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Physical Limits

• Chip Charles Babbage (1791–1871)• The Difference Engine, 1823

– Special purpose device intended for the production of tables.

– Made prototypes of parts of the engine– Unfinished project– London Science Museum made a working model in 1991.

• The Analytical Engine, 1834– General purpose device– Uses punched cards– Only planned

• Important idea: The programmable computer

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Model in London Science Museum

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Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace

(1815-1852)• During a nine-month period in 1842-

1843, Ada translated for Babbage Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine.

• With the article, she appended a set of Notes which specified in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognized by historians as the world's first computer program. (disputed).

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Willgodt T. Odhner, 1874

• Factory in St. Petersburg• Moved to Moscow after the

revolution, soon discontinued• Odhner's legal successors went to

Sweden, founded Aktiebolaget Original Odhner in Gothenburg

• Production continued until early 1970s

• Lots of similar clones worldwide(example: 1950s version)

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Original Odhner

1874

1950s

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Herman Hollerith, 1890

• Won the contract to supply his system for the Eleventh Cencus of the United States

• Developed an entire integrated system of machines, data recording devices and processes for automating the enumeration

• A key element in his systems was the use of punched cards

• This type of were still in use by the data processing industry into the 1970s

• Founded the company that later became IBM

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John Ambrose Fleming, 1904

• Invents the thermionic valve / vacuum tube

• The beginning of electronics• Used for signal amplification

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First vacuum tube computer

• 1937-1942 - John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry builds the first digital electronic computer (ABC).

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ABC

• Introduced the ideas of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, and logic circuits

• Special purpose computer. Used binary math to solve differential equations

• Made of 300 vacuum tubes, card readers to input data, memory drums that stored information as electrical charges

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Vacuum tube memory

Cathode-ray tubememory, from theIBM 701 DefenseCalculator, 1952

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The Transistor

• Invented in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain & William Shockley at Bell Labs.

• Considered by many to be one of the greatest inventions in modern history

• Key active component in practically all modern electronics

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The Transistor explained

Idea: Use a smallamount of currentto control a largeamout of current.

Can be used as a switch or an amplifier.

collector

emitter

base

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The Integrated Circuit

• 1954 - SAGE aircraft-warning system the largest vacuum tube computer system ever built. 55000 tubes, 275 tons.

• 1959 - Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments patents the first integrated circuit, a small package of transistors (among other components).

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The first Personal Computer?

• Ambiguous question• Some digital, automatic,

programmable, accessible, small, inexpensive, simple computers:– Commodore 64 (1982)– IBM PC (1981)– Apple ][ (1977)

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Computers in war

(handout next page)

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Развитие отечественной

техники1952 БЭСМ-11958 БЭСМ-2, М-20

М-40БЭСМ-3МБЭСМ-4

1966 БЭСМ-6Эльбрус-Б

1973 АС-6