When was the first real computer born?

1946 February

ENIAC is out. This is the first electronic computer in the world. It has brought immeasurable influence to mankind. As far as the first electronic computer is concerned, in its service life of 10 years, its operations exceeded the sum of human operations in history. Today, electronic computers have penetrated into all levels of social life, leading mankind into the "information age", "computer age" and "Internet age". It all started with ENIAC. But who would have thought that the reason for making this computer is just to replace more than 200 tired computing automata faster.

February 14, a special day, the air is filled with romantic atmosphere. Needless to say, this day has been recognized by the world as Valentine's Day. But little known is that another important event happened on this day: some people think that the world's first electronic computer was born on this day.

A behemoth who chose the right president.

Who was the real inventor of the first electronic computer? Around this issue, the computer industry has been arguing for many years, even getting worse. For many years, it has been thought that ENIAC invented by Maudslay and eckert is the first electronic digital computer in the world. However, many people cite the classics and think that atanasoff? The ABC computer invented by Soff and Clifford Berry is the real "originator".

Later, new historical data showed that Britain secretly manufactured a special electronic computer in 1943 and won the honor in World War II. But this computer named "Colossus" was mainly used to decipher German passwords, and it was top secret for a long time.

Today, people celebrate Valentine's Day, and no one will be keen to study which reason is authoritative. We just need a unified day for everyone to celebrate. The same is true for computer birthdays.

Fifty-seven years ago1February, 94614th, the world's first general-purpose digital electronic computer, ENIAC(TheElectronicNumeri? CalIntegratorAndComputer) began to run in Philadelphia, announcing that mankind has entered the era of electronic computers since then.

What ENIAC people saw at that time was not machines, but a room full of behemoths, dense switch buttons, various wires in the east and west, and flickering indicator lights. People seem to have come to a textile workshop under construction. ENIAC is 8 ft 2 high, 3 ft wide and 100 ft long, with a total weight of 30 tons.

It was a strange time: electronic computers entered the moment of birth in October. Many mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, statisticians and even psychologists have devoted themselves to developing high-speed computers with enthusiasm and determination. Among them are John Maudslay from the Moore School of Engineering at Pennsylvania State University and his student johann eck T..

Since World War II, it has become more and more important to calculate the trajectory of guns and test the fire meter. Each ballistic parameter needs to be calculated by several different differential equations. The US Army Ordnance Department is a big headache. They hired more than 200 people to calculate Aauto faster, but it is still not enough. The military urgently needs to develop a new calculation machine to improve the calculation speed of ballistic parameters to seconds. Therefore, the ballistics laboratory under the Ordnance Department found eckert and Maudslay, who are responsible for developing new computing machines.

1943 In April, Moore College and Ballistics Laboratory reached an agreement to develop a new electronic computing device by Moore College. On May 3 1 of the same year, Mozri proposed the overall design scheme, and eckert was responsible for the development of the circuit. After two years' efforts, "ENIAC" was put into trial operation in the spring of 1945. At the end of 1946, "ENIAC" was packed and transported to the ballistic laboratory of Aberdeen Ordnance Test Site, and its computing career began. In addition to the conventional ballistic calculation, it also involves many scientific research fields, such as weather forecast, nuclear energy, cosmic rays, hot fire, wind tunnel test design and so on. It also made a great contribution to the first atomic bomb.

In 1950s, ENIAC was first known to the public. It was rented by CBS to predict the result of 1952 American election. On election night, when ENIAC predicted that Eisenhower would win with only 5% ~ 7% of the votes, all the experts in the broadcasting company refused to report. The distressed engineers had to agree to adjust the machine program to keep up with the critics. However, Eniac still insisted that Eisenhower would win a great victory. When the computer prediction was finally confirmed, the American media industry caused a sensation. Experts have to admit publicly that ENIAC is really better. The machine predicted that Eisenhower would get 438 votes, but actually got 442 votes. The error rate of prediction is unexpectedly less than 65438 0%. ENIAC has reached the pinnacle of its glory.

19551010.2, "ENIAC" completed its meritorious service and officially retired. Since 1945 was formally built, it has actually run for 80223 hours. In this decade, its arithmetic operations are more than all the operations in the history of the human brain combined.

A quarrelsome giant

ENIAC retired, but a brand-new computer era began. It is the turn of transistors and integrated circuits to continue to drive this new era.

After World War II, Bell Laboratories began to develop a new generation of electron tubes, and shockley was responsible for it. 1at noon two days before Christmas in 947, two colleagues in shockley, WalterBrattain and JohnBardeen, made a small model with several pieces of gold foil, a piece of semiconductor material and a bent paper rack, which can conduct, amplify and switch current. They called this invention a "point-contact transistor amplifier". Amplifier Shockley and two other colleagues won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing the transistor. This is an electronic signal amplification component that replaces vacuum tubes, a powerful engine of the electronic industry, and the key to the computer revolution. It is called "the most important invention of the 20th century" by the media and scientific circles. Therefore, some people say, "Without Bell Labs, there would be no Silicon Valley."

There are countless great inventions in the 20th century, so which is the most important? There must be many answers. However, if we take out the integrated circuit, the transistor will also give in by three points. Because through this invention, microelectronics has become the foundation of all modern technologies and the core driving force for the development of IT industry. In the highly competitive high-tech field, such an invention undoubtedly means money and honor. Therefore, just like who was the inventor of the first electronic computer, the question of "who was the inventor of the integrated circuit" has also become a dramatic struggle.

1959 In February, jack kilby of Texas Instruments applied for a patent for the "microcircuit" he invented. Meanwhile, robert noyce of Fairchild didn't apply for a patent for its integrated circuit until July 1959. Obviously, kilby has the first patent, but his design is not practical enough; It was Noyce's plane processing design that became the basis of microelectronics revolution, but he was the successor of patent application. This dispute seems more like a personal conflict, but the companies behind the two were blaming each other throughout the 1960s. In the end, the court had to split into two parts, awarding the invention patent of integrated circuit to kilby and the key patent of interconnection technology to Noyce. They also became the inventors of * * * and integrated circuits.

Kilby became a famous inventor in China, and Noyce became a legend because he founded Intel Corporation. Both sides seem happy, but kilby still doesn't want to use the word "same inventor": "I'm not so happy, I think this is what Dr. Noyce said."

Bickering is bickering. Because of Intel's success and fame, Noyce became one of the most important founders of Silicon Valley. And kilby has won enough honors. On June 65438+ 10/0, 2000, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science announced that kilby shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with two other scientists in recognition of their fundamental contributions to information technology. Kilby shared half of nearly one million dollars. This time, he smiled happily and was confident, because besides integrated circuits, he was also one of the inventors of pocket calculators, with more than 60 American patents.

Fight big with small.

One idea can change the whole world. With transistors, there is an integrated circuit; With the integrated circuit, the invention of microprocessor; With a microprocessor, there will be a PC fire; With a PC, there is a foundation for the Internet to take off. This is a closely linked technology, innovation chain. It can be said that the computer industry initiated by ENIAC mainly relies on three most important inventions: one is the transistor invented by shockley of Bell Laboratories, the other is the integrated circuit invented by Noyce and kilby, and the other is the microprocessor invented by Ted Hof in 197 1 year.

Microprocessor is such a creative and revolutionary machine. At first, no one knew how to deal with it. However, within two years, people began to realize that the innovation brought by microprocessor has brought fundamental changes to the computer industry. The huge factories in eckert and Maudslay began to condense into a small miniature universe.

Unlike the inventors of the first two products, Hoff has neither enjoyed great wealth nor won any special glory. Hoff was satisfied: "If we hadn't invented the' 4004' microprocessor in 197 1 year, someone else would have invented it in a year or two." So far, the inventor has not been fully recognized by the public. However, Hoff's invention is so important that he can rank among the greatest scientists in the 20th century.

Today, Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel's Board of Directors, said, "This microprocessor represented the future of Intel products at that time, but we didn't realize it when it first went on the market in 15. In the end, this microprocessor became an iconic product in Intel's commercial field. "

In the past 30 years, microprocessors have been everywhere. In 2000 alone, 385 million pieces were shipped. Lin Lei Givenknapp, chief analyst of Linli Analytics, said: "It is no exaggeration to say that the advent of microprocessors has had a fundamental impact on everyone's life. Before the invention of microprocessors, computers were huge monsters. "

Today, the first computer has been born for 57 years. In the past half century, computers have developed at an alarming rate. With the development of microelectronics technology, the number of processors and components of computers is getting smaller and smaller, and the computing speed and storage capacity of computers are also increasing rapidly. Nowadays, it is very common to assemble a trillion computers.

ENIAC was born in a huge room; Later, the computer gradually walked out of the glass room and entered the office, occupying our desktop; Then, they entered the family one after another; In the future, computers will be everywhere. The cause started by ENIAC is far from over.