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How Modern Computing All Began

tech.cybernetnews.com — Supercomputers can handle absolutely enormous processing tasks these days and some will be approaching 1 PFLOPS (1 Peta Floating Point Operations). After a little research I found IBM ’s Naval Ordnance Research Calculator (NORC) to be considered the first supercomputer. Taking a look back to the beginning of modern computing...

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  • brianbennett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3When it comes to 'modern computing,' Jack Kilby gets alot of credit in my book.
  • EvilTesdall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0in 1969 arpanet was "invented"....
    • aragami, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1and norc went into service december 1954 and i don't care how you cut it but thats before arpanet ;-)
    • elrol, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1arpanet was awesome!!
    • cerejota, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0dude the arpanet is the internet... :0
  • DonPMitchell, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3And then there was that fellow Seymour Cray, with his little company that left IBM in its dust:

    "Last week Control Data ... announced the 6600 system. I understand that in the laboratory developing the system there are only 34 people including the janitor. Of these, 14 are engineers and 4 are programmers ... Constrasting this modest effort with our vast development activities, I fail to understand why we have lost our industry leadership position by letting someone else offer the world's most powerful computer."
    -- Thomas Watson, CEO of IBM

    "It seems like Mr. Watson has answered his own question."
    -- Seymour Cray, Control Data Corporation

    • cmiller1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hehe, that reminds me of when all of the Windows fanboys were making fun of Apple about 10 years ago for not eating their own dogfood when news got out that Apple was using Crays to design their computers; Seymour Cray made a public rebuttal to the effect of "that's funny, I've been using Apples to design all of MY computers!"
  • jrobbio, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I read the title as How MODEM computing all began. Bit confused by the article as you would guess. Doh!
  • mdrchobert, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2How modern computing REALLY began...

    http://virtualmagic.blogspot.com/2006/09/hacker.html
    • mzkw, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How modern computing REALLY REALLY began...

      http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/35/Lukket-50s-computer-HOAX.jpg
    • rockefeller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3 @mzkw

      That's a funny picture. That's actually the nuclear power plant "control room" found in a submarine with a big ass keyboard/printer in the front of it. The big wheel on the most left panel controls steam to the main engines. The center panel is the reactor plant control panel and the most right panel is the electrical distribution panel.

  • eekthekat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amazing quote from the site (reference of CRTs as memory):

    curtissthompson on Sep 18, 2006 at 9:05 PM (Link | Quote)
    Well, they used CRTs, and while many are switching to LCDs (DLPs and soon OLED monitors/tvs), I’ll stick with CRTs for their reliability, scalability, economically priced value I find with them, that you simply can not find in the newer display technologies!

    I'm assuming this is a joke, at least I really hope it is.
  • prthealien, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, that's impressive for its time.
  • ig33k010011, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i think i have a TI-86 that's faster then that
  • nightsweat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So Ada Lovelace doesn't count? How about Babbage or Jacquard?
  • TokenUser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I know that recognising the Germans for technology achivements in WWII is not particularly politically correct, but people ignore the work of Konrad Zeus, and his Z3 from 1941 ... arguably the first programmable computer. Pity it was destroyed by the Allied forces ...

    http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/2004/06/07.html

    (Yeah, its a blog, but its not mine, and the info is good).
    • arizonagroove, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Talking of Germans and WWII, what about the computer the British built to decode the German's Enigma encrypted messages?
  • ajck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I don't think the first supercomputer is that important to be honest. What's important is who invented the first programmable computer as that is what everything else is derived from. And that was by the British in the 30's and 40's and not, as is commonly (and wrongly) claimed, by anyone else anywhere else.

    (troll) We're not called "Great" Britain for nothing you know! ;-) (/troll)

    http://www.acsa2000.net/a_computer_saved_the_world.htm
  • tont0r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I dont see Alan Turing in this article
    • heffae, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't remember if Alan Turning worked on the Colossus. I know he was largely responsible for development of the bombes (the enigma code breaking machines) and defiantly deserves credit for much of computing today. It wouldn't surprise me if he deserves even more credit for computer advances (not to mention saving the free world) then he has already received. Given that hes eventually kicked out British intelligence when we was found guilty of being gay.
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