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Category Archives: Computer history
First Mention of Computer Programs?
Today in 1836, Charles Babbage wrote in his notebook: “This day I had for the first time a general but very indistinct conception of the possibility of making an engine work out algebraic developments. I mean without any reference to … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, This day in information
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Junction Transistor Announced
Sixty years ago today, the bipolar junction transistor was announced by its inventor, William Shockley. It was an improvement over the bipolar point-contact transistor which was invented four years earlier by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain and became the device … Continue reading
Typesetting, Counting, Sensing
Today in 1886, the first Linotype machine in the U.S. was installed at the Tribune newspaper in New York City. Invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler, a Linotype machine could produce five lines per minute compared to the one line per minute typically … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, Print, This day in information
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Storage Bottleneck Born
Today in 1945, John von Neumann published “A First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC.” Campbell-Kelly and Aspray call it in Computer “the technological basis for the worldwide computer industry.” In The History of Modern Computing, Paul Ceruzzi says … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, This day in information
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The “Manchester baby” finally spits out the expected answer
Today in 1948, the world’s first stored-program electronic digital computer successfully executed its first program. F.C. Williams who designed and built (with Tom Kilburn) the Small Scale Experimental Machine (later nicknamed “Baby”), described the first successful run: “A program was laboriously … Continue reading
What’s the Big Idea? IBM @100
Today in 1911, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company was incorporated. It changed its name to IBM in 1924. Many commentators on IBM’s centenary attribute its longevity to the power of idea or ideas.
Posted in Computer history, IBM, This day in information
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The Birth of Big Data
The Economist on IBM’s celebration of its 100th birthday tomorrow: “Official history notwithstanding, the company’s true age is 125. In 1886 Herman Hollerith, a statistician, started a business to rent out the tabulating machines he had originally invented for America’s … Continue reading
Posted in Big Data, Censuses, Computer history
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When Mauchly Met Atanasoff: Creating the Digital Computer
Seventy years ago today, John Mauchly visited John Atanasoff at Iowa State University. During the next five days he learned everything he could about what became to be known as the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) which he first heard about when … Continue reading
InfoStory Meeting: Ada and Babbage
Today in 1833, Ada Byron (later Countess Lovelace) met Charles Babbage when visiting his house to see a portion the Difference Engine, or what her mother, Lady Byron, called his “thinking machine.” James Gleick writes in The Information: “Babbage saw … Continue reading
Posted in Computer history, InfoStory Meetings, Quotes
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Theory of the Internet Born
50 years ago today, Leonard Kleinrock, submitted his PhD thesis proposal at MIT, “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets,” establishing, in his words, “the underlying principles of data networks that are the basis of the Internet.”
Posted in Computer history
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