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==first draft==
==Philosophy==
I've copied this initial stuff out of [[Computers]] into here.  It may seem a bit incomplete or awkward for now, but it's essential to reduce the size of the top-level Computer article.  Someone please take this and own it![[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 15:23, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
Thanks to [[User:Robert_W_King|Robert_King]] for helping me develop an initial draft of this page.  What do people think of this as an approach for this page?[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 18:53, 24 September 2007 (CDT)  
 
:I'll assume the helm, lieutenant.  Stand down! --[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 15:28, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 
::Thank you!  It's a big job.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 18:47, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 
:::I'm considering blanking the whole article and starting over.  Any objection?  The wikipedia entry was/is such a mess to sort through.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 13:08, 24 April 2007 (CDT)
 
I am totally re-writing the article with more completeness, so it doesn't look like a long essay.  In fact it almost looks like the original wikipedia version came from someone's term paper.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 13:55, 24 April 2007 (CDT)
 
==more source material?==
There might be some useful source material in [[Talk:Computer/Applications|this archive]].[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 18:46, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 
==suggestions for structure==
It might be helpful to cover each previous century separately, and then in 20th century have a section for each decade.  Or something.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 18:48, 23 April 2007 (CDT)
 
==brainstormed list of items to include==
Please add to this list anyone you think might ought to be included somewhere; we can mark them off once dealt with.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 09:29, 11 May 2007 (CDT)
 
::now trying to start categorizing the list (I will strike items as soon as they are incorporated in the article, or a group decision has been make never to incorporate them)[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 11:11, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
 
Pioneering people:
* <s>Charles Baggage</s> ADDED TO ARTICLE
* <s>Eniac (and its inventors)</s> PLACEHOLDER ADDED TO ARTICLE
* <s>Grace Hopper - compilers</s> MOVED TO [[List of people who made conceptual breakthroughs in computer science]]
* <s>Dan Bricklin - first spreadsheet</s> MOVED TO [[List of people who made conceptual breakthroughs in computer science]]
* Bill Gates - DOS and Windows
* <s>Alan Turing - key computational theorist</s> MOVED TO [[List of people who made conceptual breakthroughs in computer science]]
* John Von Neumann - influential mathematician working on early computers
* <s>Claude Shannon - first associated boolean algebra with hardware switching algebra</s> MOVED TO [[List of people who made conceptual breakthroughs in computer science]]
 
Early machines:
* <s>Eniac</s> - important early machine ADDED TO ARTICLE
* <s>Edvac</s> - important early machine ADDED TO ARTICLE
* <s>Colossus</s> - important early machine ADDED TO ARTICLE
 
Industry things:
* DARPA, IETF and RFC's - led to invention of networks
* Turing awards - as important in computing as, say, Nobel is is physics
* [[Apple_Inc.]], [[Burroughs Corporation]], [[IBM]], Minneapolis-[[Honeywell]] (Honeywell Labs), [[RCA]], [[Sperry Rand]], [[Sylvania Electric Products]], [[Microsoft]], Tandy Radio Shack, DEC, etc. (but where do we stop? do we go on to include Sun, Oracle, SAP, Google and the newer ''big'' players?)
* key de facto standards (where the marketplace voted in a good idea)
* official standards bodies, and their role and key standards
* the internet (a diametrically opposed way of doing telecom and everything else; culturally very different than telecom) - some articles already started
 
Software evolution:
* Unix, Multics, Mac OS X, Windows, Linux
* first spreadsheet - now, what was that guy's name?
* operating system evolution (pointing off to many other articles)
* programming language evolution (pointing off to many other articles)
* cryptography
* security
* advanced software such as AI and machine learning applications (many people don't even know these things exist, or can be done, but they are becoming important in stock market, military, security etc.)
* codecs (a branch of mathematics) leading to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), or digital streaming media communications standards.
 
Computer design evolution:
* batch processing to multi processing to multi threading
* memory management, especially virtual memory
* character sets
* processing speedups (maybe belong in computer architecture?)
* changing memory technologies (mix of hardware and software, very complex)


Personal computing: (several articles already exist, though their variety and structure is still in flux)
* Because "History of computing" is a potentially enormous topic, I'd like to organize this article in chronological order, with a bullet list under the main headings.  ''(NOTE: I'm trying to illustrate this starting with the earliest items in the article, and will work on converting the existing material to this form when I can.  This takes time, as new "starter" articles need to be created.)''
* invention of single-chip microprocessor
* Each bullet item should be only a few sentences long, pointing off to a longer article on the topic discussed.  Limit: one paragraph per item.
* CP-M, Commodore, Tandy Radio Shack
* Ideally, each bullet item should include one key reference (so that, eventually, there will be a decent bibliography for each item listed).
* For now, I'd like to suspend decisions about whether a bullet item "deserves" to be on the list.  Instead, please register any comments on this page.  We will then seek expert oversight to help make longterm decisions about what "makes the list" or doesn't make the list.


Special computers:
: Is there any value in having a section on the future of computing and/or the tie-in from science fiction's view of computers to what has come about?  [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]] 15:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
* Nasa's computers for the Apollo moon voyages
* supercomputers (Cray etc)
* embedded computer and gadgets
* telecom and fiberoptic communications (an entire specialized industry based almost solely on special computers, realtime software, and some specialized hardware)


Everything not fitting somewhere else:
::As a guy who used read an enormous amount of SF (and write some), I would be interested in tie-ins between the fictionalized visions and the reality -- it might have to be another article, although not necessarily so. Just off the top of my head, I can think of novels that were essentially about computers: Heinlein's ''Moon Is a Harsh Mistress''; Frank Herbert's novel about a spaceship in trouble in which the crew spends the whole book (very tediously indeed) fixing the computer, only to discover that they have created God (or a god); the ''Forbin'' or ''Colossus'' series, I forget who wrote the books; HAL, of course, in ''2001''; ''Harley Is Four'', I think, and many others. [[User:Hayford Peirce|Hayford Peirce]] 18:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


:::''When H.A.R.L.I.E. was One''' (Human Analog Robot, Life Information Equivalent, from my wetware RAM) had the first discussion I ever read of a computer virus, which was called that, although it would be closer to a worm in today's technology. Harlie, David's son, does justify his existence by writing a proposal for a Graphic Omniscient Device (note acronym). It does raise a problem that I believe we will someday face: can you shut off a self-aware computer?


:::RAH's ''Starman Jones'' had computers as a center point, but it totally missed how they would be built; it was not much more than an early desktop calculator. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 01:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


:I confess, I have been seriously slacking on this article.  There's a lot more to be worked in of course, and I'll try to get into it more today and the following week.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 09:15, 11 May 2007 (CDT)
:: Those, plus a number of interesting ones by James P. Hogan ("Thrice Upon a Time") and Joe Haldeman ("Old Twentieth" as a recent one) and "The Adolescence of P-1"  by Thomas Ryan.  So, sounds like there is enough interest in this for us to put a section in on this, too.  I do think it's good to separate fiction from reality but I also wonder if it's really necessary to make it a separate article vs. a section in this one. More thoughts?  [[User:Karl D. Schubert|Karl D. Schubert]] 15:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


::No need to feel pressure.  This is a huge topic.  Books have been written (and I own some of them) he he.  I think it will take a long time to get this one ready for prime time, but we have to start somewhere, so I'm starting the list above.  I will have a lot more to add to it.  I need to look up my old notes from when I last taught this, and we need to construct a timeline.  The timeline would then branch off into deeper articles about the invention of that thing.  That's one way it could be structured to prevent it from becoming booksized, anyway.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 09:33, 11 May 2007 (CDT)
==next steps==
::: I think a goal for this article should more or less be going from the very initial need to identify quantities of things to the concept of binary, to the development of the first digital computer and then very briefly zoom through the last 80 years or so of computing history.  I don't think every single technological landmark needs to be covered in ''this'' particular article, because I think they could be discussed at great length in another segment itself.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:10, 11 May 2007 (CDT)
I've put a bunch of placeholders for history since 1950.  Those need a SHORT paragraph with pointers off to other articles.  I've tried to hit the major trends.  In most cases, I placed an occurrence in the decade where it became mainstream, rather than the one in which research leading to it began.  I'd love to have some help filling in this stuff. Anyone?[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 01:07, 3 May 2008 (CDT)


==archive of strike-outs==
==archive of former starting paragraph==
[[User:Robert_W_King]] has struck out a number of items from the brainstorm list.  I'm going to unstrike them on grounds that this is brainstorming, and we should postpone evaluating until all the information is in. Furthermore, I don't necessarily agree with his reasons as stated on the edit notes.  The items he struck are show here:[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 07:43, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
I am saving this here in case we want to reinstate it, but I think I want to open the article differently: '''The earliest reference to the term, in 1631, comes from the French word with the same meaning, derived from the Latin word ''computare'' meaning "to count, to sum up." The word is formed from two roots: ''com-'' meaning "with", and ''+putare'' meaning "to reckon" (originally "to prune.")<ref>"compute", {{cite web|url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=compute|title=Online Etymology Dictionary|accessdate=2007-04-24}}</ref>.  According to the first definition given by the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], a '''computer''' is: "One who computes; a calculator, reckoner; spec. a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying, etc."'''[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 16:31, 3 May 2008 (CDT)


:Apologies for strikeouts; it was a bad decision on my part. --[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:05, 14 May 2007 (CDT)
==archiving hidden timeline code here==
Though it doesn't show up.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 16:33, 3 May 2008 (CDT)
<!--
Timeline temporarily removed until fixed
{|border="1" frame=box rules=none align="right"  cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="400" style="margin: 0 0 0 0; background:#e5e5e5;"
|align="center" colspan="6" width=100%|History of Computing Timeline
|-
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|<hr width=40/>
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|align="center" width=100|300 BC-500 AD
|<hr width=40/>
|align="left" colspan="3"|&nbsp;Roman Hand Abacus
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|align="center" width=100|~1200 AD
|<hr width=40/>
|align="left" colspan="3"|&nbsp;Modern Chinese Abacus
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* <s>Thomas Edison - for Edison effect, which led to triode, which became vacuum tube switch</s> Edison would be better for something like "History of the Transistor" (Pat's note: this is now covered on the [[Electronic switch#Vacuum tube]] page.)
: "Timelines" are a subpage, now, anyway... [[User:J. Noel Chiappa|J. Noel Chiappa]] 17:26, 3 May 2008 (CDT)
* <s>DARPA, IETF and RFC's - led to invention of networks</s> networks were developed after the first real "digital computer" (Pat answers: everything except the first computer was developed "after"; so what?  it is part of the history of computing; it may end up being covered by other articles and just pointed to here, but we need it as a placemarker)
:I think that networks are more or less a way to move data between nodes; is this the history of computing or the history of the computer?  I think I may have confused it.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)


* <s>the internet (a diametrically opposed way of doing telecom and everything else; culturally very different than telecom) - some articles already started</s> "History of Networks" (Pat answers: same comment as above)
==another archived bit==
:(see above)
I am removing this, for now: ''' Not all of this may be regarded as positive, however; the explosive intrusion in life of the computer in all its facets is sometimes referred to as the [[digital revolution]]<ref name="DigRef">{{cite web|url=http://web.mit.edu/transition/subs/demointro.html|title=The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy by Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn (from the introduction to Democracy and New Media, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003)|publisher=MIT Press|
year=2003|accessdate=2007-04-24}}</ref>.'''  It may have a place somewhere; I'm not sure it belongs here.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 16:54, 3 May 2008 (CDT)


* <s>operating system evolution (pointing off to many other articles)</s> Not necessarily about the development of the "computer" in the core context. (Pat answers: i'm not sure i agree.  the name here is "computing" not "computers"; OS and hardware are built to interwork very closely)
:Perhaps we need an article on [[digital Luddism]]. –[[User:Tom Morris|Tom Morris]] 04:20, 22 September 2008 (CDT)
* Apple, IBM, <s>Microsoft</s> (Software company), DEC, Burroughs etc. (but where do we stop? do we go on to include Sun, Oracle, SAP, <s>Google</s> and the newer ''big'' players?) (Pat answers: I'm not ready to exclude software from "history of computing")
* <s>security</s> Tangetal. (Pat answers: "tangential?" today's its mainstream)
:What I meant by tangetal was that although it is highly integrated into computing, I think it should get it's own topic, with a very summarized reference to that topic here.--[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)
* <s>codecs (a branch of mathematics) leading to Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP), or digital streaming media</s> communications standards (Pat answers: this is a matter for discussion; I've worked on such projects that use special signal processors, which is hardware, and also there is related software; seems like "computing" to me)
:Is the implementation of signal processing the same thing as development of a codec?  If these things are the same then it really ought to go onto a page such as "DSP" or some other type of signal processing entry. --[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)


::Please don't strike out more of the items on the list; they are just suggestions at this point and of course are subject to debate.  Instead, please register your opinions as comments below (begin with multiple colons) or new sections on the page. I assure you we will listen to your opinions.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 07:43, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
== Needs work ==
All the "Oh my", "Honey, I shrunk the music" stuff gets grating after about five seconds. I'm going to remove it. –[[User:Tom Morris|Tom Morris]] 04:20, 22 September 2008 (CDT)


==ideas on how to get started==
== Title does not fit ==
This article seems like a mission impossible.  I think the trick is to keep this article as short as possible, while also making it complete by pointing off to other articles for deep detail.  At the same time, we need a 'compelling narrative'; what a story it is.  Good luck getting started![[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 09:41, 11 May 2007 (CDT)


==reminder to coordinate with CPU article==
This article is about computers, computing machines, or automated computing, or something similar,
Some of the history of computing is currently incorporated in the [[CPU]] article.[[User:Pat Palmer|Pat Palmer]] 10:25, 12 May 2007 (CDT)
but not about "computing", as is also indicated by the definition.
It should therefore be moved to title better reflecting its content.
[[User:Peter Schmitt|Peter Schmitt]] 19:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)


== potential subtopics/directions ==
:Good point. [[User:Howard C. Berkowitz|Howard C. Berkowitz]] 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)


Since this article is "History of computing" and not "History of computers", I think it probaby ought to talk about the development of the idea of computability (Church, Turing, Gödel), and the idea of a von Neumann machine. It also might be worth talking about the development of virtual machines and microcode (and, of course, the subsequent shift towards RISC architectures as a kind of counter-movement). What I have in mind is that developments in software and operating systems have had a profound influence on direction(s) that computing has taken. I would also consider pointing out that computability theory started out trying to model notions of computation as carried out by humans, and only later became closely associated with computing devices.
== This page looks like hell ==


== Propose move to "History of computers" ==
Whatever happened to the really good rewrite and lots of hours that were put into a functional page?  There are headers without paragraphs; "personalized" topics... it looks really unprofessional.  It needs cleaning up or being moved to a personal workspace and developed that way.  It's pretty unfit for a quality article appearance, even for one short in content. [[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 04:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


Should this be about the history of computers themselves or the history of the ''use'' of computers? I think because the focus is more or less from a technological standpoint (if it is agreed that is the case) then I believe it should be renamed.  The original WP topic also seems to cover the evolution of the computer more than computing itself.  Agree/Disagree? --[[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 10:14, 14 May 2007 (CDT)
:I think you're right.  Are you ready to go to work on it! :D [[User:D. Matt Innis|D. Matt Innis]] 17:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
::I'll work on it when I finish summer classes.  I'm taking Differential Equations and Calc III and I have to pass them both with vigilance.  [[User:Robert W King|Robert W King]] 17:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 12:17, 28 July 2011

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Archive 1, 9-24-07: Talk:History_of_computing/Archive1

Philosophy

Thanks to Robert_King for helping me develop an initial draft of this page. What do people think of this as an approach for this page?Pat Palmer 18:53, 24 September 2007 (CDT)

  • Because "History of computing" is a potentially enormous topic, I'd like to organize this article in chronological order, with a bullet list under the main headings. (NOTE: I'm trying to illustrate this starting with the earliest items in the article, and will work on converting the existing material to this form when I can. This takes time, as new "starter" articles need to be created.)
  • Each bullet item should be only a few sentences long, pointing off to a longer article on the topic discussed. Limit: one paragraph per item.
  • Ideally, each bullet item should include one key reference (so that, eventually, there will be a decent bibliography for each item listed).
  • For now, I'd like to suspend decisions about whether a bullet item "deserves" to be on the list. Instead, please register any comments on this page. We will then seek expert oversight to help make longterm decisions about what "makes the list" or doesn't make the list.
Is there any value in having a section on the future of computing and/or the tie-in from science fiction's view of computers to what has come about? Karl D. Schubert 15:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
As a guy who used read an enormous amount of SF (and write some), I would be interested in tie-ins between the fictionalized visions and the reality -- it might have to be another article, although not necessarily so. Just off the top of my head, I can think of novels that were essentially about computers: Heinlein's Moon Is a Harsh Mistress; Frank Herbert's novel about a spaceship in trouble in which the crew spends the whole book (very tediously indeed) fixing the computer, only to discover that they have created God (or a god); the Forbin or Colossus series, I forget who wrote the books; HAL, of course, in 2001; Harley Is Four, I think, and many others. Hayford Peirce 18:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
When H.A.R.L.I.E. was One' (Human Analog Robot, Life Information Equivalent, from my wetware RAM) had the first discussion I ever read of a computer virus, which was called that, although it would be closer to a worm in today's technology. Harlie, David's son, does justify his existence by writing a proposal for a Graphic Omniscient Device (note acronym). It does raise a problem that I believe we will someday face: can you shut off a self-aware computer?
RAH's Starman Jones had computers as a center point, but it totally missed how they would be built; it was not much more than an early desktop calculator. Howard C. Berkowitz 01:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Those, plus a number of interesting ones by James P. Hogan ("Thrice Upon a Time") and Joe Haldeman ("Old Twentieth" as a recent one) and "The Adolescence of P-1" by Thomas Ryan. So, sounds like there is enough interest in this for us to put a section in on this, too. I do think it's good to separate fiction from reality but I also wonder if it's really necessary to make it a separate article vs. a section in this one. More thoughts? Karl D. Schubert 15:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

next steps

I've put a bunch of placeholders for history since 1950. Those need a SHORT paragraph with pointers off to other articles. I've tried to hit the major trends. In most cases, I placed an occurrence in the decade where it became mainstream, rather than the one in which research leading to it began. I'd love to have some help filling in this stuff. Anyone?Pat Palmer 01:07, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

archive of former starting paragraph

I am saving this here in case we want to reinstate it, but I think I want to open the article differently: The earliest reference to the term, in 1631, comes from the French word with the same meaning, derived from the Latin word computare meaning "to count, to sum up." The word is formed from two roots: com- meaning "with", and +putare meaning "to reckon" (originally "to prune.")[1]. According to the first definition given by the Oxford English Dictionary, a computer is: "One who computes; a calculator, reckoner; spec. a person employed to make calculations in an observatory, in surveying, etc."Pat Palmer 16:31, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

archiving hidden timeline code here

Though it doesn't show up.Pat Palmer 16:33, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

"Timelines" are a subpage, now, anyway... J. Noel Chiappa 17:26, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

another archived bit

I am removing this, for now: Not all of this may be regarded as positive, however; the explosive intrusion in life of the computer in all its facets is sometimes referred to as the digital revolution[2]. It may have a place somewhere; I'm not sure it belongs here.Pat Palmer 16:54, 3 May 2008 (CDT)

Perhaps we need an article on digital Luddism. –Tom Morris 04:20, 22 September 2008 (CDT)

Needs work

All the "Oh my", "Honey, I shrunk the music" stuff gets grating after about five seconds. I'm going to remove it. –Tom Morris 04:20, 22 September 2008 (CDT)

Title does not fit

This article is about computers, computing machines, or automated computing, or something similar, but not about "computing", as is also indicated by the definition. It should therefore be moved to title better reflecting its content. Peter Schmitt 19:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

This page looks like hell

Whatever happened to the really good rewrite and lots of hours that were put into a functional page? There are headers without paragraphs; "personalized" topics... it looks really unprofessional. It needs cleaning up or being moved to a personal workspace and developed that way. It's pretty unfit for a quality article appearance, even for one short in content. Robert W King 04:40, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

I think you're right. Are you ready to go to work on it! :D D. Matt Innis 17:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
I'll work on it when I finish summer classes. I'm taking Differential Equations and Calc III and I have to pass them both with vigilance. Robert W King 17:17, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
  1. ↑ "compute", Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
  2. ↑ The Digital Revolution, the Informed Citizen, and the Culture of Democracy by Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn (from the introduction to Democracy and New Media, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003). MIT Press (2003). Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
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