Lecture 2 – Historical Perspective
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Digital System Design 4
Lecture 2 – An Historical
Perspective
Dr Stewart Smith
& Dr Chang Liu
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
This Lecture
• Events leading up to the development of
the stored program computer.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Computing Before Computers –
W. Aspray
• A textbook on computing technology prior to the
development of the first electronic stored-program
computer – look for it on Learn. In this lecture we
follow the same outline.
‣ Early Calculation
‣ Difference and Analytical Engines
‣ Analog Computing Devices
‣ Logic Machines
‣ Punched-Card Machinery
‣ Relay Calculators
‣ Electronic Calculators
‣ Stored Program Computers (Additional)
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• Counting
‣ e.g. Sheep
• Pictorial Representation
‣ e.g. Pictures of sheep, pebble representation
• Counting Rods, Roman Numerals (MDCXVI)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Vertical
Horizontal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• Old Roman numerals
‣ 3,745 would be represented as MMMDCCXXXXV
‣ M=1000, D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1
‣ Addition:
2319 = MM CCC X V IIII
+821 = D CCC XX I
3140 = MM D CCC CCC XXX V IIIII
= MMM C XXXX
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• Old Roman numerals
‣ M=1000, D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1
‣ Multiplication:
28 = XX V III
⇥12 = X II
336
XX V III⇥ I = XX V III
XX V III⇥ I = XX V III
XX V III⇥ X = CC L XXX
= CC L XXXXXXX VV IIIIII
= CCC XXX VI
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• The Abacus
‣ Roman
‣ Chinese Suanpan
MM CM XM M C X I Ө
Ө = 1/12 (uncia)
1-5
5/10
6,302,715,408
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Early Calculation
• Carries and Precision
‣ Japanese Soroban
‣ 27 digit number representation
http://sonuprince.wordpress.com/2009/12/
http://www.tertisco-alexandru.com/abacus_project.html
http://sonuprince.wordpress.com/2009/12/
http://www.tertisco-alexandru.com/abacus_project.html
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• European Table Abacus
‣ 287,452
W.Aspray – Computing before computers
A page from Robert Recorde’s book on arithmetic – 1542
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Early Calculation
John Napier
1550-1617
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
3105×6 = 18630
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Early Calculation
Mechanical Calculators
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
Henri Genaille & Edouard Lucas, Genaille-Lucas Rulers – 1885
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
Henri Genaille & Edouard Lucas, Genaille-Lucas Rulers – 1885
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Early Calculation
• Logarithms
• Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio – 1614
• Henry Briggs
‣ “Napier, lord of Markinston, hath set my head and hands at
work with his new and admirable logarithms. I hope to see him
this summer, if it please God; for I never saw a book which
pleased me better, and made me more wonder.”
‣ Published a book containing tables of the logs from 1 to
20,000 and from 90,000 to 100,000 all calculated to 14
decimal places.
‣ There are 1161 errors in these original tables, or just under
0.04 percent of the entries
Natural numbers 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024
Logarithm 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• In the 1600s there existed a vast network of computers that
communicated by packet switching.
• Computer:
‣ noun
‣ noun: computer; plural noun: computers
‣ 1. an electronic device which is capable of receiving information (data) in
a particular form and of performing a sequence of operations in
accordance with a predetermined but variable set of procedural
instructions (program) to produce a result in the form of information or
signals.
‣ 2. a person who makes calculations, especially with a calculating machine.
• Dutch printer, Adrian Vlacq (1600-1667) – published a table of
the first 100,000 logarithms, The errors propagated into almost all
log-tables.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
Wilhelm Schickard & Johann Kepler, 1617
http://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/Pioneers/Schickard.html
A replica of the Schickard’s machine, created by
Bruno v. Freytag Löringhoff in 1960 (©
Universität Tübingen)
http://history-computer.com/MechanicalCalculators/Pioneers/Schickard.html
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Early Calculation
William Oughtred (1574-1660)
http://web.mat.bham.ac.uk/C.J.Sangwin/Sliderules/oughtredquotes.html
Circles of Proportion and The
Horizontal Instrument
http://web.mat.bham.ac.uk/C.J.Sangwin/Sliderules/oughtredquotes.html
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Early Calculation
James Watt (late 1700s) and Amadee Manheim (1850)
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~wolff/calculators/sliderules/sliderules.htm
The Slide Rule
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~wolff/calculators/sliderules/sliderules.htm
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Early Calculation
Blaise Pascal – 1642
Pascal’s Calculating Machine
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/i055/10323035.aspx
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/i055/10323035.aspx
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Early Calculation
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
The Stepped Drum The Liebniz Calculator
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/i055/10323035.aspx
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/i055/10323035.aspx
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
• Successive Improvements to these devices (variable
toothed gears) continued to be used until ~1910
http://www.schneemann.de/ A Brunsviga Calculating Machine
http://www.schneemann.de/
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Early Calculation
Curta Calculator – 1948
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
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Difference and Analytical Engines
• Charles Babbage – 1791
• The Difference Engine
• T = x2+x+41
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
Built in 1991
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
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Difference and Analytical Engines
• Charles Babbage & Ada Lovelace
• The Analytical Engine
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Difference and Analytical Engines
• Charles Babbage & Ada Lovelace
• The Analytical Engine
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Difference and Analytical Engines
The Jaquard Loom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
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Analog Computing Devices
• G Starke’s Planimeter (1849)
‣ Used for computing the area enclosed by a closed curve
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/sts3700b/lecture20a.html
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/sts3700b/lecture20a.html
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Analog Computing Devices
Lord Kelvin’s Tide Predicting Device (1876)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Analog Computing Devices
Antikythera Mechanism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Made in 87 BCE, found in 1901 CE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Logic Machines
• Automata
• Classical Propositional Logic
• Claude Shannon – MIT, 1938
‣ True – Circuit Closed
‣ False – Circuit Open
‣ AND – Serial
‣ OR – Parallel
• Alan Turing – On Computable Numbers, 1937
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Logic Machines
• Turing Machine – a logical/theoretical construct
• A mathematical function is only computable if
and only if it can be computed by the Universal
Turing Machine
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Punched Card Machinery
• The Hollerith Machine
‣ 1890 US Census
• The Tabulating Machine Company
• International Business Machines -1924
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
• Electromagnetic
Relays
• Easy to implement
mechanical functions
electrically.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
• Telephone networks in the 1930s used relays
and vacuum tubes.
• Konrad Zuse in Berlin, George Stibitz in New
York, and Howard Aiken in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, conceived and developed
calculating systems that exploited the relay’s
potential as a component of a computer.
• In the ~1940s Bell Labs used a Bi-quinary
system for encoding decimal digits.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
• Zuse and Stibitz’ computers, e.g. Z1-4, Model-K,
Complex Number Computer, Model II–V defined the
architecture of the modern computer.
• Howard Aiken worked on automating an IBM calculator
to help him complete his dissertation in physics – the
Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator
‣ Grace Hopper worked for Aiken at Harvard
‣ She found a moth that was stuck in a relay, causing the
calculator to malfunction & noted that she had found a “bug”.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
• In the ~1940s Bell Labs used a Bi-quinary system for
encoding decimal digits.
• The principles from the Chinese abacus were used for
the first error correcting codes.
Decimal Bi-quinary
0 01-00001
1 01-00010
2 01-00100
3 01-01000
4 01-10000
5 10-00001
6 10-00010
7 10-00100
8 10-01000
9 10-10000
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Relay Computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=n3wPBcmSb2U
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Electronic Calculators
• Vacuum Tubes ~1930s, Cambridge, England.
‣ A digital or analog device.
• 1939, John Atanasoff, Iowa, Electronic
Calculator with “DRAM”
• 1942, Helmut Schreyer, Berlin, triodes as
binary relays
• 1943, Turing, Newman, Flowers, Bletchley,
The Colossus.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Development of The Electronic
Stored Program Computer
• The history of these developments in the 1940s to 1960s
is remarkable, and far, far, too much for one lecture.
• Historical perspective chapter 1.12 from textbook
• I suggest you read these books to get a complete picture.
‣ Turing’s Cathedral by George Dyson
‣ The Information by James Gleick
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Development of The Electronic
Stored Program Computer
• The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), 1945,
U.Penn
‣ John Mauchly
‣ Presper Eckert
• Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine – 1948
‣ Frederic C. Williams
‣ Tom Kilburn
‣ Geoff Tootill
• EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) – 1949
‣ John Mauchly
‣ Presper Eckert
‣ Von Neumann
• IAS – 1952
‣ Turing
‣ Von Neumann
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Preliminary Discussion of The Logical Design
of an Electronic Computing Instrument
• This paper is on Learn, I suggest you read
it just now and revisit it towards the end
of the course.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Moore’s Law
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Next Lecture: Modern Technology
and Types of Computer
• Types of computing
‣ (§1.1 – Introduction)
• Software / Hardware Hierarchy
‣ (§1.2 – Below Your Programme)
• Parts of a computer
‣ (§1.3 – Under the Covers)