History of the PC
Computer Repair Technician
The Abacus
• A calculator, circa
500 B.C.
• Used for addition,
subtraction,
division, &
multiplication
Analytical Engine
• Pre-electronic
computer
• Charles Babbage -
1822 - 1871
• First mechanical
computer,
– Received instructions
from punched cards
– Memory bank
– Printed solutions to
math problems
Dr. Herman Hollerith
• Designed 1st
computer designed
for data processing -
1889
• Built for U.S. Census
Bureau - 1890
• IBM created
• Hollerith card
– 80-column punch card
Digital Electronic
Computers
• ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer)
– 1st electronic digital computer 1939 -
1942 at Iowa State
– Weighed 750 pounds and could store
3,000 bits (0.4 KB) of data
– Binary arithmetic -Regenerative memory
– Parallel Processing -Separate memory &
Computer functions
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator & Computer)
• Univ of Pennsylvania
• US Army - WWII,
1945
• Classified military
project for preparing
firing & bombing
tables (calculated
trajectory values in
seconds)
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator & Computer)
• 1800 square feet of floor space
– Thirty separate units, plus power supply &
forced air cooling
• Weighed 30 tons (Portable?)
• Used 19,000 vacuum tubes (not
transistors)
• 1500 relays
• Hundred of thousands of resistors,
capacitors, & inductors
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical
Integrator & Computer)
• 200 kilowatts of electrical power to
operate
• Many people needed to program it
– Required manual switches & cable
connections
• Considered prototype for most of
today‟s computers
• Begins the modern computer age
Colossus I
• Hertz, England - 1943
• Purpose - crypto-analysis ( cracking
of codes)
Mainframes & minis
• 1960s and 1970s
– IBM, DEC (Digital Equipment
Corporation),Tektronics, VAX
– Information stored on punch cards or
tape drives
– Large, air-cooled rooms
Punch Card
1969 - Who is Intel?
• Founded when two guys left a
company that they started
• Japanese Company wanted Intel to
design 12 chips
• One engineer thought he could
design 1 chip for all 12 functions
• 1971 - the first microprocessor
1971 Kenbak-1
• First personal
computer
• $750 in Scientific
American
• integrated circuits
• Switches for input
and lights for output
• 256-byte memory
• Sold 40 machines
• Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center 1974 Alto
• First work station
with a built-in mouse
for input
• Stored several files
simultaneously in
windows
• Menus and icons
• Link to a local area
network.
• Never sold the Alto
commercially-gave a
number of them to
universities
1975 - MITS Altair kit
• 1st personal
computer sold to the
public
• Expansion slots for
adapter cards
• No operating system
• Bill Gates sold them
Micro-soft BASIC
MITS Altair (1975)
· Advertised in Popular
Mechanics
• Albuquerque, NM
• Read only bits
• Had to be hand-
programmed
• Intel 8080 processor
• Gates & Allen licensed
BASIC as the software
language
• 8800-sold for $297
• 256 bytes of memory
(expandable to 64K)
Floppy Disks (1976)
• The 5 1/4" flexible
disk drive and
diskette
• Invented by Shugart
Associates, 1976
• More than 10
manufacturers
producing 5 1/4"
floppy drives by 1978
1977 - Apple II
• Gaming machine
for Atari games
• Influenced IBM‟s
1st PC
• 1st system sold
with a keyboard
• Television was the
monitor
Apple 2 (1977)
• Debut 1977, at local
computer show
• First true „Personal
Computer”
• First computer with
color graphics (16
colors)
• First computer with a
case
Apple 2 (1977)
• Popular demand
• Success of Apple Disk II-
inexpensive and easy-to-use floppy
drive
• Utilized Integer BASIC and Applesoft
BASIC as operating system
TRS-80 (Trash-80) (1977)
• Made and sold by
Radio Shack
• Very popular PC
• Included black and
white video monitor
• Utilized BASIC
programming
• Sold 10,000 units
• Included a simple
manual; required no
basic knowledge of
computers
1977 Commodone PET
• Fully assembled
ready to operate
• 4 or 8 kilobytes of
memory
• Membrane
“chiclet” keyboard
VisiCalc (1979)
• VisiCalc (Visible
Calculator)
• Made spreadsheets
easy
• Idealized the “killer
application,” the
program that made
you NEED the
computer, not just
because it was neat
VisiCalc (1979)
• Transformed the Apple II PC into a
business machine
• A huge success, more than 100,000
copies sold in one year
Apple 3 (1980)
• Apple Company
rapidly expanding
• Business PC to
compete with IBM
• Improved RAM
capacity
• 1st release included
many defects
• Apple SOS- new OS
1981 - IBM Personal
Computer
• Designed as a
desktop system
(suitcase-like)
• 4.7 MHz 8088
processor
• 64 KB of RAM
• MS-DOS 1.0
– 3 files & some
utilities
Apollo DN100 (1981)
• Offered more power
than many other
computers
• Cheaper and more
affordable than other
PC‟s
• Could run computer-
intensive graphics
programs
• Useful for
engineering
IBM PC 8088 (1981)
• Features a 4.77
MHz Intel 8088
CPU (Central
Processing Unit)
• Used Gate‟s PC-
DOS 1.0
(Microsoft's MS-
DOS)
IBM PC 8088 (1981)
• Included Microsoft BASIC, VisiCalc,
UCSD Pascal, CP/M-86, and Easy-
writer 1.0.
• Fully loaded version with color
graphics cost US $6000
1981 Osborne I
• The first portable
computer
• Weighed 24 pounds
and cost $1,795
• Included software
worth about $1,500.
• 5-inch display, 64
kilobytes of memory,
a modem, and two 5
1/4-inch floppy disk
drives
1982 - Intel Processor
• Develops the 80286
• 16 bit processor
• 150,000 transistors
• MS-DOS 1.1 supports
double-sided disks
which hold 360 KB of
data
Lotus 1-2-3 IBM Software
(1982)
• Developed and
written for the IBM PC
• Spreadsheet
capabilities and
graphics and data
retrieval capabilities
• Useful business
application matched
the popularity of
VisiCalc for the Apple
II
Apple LISA (1983)
• Local Integrated
Software Architecture
• First pc with a graphical
user interface (GUI)
• Featured 5 MHz
microprocessor, 1 MB
RAM, 2 MB ROM
• Software cost $100
million dollars to
develop
Apple LISA (1983)
• Price for a LISA
cost $10,000.
• During its lifetime,
only 100,000 units
were produced.
• Placed Apple
Computers in
financial difficulty
Compaq IBM PC Clone
(1983)
• Compaq Computer
Corp. introduced first
PC clone
• Used same software
as the IBM PC
• Designers and
researchers reverse-
engineered to comply
with IBM copyrights
and patents
Compaq IBM PC Clone
(1983)
• The result was a PC nearly identical to
that of IBM
• Didn‟t violate copyright patent
• The Compaq clone was nearly 100-
percent compatible with the IBM
• Compaq recorded first-year sales of
$111 million, the most ever by an
American business in a single year.
• Began market for clone PC
Apple Macintosh (1984)
• Introduced during a
60 second 1984
Super Bowl game
commercial
• Ad cost $1.5 million,
aired only once,
among most
memorable
commercials
• Featured a Motorola
CPU
Apple Macintosh (1984)
• Mac Write and Mac Paint software
• Simple, graphical interface (GUI)
• Offered many capabilities of the
LISA, but at a much more affordable
price
Intel 80486 (1990)
• New and improved
80486 microprocessor
has over 1 million
transistors
• 486 chips similar to 386
chips
• Twice as fast as the 386
Microsoft 3.0 (1990)
• Followed
unsuccessful versions
of slow Windows 1.0
• Apple threatened to
sue
• Compatible with DOS
programs
• New and improved
interface and
graphics
Microsoft 3.0 (1990)
• With the 3.0, multiple programs can run
simultaneously
• Numerous other applications compatible
with 3.0 (killer application concept)
• Windows 3.0 has Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft 3.0 made PCs more user-
friendly (similar to the Apple Macintosh)
• Windows 3.0 made IBM and IBM-
compatible computers more popular.
The AMD 386DX (1991)
• First successful x86
processor that was
NOT built by Intel
• Started an x86
processor price war
• Intel and AMD drop
prices to compete
with each other
The AMD 386DX (1991)
•· The prices of PCs followed the
chip prices down, and fell by as
much as $1000
• Market for PC's running Windows
expanded by over 33%.
1992 Michelangelo
• Dark Avenger's
Commander Bomber
and Starship.
• Michelangelo-forecast
five million
computers would go
down on March 6th
• March 6th- 5,000 and
10,000 machines
went down
Viruses
• Virus authoring packages-VCL (Virus
Creation Laboratory) from Nowhere Man,
Dark Angel's Phalcon/Skism Mass-
Produced Code Generator
• Made it possible for anyone who could
use a computer, to write a virus
• Within twelve months, dozens of viruses
had been created using these tools.
1997 Windows 97, 98
• Successive upgrades
• Designed for home
users
• NT will become the
dominant business
desktop platform
• Memphis-codename
or Windows 97
The World Wide Web
• Popularized the
Internet
• Simple, friendly,
graphical way of
browsing for
information or
entertainment
• Information stored as
formatted hypertext
in the HTML format
Internet
• Information displayed to the user by
words or pictures Multimedia such as
video and audio (Media Player, Real
Player, Win AMP)
• Simple to operate by simple point and
click
• Internet Cafe's appeared in shopping
malls- people without a computer could
surf the web.
Apple iMac (1998, 1999)
• Targeted low-end
consumer market
• Designed with the
Internet in mind
• Cool new case design
• Included an internal
56Kpbs modem
• Newly-designed USB
keyboard and mouse
• Numerous versions
made, affordable
price
Intel Pentium 4 Processor
(2000)
• Increased speed
suitable for new
millennium of high-
speed internet
access, games, etc.
• Superior 3D support
for better graphics
• Up to 1.5 GHz (A
major improvement
over 800Mhz not long
ago)
Dell Inspiron 8000 Series
(2001)
• Laptop
• Convenience of
portability meets the
desktop
• Pentium III processor
• Attachments such as
DVD Player Drive, CD
Writer/Burner
• Completely
customizable to user
needs
Palm V
• The Next
Generation
TODAY
Microsoft Intel
Sets software Sets hardware
standards standards
Both Set
Compatibility Requirements
TREND
Computers are becoming
smaller, faster, and more
efficient