History of IBM Developments

1956 - FIRST MAGNETIC HARD DISK. IBM introduces the world's first magnetic hard disk for data storage. RAMAC (or Random Access Method of Accounting and Control) offers unprecedented performance by permitting random access to any of the million characters distributed over both sides of 50 two-foot-diameter disks. Produced in San Jose, California, IBM's first hard disk stored about 2,000 bits of data per square inch and had a purchase price of about $10,000 per megabyte. By 1997, the cost of storing a megabyte had dropped to around ten cents.

1957 - FORTRAN. IBM revolutionizes programming with the introduction of FORTRAN (Formula Translator). Created by John Backus, it soon becomes the most widely used computer programming language for technical work. For the first time, engineers and scientists can write computer programs in more natural forms, such as C=A/B rather than as strings of "machine language: 1s and 0s.

1997 - DEEP BLUE. The 32-node IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer, Deep Blue, defeated World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov in the first known instance of a computer vanquishing a world champion chess player in tournament-style competition. Also after years of teamwork among Research and Microelectronics divisions, IBM introduced the CMOS 7S process, which allowed manufacturers to use copper wires to link transistors in computer chips instead of relying on traditional aluminum interconnects; a revolutionary advance in semiconductor technology.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Future Computers

Computers of Tomorrow

Today's computers operate using transistors, wires and electricity. Future computers might use atoms, fibers and light. Personally, I don't give a byte what makes it tick, as long as it does the job. If I could accidentally spill my coffee and not have it cost $848, that would be a cool feature.

But let us assume that you are not still bitter from a recent laptop replacement. You might stop to consider what the world might be like, if computers the size of molecules become a reality. These are the types of computers that could be everywhere, but never seen. Nano sized bio-computers that could target specific areas inside your body. Giant networks of computers, in your clothing, your house, your car. Entrenched in almost every aspect of our lives and yet you may never give them a single thought.

Understanding the theories behind these future computer technologies is not for the meek. My research into quantum computers was made all the more difficult after I learned that in light of her constant interference, it is theoretically possible my mother-in-law could be in two places at once.

If you have the heart, take a gander at the most promising new computer technologies. If not, dare to imagine the ways that billions of tiny, powerful computers will change our society.

Quantum Computers

Optical Computers

DNA Computers

The Personal Computer Assistant

I must admit that in some ways I envy Donald Trump. Not because of all the real estate he owns or even for his cool private helicopter. No, what I envy most about The Donald is his apprentice. Who wouldn't appreciate giving any chore that comes to mind, to an eager and competent assistant? After time, a good apprentice might even anticipate your needs. "Pink tie today, Mr. Trump?". Now apply this same kind of relationship model to the future of computing.

In the future, the number of tiny but powerful computers you encounter every day will number in the thousands, perhaps millions. You won't see them, but they will be all around you. Your personal interface to this powerful network of computers could come from a single computing device that is worn on or in the body.

Aside from providing one 24/7 interface to the myriad of computers and sensors that you will have access to, like a good apprentice, this computing device would come to know your personal preferences and sometimes make decisions on your behalf.

Moore's law

Visit any site on the web writing about the future of computers and you will most likely find mention of Moore's Law. Moore's Law is not a strictly adhered to mathematical formula, but a prediction made by Intel's founder co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.

Moore predicted that computing technology would increase in value at the same time it would decrease in cost. More specifically, that innovations in technology would allow a doubling of the number of transistors in a given space every year, the speed of those transistors would increase and manufacturing costs would drop.

A computer transistor acts like a small electronic switch. Just like the light switch on your wall, a transistor has only two states, On or Off. A computer interprets this on/off state as a 1 or a 0. Put a whole bunch of these transistors together and you have a computer chip. The central processing unit (CPU) inside your computer probably has around 500 million transistors.

Shrinking transistor size not only makes chips smaller, but faster. One benefit of packing transistors closer together is that the electronic pulses take less time to travel between transistors. This can increase the overall speed of the chip.

Not everyone agrees that Moore's Law has been accurate throughout the years, (the prediction has changed since its original version), or that it will hold true in the future. But does it really matter? The pace at which computers are doubling their smarts is happening fast enough for me.

Thanks to the innovation and drive of Gordon Moore and others like him, computers will continue to get smaller, faster and more affordable.

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Visitor Comments

06.08.2010

that information about computers is so interesting....keep on going.

catalina

Computer Articles, Blogs and Web Sites

All Links open in a new window. Bold = Recommended

I verified the links on this page on 09.26.11. - ffa

**Future Computer Articles**
Title	Source	Date
Moore's Law Lives Another Day	Technology Review	04/12
Predicting the Future of Computing	NY Times	12/11
Supercomputer to Propel Sciences Forward	IBM	11/11
Next-Generation High-Performance Computing Platforms	Intel	11/11
Moore's Law safe into future as 3D 'Ivy Bridge' arrives	Silicon Republic	05/11
The Emotional Computer	University of Cambridge	12/10
IBM’s “Watson” Computing System to Challenge Jeopardy! Champions	IBM	12/10
Breakthrough Chip Technology Lights the Path to Exascale Computing	KurzweilAI.net	12/10
Supercomputers 'will fit in a sugar cube', IBM says	BBC News	11/10
Preparing for the supercomputer war	KurzweilAI.net	11/10
Chinese supercomputer is world’s fastest at 2.5 petaflops	KurzweilAI.net	10/10
Intel Wants to Be Inside Everything	Business Week	09/10
'Smart dust' aims to monitor everything	CNN	05/10
Quantum leap: World's smallest transistor built with just 7 atoms	PhysOrg	05/10
Chinese Supercomputer Is Ranked World’s Second-Fastest, Challenging U.S. Dominance	NY Times	05/10
The $75 Future Computer	Forbes	12/09
Computer Security In The Future	Computer Safety Tips	09/09
World's smallest computer (humor)	YouTube	12/08
The super-fast future of computing	BBC News	06/04

**Future Computer Web Sites and Blogs**
Title	Description
15 Cool & Crazy Concept Computers	WebUrbanist
2020 – Future of Computing	Nature
Non-Techie Talk	Good blog on trending computers, devices and software
Shape of Computers in the Future	Blog with cool future computer images

**Future Computer Video and Audio**
Title	Sources
CES 2009: Microsoft Future Products Demo	Youtube
Future World - Smart Dust Micro Computers	Youtube
Microsoft's Vision For 2019	Youtube
The Future of Computers	CNN
The Future of Computers	Edinburgh University
The Future of Computing	MIT World

**References**
Article	Sources
Computers of Tomorrow	Article by ffa
The Personal Computer Assistant	Article and image by ffa
Moore's law	Article by ffa Image from intel

Warning:

Many of the articles found on this web site are from a blogger that couldn't tell you the difference between hydrochloric and high colonic. We try our very best to provide you with useful, accurate information, but we don't always get it right. Please read our full disclaimer before quoting us at work, school or world conferences.

Irving Ziller and Fortran

Irving Ziller Joins the Fortran Team

In January 1954, John Backus got his first conscript, Irving Ziller. A graduate of Brooklyn College, Ziller joined IBM in 1952 and had been put to work programming plug boards on electronic calculators. The calculators were made from a series of these plug boards, roughly 8" 1/2 by 11" inches, filled with holes into which wires were connected by hand. It was another form of hard-wired programming. When complete, a plug-board would look like a miniature jungle of wires rising up from the board.

Irving Ziller quickly proved to be both bright and extremely adept as a plug board programmer. In his apartment in the Riverdale section of New York, Ziller described his plug-board programming days in animated detail. This, as you can imagine, was a fairly tedious job, he said. Anyone doing plug boards understood the emerging need to simplify the programming process. So, when asked, Ziller was an eager recruit to John Backus's project.

Harlan Herrick Joins

Soon after, the team got its third member, Harlan Herrick. He was a math major at Iowa State University, and an outstanding chess player, who had won regional tournaments in the Midwest. He was awarded a scholarship to Yale University for graduate studies, but he was unhappy there. After reading an article about IBM's SSEC machine, he applied for a programming job and was hired.

When he joined the FORTRAN team, Harlan Herrick had five years of experience programming IBM's SSEC and 701 machines. That made him a wizened veteran among programmers at the time. Within IBM, Herrick was known as a naturally gifted programmer, and his work was instrumental to the success of FORTRAN. At the start, though, he was the most skeptical because he was the most steeped in the programming practices of the time. Herrick was a member of the priesthood. When Backus first told him about the project, Herrick was incredulous. I said, John, we can't possibly simulate a human programmer with a language, this language, that would produce machine code that would even approach the efficiency of a human programmer like me, for example, Herrick recalled in 1982. I'm a great programmer, don't you know?

Next page > Part Two of FORTRAN The Turning Point

Friday, November 25, 2011

bibles

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Nosata Izemoiku nosataizemoiku@yahoo.com.hk to bcc: me

show details 8:16 AM (7 hours ago)

Greetings in Jesus name,

May this letter find you blessed in Christ. I am writing from West Africa and it is a blessing getting to you in the other part of the world. It is my prayer that you become a friend of me and the local church here. I got your email when I surfed into the web site and I know that it is God’s arrangement.

By His grace I am a Believer bought and washed by the Blood of Jesus Christ. I am married with three children. I am a pastor of a small local church non denominational or affiliated to anybody. The church was founded in 2006 and now has about 30 members. I gave my life to Christ in 1987 when I was still in the high school at Zaria. A campus fellowship student by name Femi was my roommate at school and his life of faithfulness unto Christ and his prayer and teaching me the Bible led me to Christ. This Brother told me then that he sensed that God was going to use me for His cause. I was never ready to hear that because my dream or thought was never in the ministry but to finish my studies and get a nice job. Five years after school and already working I started having the stronger urge and sensing that God was calling me but I kept on putting it off my heart because my job and life was sweet to me and I felt I needed nothing else. One day a guest speaker was ministering in our church and he singled me out in a crowd of over a thousand and told me that God has called me to the ministry and cannot hide. After he left I told my pastor that I have accepted and my pastor and other elders of the church prayed with me. I immediately joined and headed the evangelical outreach of the church and I saw many coming to Christ in the outreach. I let go of my job in 2005 and returned to Edo my State. I joined a small local church and was assisting the pastor as the second pastor. In January 13th 2007 a pastor of a little church of about five families in my area walked up to me telling me that he is leaving the state to his home state where the Lord has asked him to go and start the work. He said he has been praying for over a month that the Lord has asked him to tell me to take over the little church he founded 2006. I have not had relationship with this pastor before now so it amazed me. He asked me to pray to ask the Lord. I did prayed and without wasting time I knew the Lord ask me to hold that little church and that was how I became the pastor of this church called Victory Chapel. The church is a growing church and we meet at a temporary rented building. We are earthly rich but rich in Christ, riches that will last for eternity.

2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”. The reason why I am writing is to appeal for your assistance in the area of a Study Bible which will be of help to me in my research and study of the bible as well as lesson preparation as a pastor, and bibles for our aged members. These items are very scarce here. I need The Dakes Annotated Reference Bible. It is a very good study Bible for ministers of the gospel. Please help me for it. There are many in our local church who do not have bibles and cannot afford to buy. I want to specifically make a request for the elderly ones who cannot work and earn money to buy for themselves. There are 12 of such very old fathers and mothers in our church who read and understand English and they are very devoted. Please on their behalf I request that you send them 12 Bibles the very big letters which is the super giant print 18 point type would be preferable for them because of their sight. We would also appreciate used bibles provided the pages are complete. Thank you for considering this request. And as you help to meet this kingdom need the Lord will bless you finance abundantly. If you send the bibles through post office a registered postage the bibles will get to us safely. I was told at the post office that EMS postage or post office insured mail is safer and without charge. My home and postal address is 467 Osagbada-Glpo 5870, Benin, Edo State, Nigeria. Please write when you get my mail. I do not have full access to internet but I can check at least three times weekly. Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days"

Continue to be obedient and the Lord will honour you in His time. Exodus 19:5, the Lord spoke to the children of Israel through Moses saying: "Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:..." The Lord bless you and keep you in His perfect love.

In His Service,
Nosata Izemoiku
467 Osagbada-Glpo 5870,
Benin,
Edo State, Nigeria

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Your message has been sent. Reply
Jordan Richman to Nosata
show details 3:24 PM (0 minutes ago)

Do you know Willie Okoro? he is an ordained Cathoic Minister and a has a doctorate
in socology. If you know him, please tell him Dr.Jordan Richman sends him his deepesr regards and because of his blessings, I have reached my 80th birthday.

Jordan Richman--Thanks for the email.
I cannot send you the bibles, but I have a website called artlegends.org.
If you check that out you will see frescoes from Italian churches showing the the birth and life an crucifixion of Jesus. If you can print them out on good paper and pass them around to your church worshippers it will be almost as good as getting the bibles because these painters were all holy men and they transmitted their zeal to the painings.

Let me know how you make out.

Brother Jordan