Continued from the previous episode: A Brief History of World Computing Power (Part 1)
In the previous article, Mr. Xiaozao mentioned the birth of ENIAC.
In fact, from 1945 to 1948, that is, when China was still in the period of civil war, in addition to the birth of ENIAC, several major events occurred in the field of science and technology. These major events interacted and finally changed the destiny of mankind completely.
The first major event: the proposal of the von Neumann architecture
John Von Neumann was a Hungarian-American, born in 1903, immigrated to the United States in 1930, and became a professor at Princeton University.
Von Neumann
In 1944, von Neumann began to participate in the development of the atomic bomb. Because the development process required a lot of calculations, he began to pay attention to computer-related research progress. After being recommended, he participated in the research of ENIAC as a consultant.
Based on the research of ENIAC, von Neumann and others proposed a new solution in 1945 - EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, Electronic Discrete Variable Computer).
In the summary report "Draft Report on EDVAC" written by von Neumann, he elaborated a new idea of manufacturing electronic computers and programming, and designed a computer consisting of arithmetic unit, logic control, memory, input and A new architecture composed of output devices.
Yes, that's right, this is the famous von Neumann architecture .
von Neumann architecture
Until now, the von Neumann architecture is still the mainstream architecture of our computers. Based on this contribution, von Neumann is also known as the "father of modern computers" by the world. (He is also known for his contributions to mathematics and economics, and has been called the "father of game theory.")
The second major event: the introduction of information theory
In 1948, Claude Elwood Shannon of Bell Laboratories published A Mathematical Theory of Communication. This book is regarded as the founding work of information theory.
Shannon
Shannon gave the basic model of the communication system, proposed the concept of information entropy and mathematical expressions.
He pointed out that information can be quantified, and any type of information can be represented by digital coding. Shannon also introduced the concept of a bit, which he called "a unit for measuring information."
The Shannon formula proposed by Shannon has guided the development of the entire communication industry, and it has not been broken until now.
To put it simply, Shannon's information theory has really laid a real theoretical foundation for information technology. He is a well-deserved "father" of modern information and communication technology.
The third big event: the invention of the transistor
Needless to say this.
In 1947, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, also from Bell Laboratories, jointly invented the world's first transistor.
The advent of the transistor ushered in a new era in the electronic age.
The three major events mentioned above have laid a solid foundation for the information technology revolution. The information technology industry has entered a stage of explosive development.
█ 1950-1967: The Integrated Circuit Era
In 1951, J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, who invented ENIAC, cooperated again to develop the world's first commercial computer system - UNIVAC-1.
UNIVAC
This system was used by the U.S. Census Department for the census. It also successfully predicted the U.S. presidential election at the end of 1952, and became famous overnight.
In 1952, the EDVAC designed by von Neumann was finally manufactured and started to operate.
Von Neumann and EDVAC
Compared with ENIAC, EDVAC has independent storage and is the first computer to use magnetic tape. At that time, magnetic storage had begun to emerge and became a new choice for information carriers.
Applications of transistors
Later, transistor technology began to mature and enter the market.
Compared with vacuum tubes (electron tubes), it is smaller in size and lower in power consumption, making electronic devices smaller and more power-efficient.
In 1954, TRADIC, the world's first transistor computer, was put into use in the US Air Force (developed by Bell Labs). Its operating power consumption does not exceed 100W, and its volume does not exceed 1 cubic meter, which is very different from the ENIAC of the year.
TRADITION
In 1958, RCA Corporation of the United States created the world's first computer using all transistors - RCA501.
RCA501
Not long after, in 1959, IBM, not to be outdone, also produced a fully transistorized computer - the IBM 7090.
IBM 7090
Based on IBM 7090, American Airlines and IBM jointly developed the world's first reservation system - Saber. The rapid popularity of Saber led to a surge in the market share of IBM computers.
The Birth of the Integrated Circuit
Having said that, we have to go back and talk about William Shockley who invented the transistor.
Shockley
Although the team led by Shockley collaborated to invent the transistor, the internal relationship was not good. The main reason is that Shockley is mean and difficult to get along with.
Not long after the transistor was invented, team members left him one after another.
In 1954, Shockley couldn't stay at Bell Labs anymore, so he went to teach. Later, in 1956, he came to Mountain View, California, in the western United States, and established the "Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory" in a small city called Palo Alto (later part of Silicon Valley).
The laboratory has attracted many outstanding young people to join. Among them are 8 people including Robert Noyce (Robert Noyce) and Gordon Moore (Gordon Moore).
Later, Shockley's career went into trouble again due to personal reasons. So, on September 18, 1957 (this day was later named by the New York Times as one of the ten most important days in American history), the eight young people mentioned above submitted their resignations to Shockley together. Shockley was furious, denounced this group of "ungrateful" young people, and called them "traitorous eight".
After the "eight traitors" left, they co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor .
This company should be familiar to everyone. It can be said to be the cradle of the world's semiconductor industry and the Whampoa Military Academy in the chip industry.
In 1959, Jack Kilby (Jack St. Clair Kilby) of Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor successively invented integrated circuits based on the germanium substrate diffusion process and the silicon substrate planar process, opening the integrated circuit The gate of the times.
Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit
Computers after 1959 used transistors and integrated circuits in large numbers. Computers continue to shrink in size and increase in functionality.
The beginnings of the software industry
Having faster processors, larger memory, and richer I/O devices means that more tasks can be undertaken.
Thus, "multiprogramming system" appeared.
Before the "multi-programming system", computers were operated manually, and batch systems were operated, which was inefficient.
"Multiprogramming systems", which employ channel and interrupt techniques to allow the system to perform "hang-up" operations. The computer has changed from serial to parallel, and can run multiple tasks at the same time, improving efficiency.
This system is basically close to the real operating system.
In addition to operating systems, computer languages have also advanced.
In 1957, IBM successfully developed the FORTRAN high-level language. It is the world's first high-level programming language that has been officially adopted and has been handed down to this day.
The so-called high-level language is a programming language that is close to people's habits. It is easy to learn, has strong versatility, and the written program is relatively short, which is convenient for promotion and communication.
In April 1960, the COBOL language was officially released. In 1964, the BASIC language was released.
The continuous emergence of high-level languages has laid the foundation for the subsequent outbreak of the software industry.
IBM System/360
In the 1960s, IBM was the undisputed "leader" of the world's computer industry. In the computer market, they occupy an absolute market leading position (in the North American market, the market share exceeds two-thirds).
In December 1961, IBM launched the largest commercial product development program in human history. The plan cost $5 billion (about $46 billion today), hired more than 60,000 new workers, and built five new factories.
On April 7, 1964, the results of the plan first appeared, and IBM officially released six specifications of the System/360 commercial mainframe.
IBM System/360
360 means a 360-degree angle, which means a full range of services. It is the world's first instruction set compatible computer. A single operating system can be applied to the entire series, without the need for a tailor-made operating system for each host as in previous computers.
At this time, people realized that after the main computer hardware is upgraded, the operating system, application software, and peripheral hardware can all continue to be used. The concept of "compatibility" began to take shape.
The IBM System/360 is the most successful model in IBM's history. Although the R&D investment is huge, the return is equally impressive-the price of each mainframe is between 2.5 and 3 million US dollars (about 20 million US dollars today), and the monthly sales More than a thousand units were produced. Half of Big Blue's annual sales come from this series.
NASA's Apollo moon landing program, the inter-bank transaction system of banks across the United States, and the largest online ticketing system in the aviation industry all use IBM System/360.
It is worth mentioning that although IBM dominated the mainframe market, many IT companies were founded in the early 1960s, and they turned to the miniaturized computer market that IBM didn't care much about, and achieved good results.
For example, DEC Corporation (founded in 1957) and their PDP-8, PDP-11, VAX-11 series hosts.
PDP-8
These hosts are small in size, low in power consumption, and not bad in computing speed (hundreds of thousands of basic operations per second), and have been welcomed by many users.
█ 1967-1979: The era of large-scale integrated circuits
The wheels of the times continue to roll forward. In 1967, LSI (Large Scale Integration, LSI) appeared, and the real era of chips came.
In July 1968, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore resigned from Fairchild Semiconductor to found Intel Corporation.
In the beginning, Intel made semiconductor memory products. Later, because of fierce competition, they turned to the processor direction.
In 1971, Intel developed the world's first commercial processor - Intel 4004 . This processor integrates 2,250 transistors on-chip, can process 4-bit data, calculate 60,000 times per second, and operate at a frequency of 108KHz.
Intel 4004
The emergence of Intel 4004 marked the beginning of the era of microprocessors.
In 1974, Intel introduced the Intel 8080 , which had 20 times the performance of the 4004.
Intel 8080
The meaning of Intel 8080 is no less than that of 4004, because it is a microprocessor developed for personal computers. The classic microcomputer Altair 8800 launched by MITS in 1974 is based on the 8080 processor.
Altair 8800
After the Altair 8800 was released in the January 1975 issue of "Popular Electronics", it attracted a lot of attention from computer enthusiasts. Among them is a young man from Harvard University and his partner.
Together they later designed Altair BASIC for the Altair 8800 and founded a company called Microsoft (Microsoft).
That's right, this Leng Qing's name is Bill Gates, and his partner is Paul Allen.
who was the first personal computer
The Altair 8800 is often referred to as the first personal computer (PC), but in reality, that title is disputed.
In 1971, Kenbak Corporation of the United States released the Kenbak-1 computer. This computer is considered by the Computer History Museum to be the world's first personal computer.
Kenbak-1 consists of small and medium integrated circuits and does not use a microprocessor. The system originally sold for $750, and only about 40 were built and sold. In 1973, the Kenbak company closed down and the Kenbak-1 was discontinued.
In 1973, the French company R2E produced the first microprocessor-based commercial computer, the Micral. In Micral's manual, "Micro-computer" is mentioned for the first time.
Micral
Another strong contender for the "first personal computer" is the Alto from the famous Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC).
In 1973, they introduced the Alto ("Otto"). It was the first computer to use a mouse and a graphical user interface (GUI), much like the computers we use today. Many of its designs have had a profound impact on Jobs' Apple and Bill Gates' Microsoft.
In 1975, Wang An Company (WANG) launched the world's first word processor with editing and retrieval functions, which began to take shape as a desktop computer. The screen of this computer can directly display text, and the keyboard can quickly modify the document.
In 1977, three classic models of personal computers were launched, namely Commodore PET from Commodore, APPLE II from Apple, and TRS-80 Model II from Tandy Radio Shack.
The emergence of a large number of personal computers is of great significance.
It has changed the business model of the computer industry, marking that computing power is no longer only for a few large enterprises (mainframes), but has begun to move towards ordinary families and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Technical power
In addition to processors, computer storage and networking technologies have also advanced significantly.
In 1973, IBM invented the Winchester (Winchester) hard disk 3340.
Winchester 3340
This disk uses a sealed assembly, a lubricated spindle, and a low-mass head. When working, the magnetic head is suspended above the high-speed rotating platter, without direct contact with the platter. This is the prototype of the modern hard drive.
In other words, the disks you use today are not much different architecturally from 1973.
In terms of network, in 1970, ARPAnet, the prototype of the Internet, was basically completed.
On May 22, 1973, Robert M. Metcalfe of the Xerox PARC Research Center formally proposed the idea of "Ethernet", and it was designed and realized in November.
Metcalfe
In 1978, with the efforts of Vinton G. Cerf, Robert E. Kahn and others, TCP/IP was also born.
In the software industry, the results of the 1970s were equally overwhelming.
In 1973, Ken Thomson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs officially published a paper announcing the existence of the UNIX operating system, which caused a sensation in the entire industry and was regarded as a symbol of the birth of the modern operating system.
Operating a DEC PDP-11 computer
Ken Thompson (sitting) and Dennis Ritchie (standing)
In 1970 and 1972, the Forth programming language and the C language were developed successively.
There have also been major breakthroughs in database technology. In 1970, IBM researcher Edgar Frank Codd (Edgar Frank Codd) opened the era of relational databases through a paper called "Relational Model of Large Shared Database Data".
Edgar Frank Cord
The emergence of relational databases laid the foundation for the rapid development of database applications.
In 1974, IBM's San Jose Laboratory launched the IBM System R project, which implemented Structured Query Language (SQL) for the first time.
In 1977, Larry Ellison, who was later known as an IT madman, and his partners invested $2,000 to establish SDL (later Oracle). In 1979, they launched the Oracle database, opening a new era of commercial databases.
Co-founder of Oracle
The 1970s is a long time away from us, and many things may have been forgotten.
But in fact, the real start of the IT industry was in the 1970s. The rise of large-scale integrated circuits, the maturity of storage technology, and the emergence of basic software (operating systems, databases) all occurred during that period.
The dazzling results, although not very eye-catching now, are all important breakthroughs from 0 to 1.
After the foundation was solidified, in 1980, a crazier IT wave was about to hit.
To be continued...
Stay tuned——"A Brief History of World Computing Power (Part 2)"
references:
1. "Computer History Summary", Internet;
2. "A Brief History of Computing Power Development", Lushan Zhenrong;
3. "Which is the world's first personal computer?" ", small box, Zhihu;
4. "Overview of the Development Generation of Electronic Computers", Wu Guofa, Zhihu;
5. "IT History Serialization - History of Computers and Personal Computers", Internet;
6. Wikipedia, Baidu Encyclopedia;
