Title: A Very Short History of Computing, Microprocessors and Microcontrollers A selection of slides on just a few key events in early computing history
1A Very Short History of Computing,
Microprocessors and MicrocontrollersA selection
of slides on just a few key events in early
computing history
-
- Sandra I. Woolley
- Electronic, Electrical and Computer Engineering
2The Worlds First Computer Colossus
- Colossus was built at Bletchley Park during WWII.
- http//www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
- Bletchley Park was a major code-breaking site.
Alan Turing and others worked on cracking the
German Engima machine codes. - Colossus was built to decipher the Enigma codes.
- Bletchley Park is open today as a museum. It
includes a computer museum and a working replica
of Colossus.
Top the Colossus computer, Bottom left Bletchley
Park and Bottom right an Enigma
machine. http//www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
3Computing at Manchester after WWIIMark I
- The University of Manchester made a considerable
contribution to the development of computing.
They produced the first stored program computer,
the first floating point machine, the first
transistor computer and the first computer to use
virtual memory.
Right Images of Mark 1 the computer built at
Manchester University after WWII Above Kilburn
and Williams at the Manchester Mark 1 Console
http//www.computer50.org/kgill/index.html
4Electrical EngineeringManchester University 1950
Professor F.C. Williams
Tommy Kilburn
5The First Computer Program
6The First Department of Computer Science
- Tommy Kilburn went on to set up a new Department
of Computer Science at Manchester, with 12 staff. - The new department was housed in a different
building. - The preparation of a new syllabus was of course a
major undertaking. - In October 1965 the first intake of 30 first year
students arrived.
1948 Professor Tommy Kilburn 1998 http//www.compu
ter50.org/kgill/index.html
7ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Computer) U.S. Army Computer _at_ University of
Pennsylvania
- ENIAC contained approximately 18,000 vacuum
tubes, 70,000 resistors, 10,000 capacitors, and
6,000 switches. - It was 100 feet long, 10 feet high, and 3 deep.
It consumed 140 kilowatts of power.
8ENIAC on a Chip ENIAC-on-a-ChipMoore School of
Electrical Engineering, University of
Pennsylvaniahttp//www.ee.upenn.edu/jan/eniacpro
j.html
Size 7.44mm x 5.29mm 174,569 transistors 0.5
um CMOS technology (triple metal layer).
9The Transistor
- John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley discovered the transistor effect and
developed the first device in December 1947,
while the three were members of the technical
staff at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ.
They were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in
1956. - Developed as a replacement for bulky and
inefficient vacuum tubes and mechanical relays,
the transistor later revolutionized the entire
electronics world.
10Intel
- 1950's Shockley leaves Bell Labs to establish
Shockley Labs in California. Some of the best
young electronic engineers and solid-state
physicists come to work with him. These include
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore. - 1969 Intel was a tiny start-up company in Santa
Clara, headed by Noyce and Moore. - 1970 Busicom placed an order with Intel for
custom calculator chips. Intel had no experience
of custom-chip design and sets outs to design a
general-purpose solution. - 1971 Intel have problems translating
architectures into working chip designs - the
project runs late. - Faggin joins Intel and solves the problems in
weeks. - The result is the Intel 4000 family (later
renamed MCS-4, Microcomputer System 4-bit),
comprising the 4001 (2k ROM), the 4002 (320-bit
RAM), the 4003 (10-bit I/O shift-register) and
the 4004, a 4-bit CPU.
11Intel 4004
- Introduced in 1971, the Intel 4004
"Computer-on-a-Chip" was a2300 transistor device
capable of performing 60,000 operations
persecond. - It was the first-ever single-chip microprocessor
and had approximatelythe same performance as the
18,000 vacuum tube ENIAC. The 4-bitIntel C4004
ran at a Clock Speed of 108 KiloHertz.
12The Intel 4004
- Federico Faggin designed the Intel 4004
processor. His initials were printed on the
circuit.
13The Busicom Calculator
- The Busicom calculator used five Intel 4001s,
two 4002s, three 4003s and the 4004 CPU
The original engineering prototype of the
Busicom desk-top printing calculator, the worlds
first commercial product to use a
microprocessor. http//www.computerhistory.org/exh
ibits/highlights/busicom.shtml
14Intel 8008
- 1972 Faggin begins work on an 8-bit processor,
the Intel 8008. The prototype has serious
problems with electrical charge leaking out of
its memory circuits. Device physics, circuit
design and layout are important new skills. The
8008 chip layout is completely redesigned and the
chip is released. - There is a sudden surge in microprocessor
interest. - Intel's 8008 is well-received, but system
designers want increased speed, easier
interfacing, and more I/O and instructions. The
improved version, produced by Faggin, is the
8080. - Faggin leaves Intel to start his own company
Zilog, who later produce the Z80.
15Federico Faggin Zilog
- Zilog produced the 3.5MHz Zilog Z80 (a very
popular processor taught in many universities) - and, later, a 16-bit Z8000. Another great
design but Zilog struggled to provide good
support, they were a new and inexperienced
company and had only a few hundred employees at
this time Intel had over 10 thousand.
16The Zilog Z80
- The Z80 microprocessor is an 8 bit CPU with a 16
bit address bus capable of direct access of 64k
of memory space. - It was based on the 8080 it has a large
instruction set. - Programming features include an accumulator and
six eight bit registers that can be paired as
3-16 bit registers. In addition to the general
registers, a stack-pointer, program-counter, and
two index (memory pointers) registers are
provided. - It had a 40 pin DIP package manufactured in A, B,
and C models, differing only in maximum clock
speed. It was also manufactured as a stand-alone
microcontroller with various configurations of
on-chip RAM and EPROM. - It proves useful for low cost control
applications.
17Early Microcontrollers
- 1974 Motorola (originally car radio
manufacturers) had introduced transistors in the
1950s and decided to make a late but serious
effort in the microprocessor market. They
announced their 8-bit 6800 processor. Though
bulky, and fraught with production problems,
their 6800 had a good design. - 1975 General Motors approach Motorola about a
custom-built derivative of the 6800. Motorola's
long experience with automobile manufacturers
pays off and Ford follow GM's lead. - 1976 Intel introduce an 8-bit microcontroller,
the MCS-48. They ship 251,000 in this year. - 1980 Intel introduce the 8051, an 8-bit
microcontroller with on-board EPROM memory. They
ship 22 million and 91 million in 1983.
18Early Computer Games
- 1972 The video game industry gets underway as
Nolan Bushnell starts his own company, Syzygy,
later renamed ATARI. - Bushnell had studied the first 8-bit
microprocessors and uses them to duplicate an
arcade version of the computer games he had used
on his University's computers. - His first attempt at a video game, Computer
Space, is 'too complicated' and fails. In his
next attempt he decides to "build a game so
mindless and self-evident that a monkey or its
equivalent (a drunk in a bar) could instantly
understand it". - Depressingly, PONG, the electronic equivalent of
Ping-Pong, was a great success.
Computer Space the first arcade video game
19Early Computers
- 1975 An advert in Popular Electronics describes
an 800 ready-to-build computer kit based on the
Intel 8080. At this time the smallest commercial
computers are selling for 30,000. - Steve Wozniak builds a computer in his garage
with a 20 8-bit processor from MOS Tech. Inc.
(absorbed by Commodore in 1977). This was the
prototype for the Apple 1. - 1978 Intel announces the 16 bit, 16-bit bus
8086, based on the 8080 it has 10 times the
performance.
20The Intel 8086
- 29,000 Transistors
- Clock Speeds 5, 8 and 10 MHz
- Introduced June 8,1978
- Approx. 10 times the performance of the 8080
21Early Computers
- 1979 Motorola also announce a 16-bit 68000.
Indisputably, the best microprocessor on the
market. It would be used in the Apple Macintosh
launched in 1984. - Intel look seriously at the competition (Motorola
and Zilog) and implement 'Operation CRUSH' - a
huge campaign with a focused and trained work
force providing customer support, complete
solutions and long-term product support. - CRUSH proves an excellent strategy and the 8086
becomes the de facto standard. This success
helps finance additions to their product range,
one of which is the bus width reduced 8088, a
16-bit (8-bit bus) microprocessor.
The early Apple Macintosh
22The IBM PC
- 1981 IBM, having seen Apple's success recognise
a new personal computer market. They choose
Intel over Motorola and Zilog (and their own
proprietary processors) because of Intel's
long-term commitment to the 8086 line. - IBM selects the Intel 8088 for their PC,
introduced in August. - Intel bring out the 16-bit 80286 for the IBM PC
AT but it has weaknesses, most notably in virtual
memory support. The newest 'killer' application
software, Microsoft Windows, needs a more
powerful processor. - IBMs service to the computer industry was to
make the PC 'open', this meant clone makers could
compete with IBM-compatible PCs. New companies
such as Compaq and Dell (both from Texas) fare
well, as do South Korea's Leading Edge and
Taiwan's Acer who produce PCs with AT performance
at half the price. - 1985 Intel announce the 80386 a 32-bit
microprocessor, of 275,000 transistors. It was
the world's best performing processor at this
time. - 1986 Compaq are the first company to bring out a
386 PC. IBM's 386 PC, the PS/2, does not come
out for another year.
23Moores Law
- Dr. Gordon E. Moore co-founded Intel in 1968.
- His observation that number of transistors
doubled every 2 years became known as Moores
Law
24Transistors per Processor
Moore's original paper http//www.intel.com/resea
rch/silicon/moorespaper.pdf
25More at ... Microprocessor history
http//www.eee.bham.ac.uk/woolleysi/teaching/micr
ohistory.htm
and further reading The Microprocessor - A
Biography, Mike MALONE, Springer-Verlag 1995,
0-387-94342-0 Sandra Woolley Electronic,
Electrical and Computer Engineering
26A Quick QuizSome questions for you to try
- What was the name of the worlds first computer
and what was it designed to do? - What was the microprocessor used in the first IBM
PC? - How did it differ from the 8008?
- Why did Intel succeed in the PC market when the
competition was better? - Why did car manufacturers prefer Motorola?
- What were the names of the 8-bit and 16-bit
Motorola and Zilog processors? (4 names required) - Who started ATARI and what was the name of the
first successful game? - Who beat IBM with the 1st 386 PC on the market?