History of Computers

By: Ethan Lehman

ComputersBombe (1941)

Allowed Allied forces to decipher Nazi codes during WWII

ERA 1101 (1950)1st marketable computer and stored 1 million bits

on its magnetic drum (earliest storage device that used magnets)

701 (1953) IBM’s first electronic computer that they shipped

(only sold 19 total)

ComputersMicral (1973)

First marketable computer established on a micro-processor

Apple II (1977)Very successful due to its color graphics,

printed circuit motherboard, and keyboard

Atari (1979)Popularized the Model 400 and Model 800

and sold well

Important People

Grace Hopper(1945)

Sep. 9- created 1st computer “bug” – a moth caught between relays

Admiral in U.S. Navy Assisted in programming

Harvard’s Mark I and II Developed 1st compiler

(A-O)

Alan Turing(1954) Mathematical genius Posed important questions

about human intelligence Helped break codes during

WWII Developed the theory of a

“universal machine”

Robotics & Artificial Intelligence1948- Norbert Wiener

Presented “Cybernetics” which hugely influenced research in the future on artificial intelligence

1961- Unimate1st industrial robot that worked at General Motors to stack

pieces of hot metal

1974- David SilverDesigned MIT, which assembled small-parts together

1979- Stanford CartHans Moravec built the Stanford Cart with a television

camera to take pictures of things from different angles

Storageo In 1952, magnetic tape was used for storage because it was not

very expensive. It used a ‘vacuum channel’ process to rotate a circle of tape in between two points.

o In the year of 1961, the IBM 1301 Disk Storage Unit was released. It was sold for a whopping $115,500.

o In 1971, an IBM team led by David Noble created an eight inch floppy diskette. It became widely popular because the floppy could be moved from one drive to another.

o In the year 1994, Iomega Zip Disk was released. The first Zip Disk only held 100MB. Now a Disk can hold up to 2GB.

The End

Computers have changed drastically over the years. From the Bombe to the Atari to our iPads now, many different discoveries in technology have made computers become easier and faster to use. There are still many changes to come, though.

In Conclusion