It seems that the one object that was necessary to bring about the modern computer was a garage. A garage? Have I finally lost it? Well maybe, but if you go back into the history of modern computers you will find that a couple of important computer companies started in garages. In 1939 a company named Hewlett Packard was founded. It started out in a Palo Alto, California garage. In 1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs made the first Apple computer, IN A GARAGE! See what I mean. If these people didn't have garages, would we still have Apple and Hewlett Packard computers? Who knows.

UNIVAC Computer Storage Tapes
Photo Source: Library of Congress

Early giant computing machines that gobbled electrical current, filled entire rooms with their massive cases and thousands of hot, glowing tubes came around in the early 1940s. Some were used in the war effort to decode encrypted messages, but they certainly didn't look anything like the modern desktop. Different circuits were connected with external wires. This is how you programmed the machine to accomplish a task. They looked something like huge 1940s telephone switchboards with all the wires being plugged in and out. You had better have a big reserve of tubes if you were going to run one of these babies. One of these machines, named the Colossus was delivered to the English in 1944 and was able to break the German code in hours instead of the weeks that were required at the time. The machine was so secret that it was kept under wraps until the 1970s, but by then it had become so obsolete that it would have been ridiculous to keep it secret any longer.

Having a computer was not enough, you needed a programming language before it could become truly useful and in 1945 Konrad Zuse began work on the first algorithmic language called Plankalkul. He had built the world's first truly digital computer seven years before, but it was destroyed when Germany was bombed.

On of the most famous of the 1940's computers came out in 1946. It was a major breakthrough. Why was this machine such a technological leap? It was over 1,000 times faster than any other machine that had ever been built up to that time. It's name was ENIAC and it was built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It could perform 5,000 operations per second. You needed over 1,000 sq feet of floor space to house this monster.

Then it happened, an event that would change electronics forever. It was on 23 December, 1947 that the first transistor was successfully tested. This not only meant that computers could get smaller and take less power, but it also meant that they would get faster. In the same year a leap had been made in random access memory. The Williams tube had been invented. It was just a cathode ray tube, but it could show dots and dashes which represented zeros and ones and some used it as the primary memory of a computer. In 1949 the first satisfactory stored program computer appeared, it was the EDSAC along with this the first complete system computer also appeared, it was the Manchester Mark I.

In 1950 we saw the first commercially available computer. It was built by Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis and was the ERA 1101. In 1951 another famous computer appeared, it was perhaps the most famous computer ever built. It was named UNIVAC and built by Remington Rand. The machine still used tubes and cost $750,000 at the time. It was so powerful that the U.S. Census Bureau bought it. Over the 1950s more and more powerful machines appeared commercially. All of them were what is known as mainframes, machines that needed a room of their own. IBM began production in 1953. Transistors began to be perfected. Magnetic drums were now being used to store memory on a few computers and would eventually spread to most of them. IN 1955 TRADIC, from AT&T Bell Laboratories came out and had no tubes, only transistors. The power requirement to run the average computer went down from 2,000 watts to less than 100 watts. In 1956 the first all transistor, general purpose, programmable computer appeared. It was the TX-0 from MIT. Keyboards were also being experimented with as input devices by MIT. Several famous companies appeared and would later falter and disappear. A popular computer language called FORTRAN appeared in 1957 and greatly simplified the task of computer programming. 1958 was a very big year for computers. The first integrated circuit was invented at Texas Instruments.

Hard Drive
Photo Source: Morgue File

In 1960 a computer was introduced that was a mainframe setup, but it needed less room and no air conditioning. It had a monitor display and was built by DEC. The first video game was written on it. The name of the game was SpaceWar (one word). The game was written by people at MIT. Another big event was the new network built by AT&T for digital computer data. The computer language COBOL was invented. In 1961 the first integrated circuit on a chip was invented by Fairchild Camera. IBM came out with a primitive hard drive for only $115,500. In 1964 Cray supercomputers began to appear, they were expensive, but far faster than any other computers. Large mainframe computers were still big business, but small computers began to appear. Hewlett-Packard introduced the HP-2115 which came in three small pieces, counting the typewriter type printer and it could run several software languages. In 1967 Fairchild Camera built the first semiconductor that was specifically for data processing. This was the beginning of the modern cpu. In 1968 a company named Data General Corp. introduced a one piece unit that fit on a tabletop. We now had a desktop computer. In 1969 the popular UNIX operating system was born.

Modern Microprocessor
Photo Source: Morgue File

IN 1971 Intel introduced the 4004, a microprocessor which was to be the forerunner of today's microprocessors. IBM also came out with the floppy diskette the same year. The first personal computer appeared, the Kenbak-1. It cost $750 and used integrated circuits. Switches were used for input and lights for output. Only forty of these machines were sold before the company went bankrupt. The next couple of years saw small personal computers appear, many of them with only switches and lights for input and output operations. In 1975 the memory mapped alphanumeric video display appears for personal computers. This allowed the playing of interactive games. It was designed by Lee Felsenstein. 1976 saw the Apple I computer appear. Personal computing was now born. From this point on, personal computers began to flourish. They were produced by everyone and advances came along hot and furious. Commodore Computers became the biggest sellers of personal computers for awhile with their very advanced machines such as the VIC 20, Commodore 64 and Amiga, but they went bust due to poor management. There were other computer manufacturers out there that are gone today. such as Atari, who tried to outsell Commodore and there were some that really didn't try hard and are still around, but not in the personal computer arena such as Texas Instruments. If I really wanted to make a list there would be a lot more deceased companies on it, but you get the idea.

We wouldn't be enjoying our relatively cheap and proficient computers today if it wasn't for these early pioneers who not only thought up these machines, but kept up a steady pace of improvement that still is going on today. I wonder what some of them would have thought 30 years ago if you would have told them that we would have quad processors and were tinkering with Quantum computers?