The Evolution of Computing:
From Abacus to multicore processors
From Abacus to multicore processors
Assignment 1
The Beginning
Computing has always been an important aspect of human life. We computed the number of sheep in our herds and now we need to perform complex computations so as to project a satellite on its orbit. Back then, our ancestors used pebbles, scratches, knots or other counting aids to represent the cardinality of object they posses. Then came the numbers, then the ‘zero’. The invention of ‘zero’ was one of the major advances in the science of computing. The number set was complete. But still, human used primitive counting aids for calculations. The number of people had increased by then; there were more sheep to be counted and more people to be dealt to. The degree of computational need had risen exponentially. People needed something that can improve the efficiency and accuracy of their calculations. As every need in nurtured by the urge to have it, the very first device calculating device, the Abacus was born. Thus begin the era of aided computation.
The Chronology of Computing Devices
The Early Calculating Devices
[Abacus]
-It was the an early aid for mathematical calculations.
-Instead of performing actual calculations, it aided the memory of the human performing the calculation.
-Abacus basically consisted of a wooden frame with strings and beads attached to it. But there are many variations of Abacus as per their origin.
-A skilled Abacus user can perform addition and subtraction as fast as a normal person with a calculator can.
-Abacus are still used in some schools to aid the learning of numeral system and arithmetics.
-It was the an early aid for mathematical calculations.
-Instead of performing actual calculations, it aided the memory of the human performing the calculation.
-Abacus basically consisted of a wooden frame with strings and beads attached to it. But there are many variations of Abacus as per their origin.
-A skilled Abacus user can perform addition and subtraction as fast as a normal person with a calculator can.
-Abacus are still used in some schools to aid the learning of numeral system and arithmetics.
Fig: Abacus[Napier’s Bone]
-Invented around 1617 by a Scottish mathematician John Napier.
-It worked on the principal of multiplication through repetitive addition and division through repetitive subtraction.
-The device was powerful enough to perform multiplication, division and calculations regarding the square root.
-Invented around 1617 by a Scottish mathematician John Napier.
-It worked on the principal of multiplication through repetitive addition and division through repetitive subtraction.
-The device was powerful enough to perform multiplication, division and calculations regarding the square root.
Fig: Napier's Bone
[Slide rule]-It was a mechanical analog device, consisting of at least two finely divided scales (rules), most often a fixed outer pair and a movable inner one, with a sliding window.
-The slide rule was used primarily for multiplication and division, and also for scientific functions such as roots, logs and trig.-Slide rule was in use until very recently pocket calculator replaced them.
Fig: Slide Rule
-Invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642 to aid his father in his work of tax calculations.
-It was a machine based on decimal number system. It was of the size of a shoe box and consisted of dials and a display ports. The dials were used for number entry and the display ports to view the result.
-The functionality of Pascaline was dependent on gears and wheels so it broke down often and was hard to build.
Fig: Pascaline
-Invented by Gottfried von Leibniz in the 1960s.
-Unlike Pascaline which could only add and subtract, Stepped Reckoner was able to carry out multiplication and division.
-Stepped Reckoner was based on decimal number system as well.
[Jacquard's Loom]
-Invent at around 1801 by Joseph Marie Jacquard, a Frenchman.
-It was not a calculating device but it gave the idea of discrete computing through the use of punched card to control the pattern woven in his loom.
Fig: Jacquard Card
[Difference Engine]
-By 1822, English mathematician Charles Babbage proposed a steam driven calculating machine the size of a room, which he called the Difference Engine. It was based on “many long calculations, especially those needed to make mathematical tables, were really a series of predictable actions that were constantly repeated and thus these calculations can be performed automatically”.
-The machine was based on wheels, cogs and dials. So it had a high error repeat frequency.
-While Babbage was working on improving his Differential Engine, he got interested in another new better idea and left to work on Differential Engine
-By 1822, English mathematician Charles Babbage proposed a steam driven calculating machine the size of a room, which he called the Difference Engine. It was based on “many long calculations, especially those needed to make mathematical tables, were really a series of predictable actions that were constantly repeated and thus these calculations can be performed automatically”.
-The machine was based on wheels, cogs and dials. So it had a high error repeat frequency.
-While Babbage was working on improving his Differential Engine, he got interested in another new better idea and left to work on Differential Engine
Fig: A module of Difference Engine
[The Analytical Engine; the precursor of modern computers]
-The Analytical Engine was that better idea for which Babbage had left working on Difference Engine.
-The Analytical Engine was the mirror of the operating methodology of modern computers. The Analytical Engine was supposed to have an input unit; input would be provided through the use of Punched Cards, an output unit; in the form of printers and bells, the processing unit; in the form of mills made up of wheels and gears and cogs, and the storage unit. The input unit, output unit, processing unit and the storage unit comprises the architect of modern computers.
-The machine was supposed to be powered my stem engines and consisted of many mechanical parts. So it would occupy a large space.
-The Analytical Engine was a computer and not merely a calculator because it had the ability to be programmed. Punched cards were to be used to program Analytical Engine.
-Babbage had discussed the idea of Analytical Engine with Ada Byron (she would later become the Countess Lady Lovelace by marriage). She was fascinated by the idea and began to learn about the engine through meetings and letters from Babbage. She soon began to write programs for the incomplete machine and thus is regarded as the first programmer.
-The Analytical Engine was a grand idea but because of financial, political, and legal issues, the engine was never actually built. Nevertheless, its laid the foundation for the architect of modern computers. And because of this Charles Babbage is regarded as the father of modern computers.
-The Analytical Engine was that better idea for which Babbage had left working on Difference Engine.
-The Analytical Engine was the mirror of the operating methodology of modern computers. The Analytical Engine was supposed to have an input unit; input would be provided through the use of Punched Cards, an output unit; in the form of printers and bells, the processing unit; in the form of mills made up of wheels and gears and cogs, and the storage unit. The input unit, output unit, processing unit and the storage unit comprises the architect of modern computers.
-The machine was supposed to be powered my stem engines and consisted of many mechanical parts. So it would occupy a large space.
-The Analytical Engine was a computer and not merely a calculator because it had the ability to be programmed. Punched cards were to be used to program Analytical Engine.
-Babbage had discussed the idea of Analytical Engine with Ada Byron (she would later become the Countess Lady Lovelace by marriage). She was fascinated by the idea and began to learn about the engine through meetings and letters from Babbage. She soon began to write programs for the incomplete machine and thus is regarded as the first programmer.
-The Analytical Engine was a grand idea but because of financial, political, and legal issues, the engine was never actually built. Nevertheless, its laid the foundation for the architect of modern computers. And because of this Charles Babbage is regarded as the father of modern computers.
Fig: Charles Babbage
[Hollerith Desk]
-Herman Hollerith designed and developed Hollerith Desk (aka Hollerith Calculating Machine) for use in the 1890 census of USA.
-Hollerith had ported the punched card technology used in the Jacquard Loom into his calculating machine for computational purpose.
-Hollerith built a company named Tabulating Machine Companyn which eventually became International Business Machine (IBM) after some buy outs.
-Herman Hollerith designed and developed Hollerith Desk (aka Hollerith Calculating Machine) for use in the 1890 census of USA.
-Hollerith had ported the punched card technology used in the Jacquard Loom into his calculating machine for computational purpose.
-Hollerith built a company named Tabulating Machine Companyn which eventually became International Business Machine (IBM) after some buy outs.
Fig: Hollerith Desk
True Computers
The world had seen a lot of computing devices but there still was the need of true computers that could be programmed. And the World Wars fuelled the need of developing such system even more. At the time of war, error in computation of trajectory, velocity of wind, air drag, effect of temperature, relative position of enemy base, and other factors would mean getting defeated. So every country wanted better computers with better processing and storage and programming capabilities. And The United States of America was ahead in the race.
[Mark I]
-It was built as a partnership between IBM and Harvard university in 1944. It was devised by Howard H. Aiken.
-It was the first programmable digital computer but it was not purely electronic.
-The machine was enormous with 5 tons weight, incorporated 500 miles of wire, was 8 feet tall and 51 feet long, and had a 50 ft rotating shaft running its length, turned by a 5 horsepower electric motor.
-The machine was slow as compared to modern computers and generated a lot of heat. It required a massive heat sink facility. It would broke down too often and had big maintenance problem. It was difficult to program.
-It was built as a partnership between IBM and Harvard university in 1944. It was devised by Howard H. Aiken.
-It was the first programmable digital computer but it was not purely electronic.
-The machine was enormous with 5 tons weight, incorporated 500 miles of wire, was 8 feet tall and 51 feet long, and had a 50 ft rotating shaft running its length, turned by a 5 horsepower electric motor.
-The machine was slow as compared to modern computers and generated a lot of heat. It required a massive heat sink facility. It would broke down too often and had big maintenance problem. It was difficult to program.
Fig: Mark I
[ENIAC]
-It was the first electronic, digital computer devised by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
-ENICA too was a massive system. It contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 feet (2.4 m) by 3 feet (0.9 m) by 100 feet (30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power. Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output. These cards could be used to produce printed output offline using an IBM accounting machine.
-ENIAC was based on Decimal system.
-Being huge and built on vacuum tubes, it too generated a lot of heat and was unreliable.
-It was the first electronic, digital computer devised by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
-ENICA too was a massive system. It contained 17,468 vacuum tubes, 7,200 crystal diodes, 1,500 relays, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors and around 5 million hand-soldered joints. It weighed 30 short tons (27 t), was roughly 8 feet (2.4 m) by 3 feet (0.9 m) by 100 feet (30 m), took up 1800 square feet (167 m²), and consumed 150 kW of power. Input was possible from an IBM card reader, while an IBM card punch was used for output. These cards could be used to produce printed output offline using an IBM accounting machine.
-ENIAC was based on Decimal system.
-Being huge and built on vacuum tubes, it too generated a lot of heat and was unreliable.
Fig: ENIAC
[EDVAC]
-It was also devised by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
-This was also a massive system. The computer had almost 6,000 vacuum tubes and 12,000 diodes, and consumed 56 kW of power. It covered 490 ft² (45.5 m²) of floor space and weighed 17,300 lb (7,850 kg).
-It was the first computer to use the stored program concept put forward by John Von Neumann-Unlike any computer of that time, EDVAC was based to Binary number system.
-It was also devised by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
-This was also a massive system. The computer had almost 6,000 vacuum tubes and 12,000 diodes, and consumed 56 kW of power. It covered 490 ft² (45.5 m²) of floor space and weighed 17,300 lb (7,850 kg).
-It was the first computer to use the stored program concept put forward by John Von Neumann-Unlike any computer of that time, EDVAC was based to Binary number system.
Fig: EDVAC
ABC, EDSAC, UNIVAC, Zeus 1, Zeus 2 etc were also some of the notable computers of that time.
All of these computers were huge and bulky. They generated a lot of heat and were hard to maintain.
All of these computers were huge and bulky. They generated a lot of heat and were hard to maintain.
A prespective on computing evolution
Now that people had seen computers and felt its effect on their day to day life, they need one in their home as well. As the technology got better and better, devices like transistor and IC (Integrated Circuit) were invented. A single transistor could do the switching job of hundreds of vacuum tubes and the IC could the hundreds of transistor alone. An IC is basically a fabrication of different electronic devices such as transistors, inductors, resistors in a single silicon chip. Because of the ICs, computers were able to fit inside a single room or to say on a small reading table. Different processor fabrication technology like VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) and ULSI (Ultra LSI) reduced the size of computers even more and made them able to fit inside our pocket.
Rapid progresses are being made in the field of processor design and fabrication. Parallel processing is the buzzword. The common trend of the market is Dual Core processors; processors with two computing core. Intel had demonstrated its prototype 80 core processor. Advances are being made in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The Moore’s law of doubling the processor speed every 18 months has long been outsmarted and now we have reached near saturation of processing speed that can be offered by the present technology. So, again there is going to be dire need of new computer design and system fabrication methods. Therefore new ways are being sought out. Optical chips, quantum computing and other seeming absurd physics are coming into play. Researches are being made in every possible field which can help in advancement of computational capacity. These days, we have so much computational power at our dispatch that the calculations that would take months to compute could take only few microseconds. But still, it is not sufficient. There is ever increasing demand of computing power.
Today we need computers to route the traffic of the internet, we need then to plan our mission to Mars or moon or other planets even, and we need computers for deployment massive and complex encryption methodologies. They all demand a huge processing power. We flamed ENIAC and EDSAC for occupying a big room but still today our computers fills an entire room, be it the computers in the NASA control centre or on the US department of Defense. The need of now and then were the same but the scale was different. So, there still exists the need for the search of even higher computing power. Human demands are ever increasing and so should the computing power be.
So, we have the history of evolution of computing in a nutshell. From the Abacus to the processors of the futures, the all were the manifestations of human need for computing. Early people thought Abacus was getting short of their demand and the people of today think multicore processors are getting short of demand. Human need of computation is ever increasing and as we replaced abacus, our microprocessors will also be replaced by…who knows!!!
Rapid progresses are being made in the field of processor design and fabrication. Parallel processing is the buzzword. The common trend of the market is Dual Core processors; processors with two computing core. Intel had demonstrated its prototype 80 core processor. Advances are being made in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The Moore’s law of doubling the processor speed every 18 months has long been outsmarted and now we have reached near saturation of processing speed that can be offered by the present technology. So, again there is going to be dire need of new computer design and system fabrication methods. Therefore new ways are being sought out. Optical chips, quantum computing and other seeming absurd physics are coming into play. Researches are being made in every possible field which can help in advancement of computational capacity. These days, we have so much computational power at our dispatch that the calculations that would take months to compute could take only few microseconds. But still, it is not sufficient. There is ever increasing demand of computing power.
Today we need computers to route the traffic of the internet, we need then to plan our mission to Mars or moon or other planets even, and we need computers for deployment massive and complex encryption methodologies. They all demand a huge processing power. We flamed ENIAC and EDSAC for occupying a big room but still today our computers fills an entire room, be it the computers in the NASA control centre or on the US department of Defense. The need of now and then were the same but the scale was different. So, there still exists the need for the search of even higher computing power. Human demands are ever increasing and so should the computing power be.
So, we have the history of evolution of computing in a nutshell. From the Abacus to the processors of the futures, the all were the manifestations of human need for computing. Early people thought Abacus was getting short of their demand and the people of today think multicore processors are getting short of demand. Human need of computation is ever increasing and as we replaced abacus, our microprocessors will also be replaced by…who knows!!!
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