each new problem, a task that The textbook sold well, and can could take several days. be read online at http://bitsavers.trailing- May The ENIAC was a classified edge.com/pdf/era/High_Speed_ project in the early days, so the Computing_Devices_1950.pdf women were given very Refrigerator Ladies restrictive access to machine. The book's references mention May 1945 For instance, they had to devise three other early computing programs based on looking at texts: Prev: [May 31] Next: [Nov 30] the ENIAC's schematics.  Berkeley, E.C., “Giant Brains”, Initially, six women were In the process, these women John Wiley, 1949 [June 30] selected to program the ENIAC pioneered the discipline of [Feb 15]: programming digital computers,  Hartree, D.R., “Calculating developing techniques such as Instruments and Machines”,  (co-lead subroutine libraries. University Of Illinois Press, ); née Frances 1949 [March 27] Elizabeth Snyder. Born: Incredibly, their role had been [March 7], 1917; . largely forgotten by the 1980's,  Wiener, Norbert, Died: Dec 8, 2001 until historian Kathy Kleiman “Cybernetics”, John Wiley, tried to find out about the 1948. [Nov 26]  Jean Bartlik (co-lead women present in all the ENIAC Also, although “High-Speed programmer); née Betty Jean pictures. She remarked: “I was Computing Devices” was the Jennings. Born: [Dec. 27], told they were models - first book on hardware, the first 1924; Gentry County, Missouri. ‘Refrigerator Ladies’ - posing in on programming was “The Died: March 23, 2011 front of the machine to make it Preparation of Programs for an  Kathleen “Kay” McNulty look good,” Electronic Digital Computer” Mauchly Antonelli; née Infact, three of the six – (1951), by Maurice Wilkes [June Kathleen Rita McNulty. Born: Holberton, Bartik, and Antonelli 26], David Wheeler [Feb 9] and [Feb 12], 1921; County – followed J. Presper Eckert Stanley Gill [March 26]. Donegal, Ireland. Died: April [April 9] and [Aug 20, 2006 30] when the pair resigned from  ; née Ruth the Moore School [March 31] to RS-232 Lichterman; 1924-1986 found EMCC [Dec 8]. They went on to work on the BINAC [April May 1960  ; née Frances 4] and UNIVAC I [March 31]. RS-232 was introduced by the Bilas. Born: March 2, 1922; Philadelphia. Died: July 18, Electronic Industries 2012 Association (EIA) as a First Hardware Recommended Standard (RS)  Marlyn Meltzer; née Marlyn for the serial communication of Wescoff. Born: 1922; Textbook data between teletypewriters. Philadelphia. Died: Dec. 4, 2008 May 1950 Unfortunately, the standard didn’t really cover the needs of “High-Speed Computing more modern computers, which Devices”, published by led designers to interpret the McGraw-Hill, was the first standard in some rather textbook on computer ‘strange’ ways over the next few construction. It was decades. For example, in some written by staff at devices the “Transmit Data” pin Engineering Research was an input. Associates (ERA [Jan 00]), supervised by C. B. For a while, there were two Tompkins and J. H. sexes of RS-232: male and Wakelin, and edited by W. female. Later it became W. Stifler, Jr. necessary to introduce a “gender bender” which favoured the Betty Jennings (left) and Frances Its contents had first pairing of both male-male and Bilas (right) setting up the appeared in an Office of Naval female-female devices. Also, ENIAC. U.S. Army Photo. Research (ONR) report, which while RS-232 began with 25 characterized itself as “an pins, many connectors Programming the ENIAC investigation and report on the eventually slimmed down to a involved a time-consuming status of development of svelte 9 pins. process of the plugging-in of computing machine cables and the toggling of components.” switches. ln effect, the women were rewiring the machine for

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to the GE-200 series were the GE-215 (1963), GE-205 (1964), Empire Released and GE-235 (1964). May 1973 One notable success: a GE-235, Empire for the PLATO system along with a smaller GE [July 00] was probably the first machine, the DATANET-30 (DN- networked multiplayer game. 30), ran the Dartmouth Time- Sharing System (DTSS [May 1]), Iowa State College student John and Dartmouth BASIC. Daleske had grown tired of PLATO's standard games A 9 pin RS-232 plug. CC BY-SA Seeing they were on to a (typically board games for two 3.0 winning combination, GE started players), so as a class project packaging the DN-30 and GE- designed a multiplayer turn- 235 together in 1965 as the GE- These variations in the based strategy game supporting 265 (i.e. 30 + 235), and it ‘standard’ encouraged a thriving up to 8 users. industry of breakout boxes, test became the first commercially equipment, books, and several successful time-sharing system. Each player became the head of revised 'standards'. a planet’s government, with sole responsibility for economic Nevertheless, the RS-232 serial development, including the port became an ubiquitous Wang 2200 building of spaceships for either feature of PCs, for connecting to trade or war. modems, printers, mice, data Introduced storage, and other peripherals. May 1973 Daleske’s "Empire II", dating from around Sept. 1973, The Wang [Feb 7] 2200 was one removed much of the boring of the first desktop computers. It strategy gameplay, replacing it GE-225 Rollout came with a large CRT display, with starships that could fly May 1961 4K of RAM (up to 32K), a through 2D space and shoot cassette tape storage unit, and a lasers. There could now be up to The GE-225 was meant to be decent BASIC interpreter 50 players, separated into eight General Electric’s answer to installed in ROM, meaning that it warring teams. Each player IBM’s all-conquering business- could be turned on and used controlled a ship, based on Star oriented1400 series [Oct 5]. within seconds. It was also Trek’s Federation, Klingon, possible to attach a modem and Vulcan, and Romulan vessels It was partly designed by Arnold a printer. [June 4; Sept 8; Nov 26]. Spielberg (father of film director Steven Spielberg [June 9; June The 2200 predates the era of the Usage logs from the PLATO 19; June 29; Aug. 18]) and microprocessor, so was built system at the Computer-based Charles “Chuck” Propster, both using a few hundred TTL chips, Education Research Lab (CERL) ex-RCA engineers who had using a design by a team led by in Chicago indicated that worked on that company’s Bob Kolk. between 1978 and 1985, users BIZMAC [Feb 7]. spent around 300,000 hours Wang sold the 2200 primarily playing Empire. Homer “Barney” Oldfield hired through value-added resellers them away from RCA to set up who installed extra software Empire IV (1976) was ported to GE’s Industrial Computer catering for different customers, X Windows [June 19] in the Department. Although Spielberg and was originally marketed as a 1980's as X-trek, and then to the and Propster were tasked with “computing calculator”, Internet in the 1990's as Netrek. designing a business machine, supposedly to avoid frightening the department’s name was customers with the word chosen to pacify Ralph Cordiner, “COMPUTER”. About 65,000 Kermit Deployed then GE chairman and CEO, who were shipped during its lifetime, believed that GE should focus and found wide use in small and May 1981 solely on industrial products. medium-size businesses. Cordiner was eventually brought The Kermit file transfer protocol around after the success of GE’s 2200s were used extensively in and communications software ERMA system [Sept 14], but not the 1970's by Gosplan and was developed by Frank da Cruz before he had fired Oldfield at Goskomstat , the main Soviet and Bill Catchings at the the GE-225’s rollout. planning and statistical agencies. Columbia University Computer However, fears of nefarious Center. The GE-225 used about 10,000 backdoors in the Western transistors, 20,000 diodes, and hardware led to the system’s Kermit’s design was largely 8K of core memory. Up to 11 reverse engineering, and the influenced by the limitations of peripheral could be linked to the development of the Iskra-226 the campus’ DECSYSTEM-20s machine and operate clone. and the microcomputers of the time. For example, it was simultaneously. Later additions

2 impossible to send large bursts the first color computer to reach German curse word. Also, VC of data to the DEC-20 – it was that price point. could be marketed as though it “like trying to make a sparrow was an abbreviation of eat a meatball hero”. Kermit’s VolksComputer (“people’s data packets were small, 96 computer”). characters at most: “seeds, In any case, many people insects, and worms that a sparrow can digest.” dubbed the machine the ‘Vixen’, which had been its codename By the mid-1980's, Kermit was during development. the de facto standard for data The VIC-20 was succeeded by communications between the even more popular computers. The Commodore VIC 20. Commodore 64, announced on Of course, it was named after [Jan 7] 1982. One important reason for its low “Kermit the Frog” from The cost was that Commodore built Muppets, and with the all of its main chips at their MOS permission of Henson Technology [Sept 9] Associates. A ‘backronym,’ Somewhere Over manufacturing facility. The main created to avoid possible later CPU was the 8-bit MOS 6502, trademark issues, was “KL10 the Rainbow which Commodore also sold to Error-Free Reciprocal Apple. May 1982 Microprocessor Interchange over TTY lines”. The VIC-20 was the first ever DEC’s [Aug 23] Rainbow 100 computer to sell over 1 million microcomputer was a dual-CPU The designers chose the name units, beating the Apple II [June box with both a Zilog Z80 Kermit because of the presence 5] to that record by a few [March 9] and a Intel 8088 of a 1981 Muppets calendar on months . Perhaps the fact that [April 18]. This meant it could be the wall when they were trying Commodore used "Star Trek" used in three different ways: as to think of a suitable software [Sept 8] TV star William Shatner a dumb terminal for DEC’s VAX appellation. Bearing in mind the [March 22] in its ads helped. He [Oct 25], in CP/M mode [June year, it was probably the 1981 called it “The Wonder Computer 22], or with MS-DOS [Aug 12]. “Miss Piggy Cover Girl Fantasy of the 1980s”. Calendar”; considering the This seemed like a winning month, it was may have been The VIC in VIC-20 stood for combination except that the turned to “Miss Piggy: She Sings Video Interface Chip, which had Rainbow was only MS-DOS for Victory” a fake LIFE cover been designed by Alan compatible, not hardware- used for May. Charpentier back in 1978 for compatible with the IBM PC. arcade game manufacturers. Unfortunately, this was a key In July 2011, Columbia set They weren't interested, so the difference since lots of PC Kermit free, as open source VIC-20’s graphics and sound software directly accessed the software. were designed around it instead. hardware for performance reasons. The meaning of the “20” has been the source of heated DEC tried to fix this problem VIC-20 Introduced debate. It was widely assumed with an emulator called Code May 1981 to refer to the screen’s text Blue, but it only replicated the width, although that was 22 PC’s BIOS, so many programs At a meeting of Commodore [Oct characters, not 20. Alternatively, still wouldn’t work. the system memory almost adds 10] executives in April 1980, Today, the Rainbow is probably up to 20: 5K (RAM) + 16K Jack Tramiel [Dec 13] instigated best remembered as the (ROM). the development of a low-cost computer that couldn’t format color computer to satisfy his Robert Yannes (one of the VIC- its own floppy disks. You had to goal of making “computers for 20’s designers) reported that buy expensive preformatted the masses, not the classes.” He “we simply picked ‘20’ because blanks from DEC. appointed Michael Tomczyk to it seemed like a friendly number organize its design and The machine’s floppy driver and the computer’s marketing construction. reader was quite novel in slogan was ‘The Friendly another way: it was able to hold Computer’. I felt it balanced The VIC-20 was the first color two disks at a time, but one of things out a bit since ‘Vic’ computer costing less than $300. them had to be inserted upside sounded like the name of a truck It could only display 22 down which confused many driver.” characters of text per line, so its users. usefulness in business was The machine was called the VC- minimal, but people loved it for The choice of name for the 20 in Germany because the playing games. The price device wasn’t that great either pronunciation of VIC with a eventually dropped below $100, since the basic Rainbow 100 was German accent sounded like a a monochromatic, text-only

3 system. Color and graphics were problem, which was solved by Early in 1990, Apple CEO John an optional add-on. pumping perfluorinated liquid Sculley [April 6] agreed to let through the circuitry and then Porat begin researching small On the positive side, the cooling it outside the processor. portable devices under the code- Rainbow starred in the 1984 The result was a unique name “Pocket Crystal”. Soon film “Ghostbusters”, used by the “waterfall” system, shown in after, GM was created with 10% gang’s receptionist, Janine. many informational films and stakes held by Apple, Sony, and movies of the time. Motorola. The company’s signature Sun 1 Released product was an OS called Magic May 1982 Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Just three months after being Platform). It used a “room founded, Sun Microsystems [Feb metaphor” based around a 24] released its Sun 1 UNIX mobile agent technology called workstation. Telescript. Agents could travel to “rooms” outside the device, It was based on the Stanford complete their work, and then University Network (SUN) return with the results. workstation designed by Andy Bechtolsheim [Sept 30] as a Unfortunately, the available student. Stanford only funded technology was too immature to the building of ten of these make implementing small, machines, much to Cray 2. Photo by cmnit. CC BY-SA mobile, intelligent, networked Bechtolsheim’s frustration, and 2.0 devices possible. For instance, it was one of the reasons for the wasn’t until 1991 that the first foundation of Sun Microsystems 2G networks appeared in the US. in the first place. Inevitably, the machine was nicknamed “Bubbles”, and gags After shipping a single The Sun 1 was known as a 3M related to the “waterfall” generation of hardware that computer: a 1 MIPS Motorola included “No Fishing” signs, produced dismal sales, GM 68000 processor [Sept 26], 1 MB cardboard depictions of the Loch became one of Silicon Valley’s of memory and a 1 Megapixel Ness Monster rising out of the most high-profile failures. It bitmap graphics display. heat exchanger tank, and plastic didn’t help that it was caught out Sometimes its $10,000 price tag fish inside the exchanger. by the rise of the Web, and was called the fourth “M” — 1 undercut by its own parent “Megapenny”. One of Cray’s ads showed the company, Apple, which beat it to “waterfall” with a spill of the market with the similar looking fluid glistening on the floor. Newton [Aug 3]. However, if this actually Cray-2 Released occurred then the facility would However, GM did achieve a have to be evacuated due to the number of breakthroughs, May 1985 fluid’s toxicity. including Magic Bus, the precursor to USB [Jan 15], The Cray-2 was the first of Also, after extended service, the software modems, small Seymour Cray’s [Sept 28] liquid decomposed, producing touchscreens, and early designs to successfully use highly toxic perfluoroisobutene. attempts at e-commerce. multiple CPUs. At 1.9 GFLOPS Catalytic scrubbers were peak performance, it became the installed to remove this Nowadays, GM is generally seen world's fastest machine. contaminant. as the Fairchild Semiconductor [Oct 1] of mobile devices and It was both smaller than the services: a fount for much of Cray-1 [March 4], and 12 times today’s smartphone technology. more speedy. However, it was General Magic For example, all the following only about twice as fast as Steve individuals worked at General Chen’s competing Cray X-MP May 1990 Magic: Tony Fadell (iPods, and [Dec 4], and could be slower on Nest [Oct 25]), Andy Rubin (an General Magic (GM) was co- certain calculations due to high overlord of Android [Nov 5]), founded by Bill Atkinson [April memory latency. Steve Perlman (WebTV [July 27], Andy Hertzfeld [April 6], 10]), Pierre Omidyar (eBay [Sept The Cray-2 was notable for being and Marc Porat. Their goal was 3]), and Kevin Lynch (lead the first supercomputer to run to develop a “personal engineer on the Apple Watch “mainstream” software, thanks intelligent communicator,” a [April 24]. to UniCOS, a UNIX [Oct 15] precursor to the PDA [Jan 7], System V derivative. with an emphasis on communication. The heat loads of the hardware’s dense packaging were a major

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