JOINTHECONVERSATION

it seems computer history museum offers online version. that’s nice.

Article from MercuryNews. check this out.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business-headlines/ci_17745077?nclick_check=1

Filed under: computer, computer history by jointhec on Saturday, April 23, 2011
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photo and text from wikipedia. photo by Ed Uthman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I

when I first saw this, I was surprised this woody and cute computer by apple. I can never imagine this company makes most sophisticated computer devices in its design 20 years later. interesting. especially, hand-crafted “apple”s log is nice.

from wikipedia.

Apple I

The Apple I, also known as the Apple-1, was an early personal computer. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak’s friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple’s first product, demonstrated in April 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California.

Filed under: apple inc., computer, computer history by jointhec on Saturday, March 5, 2011 | Social tagging: apple computer > Apple I > computer history
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last year, I saw this at computer history museum in mountain view. it was impressive.

photo and text from wikipedia.

CDC 6600

The CDC 6600 was a mainframe computer from Control Data Corporation, first delivered in 1964. It is generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, outperforming its fastest predecessor, IBM 7030 Stretch, by about three times. With performance of about 1 MFLOP, it remained the world’s fastest computer from 1964–1969, when it relinquished that status to its successor, the CDC 7600.

The system organization of the CDC 6600 was used for the simpler (and slower) CDC 6400, and later a version containing two 6400 processors known as the CDC 6500. These machines were instruction-compatible with the 6600, but ran slower due to a much simpler and more sequential processor design. The entire family is now referred to as the CDC 6000 series. The CDC 7600 was originally to be compatible as well, starting its life as the CDC 6800, but during the design compatibility was dropped in favor of outright performance. While the 7600 CPU remained compatible with the 6600, allowing portable user code, the PPUs were different, requiring a different operating system.

A CDC 6600 is on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Filed under: computer, computer history, notes, supercomputer by jointhec on Friday, February 4, 2011 | Social tagging: CDC 6600 > computer > computer history > supercomputer
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Text from Wikipedia.

Tablet computer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_computer

A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete personal mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen. It often uses an onscreen virtual keyboard or a digital pen rather than a physical keyboard.

The term may also apply to a “convertible” notebook computer whose keyboard is attached to the touchscreen by a swivel joint or slide joint so that the screen may lie with its back upon the keyboard, covering it and exposing only the screen for touch operation.

Filed under: Tablet computer, computer by jointhec on Wednesday, February 2, 2011 | Social tagging: Tablet computer
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text from wikipedia.

HRS-100

HRS-100, ХРС-100, GVS-100 or ГВС-100, (ref.1, 2 and 3) (Serbian: Hibridni Računarski Sistem, Russian: Гибридная Вычислительная Система, English: Hybrid Computer System) was a third generation hybrid computer developed by Mihajlo Pupin Institute (Serbia, then SFR Yugoslavia) and engineers from USSR. It was deployed in Academy of Sciences of USSR in 1971. More production was contemplated for use in Czechoslovakia and German Democratic Republic (DDR).

HRS-100 was intended for scientific and technical research, modelling of complex dynamical systems in real and accelerated scale time and for efficient solving of wide array of scientific tasks.

Filed under: computer, computer history, notes by jointhec on Friday, January 28, 2011 | Social tagging: computer > computer history > HRS-100
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text from wikipedia. the second generation of Intel Microprocessor. beautiful.

Intel 8008

The Intel 8008 was an early byte-oriented microprocessor designed and manufactured by Intel and introduced in April 1972. It was an 8-bit CPU with an external 14-bit address bus that could address 16KB of memory. Originally known as the 1201, the chip was commissioned by Computer Terminal Corporation (CTC) to implement an instruction set of their design for their Datapoint 2200 programmable terminal. As the chip was delayed and did not meet CTC’s performance goals, the 2200 ended up using CTC’s own TTL based CPU instead. An agreement permitted Intel to market the chip to other customers after Seiko expressed an interest in using it for a calculator.

Filed under: computer history, microprocessors by jointhec on Monday, January 24, 2011 | Social tagging: computer history > intel > Intel 8008 > microprocessors
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Intel 4004. the first microprocessor in the world.

text from wikipedia.

The Intel 4004 is generally regarded as the first microprocessor, and cost thousands of dollars. The first known advertisement for the 4004 is dated November 1971 and appeared in Electronic News. The project that produced the 4004 originated in 1969, when Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, asked Intel to build a chipset for high-performance desktop calculators. Busicom’s original design called for a programmable chip set consisting of seven different chips. Three of the chips were to make a special-purpose CPU with its program stored in ROM and its data stored in shift register read-write memory. Ted Hoff, the Intel engineer assigned to evaluate the project, believed the Busicom design could be simplified by using dynamic RAM storage for data, rather than shift register memory, and a more traditional general-purpose CPU architecture. Hoff came up with a four–chip architectural proposal: a ROM chip for storing the programs, a dynamic RAM chip for storing data, a simple I/O device and a 4-bit central processing unit (CPU). Although not a chip designer, he felt the CPU could be integrated into a single chip. This chip would later be called the 4004 microprocessor.

The architecture and specifications of the 4004 came from the interaction of Hoff with Stanley Mazor, a software engineer reporting to him, and with Busicom engineer Masatoshi Shima, during 1969. In April 1970, Intel hired Federico Faggin to lead the design of the four-chip set. Faggin, who originally developed the silicon gate technology (SGT) in 1968 at Fairchild Semiconductor and designed the world’s first commercial integrated circuit using SGT, the Fairchild 3708, had the correct background to lead the project since it was SGT that made it possible to implement a single-chip CPU with the proper speed, power dissipation and cost. Faggin also developed the new methodology for random logic design, based on silicon gate, that made the 4004 possible. Production units of the 4004 were first delivered to Busicom in March 1971 and shipped to other customers in late 1971.

Filed under: computer history, microprocessors, notes by jointhec on Sunday, January 23, 2011 | Social tagging: Intel 4004 > Minisupercomputer
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from wikipedia.

History of the graphical user interface

The graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP paradigm. There have been important technological achievements, and enhancements to the general interaction were given in small steps over previous systems. There have been a few significant breakthroughs in terms of use, but the same organizational metaphors and interaction idioms are still in use. Although many GUI Operating Systems are operated by using a mouse, the keyboard can also be used by using keyboard shortcuts or arrow keys.

Filed under: GUI, computer history, notes by jointhec on Friday, January 21, 2011 | Social tagging: GUI > history
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from wikipedia.

The history of computer operating systems recapitulates to a degree the recent history of computer hardware.

Operating systems (OSes) provide a set of functions needed and used by most application programs on a computer, and the linkages needed to control and synchronize computer hardware. On the first computers, with no operating system, every program needed the full hardware specification to run correctly and perform standard tasks, and its own drivers for peripheral devices like printers and punched paper card readers. The growing complexity of hardware and application programs eventually made operating systems a necessity.

Filed under: computer history, operating system by jointhec on Thursday, January 20, 2011 | Social tagging: history > operating system
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this controls everything…..

Central processing unit (CPU) from wikipedia

The central processing unit (CPU) is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, and is the primary element carrying out the computer’s functions. The central processing unit carries out each instruction of the program in sequence, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. This term has been in use in the computer industry at least since the early 1960s.[1] The form, design and implementation of CPUs have changed dramatically since the earliest examples, but their fundamental operation remains much the same.

Early CPUs were custom-designed as a part of a larger, sometimes one-of-a-kind, computer. However, this costly method of designing custom CPUs for a particular application has largely given way to the development of mass-produced processors that are made for one or many purposes. This standardization trend generally began in the era of discrete transistor mainframes and minicomputers and has rapidly accelerated with the popularization of the integrated circuit (IC). The IC has allowed increasingly complex CPUs to be designed and manufactured to tolerances on the order of nanometers. Both the miniaturization and standardization of CPUs have increased the presence of these digital devices in modern life far beyond the limited application of dedicated computing machines. Modern microprocessors appear in everything from automobiles to cell phones and children’s toys.

Filed under: Central processing unit, computer, notes by jointhec on Friday, January 14, 2011 | Social tagging: Central processing unit > cpu
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