Computer Industry In US Essay, Research Paper

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

our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a

special one, indeed. A machine that has done all this and more now exists in

nearly every business in the U.S. and one out of every two households (Hall,

156). 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 it changed the American society.

From the first wooden abacus to the latest high-speed microprocessor, the

computer has changed nearly every aspect of people’s 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. 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 (Soma, 14). 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 (Soma, 32). In the early 1800?s, a mathematics professor named

Charles Babbage designed an automatic calculation machine. 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". His inventions were failures

for the most part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at

the time and the lack of demand for such a device (Soma, 46). 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 (Osborne, 45). 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 intervention (Gulliver,

82). Since the population of the U.S. was increasing so fast, the computer was

an essential tool in tabulating the totals. These advantages were noted by

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

business-machine systems by International Business Machines (IBM),

Remington-Rand, Burroughs, and other corporations. 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 and a

good portion of the computing work in science (Chposky, 73). 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. Aiken’s machine, called the Harvard Mark I, handled

23-digit numbers and could perform all four arithmetic operations. 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 (Chposky, 103). The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate

need for computing capability, especially for the military. 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". 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 (Dolotta, 47).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, however, 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 (Dolotta, 50). 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 (Hall, 73). 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 (Hall, 75). 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. 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 (Hazewindus, 102). The UNIVAC was developed by

John W. Mauchley and John Eckert, Jr. in the 1950?s. Together they had formed

the Mauchley-Eckert Computer Corporation, America’s first computer company in

the 1940?s. 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,

124). 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 1950?s computers were being made out of transistors, which were

smaller, less expensive, more reliable, and more efficient (Shallis, 40). 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 (Shallis,

49). 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. 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 (Rogers, 77).

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

46 UNIVAC’s (Chposky, 125). 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 (Chposky, 147). During this

time the major computer manufacturers began to offer a range of computer

capabilities, as well as various computer-related equipment. 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 business

for such applications as accounting, payroll, inventory control, ordering

supplies, and billing. Central processing units (CPUs) 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 (Rogers, 98). 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. 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 (Osborne, 146). 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 (Shallis, 121). 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. 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 (Rogers, 142). 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. Many companies, some new to the computer field,

introduced in the 1970s programmable minicomputers supplied with software

packages. 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 (Rogers, 153). 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 (Rose, 32). 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 (Jacobs, 53). 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. 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 (Fluegelman,

16). 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,

156). 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 system (Rose, 37). 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 (Cringley, 163). 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 inventories. 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 society and built up a huge industry (Cringley,

174). 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. 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 (Zachary, 42)

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. 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 (Malone, 192). Surely, the computer has impacted every aspect

of people’s lives. 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.