Silicon 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 me!

morize, 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 1800Õs, 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 provide!

d 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 handl!

ing 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), wh!

ich 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 1950Õs. Together they had formed the Mauchley-Eckert Computer Corporation,

America?s first computer company in the 1940Õ!

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 1950Õs 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 comp!

uters. 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 lib

r

ary 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 In

tel 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 o!

f thousands of transistors are p

l

aced 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 8800Ó. 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 Alt!

air. 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 manufacture!

r had to make their software com

p

atible 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 cos!

ts 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.