Digital System Design 4 Lecture 2 – An Historical Perspective
Dr Stewart Smith & Dr Chang Liu
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
This Lecture
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Events leading up to the development of the stored program computer.
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Computing Before Computers – W. Aspray
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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
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_rods
Counting
‣ e.g. Sheep
Pictorial Representation
‣ e.g. Pictures of sheep, pebble representation
Counting Rods, Roman Numerals (MDCXVI)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Vertical
Horizontal
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
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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 CCCXVIIII +821 = D CCC XX I
3140 = MM D CCC CCC XXX V IIIII = MMM C XXXX
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
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Old Roman numerals
M=1000, D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1 Multiplication:
28 = XX V III ⇥12= XII
336
XX V III ⇥ I = XX V III
XX V III ⇥ I = XX V III XXVIII⇥X=CCLXXX
= CC L XXXXXXX VV IIIIII = CCC XXX VI
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
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Roman
Early Calculation
The Abacus
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Ө = 1/12 (uncia)
MM CM XM M C X I Ө
‣ Chinese Suanpan
5/10 1-5
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Digital Systems Design 4
6,302,715,408
Early Calculation
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http://sonuprince.wordpress.com/2009/12/
http://www.tertisco-alexandru.com/abacus_project.html
Carries and Precision
Japanese Soroban
27 digit number representation
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Early Calculation
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287,452
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European Table Abacus
A page from Robert Recorde’s book on arithmetic – 1542
W.Aspray – Computing before computers
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Early Calculation
John Napier 1550-1617
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Early Calculation
3105×6 = 18630
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Early Calculation
Mechanical Calculators
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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
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
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Logarithms
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
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
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
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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.
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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
Universität Tübingen)
A replica of the Schickard’s machine, created by Bruno v. Freytag Löringhoff in 1960 (©
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http://web.mat.bham.ac.uk/C.J.Sangwin/Sliderules/oughtredquotes.html
Early Calculation
William Oughtred (1574-1660)
Circles of Proportion and The
Horizontal Instrument
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
James Watt (late 1700s) and Amadee Manheim (1850)
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
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716)
The Stepped Drum
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/images/i055/10323035.aspx
The Liebniz Calculator
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Early Calculation
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Successive Improvements to these devices (variable toothed gears) continued to be used until ~1910
http://www.schneemann.de/ A Brunsviga Calculating Machine Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Early Calculation
Curta Calculator – 1948
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
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Difference and Analytical Engines
Charles Babbage – 1791 The Difference Engine T = x2+x+41
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Digital Systems Design 4
Built in 1991
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine
Difference and Analytical Engines
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Charles Babbage & Ada Lovelace The Analytical Engine
Stewart Smith Digital Systems Design 4
Difference and Analytical Engines
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Charles Babbage & Ada Lovelace The Analytical Engine
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Difference and Analytical Engines
The Jaquard Loom
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom
Analog Computing Devices
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G Starke’s Planimeter (1849)
Used for computing the area enclosed by a closed curve
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http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/sts3700b/lecture20a.html
Analog Computing Devices
Lord Kelvin’s Tide Predicting Device (1876)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide-predicting_machine
Analog Computing Devices
Antikythera Mechanism
Made in 87 BCE, found in 1901 CE
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
Logic Machines
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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
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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
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The Hollerith Machine ‣ 1890 US Census
The Tabulating Machine Company International Business Machines -1924
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabulating_machine
Relay Calculators
• Electromagnetic Relays
• Easy to implement mechanical functions electrically.
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
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In the ~1940s Bell Labs used a Bi-quinary system for encoding decimal digits.
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.
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Calculators
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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
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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 0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Bi-quinary 01-00001 01-00010 01-00100 01-01000 01-10000 10-00001 10-00010 10-00100 10-01000
10-10000
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4
Relay Computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=n3wPBcmSb2U
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Electronic Calculators
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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
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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
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The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), 1945, U.Penn
John Mauchly ‣ Presper Eckert
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Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine – 1948
Frederic C. Williams
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‣ Geoff Tootill
Tom Kilburn
EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) – 1949
John Mauchly
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‣ Von Neumann
Presper Eckert
IAS – 1952
Turing
Von Neumann
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Digital Systems Design 4
Preliminary Discussion of The Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument
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of the course.
This paper is on Learn, I suggest you read it just now and revisit it towards the end
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Digital Systems Design 4
Moore’s Law
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Next Lecture: Modern Technology and Types of Computer
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Types of computing
(§1.1 – Introduction)
Software / Hardware Hierarchy
(§1.2 – Below Your Programme) Parts of a computer
(§1.3 – Under the Covers)
Stewart Smith
Digital Systems Design 4