A brief history of computers
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A brief history of computers
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Re: A brief history of computers
#2Seems pretty reasonable for someone doing their own high level research. Notably missing any references to telegrams and telephone systems.
Re: A brief history of computers
#3Seems pretty reasonable for someone doing their own high level research. Notably missing any references to telegrams and telephone systems.
Yeah, there was a lot of work on logic in both India and the West in the medieval period, which was very influential in later thought, its just that what we conceive of as the "modern" form of logic only took shape in the 19th century. But reading medieval tracts on logic is fascinating.
Re: A brief history of computers
#4Seems pretty reasonable for someone doing their own high level research. Notably missing any references to telegrams and telephone systems.
In terms of causes and forces, the influence of telecommunication on computing is really hard to overstate. In the Internet era, I think some might be unaware that telecommunication definitively came first, and in my view, effectively led directly to computers.
From the electrical engineering perspective, the earliest relay and vacuum tube computers were built out of elements developed for radio and telephone exchanges. Bell Labs developed the transistor with their phone system primarily in mind. Same with high speed digital data circuits. (Digital audio was demo'd in the late 1940s, deployed in the phone network in the late 50s).
It's not just the physical circuits; much of the theory, too. Claude Shannon was trying to optimize subnets of switches in the phone network, when he proved that binary switching logic is equivalent to Boolean algebra and so such systems could be described, manipulated, and optimized symbolically.
Similarly, both frequency and time division multiplexing date to the late 1800s with telegraphy. One of the first uses of vacuum tubes as switching elements was for multiplexing telegraph lines c. 1940 or so. (The terminology from that era is quite charming - modern Wi-Fi might be described as supersonic harmonic multiplexed radiotelegraphy.)
Re: A brief history of computers
#5Seems pretty reasonable for someone doing their own high level research. Notably missing any references to telegrams and telephone systems.
Yeah, there was a lot of work on logic in both India and the West in the medieval period, which was very influential in later thought, its just that what we conceive of as the "modern" form of logic only took shape in the 19th century. But reading medieval tracts on logic is fascinating.
Also between the middle ages and the 19th century: e.g. The Logic and Grammar of Port Royal were very influential - c.f. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/port-royal-logic/
Re: A brief history of computers
#6Not sure what it is about computer history, but it garners a lot of interest among computer science students. Electives on computer history have usually been packed classes.
Re: A brief history of computers
#7Maybe mention Pascal[1] and Leibniz[2] as important predecessors to Babbage?
Re: A brief history of computers
#8One interesting question (which is very hard to answer) is how many of the ideas were passed down vs. re-invented, and how much theory influenced practice:
- I think Mauchly and Eckert (of ENIAC) in the 1940's were unaware of Babbage (1810's)
- There was the (in)famous von Neumann paper describing the ENIAC and patent lawsuit - https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=639 - this page says that "most likely" Von Neumann and Mauchly/Eckert developed it together
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell,_Inc._v._Sperry_Rand....
Hm these sources are a bit vague -- my memory is that "The Dream Machine" was more critical of von Neumann. Basically it ended up that he put his name on work that wasn't really his, or he gave that impression.
i.e. the name "von Neumann architecture" doesn't give the proper credit
- Did they need Turing or Church to build a real computer? Probably not, I guess Babbage also proves that. Computation is just "out there"; it's part of nature; it's been discovered many times.
- That said, I would guess that Boolean logic is the most important theory/math in building a computer, though Babbage didn't have that either !!!
Re: A brief history of computers
#9Seems pretty reasonable for someone doing their own high level research. Notably missing any references to telegrams and telephone systems.
In terms of causes and forces, the influence of telecommunication on computing is really hard to overstate. In the Internet era, I think some might be unaware that telecommunication definitively came first, and in my view, effectively led directly to computers. From the electrical engineering perspective, the earliest relay and vacuum tube computers were built out of elements developed for radio and telephone exchang…
From the electrical engineering perspective, the earliest relay and vacuum tube computers were built out of elements developed for radio and telephone exchanges.
Indeed. A "main frame" was originally the housing used for the relay switches in the original telephone exchanges.
Re: A brief history of computers
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, there was a lot of work on logic in both India and the West in the medieval period, which was very influential in later thought, its just that what we conceive of as the "modern" form of logic only took shape in the 19th century. But reading medieval tracts on logic is fascinating.
Also between the middle ages and the 19th century: e.g. The Logic and Grammar of Port Royal were very influential - c.f. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/port-royal-logic/
I meant "medieval" here to refer to any time between the beginning of neoplatonism and the industrial revolution: quite a large space, but it seems like those are the only two time periods people are generally aware of in the history of thought, since we teach kids that everything between then was the "dark ages."