Who really invented the personal computer?

IBM Corporation will hold its 100th anniversary this year. And to do that, IBM has released a lecture video about the company's development history which contains a controversial information that IBM has created personal computers.

" It's a remarkable breakthrough, not about a chip or anything else, it's an integration of those things, " explains Bernie Meyerson, IBM's vice president (VP). prefer. " What IBM has done has changed history and something we all are familiar with, we invented the personal computer ."

That is the full quote. Clearly, Meyerson did not have time to talk more about this assertion, and so the presentation quickly turned to the topic of recalling IBM related products such as typewriters, magnetic cards and barcodes. Unclear information about personal computers has received the attention of technology journalist Robert X. Cringley and an army of tech bloggers.

Who really invented the personal computer? Picture 1

"IBM didn't invent personal computers but they didn't know it ," Cringley wrote on his blog title. "This confession cannot be punished. Among IBM's important events, the director completely forgot to mention that the company had helped the Nazis before."

So what is the truth about IBM inventing a personal computer?

Only true in certain contexts

That last quote refers to the revelations contained in Edwin Black's IBM and Holocaust books. But we will focus more on the question. Who actually invented the computer? The best answer was found in Professor Paul E. Cerruzi's research on Modern Computer History.

Henry Edward Roberts, who designed the Altair 8800 computer, " deserves to be the inventor of the personal computer, " Cerruzi said. " Although Roberts' invention was only meaningful in the previous context, he really deserved that title."

But Cerruzi's book also explores another important topic proposed by his review. Computers, like almost all other important achievements, were invented by many people. Follow the stories in each chapter of the book on personal computers to feel the complexity that this device has created.

Spacewar and PDP-10

" Whether it's ready or not, the computer is reaching out to everyone , " Stewart Brand wrote in Rolling Stone in 1972. " That's good news ." Brand wrote very long comments after watching the technical staff of Stanford's artificial intelligence lab playing Spacewar on Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10 computer.

PDP-10 is a big machine that costs about $ 500,000. This is the device used for ARPANET, the forerunner of modern Internet.

PDP-10 has also done a lot more than previous machines in terms of convenience and cost. And thanks to the innovation of a time-sharing multitasking system (in microseconds), hundreds of developers can share a large system simultaneously. PDP has created a new experience.

" In all of the first time-sharing systems, PDP-10 created a virtual partition so that each user could fully utilize the computer's resources, " Cerruzi wrote. " That virtual partition created the model of computing."

In addition, the computer's TOPS-10 operating system also allows users to perform data storage on the terminal. This also gives the " virtual partition " developers that they control the fish on the computer.

Calculator

The handheld computing devices in the early 70s also made the appearance of personal computers more realistic. They use sophisticated integrated circuits. In the beginning, Hewlett-Packard and Olivetti pocket calculators cost less than $ 5,000 and $ 3,000 respectively. Bowmar has rocked the 1971 Christmas market with Bowmar Brain for only $ 250.

From this point on, pocket computers are cheaper and more powerful. They cost $ 50 in 1976. More expensive types can perform calculations such as complex logarithms and trigonometry. " Within a few years they were placed on the museum's mechanical computer shelf, " Cerruzi wrote.

The calculator is also programmable. In the 1970s, I remember that my father (the author of the article), an electrical engineer, bought a relatively expensive device that if you correctly entered numbers, letters or commands Enter, you can play a simple game. What I didn't realize at the time was that I wrote a computer program. Unfortunately, these codes cannot be compiled and therefore they need to be recreated every time I want to play.

Pocket PC also has many users like PC. Cerruzi found that: "The number of users increased as the price of the calculator dropped, which is the first sign that personal computers are a mass phenomenon . "

Processor

That is creating an integrated device that brings all the functions of the computer's central processing unit (CPU) into a single chip. Ten years before the invention of the computer, an Intel founder found that improvements came from bundling multiple circuit boards into a single integrated circuit.

Intel has pioneered its processor for a Japanese computer company. The company gave this responsibility to Marcian E. Hoff. Inspired by the PDP-8, a "mini-computer ", Hoff found that working with fewer chips would be better. Subprocesses will perform tasks (ROM, RAM, I / O) and return the main program. Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Federico Faggin of Intel have been certified with "System memory for a multi-chip digital computer" (Memory System for a Multi-Chip Digital Computer) for this invention.

Currently, all possibilities and concepts are clearly established. Altair has two predecessors. In 1973, Thi T. Truong, a French businessman, announced MICRAL for 2000 USD. But his company never saw the commercial potential for this device, and sold it primarily for industrial purposes.

Intel also provides software to write new code for its processor. The company hired a California teacher, GaryKilldall to write PL / M language for Intellec-8 Development system. With this, Intel " actually invented a personal computer," Cerruzi wrote. "But the company didn't realize it. "

Amateurs have also created " home brew " systems on smaller machines. They have names like Mark-8 and TV-Typewriter. At the same time, Hewlett-Packard released a programmable calculator. It was in this context that the Altair 8800 appeared.

Less than 400 USD

Today, it's hard to imagine that the Altair 8800 is the first PC. The device has no keyboard, screen and data loss when you turn it off. But when the Altair was advertised on the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, a large number of readers quickly realized that they could adapt to this device for their needs. Intel's 8080 processor can identify more memory than the previous version and also allows for more sub-processes. Altair has also provided an activated "open bandwidth" for users to connect to storage, video display and other devices.

The first PC in the world?

The end of the popular Altair story. Although critics have identified the BASIC programming language as a " toy language " when it created bad programming (thanks to GOTO orders), Roberts chose BASIC for its simplicity. . Two students at Harvard's Computing Center wrote a version of BASIC on PDP-10, using writing techniques for Intel 8080.

One of them was William Gates, who later founded Microsoft to create software for the Altair revolution. This included a version of BASIC for a better machine, which was soon applied to Apple I.

Participation of IBM

Finally, IBM has also participated in the booming computer market. The company's personal computer was launched in 1981, and IBM quickly dispelled the idea that large size prevented innovation. IBM computers can be purchased with their word processing software and their very fast spreadsheet program is Lotus 1-2-3.

" The combination of IBM computers and Lotus 1-2-3 helped IBM overcome Apple in sales and dispel any doubts that IBM was a major competitor in the market of mainframes ( mainframe) and minicomputers "Cerruzi commented.

But let's go back to the original question: Who invented the computer? The answer is Ed Roberts but it can also be many others. At some point, it was the people who " played " Spacewar and the developers who created the time sharing system that gave birth to the PC market. Computers were driven by consumers in the era of pocket computers in the 1970s, Intel processors also did the same thing.

And when Roberts built the Altair 8800, it was proven by users. Software and hardware developers have expanded the potential of the machine.

In any case, if you know BernieMeyerson's comment literally, he is still right. After all, IBM invented the IBM computer. But there should be a deeper look at his comment. " We ", that is all those who have participated in the invention of personal computers. The PC is really " a remarkable breakthrough, not about a chip or anything else but it's a complete integration ."