distributed
Who invented the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination?
This year, personal computers turn 33 years old. And how many miracles for this short period created boxes, the necessity of which even their creators, IBM engineers doubted!
In the early 1980s, the company sold large computers (mainframes) to large customers: government, military, universities, research centers, large corporations. The orders were huge, the money from them went big. What is there to think about trifles, about some personal computers there! Is it possible to use them as smart terminals for mainframes? In 1975, the 5100 model computer was released, which was quite suitable for one person to work on it. It was a desktop, with a built-in black and white monitor, with a keyboard and a tape drive. A good candidate for personal computers, if not for the price – 20 thousand Continue reading
How much did the first personal computer cost?
I must say that April 1 was a suitable day for the birth of a company that was going to do business at that time not at all serious, namely the sale of personal computers. In 1976, in the United States, this business seemed highly dubious. Who could be interested in personal computers at that time? Only crazy hams. For them, parts were sold in the store, from which the Altair 8800 home computer could be assembled without special difficulties. Those who did not want to bother with a soldering iron and with a setting could ask the seller in the store to assemble it for a small additional fee. A home computer could be connected to a TV and, paying for an additional communication unit, to a household cassette recorder. What to do next? No one knew. So the founders of the Apple company, the famous Steve Jobs (1955−2011) and the now less known Steve Wozniak, not only two namesakes, but also two friends, decided to take up a clearly unsuccessful business. Fools! Stupid kids! Continue reading
What is a “computer generation”? Generation 1: Tube
In our era of multiprocessing and distributed computing, the once seemingly important division of computers into generations has already been forgotten a little. The first generation is tube computers, the second is transistor computers, the third is integrated circuit computers, and the fourth is microprocessor-based computers.
In the beginning there were ferrite rings and electron tubes. The direct access memory, or RAM, which was called RAM (the random access memory, or simply “memory”) as a girl, consisted of ferrite rings. Each ring was stitched with several windings. The write current went along one, the read current on the Continue reading
