-
Period: to
1800-2014
-
Punch card
Punched card data processing[edit]
In 1801, Joseph-Marie Jacquard developed a loom in which the pattern being woven was controlled by punched cards. The series of cards could be changed without changing the mechanical design of the loom. This was a landmark achievement in programmability. His machine was an improvement over similar weaving looms. Punch cards were preceded by punch bands, as in the machine proposed by Basile Bouchon. These bands would inspire information recording. -
Magnetic Tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders. A device that stores computer data on magnetic tape is a tape drive (tape unit, streamer).
Magnetic tape revolutionized broadcast and recording. When all radio to be taped. -
Magnetic Drum
Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria.[1] It was widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. Some drum memories were also used as secondary storage.[2]
For many early computers, drum memory formed the main working memory of the computer. It was so common that these computers were often referred to as drum machines.[citation needed]
Drums were displaced as primary computer memory by magnetic core memory which was faster . -
Punch Card Machines
The punch card dates back to 1725 in the testile industry. The punch card pre-dates computers. The punch card was used regularly until 1970. -
Punchcard reader and Writer
A punched card reader or just card reader is a computer input device used to read executable computer programs, source code, and data from punched cards. A card punch is an output device that punches holes in cards under computer control. Sometimes card readers were combined with card punches and, later, other devices to form multifunction machines. -
Zuse Z3
The Z3 was an electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse. It was the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer.[1] The Z3 was built with 2000 relays, implementing a 22-bit words that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz.[2] Program code and data were stored on punched film. -
Atanasoff Berry Supercomputer
The Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer, an early electronic digital computing device that has remained somewhat obscure. To say that it was the first is a debate among historians of computer technology. Most would probably credit John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, creators of the ENIAC,[1] with the title. Still, other would argue that the credit undisputedly belongs to Iowa State mathematics and physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff for his wor -
Colossus
Colossus was the world's first electronic digital computer that was at all programmable. The Colossus computers were developed for British codebreakers during World War II to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Without them, the Allies would have been deprived of the very valuable military intelligence that was obtained from reading the vast quantity of encrypted high-level telegraphic messages between the German High Command (OKW) and their army commands throughout occupied Europe. -
ENIAC
ENIAC (/ˈini.æk/ or /ˈɛni.æk/; Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer)[1][2][3] was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve "a large class of numerical problems".[4][5]
ENIAC was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory.[6][7] When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain".[8] It had a speed of one tho -
Selectron Tube
The Selectron was an early form of digital computer memory developed by Jan A. Rajchman and his group at the Radio Corporation of America under the direction of Vladimir Zworykin, of television technology fame. The team was never able to produce a commercially viable form of Selectron before core memory became almost universal, and it remains practically unknown today. -
Bipolar Transistor
A bipolar junction transistor (BJT or bipolar transistor) is a type of transistor that relies on the contact of two types of semiconductor for its operation. BJTs can be used as amplifiers, switches, or in oscillators. BJTs can be found either as individual discrete components, or in large numbers as parts of integrated circuits.
Bipolar transistors are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes. These two kinds of charge carriers are characteristic of the two kinds of do -
Manchester "Baby"
The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM), nicknamed Baby, was the world's first stored-program computer. It was built at the Victoria University of Manchester by Frederic C. Williams, Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill, and ran its first program on 21 June 1948.[1] -
Punched Tape
Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data storage, consisting of a long strip of paper in which holes are punched to store data. Now effectively obsolete, it was widely used during much of the twentieth century for teleprinter communication, for input to computers of the 1950s and 1960s, and later as a storage medium for minicomputers and CNC machine tools. -
Metal Magnetic Tape
In magnetic tape recording, the sound waves vibrate the microphone diaphragm and are converted into a varying electric current, which is then converted to a varying magnetic field by an electromagnet, which makes a representation of the sound as magnetized areas on a plastic tape with a magnetic coating on it. Analog sound reproduction is the reverse process, with a bigger loudspeaker diaphragm causing changes to atmospheric pressure to form acoustic sound waves. Electronically generated sound w -
Hard Disk Drive
A hard disk drive (HDD)[note 2] is a data storage device used for storing and retrieving digital information using rapidly rotating disks (platters) coated with magnetic material.[2] An HDD retains its data even when powered off. Data is read in a random-access manner, meaning individual blocks of data can be stored or retrieved in any order rather than sequentially. An HDD consists of one or more rigid ("hard") rapidly rotating disks (platters) with magnetic heads arranged on a moving actuator -
IBM 350
The IBM 350 disk storage unit, the first disk drive, was announced by IBM as a component of the IBM 305 RAMAC computer system on September 13, 1956.[8][9][10][11] Simultaneously a very similar product, the IBM 355 was announced for the IBM 650 RAMAC computer system. RAMAC stood for "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control." -
Atlas Supercomputer
The Atlas Computer was a joint development between the University of Manchester, Ferranti, and Plessey. The first Atlas, installed at Manchester University and officially commissioned in 1962, was one of the world's first supercomputers, considered to be the most powerful computer in the world at that time.[1] It was said that whenever Atlas went offline half of the United Kingdom's computer capacity was lost.[2] It was a second-generation machine, using discrete germanium transistors. Two other -
Floppy disks
A floppy disk, or diskette, is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles. Floppy disks are read and written by a floppy disk drive (FDD).
Floppy disks, initially as 8-inch (200 mm) media and later in 5 1⁄4-inch (133 mm) and 3 1⁄2-inch (90 mm) sizes, were a ubiquitous form of data storage and exchange from the mid-1970s well into the 2000s.[1] -
Cassettes
In the context of magnetic tape, the term cassette usually refers to an enclosure that holds two reels with a single span of magnetic tape. The term cartridge is more generic, but frequently means a single reel of tape in a plastic enclosure.
The type of packaging is a large determinant of the load and unload times as well as the length of tape that can be held. A tape drive that uses a single reel cartridge has a takeup reel in the drive while cassettes have the take up reel in the cassette. A -
Laser Disk
LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known as simply "DiscoVision") in North America in 1978.
Although the format was capable of offering higher-quality video and audio than its consumer rivals, the VHS and Betamax videocassette systems, LaserDisc never managed to gain widespread use in North America, largely owing to high costs for the players and the video titles themselves.[1] -
250 MB
First gigabyte capabilities 1980. -
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small plate ("chip") of semiconductor material, normally silicon. This can be made much smaller than a discrete circuit made from independent components.
Integrated circuits are used in virtually all electronic equipment today and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones, and other digital home appliances are now inextrica -
Recoradble CD's
A CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable) is a variation of the compact disc invented by Philips and Sony. CD-R is a Write Once Read Many (WORM) optical medium, although the whole disk does not have to be entirely written in the same session.
CD-R retains a high level of compatibility with standard CD readers - unlike CD-RW, which can be re-written but is not capable of playing on many readers. -
DVD
DVD (sometimes explained as "digital video disc" or "digital versatile disc"[5][6]) is a digital optical disc storage format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than compact discs while having the same dimensions.
Pre-recorded DVDs are mass-produced using molding machines that physically stamp data onto the DVD. Such discs are known as DVD-ROM, because data can only be read and not written or erased. Blank recordable DVD di -
DVD
-
External Hard Disk
Introduced by IBM in 1956,[3] HDDs became the dominant secondary storage device for general purpose computers by the early 1960s. Continuously improved, HDDs have maintained this position into the modern era of servers and personal computers. More than 200 companies have produced HDD units, though most current units are manufactured by Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital. Worldwide revenues for HDD shipments are expected to reach $33 billion in 2013, a decrease of approximately 12% from $37.8 b -
Flash Memory
-
Flash Drive
CompactFlash (CF) is a mass storage device format used in portable electronic devices. The format was first specified and produced by SanDisk in 1994.[4] It is now used for a variety of devices; most contain flash memory but some, such as the Microdrive, contain a hard disk.
CompactFlash became the most successful of the early memory card formats, surpassing Miniature Card, SmartMedia, and PC Card Type I in popularity. Subsequent formats, such as MMC/SD, various Memory Stick formats, and xD-Pict -
Blue Ray
Blu-ray Disc (BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format, in that it is capable of storing high-definition video resolution (1080p). The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs.[4] Conventional (pre-BD-XL) Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs (50 GB) being the industry standard for feature-length video discs. Triple layer discs (100 GB) and quadruple layers (128 GB) are available for BD -
Cloud
Cloud storage is a model of networked enterprise storage where data is stored in virtualized pools of storage which are generally hosted by third parties. Hosting companies operate large data centers, and people who require their data to be hosted buy or lease storage capacity from them. The data center operators, in the background, virtualize the resources according to the requirements of the customer and expose them as storage pools, which the customers can themselves use to store files or dat -
Reasons to use the Cloud
