Wiki The Abicus
Although not strictly a computer no discussion of computer history should ignore the first counting machine the abacus. These machines were used all over the middle and far east from Babylonian times up to the present day. The earliest written account from China is from the 2nd Century BC. Trained users can do multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, square root and cube root operations extremely fast.
The Pascaline calculator
Pascal's Calculator
About Pascaline
Blaise Pascal Born 1623 Died1662
Pascal was a genius who, at the age of nineteen invented what came to known as the Pascaline calculator. It is said that he invented the Pascaline, the first mechanical calculator in 1642 to help his father in his work as a tax collector. Not content with this he turned his attention in many other areas such as mathematics and philosophy.
Charles Babbage Difference Engine
Charles Babbage Born 1791 Died 1871
Wiki Babbage Difference Engine
Babbage began work on his difference engine after 1822 based possibly on an idea in a book by J.H. Muller in 1786. Initially he received funding from the British government but in time this stopped as Babbage asked for ever more money and did not produce the engine. Per Georg Scheutz and Martin Wiberg did make Difference Engines based on Babbage's Design and it was used producing accurate logarithmic tables. in 1988 The British Science museum constructed a working difference machine based on Babbage's Difference machine II .
Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace was the duaghter of the Famous or infamous Lord Byron. She deserves the title of the first Computer programmer as she during the course of translating an Italian Mathematicians text on Babbage's difference engine she wrote a set of accompanying notes which contained the first Algorithm written to be calculated by a computer. She also foresaw that computers would do far more than mathematical calculations.
The Colossus The First Electronic Computer
The Colossus Computer
The Colossus computer was developed and known to be running in 1943 and was the first electronic computer. It was used for code breaking at Bletchely park GCHQ. It used Vacuum tubes and was the first programmable computer.
The Manchester Baby, the Manchester Mark 1 and the Feranti Mark 1 Computer
Computer50.org The Baby
Wiki The Manchester Mark 1
In 1948 The Manchester University England Ran its first program in a computer that they built called the baby computer. It is regarded as the first modern computer and contains all the elements that we are familiar with today. From this small scale computer a full size model was developed named the Manchester Mark 1 or MADM Manchester Automatic Digital Machine. It was available for use by the university in 1949 and was capable of storing data and programs in electronic memory. In the same year that the computer came into use a magnetic drum was incorparated into the machine for storage. This was the forerunner of the disc drive. It later used as the prototype for the design of the commercially available Feranti Mark 1. The computer only ran until 1951 when it was replaced by a Faranti Mark1. The computer was revolutionary in many ways but in particular the inclusion of index registers which allowed memory to be read sequentially. Many of the ideas that from the Manchester Mark 1 were used in the IBM 701 and 702.
The ENIAC Electronic Computer
Wiki ENIAC
The ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was developed during the late years of the war and was completed in 1946 to calculate shell trajectories and was also used in the Hydrogen bomb project.. It is unusual in terms of modern computing in that it used a decimal base 10 calculating system rather than base 2 binary. It was termed as the Big Brain
The EDVAC Binary Electronic Computer
Wiki EDVAC computer
EDVAC Stands for Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer. It was commissioned in1946 for the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory for much the same job as INIAC. It consisted of 6000 Vacuum tubes, 12000 diodes and consumed 56 Kw electricity.
It ran from 1951 until 1961 and during this time it was upgraded with more memory and punch card input.
The BRLESC I
Wiki BRLESC 1
BRLESC 1 stands for Bodell Research Laboratories Electronic Scientific Computer. It started operation in 1961 and took over from the previous EDVAC computer and again was commissioned by the U.S. Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory. It contained 1727 vacuum tubes and 853 transistors and used magnetic tape, punch cards and magnetic drums for its input and output.
The IBM 701 702
Wiki The IBM 701 -704
In April 1952 IBM brought out the IBM 701 computer. This was the first Commercial Scientific computer. They also brought out 702 and the 650 for their business customers. Although IBM used many of the developments patented by the Manchester university during the development of the Mark1, index registers were not included in the CPU's until the development of the IBM 704. The University of California installed 19 machines and it was here that a crude run time system and program compiler were developed called KOMPILER. Four years later IBM released the FORTRAN programming language.
The IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer
The original IBM PC was the IBM 5150 and it was released on to the market on August 12th 1981. Up to this time IBM had concentrated on business machines but had realised that a thriving home market was developing. They decided to produce the 5150 using different design and development methods as they wished to get it onto the market as quickly as possible so instead of using parts designed and manufactured by IBM they used parts that were already in production from different manufactures OEM (Original Equipment Manufactures), parts off the shelf as it were. The original IBM PC cost over $3000 and was not the instant success with the home market as competition was quite strong even in those early days.with Atari, Commodore Apple Tandy manufacturing less expensive products years before. So to make it more competitive IBM reduced the price by shipping a cut down version with no monitor or disc drive for just over $1500. Users were meant to use their own standard tape cassette for program storage and standard TV as a display.
So why did the IBM PC become the industry standard? This, I think was manly due to IBM's decision to use an open source architecture. This meant that any other manufacture or programmer with the skill was freely allowed to disassemble the ROM and write programs and manufacture new extension hardware that could be fitted into the six eight bit expansion slots. So free was IBM's licence that it even allowed rival manufacturers to develop compatible computers and in the same year IBM released the 5051 Compaq computers released their own version.. Soon the IBM PC became a favourite of business users and as the price reduced the favorite of the world home market.
The Rise of 8Bit Home Computing
Commodore Computers
Commodore Computers
The Commodore PET
The Commodore PET was brought into production in 1977 and although termed a home computer was the favourite of educational establishments in Canada, the United states and the UK. It is said to have owed some of this success to the fact that it had an all metal case construction and that apart from a printer was self contained with monochrome black and white monitor, full size keyboard and cassette tape drive for program and data storage. It was commodores first fully featured 8 bit computer which took over from commodores production of electronic calculators after this venture had become unprofitable.The first PET Machines shipped with either 4Kb (Kilobytes) or 8Kb of RAM (Random Access Memory). In Europe Commodore renamed the PET the CBM 3000 because Philips had already released a computer of the same name.
The Commodore VIC 20
Part 1
Part 2
The Commodore VIC 20 was a computer much like the PET but aimed at the lower end of the price range selling at $299. It was announced in 1980 only three years after bringing out the PET. Jack Tramiel (The founder of Commodore Computers) wanted a computer for the masses as not a computer for the classes and in the VIC 20 he got his wish. Some technical compromises were made with regard to the screen display and memory having only 3K of user RAM but the VIC 20 had a reliable datacorder for programs and data, a full size keyboard with programmable function keys. It also had inputs for joystick, Memory expansion pack and cartridge games.
The Commodore C16
The Commodore 16 was a system created to compete for price against such systems as the Sinclair ZX81, The Timex and the Mattel and was sold at around $100. As it happened the Timex and Mattel systems ceased production before 1984 when the C16 was introduced to the market. It had 16k RAM 12k of which was available to the user for programs and data. As with most of these machines the C16 Still has a strong internet fan base with unofficial games titles still being added to this day.
The Commodore Plus 16
The Commodore Plus 4 sold for $299 was billed as the productivity computer due probably to the fact that it had a built in office suite contained in ROM. The Office suite consisted of word processor, spread sheet, graphing and database which were loaded via a single dedicated keys and would load in a matter of seconds, significantly faster than the twenty minutes taken to load the same software from tape. Also it offered a 32k RAM, faster disc drive using a parallel port rather than serial and could have supported a modem connection of 19200 baud rate. From the point of view of the programmer the version of basic was an improvement on other CBM's in the range and had commands to take advantage of the sound generator and new graphics commands. Also the Plus 4 had a machine code monitor that allowed programmers to dump memory to screen and change values in memory locations. For all of its advantages the Plus 4 was not a commercial success in the USA and had limited sales in the European market. It was produced between 1984 and 1985 when it was discontinued. Perhaps the Plus 4's downfall was due to the fact that while it offered 15 colours with 8 luminance settings making 121 colours it did not support sprite graphics and the sound generator was more similar to the VIC 20 than to the more successful C64.
The Commodore 64
The Commodore C64 was the replacement not of the PET but the Commodore VIC20 and was really a game changer in technology. Not only did it have 64Kb of RAM and a 20kb ROM (Read Only Memory) but also sported a well developed 16 colour 320 200 pixel graphics with a dedicated picture maker sprite generator and a versatile three voice sound chip. Not only did the C64 measure up well to the games consoles of the time but also outperformed the sales of every other computer in the home market including the IBM PC and its clones which it also outperformed technically. In the time that the C64 was in production it sold 17 million units. These machines were sold in retail outlets as well as electrical shops and was originally sold for $595 but as time went on the price dropped considerably. It used an ordinary black and white or colour TV and a dedicated computer controlled cassette machine for program and data storage. The C64 allowed users to attach Joysticks, Disc Drives, micro drives, printers and the facility to load cartridge games.
The BBC Microcomputer
Wiki The BBC Micro
The BBC Micro Computer was brought out onto the market in 1981. It was originally conceived in conjunction with the British Broadcasting Company the BBC as an accompaniment to a series of programs to raise the level of awareness of Information Technology in Britain. It was produced by Acorn computing and it was designed with education in mind. The BBC was expandable with 16k 32k model A and B and 64k 128k model B+. For display the BBC could use an ordinary TV set or an RGB monitor. Storage was by cassette tape or floppy disc.
The Acorn Electron
Wiki Acorn Electron
The Acon Electron was basic version of the BBC Micro and was released by the end 1983. While it had many of the features of the BBC it was much slower and the sound was only one channel while the BBC Micro. It had 32k of RAM but due to the video graphics the amount available to the user was reduced to 20k. This was another problem as both ZX Spectrum and C64 contained 48k and 64k respectively. While not as popular as the Spectrum and C64 it did have a fan base of dedicated enthusiasts and software houses supported the platform up to the beginning of the 1990's. The Acron Plus 1 expansion pack offered two ROM cartridge ports, an RS232 Serial communications port, two Joystick ports and a parallel printer port.
The Sinclair Computers ZX81 - 80
The Sinclair ZX81 was released in 1981 by the British Sinclair Research. It was manufactured for Sinclair Research by the Timex Corporation in kit form or assembled. it cost £50 in kit form and £70 as an assembled unit. It was an extremely basic computer containing only 1K of RAM memory However the American versions contained a 2K RAM and both had an 8K ROM which contained the operating system and the Sinclair Basic interpretor. The display was driven by a variable size screen buffer which used main memory and supported text graphics of 32 X 24 and chunky graphics in a 64 X 48 mode. The ZX80 and 81 supported TV display output and could be expanded with a 16K RAM pack. Sinclair also manufactured a small printer. The Screen display was colour and was software driven so could be reconfigured for higher resolution graphics and some commercial games were written for the system and due to its one byte tokenised basic their was even enough room for a version of computer chess in the 1K nmodel. No comparison could be made between the C64 or even the VIC16 the ZX80 and 81 but one thing that was very much in it's favour was the price. As a computer for learning basic the ZX81 was good and the extended keyboard that allowed basic words to be entered with one keystroke was an original and time saving feature if not a little confusing to begin with however the flat plastic keyboard was nobodies favorite input device. Despite its drawbacks the ZX81 sold 1.5 million units.
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16 - 48
Wiki The Sinclair ZX Spectrum
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum probably the most popular of the ZX rand and despite later models having many improvements such as hard keys and 128K RAM the 16K and 48K models are the best remembered. The Spectrum improved on the original flat plastic keyboard design with separated rubber keys. This made input much easier. Also the standard 16K and 48K RAM made the machine far more useable than the ZX81. With the attachment of peripheral additions the computer could interface with joysticks, printers and microdrives.
The Rise of the 16 bit Machines
Atari ST
The Rise Of the PC
We have previously seen the IBM PC and talked about PC Clones but
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