AmyStrange.org and the UNeXpLaiNed ©Copyrighted by Dave Ayotte & Caty Bergman
SCI: Computer History
THIS PAGE IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION TOC (Table Of Contents)
01.00 INTRODUCTION: Computer History
01.01 SUMMARY
01.02 DEFINITIONS
02.00 HISTORY
02.01 PRE MODERN AGE
02.02 MODERN AGE
02.03 TIMELINE
03.00 ADVANCED DEGREE
03.01 REVIEW
04.00 RESEARCH NOTES
05.00 BIBLIOGRAPHY
06.00 FOOTNOTES
07.00 RELATED WEBPAGES
08.00 RELATED SUBJECTS
09.00 etc...
01.00
01.01 SUMMARY
01.02 DEFINITIONS
COMPUTER PEOPLE: People who did the things computers do now, centuries before the first computer (as we know them today anyway) was ever built.
ENIAC: Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer
HUMAN COMPUTERS: People who did the things computers do now, centuries before the first computer (as we know them today anyway) was ever built.
IC: Integrated Circuit
02.00
02.01 PRE MODERN AGE
02.01a COMPUTER PEOPLE
02.01b CHARLES BABBAGE
02.01c THE JACQUARD LOOM
02.01d DIVISION OF MENTAL LABOR
02.01e BARON GASPARD De PRONY
02.01f BANKERS' CLEARING HOUSE
02.01g RAILWAY CLEARING HOUSE
02.01h CENTRAL TELEGRAH OFFICE
02.01i PRUDENTIAL
02.01j HERMAN HOLLERITH
02.01k PRE VACUUM TUBES
02.01l VACUUM TUBES
02.02 MODERN AGE
02.02a THE TRANSISTOR
02.02b IC CHIPS
02.03 TIMELINE
[02.01a]: Computer People TOC
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
"The first use of the word 'computer' was recorded in 1613 in a book called 'The yong mans gleanings' by English writer Richard Braithwait I haue read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer breathed, and he reduceth thy dayes into a short number. It referred to a person who carried out calculations, or computations, and the word continued with the same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. From the end of the 19th century the word began to take on its more familiar meaning, a machine that carries out computations."
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage
" ...numerical tables were calculated by humans who were called 'computers', meaning 'one who computes', much as a conductor is 'one who conducts'."
In short since there were no computers back in the early days of human civilization, at least as we know them today, when numbers (data) needed to be manipulated (processed) using addition, division etc., humans did the calculations themselves, or hired other people (computer people) to do it for them. Eventually someone got the bright idea to use these human computers to calculate and standardize many of the numerical tables that were used back then. Many of these tables are still in use today:
SOURCE:
Pages 9-10 from
Computer: A History Of The Information Machine
"The first attempt to organize information processing on a large scale using human computers was for the production of mathematical tables, such as logarithmic and trigonometric tables."Logarithmic tables revolutionized mathematical computation in the sixth and seventh centuries by enabling time-consuming arithmetic operations, such as multiplication and division and the extraction of roots, to be performed using only the simple operations of addition and subtraction. Trigonometrical tables enabled a similar speeding up of calulations of angles and areas in connection with surveying and astronomy.
"By the late eighteenth century, specialized tables were being produced for several different occupations: navigational tables for mariners, star tables for astronomers, life insurance tables for actuaries, civil engineering tables for architects, and so on. All these tables were produced by human computers, without mechanical aid.
"For a maritime nation such as Great Britain, and later the United States, the timely production of reliable navigational tables, and their freedom from error, was of major economic importance. In 1766, the British government sanctioned the astronomer royal, Neville Maskelyne, to produce each year a set of navigational tables to be known as the Nautical Almanac. This was the first permanent table-making project to be established in the world. Often known as the Seaman's Bible, the Nautical Almanac dramatically improved navigational accuracy. It has been published without a break every year since 1766."
[02.01b]: Charles Babbage TOC
"At Cambridge, he [Charles Babbage] saw the high error-rate of this human-driven process and started his life's work of trying to calculate the tables mechanically. He began in 1822 with what he called the difference engine, made to compute values of polynomial functions. Unlike similar efforts of the time, Babbage's difference engine was created to calculate a series of values automatically. By using the method of finite differences it was possible to avoid the need for multiplication and division."
Charles Babbage's greatest claim to fame in the history of computers was his Difference Engine (DE). That and his dream of building a totally mechanized, down to the setting of the type for printing, DE that went even further by being able to calculate any mathematical formula by entering the formula using punch cards. Punch cards back then are comparable to the software coding used in today's computers. We'll get back to that in a minute.
Babbage called this machine the Analytical Engine (AE). His AE was never fully realized in his lifetime. Some of this was due to his under estimating the financial capital that he would need to complete the project, and as his avenues of money and political clout dried up, he was never able to realize a fully operational dream machine, although he was able to produce a small scaled down version (without the ability to set type and print) that is still in operational condition to this day. You can see it, if you want, at the Science Museum located in London, England (London Science Museum). In 1991 they took some of his designs and used them to build a prototype DE which is still on display there. Nine years later, a printing unit was added.
There were devices invented long before the DE was invented that were used in the calculation of numbers, the abacus for example, but the DE was the first large scale mechanical device that was the first to use a rudimentary processing chart that, in it's simplest form, is still used in designing computer software today.
This rudimentary processing chart was also kind of used and followed by many of the early data processing organizations, like the Bankers' Clearing House, Railway Clearing House, and the Central Telegraph Office. This processing chart is known today as the "Division of mental labor" and was first used on a large scale shortly after the beginning of the French Revolution (1789–1799). But before we get into that, let's talk about the punch card for a minute.
[02.01c]: Bouchon, Falcon, Vaucanson, and the Jacquard Loom TOC
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basile_Bouchon
"Basile Bouchon was a textile worker in the silk center in Lyon who invented a way to control a loom with a perforated paper tape in 1725. The son of an organ maker, Bouchon partially automated the tedious setting up process of the drawloom in which an operator lifted the warp threads using cords."This development is considered to be the first industrial application of a semi-automated machine.
"The cords of the warp were passed through the eyes of horizontal needles arranged to slide in a box. These were either raised or not depending on whether there was not or was a hole in the tape at that point. This was similar to the piano roll developed at the end of the 19th century and may have been inspired by the patterns that were traditionally drawn on squared paper.
[...]
"Three years later, his assistant Jean-Baptiste Falcon expanded the number of cords that could be handled by arranging the holes in rows and using rectangular cards that were joined together in an endless loop.
"Though this eliminated mistakes in the lifting of threads, it still needed an extra operator to control it and the first attempt at automation was made by Jacques Vaucanson in 1745... "
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Vaucanson
" ...he created the world's first completely automated loom, drawing on the work of Basile Bouchon and Jean Falcon. Vaucanson was trying to automate the French textile industry with punch cards- a technology that, as refined by Joseph-Marie Jacquard more than a half century later, would revolutionize weaving and, in the twentieth century, would be used to input data into computers and store information in binary form... "
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
"The Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard, first demonstrated in 1801, that simplifies the process of manufacturing textiles with complex patterns such as brocade, damask and matelasse. The loom was controlled by a "chain of cards", a number of punched cards, laced together into a continuous sequence. Multiple rows of holes were punched on each card and each row of punched holes corresponded to one row of the design. Several such paper cards, generally white in color, can be seen in the images below. Chains, like the much later paper tape, allowed sequences of any length to be constructed, not limited by the size of a card."It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Baptiste Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) A static display of a Jacquard loom is the centrepiece of the Musée des Tissus et des Arts Décoratifs in Lyon. Live displays of a Jacquard loom are available at a few private museums around Lyon. In 2012, Mexican contemporary artist Tania Candiani produced Telar/Maquina investigating the intersection of handmade and machine through sound, craft, art and public interaction... "
[02.01d]: Division of Mental Labor TOC
The example he used was for an imaginary pin making factory and the different steps (stages) they used to manufacture pins. They were as follows:
1) Cut the length of wire for the pin itself,
2) Forming the pin head,
3) Sharpening the point,
4) Polishing the pin, and then
5) Packing them, etc....
Smith's ideas closely resemble, if not look exactly like, the assembly line process used by manufacturers to this day, as of this writing anyway. This process was first used on a mass scale by Henry Ford to make his Model T more efficiently, so that they could be more economically priced.
[02.01e]: Baron Gaspard de Prony TOC
In response to Emporer Napoleans plans to reform many of France's ancient institutions, especially in establishing a fair system of property taxation and for that he needed maps, Baron Gaspard de Prony was chosen to head this project.
In 1791, de Prony used Smith's idea of dividing the manufacturing process into steps (or sections) to organize his table-making factory in three SECTIONS:
1) Deciding on which formulas were to be used to perform
the different calculations that needed to be done,
2) Organized the calculations and got them ready for
printing (kind of like middle management),
3) Did the actual calculations.
This fundamental concept kind of mirrors, in a way, how computers work today, in the simplest sense anyway:
1) Decide which software program to use,
2) Enter your data,
3) Process the data collected,
4) And get the end result ready for printing (or for viewing
on a monitor).
[02.01f]: Bankers' Clearing House TOC
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers'_clearing_house
"In England, cheques were used from the 17th century. Up until around 1770 an informal exchange of cheques took place between London Banks. Clerks of each bank visited all of the other banks to exchange cheques, whilst keeping a tally of balances between them until they settled with each other. Daily cheque clearings began around 1770 when the bank clerks met at the Five Bells, a tavern in Lombard Street in the City of London, to exchange all their cheques in one place and settle the balances in cash... "
Years later, bankers in the United States started doing the same thing except on an improved level:
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers'_clearing_house
"The United States improved on the British check clearing system and opened a bankers' clearing house in the Bank of New York on Wall Street, New York in 1853. Instead of the slow London procedure in which each bank clerk, one at a time, stepped up to an Inspector's rostrum, in the New York procedure two bank clerks from each bank all worked simultaneously. One clerk from each bank sat inside a 70 foot long oval table, while the second clerk from each bank stood outside the table facing the other clerk from the same bank. Each of the outside clerks carried a file box. When the manager signaled, all of the outside clerks stepped one position to the left, to face the next seated clerks. If a seated clerk represented a bank to which money was owed or from which money was receivable, the net amount of cash would change hands, along with checks and paper documents. Thus several such transactions could be conducted simultaneously, across the oval table. When the manager signaled again, this procedure was repeated, so that after about six minutes, the clerks had completed all their assigned transactions and were back to their starting locations, and holding exactly the amount of cash their papers said they should be holding. Clerks were fined if they made errors and the amount of the fine increased rapidly as time passed... "
[02.01g]: Railway Clearing House TOC
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_Clearing_House
"The British Railway Clearing House (RCH) was an organisation set up to manage the allocation of revenue collected by pre-grouping railway companies of fares and charges paid for passengers and goods travelling over the lines of other companies.[...]
" ...when coaches or wagons owned by a different company were used, that company would be entitled to a proportion of the fare or fee. If the commencement and terminus of the journey were on different railways, a more complicated situation arose: if the two companies involved did not provide through ticketing, the passenger or goods needed to be re-booked at a junction station; if through booking was provided, the receipts collected by the first company needed to be divided between them, usually on a mileage basis. The Railway Clearing House was founded as a means by which these receipts could be apportioned fairly.
"The Railway Clearing House commenced operations on 2 January 1842 in small offices at 111 Drummond Street opposite Euston Station, London. These premises were owned by the London and Birmingham Railway, which also provided the initial costs of setting up the organisation.
"The founding members, whose first meeting was on 26 April 1842, were: the London and Birmingham Railway; the predecessors of the Midland Railway (the Midland Counties Railway, Birmingham and Derby Junction Railway, and North Midland Railway); the Manchester and Leeds Railway; and the predecessors of the North Eastern Railway (the Leeds and Selby Railway, Hull and Selby Railway, York and North Midland Railway and Great North of England Railway)... "
[02.01h]: Central Telegraph Office TOC
[02.01i]: Prudential TOC
[02.01j]: Herman Hollerith TOC
[02.01k]: Pre Vacuum Tubes TOC
[02.01l]: Vacuum Tubes TOC
[02.02a]: The Transistor TOC
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor
"From November 17, 1947 to December 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Labs in the United States, performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input. Solid State Physics Group leader William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors. The term transistor was coined by John R. Pierce as a portmanteau of the term 'transfer resistor'. According to Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, authors of a biography of John Bardeen, Shockley had proposed that Bell Labs' first patent for a transistor should be based on the field-effect and that he be named as the inventor. Having unearthed Lilienfeld’s patents that went into obscurity years earlier, lawyers at Bell Labs advised against Shockley's proposal since the idea of a field-effect transistor which used an electric field as a “grid” was not new. Instead, what Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley invented in 1947 was the first bipolar point-contact transistor. In acknowledgement of this accomplishment, Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics 'for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect... '"
[02.02b]: IC Chips TOC
1725 - Basile Bouchon invents the first automated loom
guided by holes on a paper tape.
1728 - Jean-Baptiste Falcon improves on Bouchon's 1725
invention by using cards instead of tape attached
together in an endless loop
1745 - Jacques Vaucanson builds the first fully automated
loom
1770 - Bankers' Clearing House of London Started
1775 - American Revolutionary War begins (1775–1783)
1776 - "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the
Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith published.
1789 - French Revolution begins (1789-1799)
1790 - Baron Gaspard de Prony uses Adam Smith's ideas
about "Division of Labor" to make mathematically
precise maps.
1791
DEC-26 [MON] - Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference
Engine, born in London, England
1820 - Difference Engine invented by Charles
Babbage
1837 - Samuel F. B. Morse conducted the first successful
experiment with an electrical recording telegraph
1842
JAN-02 [SUN] - The Railway Clearing House commenced operations
1853 - Bankers' Clearing House on Wall Street, New York
started
1856 - Prudential established in London, England
1859 - Central Telegraph Office founded in London,
England
1871
OCT-19 [THU] - Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference
Engine, dies (aged 79) in Marylebone, London,
England
1890 - United States census uses the Hollerith tabulating
system to process the data collected.
1947
DEC-23 [TUE] - The transistor is invented
03.00
03.01 REVIEW
04.00
05.00
06.00
07.00
08.00
09.00
LAST UPDATED: November 24, 2013