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History of computing hardware (1960s-present)
Encyclopedia
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube
to solid state
devices such as the transistor
and later the integrated circuit
. By 1959 discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive
. Computer main memory slowly moved away from magnetic core memory
devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size and power consumption of computer devices. Eventually the cost of integrated circuit devices became low enough that home computer
s and personal computer
s became widespread.
's invention of the integrated circuit
(or microchip), starting around 1965. However, the IBM
System/360
used hybrid circuit
s, which were solid-state devices interconnected on a substrate with discrete wires.
The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. Some of their early uses were in embedded system
s, notably used by NASA
for the Apollo Guidance Computer
, by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman
intercontinental ballistic missile
, and in the Central Air Data Computer
used for flight control in the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat
fighter jet.
By 1971, the Illiac IV
supercomputer, which was the fastest computer in the world for several years, used about a quarter-million small-scale ECL
logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.
While large mainframe computer
s such as the System/360 increased storage
and processing abilities, the integrated circuit also allowed development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer
was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation
became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP
and VAX
computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating system
s like Unix
.
In 1969, Data General
shipped a total of 50,000 Novas at $8000 each. The Nova
was one of the first 16-bit
minicomputers and led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit
byte
. It was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor
, with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor
was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board
.
In 1973, the TV Typewriter
, designed by Don Lancaster
, provided electronics hobbyists with a display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics magazine. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text. His design used minimalistic hardware to generate the timing of the various signals needed to create the TV signal. Clive Sinclair
later used the same approach in his legendary Sinclair ZX80
.
by a team at Intel.
Unlike third generation minicomputer
s, which were essentially scaled down versions of mainframe computer
s, the fourth generation's origins are fundamentally different.
Microprocessor-based computers were originally very limited in their computational ability and speed, and were in no way an attempt to downsize the minicomputer. They were addressing an entirely different market.
Although processing power and storage capacities have grown beyond all recognition since the 1970s, the underlying technology of large-scale integration (LSI) or very-large-scale integration
(VLSI) microchips has remained basically the same, so it is widely regarded that most of today's computers still belong to the fourth generation.
On November 15, 1971, Intel released the world's first commercial microprocessor, the 4004
. It was developed for a Japanese calculator company, Busicom
, as an alternative to hardwired circuitry, but computers were developed around it, with much of their processing abilities provided by one small microprocessor chip. Coupled with one of Intel's other products - the RAM chip, based on an invention by Robert Dennard
of IBM, (kilobits of memory on one chip) - the microprocessor allowed fourth generation computers to be smaller and faster than prior computers. The 4004 was only capable of 60,000 instructions per second, but its successors, the Intel 8008, 8080 (used in many computers using the CP/M
operating system
), and the 8086/8088 family (the IBM personal computer
(PC) and compatibles use processors still backwards-compatible with the 8086) brought ever-growing speed and power to the computers. Other producers also made microprocessors which were widely used in microcomputers.
s, the powerful supercomputer
s of the era also used integrated circuit technology. In 1976 the Cray-1
was developed by Seymour Cray
, who had left Control Data in 1972 to form his own company. This machine, the first supercomputer to make vector processing practical, had a characteristic horseshoe shape, to speed processing by shortening circuit paths. Vector processing, which uses one instruction to perform the same operation on many arguments, has been a fundamental supercomputer processing method ever since. The Cray-1 could calculate 150 million floating point operations per second (150 megaflops). 85 were shipped at a price of $5 million each. The Cray-1 had a CPU
that was mostly constructed of SSI and MSI ECL
ICs.
Before the introduction of the microprocessor
in the early 1970s, computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large institutions: corporations, universities, government agencies, and the like. Users—who were experienced specialists—did not usually interact with the machine itself, but instead prepared tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches
. A number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in batch mode
. After the jobs had completed, users could collect the output printouts and punched cards. In some organizations it could take hours or days between submitting a job to the computing center and receiving the output.
A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing
system, multiple teletype terminals
let many people share the use of one mainframe computer
processor. This was common in business applications and in science and engineering.
A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor. Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputer
s such as the LINC
and PDP-8
, and later on VAX
and larger minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation
(DEC), Data General
, Prime Computer
, and others. They originated as peripheral processors for mainframe computers, taking on some routine tasks and freeing the processor for computation. By today's standards they were physically large (about the size of a refrigerator) and costly (typically tens of thousands of US dollars
), and thus were rarely purchased by individuals. However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to operate than the mainframe computers of the time, and thus affordable by individual laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the batch processing
and bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center.
In addition, minicomputers were more interactive than mainframes, and soon had their own operating system
s. The minicomputer Xerox Alto
(1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers, because of its graphical user interface
, bit-mapped high resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage, mouse
, and special software.
The minicomputer
ancestors of the modern personal computer used integrated circuit
technology, which reduced size and cost compared to discrete transistors. Processing was carried out by circuits with large numbers of components arranged on multiple large printed circuit boards. Minicomputers were consequently physically large and expensive to produce compared with later microprocessor systems. After the "computer-on-a-chip" was commercialized, the cost to produce a computer system dropped dramatically. The arithmetic, logic, and control functions that previously occupied several costly circuit boards were now available in one integrated circuit
which was very expensive to design but cheap to produce in large quantities. Concurrently, advances in developing solid state memory eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry magnetic core memory
used in prior generations of computers.
was an enormous catalyst to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. The Altair 8800
, introduced in a Popular Electronics
magazine article in the January 1975 issue, at the time set a new low price point for a computer, bringing computer ownership to an admittedly select market in the 1970s. This was followed by the IMSAI 8080
computer, with similar abilities and limitations. The Altair and IMSAI were essentially scaled-down minicomputers and were incomplete: to connect a keyboard or teletype to them required heavy, expensive "peripherals". These machines both featured a front panel with switches and lights, which communicated with the operator in binary
. To program the machine after switching it on the bootstrap loader program had to be entered, without error, in binary, then a paper tape containing a BASIC
interpreter loaded from a paper-tape reader. Keying the loader required setting a bank of eight switches up or down and pressing the "load" button, once for each byte of the program, which was typically hundreds of bytes long. The computer could run BASIC programs once the interpreter had been loaded.
The MITS Altair
, the first commercially successful microprocessor kit, was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics
magazine in January 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080
processor. It was a commercial success with 10,000 Altairs being shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Paul Allen
and his high school friend Bill Gates
who developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and then formed Microsoft
.
The MITS Altair 8800 effectively created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80
and Intel 8085
microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M
-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall
at Digital Research
. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as WordStar
and dBase
II.
Many hobbyists during the mid 1970s designed their own systems, with various degrees of success, and sometimes banded together to ease the job. Out of these house meetings the Homebrew Computer Club
developed, where hobbyists met to talk about what they had done, exchange schematics and software, and demonstrate their systems. Many people built or assembled their own computers as per published designs. For example, many thousands of people built the Galaksija
home computer later in the early 80s.
It was arguably the Altair computer that spawned the development of Apple, as well as Microsoft
which produced and sold the Altair BASIC
programming language interpreter, Microsoft's first product. The second generation of microcomputer
s, those that appeared in the late 1970s, sparked by the unexpected demand for the kit computers at the electronic hobbyist clubs, were usually known as home computer
s. For business use these systems were less capable and in some ways less versatile than the large business computers of the day. They were designed for fun and educational purposes, not so much for practical use. And although you could use some simple office/productivity applications on them, they were generally used by computer enthusiasts for learning to program
and for running computer games, for which the personal computers of the period were less suitable and much too expensive. For the more technical hobbyists home computers were also used for electronics interfacing, such as controlling model railroads, and other general hobbyist pursuits.
and François Gernelle introduced in February 1973 a microcomputer, the Micral
N based on the Intel 8008.
Originally, the computer had been designed by Gernelle, Lacombe, Beckmann and Benchitrite for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
to automate hygrometric measurements. The Micral N cost a fifth of the price of a PDP-8
, about 8500FF ($1300).
The clock of the Intel 8008 was set at 500kHz, the memory was 16 kilobytes.
A bus, called Pluribus was introduced and allowed connection of up to 14 boards.
Different boards for digital I/O, analog I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E. The Micral operating
system was initially called Sysmic, and was later renamed Prologue
.
R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull
in 1978. Although Groupe Bull continued the production of Micral computers, it was not interested in the Personal Computer market. and Micral computers were mostly confined to highway toll gates (where they remained in service until 1992) and similar niche markets.
and Apple I
introduced around 1975 marked the release of low-cost 8-bit processor chips, which had sufficient computing power to be of interest to hobby and experimental users. By 1977 pre-assembled systems such as the Apple II
, Commodore PET
, and TRS-80
(later dubbed the "1977 Trinity" by Byte Magazine) began the era of mass-market home computers; much less effort was required to obtain an operating computer, and applications such as games, word processing, and spreadsheets began to proliferate. Distinct from computers used in homes, small business systems were typically based on CP/M
, until IBM introduced the IBM-PC, which was quickly adopted. The PC was heavily cloned, leading to mass production and consequent cost reduction throughout the 1980s. This expanded the PCs presence in homes, replacing the home computer category during the 1990s and leading to the current monoculture
of architecturally identical personal computers.
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
to solid state
Solid state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are those circuits or devices built entirely from solid materials and in which the electrons, or other charge carriers, are confined entirely within the solid material...
devices such as the transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
and later the integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
. By 1959 discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive
Competition (economics)
Competition in economics is a term that encompasses the notion of individuals and firms striving for a greater share of a market to sell or buy goods and services...
. Computer main memory slowly moved away from magnetic core memory
Magnetic core memory
Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information...
devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size and power consumption of computer devices. Eventually the cost of integrated circuit devices became low enough that home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s and personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s became widespread.
Third generation
The mass increase in the use of computers accelerated with 'Third Generation' computers. These generally relied on Jack KilbyJack Kilby
Jack St. Clair Kilby was an American physicist who took part in the invention of the integrated circuit while working at Texas Instruments in 1958. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 2000. He is credited with the invention of the integrated circuit or microchip...
's invention of the integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
(or microchip), starting around 1965. However, the IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
System/360
System/360
The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific...
used hybrid circuit
Hybrid circuit
A hybrid integrated circuit, HIC, hybrid microcircuit, or simply hybrid is a miniaturized electronic circuit constructed of individual devices, such as semiconductor devices and passive components , bonded to a substrate or printed circuit board...
s, which were solid-state devices interconnected on a substrate with discrete wires.
The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. Some of their early uses were in embedded system
Embedded system
An embedded system is a computer system designed for specific control functions within a larger system. often with real-time computing constraints. It is embedded as part of a complete device often including hardware and mechanical parts. By contrast, a general-purpose computer, such as a personal...
s, notably used by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
for the Apollo Guidance Computer
Apollo Guidance Computer
The Apollo Guidance Computer provided onboard computation and control for guidance, navigation, and control of the Command Module and Lunar Module spacecraft of the Apollo program...
, by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman
LGM-30 Minuteman
The LGM-30 Minuteman is a U.S. nuclear missile, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile . As of 2010, the version LGM-30G Minuteman-III is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States...
intercontinental ballistic missile
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
, and in the Central Air Data Computer
Central Air Data Computer
The Central Air Data Computer is the integrated flight control system used in the early versions of the US Navy's F-14 Tomcat fighter. It is notable for its early use of a custom-designed MOS-based LSI chipset, the MP944....
used for flight control in the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat
F-14 Tomcat
The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is a supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental program following the collapse of the F-111B project...
fighter jet.
By 1971, the Illiac IV
ILLIAC IV
The ILLIAC IV was one of the most infamous supercomputers ever built. One of a series of research machines, the ILLIACs from the University of Illinois, the ILLIAC IV design featured fairly high parallelism with up to 256 processors, used to allow the machine to work on large data sets in what...
supercomputer, which was the fastest computer in the world for several years, used about a quarter-million small-scale ECL
ECL
ECL may stand for:*ECL programming language, an extensible programming language developed at Harvard*ECL, data-centric programming language for Big Data, a declarative, data centric programming language used for data intensive supercomputing...
logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.
While large mainframe computer
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
s such as the System/360 increased storage
Computer storage
Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and recording media that retain digital data. Data storage is one of the core functions and fundamental components of computers....
and processing abilities, the integrated circuit also allowed development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP
Programmed Data Processor
Programmed Data Processor was the name of a series of minicomputers made by Digital Equipment Corporation. The name 'PDP' intentionally avoided the use of the term 'computer' because, at the time of the first PDPs, computers had a reputation of being large, complicated, and expensive machines, and...
and VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s like Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
.
In 1969, Data General
Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
shipped a total of 50,000 Novas at $8000 each. The Nova
Data General Nova
The Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and...
was one of the first 16-bit
16-bit
-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
minicomputers and led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
byte
Byte
The byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
. It was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing...
, with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board
Printed circuit board
A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
.
In 1973, the TV Typewriter
TV Typewriter
The TV Typewriter was a video terminal that could display 2 pages of 16 lines of 32 upper case characters on a standard television set. The Don Lancaster design appeared on the cover of Radio-Electronics magazine in September 1973. The magazine included a 6 page description of the design but...
, designed by Don Lancaster
Don Lancaster
Donald E. Lancaster is a prolific author, inventor, and microcomputer pioneer best known for his magazine columns. He is also known for his "TV Typewriter" dumb terminal project, his book on technical entrepreneurship The Incredible Secret Money Machine, and his work on and advocacy of early...
, provided electronics hobbyists with a display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics magazine. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text. His design used minimalistic hardware to generate the timing of the various signals needed to create the TV signal. Clive Sinclair
Clive Sinclair
Sir Clive Marles Sinclair is a British entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s....
later used the same approach in his legendary Sinclair ZX80
Sinclair ZX80
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. . It is notable for being the first computer available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds...
.
Fourth generation
The basis of the fourth generation was the invention of the microprocessorMicroprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
by a team at Intel.
Unlike third generation minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s, which were essentially scaled down versions of mainframe computer
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
s, the fourth generation's origins are fundamentally different.
Microprocessor-based computers were originally very limited in their computational ability and speed, and were in no way an attempt to downsize the minicomputer. They were addressing an entirely different market.
Although processing power and storage capacities have grown beyond all recognition since the 1970s, the underlying technology of large-scale integration (LSI) or very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration
Very-large-scale integration is the process of creating integrated circuits by combining thousands of transistors into a single chip. VLSI began in the 1970s when complex semiconductor and communication technologies were being developed. The microprocessor is a VLSI device.The first semiconductor...
(VLSI) microchips has remained basically the same, so it is widely regarded that most of today's computers still belong to the fourth generation.
Microprocessors
Intel 4004
The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
. It was developed for a Japanese calculator company, Busicom
Busicom
Busicom was a Japanese company that owned the rights to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970....
, as an alternative to hardwired circuitry, but computers were developed around it, with much of their processing abilities provided by one small microprocessor chip. Coupled with one of Intel's other products - the RAM chip, based on an invention by Robert Dennard
Robert Dennard
Robert Dennard is an American electrical engineer and inventor.Dennard was born in Terrell, Texas, U.S.. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, in 1954 and 1956, respectively. He earned a Ph.D. from Carnegie Institute of...
of IBM, (kilobits of memory on one chip) - the microprocessor allowed fourth generation computers to be smaller and faster than prior computers. The 4004 was only capable of 60,000 instructions per second, but its successors, the Intel 8008, 8080 (used in many computers using the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
), and the 8086/8088 family (the IBM personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
(PC) and compatibles use processors still backwards-compatible with the 8086) brought ever-growing speed and power to the computers. Other producers also made microprocessors which were widely used in microcomputers.
Supercomputers
At the other end of the computing spectrum from the microcomputerMicrocomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
s, the powerful supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
s of the era also used integrated circuit technology. In 1976 the Cray-1
Cray-1
The Cray-1 was a supercomputer designed, manufactured, and marketed by Cray Research. The first Cray-1 system was installed at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1976, and it went on to become one of the best known and most successful supercomputers in history...
was developed by Seymour Cray
Seymour Cray
Seymour Roger Cray was an American electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded Cray Research which would build many of these machines. Called "the father of supercomputing," Cray has been credited...
, who had left Control Data in 1972 to form his own company. This machine, the first supercomputer to make vector processing practical, had a characteristic horseshoe shape, to speed processing by shortening circuit paths. Vector processing, which uses one instruction to perform the same operation on many arguments, has been a fundamental supercomputer processing method ever since. The Cray-1 could calculate 150 million floating point operations per second (150 megaflops). 85 were shipped at a price of $5 million each. The Cray-1 had a CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
that was mostly constructed of SSI and MSI ECL
Emitter coupled logic
In electronics, emitter-coupled logic , is a logic family that achieves high speed by using an overdriven BJT differential amplifier with single-ended input, whose emitter current is limited to avoid the slow saturation region of transistor operation....
ICs.
Mainframes and minicomputers
Microprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
in the early 1970s, computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large institutions: corporations, universities, government agencies, and the like. Users—who were experienced specialists—did not usually interact with the machine itself, but instead prepared tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches
Key punch
A keypunch is a device for manually entering data into punched cards by precisely punching holes at locations designated by the keys struck by the operator. Early keypunches were manual devices. Later keypunches were mechanized, often resembled a small desk, with a keyboard similar to a...
. A number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in batch mode
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
. After the jobs had completed, users could collect the output printouts and punched cards. In some organizations it could take hours or days between submitting a job to the computing center and receiving the output.
A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
system, multiple teletype terminals
Computer terminal
A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...
let many people share the use of one mainframe computer
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
processor. This was common in business applications and in science and engineering.
A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor. Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputer
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
s such as the LINC
LINC
The LINC was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC can be considered the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer....
and PDP-8
PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
, and later on VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
and larger minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
(DEC), Data General
Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
, Prime Computer
Prime Computer
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
, and others. They originated as peripheral processors for mainframe computers, taking on some routine tasks and freeing the processor for computation. By today's standards they were physically large (about the size of a refrigerator) and costly (typically tens of thousands of US dollars
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
), and thus were rarely purchased by individuals. However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to operate than the mainframe computers of the time, and thus affordable by individual laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the batch processing
Batch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
and bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center.
In addition, minicomputers were more interactive than mainframes, and soon had their own operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. The minicomputer Xerox Alto
Xerox Alto
The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use , making it arguably what is now called a personal computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973...
(1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers, because of its graphical user interface
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
, bit-mapped high resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage, mouse
Mouse (computing)
In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...
, and special software.
Microprocessor and cost reduction
Minicomputer
A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems and the smallest single-user systems...
ancestors of the modern personal computer used integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
technology, which reduced size and cost compared to discrete transistors. Processing was carried out by circuits with large numbers of components arranged on multiple large printed circuit boards. Minicomputers were consequently physically large and expensive to produce compared with later microprocessor systems. After the "computer-on-a-chip" was commercialized, the cost to produce a computer system dropped dramatically. The arithmetic, logic, and control functions that previously occupied several costly circuit boards were now available in one integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
which was very expensive to design but cheap to produce in large quantities. Concurrently, advances in developing solid state memory eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry magnetic core memory
Magnetic core memory
Magnetic-core memory was the predominant form of random-access computer memory for 20 years . It uses tiny magnetic toroids , the cores, through which wires are threaded to write and read information. Each core represents one bit of information...
used in prior generations of computers.
Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080
Development of the single-chip microprocessorMicroprocessor
A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
was an enormous catalyst to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. The Altair 8800
Altair 8800
The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
, introduced in a Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics was an American magazine started by Ziff-Davis Publishing in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soon became the "World's Largest-Selling Electronics Magazine". The circulation was 240,151 in April 1957 and 400,000 by 1963. Ziff-Davis published Popular...
magazine article in the January 1975 issue, at the time set a new low price point for a computer, bringing computer ownership to an admittedly select market in the 1970s. This was followed by the IMSAI 8080
IMSAI 8080
The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in late 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and later 8085 and S-100 bus. It was a clone of its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800. The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first "clone" computer. The IMSAI machine ran a highly modified version of...
computer, with similar abilities and limitations. The Altair and IMSAI were essentially scaled-down minicomputers and were incomplete: to connect a keyboard or teletype to them required heavy, expensive "peripherals". These machines both featured a front panel with switches and lights, which communicated with the operator in binary
Binary numeral system
The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2...
. To program the machine after switching it on the bootstrap loader program had to be entered, without error, in binary, then a paper tape containing a BASIC
BASIC
BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
interpreter loaded from a paper-tape reader. Keying the loader required setting a bank of eight switches up or down and pressing the "load" button, once for each byte of the program, which was typically hundreds of bytes long. The computer could run BASIC programs once the interpreter had been loaded.
Altair 8800
The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
, the first commercially successful microprocessor kit, was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics
Popular Electronics was an American magazine started by Ziff-Davis Publishing in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soon became the "World's Largest-Selling Electronics Magazine". The circulation was 240,151 in April 1957 and 400,000 by 1963. Ziff-Davis published Popular...
magazine in January 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080
Intel 8080
The Intel 8080 was the second 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and was released in April 1974. It was an extended and enhanced variant of the earlier 8008 design, although without binary compatibility...
processor. It was a commercial success with 10,000 Altairs being shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Paul Allen
Paul Allen
Paul Gardner Allen is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates...
and his high school friend Bill Gates
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
who developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and then formed Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
.
The MITS Altair 8800 effectively created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80
Zilog Z80
The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by Zilog and sold from July 1976 onwards. It was widely used both in desktop and embedded computer designs as well as for military purposes...
and Intel 8085
Intel 8085
The Intel 8085 is an 8-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1977. It was binary-compatible with the more-famous Intel 8080 but required less supporting hardware, thus allowing simpler and less expensive microcomputer systems to be built....
microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall
Gary Kildall
Gary Arlen Kildall was an American computer scientist and microcomputer entrepreneur who created the CP/M operating system and founded Digital Research, Inc....
at Digital Research
Digital Research
Digital Research, Inc. was the company created by Dr. Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related products. It was the first large software company in the microcomputer world...
. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as WordStar
WordStar
WordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
and dBase
DBASE
dBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers. It was originally published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on ported to the Apple II and IBM PC under DOS...
II.
Many hobbyists during the mid 1970s designed their own systems, with various degrees of success, and sometimes banded together to ease the job. Out of these house meetings the Homebrew Computer Club
Homebrew Computer Club
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist users' group in Silicon Valley, which met from March 5, 1975 to December 1986...
developed, where hobbyists met to talk about what they had done, exchange schematics and software, and demonstrate their systems. Many people built or assembled their own computers as per published designs. For example, many thousands of people built the Galaksija
Galaksija
The Galaksija was originally a build-it-yourself computer designed by Voja Antonić. It was featured in the special edition Računari u vašoj kući of a popular eponymous science magazine, published late December 1983 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia...
home computer later in the early 80s.
It was arguably the Altair computer that spawned the development of Apple, as well as Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
which produced and sold the Altair BASIC
Altair BASIC
Altair BASIC was an interpreter for the BASIC programming language that ran on the MITS Altair 8800 and subsequent S-100 bus computers. It was Microsoft's first product , distributed by MITS under a contract...
programming language interpreter, Microsoft's first product. The second generation of microcomputer
Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
s, those that appeared in the late 1970s, sparked by the unexpected demand for the kit computers at the electronic hobbyist clubs, were usually known as home computer
Home computer
Home computers were a class of microcomputers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as affordable and accessible computers that, for the first time, were intended for the use of a single nontechnical user...
s. For business use these systems were less capable and in some ways less versatile than the large business computers of the day. They were designed for fun and educational purposes, not so much for practical use. And although you could use some simple office/productivity applications on them, they were generally used by computer enthusiasts for learning to program
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
and for running computer games, for which the personal computers of the period were less suitable and much too expensive. For the more technical hobbyists home computers were also used for electronics interfacing, such as controlling model railroads, and other general hobbyist pursuits.
Micral N
In France, the company R2E (Réalisations et Etudes Electroniques) formed by two former engineers of the Intertechnique company, André Truong Trong ThiAndré Truong Trong Thi
André Trương Trọng Thi was a Vietnamese-French engineer. He is considered to be the "father of the personal computer" for his company creating thanks to the french inventor of this machine François Gernelle, the Micral N based on an Intel 8008 processor, soon named in 1973 for the first time:...
and François Gernelle introduced in February 1973 a microcomputer, the Micral
MICRAL
According to the Computer History Museum, the Micral N, produced by the French company R2E, was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor...
N based on the Intel 8008.
Originally, the computer had been designed by Gernelle, Lacombe, Beckmann and Benchitrite for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
The Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique is a French public research institute dedicated to scientific studies surrounding the problems of agriculture...
to automate hygrometric measurements. The Micral N cost a fifth of the price of a PDP-8
PDP-8
The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
, about 8500FF ($1300).
The clock of the Intel 8008 was set at 500kHz, the memory was 16 kilobytes.
A bus, called Pluribus was introduced and allowed connection of up to 14 boards.
Different boards for digital I/O, analog I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E. The Micral operating
system was initially called Sysmic, and was later renamed Prologue
Prologue
A prologue is an opening to a story that establishes the setting and gives background details, often some earlier story that ties into the main one, and other miscellaneous information. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance...
.
R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull
Groupe Bull
-External links:* * — Friends, co-workers and former employees of Bull and Honeywell* *...
in 1978. Although Groupe Bull continued the production of Micral computers, it was not interested in the Personal Computer market. and Micral computers were mostly confined to highway toll gates (where they remained in service until 1992) and similar niche markets.
Microcomputer emerges
The advent of the microprocessor and solid-state memory made home computing affordable. Early hobby microcomputer systems such as the Altair 8800Altair 8800
The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
and Apple I
Apple I
The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer...
introduced around 1975 marked the release of low-cost 8-bit processor chips, which had sufficient computing power to be of interest to hobby and experimental users. By 1977 pre-assembled systems such as the Apple II
Apple II
The Apple II is an 8-bit home computer, one of the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products, designed primarily by Steve Wozniak, manufactured by Apple Computer and introduced in 1977...
, Commodore PET
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International...
, and TRS-80
TRS-80
TRS-80 was Tandy Corporation's desktop microcomputer model line, sold through Tandy's Radio Shack stores in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first units, ordered unseen, were delivered in November 1977, and rolled out to the stores the third week of December. The line won popularity with...
(later dubbed the "1977 Trinity" by Byte Magazine) began the era of mass-market home computers; much less effort was required to obtain an operating computer, and applications such as games, word processing, and spreadsheets began to proliferate. Distinct from computers used in homes, small business systems were typically based on CP/M
CP/M
CP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
, until IBM introduced the IBM-PC, which was quickly adopted. The PC was heavily cloned, leading to mass production and consequent cost reduction throughout the 1980s. This expanded the PCs presence in homes, replacing the home computer category during the 1990s and leading to the current monoculture
Monoculture (computer science)
In the field of computer science, monoculture is a term used to describe a community of computers, all running identical software. All the computer systems in the community have the same vulnerabilities, and, like agricultural monocultures, are subject to catastrophic failure in the event of a...
of architecturally identical personal computers.
See also
- History of computing hardwareHistory of computing hardwareThe history of computing hardware is the record of the ongoing effort to make computer hardware faster, cheaper, and capable of storing more data....
, before the 1960s - Influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market
- Timeline of computingTimeline of computingThis article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computing hardware and history of computer science....
- CPU designCPU designCPU design is the design engineering task of creating a central processing unit , a component of computer hardware. It is a subfield of electronics engineering and computer engineering.- Overview :CPU design focuses on these areas:...
, a technical discussion of computing history - History of operating systemsHistory of operating systemsThe history of computer operating systems recapitulates to a degree the recent history of computer hardware.Operating systems provide a set of functions needed and used by most application programs on a computer, and the linkages needed to control and synchronize computer hardware...
- History of the InternetHistory of the InternetThe history of the Internet starts in the 1950s and 1960s with the development of computers. This began with point-to-point communication between mainframe computers and terminals, expanded to point-to-point connections between computers and then early research into packet switching...
- History of the graphical user interfaceHistory of the graphical user interfaceThe graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles...
- Programming language timeline
- Hardware description languageHardware description languageIn electronics, a hardware description language or HDL is any language from a class of computer languages, specification languages, or modeling languages for formal description and design of electronic circuits, and most-commonly, digital logic...
- Hardware abstraction layer
- Computer architectureComputer architectureIn computer science and engineering, computer architecture is the practical art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance and cost goals and the formal modelling of those systems....
, how computers are designed - Computers in fiction
- Fifth generation computerFifth generation computerThe Fifth Generation Computer Systems project was an initiative by Japan'sMinistry of International Trade and Industry, begun in 1982, to create a "fifth generation computer" which was supposed to perform much calculation using massive parallel processing...
- Quantum computing
- Curta calculatorCurta calculatorThe Curta is a small, hand-cranked mechanical calculator introduced in 1948. It has an extremely compact design: a small cylinder that fits in the palm of the hand. It can be used to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and — with more difficulty — square roots and other...
- Pirates of Silicon ValleyPirates of Silicon ValleyPirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke and based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. The film documents the impact on the development of the personal computer of the rivalry between...
, docudramaDocudramaIn film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
about Apple Inc. and MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's early days - Triumph of the NerdsTriumph of the NerdsTriumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires is a documentary film written and hosted by Robert X. Cringely and produced for British television by Oregon Public Broadcasting. The title refers to the 1984 film, Revenge of the Nerds, and the documentary itself is based on Cringely's book...
External links
- Stephen White's excellent Computer history site (the above article is a modified version of his work, used with Permission)
- Digital Deli, edited by Steve Ditlea, full text of the classic computer book
- Collection of old analog and digital computers at Old Computer Museum
- ZX81 Computer Online Museum
- Yahoo Computers and History
- IEEE computer history timeline
- Links to all things Commodore
- A homebrew computer club site
- Computer History Museum
- Pictures and information on old computers
- ITPartshopper: a database of suppliers for obsolete computer parts
- History of Computers (1989-2004) in PC World excerpts
- How It Works - The Computer, 1971 and 1979 editions, by David Carey, illustrated by B. H. Robinson
- PC History Stan Veit's classic work on the history of Pre-IBM personal computers.
- WWW-VL: Internet History