History of Computers and How They Changed the World.
ANCIENT HISTORY
The Oldest Computer Were Greeks 1,400 years ahead of their time?
Lean about the intricate bronze mechanism of wheels and dials created 80 years before the birth of Christ. The "Antikythera Mechanism" was discovered damaged and fragmented on the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera in 1900. Now, a joint British-Greek research team has found a hidden ancient Greek inscription on the device, which it thinks could unlock the mystery. The team believes the Antikythera Mechanism may be the world's oldest computer, used by the Greeks to predict the motion of the planets. The researchers say the device indicates a technical sophistication that would not be replicated for millennia and may also be based on principles of a heliocentric, or sun-centred, universe - a view of the cosmos that was not accepted by astronomers until the Renaissance.
The "back story"... Our inventive ancestors devised all sorts of techniques to increase their power to calculate and compute. Take a look.
Tom Watson, Chairman of IBM, said in 1943
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Prescott Bush
George Bush
G. W. Bush
Documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war. Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient Military Agency Records archive 226 and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives RG 446 . <more>
Sergei N. Khrushchev (R) visiting IBM plant with his father Nikita S. Khrushchev.
Brown University Center for Information Technology
Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from and collaborated with key financial backers of Nazi Germany. That business relationship continued after Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 and even after Germany declared war on the United States following Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941. It stopped only when the US government seized assets of Bush-connected companies in late 1942 under the “Trading with the Enemy Act.” Full Story
Thomas J. Watson Jr., engineered a strategic business alliance between IBM and the Reich, beginning in the first days of the Hitler regime and continuing right through World War II. IBM's subsidiary in Poland, Watson B6romaschinen GmbH, serviced the railroads as its main account. Custom-designed, IBM-produced punch cards, sorted by IBM machines leased to the Nazis, helped organize and manage the initial identification and social expulsion of Jews and others, the confiscation of their property, their ghettoization, their deportation, and, ultimately, even their extermination. Recently discovered Nazi documents and Polish eyewitness testimony make clear that IBM's alliance with the Third Reich went far beyond its German subsidiary. A key factor in the Holocaust in Poland was IBM technology provided directly through a special wartime Polish subsidiary reporting to IBM New York, mainly to its headquarters at 590 Madison Avenue. And that's how the trains to Auschwitz ran on time.
Khrushchev In San Francisco IBM chmn. Thomas Watson Jr. 3-28-1955 roaring w. laughter as he chats w. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as they stand holding trays in line w. others at IBM plant's company cafeteria.
The late Thomas J. Watson Jr., chairman of IBM, ambassador to the former Soviet Union, and graduate of Brown (Class of '37), was acutely aware of the international dimensions of our lives. In 1981, when he returned from Moscow , he founded the Center for Policy Development now the Watson Institute where you'll find Khushchev's son Sergei Senior Fellow, Thomas J. Watson Jr. Institute for International Studies, Brown University. 2008
What Was Stretch? RetroComputing
In 1954 IBM initiated a project "Datatron", with the intent of taking a "giant step" to secure their position as the preeminent vendor of high-performance computers. Later renamed Stretch, the project's primary objective was to produce a computer with 100 times the speed of the IBM 704 scientific computer. This goal was perhaps even more aggressive than it sounds, given that the performance of the logic circuits increased by only a factor of ten to twenty, and memory performance by only a factor of six. Architectural improvements such as extensive use of parallelism were required to meet (or even approach) the goal.
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and set off the space race.
This timeline explores the history of computing from 1945 to 1990. Each year features illustrated descriptions of significant innovations in hardware and software technology, as well as milestones in areas such as commercial applications and artificial intelligence. When appropriate, biographical sketches of the pioneers responsible for the advances are included. Find Dan You may also enjoy PICTURES Timeline starting in 1937.
"Computer History"
Found buried deep in the catacombs, or basement, of the University of Kansas campus is an ancient technology artifact -- the university's first computer. The institution purchased the computer, an IBM 650, in 1957, according to The University Daily Kansan. It was one of only 2,000 made and is considered to be the first mass-produced computer. Unlike today's hand-held computers, this one was 6 feet tall and 5 feet deep, and that was considered small at the time compared with models that took up an entire floor. The university was fixing to trash the computer when a professor there realized the historical significance of the find. He has begun moving the machine and its multitude of vacuum tubes to his house for restoration. The university won't get much processing power from the machine, though. The computer's memory was only capable of holding 1,000 10-digit numbers.
ENIGMA CIPHER MACHINES, FIALKA, NEMA, OTHER CIPHER MACHINES, ANTIQUE COMPUTERS AND CALCULATORS, W1TP TELEGRAPH AND SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENT MUSEUMS. ( Other fun Soviet Gagets )
ENIAC a Computer was Built In WWII leading to the creation of The Internet
Read About The Dream Machine and about JCR Licklider then read The Dream Machine: JCR Licklider and the Revolution the Made Computing Personal" byMitch Waldropwhich reminds us that computing is a strategic/military technology .
"What the Dormouse Said: How the 60's Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry" by John Markoff reminds us that LSD (also a military technology) and PCs were born in the same test-tube.
There were 6 Women Computers known as the "Programmers" of the ENIAC
History of ENIAC - There were 6 Women Programmers of the ENIAC Kathleen Mauchly Antonelli (ne. McNulty), died Thursday, April 20, 2006. Kathleen was one of the 6 women programmers of the ENIAC, a resident of the Philadelphia area and lecturer at Chestnut Hill College Philadelphia, PA and was an inspiration to many. Computer Wonder Women - 'WOMEN WANTED!' The Army wanted women with mathematics degrees to HAND CALCULATE the firing trajectories of artillery for the war effort. Snyder, Holberton, punchcard, mainframe, Eniac, Univac, Edvac, Ordvac, Brlesc-1, Cobal, Fortran Technology advances in the 1950's
[Recorded 1960] This humorous promotional film features J. Prespert Eckert and John Mauchly the 2 major figures in the creation of the ENIAC computer who left the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Engineering at the end of WWII to found their own firm. They eventually sold their business to Remington Rand (later Sperry Rand) who incorporated it as the UNIVAC division of the company. Eckert remained with UNIVAC all his life but Mauchly left after a few years to become a private consultant. In 1955 the Sperry Corporation and Remington Rand merged forming Sperry Rand. Sperry Rand then eventually merged with Burroughs to from Unisys and is still in business.
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FEB. 13 2006 ENIAC DEBUTS 60 YEARS AGO
ENIAC My Personal Memories - LISTEN
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(Notice Robert Kahn in the Video He is also in 1972 ARPANET Film about Computer Networks )
In 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and set off the space race. See Timeline of Computer History
This timeline explores the history of computing from 1945 to 1990. Each year features illustrated descriptions of significant innovations in hardware and software technology, as well as milestones in areas such as commercial applications and artificial intelligence. When appropriate, biographical sketches of the pioneers responsible for the advances are included. Find Dan
You may also enjoy PICTURES Timeline starting in 1937.
STEVE WOZNIAK, the co-inventor of the Apple Computer, still attends rock concerts frequently. THEN: he was Attending high school in Sunnyvale during the Summer of Love
Viola Is a Repository of Prior Art for The Web by Dale Dougherty 3/30/00
Viola's greatest value may yet to be realized; it represents a valuable repository of prior art with which to fight all kinds of Web-related patents. Pei has set up the Viola Archive, the world wide web hypermedia toolkit. The original Xwindows, independent, experimental, scriptable, object oriented, alternative, etc, web browser. which contains the source code and documentation. We want to provide whatever information we can to help others dispute web-related patents. Again, because Viola's browser development preceded even Mosaic, any feature we find in it can be said to be public knowledge -- and used to dispute any claim that any later arrival to the Web party invented it.email archives to find support for the fact that Viola was known to others and to create a timeline for when various features were introduced. Email from Pei Wei to Marc Andreessen -- 02/03/93.
The First Web Browser was written in 1990 it was the only way to see the web. Much later it was renamed Nexus in order to save confusion between the program and the abstract information space (which is now spelled World Wide Web with spaces).
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HISTORICAL DOCUMENT UP on RAND SITE "Willis H. Ware" @rand.org In the late 60s ARPA and then DSB sponsored a committee to write a doc on security controls. The report became very famous and often referred to as "the Ware Report".
In the late 60s I chaired a Defense Science Board Committee that produced a document: Security Controls for Computer Systems. Classified for 9 years, it was declassified and republished by RAND in 1979 [R-609-1]. Courtesy of John Young, who operates the very efficient and respected archive CRYPTOME, the document is now available, scanned and converted to HTML format.
1970 DSB report, "Security Controls for Computer Systems" (265K)
Have a look to see how thoroughly the committee understood the issue in those days; especially have a look at Appendix II SEE also the preface which explains why the original documents was classified; many people have commented on this.
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