70s of the 20th century in the history of computer science

1970 year

Charles Murr of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory created the FORT programming language.

Dennis Ritchie (Dennis Ritchie) and Kenneth Thomson (Ken Thompson) release the first version of Unix .

Kenneth Thomson and Dennis Ritchie

The British scientist Edgar Codd (Edgar Frank Codd, August 23, 1923 - April 18, 2003), an employee of one of IBM's research laboratories, described the concept of relational databases and formulated the famous 12 Codd rules. According to the Codd model, all data is stored in tables, from which, by means of transformations, new tables can be obtained, called Codd relations. So the concept of a relational database appeared.

Edgar Codd

1971

Intel 4004

Intel (USA) created the first microprocessor (MP), a programmable logic device manufactured using VLSI technology.

November 15, 1971 Marshian Edward (Ted) Hoff (Marcian Edward Hoff, 10/28/1937), working for Intel, built an integrated circuit similar in function to the mainframe central processor: the first Intel-4004 microprocessor, a multi-chip circuit containing all main components of the central processor.
The 4004 processor was 4-bit. The speed was about 60 thousand operations per second, the clock frequency was 108 kHz. It had 2300 transistors on a single chip, an addressable memory of 640 bytes, and was estimated at $ 200. The Intel 4004 microdetector acted as a central processor core in a set of four microcircuits for the Busicom calculator.

The weekly "Computerworld"

№48-2001 ON THE BEGINNING OF THE INTEL ERA (In autumn 2001, the world celebrated the 30th anniversary of the release of the first microprocessor)

Marshian Edward Hoff and microprocessor

Syntronix has released the first dot-matrix printer.

The IBM / 370 model 145 computer appeared - the first computer in whose main memory only integrated circuits were used. The main innovations of IBM / 370 can be considered the possibility of using multiple processors in one system, full support for virtual memory and a new 128-bit block of real arithmetic.

The first pocket calculator Poketronic is released.

Programmer Allan Alcorn created the game Pong , which became the first real and popular computer game. Pong is one of the earliest arcade video games, it is a tennis sports game using simple two-dimensional graphics.

Ray tomlinson

In October 1971, Chief Engineer of the American company BBN Technologies Ray Tomlinson (Raymond (Ray) Samuel Tomlinson) sent a message to QWERTYUIOP (a set of keys on the top line of a standard keyboard) from one computer to another. The letter reached and thus opened a new chapter in the history of human communication.

It is noteworthy that Samuel Morse, who invented the telegraph alphabet, gave the first message a higher meaning by breaking through a quote from the Bible.

The first e-mail address in history was TOMLINSON @ BBN-TENEXA.

The weekly "Computerworld"
№48-2001 E-MAIL @ 30 (Ray Tomlison first sent a message from a computer from one network to a computer that is part of another network).

№03-2001 UNKNOWN LIFE OF "DOGS" (Searches for the origins of the @ symbol, "canonized" in the 90s of the 20th century, lead us at least to the 15th century)

Floppy Disk Drive
(comparison of 8 inch floppy and 3.5 inches)

IBM has released System 370/135 and 370/195 mainframes. It is believed that it was then that the first floppy disk drive was created.

Work on flexible magnetic disks began as early as 1967: a group of engineers led by Alan Shugart (Alan Field Shugart, 09/27/1930 - 12.12.2006) was tasked with developing an inexpensive (no more than $ 5) and reliable removable storage and storage media. transfer of computer firmware.

8 inch floppy disk

Senior engineer David Noble proposed a solution: an 8-inch disk made of plastic, onto which a layer of magnetic iron oxide Fe3O4 was applied. To protect the disk from dust, a soft non-woven case was invented, which also wiped the carrier during rotation. The capacity of this world's first floppy disk was 80 Kbytes.

The weekly "Computerworld" №02-2002 FLEXIBLE DISKS

Alan Shugart, 1997

In 1971, Michael Hart (Michael Stern Hart, 03/08/1947 - September 6, 2011) received unlimited access to the time of the large Xerox Sigma V computer from operators at the University of Illinois. Trying to adequately use this resource, he created the first e-book, the Declaration of Independence of the United States, when he typed its text into a computer.
In this way, by creating electronic copies of more books, the Gutenberg project, which was recognized as the first electronic library in the world, was launched. It changed our usual reading. The collection included public works that were in the public domain, as well as works protected by copyright with the permission of their authors.
Michael Hart became the inventor of electronic books .

Michael hart

1972

Seymour Roger Cray, September 28, 1925 - October 5, 1996 organized Cray Research, which in four years built and released the world's most powerful computer, the CRAY-1. For the first time, register-register commands were used.

CRAY-1

Seymour Cray

EU-1022

Created six models of computers of the Unified system (EC computer). Analogy of the System / 360 and System / 370 series of IBM, produced in the US since 1964. Software and hardware (hardware - only at the interface level of external devices) are compatible with their American prototypes.

The EU-1020 created the Minsk branch, the chief designer of which was V.V. Przhiyalkovsky. This machine had a capacity of 20 thousand operations per second and a memory capacity of 64-256 KB. Since 1972, together with the EU-1020, the DOS operating system has been supplied, which included translators from the languages ​​Kobol, PL-1, Fortran-4, RPG and Assembler, and allowed to simultaneously perform three tasks.

In the same year, 1972, the Yerevan Research Institute of Metrology (Chief Designer - M. Semerdjyan) released the EU-1030 - with a capacity of 70 thousand operations per second and a memory capacity of 128-512 Kb.

In 1973, the EU-1040 and the EU-1050 appeared. The first was created in the East German Karlmarksstadt (now Chemnitz), the chief designer - M. Gunter. The second one was designed by the Moscow Scientific and Research Institute of Electronic Technology under the leadership of the chief designer V. S. Antonov. This computer had an operating system OS EC, which contained translators from the languages ​​Algol-60, Kobol-65, Fortran-4, PL-1, RPG, Assembler and provided multi-program mode with a fixed number of tasks (up to 15), and later - with variable number of tasks.

Bell Lab's Dennis Ritchie developed the C programming language (C). So it was called because the previous version was called "B".

Newspaper "INFORMATIKA" DENNIS RITCHI

Dennis Ritchie

Alan Kay (Alan Curtis Kay, 5/17/1940) from Xerox developed an object-oriented programming language Smalltalk.

Alan Kay

On April 1, 1972, Intel released the 8008 processor - an 8-bit version of the 4004 processor. The new microprocessor had 18 contacts located in two rows and worked at a clock frequency of 200 KHz.

The performance of the 8008 processor is twice the performance of its 4-bit predecessor. Initially, Intel planned to use it in the same calculators and automatic seaming machines. But already in 1974, two personal computers entered the market on the bases of this microprocessor - Mark-8 and Scelbi-8N.

8008 processor

The concept of a virtual machine was first implemented on computers of the IBM / 370 family.

Telnet protocol appeared. After a year, TCP development will start and FTP development will end.

MIT researcher Larry Roberts (Larry Roberts) wrote the first email management program (RD), which was essentially the first email client. The program allows you to work with folders: view, sort and create lists of messages. The user could selectively read letters, reply to messages, save them in a file, or redirect. This simple and convenient program instantly received recognition from a few more users.

1973

Developed by scientists at the University of Lummini in France under the leadership of Alain Colmerauer (Alain Colmerauer, 01/24/1941) PROLOG language (Programmation en logique - logical programming). It is the main language for solving problems related to artificial intelligence.

Ethernet was born thanks to the efforts of Robert Metcalfe (Robert Melancton Metcalfe, 04/07/1946) in the Xerox PARC laboratory. Just shortly before, engineers created the first laser printer, and to give all lab workers the opportunity to print on it, it was necessary to connect hundreds of computers to the network.

Robert Metcalfe

The Alto computer, created at PARC by XEROX, for the first time implemented a graphical interface and a “windows” system.

Alto with graphic interface

IBM first developed hard-drive memory, the IBM 3340, which used a “cabinet” about a meter high.

IBM 3340

The magnetic recording density was 1.7 Mbps per square inch; it was equipped with small aerodynamic heads, which for the first time began to “hover” over a rotating magnetic surface under the influence of aerodynamic forces. The hard drive was enclosed in a sealed "box" with the heads. This protected the disks from dust and dirt and allowed to drastically reduce the working distance between the head and the plate, which led to a significant increase in the density of the magnetic recording. The IBM 3340 is rightfully considered the father of modern hard drives, since it is on these principles that they are built.

IBM 3340 Hard Drive

Later in the same year in 1973, IBM released the world's first small-sized hard disk FHD50, based on the principles of IBM 3340: magnetic plates with heads were enclosed in a fully enclosed case, and the heads did not move between the plates.

1974

Henry Edward (Ed) Roberts (Henry Edward (Ed) Roberts, September 13, 1941 - April 1, 2010) from MITS built the first Altair personal computer built on a new Intel chip - 8080. Altair was the first mainstream PC that marked the beginning of an entire industry .

The car was sold as a set of parts for $ 397, and a fully assembled
- for $ 498. Altair had an Intel 8080 processor with a clock speed of 2 MHz and 256 bytes of RAM, and the keyboard and display were missing.

Edward Roberts

IBM employee John Cook proposed a computer project with a RISC architecture . The name of this architecture was given by D. Patterson.

Marvin Minsky , using the concept of semantic networks, proposed a method of representing knowledge using frames.

The first development of a LISP computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The first computer played chess with a man. FAIL: A “live” chess player won easily.

For the Xerox Alto computer, the first program was created that worked on the principle

WYSIWYG

Vinton Cerf

In 1974, the Internet Network Working Group (INWG), created by DARPA and managed by Vinton Gray (Vint) Cerf, 06/23/1943, developed the Universal Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP / IP) for interconnecting data and connecting networks - heart of the Internet.

History reference

The development of the concept of modern Internet protocols Surf was engaged at Stanford with Robert Kahn (1973-1974). The first completed project of the TSR was introduced in December 1974, and in 1975, trial tests of the new protocol in research organizations began.

In 1976, Cerf was accepted into the Agency for Advanced Research Projects as a program manager. Here, Winton took up the problems of internetwork packet data transmission, while continuing to work on improving TCP. With the advent of an open network architecture, TSR has undergone another change, turning into TCP / IP, - the separation of the IP internetwork protocol from the TCP transfer control protocol (which turned out to be in general conditional) occurred.

In July 1977, the first tests of packet communication between the networks of America, Canada and Sweden took place. “We intentionally made the packages travel in a circuitous way, so that they traveled 94 thousand miles ... And we did not lose a bit!” Said Surf proudly.

The experiment was the first confirmation of the possibility of the existence of the Internet. In the modern view of the Internet appeared January 1, 1983 after the transition of its ancestor ARPANET to the TCP protocol.

Winton Cerf has devoted his entire career to the development and improvement of Internet technologies. From 1982 to 1986 at MCI, he was involved in the creation of MCI Mail, the first commercial e-mail message that was sent over the Internet. November 16, 1998 Cerf becomes chairman of the Internet Corporation for the designation of names and numbers (ICANN), and in 1999 - Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Internet Society. But Vinton is not going to stop at what he has achieved: for the next 20–40 years, his plans are to develop an interplanetary Internet that will ensure constant communication with space.

The weekly "Computerworld"

№38-2001 CREATE INTERNET ZANOVO (Robert Kahn - one of the founders of TCP / IP and the head of Arpanet network development)
№48-2001 E-MAIL @ 30 (Ray Tomlison first sent a message from a computer from one network to a computer that is part of another network)
№48-2001 100 YEARS FROM THE DAY OF THE FIRST RADIOGRAPH THROUGH THE OCEAN (The world, alas, knows Marconi rather than Popov)
# 48-2001 WIRELESS COMMUNICATION: 100 YEARS AGO (Exactly 100 years ago, Marconi managed to transatlantic radio signal)
№11-2002 HISTORY OF NETWORKS (From pigeon mail to Gigabith Ethernet)

Newspaper "INFORMATIKA" No. 2001 (Summer) FIRST TRANS-ATLANTIC (The initiator of the laying of the telegraph line between the Old and New Worlds was the entrepreneur Cyrus Field)

1975

IBM has introduced the portable mini-computer IBM 5100 Portable Computer . Equipped with 16-64 Kbytes of RAM, a tape recorder, a keyboard, a built-in five-inch display, with a BASIC and / or APL on board, the IBM 5100 model weighed about 25 kg. The price of the computer ranged from 8975 to 19 975 dollars.

IBM 5100

Harry Kildall from Digital Reseach developed the CP / M operating system.

Gene Myron Amdal (Gene Myron Amdahl, 11/16/1922) developed a fourth-generation computer on the LSI - AMDAHL-470 V / 6 .

AMDAHL-470

Paul Allen and Bill Gates

Students Paul Gardner Allen (Paul Gardner Allen, 01.21.1953) and Bill Gates (William (Bill) Henry Gates III, 10/28/1955) first used the Basic language to program the Altair 8080 personal computer.

Paul Allen and Bill Gates founded Microsoft .

В октябрьском выпуске 1975 года информационного бюллетеня «Компьютерные заметки» Массачусетского технологического института (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) публикуется анонс интерпретатора Basic 2.0 компании MicroSoft для компьютера Altair 8800 (в двух вариациях - 4 и 8 Кбайт).

Altair 8Kбайт BASIC на бумажной ленте
HTTP://EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG/WIKI/ALTAIR_BASIC

Newspaper "INFORMATIKA"
НАЧАЛО (В то время в компьютерной фирме Honeywell, располагавшейся недалеко от Бостона, работал молодой программист Пол Аллен. Узнав о новинке, он отправился к своему другу, первокурснику Уильяму (Биллу) Гейтсу)

Фирма IBM выпустила первый коммерческий лазерный принтер .

1976

Стив Джобс и Стив Возняк

Стив Возняк (Stephen Gary Wozniak, 11.08.1950), будучи удивительно талантливым инженером, вынашивал мечту: построить собственный компьютер, доступный и легкий в обращении (это при том, что концепции персонального компьютера тогда разве что витала в воздухе). Многообещающий проект Возняка отвергли как в Hewlett-Packard, где он работал инженером, так и в Atari, куда Стив Джобс (Steven (Steve) Paul Jobs, 24.02.1955) после ухода из колледжа устроился дизайнером видеоигры.

Замысел безымянного еще компьютера так и остался бы нереализованным, если бы Джобс, едва скопив достаточно денег, не уехал скитаться по Индии. Вернувшись оттуда с нужным уровнем внутреннего света, он убедил Возняка бросить работу в HP и сосредоточиться на реализации амбициозного проекта.

Образовавшаяся 1 апреля 1976 года компания Apple Computer inc., незамысловато озаглавленная в честь фрукта, который радует своими яркими цветами и насыщенным вкусом, а также любит падать на головы зазевавшимся гениальным ученым, свободно располагалась в гараже отца Джобса.

Первый логотип компании, изображающий взаимодействие двух тел - Исаака Ньютона и летящего яблока, - был нарисован третьим и последним на тот момент участником артели, работавшим вместе с Джобсом в «Атари» Роном Уэйном.

Более привычный логотип Apple – цветное яблоко - был разработан также Роном Уэйном. Кстати, одна из версий, почему компанию решили назвать Apple, такова: на тот момент главным конкурентом была Atari, a слово Apple по алфавиту вставало перед именем конкурента в различных каталогах и справочниках. Вот так, романтика - романтикой, но трезвый прагматизм присутствовал в деятельности Apple всегда.

День и ночь в гараже кипела работа: друзья вручную собирали компьютер, ставший средоточием всех их надежд. Готовый прототип был продемонстрирован владельцу одного из первых в мире компьютерных магазинов Byte Shop Полу Террелу. Харизма и незаурядные актерские способности помогли Джобсу произвести на клиента необходимое впечатление, и Apple получила свой первый заказ.

At the regular meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club, Steve Wozniak and Randy Wigginton demonstrate the first prototype of the Apple-2 computer. Steve was engaged in the development of computer hardware, Randy - software.
Vigjinton's contribution to the development of Apple is quite weighty. He owns such developments as Applesoft Basic, MacWrite word processor, EDASM utility (editor / assembler), spreadsheet (unfortunately, the program was lost), Apple DOS operating system, and so on. Meanwhile, Wigjinton was so young that he had to turn to guarantors to join the Homebrew Computer Club. B

The Apple-2 was a fairly expensive ($ 1300 without a monitor and a cassette tape recorder) computer, but it was made on an unprecedented technical level. This was a car for users . It contained a 6502 processor and a minimum number of chips (located on one printed circuit board), software embedded in the ROM — a limited operating system and Basic, 4 Kbytes of RAM, two electronic game consoles, an interface for connecting to a cassette tape recorder and a color graphics system for working with color monitor or regular TV.

For more information on the history of the creation of Apple computers , you can find out by visiting the Apple website http: //WWW.APPLE.RU

Apple 2

The TRS-80 , with a Z-80 processor, consisted of four modules - a 12-inch monitor, a system unit with an integrated keyboard, a power supply unit and a Radio Shack CTR-41 cassette recorder. The computer was supplied with a Basic Level ROM and two cassettes, one of which contained game programs.

TRS-80, 1978

Commodore's PET (Personal Electronic Transactor) belonged to few computers that combined a system unit, a monitor, drives, and a keyboard in one module. The PET contained a 6502 processor, 14 Kbytes of ROM with Basic and an operating system, 4 Kbytes of RAM, a 9-inch monitor and a cassette recorder. This computer was considered an ideal solution for teachers and students at a price of $ 595.

PET

In March 1976, Cray Research released a unique Cray-1 supercomputer with a capacity of up to 130 MFLOPS (millions of floating point operations per second), in which the entire architecture was subordinated to the ideas of parallel processing.

A diskette with a diameter of 5.25 inches appeared in 1976. It is said that its dimensions correspond to the sizes of cocktail napkins, which were used by the developers, who discussed the details of the new project in one of the Boston bars.

Founded by Alan Shugart (Alan Field Shugart, 09/27/1930 - 12/12/2006), Shugart Associates offers a 5.25-inch “mini-floppy” SA400 drive at a price of $ 390. The available disk space was 110 KB. A little later, the company turned to the services of the Japanese company Matsushita in order to organize large-scale production of disk drives - about 4 thousand devices daily.

Journal "Computerworld" №02-2002 FLEXIBLE DISKS

Registered trademark "Microsoft".

Michael Schreier demonstrates how the Electric Pencil works on the TRS-80

Michael Schrayer is finalizing the first Electric Pencil (Electronic Pencil) word processor for microcomputers.

Schreier realized that his potential market was not limited to the range of Altair owners, and he wrote versions of the Electric Pencil for other microcomputers and a number of printers. In total, he created 78 versions of his program. The sale of its Schreier carried out mainly by mail.
In the first two years after the birth, the Electric Pencil was actually the only word processor available to the mass consumer. However, as the personal computer market expanded and its profitability grew, other entrepreneurs followed Schreier’s example.

In 1975, at a meeting of the legendary Homebrew Computer Club, the Schreier announced the idea of ​​creating a tool to fully process text documents on a computer. This caused loud laughter among the attendees: can a computer be used for such purposes? When Michael added that after selling 250 thousand copies of his future program, he would happily move away from current affairs, spending the money received, - those gathered were already having fun with might and main. Well, Michael kept his promises: a word processor appeared, he earned money and left his company, having been engaged since then only in a hobby - amateur radio.

The Electric Pencil set the stage for WordStar - the latter “borrowed” many features from its progenitor. The author of WordStar is John Barnaby , who worked for MicroPro International, Inc. under the leadership of Seymour Rubinstein.

The second product of Michael Schreier, a utility for recovering deleted Supersap files, prompted journalist Peter Norton to retrain himself, taking up a more profitable business — software development. Norton has created a set of utility tools that have become famous all over the world - Norton Utilities.

1977

VAX-11/780

The VAX-11/780 mini-computer is the first 32-bit representative of the new DEC family.

VAX-11/780 was released in order to correct the shortcomings of the very popular and beloved PDP-11. Of all the changes, DEC only focused on the possibility of finally breaking the 16-bit (64 Kbyte) restriction of the addressable PDP-11 memory by entering the 32-bit address into the VAX-11/780. However, the changes were much greater.

VAX had the best CISC architecture (full command set). It was an orthogonal command system with 243 commands over several basic data types and with 16 different addressing modes. Its architecture had a strong influence on the Motorola 68000 family, which became the platform for Apple Lisa and Macintosh, until in the 1990s it was replaced with PowerPC.

1978

On June 8, 1978, the Intel 8086 processor (also known as iAPX86) was released - Intel's first 16-bit microprocessor, developed since spring 1976.

Intel D8086

The processor had a set of commands that is used in modern processors, it is from this processor that the well-known x86 architecture originates.

Based on the Intel 8086 processor, IBM launched the world's first personal computers.

The processor was built on 3 micron technology and had 29 thousand transistors. The bit width was 16 bits, the clock frequency was 4.77-10 MHz. The huge success of the novelty made Intel one of the victors of the business world of the 70s: the company was among the 500 largest American manufacturers (Fortune 500).

Epson announces the matrix printer MX-80 , which marked the beginning of the mass use of such devices. The printing speed was about 80 characters per second, the page output was about a minute. The inventor of the MX-80 is Chris Rutkowski. Even though the MX-80 could only print text characters, in the United States he was the leader in sales among similar ones.

Dot Matrix Printer MX-80

February 16, 1978 in Chicago (USA, pieces of Illinois), the first BBS was launched - Bulletin Board System. Remote access to this software and hardware complex is provided by means of a direct modem connection via a telephone line and using a special terminal program. BBS users could receive information available within the system (software, texts, files), read news, exchange data with other visitors.

History reference

The heyday of BBS came at a time when the Internet was not yet widely available. Stormy electronic discussions, step-by-step multiplayer games, meetings of participants "in real life" - as a result, a striking social phenomenon arose.
Invented by Ward Christensen and Randy Suess BBS was placed on a PC with an S-100 bus, 64 KB of RAM, two 8-inch drives and a Hayes MicroModem 100 that worked at 300 baud. Ward developed a command system using assembler in the OS CP / M environment for the Intel 8080 processor, which later became part of the protocol for transferring XModem files. Randy took over the hardware of the station.
The first BBS was named CBBS, the Computerized Bulletin Board System. Then the initial letter in the name disappeared, and all subsequent similar systems began to be called simply BBS.

Working with these BBSs turned out to be incredibly slow due to the restrictions on the speed at which data is transmitted and received by modems. Only with the advent of fast modem protocols, the BBS are beginning to change: within the framework of the ANSI system, various pseudographic decorations are created - the so-called ANSI art (not to be confused with ASCII-art!), The graphics are implemented using a convenient GIF format. In the computer press appear telephone numbers of public BBS.

Over time, local users of one BBS were able to communicate with visitors to other BBS, since the whole BBS networks began to form. It should be noted that in this case we are talking more about virtual networks than real ones, because the remote BBS for the exchange of information were connected to each other by the same telephone lines.
BBS improved, providing more and more service. Many stations have acquired several phone lines, with the result that, under luck, it was possible to communicate online. Increasingly, the included function of determining the number of the caller, and the system uniquely correlated the visitor's login with his telephone number, for example, to limit the time of the communication session. Some BBS had a gateway (gateway) to the Internet, providing the ability to search for information on the Web and exchange e-mail.

Ekaterina Turbina, Yuri Strelchenko
Event Calendar, PC World

Hype symbol

On May 3, 1978, DEC for the manufacture of electronic technology sent 400 recipients a message on the network Arpanet. Thus, the company that no longer exists at that time decided to market its new mini-computers. This is the first appearance of SPAM.

The name "SPAM" (SPiced hAM) is a brand of canned meat - spicy sausage minced pork. After the Second World War, when a card system operated on the British Isles, spam was one of the few meat products that were freely available.

In 1970 a comedy appeared on British television screens, in which a cafe was depicted, where all the dishes were prepared from spam and they were strongly imposed on customers. So these canned foods have become a symbol of annoying advertising.

1979

Thanks to the wide distribution of floppy drives, it becomes easier to distribute software: the first mass Wordstar text editor and the VisiCalc spreadsheet package, which became the first generally accepted "standards", are widely diverged. If word processors were before, then VisiCalc had no direct predecessors.

In May 1979, a demonstration version of the VisiCalc program (Visible calculator) for Apple-2 personal computers was first introduced at the West Coast Computer Fair in the United States.

This program was developed by Dan Bricklin (Dan Bricklin) and Bob Frankston (Bob Frankston) (Software Arts company) and in many ways contributed to the spread of these computers on the market. The idea behind the spreadsheets is not new, and it is claimed that it was used as early as the 18th century in the East India Company.

On October 17, 1979, the first spreadsheet appeared on the market - VisiCalc.

Newspaper "INFORMATIKA"
CREATORS OF THE GREAT PROGRAMS (Frankston and Bricklin gave the developed system the name VisiCalc)

Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston

Sample VisiCalc table on Apple II

Interesting Facts

Accounting tables have existed for centuries. But the spreadsheets Dena Bricklin not only made a revolution in accounting, but also captured the market of application programs for personal computers.

In 1961, a professor at the University of California, Richard Matesich, embodied the idea of ​​creating spreadsheets on paper, publishing them in the Accounting Journal in July 1961. And later, "Accounting and analytical methods" and "Modeling the activities of the company using budget computer programs." These books, among other things, contained illustrations and a computer program written in Fortran-4 by Tom Schneider and Paul Zitlau. However, the work of Matesich did not have much impact. And the father of the spreadsheet is called Dena Bricklin, because it was he who created the first user-friendly spreadsheet.

Den Bricklin was preparing for one of the seminars at the Harvard Business School, developing a spreadsheet-based analysis system. He could either do it manually or use a cumbersome computer mainframe. But he went the other way. He needed a program that would allow to see these tables as they were created. He said: "Electronic board and electronic chalk in each class!"

By the fall of 1978, Bricklin created the first version of his program. She allowed to enter data and manage it in a table of 5 columns and 20 rows. But he wanted to improve her capabilities and hired his acquaintance Bob Frenkston for this. He managed to sell about a million copies of this program.

In the early 1980s, the spreadsheet market grew rapidly. Bricklin and Franckstone ousted Mitch Capore with the Lotos program. Then in 1987, Microsoft launched Windows, which had an Excel spreadsheet. And by 1989, when this operating system became quite popular, Excel became one of the company's main programs.

Now computer users can explore, manage and manage large amounts of data. Now cells can contain not only numbers, but also formulas, which allows recalculating all data by changing only a few numerical values.

Original material: http: //WWW.FUTUREOFMONEYSUMMIT.COM/TOP-10-INVENTIONS.PHP
translation by Alexander Ustinov

The English company Inmos has released a transputer - a single-chip microprocessor with a RISC architecture.

On June 18, 1979, Microsoft introduced Basic , the first high-level language interpreter designed for 16-bit machines based on the 8086 processor. Thanks to the Basic, the 8086 processors gained immense popularity.

Englishman Clif Sinclair created the first ZX80 home computer. It was the first computer in the UK at a price of 99.95 pounds.

The model was available as a set for assembly, the buyer had to assemble and solder the components himself, or as a ready-made computer, at a slightly higher price, for those who did not have the necessary skills or did not want to assemble the model by themselves. A home TV with a connector through an antenna jack was used as a display; as a permanent memory served as a household tape recorder.

The ZX80 computer became the forerunner for the ZX81 and the incredibly popular ZX Spectrum. Specifications ZX80 following:
3.25-MHz NEC 780C-1 processor (Zilog Z80 clone), 1 KB of RAM and 4 KB of ROM.
The commands of the built-in BASIC were entered not by letter, but by pressing individual keys on the membrane keyboard - in the manner of the principle put into calculators.
Expansion of the functionality of each of the keys was achieved using the buttons - switch registers.
The hardware part of the ZX80, which is responsible for the generation and management of video information, was so weak that it allowed displaying the image only when the computer processor was idle. When the program was executed, the display turned black, and sometimes the image on it just blinked.

ZX80

The team, headed by Mikhailov Kartsev (1923-1984), developed a multiprocessor system M-10 .