A little computer history. 1939

[irv]

I know I am getting old, and I don't understand how I took a liking to computers and especially Linux and that includes Ubuntu Linux. When I was one year old there were things happening in a new technology. This was in 1939. Wow! I found this on the website: http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1939

Hewlett-Packard is Founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett found Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly becomes a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B model to use as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie “Fantasia.”
I found this so interesting I had to share it.
188475

[Sporkman]

On a related note:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/business/08bartik.html

[mips]

You're a spring chicken, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Design_of_computers

[irv]

On a related note:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/08/business/08bartik.html

Thanks for the link, I read the entire article. very good.

[Sporkman]

Thanks for the link, I read the entire article. very good.

It's unfortunate that she had to leave the industry...

[irv]

You're a spring chicken, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage#Design_of_computers

Also very interesting.
I remember my first class in computer architects we were working on programing some trainer, (little unit that would take machine code and drop it through chips to do some basic calculations. One unit would not calculate right and we found it to have a bad chip. Because of this I learn how to repair my first computer. After that I went into the computer repair business, but I always love to program. (I always considered myself to be a software guy and a hardware guy).

[samalex]

Nice! The year I was born Woz created the Apple I and Gary Kildall developed CP/M.

[nothingspecial]

Hey Irv, you might like to read about this bloke

http://www.turing.org.uk/

Without wishing to start something about sexuality, surely this man needs to be recognised by the British powers that be, as one of the greatest men of his time.

[beew]

Hey Irv, you might like to read about this bloke

http://www.turing.org.uk/

Without wishing to start something about sexuality, surely this man needs to be recognised by the British powers that be, as one of the greatest men of his time.

Agreed. Andrew Hodges (a physicist, also gay) wrote a beautiful biography for Turing. Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Alan-Turing-Enigma-Andrew-Hodges/dp/0802775802

[irv]

Hey Irv, you might like to read about this bloke

http://www.turing.org.uk/

Without wishing to start something about sexuality, surely this man needs to be recognised by the British powers that be, as one of the greatest men of his time.
Agreed: This is not to be a war. Men from all over the world were thinking from a mathematical standpoint to a degree of computations, (computers). I think a quote from a link off this page says it best:

Turing Machines Today
It is now almost impossible to read Turing's 1936 work without thinking of a Turing machine as a computer program, and the Universal Turing Machine as the computer on which different programs can be run. (If it seems puzzling that a Universal Turing Machine is itself only a particular kind of Turing machine, remember that a computer can be emulated as a program on another computer.)

We are now so familiar with the idea of the computer as a fixed piece of hardware, requiring only fresh software to make it do entirely different things, that it is hard to imagine the world without it.

But Turing imagined the Universal Turing Machine ten years before it could be implemented in electronics.

Now you can use your computer to simulate the working of a Turing machine, and so see on the screen what in 1936 was only possible in Turing's imagination. This is no accident! — the whole point is that the computer embodies the principle of a Universal Turing machine, which can simulate any Turing machine. It was also essential to Turing's 1936 work that a Turing machine could be thought of as data to be read and manipulated by another Turing machine — this is the principle of the modifiable stored program on which all computing now depends.
Thanks for adding it to this thread.

[KiwiNZ]

Reminder; please keep discussion concerning politics, politically related topics and sexual orientation out of this thread. Refer the rules for the Cafe and the COC.

Thank you

[nothingspecial]

Reminder; please keep discussion concerning politics, politically related topics and sexual orientation out of this thread. Refer the rules for the Cafe and the COC.

Thank you

Sorry

[Rasa1111]

Cool thread!
cool links! :)

Very interesting.

I was just looking at my year of birth, on this page~http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1980

IBM announces its "DASD"

and price at time of introduction ranged from $81,000 to $142,200. The base model stored 2.5 GB of data, later models extended this to 20GB.

lol, wow!
$81,000 for 2.5 GB!

Man,If only my time machine worked..
I would take my 2+ TB's of storage back to 1980 and sell it for trillions! :lol:

Many thanks. <3

[pi3.1415926535...]

Cool thread!
cool links! :)

Very interesting.

I was just looking at my year of birth, on this page~http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/?year=1980

IBM announces its "DASD"


lol, wow!
$81,000 for 2.5 GB!

Man,If only my time machine worked..
I would take my 2+ TB's of storage back to 1980 and sell it for trillions! :lol:

Many thanks. <3

Though imagine trying to transfer 2tb of data over the connectors that would be available then.

[Rasa1111]

Though imagine trying to transfer 2tb of data over the connectors that would be available then.

oh jeez,
you are right..
I could go back to 1980, sell the 2TB's,
watch them connect it to a machine, and come back to 2011,
and it still wouldn't be done transferring to their machine...

:lol:

dang..

maybe i should take a laptop with me? lol :P

even my old thinkpad 600E would be a killer machine to them!
it's only 13 years old now. :lol:

[irv]

I cleaned out my shed about a year ago and I found some old computer magazines and I remember seeing an ad for a 4k computer and it was over $700. and it didn't even come with a monitor. You did get the keyboard but they didn't use a mouse yet. It was all text no GUI. I can't remember what kind it was.

[Dustin2128]

Linux is older than me...

[irv]

Linux is older than me...

And my wife tell me I am older than dirt.