute polynomials
Got grants but efforts were slow
Lack of workmanship of the time
delayed the project
Worked stopped 1833

23. Babbage started on a new machine in 1834
Beginning of the 2nd Kondratiev – Steam
Analytical engine
Programmable machine – with
primitive programming language
Input was in punched cards
Run by steam
Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871)

24. Augusta Ada King (1815-1852)
Countess of Lovelace
A Programmable Machine -
General purpose computer
Contained
mill to calculate,
store to keep data,
and formulas
The first programmer

25. Q4
What was the first killer
application for calculating
machines?

26. The Cash Register

27. The Cash Register
One of the first calculating machines
Developed by James Ritty in 1879 in response to thefts by staff
“The Incorruptible Cashier”
National Cash Register Company – NCR
One of the salesman was Tomas Watson, Sr.
Watson would later leave for
CRT – Computing-Tabulating-Recording
Company

28. Tabulating Machines

29. Tabulating Machines
In the US need for data processing was growing
One application was census taking
US population grew from
17 million in 1840 to
50 million in 1880
It took 1.495 clerks 7 years to
produce the 1880 census

30. Tabulating Machines
Source: Tabulating machine
Herman Hollerith
Tabulating Machine Company – TMC
US Census Bureau awarded Herman Hollerith a contract to produce the
1890 census
Tabulating Machines with punched cards
Successfully finished in 2,5 years
with one-third less cost (claimed)

31. Tabulating Machines
Source: Tabulating machine
Herman Hollerith
Used punched cards
Hollerith cards were in use until 1960s

32. Tabulating Machines
The Business of Data Processing
Even with the growing need for data processing around 1900, the
market for tabulating machines was limited
CRT and TMC merged and would later change the name to
International Business Machines – IBM

33. Lessons: Early Computing Machines
▪ Early machines could not compete with manual labor
– The cost was not low enough to disrupt
▪ Workmanship was lacking
▪ Energy to power machines was not available
▪ Computing requirement were modest until 18th century
▪ Babbage failed to build machines despite the
resources
▪ Babbage (or rather Ada, had all the ideas for modern
computer

34. Lessons: Early Computing Machines
▪ First practical calculating device was a Cash
Register
– Designed due to another problem: theft
– Specialised problem instead of a generic one
▪ Tabulating machines appear with the electricity
▪ First buyers of tabulating machines were
governments
– Centralised

35. “I think there is a market for about five computers”
- Tomas Watson, Sr.
Electronic Brains

36. Electric Computing
Foundation of electric computing was laid early
Mechanical computers were not considered practical
Electricity is widespread
Threat of war is looming in the 1930s
Governments turn to computing for ballistic computations and code-breaking

37. Although electricity had
entered the equation, it had
done so only as an alternative
method of powering
mechanical equipment
Source: Engines that Move Markets
The Prevailing Technology Trap

39. Konrad Zuse (1910-1995)
German Engineer
Built primitive machines, Z1-Z4 based
on relay switches in 1936 – 1944
Used binary system
Designed his own language, Plankalkül
Never received any official support from
war-time Germany unlike the Allies
Early Work
P2 max (V0[:8.0],V1[:8.0]) => R0[:8.0]
V0[:8.0] => Z1[:8.0]
(Z1[:8.0] < V1[:8.0]) -> V1[:8.0] => Z1[:8.0]
Z1[:8.0] => R0[:8.0]
END
Source: Konrad Zuse

42. Bletchley Park
Location of top-secret code-breaking team
Code-breaking the German coding machine ENIGMA

43. Alan Turing
Source: Alan Turing, COLOSSUS, Enigma
English mathematician, logician, and cryptographer
Headed the team at Bletchley Park
Worked on the algorithms to break
the ENIGMA code
Bombe Computer based on heuristics
Lead to COLOSSUS – one of the first
electronic computer
Publishes paper in 1936: On Computable Numbers

45. War Machines
Source: COLOSSUS
COLOSSUS
Built in England’s Bletchley Park and used by British code breakers to read
encrypted German ENIGMA messages during World War II
Designed by Alan Turing
Winston Churchill specifically ordered the destruction of
most of the Colossus machines into 'pieces
no bigger than a man's hand‘

46. Q5
Why were machines built
during World war II?

47. War Machines
Source: EINIAC
ENIAC
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
Built by the U.S. Army for the purpose of calculating ballistic firing tables
Used 18.000 vacuum tubes
Designed by John Mauchly and
J. Presper Eckert
The machine was unveiled in 1946 and
was in operation until 1955

49. John von Neumann
John von Neumann, Von Neumann architecture
Hungarian mathematician
Worked on the Manhattan project and became
involved in Moore’s School ENIAC and EDVAC
projects
Publishes paper - or a memo,
On computer design, 1945
Came to be know as
Von Neumann architecture

50. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Post-war computers
Based on vacuum tubes

51. UNIVAC I
Source: Model of UNIVAC I, c. 1954.
Picture from Smithsonian Institution
Source: UNIVAC I
Commercial Computer
5,200 vacuum tubes, weighed 13 tons, consumed 125 kW, and could
perform about 1,905 operations per second running on a 2.25 MHz clock
Occupied more than 35.5 m²
of floor space
The addition time was 525
microseconds

52. United States presidential election of 1952
Eisenhower vs. Stevenson

54. Transistor Era

55. Transistor was invented by William Shockley,
John Bardeen and Walter Brattain in 1948

56. Transistor
Device use to amplify or switch electronic signals
Huge performance improvement
Smaller
Less energy
More robust
Faster

57. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Computers became
faster, larger and more
powerful

59. Tyranny of Numbers
Source: Tyranny of Numbers, Transistor Computer
Computer Engineers have much more flexibility with transistors
Problem was that as the number of components
increased, wiring them together became a problem

60. Q6
What solved the Tyranny of
Numbers problem?

61. The Integrated circuit

62. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
The Invention of the Integrated Circuit
Source: Integrated circuit
Introduced in 1958 by two inventors
Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor and Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments
Transistors could be wired
together in practical way
Mass manufacturing of ICs

63. Adjacent possible
Two inventors at the same time
invented the IC

64. Competition Emerges
The Computer Market is born
The main application is data processing
• Business applications like Payroll, inventory and so on
IBM enters the computer business
Tomas Watson, Jr. launched
IBM System/360 in 1964
Systematically replaced
data processing machines
with mainframe computers

65. In the 1950s Automation Starts

66. Automation
Automation – Computers begin to disrupt
Start to replace jobs
Banks and insurance companies were early adopters
Handling paycheques, payroll that used to require many clerks to compute

67. Automation
Source: Desk Set (from IMDB)
Hollywood took notice
Desk Set from 1957 with
Spencer Tracey and
Katherine Hepburn

69. Lessons: Early Computing Machines
▪ Electricity was key to computers
– Switching technologies
▪ First electric computers were primitive and fragile
– Low performance
▪ Centralisation
– First computers were in centers
– Expensive, large, run by experts – Priests

70. Lessons: Early Computing Machines
▪ Giant “Brains”
– Association with human thought
▪ Automation – Disruption
– Companies need fewer clerks to compute
– Tedious jobs eliminated
– Big debate – computer executive had to defend the
existence of their machines
▪ Abstractions few
– Programs were wired in

71. Computers in the 1970s

72. Think About This!
Resources, Processes and Values Theory
The Disruptive Innovation Theory

73. Mainframes
IBM 704
IBM System/360
Large computers in data centres
Batch operations
Critical applications
Financial transaction processing

74. Q7
Mainframes were expensive.
Not many people could use
them. How was this solved?

75. Time-sharing
Computers were expensive to purchase and maintain
To make it efficient required multiple users
Large data centres
Utility Computing
Time-sharing of expensive equipment

76. Moore’s Law
Cost of computers went down

77. Minicomputers
Cost for new entrants in the computer business was prohibitive in the 60s
Market for those that did not need complete solution but could benefit
from using computes
Birth of the Minicomputers
Two major client groups:
academic community and the military

78. Minicomputers
Digital Equipment Corporation
Founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen
Launched PDP-1 in 1960
The PDP-8 was the first successful
commercial minicomputer – 1965
Used integrated circuits
Time-sharing allowed multiple
users to use the machines at the
same time

79. The Disruptive Innovation Theory
Digital used relatively simple,
convenient, low-cost innovation
to create growth and disrupt IBM

80. Q8
Why did IBM not go into the
mini computer market?

81. RPV
IBM Was a mainframe
company, their customers
wanted mainframes, not low-
performance mini computers

82. Lessons: Mainframes to Mini computers
▪ IBM, industry’s first leader, sold mainframe
computers to the central accounting and data
processing departments of large organizations
▪ The emergence of the minicomputer represented
disruptive technology to IBM and competitors
▪ Their customers had no use for it: it promised
lower, not higher margins
▪ As a result the mainframe makers ignored it for
years
Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma

83. Lessons: Mainframes to Mini computers
▪ This allowed new entrants: DEC, Data General,
Prime, Wang and Nixdorf – to create and
dominate the minicomputer market
▪ IBM entered the minicomputer market when it
was performance competitive to the needs of
their customers
▪ The history repeated itself
Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma

86. May 25, 1961
Status:
Mainframe era, mini computer early days
Transistor era, integrated circuits just invented
Programming languages new

87. Q9
What role did the US space program
have on computer innovation?

88. “The space program badly needed the things the
integrated circuit could provide.”
- Jack St. Clair Kilby

89. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Intel
Semiconductor company
Initial focus was on memory chips
There was still enormous potential market for calculations
The vision of Charles Babbage was still not realized but the mainframe
market met the needs of governments and large organizations
Semiconductor Industry is Born

90. Intel introduced the first microprocessor 4004 in 1971
8008 in 1972, 8080 in 1974 and 8088 in 1979
The beginning of the PC
The Microprocessor

91. The Microprocessor
Intel was really reluctant to go into the microchip business
No market existed
No demand at the time
Intel created 4004 for another company
They would not market chips, but built them when ordered
The company cancelled the order and Intel was forced to offer them for sale

92. Q10
What was the first product in the
market after the introduction of
computer chips?
HINT: It disrupted a device that
was invented in 1625

93. The Calculator

94. The Calculator
Advances in technology introduced the
desktop calculator
The market grew fast
With advances, the calculators became more powerful and smaller
Pocket calculators
Became widespread in the 70s
Replaced the slide rule after 374 years

95. Calculator Wars
Many companies start to make Calculators
Casio, Sharp, Canon, HP, MITS and more
In Europe, Aristo, Denner & Pape, a slide rule manufacturer
since 1872, also entered the market in 1972
Price dropped fast: $400 in 1972, $200, $100 and $50 in 1974
Companies like MITS need to find new ways of revenues

96. Think about this!
All mini-computer companies had
what it would take to go into small
scale products – they even had
people proposing the idea, but they
did not!

97. The Personal Computer

98. The Personal Computer
MITS marketed Altair in 1975
Came with Intel 8080
Users needed to assemble the machine themselves
No keyboard, no screen, no printer
256 byte of RAM, programmed with switches
Included BASIC interpreter from Microsoft
Written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Cost of $397 appealed to computer enthusiasts

99. Microsoft is Born
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Wrote a BASIC interpreter
for the Altair
Founded a company they called
Micro-Soft

100. Enter Apple
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
Show the Apple I in the Palo Alto
Homebrew Computer Club in 1976
Apple II was marketed 1977 and became a huge
success - “Apple growth”
Hewlett-Packard had turn Wozniak down – no market

101. “The Personal Computer will fall flat on its face in
business.”
- Ken Olsen

102. Computer Companies
Existing computer companies were not interested in PCs
DEC, HP, IBM, and Control Data did not see a business model
HP rejected a proposal from Steve Wozniak
DEC rejected a proposal from David Ahl
Support for machines like this was considered impossible
Consequence:
The development of the PC had to begin with hobbyists

104. Think About This!
The Liquid Network

105. The early computers were all
about building the right
hardware – this ignored what
important element?

106. SOFTWARE