Today, for the most part, we are creating a portable computer, not to mention similar devices in a desktop version, as something that has always accompanied us. Some even consider them to be obsolete, more and more often using mainly or even only tablets or smartphones. Let’s go back over the decades and see what the beginnings of the history of laptops looked like.
George Boole was born in 1815. He was the son of a poor merchant. He learned the material of the elementary school very quickly; his father could not afford to pay for further education. George began to study independently. At 16, he started teaching at school, and three years later, he founded his school to earn money. While working at his school, he became interested in mathematics and began writing papers in this field. At first, his work was rejected, even for lack of education, but eventually, his work was recognized and published. The English genius, mathematician and logician, developed the principles by which computers work today.
In the seventies, large-scale computer dominated, and the data was entered on perforated tape paper. In the early 1970s, Jacek Karpiński wanted to create a compact machine. Model K 202 did not occupy the whole room; it had a monitor and a compatible keyboard. The target was achieved. K 202 weighed 35 kilograms and cost 5 thousand dollars. The machine worked on a 16-bit processor and performed a million operations per second, which is 20 times more than modern Odra at that time.
It might seem that the K 202 and its inventor were facing a great future, the production of prototypes started in 1971. 15 out of 30 copies went to Great Britain; the rest was distributed to national institutions. Unfortunately, as a result of financial problems, K 202 never went into serial production, Jacek Karpiński was removed from work on the computer in general. It was said in those days that if Jacek was born in the USA, his ideas and invention could be the driving force of computer science. Unfortunately, he was born in a socialist Poland, where an understanding for scientists was not fully understood and financed.
Odra is the name of a series of computers manufactured at Zakłady Elektroniczne Elwro in Wrocław ODRA was a serial computer, that is, executing commands one by one, using a 38-bit word. Possibility of making 500 additions per second. Input/output devices were teletypes, card perforator, and card reader. Let see “a replica of Odra 1305 computer” : https://lnkd.in/dtd7isd One of the last copies of the Oder expired on July 18, 2003, after 29 years of trouble-free operation.
In the late 1960s, hand-sized computers appear on the market. The portable computer (H / PC) format was smaller than a standard laptop. The Palmtop Computers was equipped with an operating system, had an additional screen, and it was possible to install and operate the application. At first, it served as a notebook, and over time it has been improved with a camera, camcorder, e-book reader, MP3 players, and even GPS. In newer models, they obtained Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity. However, the glory period did not last long. Mobile phones have forced many manufacturers to abandon Palm OS and announced it is over. The company tried to save itself by launching a new system – webOS – but failed to break iOS, Android, or Blackberry. In 2010 HP bought the failing Palm, unfortunately even such a giant did not save a great legend.
In my articles, I wrote about ENIAC and EDVAC; computers were created during World War II at the universities of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
Another place where work on computing machines was known to us was Harvard. The Mark I computer or IBM Automatic Sequence Calculator was launched in 1944. The device counted among the first computers in history. Mark I was built from 765 thousand. electromechanical parts, 800 kilometers of wires with 3 million connections, and 3.5 thousand multiprocessor relays. The machine was 16 m long and 2.5 m high, weighing over 4.5 tonnes. It was the largest electromechanical calculator. It had 60 sets of 24 switches for manual data entry, each of which stored 72 registers with 23 digits. He read the instructions from perforated paper tapes. For the first time in a counting machine, the data memory is separated from the program memory.
While searching for interesting information about computers, as usual on Thursday, I came across a person of a French weaver, a constructor of weaving machines, and later turned out to be a revolutionary inventor. Joseph-Marie Jacquard constructed a net binding machine. However, his greatest achievement was the improvement of the loom in 1805, where he automatically controlled the layout of the thread and thread warp by writing code on the peripheral tape. These cards were the first in history to be controlled by the machine through a program. His invention was later used for catarines, music boxes and was the inspiration for the basics of building the computer by Babbage and Hollerith.
Atari computers were founded by two friends Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in 1972. He gained massive popularity with the hearts of customers through the game PONG, created on the machines; the product success was enormous.
With the growing demand for the game, Atari has increased the employment of a large number of people. Unfortunately, the company made the mistake of not patenting the game, which quickly found the interest of people to create fakes. Atari fiercely defended his brand by creating other games, e.g., Breakout. Building a home version of Pong turned out to be a hit, thanks to which the goods disappeared from store shelves at an enormous pace. The players connected the device to the TV and could enjoy the fun previously known only from slot machines. Unfortunately, the company was unable to return to the top producers of gaming equipment in later years. Many say that while it wasn’t bad at the time of competing with the Amiga, the final nail in the casket turned out to be the dominant devices of the time, such as PlayStation, Nintendo 64 and Sega Saturn.
In 1946, Mauchly and Eckert proposed the construction of a new fantastic machine with an automatic electronic computer together with discrete variables called (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer – EDVAC). The concept of the computer project was completed by 1946; unfortunately, several members left the project and took on other tasks. Returned to the machine in 1952, after completion of the work, EDVAC contained approximately 4,000 electron lamps and 10,000 crystal diodes. The 1956 report shows that the trouble-free EDVAC computer operation time was about 8 hours.
Ed Roberts passed away at the age of 66 by Bill Gates, and Paul Allen called the father of personal computers. Roberts to create Altaria inspired the computer Mark 8 with the first 8-bit processor in the world: Intel 8008. The diagram of this computer was described in the magazine, which contributed to Robert’s vision. Altair8800 was the first personal computer in the world that strongly interested the average person and aroused great interest and emotions. Mark 8 was only for hardcore electronics fans; its assembly was extremely complicated. Altair 8800 was for everyone. It was attracted by the low price of the computer itself and components, e.g., the low price of the processor. Sales increased, even for Roberts himself it was a surprising amount of purchases, the number of produced sets of components and people to receive orders began to be short. The crew was increased, and Altair sold very well. Looking from our perspective, Altari was very different from today’s computers; above all, the lack of a keyboard, it was a crude box with red lights shining like Christmas tree lights. However, as the real programmer says, no keyboard is needed, programming looked like entering commands triggered by setting switches. Very interesting and so different from our computers.