Page 73 - Berkshire Encyclopedia Of World History Vol Two

422 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

Computer Skeptics

The transition from mainframe and enterprise
computing to the proliferation of the personal
computer (PC) revolutionized the world in count- they did not develop it further. In Britain, a special-
less ways, from increased work efficiency to the purpose electronic computer called Colossus began
ability to access the World Wide Web from virtually cracking German codes in 1943, but its design was kept
any desktop or wired café. However, not everyone secret for more than three decades. Perhaps the most
was so optimistic about the PC, as the quotes influential early electronic digital computer was ENIAC
below demonstrate: (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), com-
pleted at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 by a
“There is no reason for any individual to have a
team headed by physicist John W. Mauchly and engineer
computer in his home.”
J. Presper Eckert.
—Ken Olson, Digital Equipment (1977)
ENIAC’s primary job was calculating accurate artillery
“The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing firing tables for the U.S.Army. In the frenzy of World War
device called a mouse. There is no evidence that II, many new models of long-range guns were being pro-
people want to use these things.” duced, and soldiers in the field needed complex tables to
tell them how to aim to hit a target at a certain distance
—John Dvorak, Editor, PC Magazine (1984)
under various conditions. It was impossible to fire the
Source: Retrieved from http://www.sysprog.net/quothist.html
guns under all the likely conditions, so data from some
judiciously chosen test firings were used to anchor elab-
orate sets of mathematical calculations. Vannevar Bush,
father of computing because around 1835 he designed a who was the chief science advisor to President Roosevelt,
mechanical calculator that could be programmed with had a huge mechanical analog computer, the differential
punched cards. Science fiction writers William Gibson analyzer, built for this purpose in 1930. In theory, an
and Bruce Sterling wrote a novel imagining that Babbage electronic computer would be much faster and more
succeeded in building it, launching a golden age of accurate, but there were serious questions about whether
British scientific and technological dominance but mag- it could be sufficiently reliable, because before the devel-
nifying social problems. However, in reality Babbage opment of transistors they were built with vacuum tubes
failed, and historian Doron Swade estimates that his that tended to burn out. ENIAC weighed 30 tons, cov-
influence on the development of electronic computers ered 1,800 square feet, and contained 18,000 vacuum
was insignificant. tubes.
The first comprehensive digital data-processing system ENIAC’s data input and output employed Hollerith’s
using cards was developed by the American engineer punch cards, a method that remained one of the standard
Herman Hollerith, who began patenting his ideas in the approaches through the 1970s. However, programming
1880s. By 1902, when his machines were used to was done manually by setting hundreds of rotary
process the vast sea of information collected in the 1900 switches and plugging in wires that connected electronic
U.S. census, they already incorporated electric relays that components. Mauchly and Eckert designed a successor
could do conditionals (if-then operations). that could store a program in its memory. They formed
a small company, launched a line of machines called
The Mainframe Era UNIVAC, and then sold out to a private company in
There is considerable debate among historians over 1950.This example typifies mid-twentieth-century com-
which programmable, electronic digital computer was puting. The technology for large and expensive main-
first or most influential. By 1941, professor John Atana- frame computers was developed with government
soff and graduate student Clifford Berry had created a funding for military purposes and then transferred to the
demonstration machine at Iowa State University, but civilian sector where it was used by large corporations for