Talk:History of computing hardware

message: Old discussions have been moved to archives - use the navigation box to switch between them. I used the much nicer    and    templates as found on the Personal computer talk pages to spruce up navigation a little. Remember when creating new archive pages that they must have a space in the title - talk:History of computing hardware/Archive 3 would be the next page, for example. --Wtshymanski (talk) 01:35, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Old discussions

message: i was wondering whether the Antikythera mechanism is the first computer, cause their are lot articles that make that claim.Tomasz Prochownik (talk) 21:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Follow the link  for the latest thinking on the matter. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 23:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: question

message: According to Hennesey and Patterson, Von Neumann knew about the details of Zuse' floating-point proposal. This suggests that the sentence 'Zuse was largely ignored' should be stricken. Any objections? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zuse and Von Neumann 

message: Fellow editors, you are welcome to make your contribution to this article. See the sections above for examples on adding citations. Be Bold. 
--Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Contributions welcomed. 

message: We need a name akin to the concept of first light of an observatory telescope; I propose the denotation first good run, and wish to apply it to Baby's first good run, June 21, 1948, 60 years ago. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 23:00, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am wary of defining such "firsts" in computing, bearing in mind the statement in this article that "Defining a single point in the series as the "first computer" misses many subtleties".TedColes (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your considered response. What I refer to is 'the comparison of an expectation to an observation', to use William Shockley's phrase. For example, there were 'screams of joy' when the first p-system for UCSD Pascal compiled itself (the expectation). In my mind, that qualifies as a first good run. Another might be the attainment of 1 peta-flop operation for IBM Roadrunner, just last month. For Baby, the resulting convergence of dots on the Williams tube to the expected location was the first good run. And since the phrase is ostensive, meaning relative to the situation, akin to 'baby's first word', I can see that what the proud parent might view as a triumph might be viewed as something more akin to Michael Faraday's response 'and what is the use of a new-born baby'. Might it be better to use a more prosaic phrase like 'first run'? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 19:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

text: Herbert Simon once said 'There is no substitute for a working program'. Maybe the phrase might be 'first working program' for Baby. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 19:39, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  First light 

message: It seems like the table titled
"Defining characteristics of some early digital computers of the 1940s (See History of computing hardware)"
has a mistake. In the row about the Harvard Mark I – IBM ASCC in the column "Turing Complete" the link (1998) is clearly copied and pasted from the row about Z3. I don't know if Harvard Mark I was turing complete but the reference is wrong for sure. I am not familiar with the markup that references this table (obviously across multiple pages) and could not remove the information. Can someone else do it.
Stilgar (talk) 07:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The same reference to Rojas applies to both electromechanical computers, which ran from tape of finite length, and whose programs are of finite length. Rojas shows that it is possible to simulate branching with pre-computed unconditional jumps. That would apply to both Z3 and Mark I. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 08:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Harvard Mark I – IBM ASCC  Turing Complete? 

message: As it stands, this still doesn't meet the 2008 FA criteria standards. I just ran the link checker tool on this article, and found some broken links (many are used as references):
http://toolserver.org/~dispenser/cgi-bin/webchecklinks.py?page=History_of_computing_hardware
The broken links will need to be replaced with other reliable sources, preferably books. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 07:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken links 

message: At the moment, it seems page numbers are being given in the 'References' section instead of in the footnotes where they should be. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 08:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with References 

message: Why is there a special section for 'American developments' and not one for 'British developments', or any other country? Are Americans special?
--Bias Detector--  21st July 2008  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.9.138.200 (talk) 16:45, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See the article: "There were three parallel streams of computer development in the World War II era; the first stream largely ignored, and the second stream deliberately kept secret." 1)=Zuse 2)=secret UK 3)=ENIAC etc. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:14, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why the special section? 

message: Claude Shannon founded digital design. Open any electrical engineering book and you will see what Shannon did. This is a link to his thesis. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:07, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: "In his 1937 MIT master's thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, Claude Elwood Shannon 'proved' that Boolean algebra and binary arithmetic could be used to simplify the arrangement of the electromechanical relays then used in telephone routing switches, then turned the concept upside down and also proved that it should be possible to use arrangements of relays to solve Boolean algebra problems."This isn't the same as "implementing" a circuit. However ground-breaking his thesis, it provided a proof, not an implementation. Follow the wikilinks. All we have is words to communicate here; we do need to be able to understand what they mean to make progress on this issue.  --TraceyR (talk) 10:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

text: That looks fine. Go with it. --TraceyR (talk) 10:26, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Shannon's thesis 

message: I need to put in a plug for Emil Post's work. His formulation of the Turing machine is simpler and Post was actually earlier than Turing, but he failed to publish early enough. That is actually the reason I left in the 'and others'. But, c'est la vie. 
Maybe the Post-Turing machine will gain currency in future :Category:Computational models. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps Post's "worker" can be regarded as a "machine" or perhps not. Either way, the evidence seems to point to Turing's 'On Computable Numbers' paper as having had considerable influence on subsequent developments. If you think it only fair to revise my edit, is 'others' (plural) the right word—maybe just refer to Post. I think there is a serious omission from the article in that it does not make any reference to Turing's Automatic Computing Engine design, which had important differences to von Neumann's 'First Draft' design. Incidentally, it is easy to underestimate the very close transatlantic co-operation during the second world war—Hodges says that Turing cited the von Neumann's paper in his own 1945/46 ACE paper.TedColes (talk) 23:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have No Problem with your edits as I respect your work. Perhaps we can also use the first-hand memoirs from First-Hand:History of the IEEE Global History Network to entice more editors to contribute here. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I was not aware of Networking the History of Technology—I am not a member. But it looks like a potentially excellent and authoritative source. TedColes (talk) 06:56, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Emil Post]]'s machines 

message: Many of the section hatnotes are a little non-sequitorous. Others "belong" in other sections. I don't have the time to sift through them all myself though. –OrangeDog (talk • edits) 18:37, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hatnote mess 

message: The lead summary states: "Eventually the voltages or currents were standardized, and then digitized". Could someone explain how voltages or currents were digitized. In what way(s) was this breakthrough made? I thought that my PC used 'analogue' power. Many thanks. --TraceyR (talk) 07:42, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You can look up the voltages in the successor to the TTL databook. The logic series was 5400, then 7400, then 4000, etc. The 1970s 7400 Low power: "1.65 to 3.3V". We need an article about this, from 28V for relays, successively lower as power consumption became greener. Maybe WtShymanski can step in? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 21:25, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

text: When looking up DTL (1961) I see the levels were -3V and ground. So you can see the voltages were digitized from the beginning. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 00:41, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

text: Here is a handy table for the different logic families. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 00:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: If anyone can tell me what that paragraph is supposed to be saying, I'll buy him/her a donut. The whole lead is garbage and must be rewritten. For every Von Neumann chip out there there's probably a half-dozen Harvard-style chips - let's not lie excessively in the first paragraph. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ever notice how a perfectly clear Wikipedia article, by gentle stages, eventually becomes something that looks like the transcript of the speech of a cat lady having a bad day?  One's confidence in the ever-upward spiral of Wikiprogress is shaken. List all the synonyms, show how it's spelled in different varities of English, and, perhaps, include a diatribe on how it wsa *really* invented by Tesla/a Hungarian/a Canadian/an ET - put all that in the first sentence with enough links and footnotes, and you're well on the way to mania. --Wtshymanski (talk) 20:17, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voltages ... were ... digitized 

message: I appreciate ArnoldReinhold's edits; they show that the flat memory model is a definite advance on the delay line memory model that early programmers had to deal with; however the current style of programming did not arise from nothing. If the deleted edits were unclear, then we might have to give an example of the contortions that programmers had to go through when solving a problem in the early days. Hardware-independent programming did not exist in the early days. Even today, operating system-independent programming is not a given: the API is typically OS dependent. In the absence of contributions to the article in this vein, consider how one would have to program if the items in memory were to decay before they were reused -- one would be forced to refresh critical data before the delay time had elapsed. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to be implying that refreshing memory was the programmer's responsibility, which it wasn't. A better example might be the programming contortions required to access the early magnetic drums. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:07, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That was the point of the deleted text (on accessing the magnetic drums). --Ancheta Wis (talk) 21:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Delay line memory]]

message: I reached this article looking for a reference to the MOSAIC computer (Ministry of Supply Automatic Integrator and Calculator) and wondered if the following Introduction might be short enough and apposite:
Computing hardware subsumes (1) machines that needed separate manual action to perform each  arithmetic operation, (2) punched card machines, and (3) stored program computers. The history of (3) relates largely to (a) the organization of the units to perform input and output, to store data and to combine it, into a complete machine (computer architecture), (b) the electronic components and mechanical devices that comprise these units, (3) higher levels of organization into 21st century supercomputers. Increases in speed and memory capacity, and decreases in cost and size in relation to compute power, are major features of the history.
Five lines instead of 36. The present Introduction could become the first section, headed say Overview, and the pre-stored program coverage extended to mention the abacus, the National Accounting Machines that "cross footed" under control of a "form bar" that facilitated table construction using difference methods, and machines of mid 20th century typified by the Brunswiga (not sure of spelling) and Marchand. The overlap of punched card and stored program computers, by dint of control panels and then card programmed computers could be mentioned. Michael P. Barnett (talk) 01:47, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Used your 5-line suggestion for the Introduction. Please feel free to incorporate the remainder of your contribution into the article. Thank you for your suggestions. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:54, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: There is currently a slow edit war at IEEE 754-1985. I put down the Z3 as the first working computer as is in this article and it was reverted. I pointed out this article as a better venue to argue matters about history but they can't be bothered to do that so I'm doing it instead. Discussion at Talk:IEEE 754-1985#Z3 first working computer. 17:50, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argument at IEEE 754-1985 

message: Please put in a note, that the idea of punched card driven looms originated  from french mechanic Jean Baptist Falcon in 1728, although Falcon never successed in building one by himself.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.97.182.235 (talk) 15:12, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't see why, they were a development of the perforated paper rolls being used for the purpose and he didn't make it work. Who used the perforated paper rolls first and when would be more relevant. Also relevant at this level of detail possibly would be the barrels with pins which were used before that for controlling automatons, and as far as I know Hero of Alexandria used them first. Dmcq (talk) 19:07, 13 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Punched cards derived from Jean baptist Falcon (1728) 

message: I propose to rename the analog section in order to preserve the content that was removed. 
Alternatively, perhaps a new section with this name might be inserted to contain that content.
--Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The business about accuracy is practically irrelevant. Digital computers are more convenient. It is like the difference between solving geometry problems the Greek way and solving them using Cartesian coordinates. The Cartesian coordinates may be more long winded in some cases but they just work. Dmcq (talk) 11:09, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Noise is relevant.  A usable signal to noise ratio is the fundamental reason that digital circuits are more accurate than analog circuits.  --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:22, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean precision, not accuracy. Doesn't matter how many bits you have in the number if it's the wrong number. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, you are quite right about the distinction. Thank you. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 13:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the original idea behind ENIAC was that it should emulate a differential analyser but that idea was abandoned early on as lacking in vision. Even Ada Lovelace  and Babbage knew better Dmcq (talk) 17:12, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transition from analog to digital 

message: What category (or categories) is appropriate for machines that use integrated circuits, but don't put the entire processor on a single chip?
In other words, what category covers what History of computing hardware (1960s–present) calls "Third generation" computers?
In other words, what category goes in the blank of the following?:
* The :category: electro-mechanical computers or :category: vacuum tube computers include articles about "First-generation machines"
* The :category: transistorized computers includes articles about "Second generation" computers.
* The category ----?---- includes articles about "Third generation" computers, such as all the computers mentioned in the book The Soul of a New Machine.
* The :category: microcontrollers and :category: microprocessors (and its many sub-categories) cover single-chip processors -- the processors used in "Fourth generation" computers.
--DavidCary (talk) 14:55, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps :category: minicomputers ? --DavidCary (talk) 14:55, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  categories 

message: Archimedes' method of performing calculations was the use of mechanical balance (think see-saw) of countable items versus the object being measured. This method was used for estimating the number of grains of sand in the universe, etc. (see the the sand reckoner).
Thus Archimedes' method of calculation was very concrete, as befits his status as engineer, inventor, and physicist.  For this reason I propose to add his method to history of computing rather than to this article. I am pretty sure there is already a main article about this. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 02:19, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds reasonable to me.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:28, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 02:40, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archimedes' method 

message: The lede previously claimed that Zuse was commonly known as *the* "inventor of the computer" and the only citations given are to discussions in blogs.
Published histories of computing have variously proposed that the "inventor of the computer" is Babbage (who designed the first programmable computer), Aiken (for the Harvard Mark1 which was a highly influential electromechanical computer designed and built around the time of Zuse's Z3), Atanasoff (for the first electronic digital computer), Eckert and von Neumann (for the stored program concept), and several other milestones. Zuse's Z3 could certainly could support the claim of his being the creator of the first working electromechanical programmable computer, but this does not imply that he is commonly known as the inventor of the computer. Wikipedia articles should not be used to push non-mainstream views.  
  
For now I have moved this claim down to section on Zuse's computer for now, but I think that either a separate section discussing the complex issue of who was *the* inventor of the computer should be added, or this claim should be removed (in any case, the claim needs reputable citations, not just blogs).
198.255.141.250 (talk) 16:33, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claim that Zuse is commonly known as the "inventor of computer" is wrong. 

message: Is there a Wikipedia article dedicated to vacuum tube computers?
I think there's enough material in this article about vacuum tube computers to create an article (WP:SPINOUT) focused on that category of computers.
Usually when there exists both a Wikipedia category about some topic, and also a Wikipedia "List of" article about that same topic, there is usually an WP:EPONYMOUS article dedicated to exactly that topic.
For example, there is both a list of transistorized computers article and a :category: transistorized computers, so I am glad to see there is also a transistor computer article.
I see there is both a list of vacuum tube computers article and a :category: vacuum tube computers, so I am surprised that there is apparently no article dedicated to vacuum tube computers.
When I click on vacuum tube computers, hoping to find an article dedicated to them, today I find it is a redirect to vacuum tube, which has much less information (mostly in vacuum tube#Use in electronic computers) about such machines than this "History of computing hardware" article.
Is there an article that more specifically discusses vacuum tube computers that vacuum tube computer and vacuum tube computers should redirect to?
--DavidCary (talk) 18:37, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that there definitely should be such an article.  The only article I only know of (and find) List of vacuum tube computers, which you already know about.  Stored-program computer is also relevant, but doesn't have enough information. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:34, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  vacuum tube computers 

message: Hi,
Does the Wilbur machine (analog computer, on display in the science museum in Tokyo) fit in the history of (analog) computers or did it have any significans? --Butch (talk) 13:40, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Wilbur could solve  up to 9 simultaneous linear equations, but was not programmable for other applications,Wilbur machine, 1930s, MIT accessdate=2015-11-22 such as the orbit of Mars, or even the law of falling bodies. It was 'hard-coded', so to speak, and thus inflexible, compared to software-programmable devices. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 14:38, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the responses. The in the article mentioned Sir William Thomson device was as far as i can see, also not programmable (only 'settable'). So my question remains, should the Wilbur machine be mentioned in the article? (Notes 1) Maybe not under 'analog computers' but under 'early devices'? 2) In the added reference to MIT the keyword 'analog computer' is used! 3) Maybe the Wilbur Machine should have it's own lemma. Anybody from MIT?) BTW Ancheta Wis, have you ever seen a software programmable analog computer?--Butch (talk) 08:18, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Analog machines are physical configurations. As arrangements of physical objects, they obey physical laws, such as the mass flow of water, or metal balls, for example. The mathematical solutions in some nomogram, say a Smith chart, are typically mathematical transformations which are geometrical shapes, not mathematical equations. So no, the analog machines are not software, they are typically hardware, used to embody a specific mathematical operation. (Think slide rule or planimeter.) By the way, a quantum computer, using some  configuration of qubits would also embody some quantum mechanical experiment, as the analog for something else. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 09:25, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for explaining the analog computer but i happen already to know what an analog computer is (During my training i did wire/setup an analog computer to simulate a moon landing! For some years i also was a maintenance technician for an analog computer of a missile guidance system!) Also adding quantum mechanics does not answer my question. So my main question remain? Should the Wilbur machine be mentioned in this article (or maybe an article at its own?--Butch (talk) 09:45, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this is a wiki, you are free to contribute to the article. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 12:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Ofcourse i know i can add text to the article (done it before ;-) I just ask for other peoples opinion whether the Wilbur machine is worth mentioning in this article. Seems a simple question to me.--Butch (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wilbur machine 

message: Hi
any particular reason Lull's Ars Magna is not included (or at least referenced) here?
T88.89.219.147 (talk) 23:50, 17 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ars Magna? 

message: There is an undefined reference to "Robinson" in the portion related to Colossus.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.18.173.105 (talk) 19:06, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I had to fall back to find a version of the text without the fragment "Both models were programmable using switches and plug panels in a way the Robinsons had not been." dated January 2014.   Might this be what you refer to?  --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 21:09, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

text: In fact this sentence shows up in the very next edit. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 21:29, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

text: Here is a citation for the tape drives (the Robinsons). --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 00:55, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  undefined reference "Robinson" in portion related to Colossus. 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: There is a picture of this artifact but no mention of it in the text.  Such an arrangement is not helpful. Kdammers (talk) 17:53, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I propose the caption and text "The Ishango bone is thought to be an early tally stick.".The Ishango bone is a bone tool, dated to the Upper Paleolithic era, about 18,000 to 20,000 BC. It is a dark brown length of bone, the fibula of a baboon. It has a series of tally marks carved in three columns running the length of the tool. It was found in 1960 in Belgian Congo. --A very brief history of pure mathematics: The Ishango Bone University of Western Australia School of Mathematics – accessed January 2007. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 01:09, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  How about "prehistoric" or "paleolithic" instead of "early"? Kdammers (talk) 14:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ishango bone 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I have been curious how IBM had such good knowledge of Zuse. Perhaps a history which details Dehomag can clarify this. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 18:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on this citation I am interested in the connection between Willy Heidinger and Konrad Zuse. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 21:18, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zuse 

message: This quotation is a paraphrase of Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. XVIII: 
  —ch. XVIII
Since we are seeing a revert war, might we consider:
# What good is it to rile up the editors of the article. What purpose is served by trolling the article? There are policies against this.
# "Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is 'War is the continuation of politics by other means.' " Might we think the Holocaust was war, but begun 10 years earlier?
# Francis Bacon noted "knowledge is power", and counted the invention of gunpowder as an advance of his civilization. Galileo figured out the equations for a falling body because he was paid to do so but they apply directly to gunnery tables. Think ENIAC.
# One of the inventors of a new mathematical notation which is just now being applied to the newest programming languages starved to death as a direct result of his membership in the Nazi party.
# The footnote #141 Kalman 1960 was applied directly to an aerospace defense application, as implemented in integrated circuits
# The new computer languages of the 1950s forward were applied directly to an aerospace defense application
# Elon Musk warns of the application of AI to a new world order. The internet is destroying our political institutions; must we wait any further before designating this as a theater of war?
I am being vague because these statements could be misused against the existing order. I for one wish to preserve the stability of the existing order. 
--Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:58, 8 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "History is written by the victors" —Anonymous 

message: I don't think that "magnetic storage" should be a subsection under "stored program".  Magnetic storage isn't necessary for a stored program computer.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:31, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a qualitative difference, akin to reading from  scrolls versus codices versus hypertext. We think and program differently in the respective cases. The techniques scale differently as well. Assembler versus FORTRAN versus the web languages. Maybe this takes more planning for the article. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 16:02, 24 September 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  "magnetic storage" under "stored program"? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Nothing on amateur computing?
john f
2.26.119.204 (talk) 09:24, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amateur computing 

message: This strikes me as opinion, and not necessarily fitting for a topic on computing hardware.  Internet history, definitely, however it is still phrased as opinion.  I happen to agree that the NeXT Computer (I believe the NeXTCube) that Tim Berners-Lee used to develop the WWW, and I would add John Carmack's development of Doom on a NeXtStation, are historical, I don't feel this paragraph fits in this article.
Perhaps the history of the WWW, an article on the history of Next, video games, etc. but not in this article.
Communibus locis (talk) 21:42, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance of NeXT Computer Mention in Article 

message: The article has a book citation to Reconstruction of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer by John Gustafson.  I can't find such a book but there is this paper.  Is that it?  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:22, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  reference 

message: == Computers and Automation Magazine ==
Pictorial Report on the Computer Field:
*A PICTORIAL INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS - 06/1957
*A PICTORIAL MANUAL ON COMPUTERS - 12/1957
*A PICTORIAL MANUAL ON COMPUTERS, Part 2 - 01/1958
*1958-1966 Pictorial Report on the Computer Field - December issues (195812.pdf, ..., 196612.pdf)
--89.25.210.104 (talk) 18:21, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not clear why these are listed here (or why the list is hidden), but I agree they're interesting to read through. Dicklyon (talk) 20:06, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I put it here because I didn't know where it could be placed (for public view). Hidden to save vertical space for people not interested (and because I'm using [very] low screen resolution). --MarMi wiki (talk) 20:27, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: How about as a bulleted list under Computers And Automation Magazine in  External Links? Tom94022 (talk) 00:51, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I redacted the list as a new section (see above) to be put before External Links, can it be put there?  --MarMi wiki (talk) 00:45, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO I don't see a new section as appropriate, but a bulleted list under External Links or maybe even under Further Reading seems appropriate.  Just my 2 cents, u might want to get other opinions.  Tom94022 (talk) 01:00, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Added to FR. It may require splitting to pre and post-1960. --MarMi wiki (talk) 21:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictorial Reports on the Computer Field (Computers and Automation, 1957+) 

message: I think that most of Post-1960 (integrated circuit based) section should be moved to History of computing hardware (1960s–present). --MarMi wiki (talk) 22:08, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I would go further and combine this article's sections 9 and 10 into one new section "History of computing hardware (1960s–present)" with just a summary and a main link to the History of computing hardware (1960s–present) article. Anything in these two sections not in the main article should be moved and the redundant rest this article in deleted. Tom94022 (talk) 22:40, 30 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Post-1960 (integrated circuit based)'' - move to 1960s–present? 

message: It is clear that Americans were intimately involved in the use of Colossu during WWII - see: "". So I shall revert the recent edit. --TedColes (talk) 04:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Probably a good idea to wedge that ref into the article somewhere. - Snori (talk) 05:27, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  American knowledge of Colossus 

message: I would like to discuss this edit:
 <--ping
It seems to me that computers based on integrated circuits were an important intermediate step between computers based upon discrete transistors and computers based upon microprocessors.  I this the section should be restored. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that a section on IC-based computers is important for computing history. For those on low budgets, minicomputers (using ICs) were still supreme when people started mucking around with microprocessors. The old "Integrated circuit" section is at permalink. Johnuniq (talk) 01:34, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I WP:BRD restored it. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:12, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

text: Computers with integrated circuits are basically the whole third generation, in my opinion.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 06:16, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you know that they are still available? See [ https://gigatron.io/ ]. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:40, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, I've seen a YouTube video about it by the 8-bit guy. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 07:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

text: There's no question that the IC era was important, but the story is more granular than 1,2,3,4 generations. Computer architectures can be independent of the types of logic elements used to implement them. Thus the PDP-8 started with discrete transistors, went through stages of IC designs and ended as a microprocessor. Or going back further, there's the IBM 709 - 7090 transition from vacuum tube to transistor. (Ada Lovelace described the concept clearly in her writing about the Analytical Engine.) A major milestone was the development of standardized IC families, especially TTL. Early 16-bit minicomputers, like the PDP-11 or the DG Nova used the basic 7400-series integrated circuits, with only a few logic elements per chip, what became known as SSI, single scale integration, IIRC. As the technology improved, single chips did more complex operations, such as encoders and decoders or multi bit bus interfaces, medium scale integration. I remember the 74LS245 octal bus transceiver introduction. Previously one needed separate bus driver and bus receiver chips. The '245 cut the chip count for a bus interface in half and was an instant success, so much so that supplies were tight, prices rose, and a black market developed, with thieves stealing supplies of chips from warehouses. The next stage was so called large scale integration, LSI with, for example, bit slice chips like the 1975 AMD Am2900 series that implemented all the circuitry for a CPU four bits at a time. Everyone knew that eventually an entire CPU would fit on a chip, but early designs were very limited in what they could do so machines based on the LSI designs persisted for several years as microprocessors improved.--agr (talk) 12:40, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we need to split the history into two sections? One could cover the classes of computer -- programmable looms, mechanical adding machines, analog computers, programmable calculators and 10-key adding machines, mainframes, supercomputers, minicomputers, PLCs, personal computers,  smart phones, etc. The other could cover technologies -- mechanical (plus hydraulic?), relay, vacuum tube, transistor, LSI, VLSI, Microcontroller, PLD, SoC, etc. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a RS for generations and within generations, classes:  see Bell’s Law for the Birth and Death of Computer Classes: A theory of the Computer’s Evolution.  So adding the generations is just a start to improving this article and they should not have been reverted out.  Tom94022 (talk) 21:17, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

text: What was removed was some, not all detail history of ICs as not particularly relevant to this article and a little bit of the history of third generation computers was added but then reverted out.  Agreed the section History_of_computing_hardware#Integrated_circuits needs improvement and I'll take a crack at it there.  There is a Draft:List_of_integrated_circuit_computers article that has some details that should be moved into History_of_computing_hardware#Integrated_circuits.  Tom94022 (talk) 21:17, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Integrated Circuits 

message: Reference 118 is a link to a patent application.  It is used at the end of a sentence saying that magnetic core was dominant until the mid-1970s.  This is not in the source.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:00, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Computer History Museum says magnetic core lasted until 1980, supplanted by    DRAM   devices: 4K DRAM devices 1973, 16K DRAM 1976, 64K DRAM 1979Computer History Museum Main Memory: The Winners: MOS DRAMs Replace Magnetic Core Arrays "By 1976 everyone adopted Mostek’s approach for 16K and larger DRAMs." --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 04:39, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text:  My point is that reference 118 doesn't support the sentence to which it is attached.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:13, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: We can augment the reference, can't we. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 05:16, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

text:  Yes, please do.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:47, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed. Tom94022 (talk) 07:02, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference 118 

message: Per Wikipedia:Disambiguation: There are three important aspects to disambiguation:
"Making the links for ambiguous terms point to the correct article title. For example, an editor of an astronomy article may have created a link to Mercury, and this should be corrected to point to Mercury (planet)."
The term Modern is vague and meaningless. Modern history covers the period from the 16th to the 21st century. Modernity is also used for the "socio-cultural norms" of the world prior to World War II, and is associated with Modernism as an art movement (late 19th century to early 20th century).
Meanwhile contemporary history refers to the present time period. Dimadick (talk) 19:24, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: IMO the ordinary dictionary meaning of the adjective "modern" is sufficient and unambiguous in this context so no link is needed to either Modern history or Contemporary history nor is any required under the quoted aspect of Wikipedia:Disambiguation above nor under any other aspect of the policy.  From a stylistic perspective "modern history" reads better to my eyes than "contemporary history" as support I would note a Google search has the terms in a ratio of about 16M/4M.  As a style issue then MOS:VAR would seem to require the existing style be retained.  Tom94022 (talk) 20:17, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: We are not a dictionary, and this is a history article. And the Wikipedia:Manual of Style specifically mentions cases where "the existing style is problematic". Dimadick (talk) 15:24, 7 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Moderne" 

message: I think not! A recent edit reverted without relevant discussion the removal of material that is not particularly relevant to this article and well covered in the linked article and elsewhere.  I'm going to revert it again and hopefully there will be some discussion here and not edit warring.  Tom94022 (talk) 01:24, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: What needs to be acknowledged is sourcing. The work had a source, and a volunteer who did the work. The licensing depends on this. At the very least, the Wikipedia article that served as the impetus ought to be noted, in order for the work to be freely available. User:Michael Hardy formed this article and a family of others with his frank admission of what he realized he did not know. Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia was formulated in 2009 and there has been copying of this History  of computing hardware. This article is very old (in Wikipedia terms), but those of us who wrote it still know its story, and we gladly shared our knowledge. Some of us are still around. The more recent articles need to acknowledge their sources. (See the links) --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 06:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you please spell out the problem. Are you saying that someone moved text from this article to another article without the attribution required by WP:CWW? What other article? Johnuniq (talk) 07:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a synchronization problem. We were writing articles all these years, and a culture arose, but some points got omitted during this time, without specifically acknowledging WP sources. So the problem arose gradually. I'm pretty sure it happened in good faith. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Lots of text is added and later removed. That is not a problem. The question now is what text should be in this article, and what text should be in a related article. Johnuniq (talk) 07:36, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Per Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia, "state that content was copied from that source" in the summary, not just the article. A simple acknowledgement of "Who got what, and when." --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:47, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I linked to WP:CWW above, and it's why I asked for the problem to be spelled out. Johnuniq (talk) 07:50, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The links resolve to the same article. The problem is credit for licensing. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this article need MOSFET history? 

message: :What needs to be acknowledged is sourcing. The work had a source, and a volunteer who did the work. The licensing depends on this. At the very least, the Wikipedia article that served as the impetus ought to be noted, in order for the work to be freely available. User:Michael Hardy formed this article and a family of others with his frank admission of what he realized he did not know. Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia was formulated in 2009 and there has been copying of this History  of computing hardware. This article is very old (in Wikipedia terms), but those of us who wrote it still know its story, and we gladly shared our knowledge. Some of us are still around. The more recent articles need to acknowledge their sources. (See the links) --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 06:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you please spell out the problem. Are you saying that someone moved text from this article to another article without the attribution required by WP:CWW? What other article? Johnuniq (talk) 07:06, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a synchronization problem. We were writing articles all these years, and a culture arose, but some points got omitted during this time, without specifically acknowledging WP sources. So the problem arose gradually. I'm pretty sure it happened in good faith. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Lots of text is added and later removed. That is not a problem. The question now is what text should be in this article, and what text should be in a related article. Johnuniq (talk) 07:36, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Per Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia, "state that content was copied from that source" in the summary, not just the article. A simple acknowledgement of "Who got what, and when." --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:47, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I linked to WP:CWW above, and it's why I asked for the problem to be spelled out. Johnuniq (talk) 07:50, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: The links resolve to the same article. The problem is credit for licensing. --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 07:57, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia:Copying within Wikipedia

message: See Talk:Analog computer#Earliest? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:23, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Just as the Antikythera mechanism was to calculate the date of the sacred olympic games, the south-pointing chariot was for the emperor of China, whose only duty was to face south; the Mandate of Heaven to justly govern then determined what army would win in battle. This was the state of military technology (think a hail of bronze-tipped bolts fired from crossbows) during the Warring States period. (See Science and Civilisation in China, I read this in the 1970s, so it would have been in one of the Volumes 1 to 4 -- there are now over 27 such books.) --Ancheta Wis    (talk  | contribs) 18:20, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Earliest? 

message: Why do I keep seeing this same exact line "The castle clock, a hydropowered mechanical astronomical clock invented by Al-Jazari in 1206, was the first programmable analog computer.[10][11][12]" posted on all the major computing history Wikipedia articles? For starters, I believe the claim is a bit sensationalized, as the word "programmable" is being used very loosely here. The term programmable is usually meant in the context of being able to provide instructions to a machine so that the machine can adjust its operations accordingly. In this scenario for Al-Jazari's clock (also very loosely associated with a computer, but it performs a computation of sorts, namely, keeping time and such, so I will grant that I suppose), the clock had to be manually recalibrated. Does this qualify as programmable? In addition to this, the actual cited source isn't even correct. The episode in question of Ancient Discoveries of the History Channel is Series 3 Episode 9, and the episode itself (available on YouTube) doesn't even support the claim that Al-Jazari's clock was the first programmable analog computer. The episode actually makes an even stranger claim: that Al-Jazari's clock was a "super computer". I also looked through source 11 and didn't find the claim supported on the page given. What is going on here?
2601:82:200:8B20:0:0:0:3C04 (talk) 01:24, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems clear that the castle clock is programable in adjusting the flow for unequal hours of a day.  Whether it is earliest remains to be shown.  Tom94022 (talk) 02:58, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  First programmable analog computer? 

message: Why does the article claim that 'The first commercial computer was the Ferranti Mark 1, built by Ferranti and delivered to the University of Manchester in February 1951. ' when the Z4 was already rented to ETH and in operation there in 1950? This in my view clearly makes the Z4 the first commercial computer. The Z4 article even says (with references) that 'In 1950/1951, the Z4 was the only working digital computer in Central Europe, and the second digital computer in the world to be sold or loaned,[1]: 981  beating the Ferranti Mark 1 by five months and the UNIVAC I by ten months, but in turn being beaten by the BINAC (although that never worked at the customer's site[19]).' Claiming a computer that never really worked the 'firs commercial computer' seems rather misleading, so the first computer working for money is clearly the Zuse Z4. --85.169.148.50 (talk) 22:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Commercial Computer