A Brief History of Computing between 1970 and 1979

1970

 First RAM chip introduced by Intel. It was called to 1103 and had a capacity of 1 K-bit, 1024 bits.

1970

Development of UNIX operating system started. It was later released as C source code to aid portability, and subsequently versions are obtainable for many different computers, including the IBM PC. It is still widely used on network and Internet servers, and Red-hat's LINUX is popular as an alternative to DOS on the P.C. Originally developed by Ken Thomson and Dennis Ritchie.

1970

'Forth' programming language developed.

1970

The Internet was formed, although at the time it was a military network called ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network). It was opened to non-military users later in the 1970s and many universities and large businesses went on-line. US Vice-president Al-Gore was the first to call it the Information superhighway.

1971 - November 15

First Microprocessor, the 4004, developed by Marcian E. Hoff for Intel, was released. It contains the equivalent of 2300 transistors and was a 4 bit processor. It is capable of around 60,000 Interactions per second (0.06 MIPs), running at a clock rate of 108KHz. For comparision here are some of the 4004's successors to-date, along with relative preformance measures (inaccurate due to different measures used at different times). 

Processor	Approx. speed (MIPS)
Pentium II 333MHz	770
Pentium II 233MHz	560
Cyrix 6x86MX PR233	510
AMD K6 233MHz	480
Pentium Pro 200 MHz	440
Pentium 233MHz MMX	435
AMD K5-PR166	260
Pentium 133MHz	240
Am5x86	150
Pentium 66MHz	100
486 DX4/100 100MHz	60
486 DX 2-50 50MHz	35
486 DX 25MHz	20
68030 40MHz	10
386 DX 33MHz	10
68030 25 MHz	6.3
386 SX 20 MHz	6
68030 16MHz	3.9
80286 12MHz	2.7
68020 16 MHz	2.6
68000 16 MHz	1.3
8086 8MHz	0.8
68000 8MHz	0.7
8080 2MHz	0.5
4004 108 KHz	0.06

 

1971

Development of PASCAL finished - see 1967.

1972

Atari founded (as Syzygy) by Nolan Bushnell, who designed pong (see 1973).

1972

Computers built after 1972 are often called 'fourth generation' computers, based on LSI (Large Scale Integration) of circuits (such as microprocessors) - typically 500 or more components on a chip. Later developments include VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) of integrated circuits 5 years later - typically 10,000 components. Modern circuits may now contain millions of components. This has led to very small, yet incredibly powerful computers. The fourth generation is generally viewed as running right up until the present, since although computing power has increased the basic technology has remained virtually the same. By the late 1990s many people began to suspect that this technology was reaching its limit, further miniaturisation could only achieve so much. 64 megabit RAM chips have circuitry so small that it can be measured in atoms, circuits this small pose many technical problems - notably the heat created but they are also very susceptible to influence by temperature or radiation. It has been argued fifth generation computers are based on parallel processing and VLSI integration - but are still being developed in the late 1990s.

1972

C programming language developed, Object-Orientated Programming was introduced in early 1980s. Developed at The Bell Laboratories in the USA by Dennis Ritche (one of the inventors of the UNIX operating system), it's predecessor was the B programming language - also from The Bell Laboratories. It is a very popular language, especially for systems programming. Later developments include C++, which incorporates Object-Orientated programming. Used widely for systems and other programming, often used instead of assembler for systems programming as it is very flexible - and fairly fast. On the PC the popular versions are written by Microsoft and Borland.

1972

First Handheld scientific calculator released by Hewlett-Packard, the engineer's slide rule is at last obsolete.

1972 - April 1

8008 Processor released by Intel.

1972

The first international connections to ARPANET are established. ARPANET later became the basis for what we now call the internet.

1973

Pong released - widely recognised as the first popular arcade video game. It was invented by Atari's founder, Nolan Bushnell, and briefly became reasonably popular. However it's lack of excitement or variation meant it never captivated players like Space Invaders (1979) or other arcade games of the 1980s.

1973

Prolog developed at the University of Luminy-Marseilles in France by Alain Colmerauer. It is often used for AI programming.

1974

CLIP-4, the first computer with a parallel architecture.

1974 - April 1

Introduction of 8080. An 8 Bit Microprocessor from Intel.

1974 - December

MITS Altair 8800, the first personal computer to be available commercially released, by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems. In December 1974 an article in 'Popular Electronics' inviting people to order kits for the computer, based on the Intel 8800 they cost just $397 each and despite the limited memory (256 bytes) and limited processing power around 200 were ordered on the first day. Produced by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS).

1975

First implementation of BASIC by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, it was written for the MITS Altair - the first personal computer - this led to the formation of Microsoft later in the year.

1975

First laser printer introduced by IBM. The first colour versions came onto the market in 1988.

1975

Unix marketed (see 1970).

1975

Formation of Microsoft by Bill Gates and Paul Allen. It is now one of the most powerful and successful computing companies, a distinct improvement on the pair's original company. Traf-O-Data, which made car counters for highway departments. In just 3 years it achieved revenues of $500,000 and employed 15 people. By 1992 this had increased to revenues of 2.8 billion (50% of which are from exports), and over 10,000 employees - a fantastic feat for a company less than 20 years old. Microsoft's big break was when they were asked to write the operating system for the I.B.M. PC, released in 1981. Although financially not as large as IBM, Microsoft has a huge amount of influence in the Computing Industry.

1975

IBM 5100 released.

1976

Apple Computer, Inc. founded, to Market Apple I computer. Designed by Stephen Wozinak and Stephen Jobs.

1976

Introduction of 8085.

1976

Z80 released by Zilog, and the basis for the computer boom in the early 1980s. It was an 8 bit microprocessor. CP/M was written for the Z80 as well as software like Wordstar and dBase II - and it formed the basis for the Sinclair Spectrum of 1982.

1976

6502, 8 bit microprocessor developed and later chosen to equip the Apple II computer. Also fitted in the original Acorn machine, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and Commodore PET.

1976

Cray 1, the first commercially developed Supercomputer, it contained 200,000 integrated circuits and was freon-cooled. It could perform 150 million floating point operations per second - it is now the basis of an informal measurement of the power Supercomputers, by the mid-1990s these had reached the 1000-'cray' mark! Supercomputers are also measured by the number of floating point operations they can do in a second, but this figure can be misleading as the definition of a floating point operation is open to some debate - but these operations are far more complicated than integer operations normally handled by Microcomputers. In 1992 the fastest Computer was the Cray-2, which can do around 250 million floating point operations per seconds. Cray have continued to develop even more powerful computers, such as the Cray Y-MP/832. Such Supercomputers are used for weather forecasting, complex maths and physics problems, and animation in modern films.

1977

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp..

1977 - May

Apple II computer introduced.

1978

Commodore Pet introduced, with 8K RAM, cassette deck and 9" monitor.

1978 - June 8

Introduction of 8086 by Intel, the first commercially successful 16 bit processor, developed by a team lead by Bill Pohlman. It was too expensive to implement in early computers, so an 8 bit version was developed (the 8088), which was chosen by IBM for the first IBM PC. The 8086 is therefore is the basis for the entire line of processors for the IBM PC and compatibles. The 8086 wasn't used by IBM until the PS/2 model 25 and model 30 in 1987. The available clock frequencies are 4.77, 8 and 10 MHz. It has an instruction set of about 300 operations. At introduction the fastest processor was the 8 MHz version which achieved 0.8 MIPs and contained 29,000 transistors.

1979

Arcade Video game 'Space Invaders' released, starting a video game craze that has continued ever since. In 1980 Atari's Asteroids proved incredibly popular - one notable improvement over Space Invaders was that it allowed the players to record hi-scores, for other players to spend hours trying to beat. By 1982 many of the 'classics' had been released, defender and pac-man, to name a few. The industry was worth $5 billion a year - more than the U.S. movie industry. Although Pong, of 1973, and similar games had been around for several years none were really interesting enough to capture the public - Space Invaders, however, had everything, in a fast action game that pitted you against the computer.

1979

Language Ada introduced by Jean Ichbiah and team at Honeywell.

1979 - June 1

Introduction of 8088, a step down from the 8086 as it contains just an 8 bit data bus - but this make it cheaper to implement in computers.

1979

Commodore PET released. Based on a 1 MHz 6502 processor it displayed monochrome text and had just 8 Kb of RAM. Priced £569. For £776 you could purchase a version with 16 Kb of RAM, while for £914 you could get a 32 Kb of RAM.

1979

compact disk was invented.

1979

The 68000 Microprocessor launched by Motorola. Used by Apple for the Macintosh and by Atari for the ST series. Later versions of the processor include the 68020 used in the Macintosh II.

1979

IBM saw it's computer market dominance being eaten into by the new personal computers, such as the Apple and the Commodore PET. IBM therefore started work on their own P.C. This computer had to be a state-of-the-art machine in order to compete, but had to be produced very quickly due to the amazing growth of competitors. It was therefore decided to use many third party parts to reduce development time, and Microsoft were commissioned to write the Operating System (see October 1980). When finished this computer was released as the IBM PC. on 12 August 1981

 

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