On February 14, 1946, in Philadelphia, southeastern Pennsylvania, USA, people were working and living as usual.
Suddenly, they found that the lights in the room dimmed.
People who have just experienced World War II are used to this situation. They thought to themselves: "Is the power line broken again somewhere?"
In fact, the reason why the lights are dark is not because of wiring problems, but because a "behemoth" was born at the University of Pennsylvania not far from them.
This "behemoth" covers an area of 170 square meters and weighs 30 tons. It lives on electricity, with a power of up to 150 kilowatts. Its start-up directly lowers the voltage of nearby residents' electricity consumption, thus causing the lights to dim.
What is this "behemoth"?
That's right, it is the first general-purpose electronic computer of mankind - ENIAC (Eniac) .
ENIAC
ENIAC uses 17,468 vacuum tubes (this is one of the main reasons for its large size and high power consumption), and can complete 5,000 additions or 400 multiplications per second, which is about 200,000 times that of manual calculations.
Its birth is of great significance to the whole human being, and it marks that human beings have officially entered the era of electronic computers.
█ From Knotted Notes to Arabic Numerals: The Emergence of Computing Power
ENIAC is a milestone. It divides the history of human computing power development into two parts.
Before continuing to the second half, let's review the history of the first half.
Since ancient times, humans have mastered computing power. Our "native" computing power tool is the brain.
The process of using computing power is called "thinking". Correspondingly, our process of collecting information is called "observation".
The so-called "calculation" is actually the process of solving problems. Encounter a problem, solve the problem through calculation, and realize progress and development.
Throughout the process, humans are the subject, and information is the input and output. Experience and technology are methods. The ability to complete the entire calculation process is Computing Power .
Animals also have brains and computing power, but they are far less powerful than us. In the long process of evolution, our brains have become more and more developed, which eventually helped us stand out from all creatures and become the masters of the earth.
In the early stages of human beings, computing power was needed for survival. The main calculation content is how to hunt, how to prevent attacks, and how to reproduce.
Later, with the basic guarantee of survival, human beings began to use more computing power to improve the quality of life, such as building houses, trading items, manufacturing tools, etc.
Computing is the process of processing information. Therefore, how to express and record information is the first step in implementing calculations.
In the primitive society, in order to better describe the information (seen, heard, and thought) observed by oneself, and to communicate information more conveniently, people began to paint.
Primitives' Murals
Later, on the basis of painting, writing was invented .
early hieroglyphs
Text, in fact, uses ideographic symbols to "encode" information .
It is a reflection and expression of the physical world and the spiritual world. With text, the efficiency of information recording and transmission has been greatly improved, human society has a stronger connection, and history and civilization are easier to pass on.
In the text, there is also a very special symbol, that is the number .
All early advanced human civilizations had their own characters and their own number systems. For example, the sexagesimal system of Babylonian civilization, the decimal system or octadecimal system of Mayan civilization, and the decimal system of China and ancient Egypt.
After numbers appear, people call the process of counting and counting calculations calculations . (Let's call the previous macroscopic calculation "generalized calculation", and here it is called "narrowly defined calculation".)
Ancient Greece was a leader in numbers and calculations, and established independent subjects such as arithmetic, geometry, and algebra very early.
Pythagoras , an ancient Greek thinker, philosopher, and mathematician, discovered and proved the Pythagorean theorem, which was a symbol of the computing level of that period.
Pythagoras
Later, the Pythagoreans advocated using numbers to explain everything, believing that not only everything contains numbers, but also that "everything is a number" .
Now it seems that this kind of thinking is very forward-looking. It was also changed to: "everything is a bit" .
As human society progresses, computing requirements become more and more complex. Relying solely on the "native" computing power tool of the brain is not enough. Not even with fingers and toes. So, we started to use external computing power tools.
In the earliest days, the external computing power tools we used were straw ropes and stones, which is the so-called "knotting notes".
China's record of knotting records comes from "Xi Ci Xia" in "Book of Changes": "In ancient times, knotting was used to rule, and later sages used books to make changes." The Chinese knots that we now see are also derived from "knotting notes." .
Knotting Notes
Later, civilization continued to develop, and we had abacus (a small stick used for calculation).
In China, Suanchou was born in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. The idioms we often use, such as strategizing, at a loss, and superior skills, etc., are all related to calculating.
In 480 A.D., Zu Chongzhi accurately calculated pi to the seventh decimal place (3.1415926), using counting chips. His record has been maintained for more than 900 years.
Zu Chongzhi
In addition to counting chips, we also have a more well-known computing power tool, which is the abacus .
The specific birth time of the abacus has not been verified. Some say it was the Qin Dynasty, while others say it was the Eastern Han Dynasty. In Xu Yue's book "Shu Shu Ji Yi" in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the word "abacus calculation" first appeared.
I don't need to say much about the historical value of the abacus. We can still see it until now.
abacus
In the 3rd century AD, the ancient Indians of the Gupta Dynasty invented Arabic numerals , which is of great significance. Later, the rise of the Arab Empire brought Arabic numerals to Europe.
Also brought to Europe is papermaking , one of China's four great inventions .
As I mentioned earlier, pictures and words are the way humans express information. This information definitely needs a carrier. The early carriers were tortoise shells, animal bones, animal skins, bamboo slips, wooden tablets, and silk. These vectors are either scarce, expensive, or not viable for long-term storage.
During the Western Han Dynasty, papermaking technology appeared in China, but the technology was simple and the quality was not good. Later, in the first year of Yuanxing in the Eastern Han Dynasty (105), the eunuch Cai Lun summed up the experience of his predecessors and improved the papermaking process, which significantly improved the quality of paper and laid the foundation for the popularization of paper.
Cai Lun
The emergence and popularization of paper has greatly facilitated the recording and transmission of information, facilitated the spread of culture, and improved production efficiency.
Arabic numerals and papermaking were introduced to Europe. The former replaced the lengthy Roman numerals, and the latter replaced expensive sheepskin and calfskin. In addition, Chinese printing was passed on later, which greatly promoted the development of European culture.
All this also paved the way for the later Renaissance and the emergence of technology.
█From Slide Rule to Difference Engine: Accumulation of Computing Power
In the 14th century AD, as we all know, Europe started the Renaissance, and the trend of humanism became the mainstream, and people began to advocate to understand the world through observation and experimentation.
In the 16th century, European technology began to explode.
At that time, the whole of Europe was star-studded, the fields of arts and sciences were fruitful, and the level of productivity skyrocketed.
Mathematics, as the foundation of all scientific disciplines, has achieved the greatest research progress. Analytic geometry, calculus, etc., were born. A large number of talented mathematicians have output a large number of research results, which not only laid the foundation for the take-off of other disciplines, but also directly contributed to the subsequent industrial revolution.
At that time, in order to better serve mathematical calculations, people invented new computing power tools. For example, in 1625, the English mathematician William Oughtred invented the slide rule. In 1642, French mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the earliest mechanical computer.
These inventions can assist in the completion of complex tasks such as logarithmic calculations, trigonometric function calculations, and root calculations, and improve computational efficiency.
Later, from the end of the 17th century to the middle of the 18th century, the German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz (Gottfried Leibniz) and others successively designed and manufactured equipment capable of calculating multiplication, raising the computing power tools to a higher level. level.
Leibniz
In the 1760s, the first industrial revolution broke out, bringing mankind into the age of steam.
The rise of power machinery has begun to replace manual labor and become the main productive force. Computing power tools have also begun to evolve towards more advanced mechanization.
If computing power tools want to be mechanized, they must first solve the problem of information expression. Because the machine is illiterate, it is necessary to invent a "language" that the machine can understand, so that the machine can work according to the order.
This early machine language expression is "punching" .
In 1725, the Frenchman Basile Bouchon (Basile Bouchon) invented the punch card (punched card) for looms.
During the weaving process of the loom, the knitting needles will slide back and forth. According to the small holes on the punch card, the knitting needle can hook the warp thread (no hole, no hook), so as to draw the pattern. In other words, the punch card is a memory that stores a "pattern program" that controls the loom.
This invention marks the beginning of human mechanized information storage.
In 1801, French loom craftsman Joseph Marie Jdakacquard updated the punch card.
He bundled punched cards in a certain order and turned them into a strip, creating the prototype of punched tape (Punched Tape). This kind of paper tape is used in jacquard looms.
You should be able to see that punching is actually a way of encoding information . It is simpler than words and numbers, and it allows people and machines to "communicate".
In 1811, the 20-year-old British inventor Charles Babbage (Charles Babbage) got inspiration from the Jacquard loom and began to design and manufacture a device called "Difference Engine" .
Babbage
Ten years later, this "difference machine" was completed, capable of performing various functional calculations, and the calculation accuracy reached 6 decimal places.
Encouraged by this achievement, Babbage launched research on a second "Difference Engine", which would have an accuracy of 20 digits. The British government also funded his research.
It is a pity that because the design of this machine is too advanced (there are more than 25,000 parts, and the error of the main parts should not exceed one thousandth of an inch), it is difficult to meet the precision requirements at the level of mechanical manufacturing at that time. Therefore, after 20 years and a huge amount of money was spent, this "difference engine" still could not be manufactured.
The difference engine No. 2 reproduced by later generations has been verified to work normally
In this process, in 1834, Babbage also put forward a bolder idea - to design a general-purpose mathematical computer powered by steam, which can automatically solve complex arithmetic problems with 100 variables, and each number can reach 25 bits, the speed can reach one operation per second.
Babbage called this new design the "Analytical Engine" .
The "Analytical Engine", like the second Difference Engine, was ultimately unsuccessful. But many of the designs contained in the "Analytical Engine", such as the mechanism for sending in and out data, as well as the "repository" and "computing room", are exactly the same as computers more than a hundred years later.
Therefore, the "Analytical Engine" was called the world's first computer by later generations . And Babbage, known as the originator of the computer.
It is worth mentioning that there is a young lady named Ada Augusta (Ada Augusta) who carried out technical cooperation with Babbage. She is the only daughter of the poet Lord Byron. At the time, she was in charge of programming the "Analytical Engine". She is also known as the world's first "programmer".
Ada Augusta
In 1878, the Swedish inventor O'Neill invented a gear computer with a variable number of teeth in Russia, which can be regarded as one of the representatives of mechanical computers.
By 1885, more and more computers had been born in European and American countries, which became a trend.
In 1890, the appearance of a talented person further developed the card punching technology. This person is the German-American- Herman Hollerith (Herman Hollerith).
Herman Hollis
Based on the punched card, Herman Hollis invented the punched card tabulator, which was specially used to collect and count census data.
punched card tabulator
The punched card tabulator has faster stats.
According to historical records, in the U.S. census in 1890, it took only 6 weeks to complete the statistical work through punching sheets and punching machines, and the accurate data (62,622,250 people) was obtained. The previous US census in 1880 had to rely on manual processing of data, and it took 7 years to get the final result.
Such a huge efficiency improvement has made tabulating machines popular in various industries. It marked the beginning of the era of semi-automated data processing.
Punched card technology, still in use until the 1960s
Later, in 1896, Herman Hollis founded the Tabulating Machine Company. This company is the predecessor of IBM .
█From Turing Machine to ENIAC: The Rise of Computing Power
After entering the 20th century, with the rapid development of electronic technology, computers began to transition from machinery to electronics.
Computers in the mechanical age can mark numbers through gears or graduated cylinders. In the electronic age, this is not very appropriate. The characteristics of electricity are presence (power on) and no power (no power on), which is more suitable, and it is obviously binary .
In the second half of the 17th century, German mathematician Leibniz was the first to come up with binary (yes, it was him again. He was also the inventor of calculus.)
He vividly uses 1 to represent God, and 0 to represent nothingness. God created all objects from nothingness.
In the middle of the 19th century, British mathematical logician George Boole proposed logical algebra (later known as "Boolean algebra").
george bull
He unifies arithmetic and simple logic through binary, and provides us with a tool for understanding and manipulating logical relationships by using logical operators such as AND, OR, and NOT, as well as binary logic based on true and false.
Boolean algebra paved the way for the design of binary, switching logic circuits for computers, and eventually laid the mathematical foundation for the invention of the modern computer.
In addition to the logical basis, the hardware must of course also keep up.
In 1904, the British John Ambrose Fleming (John Ambrose Fleming) invented the vacuum electronic diode, which can realize unidirectional conduction, wave detection and rectification. In 1906, the American Lee De Forest improved on the basis of the diode and invented the vacuum three-stage electron tube, which can realize signal amplification.
de forest
The emergence of vacuum tubes has pushed human electronic technology a big step forward and made up for the shortcomings of hardware.
During that period, information storage technology also made great progress.
In 1898, the Danish engineer Valdemar Poulsen first used magnetic wire technology in his telegraph, making it the first practical magnetic-acoustic recording and reproduction device for mankind.
In 1928, German engineer Fritz Pfleumer invented the audio tape. In 1932, Austrian engineer Gustav Tauschek invented the magnetic drum memory. The era of magnetic storage has officially begun.
Drum memory
In 1937, Alan M. Turing of the University of Cambridge proposed a mathematical model called "Turing machine" by later generations. This guides the way for how logic works in modern computers.
alan turing
Also in 1937, George Stibitz of Bell Laboratories demonstrated a device for representing binary numbers using relays. Although only a showpiece, it was the first binary electronic computer.
After the outbreak of World War II, military needs greatly stimulated the development of computing power. The military needs more powerful computing power to complete important tasks such as password encryption and decryption, artillery ballistic calculation and even rocket launch.
In December 1941, the German Konrad Zuse (Konrad Zuse) completed the world's first programmable electronic computer - Z3. This computer is used for aerodynamic calculations, uses a large number of relays and vacuum tubes, can do 3 to 4 additions per second, and a multiplication takes 3 to 5 seconds. Later, the Z3 was destroyed in the bombing of Berlin.
Conrad Zuse and the Z3 (reissue)
In 1942, John V. Atanasoff, an associate professor of physics at Iowa State University, and his student Clifford Berry designed and manufactured the world's first electronic computer, named "ABC" (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), also known as "Jenny Machine".
ABC computer
ABC used IBM's 80-column punched card for input and output, using vacuum tubes to process data in binary format. The storage of data is the use of regenerative capacitor drum memory (Regenerative Capacitor Memory).
Although the ABC cannot be programmed (it is only used to solve linear equations), the use of binary numbers to represent data, the use of electronic components for calculation (rather than mechanical switches), and the separation of calculation and memory are enough to prove that it is a modern machine. A digital electronic computer in the sense.
In 1944, with the support of IBM Corporation, Dr. Howard Aiken of Harvard University successfully developed a general-purpose electronic computer - Mark I, also known as ASCC (Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, automatic control sequence calculator).
Howard Aiken and Mark I
Mark I is 16 meters long, weighs 4.3 tons, has 750,000 parts, uses 800 kilometers of wires, 3 million connections, 3,500 multi-pole relays, and 2,225 counters.
It can add or subtract 3 times in one second. Multiplication takes 6 seconds, division takes 15.3 seconds, and logarithmic or trigonometric functions take more than 1 minute. At the time, it was used to calculate ballistic fire tables for the US Navy.
It is worth mentioning that the first program to run on the Mark I was initiated by John von Neumann on March 29, 1944 . At the time, von Neumann was working on the Manhattan Project and needed to determine whether implosion was a viable option for the atomic bomb.
Von Neumann
It should also be mentioned that among the research team of Mark I, there is a female Navy Reserve officer named Grace Hopper (Grace Hopper). The word "bug" was introduced by her.
In 1945, a moth flew into the Mark II during operation, causing it to malfunction. Hopper exterminated the moth, fixed the problem, and became the first person to "debug" a computer.
This moth was also posted on the Mark II's journal
Finally, in February 1946, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, ENIAC was born.
A female programmer operating ENIAC
It needs to be clarified here that although people have always called ENIAC the world's first digital electronic computer, this statement is actually controversial. The aforementioned ABC is a strong contender for this title.
ENIAC is not even second. There were many digital electronic computers that came out during that period. Strictly speaking, ENIAC can only be ranked 11th. The mainstream view abroad is that the designer of ENIAC stole the design of ABC. In 1973, the U.S. court also ruled that the ENIAC patent was canceled and that the ENIAC patent was a derivative of ABC.
We will not discuss who is the first. Anyway, around 1945, the wave of the birth of electronic computers marked that human computing power officially entered the era of digital electronic computers.
The magnificent information technology revolution is about to start.
To be continued...
Stay tuned——"A Brief History of World Computing Power (Part 2): Information Revolution"
references:
1. "Computer History Summary", Internet;
2. "A Brief History of Computing Power Development", Lushan Zhenrong;
3. "Who Invented the Mark I Computer?" ", thoughtco.com;
4. "The pinnacle work in the history of machinery!" Let's take a look at the difference machine", cutting-edge numerical control technology;
5. Wikipedia, Baidu Encyclopedia;
