New Technology 2019 L13 Rise of the Machine

Did you know that the term "Computer" once meant a profession? And what did people or computers actually do? They computed mathematical problems. Some problems were tedious and error prone. And it is not surprising that people started to develop machines to aid in the effort. The first mechanical computers were actually created to get rid of errors in human computation. Then came tabulating machines and cash registers. It was not until telephone companies were well established that computing machines became practical.

First computers were huge mainframes, but soon minicomputers like DEC’s PDP started to appear. The transistor was introduced in 1947, but its usefulness was not truly realized until in 1958 when the integrated circuit was invented. This led to the invention of the microprocessor. Intel, in 1971, marketed the 4004 – and the personal computer revolution started. One of the first Personal Computers was MITS’ Altair. This was a simple device and soon others saw the opportunities.

In this lecture we start our coverage of computing and look at some of the early machines and the impact they had.

1. LECTURE L13
RISE OF THE MACHINE

2. Keep this in Mind
Adjacent possible
The S-curve
The Law of Diffusion of Innovation
Arrogance of the Present
The Disruption of Innovation Theory
The Resources, Processes and Values Theory
The Liquid Network

3. History of Computers
History can help us explain many things
We can use our laws and theories to explain events
Computers are relatively recent and their development is
fairly fast

4. “I can assure you on the highest authority that the data
processing is a fad and won’t last out the year.”
Editor-in-charge of business books, Prentice-Hall 1957

5. Think About This!
Why are flight tickets and boarding passes in this format?

6. Think About This!
Why are flight tickets and boarding passes in this format?

8. dictionary.com

9. “I think there is a world market for maybe
five computers.”
- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 72 years ago

10. “There is no reason for any individual to have a
computer in their home.”
- Kenneth Olsen, president and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp., 1977 42 years ago

11. History
Computing is time consuming and error prone
Demands for computation were increasing 

with more organised societies
Industrial revolution and the Napoleonic

reforms
Impetus came from Government:

Taxing and Defence

12. Efforts to speed calculations started early
Use of logarithmic tables and 

trigonometry to speed calculations
The Counting Business

13. The Slide Rule by William Oughtred in 1625
Built using logarithms, multiplication of two numbers could
be done easier
a*b = 10^(log(a)+log(b))
Much quicker than manual calculation
The Counting Business

14. Early Machines
Wilhelm Schickard (1592 -1635)
German professor of Hebrew and Astronomy
University of Tüblingen, Germany
Built a calculating machine in 1620s
Documented in letters to Johannes Kepler
1623 and 24

15. Early Machines
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
French mathematician, physicist, and 

religious philosopher
Built an adding machine in1642-44
Tried to commercialize the 

machine but labor was too cheap

16. Early Machines
Wilhelm von Leibniz
(1646-1716)
German mathematician and
philosopher
Built a machine, the Leibniz
Wheel that could multiply and
divide

17. History
Workmanship for building complex machines lacked
In late eighteenth century demand for calculation was
growing
Calculations were done by hand
Tedious, slow and error-prone and tables of logarithms
were riddled with errors

18. 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862
8034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701
9385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659334461284756482337867831652712019091456
4856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925
4091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759591953092
1861173819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298336733
6244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766
9405132000568127145263560827785771342757789609173637178721468440901224953430146549585
371050792279689258923
How long does it take to compute 707
decimal places of PI?
Think About This!

20. The idea of calculating with steam was to many
impossible - machines could never take over this human
activity
Yet it did. Can you think of a task done today that will be
taken over by machine in the future?
Lecture Exercise L13 - E

21. Inventor of the Computer
Wanted to remove the
inevitable human errors from
computing
Believed that machines
could replace laborious and 

error-prone calculations
Charles Babbage (1791 – 1871)

22. A Programmable Machine - 

General purpose computer
Contained 

mill to calculate, 

store to keep data, 

and formulas
The first programmer
Augusta Ada King (1815-1852)

Countess of Lovelace

23. The Cash Register

24. The Cash Register
One of the first calculating machines developed by
James Ritty in 1879 in response to thefts by staff
“The Incorruptible Cashier”
National Cash Register Company – NCR

Tomas Watson, Sr. was salesman
Watson would later leave for 

Computing-Tabulating-Recording

25. Tabulating Machines

26. Tabulating Machines
In the US need for data processing was growing
One application was census taking
US population grew from 

17 million in 1840 to 

50 million in 1880
It took 1.495 clerks 7 years to 

produce the 1880 census

27. Source: Tabulating machine

Herman Hollerith
Tabulating Machine Company – TMC
US Census Bureau awarded Herman Hollerith a contract to
produce the 1890 census
Tabulating Machines with punched cards
Successfully finished in 2,5 years

with one-third less cost (claimed)
Tabulating Machines

28. Think About This!
Why are flight tickets and boarding passes in this format?

29. Think About This!
Why are flight tickets and boarding passes in this format?

30. Source: Tabulating machine Herman Hollerith
Used punched cards
Hollerith cards were in use until 1960s
Tabulating Machines

31. The Business of Data Processing
Even with the growing need for data processing around
1900, the market for tabulating machines was limited
CRT and TMC merged and would later

change the name to 

International Business Machines – IBM
Tabulating Machines

32. Lessons Learned: Early Computing Machines
Early machines could not compete with manual labor
The cost was not low enough to disrupt
Workmanship was lacking
Energy to power machines was not available
Computing requirement were modest until 18 th century
Babbage failed to build machines despite the resources
Babbage (or rather Ada), had the idea of a modern computer

33. Lessons Learned: Early Computing Machines
First practical calculating device was a Cash Register
Designed due to another problem: theft
Specialised problem instead of a generic one
Tabulating machines appear with the electricity
First buyers of tabulating machines were governments
Centralised

34. Electronic Brains

35. Foundation of electric computing was laid early
Mechanical computers were not considered practical
Threat of war is looming in the 1930s
Governments turn to computing for ballistic computations
Code-breaking was important
Electric Computing

36. Although electricity had entered the equation, it had
done so only as an alternative method of powering
mechanical equipment
Source: Engines that Move Markets
The Prevailing Technology Trap

38. Konrad Zuse (1910-1995)
German Engineer
Built primitive machines, Z1-Z4 based 

on relay switches in 1936 – 1944
Used binary system
Designed his own language, Plankalkül
Never received any official support from

war-time Germany unlike the Allies
P2 max (V0[:8.0],V1[:8.0]) => R0[:8.0]
V0[:8.0] => Z1[:8.0]
(Z1[:8.0] < V1[:8.0]) -> V1[:8.0] => Z1[:8.0]
Z1[:8.0] => R0[:8.0]
END
Source: Konrad Zuse
Early Work

41. Location of top-secret code-breaking team
Code-breaking the German coding machine ENIGMA
Bletchley Park

42. Source: Alan Turing, COLOSSUS, Enigma
English mathematician, logician and
cryptographer
Headed team at Bletchley Park, worked on
algorithms to break the ENIGMA code
Bombe Computer based on heuristics, lead

to COLOSSUS
Publishes paper in 1936: On Computable
Numbers
Alan Turing

43. Source: COLOSSUS
COLOSSUS
Used by British code breakers to read encrypted German
ENIGMA messages during World War II
Winston Churchill specifically ordered the destruction of 

most of the Colossus machines into 

“pieces no bigger than a man's hand”
War Machines

44. Source: EINIAC
ENIAC — Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
Built by the U.S. Army for the purpose of calculating
ballistic firing tables
Used 18.000 vacuum tubes
Designed by John Mauchly and 

J. Presper Eckert
The machine was unveiled in 1946 

and was in operation until 1955
War Machines

46. John von Neumann, Von Neumann architecture
Hungarian mathematician
Worked on the Manhattan project and
became involved in Moore’s School ENIAC
and EDVAC projects
Publishes On computer design, 1945
Von Neumann architecture
John von Neumann

47. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Post-war computers
Based on vacuum tubes

48. Commercial Computer
5,200 vacuum tubes, weighed 13 tons, consumed 125 kW,
and could perform about 1,905 operations per second
running on a 2.25 MHz clock
Occupied more than 35.5 m²

of floor space
The addition time was 525 

microseconds
Source: Model of UNIVAC I, c. 1954.

Picture from Smithsonian Institution
UNIVAC I

49. United States presidential election of 1952
Eisenhower vs. Stevenson

51. Transistor Era

52. Device use to amplify or switch electronic signals
Huge performance improvement
Smaller
Less energy
More robust
Faster
Transistor

53. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Computers became

faster, larger and more
powerful

55. Source: Tyranny of Numbers, Transistor Computer
Computer Engineers have much more flexibility with
transistors
Problem was that as the number of components 

increased, wiring them together became a problem
Tyranny of Numbers

56. The Integrated circuit

57. Copyright © 2011 Ólafur Andri Ragnarsson
Source: Integrated circuit
Introduced in 1958 by two inventors
Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor
and Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments
Transistors could be wired 

together in practical way
Mass manufacturing of ICs
The Invention of the Integrated Circuit

58. Two inventors at the same time invented
the IC
Because the time had come and all the
enabling technologies were available
Silicon Wally becomes the technology
center of the world
Adjacent possible

59. Competition Emerges
The Computer Market is born
The main application is data processing (business
applications like payroll, inventory etc.)
IBM enters the computer business
Tomas Watson, Jr. launched

IBM System/360 in 1964
Systematically replaced 

data processing machines

with mainframe computers

60. In the 1950s Automation Starts

61. Automation – Computers begin to disrupt work
Start to replace jobs
Banks and insurance companies were early adopters
Handling paycheques, payroll that used to require many
clerks to compute
Automation

62. Source: Desk Set (from IMDB)
Hollywood took notice
Desk Set from 1957 with 

Spencer Tracey and

Katherine Hepburn
Automation

64. Lessons Learned: Early Computing Machines
Electricity was key to computers — switching
technologies
First electric computers were primitive, fragile and low
performance
Centralisation — First computers were in centers
Expensive, large, run by experts – Priests

65. Lessons Learned: Early Computing Machines
Giant “Brains”
Association with human thought
Automation – Disruption
Companies need fewer clerks to compute
Tedious jobs eliminated
Big debate – computer executive had to defend the
existence of their machines
Abstractions few
Programs were wired in

66. Computers in the 1970s

67. The Disruptive Innovation
Theory
The Resources,
Processes, and Values
Theory
Think About This!

68. IBM 704
IBM System/360
Large computers in data
centres
Batch operations
Critical applications
Financial transaction
processing
Mainframes

69. Computers were expensive to purchase and maintain
To make it efficient required multiple users
Large data centres
Utility Computing
Time-sharing of expensive

equipment
Time-sharing

70. Cost of computers went down
Computers became faster, smaller and cheaper
In that changing environment, normal economics
did not apply
Moore’s Law

71. Cost for new entrants in the computer business was
prohibitive in the 60s
Market for those that did not need complete solution but
could benefit from using computes
Birth of the Minicomputers
Minicomputers

72. The academic community embraced the opportunity of
minicomputers
Militaries were also early users of minicomputers
Minicomputers

73. Founded in 1957 by Ken Olsen
Launched PDP-1 in 1960
The PDP-8 was the first successful 

commercial minicomputer – 1965
Used integrated circuits
Time-sharing allowed multiple 

users to use the machines at the 

same time
Digital Equipment Corporation

74. Digital used relatively simple,
convenient, low-cost innovation to
create growth and disrupt IBM
The Disruptive Innovation Theory

75. IBM Was a mainframe company, their customers
wanted mainframes, not low-performance
minicomputers
The Resources, Processes, and Values Theory
Although IBM/360 Model 20 was later consider to
have the same characteristics as minicomputers

76. Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma
Lessons: Mainframes to Mini computers
IBM, industry’s first leader, sold mainframe computers to the
central accounting and data processing departments of large
organizations
The emergence of the minicomputer represented disruptive
technology to IBM and competitors
Their customers had no use for it: it promised lower, not higher
margins
As a result the mainframe makers ignored it for years

77. Clayton M. Christensen: The Innovator’s Dilemma
This allowed new entrants: DEC, Data General, Prime,
Wang and Nixdorf – to create and dominate the
minicomputer market
IBM entered the minicomputer market when it was
performance competitive to the needs of their customers
The history repeated itself
Lessons: Mainframes to Mini computers

80. May 25, 1961
Status:
Mainframe era, minicomputer early days
Transistor era, integrated circuits just invented
Programming languages new

81. “The space program badly needed the things the
integrated circuit could provide.”
- Jack St. Clair Kilby

82. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore founded Intel
Semiconductor company
Initial focus was on memory chips
There was still enormous potential market for calculations
The vision of Charles Babbage was still not realized but the
mainframe market met the needs of governments and large
organisations
Semiconductor Industry is Born

83. Intel introduced the first microprocessor 4004 in 1971
8008 in 1972, 8080 in 1974 and 8088 in 1979
The beginning of the PC
The Microprocessor

84. Intel was really reluctant to go into the microchip business
No market existed
No demand at the time
Intel created 4004 for another company
They would not market chips, but built them when ordered
The company cancelled the order and Intel was forced to
offer them for sale
The Microprocessor

85. The Calculator

86. Advances in technology introduced the 

desktop calculator
The market grew fast
With advances, the calculators became more powerful
and smaller
Pocket calculators Became widespread in the 70s
Replaced the slide rule after 374 years
The Calculator

87. Many companies start to make Calculators
Casio, Sharp, Canon, HP, MITS and more
In Europe, Aristo, Denner & Pape, a slide rule
manufacturer since 1872, also entered the market in 1972
Price dropped fast: $400 in 1972, $200, $100 and $50 in
1974
Companies like MITS need to find new ways of revenues
Calculator Wars

88. Think about this!
All minicomputer companies had the opportunity to use
microchips and build scale products – they even had
people proposing the idea, but they did not!
Left the field open…
Think About This!

89. The Personal Computer

90. MITS marketed Altair in 1975
Came with Intel 8080
Users needed to assemble the machine themselves
No keyboard, no screen, no printer
256 byte of RAM, programmed with switches
Included BASIC interpreter from Microsoft
Written by Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Cost of $397 appealed to computer enthusiasts
The Personal Computer

91. Microsoft is Born
Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Wrote a BASIC interpreter for the Altair
Founded a company they called Micro-Soft
Microsoft is founded 1975

92. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak
Show the Apple I in the Palo Alto Homebrew
Computer Club in 1976
Apple II was marketed 1977 and became 

a huge success - “Apple growth”
Hewlett-Packard had turn 

Wozniak down – no market
Apple is founded 1976

93. “The Personal Computer will fall flat on its face in business.”
- Ken Olsen

94. Existing computer companies were not interested in PCs
DEC, HP, IBM, and Control Data did not see a business model
HP rejected a proposal from Steve Wozniak
DEC rejected a proposal from David Ahl
Support for machines like this was considered impossible
Computer Companies
Consequence: The development of the PC had to begin with
hobbyists and new entrants to the market

96. The Liquid Network
Think About This!

97. Assignment 3 due this Sunday
L14 From the Internet to the Blockchain
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