History Of Computers Essay, Research Paper

Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of

our lives. Such devices changed the way we manage, work, and live. A machine

that has done all this and more now exists in nearly every business in the

United States. This incredible invention is the computer. The electronic

computer has been around for over a half-century, but its ancestors have been

around for 2000 years. However, only in the last 40 years has the computer

changed American management to it’s greatest extent. From the first wooden

abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the computer has changed nearly

every aspect of management, and our lives for the better. The very earliest

existence of the modern day computer’s ancestor is the abacus. These date back

to almost 2000 years ago (Dolotta, 1985). It is simply a wooden rack holding

parallel wires on which beads are strung. When these beads are moved along the

wire according to programming rules that the user must memorize. All ordinary

arithmetic operations can be performed on the abacus. This was one of the first

management tools used. The next innovation in computers took place in 1694 when

Blaise Pascal invented the first digital calculating machine. It could only add

numbers and they had to be entered by turning dials. It was designed to help

Pascal’s father, who was a tax collector, manage the town’s taxes (Beer, 1966).

In the early 1800s, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage designed an

automatic calculation machine (Dolotta, 1985). It was steam powered and could

store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built in to his machine were operations that

included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was

programmed by and stored data on cards with holes punched in them, appropriately

called punch cards. This machine was extremely useful to managers that delt with

large volumes of good. With Babbage’s machine, managers could more easily

calculate the large numbers accumulated by inventories. The only problem was

that there was only one of these machines built, thus making it difficult for

all managers to use (Beer, 1966). After Babbage, people began to lose interest

in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances in

mathematics and physics that began to rekindle the interest. Many of these new

advances involved complex calculations and formulas that were very time

consuming for human calculation. The first major use for a computer in the U.S.

was during the 1890 census. Two men, Herman Hollerith and James Powers,

developed a new punched-card system that could automatically read information on

cards without human (Dolotta, 1985). Since the population of the U.S. was

increasing so fast, the computer was an essential tool for managers in

tabulating the totals (Hazewindus,1988). These advantages were noted by

commercial industries and soon led to the development of improved punch-card

business-machine systems by International Business Machines, Remington-Rand,

Burroughs, and other corporations (Chposky, 1988). By modern standards the

punched-card machines were slow, typically processing from 50 to 250 cards per

minute, with each card holding up to 80 digits. At the time, however, punched

cards were an enormous step forward; they provided a means of input, output, and

memory storage on a massive scale. For more than 50 years following their first

use, punched-card machines did the bulk of the world’s business computing

(Jacobs, 1975). By the late 1930s punched-card machine techniques had become so

well established and reliable that Howard Hathaway Aiken, in collaboration with

engineers at IBM, undertook construction of a large automatic digital computer

based on standard IBM electromechanical parts (Chposky, 1988). Aiken’s machine,

called the Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all four

arithmetic operations (Dolotta, 1985). Also, it had special built-in programs to

handled logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from

prepunched paper tape. Output was by card punch and electric typewriter. It was

slow, requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a multiplication, but it was fully automatic

and could complete long computations without human intervention. The outbreak of

World War II produced a desperate need for computing capability, especially for

the military (Dolotta, 1985). New weapons systems were produced which needed

trajectory tables and other essential data. In 1942, John P. Eckert, John W.

Mauchley, and their associates at the University of Pennsylvania decided to

build a high-speed electronic computer to do the job. This machine became known

as ENIAC, for Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator (Chposky, 1988). It

could multiply two numbers at the rate of 300 products per second, by finding

the value of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory.

ENIAC was thus about 1,000 times faster than the previous generation of

computers. ENIAC used 18,000 standard vacuum tubes, occupied 1800 square feet of

floor space, and used about 180,000 watts of electricity. It used punched-card

input and output. The ENIAC was very difficult to program because one had to

essentially re-wire it to perform whatever task he wanted the computer to do. It

was efficient in handling the particular programs for which it had been

designed. ENIAC is generally accepted as the first successful high-speed

electronic digital computer and was used in many applications from 1946 to 1955.

However, the ENIAC was not accessible to managers of businesses (Beer, 1966).

Mathematician John Von Neumann was very interested in the ENIAC. In 1945 he

undertook a theoretical study of computation that demonstrated that a computer

could have a very simple and yet be able to execute any kind of computation

effectively by means of proper programmed control without the need for any

changes in hardware. Von Neumann came up with incredible ideas for methods of

building and organizing practical, fast computers. These ideas, which came to be

referred to as the stored-program technique, became fundamental for future

generations of high-speed digital computers and were universally adopted (Dolotta,

1985). The first wave of modern programmed electronic computers to take

advantage of these improvements appeared in 1947. This group included computers

using random access memory, RAM, which is a memory designed to give almost

constant access to any particular piece of information (Dolotta, 1985). These

machines had punched-card or punched-tape input and output devices and RAMs of

1000-word capacity. Physically, they were much more compact than ENIAC: some

were about the size of a grand piano and required 2500 small electron tubes.

This was quite an improvement over the earlier machines. The first-generation

stored-program computers required considerable maintenance, usually attained 70%

to 80% reliable operation, and were used for 8 to 12 years (Hazewindus,1988).

Typically, they were programmed directly in machine language, although by the

mid-1950s progress had been made in several aspects of advanced programming.

This group of machines included EDVAC and UNIVAC, the first commercially

available computers. With this invention, managers had even more power to

perform calculations for such things as statistical demographic data (Beer,

1966). Before this time, it was very rare for a manager of a larger business to

have the means to process large numbers in so little time. The UNIVAC was

developed by John W. Mauchley and John Eckert, Jr. in the 1950s. Together they

had formed the Mauchley-Eckert Computer Corporation, America’s first computer

company in the 1940s. During the development of the UNIVAC, they began to run

short on funds and sold their company to the larger Remington-Rand Corporation.

Eventually they built a working UNIVAC computer. It was delivered to the U.S.

Census Bureau in 1951 where it was used to help tabulate the U.S. population

(Hazewindus,1988). Early in the 1950s two important engineering discoveries

changed the electronic computer field. The first computers were made with vacuum

tubes, but by the late 1950s computers were being made out of transistors, which

were smaller, less expensive, more reliable, and more efficient (Dolotta, 1985).

In 1959, Robert Noyce, a physicist at the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation,

invented the integrated circuit, a tiny chip of silicon that contained an entire

electronic circuit. Gone was the bulky, unreliable, but fast machine; now

computers began to become more compact, more reliable and have more capacity.

These new technical discoveries rapidly found their way into new models of

digital computers. Memory storage capacities increased 800% in commercially

available machines by the early 1960s and speeds increased by an equally large

margin (Jacobs, 1975). These machines were very expensive to purchase or to rent

and were especially expensive to operate because of the cost of hiring

programmers to perform the complex operations the computers ran. Such computers

were typically found in large computer centers operated by industry, government,

and private laboratories staffed with many programmers and support personnel. By

1956, 76 of IBM’s large computer mainframes were in use, compared with only 46

UNIVAC’s (Chposky, 1988). In the 1960s efforts to design and develop the fastest

possible computers with the greatest capacity reached a turning point with the

completion of the LARC machine for Livermore Radiation Laboratories by the

Sperry-Rand Corporation, and the Stretch computer by IBM. The LARC had a core

memory of 98,000 words and multiplied in 10 microseconds. Stretch was provided

with several ranks of memory having slower access for the ranks of greater

capacity, the fastest access time being less than 1 microseconds and the total

capacity in the vicinity of 100 million words. During this time the major

computer manufacturers began to offer a range of computer capabilities, as well

as various computer-related equipment (Jacobs, 1975). These included input means

such as consoles and card feeders; output means such as page printers,

cathode-ray-tube displays, and graphing devices; and optional magnetic-tape and

magnetic-disk file storage. These found wide use in management for such

applications as accounting, payroll, inventory control, ordering supplies, and

billing. Central processing units for such purposes did not need to be very fast

arithmetically and were primarily used to access large amounts of records on

file. The greatest number of computer systems were delivered for the larger

applications, such as in hospitals for keeping track of patient records,

medications, and treatments given. They were also used in automated library

systems and in database systems such as the Chemical Abstracts system, where

computer records now on file cover nearly all known chemical compounds (Dolotta,

1985). The trend during the 1970s was, to some extent, away from extremely

powerful, centralized computational centers and toward a broader range of

applications for less-costly computer systems (Jacobs, 1975). Most

continuous-process manufacturing, such as petroleum refining and

electrical-power distribution systems, began using computers of relatively

modest capability for controlling and regulating their activities. In the 1960s

the programming of applications problems was an obstacle to the self-sufficiency

of moderate-sized on-site computer installations, but great advances in

applications programming languages removed these obstacles. Applications

languages became available for controlling a great range of manufacturing

processes, for computer operation of machine tools, and for many other tasks. In

1971 Marcian E. Hoff, Jr., an engineer at the Intel Corporation, invented the

microprocessor and another stage in the development of the computer began (Chposky,

1988). A new revolution in computer hardware was now well under way, involving

miniaturization of computer-logic circuitry and of component manufacture by what

are called large-scale integration techniques. In the 1950s it was realized that

scaling down the size of electronic digital computer circuits and parts would

increase speed and efficiency and improve performance (Jacobs, 1975). However,

at that time the manufacturing methods were not good enough to accomplish such a

task. About 1960, photoprinting of conductive circuit boards to eliminate wiring

became highly developed. Then it became possible to build resistors and

capacitors into the circuitry by photographic means. In the 1970s entire

assemblies, such as adders, shifting registers, and counters, became available

on tiny chips of silicon. In the 1980s very large scale integration, VLSI, in

which hundreds of thousands of transistors are placed on a single chip, became

increasingly common (Dolotta, 1985). Many companies, some new to the computer

field, introduced in the 1970s programmable minicomputers supplied with software

packages (Jacobs, 1975). The size-reduction trend continued with the

introduction of personal computers, which are programmable machines small enough

and inexpensive enough to be purchased and used by individuals (Beer, 1966). One

of the first of such machines was introduced in January 1975. Popular

Electronics magazine provided plans that would allow any electronics wizard to

build his own small, programmable computer for about $380. The computer was

called the Altair 8800. Its programming involved pushing buttons and flipping

switches on the front of the box. It didn’t include a monitor or keyboard, and

its applications were very limited. Even though, many orders came in for it and

several famous owners of computer and software manufacturing companies got their

start in computing through the Altair (Jacobs, 1975). For example, Steve Jobs

and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer, built a much cheaper, yet more

productive version of the Altair and turned their hobby into a business. After

the introduction of the Altair 8800, the personal computer industry became a

fierce battleground of competition. IBM had been the computer industry standard

for well over a half-century. They held their position as the standard when they

introduced their first personal computer, the IBM Model 60 in 1975 (Chposky,

1988). However, the newly formed Apple Computer company was releasing its own

personal computer, the Apple II. The Apple I was the first computer designed by

Jobs and Wozniak in Wozniak’s garage, which was not produced on a wide scale.

Software was needed to run the computers as well. Microsoft developed a Disk

Operating System, MS-DOS, for the IBM computer while Apple developed its own

software (Chposky, 1988). Because Microsoft had now set the software standard

for IBMs, every software manufacturer had to make their software compatible with

Microsoft’s. This would lead to huge profits for Microsoft. The main goal of the

computer manufacturers was to make the computer as affordable as possible while

increasing speed, reliability, and capacity. Nearly every computer manufacturer

accomplished this and computers popped up everywhere. Computers were in

businesses keeping track of even more inventories for managers. Computers were

in colleges aiding students in research. Computers were in laboratories making

complex calculations at high speeds for scientists and physicists. The computer

had made its mark everywhere in management and built up a huge industry (Beer,

1966). The future is promising for the computer industry and its technology. The

speed of processors is expected to double every year and a half in the coming

years (Jacobs, 1975). As manufacturing techniques are further perfected the

prices of computer systems are expected to steadily fall. However, since the

microprocessor technology will be increasing, it’s higher costs will offset the

drop in price of older processors. In other words, the price of a new computer

will stay about the same from year to year, but technology will steadily

increase. Since the end of World War II, the computer industry has grown from a

standing start into one of the biggest and most profitable industries in the

United States (Hazewindus,1988). It now comprises thousands of companies, making

everything from multi-million dollar high-speed supercomputers to printout paper

and floppy disks. It employs millions of people and generates tens of billions

of dollars in sales each year. Surely, the computer has impacted every aspect of

people’s lives (Jacobs, 1975). It has affected the way people work and play. It

has made everyone’s life easier by doing difficult work for people. The computer

truly is one of the most incredible inventions in history to ever influence

management, and life.

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and Management Cybernetics Chposky, J. (1988) Blue Magic, New York: Facts on

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Processing: 1940-1985, New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Hazewindus, N.

(1988). The U.S. Microelectronics Industry, New York, NY: Pergaman Press Jacobs,

C. W. (1975, January). The Altair 8800, Popular Electronics, New York, NY:

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