History of computing hardware (1960s–present)

The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. By 1959, discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.

History of computing
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Second generation
See also: List of transistorized computers and Transistor computer

For the purposes of this article, the term "second generation" refers to computers using discrete transistors, even when the vendors referred to them as "third-generation". By 1960 transistorized computers were replacing vacuum tube computers, offering lower cost, higher speeds, and reduced power consumption. The marketplace was dominated by IBM and the seven dwarfs:

although some smaller companies made significant contributions. Also, towards the end of the second generation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was a serious contender in the small and medium machine marketplace.

The second-generation computers were mostly character-based decimal computers, sign-magnitude decimal computers with 10 digit word, sign-magnitude binary computers, and ones' complement binary computers, although, e.g., Philco, RCA, Honeywell, had some computers that were character-based binary computers and, e.g., Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Philco had two's complement computers. With the advent of the IBM System/360, two's complement became the norm for new product lines.

The most common word sizes for binary mainframes were 36 and 48, although entry-level and midrange machines used smaller words, e.g., 12 bits, 18 bits, 24 bits, 30 bits. All but the smallest machines had asynchronous I/O channels and interrupts. Typically binary computers with word size up to 36 bits had one instruction per word, binary computers with 48 bits per word had two instructions per word and the CDC 60-bit machines could have two, three, or four instructions per word, depending on the instruction mix; the Burroughs B5000, B6500/B7500 and B8500 lines are notable exceptions to this.

First-generation computers with data channels (I/O channels) had a basic DMA interface to the channel cable. The second generation saw both simpler e.g., channels on the CDC 6000 series had no DMA, and more sophisticated designs, e.g., the 7909 on the IBM 7090 had limited computational, conditional branching and interrupt system.

By 1960 core was the dominant memory technology, although there were still some new machines using drums and delay lines during the 1960s. Magnetic thin film and Rod memory were used on some second-generation machines, but advances in core technology meant they remained niche players until semiconductor memory displaced both core and thin film.

In the first generation, word-oriented computers typically had a single accumulator and an extension, referred to as, e.g., Upper and Lower Accumulator, Accumulator and Multiplier-Quotient (MQ) register. In the second generation, it became common for computers to have multiple addressable accumulators. On some computers, e.g., PDP-6, the same registers served as accumulators and index registers, making them an early example of general-purpose registers.

In the second generation there was considerable development of new address modes, including truncated addressing on, e.g., the Philco TRANSAC S-2000, the UNIVAC III, and automatic index register incrementing on, e.g., the RCA 601, UNIVAC 1107, GE 635. Although index registers were introduced in the first generation under the name B-line, their use became much more common in the second generation. Similarly, indirect addressing became more common in the second generation, either in conjunction with index registers or instead of them. While first-generation computers typically had a small number of index registers or none, several lines of second-generation computers had large numbers of index registers, e.g., Atlas, Bendix G-20, IBM 7070.

The first generation had pioneered the use of special facilities for calling subroutines, e.g., TSX on the IBM 709. In the second generation, such facilities were ubiquitous. In the descriptions below, NSI is the next sequential instruction, the return address. Some examples are:

Automatically record the NSI in a register for all or most successful branch instructions
The Jump Address (JA) Register on the Philco TRANSAC S-2000
The Sequence History (SH) and Cosequence History (CSH) registers on the Honeywell 800
The B register on an IBM 1401 with the indexing feature
Automatically record the NSI at a standard memory location following all or most successful branches
Store P (STP) locations on RCA 301 and RCA 501
Call instructions that save the NSI in the first word of the subroutine
Return Jump (RJ) on the UNIVAC 1107
Return Jump (RJ) on CDC 3600 and CDC 6000 series
Call instructions that save the NSI in an implicit or explicit register
Branch and Load Location in Index Word (BLX) on the IBM 7070
Transfer and Set Xn (TSXn) on the GE-600 series
Branch and Link (BAL) on the IBM System/360
Call instructions that use an index register as a stack pointer and push return information onto the stack
Push jump (PUSHJ) on the DEC PDP-6
Implicit call with return information pushed onto the stack
Program descriptors on the Burroughs B5000 line
Program descriptors on the Burroughs B6500 line

The second generation saw the introduction of features intended to support multiprogramming and multiprocessor configurations, including master/slave (supervisor/problem) mode, storage protection keys, limit registers, protection associated with address translation, and atomic instructions.

Third generation
See also: List of early third generation computers

The mass increase in the use of computers accelerated with 'Third Generation' computers starting around 1966 in the commercial market. These generally relied on early (sub-1000 transistor) integrated circuit technology. The third generation ends with the microprocessor-based 4th generation.

In 1958, Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments invented the hybrid integrated circuit (hybrid IC),[1] which had external wire connections, making it difficult to mass-produce.[2] In 1959, Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor invented the monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip.[3][2] It was made of silicon, whereas Kilby's chip was made of germanium. This basis for Noyce's monolithic IC was Fairchild's planar process, which allowed integrated circuits to be laid out using the same principles as those of printed circuits. The planar process was developed by Noyce's colleague Jean Hoerni in early 1959, based on the silicon surface passivation and thermal oxidation processes developed by Mohamed M. Atalla at Bell Labs in the late 1950s.[4][5][6]

Computers using IC chips began to appear in the early 1960s. For example, the 1961 Semiconductor Network Computer (Molecular Electronic Computer, Mol-E-Com),[7][8][9] first monolithic integrated circuit[10][11][12] general purpose computer (built for demonstration purposes, programmed to simulate a desk calculator) was built by Texas Instruments for the US Air Force.[13][14][15]

Some of their early uses were in embedded systems, notably used by NASA for the Apollo Guidance Computer, by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, the Honeywell ALERT airborne computer,[16][17] and in the Central Air Data Computer used for flight control in the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat fighter jet.

An early commercial use was the 1965 SDS 92.[18][19] IBM first used ICs in computers for the logic of the System/360 Model 85 shipped in 1969 and then made extensive use of ICs in its System/370 which began shipment in 1971.

The integrated circuit enabled the development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP and VAX computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating systems such as Unix.

1969 Data General Nova.

In November 1966, Hewlett-Packard introduced the 2116A[20][21] minicomputer, one of the first commercial 16-bit computers. It used CTµL (Complementary Transistor MicroLogic)[22] in integrated circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor. Hewlett-Packard followed this with similar 16-bit computers, such as the 2115A in 1967,[23] the 2114A in 1968,[24] and others.

In 1969, Data General introduced the Nova and shipped a total of 50,000 at $8,000 each. The popularity of 16-bit computers, such as the Hewlett-Packard 21xx series and the Data General Nova, led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit byte. The Nova was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor, with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board.

Large mainframe computers used ICs to increase storage and processing abilities. The 1965 IBM System/360 mainframe computer family are sometimes called third-generation computers; however, their logic consisted primarily of SLT hybrid circuits, which contained discrete transistors and diodes interconnected on a substrate with printed wires and printed passive components; the S/360 M85 and M91 did use ICs for some of their circuits. IBM's 1971 System/370 used ICs for their logic.

By 1971, the Illiac IV supercomputer was the fastest computer in the world, using about a quarter-million small-scale ECL logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.[25]

Third-generation computers were offered well into the 1990s; for example the IBM ES9000 9X2 announced April 1994[26] used 5,960 ECL chips to make a 10-way processor.[27] Other third-generation computers offered in the 1990s included the DEC VAX 9000 (1989), built from ECL gate arrays and custom chips,[28] and the Cray T90 (1995).

Fourth generation

Third generation minicomputers were essentially scaled-down versions of mainframe computers, whereas the fourth generation's origins are fundamentally different. The basis of the fourth generation is the microprocessor, a computer processor contained on a single large-scale integration (LSI) MOS integrated circuit chip.[29]

Microprocessor-based computers were originally very limited in their computational ability and speed and were in no way an attempt to downsize the minicomputer. They were addressing an entirely different market.

Processing power and storage capacities have grown beyond all recognition since the 1970s, but the underlying technology has remained basically the same of large-scale integration (LSI) or very-large-scale integration (VLSI) microchips, so it is widely regarded that most of today's computers still belong to the fourth generation.

Semiconductor memory
Main article: Semiconductor memory

The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959.[30] In addition to data processing, the MOSFET enabled the practical use of MOS transistors as memory cell storage elements, a function previously served by magnetic cores. Semiconductor memory, also known as MOS memory, was cheaper and consumed less power than magnetic-core memory.[31] MOS random-access memory (RAM), in the form of static RAM (SRAM), was developed by John Schmidt at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1964.[31][32] In 1966, Robert Dennard at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center developed MOS dynamic RAM (DRAM).[33] In 1967, Dawon Kahng and Simon Sze at Bell Labs developed the floating-gate MOSFET, the basis for MOS non-volatile memory such as EPROM, EEPROM and flash memory.[34][35][36]

Microprocessors
1971: Intel 4004.

The basic building block of every microprocessor is the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, or MOS transistor).[37] The microprocessor has origins in the MOS integrated circuit (MOS IC) chip.[29] The MOS IC was first proposed by Mohamed M. Atalla at Bell Labs in 1960,[38] and then fabricated by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA in 1962.[39] Due to rapid MOSFET scaling, MOS IC chips rapidly increased in complexity at a rate predicted by Moore's law, leading to large-scale integration (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The application of MOS LSI chips to computing was the basis for the first microprocessors, as engineers began recognizing that a complete computer processor could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip.[29]

The earliest multi-chip microprocessors were the Four-Phase Systems AL-1 in 1969 and Garrett AiResearch MP944 in 1970, each using several MOS LSI chips.[29] On November 15, 1971, Intel released the world's first single-chip microprocessor, the 4004, on a single MOS LSI chip. Its development was led by Federico Faggin, using silicon-gate MOS technology, along with Ted Hoff, Stanley Mazor and Masatoshi Shima.[40] It was developed for a Japanese calculator company called Busicom as an alternative to hardwired circuitry, but computers were developed around it, with much of their processing abilities provided by one small microprocessor chip. The dynamic RAM (DRAM) chip was based on the MOS DRAM memory cell developed by Robert Dennard of IBM, offering kilobits of memory on one chip. Intel coupled the RAM chip with the microprocessor, allowing fourth generation computers to be smaller and faster than prior computers. The 4004 was only capable of 60,000 instructions per second, but its successors brought ever-growing speed and power to computers, including the Intel 8008, 8080 (used in many computers using the CP/M operating system), and the 8086/8088 family. (The IBM personal computer (PC) and compatibles use processors that are still backward-compatible with the 8086.) Other producers also made microprocessors which were widely used in microcomputers.

The following table shows a timeline of significant microprocessor development.

YearMicroprocessors
1971Intel 4004
1972Fairchild PPS-25; Intel 8008; Rockwell PPS-4
1973Burroughs Mini-D; National IMP-16; NEC µCOM
1974General Instrument CP1600; Intel 4040, 8080; Mostek 5065; Motorola 6800; National IMP-4, IMP-8, ISP-8A/500, PACE; Texas Instruments TMS 1000; Toshiba TLCS-12
1975Fairchild F8; Hewlett Packard BPC; Intersil 6100; MOS Technology 6502; RCA CDP 1801; Rockwell PPS-8; Signetics 2650; Western Digital MCP-1600
1976RCA CDP 1802; Signetics 8X300; Texas Instruments TMS9900; Zilog Z-80
1977Intel 8085
1978Intel 8086; Motorola 6801, 6809
1979Intel 8088; Motorola 68000; Zilog Z8000
1980National Semi 16032; Intel 8087
1981DEC T-11; Harris 6120; IBM ROMP
1982Hewlett Packard FOCUS; Intel 80186, 80188, 80286; DEC J-11; Berkeley RISC-I
1983Stanford MIPS; Berkeley RISC-II
1984Motorola 68020; National Semi 32032; NEC V20
1985DEC MicroVAX 78032/78132; Harris Novix; Intel 80386; MIPS R2000
1986NEC V60; Sun SPARC MB86900/86910; Zilog Z80000
1987Acorn ARM2; DEC CVAX 78034; Hitachi Gmicro/200; Motorola 68030; NEC V70
1988Intel 80386SX, i960; MIPS R3000
1989DEC VAX DC520 Rigel; Intel 80486, i860
1990IBM POWER1; Motorola 68040
1991DEC NVAX; IBM RSC; MIPS R4000
1992DEC Alpha 21064; Hewlett Packard PA-7100; Sun microSPARC I
1993IBM POWER2, PowerPC 601; Intel Pentium; Hitachi SuperH
1994DEC Alpha 21064A; Hewlett Packard PA-7100LC, PA-7200; IBM PowerPC 603, PowerPC 604, ESA/390 G1; Motorola 68060; QED R4600; NEC V850
1995DEC Alpha 21164; HAL Computer SPARC64; Intel Pentium Pro; Sun UltraSPARC; IBM ESA/390 G2
1996AMD K5; DEC Alpha 21164A; HAL Computer SPARC64 II; Hewlett Packard PA-8000; IBM P2SC, ESA/390 G3; MTI R10000; QED R5000
1997AMD K6; IBM PowerPC 620, PowerPC 750, RS64, ESA/390 G4; Intel Pentium II; Sun UltraSPARC IIs
1998DEC Alpha 21264; HAL Computer SPARC64 III; Hewlett Packard PA-8500; IBM POWER3, RS64-II, ESA/390 G5; QED RM7000; SGI MIPS R12000
1999AMD Athlon; IBM RS64-III; Intel Pentium III; Motorola PowerPC 7400
2000AMD Athlon XP, Duron; Fujitsu SPARC64 IV; IBM RS64-IV, z900; Intel Pentium 4
2001IBM POWER4; Intel Itanium; Motorola PowerPC 7450; SGI MIPS R14000; Sun UltraSPARC III
2002Fujitsu SPARC64 V; Intel Itanium 2
2003AMD Opteron, Athlon 64; IBM PowerPC 970; Intel Pentium M
2004IBM POWER5, PowerPC BGL
2005AMD Athlon 64 X2, Opteron Athens; IBM PowerPC 970MP, Xenon; Intel Pentium D; Sun UltraSPARC IV, UltraSPARC T1
2006IBM Cell/B.E., z9; Intel Core 2, Core Duo, Itanium Montecito
2007AMD Opteron Barcelona; Fujitsu SPARC64 VI; IBM POWER6, PowerPC BGP; Sun UltraSPARC T2; Tilera TILE64
2008AMD Opteron Shanghai, Phenom; Fujitsu SPARC64 VII; IBM PowerXCell 8i, z10; Intel Atom, Core i7; Tilera TILEPro64
2009AMD Opteron Istanbul, Phenom II
2010AMD Opteron Magny-cours; Fujitsu SPARC64 VII+; IBM POWER7, z196; Intel Itanium Tukwila, Westmere, Nehalem-EX; Sun SPARC T3
2011AMD FX Bulldozer, Interlagos, Llano; Fujitsu SPARC64 VIIIfx; Freescale PowerPC e6500; Intel Sandy Bridge, Xeon E7; Oracle SPARC T4
2012Fujitsu SPARC64 IXfx; IBM POWER7+, zEC12; Intel Itanium Poulson
2013Fujitsu SPARC64 X; Intel Haswell; Oracle SPARC T5
2014IBM POWER8
2015IBM z13
2017IBM POWER9, z14; AMD Ryzen

Supercomputers
Main article: History of supercomputing
1976: Cray-1 supercomputer.

The powerful supercomputers of the era were at the other end of the computing spectrum from the microcomputers, and they also used integrated circuit technology. In 1976, the Cray-1 was developed by Seymour Cray, who had left Control Data in 1972 to form his own company. This machine was the first supercomputer to make vector processing practical. It had a characteristic horseshoe shape to speed processing by shortening circuit paths. Vector processing uses one instruction to perform the same operation on many arguments; it has been a fundamental supercomputer processing method ever since. The Cray-1 could calculate 150 million floating-point operations per second (150 megaflops). 85 were shipped at a price of $5 million each. The Cray-1 had a CPU that was mostly constructed of SSI and MSI ECL ICs.

Mainframes and minicomputers
Time-sharing computer terminals connected to central computers, such as the TeleVideo ASCII character mode smart terminal pictured here, were sometimes used before the advent of the PC.

Computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large institutions before the introduction of the microprocessor in the early 1970s — corporations, universities, government agencies, and the like. Users were experienced specialists who did not usually interact with the machine itself, but instead prepared tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches. A number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in batch mode. After the jobs had completed, users could collect the output printouts and punched cards. In some organizations, it could take hours or days between submitting a job to the computing center and receiving the output.

A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing system, multiple teleprinter terminals let many people share the use of one mainframe computer processor. This was common in business applications and in science and engineering.

A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor.[41] Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputers such as the LINC and PDP-8, and later on VAX and larger minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General, Prime Computer, and others. They originated as peripheral processors for mainframe computers, taking on some routine tasks and freeing the processor for computation. By today's standards, they were physically large (about the size of a refrigerator) and costly (typically tens of thousands of US dollars), and thus were rarely purchased by individuals. However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to operate than the mainframe computers of the time, and thus affordable by individual laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the batch processing and bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center.

In addition, minicomputers were more interactive than mainframes, and soon had their own operating systems. The minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers, because of its graphical user interface, bit-mapped high-resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage, mouse, and special software.[42]

Microcomputers

Microprocessor and cost reduction

In the minicomputer ancestors of the modern personal computer, processing was carried out by circuits with large numbers of components arranged on multiple large printed circuit boards. Minicomputers were consequently physically large and expensive to produce compared with later microprocessor systems. After the "computer-on-a-chip" was commercialized, the cost to produce a computer system dropped dramatically. The arithmetic, logic, and control functions that previously occupied several costly circuit boards were now available in one integrated circuit which was very expensive to design but cheap to produce in large quantities. Concurrently, advances in developing solid state memory eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry magnetic core memory used in prior generations of computers.

Micral N
Micral N
Main article: Micral

In France, the company R2E (Réalisations et Etudes Electroniques) formed by five former engineers of the Intertechnique company, André Truong Trong Thi[43][44] and François Gernelle[45] introduced in February 1975 a microcomputer, the Micral N based on the Intel 8008.[46] Originally, the computer had been designed by Gernelle, Lacombe, Beckmann and Benchitrite for the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique to automate hygrometric measurements.[47][48] The Micral N cost a fifth of the price of a PDP-8, about 8500FF ($1300). The clock of the Intel 8008 was set at 500 kHz, the memory was 16 kilobytes. A bus, called Pluribus was introduced and allowed connection of up to 14 boards. Different boards for digital I/O, analog I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E.

Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080
Main articles: Altair 8800 and IMSAI 8080

The development of the single-chip microprocessor was an enormous catalyst to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and truly personal computers. The Altair 8800, introduced in a Popular Electronics magazine article in the January 1975 issue, at the time set a new low price point for a computer, bringing computer ownership to an admittedly select market in the 1970s. This was followed by the IMSAI 8080 computer, with similar abilities and limitations. The Altair and IMSAI were essentially scaled-down minicomputers and were incomplete: to connect a keyboard or teleprinter to them required heavy, expensive "peripherals". These machines both featured a front panel with switches and lights, which communicated with the operator in binary. To program the machine after switching it on the bootstrap loader program had to be entered, without error, in binary, then a paper tape containing a BASIC interpreter loaded from a paper-tape reader. Keying the loader required setting a bank of eight switches up or down and pressing the "load" button, once for each byte of the program, which was typically hundreds of bytes long. The computer could run BASIC programs once the interpreter had been loaded.

1975: Altair 8800.

The MITS Altair, the first commercially successful microprocessor kit, was featured on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine in January 1975. It was the world's first mass-produced personal computer kit, as well as the first computer to use an Intel 8080 processor. It was a commercial success with 10,000 Altairs being shipped. The Altair also inspired the software development efforts of Paul Allen and his high school friend Bill Gates who developed a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, and then formed Microsoft.

The MITS Altair 8800 effectively created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Intel 8085 microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall at Digital Research. CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors, and many software packages were written for it, such as WordStar and dBase II.

Many hobbyists during the mid-1970s designed their own systems, with various degrees of success, and sometimes banded together to ease the job. Out of these house meetings, the Homebrew Computer Club developed, where hobbyists met to talk about what they had done, exchange schematics and software, and demonstrate their systems. Many people built or assembled their own computers as per published designs. For example, many thousands of people built the Galaksija home computer later in the early 1980s.

It was arguably the Altair computer that spawned the development of Apple, as well as Microsoft which produced and sold the Altair BASIC programming language interpreter, Microsoft's first product. The second generation of microcomputers, those that appeared in the late 1970s, sparked by the unexpected demand for the kit computers at the electronic hobbyist clubs, were usually known as home computers. For business use these systems were less capable and in some ways less versatile than the large business computers of the day. They were designed for fun and educational purposes, not so much for practical use. And although you could use some simple office/productivity applications on them, they were generally used by computer enthusiasts for learning to program and for running computer games, for which the personal computers of the period were less suitable and much too expensive. For the more technical hobbyists home computers were also used for electronically interfacing to external devices, such as controlling model railroads, and other general hobbyist pursuits.

Microcomputer emerges
Main article: History of personal computers
The "Big Three" computers of 1977: from left to right, the Commodore PET (PET 2001 model shown), the standard Apple II (with two Disk II drives) and the TRS-80 Model I.
Main article: Personal computer

The advent of the microprocessor and solid-state memory made home computing affordable. Early hobby microcomputer systems such as the Altair 8800 and Apple I introduced around 1975 marked the release of low-cost 8-bit processor chips, which had sufficient computing power to be of interest to hobby and experimental users. By 1977 pre-assembled systems such as the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 (later dubbed the "1977 Trinity" by Byte Magazine)[49] began the era of mass-market home computers; much less effort was required to obtain an operating computer, and applications such as games, word processing, and spreadsheets began to proliferate. Distinct from computers used in homes, small business systems were typically based on CP/M, until IBM introduced the IBM PC, which was quickly adopted. The PC was heavily cloned, leading to mass production and consequent cost reduction throughout the 1980s. This expanded the PC's presence in homes, replacing the home computer category during the 1990s and leading to the current monoculture of architecturally identical personal computers.

Timeline of computer systems and important hardware
YearHardware
1958Transistors: IBM 7070
1959IBM 7090; IBM 1401
1960DEC PDP-1; CDC 1604; Honeywell 800
1961Fairchild resistor transistor logic; IBM 7080
1962NPN transistor; UNIVAC 1107
1963Mouse; CMOS patented; CDC 3600
1964CDC 6600; IBM System/360; IBM Data Cell Drive; UNIVAC 1108; DEC PDP-6
1965DEC PDP-8; IBM 1130
1966Integrated circuits: HP 2116A;[20] Apollo Guidance Computer; DEC PDP-10
1967Fairchild built first MOS; Englebart applies for mouse patent
1969Data General Nova
1969Honeywell 316
1970DEC PDP-11; IBM System/370
19718" floppy disk; ILLIAC IV
1972Atari founded; Cray Research founded
1973Micral first microprocessor PC
1974Altair 8800; Data General Eclipse
1975Olivetti P6060; Cray-1
1976Tandem Computers
1977Apple II; TRS-80 Model 1; Commodore PET; 5.25" floppy
1978DEC VAX-11
1979Atari 400, 800
1980Sinclair ZX80, Seagate hard disk drive
1981IBM PC, Acorn BBC Micro
1982Commodore 64, Sinclair ZX Spectrum
1983Apple Lisa; 3.5" floppy
1984Apple Mac; Apple Lisa 2
1985PC's Limited (renamed Dell Computer Corporation in 1988); Amiga 1000
1986Tandem Nonstop VLX
1987Thinking Machine CM2; Tera Computer Founded
1988Dell
1989NeXT
1990ETA10; CD-R
1991Apple switches to PowerPC
1992HP 95LX; Palmtop PC
1993Intel PPGA
1994VESA Local Bus
1995IBM Deep Blue chess computer
1996USB 1.0
1997Compaq buys Tandem; CD-RW
1998iMac
1999First BlackBerry device (850)
2000USB 2
2003Arduino
2005Mac Mini; World's first desktop dual-core CPU Athlon 64 X2
2006Mac transition to Intel processors
2007First-generation iPhone
2008USB 3.0
2010Apple iPad
2012IBM zEnterprise System; Raspberry Pi
2015HoloLens

See also

Notes
  1. Saxena, Arjun N. (2009). Invention of Integrated Circuits: Untold Important Facts. World Scientific. p. 140. ISBN 9789812814456.
  2. "Integrated circuits". NASA. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  3. "1959: Practical Monolithic Integrated Circuit Concept Patented". Computer History Museum. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  4. Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 120. ISBN 9783540342588.
  5. Bassett, Ross Knox (2007). To the Digital Age: Research Labs, Start-up Companies, and the Rise of MOS Technology. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 46. ISBN 9780801886393.
  6. Huff, Howard R.; Tsuya, H.; Gösele, U. (1998). Silicon Materials Science and Technology: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on Silicon Materials Science and Technology. Electrochemical Society. pp. 181–182. ISBN 9781566771931.
  7. "1961 PICTORIAL REPORT ON THE COMPUTER FIELD: 5. Computer Component". Computers and Automation. 10 (12): 85. Dec 1961.
  8. Information, Reed Business (9 November 1961). "Miniature computer". New Scientist. Reed Business Information (260).
  9. "First Integrated Circuit Computer". Archived from the original on 8 January 2006.
  10. Engineers, Institute of Radio (1962). "IEEE International Convention Record". 10 (1–5): 50. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. Texas Instruments (Jan 1965). "Series 51 RCTL". Bulletin SCA-1000: Digital Semiconductor Integrated Circuits. pp. 2–3, 9–11.
  12. Dummer, G. W. A.; Robertson, J. Mackenzie (2014). "Texas Instruments Series 51 Semiconductor Networks". American Microelectronics Data Annual 1964–65. Elsevier. pp. 596–650. ISBN 9781483185491.
  13. "1962: Aerospace systems are the first applications for ICs in computers". "IC at fifty" booklet. 2009. p. 26, 22 (28, 24).
  14. "Molecular Electronic Computer brochure | 102646283 | Computer History Museum". www.computerhistory.org. Retrieved 2018-03-13.
  15. "Section VI: THEORY OF OPERATION OF THE ASD SEMICONDUCTOR-NETWORK COMPUTER". DTIC AD0273850: SILICON SEMICONDUCTOR NETWORKS MANUFACTURING METHODS. 1962. pp. 67–113. Archived from the original on Mar 1962.
  16. "Honeywell ALERT". 1965.
  17. "Honeywell ALERT General Purpose Digital Computer". 1965. Alt URL
  18. TH EINDUSTRIAL REORGANIZATION ACT. Columns: Manufacturer and name of computer | Solid state? | Average monthly rentals | Date of 1st installation | Number of installations | Number of unfilled orders. 1974. p. 5577.CS1 maint: others (link)
  19. Brock, Gerald W. (1975). The U.S. computer industry: a study of market power. Ballinger Pub. Co. p. 192. ISBN 9780884102618.
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References
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