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The Invention of the Computer
Konrad Zuse built the Z1 computer. It was a electrically driven mechanical calculator. The Z1 though had a very limited capability to be programmed. It could add and subtract. For multiplication and division it used repeated addition and subtraction. The Z1 had a 64-word floating point memory. Each word of memory could be read and written to by from the control unit. It was only capable of following the instructions read from the punch tape reader. -
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The History of the Computer
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The Harvard Mark-1
Harvard Professor Howard Aiken designed the Harvard Mark-1. It was a room seized relay- based calculator. The Mark_1 had a fifty-foot long camshaft which synchronized it’s component parts. It was used to produce mathematical tables. It was then superseded by stored program computers. -
ERA 1101
Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101. It was the first commercially produced computer. One of it’s first customers were the U.S. Navy. It had 1 million bits on it’s magnetic drum. The ERA was the first magnetic storage device. Drums registered information as magnetic pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second. -
PDP-8
Digital Equipment Corp introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. It sold for $18,000 which was one-fifth the price of a small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories. -
The Alto Computer
Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto. The Alto stored several files simultaneously in windows, offered menus and icons, and could link to a local area network. Xerox never sold the Alto commercially but gave them to universities. -
The Osborne 1
Adam Osborne completed the first portable computer, the Osborne 1. It weighed 24 pounds and cost $1,795. The price made the machine especially attractive, as it included software worth about $1,500. The machine featured a 5-inch display and 64 kilobytes of memory. It also had a modem and two 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives. -
IBM's PC (Personal Computer)
Also in 1981 IBM introduced its PC (Personal Computer), igniting a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft´s MS-DOS operating system. -
Apple Machintosh
Apple Computer launched the Macintosh, the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface, with a single $1.5 million commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa´s features at a much more affordable price: $2,500. -
The Amiga 1000
The Amiga 1000 is released. Commodore’s Amiga 1000 sold for $1,295 dollars and had audio and video capabilities beyond those found in most other personal computers. It developed a very loyal following and add-on components allowed it to be upgraded easily. The inside of the case is engraved with the signatures of the Amiga designers, including Jay Miner as well as the paw print of his dog Mitchy. -
80486 microprocessor
Intel released the 80486 microprocessor and the i860 RISC/coprocessor chip, each of which contained more than 1 million transistors. The RISC microprocessor had a 32-bit integer arithmetic and logic unit. It also had a 64-bit floating-point unit, and a clock rate of 33 MHz(Mega Hertz). The 486 chips remained similar in structure to their predecessors, the 386 chips. What set the 486 apart was its optimized instruction set. -
Google Glass
Google Glass is an attempt to free data from desktop computers and portable devices like phones and tablets, and place it right in front of your eyes. Google Glass is a camera, display, touchpad, battery and microphone built into spectacle frames. It is basically a computer right near your eyes. To access and use apps you use voice commands. It is going to be released in 2013 for $1,500. On the right side there is all the storage of data and a microchip. you can eveget prescription glass frames. -
Future Computer
For the year 2050 I think that you can just take a microchip encased in glass out of your pocket. You can turn it on and a hologram with a keyboard and the desktop will show up. You will be able to then type in mid-air and find things on the go. Another idea for a new computer would be a microchip implanted in your brain and you can find out anything inside your brain.
