A history of computers

1939- Hewlett-Pakard is founded by David Packard and Bill Hewlett in their Palo Alto, California garage. They’re original product is the computer system known as "HP 200A Audio Oscillator". This item soon becomes a popular piece of equipment for engineers, and Walt Disney uses eight of them for sound effect generation for the 1940 musical movie "Fantasia".
1940- Bell Telephone Company unveils the Complex Number Calculator (CNC). Designed by the researcher George Stibitz, he demonstrates its ability’s at the 1940 American Mathematical Society conference in Dartmouth College. He wows his audience by performing mathematical calculations on the CNC, which is located in New York. This is the first known instance of someone performing remote computer access. He completes this feat using Teletype connected via special telephone.
1941- The first Bombe is finished. Used to decode Nazi military transmissions during WWII, it was heavily influenced by the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing, among others. Many of them were manufactured and were put to use for the allied forces and dramatically improved intelligence gathering and the processing of information.
1942- The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is completed. This never-completed computer was built at Iowa State College by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and College grad Cliff Berry. It was in production for 3 years, from 1939 to 1949.
1943- The U.S. Navy approaches Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to build a flight simulator for their pilot’s code-named "Whirlwind". Originally an over-sized analogue computer, this final product was too inaccurate and inflexible. After seeing the unveiling of the ENIAC computer, they change their priorities to create a digital version. By the time it’s completion in 1951 the Navy no longer is interested in it. However, they find an employer in the United States Air Force, and the "Whirlwind" becomes the influence for the "SAGE" programs.
1944- The first Colossus is assembled and made operational at Bletchley Park. Made to decode the Nazi code known as "Lorenz", they accelerate the code-breaking process from weeks to mere hours. A machine that earns its name, the materials used for the construction of the Colossus included over 1500 vacuum tubes and a large series of pulleys in order to deliver a continuos punch-card roll containing possible code solutions. The project wasn’t made known to the public until the 1970’s.
1945- John Von Neumann writes, "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" in which he outlined the specifications of a stored-program computer. Electronic storage and up-keeping of programming information and data eliminated the need for the more unwieldy methods of programming, such as punched paper tape — a concept that has shaped mainstream computer development since the 1940’s.
1946- In the moth of February, the ENIAC is unveiled to the general public. This new computer, built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its lesser models.
1948- IBM’s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator is made. Used to calculate computed scientific data in general public display near the company’s Manhattan headquarters. Before it was decommissioned in 1952, it was used to predict and produce moon movement tables for the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
1960- The forerunner to the mini-computer, DEC’s PDP-1 had a retail price of $120,000. Only 50 were built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic display, required no air conditioning and required only one user to operate it. It intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first computerized "video game", "SpaceWar!" for it. The SpaceWar! Creators then used the computer game as a standard demonstration on all 50 computers.
1971- Bolt Programmer Ray Tomlinson sends The first e-mail. Beranek and Newman send the first E-mail through the military network known as "ARPANET". Tomlinson is the member of the duo who decides to use the now universally recognized image @ in order to send his mail. Later, when asked about what the first E-mail contained, Ray answers "something like "QWERTYUIOP".
1972- Pong is released. In 1966, Ralph Baer designed a ping-pong game for his Odyssey gaming console. After Nolan Bushnell played "Pong" at a Magnavox product show in Burlingame, California, he hired a young engineer by the name of Al Alcorn to design a car driving game. However, when it became apparent that this was a too difficult undertaking for the time, he had Alcorn to design a version of ping-pong instead. The game was tested in bars and pubs in Grass Valley and Sunnyvale, California, where it proved immensely popular. Pong continued to revolutionize the arcade industry and launch the modern video game era.
1977- Atari releases the Video Computer System game console named the "Atari Video Computer system". Later renamed the Atari 2600, the VCS was the first truly successful video game system. Selling in excess of twenty million units throughout the 1980s, The VCS used the 8-bit MOS 6507 microprocessor and was made to be connected to a normal TV set. When the last of Atari’s 8-bit game consoles were made in 1990, more than 900 video game titles had been released. It was later toppled over by the "Nintendo Entertainment System", also known as the "NES".
1989- Maxis releases SimCity, a video game that will spawn numerous copiers. Will Wright, the co-founder of Maxis, based the game on his childhood interest of assembling plastic models of ships and airplanes. He eventually started up a programming company with Jeff Braun and designed a computer program that allowed the user to create his own "Sim City". The game was revolutionary for a number of reasons, one of which was the player’s ability to play "god" with their creations. Some of the later additions were the ability to unleash storms, earthquakes, and even quasi-Godzilla attacks upon the Sim City’s defenceless habitants.
1993- Now-legendary game producer "Id" releases "Doom". An immersive first-person shooter-style game, it received a number of awards, some more dubious than others. (These include Best video game weapon ever, the chainsaw, and the cleverest use of an acronym for a weapon, "The BFG") Doom players were also among the first to modify the game’s levels and appearance. Doom would spawn several sequels and a (Bad) 2005 film. (As with all films directed by infamously bad director Uwe Bole, it only served to lower everyone’s expectations of game-to-movie adaptations)
1998- Pixar´s "Tin Toy" becomes the first computer-animated film to win an Academy Award, taking the Oscar for "Best Animated Short Film". A wind-up toy first encountering a boisterous baby narrated "Tin Toy." In order to illustrate the baby’s facial expressions, the programmers had to create more then forty different facial "muscles".

Tech lab entry #1

Date: Monday, 2007, September 10th

When I originally joined this course, it was to learn how to dismantle, repair, and generally mess around with computers. Now that the class has actually started, it's looks like it's going to be much more extensive then I orginally thought, what with talks about installing linux on Xboxs, lan partys, and nagging the principal to install windows XP on the computers. (Although it would only be good for the planning classes) Hopefully my game know-how will prove useful, thanks to that fact that I know dozens of online and download games that prove perfect to run on these unweildy and slow clunkers. I just hope people don't notice my general lack of knowledge in what peices go where, or even what they're named. What I know, I have a good knowledge of, unfortunetly, thats not as expansive as I would like. Hopefully this class will remedy that.