History of Computers

Growing Up in the Computer Age or Vice Versa

 By Dave Nix

History of computers was what this article was going to be about, but I quickly found out that you can get pages and pages on the subject with a click on Google.  It was originally suggested that I write on how technology has affected my business. However, computers are my business, so the effect is quite obvious.  I think a more interesting story would be how I witnessed, first hand, the advancements in computers and how they are used during the last 3 to 4 decades.

OK...a Brief History

According to the United States Census Bureau 21.8% of our population is 20 years old or younger.  These, for the most part, are people who have never known a world without computers.  To them things such as TV’s without remotes, typewriters and cars without computers belong in museums.  Now I’m not saying that I was around for the beginning of computers.  If you think about it, computers started way back when fill-in-the-blank-erectus figured out that they had more than one finger or toe and started to think of ways to keep track of them.  We will call these fingers and toes “digits” and thus the beginning of the “Digital Age”.

Things progressed a little slow at first, taking some millennium for this and subsequent groups to figure out how to use rocks, twigs, stones or anything else they could scavenge to use as counting tools when the digits ran out.  Over another number of millennium some more great leaps in technology erupted with the invention of writing and number systems.  For those of you who think that this was a very long time ago the earliest record of a written number computing device was a counting board used by the Babylonians circa 300 B.C.  These counting boards were the forerunner of the Abacus, a device that uses beads on strings or rods to compute.  Now both of these devices were not really computers, but merely counting aids.  In 1614, the discovery of multiplication logarithms led to the invention of the slide rule, the first real computation device.

In the 1800’s, with the help of Ben Franklin, it was discovered that we could harness the power of electricity, even produce it.  Now things started to heat up in the computer invention department…literally.  The first fully electronic computer was built around 1944.  Weighing in at 35 tons, this computer used electrical magnetic switches and who knows how much power to produce calculations so simple that a wrist watch with a calculator in it looks like a super computer in comparison.  From this point on, computers took great leaps in technology over increasingly shorter periods of time.

History by Experience...

My first personal experience with a real computer started in the mid 1970’s when a computer was donated to my high school.  The computer took up an entire classroom and the plan was to use it for student grade keeping and reporting. The only setback was that nobody had a clue on how to put it together or use it.  So we set up all the big cases and tape drives, plugged some of them in to run the lights and had classes tour the room as an introduction into the new computer age.

College Years...

By the time I started attending college, electronic calculators started to drop in price so that a student who managed to save up over the summer could at least own one of the basic calculators like the classic Texas Instruments TI-50.  Near the end of my 4 years, the college purchased an IBM system computer, another one of those “fill-a-room” computers.  I never got a chance to see the computer or take classes, it was too new and the college didn’t have anyone knowledgeable enough to put a curriculum together.

Military Years...

After college I entered the military, working for the Army Intelligence School on Warfare electronics.  At the same time, I started taking classes at a local University.  It is here that I had my first experience actually using a computer.  I had to learn FORTRAN programming (long replaced by programs such as Excel) on yet another one of the “fill-a-room” computers.  I would enter code on a typewriter looking keyboard that was integrated into the display, which was a large dot matrix printer.  To save my program I had to insert cards into a slot in a box and have the computer punch the code into several sequential cards.  Each time I wanted to work on the program, I needed to insert the cards and load the program up again.  Back at the military electronics school I was learning how to program a new device called an 8080 microprocessor.  This new cutting edge device compressed all the components in the “fill-a-room” computer into this ceramic chip that could fit in the palm of your hand, or into military field equipment.

About that time I ended my term in the military (late 70’s to early 80’s), a company called Microsoft was teaming up with the IBM computer company to produce what was called a “Desktop” computer.  They claimed that these computers had all of the computing power and more than the “fill-a-room” computers.  They also told us that with the added computing power, graphics programming could be used to drive TV type monochrome monitors, eliminating the need for printer displays.  Now we thought that this was interesting at the time, but couldn’t see the impact that it could have on the world.  In fact we didn’t think that we would need to own one of these even if we could afford one.

Working for a Living...

In 1982 I was employed at a Defense Electronics Government Contractor Company in New Hampshire.  The company used a cutting edge Digital computer with “dummy” terminals on just about every desk.  We could do wonderful things on this computer such as using the “MASS11” word processor and sending “electronic mail” to other employees in other buildings.  This inter-company network was so new that the company didn’t really know how to use it, so they encouraged us to think of ways outside of the normal company communications.  We started bulletin boards for doing everything from selling cars and other items to dating and public announcements.  Around 1988 the company started experimenting with employees taking home a “dummy” terminal and connecting to work over the phone lines using a new device called a Modem.

The New Computers...

In the mid 80’s we were writing programs for desktop and smaller portable computers called laptops (the forerunner of notebook PCs) made by Hewlett-Packard and IBM to run test equipment in the labs.  At the same time a company called Apple started to sell a home version of a “Desktop” computer that had a new type of graphic interface called a window.  This computer used a color monitor and a new device called a “mouse” that simplified the use of the computer so much so that any non-technical person could learn to use it.  Other companies followed suit and by the early 90’s the price of “personal computers” dropped enough that many people could afford to own one.  By the mid 90’s word started to get around of a concept called “The Internet” where you could connect over phone lines to other computers around the world, both large companies and other “personal computers.”

Computers Today...

To our young daughters, computers have always been an integral part of life.  In cars, toys, appliances, VCRs, DVD players, communications, education and much more, computers have become so integrated in our lives that most people don’t even notice them.  Today, ROZtech Computer Services prides itself on helping small businesses and individuals set up and maintain their computers and networks as well as instruction on how to use many of the applications available.