Early
Computers
Workshop 1
Colossus, the British codebreaker computer of WWII,
developed by Alan Turing & Tommy Flowers
2
Outline
 Mechanical Computers
 Astronomical clocks
 Calculating machines
 Logic machines
 Conceptual Computers
 Turing machine
 Electronic Computers
 Eniac
 IBM
 First PCs
3
The Antikythera
Mechanism – A Greek
Computer?
 Freeth, Tony; Jones, Alexander (2012). "The
Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism".
 NOVA | Ancient Computer – PBS
The Antikythera
mechanism in the national
Archeological Museum of
Athens
The Antikythera Mechanism (8 mins /\)
4
Pascal’s Pascaline
 Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline,
a mechanical calculator to aid his
father tabulate tax collections
 It could add and subtract
A Pascaline from 1652 (©
Musée des Arts et Métiers,
Paris)
5
Leibniz’s Calculus Ratiocinator
 Reasoning is nothing but the joining and
substitution of characters, whether these
characters be words, symbols or pictures
 Atomic (elementary) concepts can be
represented by prime numbers
 The truth value of statements can be
calculated arithmetically
 The calculation could be automated
using a computer
 The Stepped Reckoner of Gottfried
Leibniz
 Gottfried Wilhem Leibniz (4 mins /\)
Leibniz sketch of a steppeddrum computer ~1685
6
Leibniz Calculating Machine
Paderborn Computer
Museum Exhibits and
background of
computer pioneers
Replica of the Leibniz calculating machine manufactured
by HNF, 1995, according to the reconstruction by Prof. Dr.
N. J. Lehmann
7
Pictures: From loom to computers
Jacquard Loom
1725 Basile Bouchon
used a series of
punched cards
threaded together to
give a sequence of
weaving patterns.
Fiber artist Lia Cook talks about her
Jacquard loom (2 mins /\)
1801 Joseph Marie
Jacquard’s loom. The
basic idea was the holes
indicated where the
needle should press
through.
8
Charles Babbage’s analytical
engine
 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at
Cambridge University (Newton & Hawkings)
 1822 difference engine, for mathematical
tables conceived
 the analytical engine, a mechanical computer
programmed by punch cards
 Charles Babbage Analytical Engine (8 mins /\)
 The greatest machine that never was - John
Graham-Cumming (12 mins /\)
9
Ada Lovelace 1815 - 52
The child of love, -- though born
in bitterness
And nurtured in convulsion. Of
thy sire
These were the elements
Lord Byron - Childe Harold's
Portrait of Ada by British painter
Margaret Sarah Carpenter
(1836)
 Ada met Babbage in 1833
 Her notes on the analytical engine may be
considered the first computer programs
 She envisioned computers with
applications beyond calculating
mathematical functions
Information Pioneers:
Ada Lovelace (5 mins /\)
10
Turing Machine
 Conceptual computer
devised by Turing to prove
limitations of computers
and mathematics too
 Though simple it has the
theoretical power of any
computer
Turing Machines video (4 mins
/\)
Turing Machines Explained
by Professor Mark Jago(5 mins /\)
Proof That Computers Can't Do Everything (The
Halting Problem) (8 mins /\)
11
Princeton IAS – Von Neumann & ENIAC
 Von Neumann was a Hungarian mathematician,
physicist and inventor
 1933 joined Princeton’s Institute of Advanced
Studies
 Worked with Einstein and Oswald Veblen, and later
on Kurt Gödel
 In WW2 Von Neumann joined the Manhattan
project to develop the atomic bomb
 John Von Neumann Documentary (1 hour tribute)
(14 mins /\)
 John Von Neumann Interview (2 mins /\)
12
Von Neumann architecture
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC
by John von Neumann,
Contract No. W-670-ORD-4926,
Between the United States Army Ordinance
Department
and the University of Pennsylvania Moore School
of Electrical Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
June 30, 1945
• Stored program - Memory held
instructions as well as data
• Turing’s earlier universal
machine stored the program
(state transitions) on the tape
EDVAC text
… it is now possible to take up the five specific
parts into which the device was seen to be
subdivided, and to discuss them one by one.
Such a discussion must bring out the features
required for each one of these parts in itself, as
well as in their relations to each other.
13
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator
And Computer)
 1943 U.S. Army, Ordnance Corps
contracted Moore School at Univ. of
Penn. to build a computer
 John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
led the design
 1946 ENIAC delivered
 Used to predict behavior of the
hydrogen bomb (Von Neumann)
Left to Right: Unknown, J. Presper
Eckert, Dr. John Mauchly, Jean
Jennings Bartik, Lt. Herman Goldstine,
Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum
1946 ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computing (1 min /\)
UNIVAC
14
 Evolved from ENIAC
 UNIVAC - Then and Now
mins /\)
1960
 1952 ELECTION with UNIVAC on
CBS w Walter Cronkite (2 mins /\)
WEIZAC: Israel's first computer
(6 mins /\)
(13
IBM
15
 IBM led in punch card technology
 IBM: Once Upon A Punched Card (1964 9 mins
/\)
 IBM 1401 Business computer 1959
A Century of Smart: The IBM 1401 50th
anniversary tribute (5 mins /\)
IBM 1620 - Scientific
computer 1959