History of Computing:
From The Greeks To
Autonomous Robots
Class 3
Micros Arrive
Wednesdays 1:15 – 2:30 PM
September 10, 17, 24, October 8, 15, 22, & 29
(no class October 1)
John F. McMullen
[email protected]
AIM, Google Talk, Skype – johnmac13;
Facebook – John F. McMullen (or search on my e-mail)
My Luck!
• An English Major who no interest in working
for the Federal Government
• A Computer on a desk? – and who’s Ben
Rosen?
• In a Cold Spring, NY Restaurant – “Did you say
‘Apple Computer?’”
• Dan Bricklin: “You should talk to Barbara
McMullen”
Computation
• “Computation is a general term for any type of process, algorithm
or measurement; this often includes but is not limited to digital
data. This includes phenomena ranging from human thinking to
calculations with a more narrow meaning. Computation is a
process following a well-defined model that is understood and can
be expressed in an algorithm, protocol, network topology, etc.
Computation is also a major subject matter of computer science: it
investigates what can or cannot be done in a computational
manner” -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computation
• “computation (plural computations)The act or process of
computing; calculation; reckoning.The result of computation; the
amount computed.” -- http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computation
Recap I
• Desire to augment computation – Pascal 1645
• Need for mechanical augmentation -- US
Census and Herman Hollerith
• World War II – The ENIAC
• Commercialization – Remington Rand and
others
• Rise of IBM
• Minicomputers arrive
Recap II
• All Innovation sparked by:
• Very bright people – Pascal, Babbage, Hollerith,
Ada, Turing, Atanasoff, Eckert, Mauchley, Bush,
Watson Jr., Olson, etc.
• Technological Breakthroughs – Punched Cards,
Transistors, etc.
• Financial Resources – Government, MegaCompanies / Monopolies (IBM, AT&T, Xerox, etc.)
• Venture Capital
Path of Innovation
• 1957 – Sputnik Launched
• 1959 – Integrated Circuit -- Robert Noyce,
Fairchild Semiconductor & Jack Kilby, Texas
Instruments
• 1969 – Intel founded by Robert Noyce and
Gordon Moore; Andy Grove was third employee
• 1970 – Xerox PARC launched
• 1971 – Microprocessor patented by Ted Hoff,
Intel
Sputnik I
• First human-made object to orbit the Earth, launched
by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik)
• Great blow to US psyche; the US had been the world’s
leader on science, technology, and manufacturing since
the early days of World War II with the two leading
technologies of the mid-twentieth century, the Atomic
Bomb and the Computer, coming from the US.
• The USSR, on the other hand, claimed innovation but
produced clunky technologies and weaponry
• But, NOW, wow.
Sputnik II
• US response to Sputnik included:
• Formation of NASA and massive expenditures to fund
the effort.
• Massive effort to foster science education
• Charging ARPA (now DARPA) to fund research to
support this effort – this directly led to the
development of the Internet.
• John F. Kennedy commitment "We choose to go to the
Moon in this decade and do the other things, not
because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
(Rice University speech -- September 12, 1962)
Xerox “PARC”
(Palo Alto Research Center)
• Laser Printing
• Alto
• Ethernet – developed by Robert Metcalfe and
still the standard of local area network wired
connection
• Object Oriented Programming -- Smalltalk
• Graphic User Interface
Alto I
• Developed at Xerox PARC, never a commercial
product -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto
• “Client” for “client / server” configurations with
Ethernet and Monitor output and Keyboard and
Mouse input.
• Although it was a minicomputer, it has been
called by some “the first personal computer”
• Basis for the Xerox Star (and, therefore, the
Macintosh)
Alto II
Many innovative programs were written for the Alto, including:
• the first WYSIWYG document preparation systems, Bravo and Gypsy;
• the Laurel e-mail tool, and its successor Hardy;
• the Sil vector graphics editor, used mainly for logic circuits, printed
circuit board, and other technical diagrams;
• the Markup bitmap editor (an early paint program);
• the first WYSIWYG integrated circuit editor based on the Conway and
Mead paradigm;
• the first versions of the Smalltalk environment
• Interlisp
• one of the first network-based multi-person computer games (Alto
Trek by Gene Ball).
Client / Server Technology
(Postal Example)
Users (Clients)
USPS (Servers)
Write Letters or Postcards using Pen,
Pencil, Typewriter, or Computer on any
size paper
Address Envelope or Postcard
Put Proper Postage on Envelope or
Postcard
Get Mail to Post Office (Mailbox, Mail slot,
go to Post Office)
Edit for Readability and Postage
Route for Delivery
Deliver (Home. PO Box, Office)
Discard?
Read?
Forward?
Reply (start cycle all over)
Altair 8800 I
• Considered the first microcomputer kit – but it wasn’t.
• Named by Les Solomon’s daughter – but maybe it
wasn’t.
• Launched the personal computer revolution – and it
did!
• Responsible for the formation of Microsoft (then
“Micro-Soft”) and it was!
All from Stan Veit’s History -- http://pchistory.org/altair.htm
Stan Veit
• Early Computer Writer, Entrepreneur, and Editor / Publisher (25
December 1919 - 29 July 2010) -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Veit
• Founder of first computer store in NYC, Computer Mart (third Apple
Dealer in US) in 1976
• Showed Apple II for first time on East Coast at Atlantic City Comdex
• 1980 -- Computer Editor of Popular Electronics Magazine (later
Technical Editor of Computers & Electronics)
• 1983 -- Founding Editor-In-Chief of Computer Shopper Magazine
and later Editor-In-Chief and Publisher (My Editor with Computer
Shopper).
• 1984 – Contributor to Digital Deli
• 1993 – Author of Stan Veit’s History of the Personal Computer
MITS
• MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry
Systems) – founded by Ed Roberts and Forrest
Mims in December 1969 in Albuquerque, NM
• 1973 – David Bunnell joined MITS as a Technical
Writer and, in 1975, was the Vice President of
Marketing when the Altair 8800 was introduced.
Bunnell later founded PC Magazine, PC World,
Macworld, Macworld Expo, New Media and
BioWorld
Altair 8800 II
• A microcomputer kit, based on the Intel 880 chip,
developed by MITS and featured on the cover of Popular
Electronics in January 1975.
• The Altair 8800 kit came with a front panel, a CPU board
with the Intel 8080 microprocessor, 256 bytes of RAM, a 4slot back-plane and an 8-amp power supply for $439
• Ed Roberts had optimistically told his banker that he could
sell 800 computers In February, MITS received 1,000 orders
for the Altair 8800. The quoted delivery time was 60 days
but it was many more months before the machines were
shipped. By August 1975, they had shipped over 5,000
computers
Altair 8800 III
• Programming the Altair was an extremely tedious process.
The user toggled the switches to positions corresponding to
an 8080 microprocessor instruction or opcode in binary,
then used an 'enter' switch to load the code into the
machine's memory, and then repeated this step until all the
opcodes of a presumably complete and correct program
were in place. When the machine first shipped the switches
and lights were the only interface, and all one could do
with the machine was make programs to make the lights
blink. Nevertheless, many were sold in this form. Roberts
was already hard at work on additional cards, including a
paper tape reader for storage, additional RAM cards, and a
RS-232 interface to connect to a proper teletype terminal.
Micro-Soft I
• Paul Allen, a programmer with Honeywell in
Massachusetts and a transplant from Seattle, WA,
read Les Solomon’s article in Popular Electronics
and saw an opportunity to create a programming
language for the Altair.
• He interested his Seattle friend, Bill Gates, a
Harvard student, in creating the language for the
Altair; Gates dropped out of Harvard and he and
Allen formed Micro-Soft, officially established on
April 4, 1975.
Micro-Soft II
• Goal – Gates and Allen didn’t know much
about business then but they knew that they
needed a goal so they came up with “to have
a computer in every home and office running
Micro-Soft software” (at that time all
computers in offices were large systems, there
were no computers in homes, and there was
no Micro-Soft software) – I have heard both
Gates and Allen tell this story in person and
have no reason to doubt it.
Micro-Soft III
• Micro-Soft BASIC – Gates and Allen decided to
try to create an Interpreter for the BASIC
programming language. The Interpreter would
be punched into paper tape
which then be loaded into
the Altair’s memory and
would convert programs
written in Altair BASIC, one instruction at a
time, into machine language for the Altair and
execute it.
BASIC
• BASIC (“Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code”) was designed in 1964 by
John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene
Kurtz at Dartmouth College as an aid in
teaching non-science majors about computers.
It was never intended to be a commercial
language like COBOL or FORTRAN
Altair 8800 IV and Micro-Soft IV
• Allen and Gates were successful in developing
the Altair Basic and moved to Albuquerque,
NM to work with MITS.
• The Altair was a success
• Microsoft was off and running -- Gross income
of the young company was $1 million in 1975
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Micr
osoft)
• The Personal Computer Age was launched!
Personal Computers
(for Hobbyists and Game Players)
• Once the Altair was a success, other computers
appeared fairly rapidly – MOS Technology, Inc.’s
KIM-1 and Processor Technology’s Sol-20
(designed by industry pioneers Bob Marsh, Lee
Felsenstein and Gordon French).
• Soon, three companies became prominent –
Tandy (Radio Shack) with its TRS-80 line,
Commodore with the VIC-20 and the 64 and
Apple with the Apple II
Apple Computer
• April 1, 1976 – Apple founded by Stephen Jobs
and Steven Wozniak with the
introduction of the Apple I
• The Apple I was the first with a
single circuit board used in a computer -http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventio
ns/a/Apple_Computers.htm
• The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977
at the first West Coast Computer Faire.
The Apple II
• Brilliant Engineering by Wozniak, who also wrote the
operating system, “Apple DOS” and the BASIC
Interpreter, “Integer BASIC”
• “In A Case”
• Color Graphics
• Microsoft wrote the more powerful Floating Point
BASIC, Applesoft BASIC
• Open for peripheral developers through slots and
closed through proprietary “F8” chip
I saw my first Apple II in early 1978 on the desk of
Morgan Stanley’s Electronic Analyst, Benjamin M.
Rosen, and bought one shortly thereafter.
VisiCalc
The First “Killer App”
• The first Spreadsheet on any computer
system, developed by Dan Bricklin and Bob
Frankston through their company Software
Arts,[1] and distributed by Personal Software in
1979 (later named VisiCorp) for the Apple II
computer -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc
• History from the creators -http://www.bricklin.com/visicalc.htm
Success of VisiCalc
• Announcement -- $250 Ad in Byte Magazine
• Ben Rosen’s review in the Morgan Stanley Electronics
Newsletters -- “So who knows? Visicalc could some
day become the software tail that wags (and sells)
the personal computer dog.”
• The use of VisiCalc spread like wildfire throughout the
business world, selling Apple II Computers as well as
VisiCalc (people going into computer stores and asking
to buy Visicalc ($100) and something to run it on (from
$3,000 to $9,000 depending on the peripherals
attached)
The IBM PC I
• Apple’s success put great pressure on IBM to
get into the personal computer market, not
just to compete but because “corporate data
processing” executives, generally unhappy
with “end users” showing up with their own
Apple Computers, saw an entry by IBM as
returning power to the “data processing”
hierarchy.
The IBM PC II
• IBM set up a separate group in Boca Raton, FL
to develop its entry into the personal
computer arena.
• IBM brought in the firms that were the most
successful on the Apple II platform to develop
versions of their programs for the IBM-PC (a
system based on Intel’s 8088 chip)
The IBM PC III
• Among the companies who worked with IBM
at Boca Raton and their products:
• Software Arts – VisiCalc
• Microsoft – BASIC and Adventure (a game)
• IAS – EasyWriter
• Peachtree – Accounting System
But there was no Operating System Company!
Operating Systems
• Programs that run on computers, manages
computer hardware resources, and provides
common services for execution of various
application software (spreadsheets, word
processing, games, accounting, etc. – the
reasons people buy computers) -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_syste
m
Prominent Operating Systems At The
Time Of The IBM-PC Development
• Apple-DOS and TRS-DOS – proprietary Operating
Systems owned by companies with which IBM
would be competing.
• UNIX – Developed at Bell Labs, it then ran only on
larger computers.
• CP/M – Digital Research’s Operating System
(supposedly recommended to IBM by Gates).
There are many versions of the reasons why IBM
and Digital Research’s owner, Gary Kildall, could
not reach a deal but they could not.
MS-DOS
• Microsoft, in response to IBM’s need, learned of
86-DOS — informally known as the Quick-andDirty Operating System or Q-DOS owned by
Seattle Computer Products, purchased it for
$75,000, and modified it to meet IBM's
specification.
• IBM agreed to a non-exclusive license agreement
for the finished product, MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk
Operating System) and renamed the version to be
shipped with IBM-PCs to PC-DOS.
MS-DOS Becomes The Standard
• IBM shipped every PC with PC-DOS.
• Every “clone” maker that came along shipped
MS-DOS with its computers.
• Applications developers naturally chose MSDOS to create applications for (even though,
in many ways, competing Operating Systems,
such as CP/M 86 and UCSD OS, has superior
features and / or performance.
MS-DOS Weakness
These only became apparent as the hardware,
software, and users became more sophisticated
• Could only Address 640K
• No Multi-Tasking
• No Multi-User Capabilities
1-2-3 I
• VisiCalc, the first and dominant spreadsheet, actually
ran better and faster on an Apple II because it ran
“outside Apple-DOS” but “under MS-DOS”
• Mitch Kapor, the creator of “Tiny Troll” and “VisiTrend
+ VisiPlot” for the Apple II, envisioned a spreadsheet
that included business graphics and data management
capabilities. He and his co-developer, Jonathan Sachs,
raised venture capital from Sevin Rosen Funds, co
founded by Ben Rosen and L.J. Sevin, and founded
Lotus Development Corporation.
1-2-3 II
• Lotus released Lotus 1-2-3 in January 1983 and,
overnight, it became the largest selling
applications program in microcomputer history -The original business plan had called for
$1,000,000 in sales in the first year, but the actual
results were $53,000,000.
• Like VisiCalc on the Apple II, Lotus 1-2-3 achieved
maximum speed and efficiency on the IBM-PC by
going “outside the Operating System”
• 1-2-3 became the “killer app” of the IBM-PC
Compaq Computer I
• The IBM-PC was an “open machine” with only
one unique feature – the “kernel” of
Microsoft’s BASIC interpreter was contained in
a ROM chip.
• Since Microsoft provided a full version of
Microsoft BASIC with MS-DOS, it was obvious
to entrepreneurs that the IBM-PC could be
copied or “cloned”.
Compaq Computer II
• The early clone manufacturers, Columbia and
Eagle, failed to make an impact when it was
determined that 1-2-3 would not run on those
systems because it did not conform to MS-DOS
standards. Columbia stated that “When Lotus
conforms to industry standards with its software,
1-2-3 will run on our computer systems”
• Since people were buying computers to run 1-23, this statement made little sense.
Compaq Computer III
• Compaq was founded in February 1982 by Rod
Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior
managers from semiconductor manufacturer
Texas Instruments. Each invested $1,000 to
form the company.
• Compaq raised its venture capital from SevinRosen Funds (which also provided Lotus’
funding)
Compaq Computer IV
• November 1982 - Compaq announced their first
product, the Compaq Portable and committed to
run “every
business software program
that runs on the IBM-PC” (an
obvious reference to 1-2-3).
• On that day, IBM lost control
of the standard, although
products continued to be referred to as
“IBM-PC compatible”
Compaq Computer V
• Despite stated plans to produce only “portable
computers and not compute with IBM on the Desktop”,
on June 28, 1984 Compaq released the Compaq
Deskpro, a 16-bit desktop computer using an Intel 8086
microprocessor, saying that their customers demanded
better desktop performance.
• 1986 - Compaq introduced the first PC based on Intel's
new 80386 microprocessor, the Compaq Deskpro 386.
It now became obvious to all that the “standard” was
Microsoft DOS and not IBM.
• 2002 – Compaq was acquired for US$25 billion by
Hewlett-Packard
What Does Apple Do?
• Compaq’s success started a rush by existing
computer makers – Tandy, Hewlett-Packard, and
others – to develop PC-compatible machines or
clones.
• Apple took a different path. Steve Jobs saw the
Xerox Star at a trade show and was captivated by
the Graphic User Interface. He met with Xerox
and licensed the interface.
• Apple brought the first GUI-based micro, the Lisa
(a failure) to market and followed it with the
Macintosh
Command Line vs GUI I
• A Command Line Interface provides the user with
simply a “System Prompt” (a “>” in MS-DOS and
CP/M and a “!” or “$” in UNIX) and the user is
expected to know what to type (to run Program
“A” in MS-DOS, the user types “A” while, in AppleDOS, the user types “RUN A”
• Once with the applications program, the user
commands vary based on the designer of the
program
Command Line
How to use a previously created file
Lotus 1-2-3
Microsoft Word
/
ESC
Menu on Top
Menu on Bottom
File
Transfer
Retrieve
Load
Name of the File
Name of the File
Graphic User Interface
• Icon based with Pull-down menus – later
browser and ribbon interfaces
• Use of a pointing device such as a mouse –
later touch screens
• All application programs work the same way!
VisiOn vs Windows
• Two leading companies active in the MS-DOS world, Microsoft and
VisiCorp, took different approaches to joining the GUI world.
• Microsoft licensed the GUI interface from Apple and began to
incorporate it as an adjunct to MS-DOS, the first step in making it an
integral part of the Operating System.
• VisiCorp developed a separate “Operating Environment”, VisiOn,
and applications programs, VisiOnCalc, VisiOnWrite, etc., to run
under the system.
• VisiCorp CEO Dan Fylstra and Bill Gates would debate at
conferences such as the Rosen Personal Computer Forum (where I
heard them) whether the GUI belonged in the Operating System or
not.
• Gates won!
Windows I
• November 1985 – Windows 1.0 was released.
While it had promise as a concept, it was
useless. Due to the inadequacies of available
monitors, text could not be read in graphics
mode.
• October 1987 – Windows 2.0 and Windows
286 released with improvements to 1.0 but
still close to useless and received little market
support.
OS/2 and MicroChannel I
• April 1987 – Microsoft and IBM jointly announce OS/2, the
operating system was would address all of the MS-DOS
problems -- No Multi-User, No Multi-Tasking, No ability to
address memory above 640K – and add a GUI.
• OS/2 was a Microsoft product
• IBM, in an attempt to reclaim control of the standard,
introduced a new architecture, “MicroChannel” to replace
the Industry Standard I/O interface.
• IBM announced an extension to OS/2, an IBM product
named OS.2 EE (Extended Edition) to support the
MicroChannel architecture.
OS/2 and MicroChannel II
• At the press conference, it was revealed that many of the
leading application developers for MS-DOS, including Lotus
and WordPerfect (providers of the leading word processing
program) had signed on to develop OS/2 versions of their
software.
• Bill Gates was asked, with the advent of OS/2, what was the
future for Windows. He replied that “OS/2 will be the
platform for businesses. We will support Windows for the
individuals and home users who will not need the power of
Windows”
• Lotus CEO Jim Manzi, when asked at the conference if Lotus
would also develop a GUI version for Windows, replied “No.
You heard Mr. Gates. OS/2 will be the business platform
and that is our market”. Bad decision!
Windows II
• Microsoft Products For The Macintosh – In the
meantime, Microsoft’s GUI based word
processing program, Word, and spreadsheet,
Excel, had become the leading programs on that
platform.
• 1990 – Windows 3.0 released with greatly
improved readability and Word and Excel
“ported” from the Macintosh – but “buggy”
• 1992 – Windows 3.1 released with many of the
bugs eliminated
Windows III
• There was great opposition to GUIs from “command
line purists” who felt that “you could do more faster”.
This largely disappeared when the first graphic
browser, Mosaic, was released and only ran under GUIs
(Macintosh, Windows 3.0 & 3.1, and UNIX X/Windows
systems.
• Word and Excel became the leading word processing
and spreadsheet programs for the PC platform,,
displacing Word Perfect and 1-2-3. Lotus Development
and Word Perfect declined as companies and were
soon sold; Lotus to IBM and WordPerfect to Novel and
then then to Corel
Addendum 1 –
Chuck Peddle
• Bob Frankston suggested that I add a slide about
Chuck Peddle, who among other things, designed
the 6502 Chip that came to be used in both
Commodore Vic 20 and the Apple II
• Another page about Chuck relates to the question
raised today about Motorola.
Chuck felt that the Motorola 6800 chip
was the first microprocessor rather than
the Intel 4004 chip for which Ted Hoff receives
credit.
Addendum II
• Passed on by Hank Kee – an add-on to the BASIC
story from
http://63.249.85.132/open_source_license.htm
“In the DEC world software was largely free. The
best source was DECUS, the DEC User Society. It
was from DECUS that Bill Gates got hold of paper
tapes containing the source code to a version of
BASIC and an assembler for the PDP-8. He used
them to begin work on a project he considered
fun: his very own edition of a BASIC interpreter.”