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The first book to introduce computer architecture for security and provide the tools to implement secure computer systems This book provides the fundamentals of computer architecture for security. It covers a wide range of computer hardware, system software and data concepts from a security perspective. It is essential for computer science and security professionals to understand both hardware and software security solutions to survive in the workplace. * Examination of memory, CPU architecture and system implementation * Discussion of computer buses and a dual-port bus interface * Examples cover a board spectrum of hardware and software systems * Design and implementation of a patent-pending secure computer system * Includes the latest patent-pending technologies in architecture security * Placement of computers in a security fulfilled network environment * Co-authored by the inventor of the modern Computed Tomography (CT) scanner * Provides website for lecture notes, security tools and latest updates
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012
Contents
Cover
Information Security Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
About the Authors
Preface
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1: Introduction to Computer Architecture and Security
1.1 History of Computer Systems
1.1.1 Timeline of Computer History
1.1.2 Timeline of Internet History
1.1.3 Timeline of Computer Security History
1.2 John von Neumann Computer Architecture
1.3 Memory and Storage
1.4 Input/Output and Network Interface
1.5 Single CPU and Multiple CPU Systems
1.6 Overview of Computer Security
1.6.1 Confidentiality
1.6.2 Integrity
1.6.3 Availability
1.6.4 Threats
1.6.5 Firewalls
1.6.6 Hacking and Attacks
1.7 Security Problems in Neumann Architecture
1.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 2: Digital Logic Design
2.1 Concept of Logic Unit
2.2 Logic Functions and Truth Tables
2.3 Boolean Algebra
2.4 Logic Circuit Design Process
2.5 Gates and Flip-Flops
2.6 Hardware Security
2.7 FPGA and VLSI
2.7.1 Design of an FPGA Biometric Security System
2.7.2 A RIFD Student Attendance System
2.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 3: Computer Memory and Storage
3.1 A One Bit Memory Circuit
3.2 Register, MAR, MDR and Main Memory
3.3 Cache Memory
3.4 Virtual Memory
3.4.1 Paged Virtual Memory∗
3.4.2 Segmented Virtual Memory∗
3.5 Non-Volatile Memory
3.6 External Memory
3.6.1 Hard Disk Drives
3.6.2 Tertiary Storage and Off-Line Storage∗
3.6.3 Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA)
3.6.4 Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)
3.6.5 Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
3.6.6 Network-Attached Storage (NAS)∗
3.6.7 Storage Area Network (SAN)∗
3.6.8 Cloud Storage
3.7 Memory Access Security
3.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 4: Bus and Interconnection
4.1 System Bus
4.1.1 Address Bus
4.1.2 Data Bus
4.1.3 Control Bus
4.2 Parallel Bus and Serial Bus
4.2.1 Parallel Buses and Parallel Communication
4.2.2 Serial Bus and Serial Communication
4.3 Synchronous Bus and Asynchronous Bus
4.4 Single Bus and Multiple Buses
4.5 Interconnection Buses
4.6 Security Considerations for Computer Buses
4.7 A Dual-Bus Interface Design
4.7.1 Dual-Channel Architecture∗
4.7.2 Triple-Channel Architecture∗
4.7.3 A Dual-Bus Memory Interface
4.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 5: I/O and Network Interface
5.1 Direct Memory Access
5.2 Interrupts
5.3 Programmed I/O
5.4 USB and IEEE 1394
5.4.1 USB Advantages
5.4.2 USB Architecture
5.4.3 USB Version History
5.4.4 USB Design and Architecture∗
5.4.5 USB Mass Storage
5.4.6 USB Interface Connectors
5.4.7 USB Connector Types
5.4.8 USB Power and Charging
5.4.9 IEEE 1394
5.5 Network Interface Card
5.5.1 Basic NIC Architecture
5.5.2 Data Transmission
5.6 Keyboard, Video and Mouse (KVM) Interfaces
5.6.1 Keyboards
5.6.2 Video Graphic Card
5.6.3 Mouses
5.7 Input/Output Security
5.7.1 Disable Certain Key Combinations
5.7.2 Anti-Glare Displays
5.7.3 Adding Password to Printer
5.7.4 Bootable USB Ports
5.7.5 Encrypting Hard Drives
5.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 6: Central Processing Unit
6.1 The Instruction Set
6.1.1 Instruction Classifications
6.1.2 Logic Instructions
6.1.3 Arithmetic Instructions
6.1.4 Intel 64/32 Instructions∗
6.2 Registers
6.2.1 General-Purpose Registers
6.2.2 Segment Registers
6.2.3 EFLAGS Register
6.3 The Program Counter and Flow Control
6.3.1 Intel Instruction Pointer∗
6.3.2 Interrupt and Exception∗
6.4 RISC Processors
6.4.1 History
6.4.2 Architecture and Programming
6.4.3 Performance
6.4.4 Advantages and Disadvantages
6.4.5 Applications
6.5 Pipelining
6.5.1 Different Types of Pipelines
6.5.2 Pipeline Performance Analysis
6.5.3 Data Hazard
6.6 CPU Security
6.7 Virtual CPU
6.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 7: Advanced Computer Architecture
7.1 Multiprocessors
7.1.1 Multiprocessing
7.1.2 Cache
7.1.3 Hyper-Threading
7.1.4 Symmetric Multiprocessing
7.1.5 Multiprocessing Operating Systems
7.1.6 The Future of Multiprocessing
7.2 Parallel Processing
7.2.1 History of Parallel Processing
7.2.2 Flynn's Taxonomy
7.2.3 Bit-Level Parallelism
7.2.4 Instruction-Level Parallelism
7.2.5 Data-Level Parallelism
7.2.6 Task-Level Parallelism
7.2.7 Memory in Parallel Processing
7.2.8 Specialized Parallel Computers
7.2.9 The Future of Parallel Processing
7.3 Ubiquitous Computing
7.3.1 Ubiquitous Computing Development
7.3.2 Basic forms of Ubiquitous Computing
7.3.3 Augmented Reality
7.3.4 Mobile Computing
7.4 Grid, Distributed and Cloud Computing
7.4.1 Characteristics of Grid Computing
7.4.2 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Grid Computing
7.4.3 Distributed Computing
7.4.4 Distributed Systems
7.4.5 Parallel and Distributed Computing
7.4.6 Distributed Computing Architectures
7.4.7 Cloud Computing
7.4.8 Technical Aspects of Cloud Computing
7.4.9 Security Aspects of Cloud Computing
7.4.10 Ongoing and Future Elements in Cloud Computing
7.4.11 Adoption of Cloud Computing Industry Drivers
7.5 Internet Computing
7.5.1 Internet Computing Concept and Model
7.5.2 Benefit of Internet Computing for Businesses
7.5.3 Examples of Internet Computing
7.5.4 Migrating Internet Computing
7.6 Virtualization
7.6.1 Types of Virtualization
7.6.2 History of Virtualization
7.6.3 Virtualization Architecture
7.6.4 Virtual Machine Monitor
7.6.5 Examples of Virtual Machines
7.7 Biocomputers
7.7.1 Biochemical Computers
7.7.2 Biomechanical Computers
7.7.3 Bioelectronic Computers
7.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 8: Assembly Language and Operating Systems
8.1 Assembly Language Basics
8.1.1 Numbering Systems
8.1.2 The Binary Numbering System and Base Conversions
8.1.3 The Hexadecimal Numbering System
8.1.4 Signed and Unsigned Numbers
8.2 Operation Code and Operands
8.3 Direct Addressing
8.4 Indirect Addressing
8.5 Stack and Buffer Overflow
8.5.1 Calling Procedures Using CALL and RET (Return)
8.5.2 Exploiting Stack Buffer Overflows
8.5.3 Stack Protection
8.6 FIFO and M/M/1 Problem
8.6.1 FIFO Data Structure
8.6.2 M/M/1 Model
8.7 Kernel, Drivers and OS Security
8.7.1 Kernel
8.7.2 BIOS
8.7.3 Boot Loader
8.7.4 Device Drivers
8.8 Summary
Exercises
References
Chapter 9: TCP/IP and Internet
9.1 Data Communications
9.1.1 Signal, Data, and Channels
9.1.2 Signal Encoding and Modulation
9.1.3 Shannon Theorem
9.2 TCP/IP Protocol
9.2.1 Network Topology
9.2.2 Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
9.2.3 The User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
9.2.4 Internet Protocol (IP)
9.3 Network Switches
9.3.1 Layer 1 Hubs
9.3.2 Ethernet Switch
9.4 Routers
9.4.1 History of Routers
9.4.2 Architecture
9.4.3 Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4)
9.4.4 Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
9.4.5 Open Shortest Path First
9.4.6 Throughput and Delay
9.5 Gateways
9.6 Wireless Networks and Network Address Translation (NAT)
9.6.1 Wireless Networks
9.6.2 Wireless Protocols
9.6.3 WLAN Handshaking, War Driving, and WLAN Security
9.6.4 Security Measures to Reduce Wireless Attacks
9.6.5 The Future of Wireless Network
9.6.6 Network Address Translation
9.6.7 Environmental and Health Concerns Using Cellular and Wireless Devices
9.7 Network Security
9.7.1 Introduction
9.7.2 Firewall Architecture
9.7.3 Constraint and Limitations of Firewall
9.7.4 Enterprise Firewalls
9.8 Summary
Exercises
9.9 Virtual Cyber-Security Laboratory
References
Chapter 10: Design and Implementation: Modifying Neumann Architecture
10.1 Data Security in Computer Systems
10.1.1 Computer Security
10.1.2 Data Security and Data Bleaches
10.1.3 Researches in Architecture Security
10.2 Single-Bus View of Neumann Architecture
10.2.1 John von Neumann Computer Architecture
10.2.2 Modified Neumann Computer Architecture
10.2.3 Problems Exist in John Neumann Model
10.3 A Dual-Bus Solution
10.4 Bus Controller
10.4.1 Working Mechanism of the Bus Controller
10.4.2 Co-processor Board
10.5 Dual-Port Storage
10.6 Micro-Operating System
10.7 Summary
Exercises
10.8 Projects
References
Appendix A: Digital Logic Simulators
A.1 CEDAR Logic Simulator
A.2 Logisim
A.3 Digital Logic Simulator v0.4
A.4 Logicly
Appendix B: Computer Security Tools
B.1 Wireshark (Ethereal)
B.2 Metasploit
B.3 Nessus
B.4 Aircrack
B.5 Snort
B.6 Cain and Abel
B.7 BackTrack
B.8 Netcat
B.9 Tcpdump
B.10 John the Ripper
Appendix C: Patent Application: Intrusion-Free Computer Architecture for Information and Data Security
C.1 Background of the Invention
C.1.1 John von Neumann Computer Architecture Model
C.1.2 Modified Neumann Computer Architecture
C.1.3 Problems Existed in the John Neumann Model
C.1.4 The Goal of the Invention
C.2 Field of Invention
C.3 Detailed Description of the Invention
C.4 Claim
Index
∗ The star “*” here means the content is a little bit more advanced. For teaching purpose, this content may be omitted for entry level students.
Information Security Series
The Wiley-HEP Information Security Series systematically introduces the fundamentals of information security design and application. The goals of the Series are:
to provide fundamental and emerging theories and techniques to stimulate more research in cryptology, algorithms, protocols, and architectures;to inspire professionals to understand the issues behind important security problems and the ideas behind the solutions;to give references and suggestions for additional reading and further study.The Series is a joint project between Wiley and Higher Education Press (HEP) of China. Publications consist of advanced textbooks for graduate students as well as researcher and practitioner references covering the key areas, including but not limited to:
This edition first published 2013
© 2013 Higher Education Press. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd., 1 Fusionopolis Walk, #07-01 Solaris South Tower, Singapore 138628, under exclusive license by Higher Education Press in all media and all languages throughout the world excluding Mainland China and excluding Simplified and Traditional Chinese languages.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Computer architecture and security: fundamentals of designing secure computer systems / Shuangbao (Paul) Wang, Robert S. Ledley.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-16881-3 (cloth)
1. Computer architecture. 2. Computer security. 3. System design. I. Wang, Shuangbao Paul. II. Ledley, Robert Steven.
QA76.9.A73C6293 2012
005.8–dc23
2012027837
ISBN: 9781118168813
To our parents who care and educate us throughout our journey.
In memory of Dr. Ledley, who pioneered Biomedical Computing.
About the Authors
Shuangbao (Paul) Wang is the inventor of a secure computer system. He is the recipient of Link Fellowship Award in advanced simulation and training. He holds four patents; three of them have been transferred into industry and put into production. One of his students appeared in Time Magazine for doing his class project which he commercialized and still pursues. In addition, one of his published papers ranked the first place in Science Direct's TOP 25 Hottest Articles. His research was awarded the Best Invention Award in Entrepreneurship Week USA at Mason. More recently, he received two university Technology Transfer Awards.
Dr. Wang has extensive experience in academia, industry, and public services. He has held many posts, including professor, director, CEO, CIO/CTO and ranking positions in public services. He is currently a professor at George Mason University. Dr. Wang served as the Chief Information and Technology Officer at National Biomedical Research Foundation/Georgetown University Medical Center. Earlier, he was the director of the Institute of Information Science and Technology at Qingdao (ISTIQ) where he oversaw more than 120 faculty and staff, acquired 12 grants, won 18 academic awards and was the PI for over 15 grants/projects.
Robert S. Ledley is the inventor of CT scanner and is a member of the National Academy of Science. He has numerous publications in Science and several books, and has hundreds of patents and grants. Dr. Ledley is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology that was awarded to him by President Clinton in 1997. He was admitted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990.
Dr. Ledley has been the president of the National Biomedical Research Foundation since 1960. He is also a professor (emeritus) at Georgetown University. Dr. Ledley is the editor-in-chief of four international journals. He has testified before the House and was interviewed by the Smithsonian Institution.
Preface
This book provides the fundamentals of computer architecture and security. It covers a wide range of computer hardware, system software and data concepts from a security perspective. It is essential for computer and information security professionals to understand both hardware and software security solutions to thrive in the workplace. It features a careful, in-depth, and innovative introduction to modern computer systems and patent-pending technologies in computer security.
In the past, computers were designed without security considerations. Later, firewalls were used to protect them from outside attacks. This textbook integrates security considerations into computer architecture in a way that it is immune from attacks. When necessary, the author creates simplified examples from patent-pending technologies that clearly explain architectural and implementation features.
This book is intended for graduate and undergraduate students, engineers, and researchers who are interested in secure computer architecture and systems. This book is essential for anyone who needs to understand, design or implement a secure computer system.
Studying computer architecture from a security perspective is a new area. There are many textbooks about computer architecture and many others about computer security. However, textbooks introducing computer architecture with security as the main theme are rare. This book introduces not only how to secure computer components (Memory, I/O, network interfaces and CPU) but also how to secure the entire computer system. The book proposes a new model that changes the Neumann architecture that has been the foundation of modern computers since 1945. The book includes the most recent patent-pending technology in computer architecture for security. It also incorporates experiences from the author's recent award-winning teaching and research.
This book also introduces the latest technologies, such as virtualization, cloud computing, Internet computing, ubiquitous computing, biocomputers and other advanced computer architectures, into the classroom in order to shorten the transition time from student to employee.
This book has a unique style of presentation. It uses diagrams to explain important concepts. For many key elements, the book illustrates the actual digital circuits so that interested readers can actually build such circuits for testing purposes. The book can also be used as experiment material.
The book also comes with a Wiley Companion Website (www.wiley.com/go/wang/comp_arch) that provides lecture notes, further readings and updates for students. It also provides resources for instructors as well. In addition, the website lists hundreds of security tools that can be used to test computers for security problems.
Students taking courses with this book can master security solutions in all aspects of designing modern computer systems. It introduces how to secure memory, buses, I/O and CPU. Moreover, the book explains how to secure computer architecture so that modern computers can be built on the new architecture free of data breaches.
The concept of computers as stand-alone machines is fading away. Computers are now interconnected and in many cases coordinated to accomplish one task. Most current computer architecture textbooks still focus on the single computer model without addressing any security issues. Computer Architecture and Security provides readers with all of the components the traditional textbooks have, but also the latest development of computer technology. As security is a concern for most people, this book addresses the security issues in depth in all aspects of computer systems.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Dr. and Mrs. McQuivey for the thorough reviews and editions. Dr. Kyle Letimar provided tremendous help in editing and revising the book proposal. The authors would also like to acknowledge Ms. Anna Chen for her incredible help in preparing this manuscript.
Chapter 1
Introduction to Computer Architecture and Security
A Computer is composed of a number of different components:
Figure 1.1 shows a view of a computer system from a user perspective. Here a computer system no longer looks like an onion as traditional textbooks used to represent. Instead, a network component (including hardware and software) is added as a highway for data flowing in and out of the computer system.
Figure 1.1 A conceptual diagram of a common computer system
Computer architecture is to study how to design computer systems. It includes all components: the central processing unit (CPU), computer memory and storage, input and output devices (I/O), and network components.
Since the invention of the Internet, computer systems are no longer standalone machines. The traditional “computing” concept of the single machine model is fading away. For most users, information exchange has taken an important role in everyday computer uses.
As computer systems expose themselves over the Internet, the threat to computer systems has grown greater and greater. To protect a computer system (hardware, software, network, and data) from attacks, people have developed many counter-attack techniques such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, user authentications, data encryptions and so on.
Despite the numerous efforts to prevent attacks, the threat to computer systems is far from over. Computer compromises and data bleach are still very common. If you look back to those counter-attack techniques, most of the detection systems are based on passive techniques. They only work after attacks have taken place.
A firewall by its name is a wall to prevent fire from spreading. On the other hand, it also likes a dam or levee to prevent flood. People can build a dam or levee high enough to protect against flood. However nobody can predict how high the water level will be. The 2005 New Orleans levee leak caused by Katrina is an example of this.
In medicine, people spent billions of dollars to develop new drugs to cure illness. However ancient Chinese people study how to eat well and exercise well to prevent illness. This is the same as now the so-called prevention medicine. If we apply the same mechanism to computer systems, we draw the conclusion that we not only need to build firewalls, more importantly we need to develop computer systems that are immune from attacks.
In early 2005, a US patent was filed to propose new technology that can prevent hackers from getting information stored in computer systems. The technology has drawn the attention of industry, academia, as well as government.
Figure 1.2 shows a conceptual diagram of the proposed secured computer system. Note that in addition to the traditional hardware and software, the system added an additional layer. It is like a sandbox that “separates” the computer system from the outside world. In this book, we call it a virtual semi-conductor or semi “network conductor.” It allows the computer operator to control information and data access so that hackers are no longer able to steal data from the computer system. We will discuss this in more detail in the following chapters.
Figure 1.2 A conceptual diagram of a secured computer system
Computer Architecture and Security will teach you how to design secured computer systems. It includes information on how to secure central processing unit (CPU) memory, buses, input/output interfaces. Moreover, the book explains how to secure computer architecture as a whole so that modern computers can be built on the new architecture free of data breaches.
Computers originally mean to compute or to calculate. The earliest computing devices date back more than two thousand years. The abacus (second century BC) which was introduced in China is one of them.
Blaise Pascal, a renowned French scientist and philosopher, invented a mechanical adding machine in 1645. Gottfried Leibniz invented the first calculator in 1694. The multiplication could be performed by repeated turns of a handle, and by shifting the position of the carriage relative to the accumulator. In December 26, 1837, Charles Babbage proposed a calculating engine that is capable of solving mathematical problems including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and finding the square root.
Herman Hollerith, a German-American statistician and the founder of the company that became IBM, developed a punched-card electric tabulating machine in 1889. The first program-controlled computing machine is the German machine Z3 which was developed in 1941. Mark-I, also known as IBM automatic sequence-controlled calculator, was developed by Howard Aiken at Harvard University in 1944. The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) was developed in May 1943. The machine was used to calculate bomb trajectories and to develop hydrogen bombs. It was not a stored-program machine, a key way to distinguish between earlier computing devices and modern computers.
The final step toward developing a modern computer was characterized as follows:
General-purpose. The computer can be used by anybody in any domain.Electronic. The computer is controlled by electronic signals instead of mechanical devices.Stored-program. Programs are stored in its internal memory so they can run automatically without much human interaction.Computation. The computer can take numerical quantities to compute.There are other features such as it has the ability for a program to read and modify itself during the course of a computation, using registers to store temporary data, indirect addressing and so on.
Professor John von Neumann, of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, one of the leading mathematicians of his time, developed a stored-program electronic computer in 1945. It is generally accepted that the first documented discussion of the advantages of using just one large internal memory, in which instructions as well as data could be held, was the draft report on EDVAC written by Neumann, dated June 30, 1945. (The full report is available on www.wiley.com/go/wang/comp_arch)
Since 1945, the Neumann computer architecture has been the foundation of modern computers, a CPU, memory and storage, input/output devices, a bus with address, data and control signals that connects the components.
Early computers were made of vacuum tubes. They are large and consume a great deal of energy. During the mid 1950s to early 1960s, solid-state transistors were used and in the mid 1960s to early 1970s, integrated circuits (IC) were used in computers. Minicomputer PDP-11 in 1970, supercomputer CDC (Cray) and mainframe IBM 360 are some examples of computers during that time. Intel 8080 and Zilog Z80 are 8-bit processors made of large-scale IC. Later, Intel's 8086 (16-bit), 80286 (16-bit) and Motorola's 68000 (16/32-bit) made of very large-scale IC (VLSI) opened the era of so-called microcomputers.
The uses of microcomputers were greatly increased by the software development. UNIX and MS-DOS later became Windows are still being used as operating systems (system software) today. Word processing, spreadsheets and databases, and many other application programs help people to carry out office works. Fortran, C, Java and many other computer languages assist software developers to program new software applications.
Now computers have grown from single-chip processors to multiple processors (cores) such as dual-cores, quad-cores and eight-cores in the near future. On the other hand, smaller devices or handheld devices such as pads and smart cell phones have the ability to handle information and data needs for many people.
With virtualization technology, a “guest” or virtual operating system may run as a process on a “host” or physical computer system. It is often considered as “computers on a computer.”
Now, network connections have become an essential part of a computer system. People have developed many ways to enhance the security of computer architecture from protecting CPU and memory to building “firewalls” to detect intrusions. The study of computer architecture with security as a whole was not started until recently. This book aims to provide readers with the latest developments in designing modern computer systems that are immune from attacks.
The timeline of computer history (Computer History, 2012) covers the most important advancements in computer research and development during 1939 to 1988.
1939: Hewlett-Packard is founded. David Packard and Bill Hewlett founded Hewlett-Packard in a Palo Alto, California garage. Their first product was the HP 200A Audio Oscillator, which rapidly became a popular piece of test equipment for engineers. Walt Disney Pictures ordered eight of the 200B models to use as sound effects generators for the 1940 movie “Fantasia.”
1940: The Complex Number Calculator (CNC) is completed. In 1939, Bell Telephone Laboratories completed this calculator, designed by researcher George Stibitz. In 1940, Stibitz demonstrated the CNC at an American Mathematical Society conference held at Dartmouth College. Stibitz stunned the group by performing calculations remotely on the CNC (located in New York City) using a Teletype connected via special telephone lines. This is considered to be the first demonstration of remote access computing.
1941: Konrad Zuse finishes the Z3 computer. The Z3 was an early computer built by German engineer Konrad Zuse working in complete isolation from developments elsewhere. Using 2,300 relays, the Z3 used floating point binary arithmetic and had a 22-bit word length. The original Z3 was destroyed in a bombing raid of Berlin in late 1943. However, Zuse later supervised a reconstruction of the Z3 in the 1960s which is currently on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich.
1942: The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is completed. After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype in 1939, Atanasoff received funds to build the full-scale machine. Built at Iowa State College (now University), the ABC was designed and built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff Berry between 1939 and 1942. The ABC was at the center of a patent dispute relating to the invention of the computer, which was resolved in 1973 when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to examine the ABC shortly after it became functional.
The legal result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the originator of several basic computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared un-patentable and thus was freely open to all. This result has been referred to as the “dis-invention of the computer.” A full-scale reconstruction of the ABC was completed in 1997 and proved that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasoff had claimed.
1943: Project Whirlwind begins. During World War II, the US Navy approached the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. The team first built a large analog computer, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. After designers saw a demonstration of the ENIAC computer, they decided on building a digital computer. By the time the Whirlwind was completed in 1951, the Navy had lost interest in the project, though the US Air Force would eventually support the project which would influence the design of the SAGE program.
The Relay Interpolator is completed. The US Army asked Bell Labs to design a machine to assist in testing its M-9 Gun Director. Bell Labs mathematician George Stibitz recommended using a relay-based calculator for the project. The result was the Relay Interpolator, later called the Bell Labs Model II. The Relay Interpolator used 440 relays and since it was programmable by paper tape, it was used for other applications following the war.
1944: Harvard Mark-1 is completed. Conceived by Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and designed and built by IBM, the Harvard Mark-1 was a room-sized, relay-based calculator. The machine had a 50 ft long camshaft that synchronized the machine's thousands of component parts. The Mark-1 was used to produce mathematical tables but was soon superseded by stored program computers.
The first Colossus is operational at Bletchley Park. Designed by British engineer Tommy Flowers, the Colossus was designed to break the complex Lorenz ciphers used by the Nazis during WWII. A total of ten Colossi were delivered to Bletchley, each using 1,500 vacuum tubes and a series of pulleys transported continuous rolls of punched paper tape containing possible solutions to a particular code. Colossus reduced the time to break Lorenz messages from weeks to hours. The machine's existence was not made public until the 1970s.
1945: John von Neumann wrote “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC” in which he outlined the architecture of a stored-program computer. Electronic storage of programming information and data eliminated the need for the more clumsy methods of programming, such as punched paper tape – a concept that has characterized mainstream computer development since 1945. Hungarian-born von Neumann demonstrated prodigious expertise in hydrodynamics, ballistics, meteorology, game theory, statistics, and the use of mechanical devices for computation. After the war, he concentrated on the development of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Studies computer and its copies around the world.
1946: In February, the public got its first glimpse of the ENIAC, a machine built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert that improved by 1,000 times on the speed of its contemporaries.
Start of project: 1943Completed: 1946Programmed: plug board and switchesSpeed: 5,000 operations per secondInput/output: cards, lights, switches, plugsFloor space: 1,000 square feetProject leaders: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.An inspiring summer school on computing at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering stimulated construction of stored-program computers at universities and research institutions. This free, public set of lectures inspired the EDSAC, BINAC, and, later, IAS machine clones like the AVIDAC. Here, Warren Kelleher completes the wiring of the arithmetic unit components of the AVIDAC at Argonne National Laboratory. Robert Dennis installs the inter-unit wiring as James Woody Jr. adjusts the deflection control circuits of the memory unit.
1948: IBM's Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator computed scientific data in public display near the company's Manhattan headquarters. Before its decommissioning in 1952, the SSEC produced the moon-position tables used for plotting the course of the 1969 Apollo flight to the moon.
Speed: 50 multiplications per secondInput/output: cards, punched tapeMemory type: punched tape, vacuum tubes, relaysTechnology: 20,000 relays, 12,500 vacuum tubesFloor space: 25 feet by 40 feetProject leader: Wallace Eckert.1949: Maurice Wilkes assembled the EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, at Cambridge University. His ideas grew out of the Moore School lectures he had attended three years earlier.
For programming the EDSAC, Wilkes established a library of short programs called subroutines stored on punched paper tapes.
Technology: vacuum tubesMemory: 1 K words, 17 bits, mercury delay lineSpeed: 714 operations per second.The Manchester Mark I computer functioned as a complete system using the Williams tube for memory. This university machine became the prototype for Ferranti Corp.'s first computer.
Start of project: 1947Completed: 1949Add time: 1.8 microsecondsInput/output: paper tape, teleprinter, switchesMemory size: 128 + 1024 40-digit wordsMemory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drumTechnology: 1,300 vacuum tubesFloor space: medium roomProject leaders: Frederick Williams and Tom Kilburn.1950: Engineering Research Associates of Minneapolis built the ERA 1101, the first commercially produced computer; the company's first customer was the US Navy. It held 1 million bits on its magnetic drum, the earliest magnetic storage devices. Drums registered information as magnetic pulses in tracks around a metal cylinder. Read/write heads both recorded and recovered the data. Drums eventually stored as many as 4,000 words and retrieved any one of them in as little as five-thousandths of a second.
The National Bureau of Standards constructed the Standards Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC) in Washington as a laboratory for testing components and systems for setting computer standards. The SEAC was the first computer to use all-diode logic, a technology more reliable than vacuum tubes, and the first stored-program computer completed in the United States. Magnetic tape in the external storage units (shown on the right of this photo) stored programming information, coded subroutines, numerical data, and output.
The National Bureau of Standards completed its SWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computer) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles. Rather than testing components like its companion, the SEAC, the SWAC had an objective of computing using already-developed technology.
1951: MIT's Whirlwind debuted on Edward R. Murrow's “See It Now” television series. Project director Jay Forrester described the computer as a “reliable operating system,” running 35 hours a week at 90% utility using an electrostatic tube memory.
Start of project: 1945Completed: 1951Add time: 0.05 microsecondsInput/output: cathode ray tube, paper tape, magnetic tapeMemory size: 2048 16-digit wordsMemory type: cathode ray tube, magnetic drum, tape (1953 – core memory)Technology: 4,500 vacuum tubes, 14,800 diodesFloor space: 3,100 square feetProject leaders: Jay Forrester and Robert Everett.1952: John von Neumann's IAS computer became operational at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, N.J. Contract obliged the builders to share their designs with other research institutes. This resulted in a number of clones: the MANIAC at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, the ILLIAC at the University of Illinois, the Johnniac at Rand Corp., the SILLIAC in Australia, and others.
1953: IBM shipped its first electronic computer, the 701. During three years of production, IBM sold 19 machines to research laboratories, aircraft companies, and the federal government.
1954: The IBM 650 magnetic drum calculator established itself as the first mass-produced computer, with the company selling 450 in one year. Spinning at 12,500 rpm, the 650s magnetic data-storage drum allowed much faster access to stored material than drum memory machines.
1956: MIT researchers built the TX-0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer built with transistors. For easy replacement, designers placed each transistor circuit inside a “bottle,” similar to a vacuum tube. Constructed at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, the TX-0 moved to the MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics, where it hosted some early imaginative tests of programming, including a Western movie shown on TV, 3-D tic-tac-toe, and a maze in which mice found martinis and became increasingly inebriated.
1958: SAGE – Semi-Automatic Ground Environment – linked hundreds of radar stations in the United States and Canada in the first large-scale computer communications network. An operator directed actions by touching a light gun to the screen.
The air defense system operated on the AN/FSQ-7 computer (known as Whirlwind II during its development at MIT) as its central computer. Each computer used a full megawatt of power to drive its 55,000 vacuum tubes, 175,000 diodes and 13,000 transistors.
1959: IBM's 7000 series mainframes were the company's first transistorized computers. At the top of the line of computers – all of which emerged significantly faster and more dependable than vacuum tube machines – sat the 7030, also known as the “Stretch.” Nine of the computers, which featured a 64-bit word and other innovations, were sold to national laboratories and other scientific users. L. R. Johnson first used the term “architecture” in describing the Stretch.
1960: The precursor to the minicomputer, DEC's PDP-1 sold for $120,000. One of 50 built, the average PDP-1 included with a cathode ray tube graphic display, needed no air conditioning and required only one operator. It's large scope intrigued early hackers at MIT, who wrote the first computerized video game, SpaceWar!, for it. The SpaceWar! creators then used the game as a standard demonstration on all 50 computers.
1961: According to Datamation magazine, IBM had an 81.2% share of the computer market in 1961, the year in which it introduced the 1400 Series. The 1401 mainframe, the first in the series, replaced the vacuum tube with smaller, more reliable transistors and used a magnetic core memory.
Demand called for more than 12,000 of the 1401 computers, and the machine's success made a strong case for using general-purpose computers rather than specialized systems.
1962: The LINC (Laboratory Instrumentation Computer) offered the first real time laboratory data processing. Designed by Wesley Clark at Lincoln Laboratories, Digital Equipment Corp. later commercialized it as the LINC-8.
Research faculty came to a workshop at MIT to build their own machines, most of which they used in biomedical studies. DEC supplied components.
1964: IBM announced the System/360, a family of six mutually compatible computers and 40 peripherals that could work together. The initial investment of $5 billion was quickly returned as orders for the system climbed to 1,000 per month within two years. At the time IBM released the System/360, the company was making a transition from discrete transistors to integrated circuits, and its major source of revenue moved from punched-card equipment to electronic computer systems.
CDC's 6600 supercomputer, designed by Seymour Cray, performed up to 3 million instructions per second – a processing speed three times faster than that of its closest competitor, the IBM Stretch. The 6600 retained the distinction of being the fastest computer in the world until surpassed by its successor, the CDC 7600, in 1968. Part of the speed came from the computer's design, which had 10 small computers, known as peripheral processors, funneling data to a large central processing unit.
1965: Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. The PDP-8 sold for $18,000, one-fifth the price of a small IBM 360 mainframe. The speed, small size, and reasonable cost enabled the PDP-8 to go into thousands of manufacturing plants, small businesses, and scientific laboratories.
1966: The Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contracted with the University of Illinois to build a large parallel processing computer, the ILLIAC IV, which did not operate until 1972 at NASA's Ames Research Center. The first large-scale array computer, the ILLIAC IV achieved a computation speed of 200 million instructions per second, about 300 million operations per second, and 1 billion bits per second of I/O transfer via a unique combination of parallel architecture and the overlapping or “pipe-lining” structure of its 64 processing elements.
This photograph shows one of the ILLIAC's 13 Burroughs disks, the debugging computer, the central unit, and the processing unit cabinet with a processing element.
Hewlett-Packard entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2115 for computation, offering a computational power formerly found only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them Basic, ALGOL, and Fortran.
1968: Data General Corp., started by a group of engineers that had left Digital Equipment Corp., introduced the Nova, with 32 kilobytes of memory, for $8,000. The simple architecture of the Nova instruction set inspired Steve Wozniak's Apple I board eight years later.
The Apollo Guidance Computer made its debut orbiting the Earth on Apollo 7. A year later, it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface. Astronauts communicated with the computer by punching two-digit codes and the appropriate syntactic category into the display and keyboard unit.
1971: The Kenbak-1, the first personal computer, advertised for $750 in Scientific American. Designed by John V. Blankenbaker using standard medium-scale and small-scale integrated circuits, the Kenbak-1 relied on switches for input and lights for output from its 256-byte memory. In 1973, after selling only 40 machines, Kenbak Corp. closed its doors.
1972: Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as “a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule” with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer. The HP-35 distinguished itself from its competitors by its ability to perform a broad variety of logarithmic and trigonometric functions, to store more intermediate solutions for later use, and to accept and display entries in a form similar to standard scientific notation.
1973: The TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided the first display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text.
The Micral was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a micro-processor, the Intel 8008. Thi Truong developed the computer and Philippe Kahn the software. Truong, founder and president of the French company R2E, created the Micral as a replacement for minicomputers in situations that didn't require high performance. Selling for $1,750, the Micral never penetrated the US market. In 1979, Truong sold Micral to Bull.
1974: Researchers at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center designed the Alto – the first work station with a built-in mouse for input. The Alto stored several files simultaneously in windows, offered menus and icons, and could link to a local area network. Although Xerox never sold the Alto commercially, it gave a number of them to universities. Engineers later incorporated its features into work stations and personal computers.
1975: The January edition of Popular Electronics featured the Altair 8800 computer kit, based on Intel's 8080 microprocessor, on its cover. Within weeks of the computer's debut, customers inundated the manufacturing company, MITS, with orders. Bill Gates and Paul Allen licensed Basic as the software language for the Altair. Ed Roberts invented the 8800 – which sold for $297, or $395 with a case – and coined the term “personal computer.” The machine came with 256 bytes of memory (expandable to 64 K) and an open 100-line bus structure that evolved into the S-100 standard. In 1977, MITS sold out to Pertec, which continued producing Altairs through 1978.
1976: Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I, a single-board computer. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at $500 each from the Byte Shop, he and Steve Jobs got their start in business. In this photograph of the Apple I board, the upper two rows are a video terminal and the lower two rows are the computer. The 6502 microprocessor in the white package sits on the lower right. About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a complete computer.
The Cray I made its name as the first commercially successful vector processor. The fastest machine of its day, its speed came partly from its shape, a C, which reduced the length of wires and thus the time signals needed to travel across them.
Project started: 1972Project completed: 1976Speed: 166 million floating-point operations per secondSize: 58 cubic feetWeight: 5,300 lbs.Technology: Integrated circuitClock rate: 83 million cycles per secondWord length: 64-bit wordsInstruction set: 128 instructions.1977: The Commodore Personal Electronic Transactor (PET) – the first of several personal computers released in 1977 – came fully assembled and was straightforward to operate, with either 4 or 8 kilobytes of memory, two built-in cassette drives, and a membrane “chiclet” keyboard.
The Apple II became an instant success when released in 1977 with its printed circuit motherboard, switching power supply, keyboard, case assembly, manual, game paddles, A/C powercord, and cassette tape with the computer game “Breakout.” When hooked up to a color television set, the Apple II produced brilliant color graphics.
In the first month after its release, Tandy Radio Shack's first desktop computer – the TRS-80 – sold 10,000 units, well more than the company's projected sales of 3,000 units for one year. Priced at $599.95, the machine included a Z80 based microprocessor, a video display, 4 kilobytes of memory, Basic, cassette storage, and easy-to-understand manuals that assumed no prior knowledge on the part of the consumer.
1978: The VAX 11/780 from Digital Equipment Corp. featured the ability to address up to 4.3 gigabytes of virtual memory, providing hundreds of times the capacity of most minicomputers.
1979: Atari introduces the Model 400 and 800 Computer. Shortly after delivery of the Atari VCS game console, Atari designed two microcomputers with game capabilities: the Model 400 and Model 800. The two machines were built with the idea that the 400 would serve primarily as a game console while the 800 would be more of a home computer. Both sold well, though they had technical and marketing problems, and faced strong competition from the Apple II, Commodore PET, and TRS-80 computers.
1981: IBM introduced its PC, igniting a fast growth of the personal computer market. The first PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor and used Microsoft's MS-DOS operating system.
Adam Osborne completed the first portable computer, the Osborne I, which weighed 24 pounds and cost $1,795. The price made the machine especially attractive, as it included software worth about $1,500. The machine featured a 5-inch display, 64 kilobytes of memory, a modem, and two 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives.
Apollo Computer unveiled the first work station, its DN100, offering more power than some minicomputers at a fraction of the price. Apollo Computer and Sun Microsystems, another early entrant in the work station market, optimized their machines to run the computer-intensive graphics programs common in engineering.
1982: The Cray XMP, first produced in this year, almost doubled the operating speed of competing machines with a parallel processing system that ran at 420 million floating-point operations per second, or megaflops. Arranging two Crays to work together on different parts of the same problem achieved the faster speed. Defense and scientific research institutes also heavily used Crays.
Commodore introduces the Commodore 64. The C64, as it was better known, sold for $595, came with 64KB of RAM and featured impressive graphics. Thousands of software titles were released over the lifespan of the C64. By the time the C64 was discontinued in 1993, it had sold more than 22 million units and is recognized by the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records as the greatest selling single computer model of all time.
1983: Apple introduced its Lisa. The first personal computer with a graphical user interface, its development was central in the move to such systems for personal computers. The Lisa's sloth and high price ($10,000) led to its ultimate failure.
The Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000 microprocessor and came equipped with 1 megabyte of RAM, a 12-inch black-and-white monitor, dual 5 1/4-inch floppy disk drives and a 5 megabyte Profile hard drive. The Xerox Star – which included a system called Smalltalk that involved a mouse, windows, and pop-up menus – inspired the Lisa's designers.
Compaq Computer Corp. introduced the first PC clone that used the same software as the IBM PC. With the success of the clone, Compaq recorded first-year sales of $111 million, the most ever by an American business in a single year.
With the introduction of its PC clone, Compaq launched a market for IBM-compatible computers that by 1996 had achieved an 83% share of the personal computer market. Designers reverse-engineered the Compaq clone, giving it nearly 100% compatibility with the IBM.
1984: Apple Computer launched the Macintosh, the first successful mouse-driven computer with a graphic user interface, with a single $1.5 million commercial during the 1984 Super Bowl. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa's features at a much more affordable price: $2,500.
Apple's commercial played on the theme of George Orwell's “1984” and featured the destruction of Big Brother with the power of personal computing found in a Macintosh. Applications that came as part of the package included MacPaint, which made use of the mouse, and MacWrite, which demonstrated WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) word processing.
IBM released its PC Jr. and PC-AT. The PC Jr. failed, but the PC-AT, several times faster than original PC and based on the Intel 80286 chip, claimed success with its notable increases in performance and storage capacity, all for about $4,000. It also included more RAM and accommodated high-density 1.2-megabyte 5 1/4-inch floppy disks.
1985: The Amiga 1000 is released. Commodore's Amiga 1000 sold for $1,295 dollars (without monitor) and had audio and video capabilities beyond those found in most other personal computers. It developed a very loyal following and add-on components allowed it to be upgraded easily. The inside of the case is engraved with the signatures of the Amiga designers, including Jay Miner as well as the paw print of his dog Mitchy.
1986: Daniel Hillis of Thinking Machines Corp. moved artificial intelligence a step forward when he developed the controversial concept of massive parallelism in the Connection Machine. The machine used up to 65,536 processors and could complete several billion operations per second. Each processor had its own small memory linked with others through a flexible network that users could alter by reprogramming rather than rewiring.
The machine's system of connections and switches let processors broadcast information and requests for help to other processors in a simulation of brainlike associative recall. Using this system, the machine could work faster than any other at the time on a problem that could be parceled out among the many processors.
IBM and MIPS released the first RISC-based workstations, the PC/RT and R2000-based systems. Reduced instruction set computers grew out of the observation that the simplest 20% of a computer's instruction set does 80% of the work, including most base operations such as add, load from memory, and store in memory.
The IBM PC-RT had 1 megabyte of RAM, a 1.2-megabyte floppy disk drive, and a 40-megabyte hard drive. It performed 2 million instructions per second, but other RISC-based computers worked significantly faster.
1987: IBM introduced its PS/2 machines, which made the 3 1/2-inch floppy disk drive and video graphics array standard for IBM computers. The first IBMs to include Intel's 80386 chip, the company had shipped more than 1 million units by the end of the year. IBM released a new operating system, OS/2, at the same time, allowing the use of a mouse with IBMs for the first time.
1988: Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, who left Apple to form his own company, unveiled the NeXT. The computer he created failed but was recognized as an important innovation. At a base price of $6,500, the NeXT ran too slowly to be popular.
The significance of the NeXT rested in its place as the first personal computer to incorporate a drive for an optical storage disk, a built-in digital signal processor that allowed voice recognition, and object-oriented languages to simplify programming. The NeXT offered Motorola 68030 microprocessors, 8 megabytes of RAM, and a 256-megabyte read/write optical disk storage.
The milestones during this period are: the stored program computer architecture proposed by John von Neumann in 1945; the first transistorized computer IBM 7000 series in 1958; IBM 360 in 1964; the first vector processor Cray I in 1976; Apple II in 1977; IBM-PC in 1981; Apple Macintosh in 1984; the first RISC-based workstation IBM PC/RT in 1986.
Innovation and commercialization are the main characteristics during this 50 year period.
The timeline of Internet history covers most important advancements in Internet research and development from year 1962 to 1992.
1962: At MIT, a wide variety of computer experiments are going on. Ivan Sutherland uses the TX-2 to write Sketchpad, the origin of graphical programs for computer-aided design.
J.C.R. Licklider writes memos about his Intergalactic Network concept, where everyone on the globe is interconnected and can access programs and data at any site from anywhere. He is talking to his own “Intergalactic Network” of researchers across the country. In October, “Lick” becomes the first head of the computer research program at ARPA, which he calls the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO).
Leonard Kleinrock completes his doctoral dissertation at MIT on queuing theory in communication networks, and becomes an assistant professor at UCLA.
The SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment), based on earlier work at MIT and IBM, is fully deployed as the North American early warning system. Operators of “weapons directing consoles” use a light gun to identify moving objects that show up on their radar screens. SAGE sites are used to direct air defense. This project provides experience in the development of the SABRE air travel reservation system and later air traffic control systems.
1963: Licklider starts to talk with Larry Roberts of Lincoln Labs, director of the TX-2 project, Ivan Sutherland, a computer graphics expert whom he has hired to work at ARPA and Bob Taylor, who joins ARPA in 1965. Lick contracts with MIT, UCLA, and BBN to start work on his vision.
Syncom, the first synchronous communication satellite, is launched. NASA's satellite is assembled in the Hughes Aircraft Company's facility in Culver City, California. Total payload is 55 pounds.
A joint industry-government committee develops American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), the first universal standard for computers. It permits machines from different manufacturers to exchange data. 128 unique 7-bit strings stand for either a letter of the English alphabet, one of the Arabic numerals, one of an assortment of punctuation marks and symbols, or a special function, such as the carriage return.
1964: Simultaneous work on secure packet switching networks is taking place at MIT, the RAND Corporation, and the National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain. Paul Baran, Donald Davies, Leonard Kleinrock, and others proceed in parallel research. Baran is one of the first to publish, On Data Communications Networks. Kleinrock's thesis is also published as a seminal text on queuing theory.
IBM's new System 360 computers come onto the market and set the de facto worldwide standard of the 8-bit byte, making the 12-bit and 36-bit word machines almost instantly obsolete. The $5 billion investment by IBM into this family of six mutually compatible computers pays off, and within two years orders for the System 360 reach 1,000 per month.
On-line transaction processing debuts with IBM's SABRE air travel reservation system for American Airlines. SABRE (Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment) links 2,000 terminals in sixty cities via telephone lines.
Licklider leaves ARPA to return to MIT, and Ivan Sutherland moves to IPTO. With IPTO funding, MIT's Project MAC acquires a GE-635 computer and begins the development of the Multics timesharing operating system.
1965: DEC unveils the PDP-8, the first commercially successful minicomputer. Small enough to sit on a desktop, it sells for $18,000 – one-fifth the cost of a low-end IBM/360 mainframe. The combination of speed, size, and cost enables the establishment of the minicomputer in thousands of manufacturing plants, offices, and scientific laboratories.
With ARPA funding, Larry Roberts and Thomas Marill create the first wide-area network connection. They connect the TX-2 at MIT to the Q-32 in Santa Monica via a dedicated telephone line with acoustic couplers. The system confirms the suspicions of the Intergalactic Network researchers that telephone lines work for data, but are inefficient, wasteful of bandwidth, and expensive. As Kleinrock predicts, packet switching offers the most promising model for communication between computers.
Late in the year, Ivan Sutherland hires Bob Taylor from NASA. Taylor pulls together the ideas about networking that are gaining momentum among IPTO's computer-scientist contractors.
The ARPA-funded JOSS (Johnniac Open Shop System) at the RAND Corporation goes on line. The JOSS system permits online computational problem solving at a number of remote electric typewriter consoles. The standard IBM Model 868 electric typewriters are modified with a small box with indicator lights and activating switches. The user input appears in green, and JOSS responds with the output in black.
1966: Taylor succeeds Sutherland to become the third director of IPTO. In his own office, he has three different terminals, which he can connect by telephone to three different computer systems research sites around the nation. Why can't they all talk together? His problem is a metaphor for that facing the ARPA computer research community.
Taylor meets with Charles Herzfeld, the head of ARPA, to outline his issues. Twenty minutes later he has a million dollars to spend on networking. The idea is to link all the IPTO contractors. After several months of discussion, Taylor persuades Larry Roberts to leave MIT to start the ARPA network program.
Simultaneously, the English inventor of packet switching, Donald Davies, is theorizing at the British National Physical Laboratory (NPL) about building a network of computers to test his packet switching concepts.
Honeywell introduces the DDP-516 minicomputer and demonstrates its ruggedness with a sledgehammer. This catches Roberts' eye.
1967: Larry Roberts convenes a conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to bring the ARPA researchers together. At the conclusion, Wesley Clark suggests that the network be managed by interconnected “Interface Message Processors” in front of the major computers. Called IMPs, they evolve into today's routers.
Roberts puts together his plan for the ARPANET. The separate strands of investigation begin to converge. Donald Davies, Paul Baran, and Larry Roberts become aware of each other's work at an ACM conference where they all meet. From Davies, the word “packet” is adopted and the proposed line speed in ARPANET is increased from 2.4 Kbps to 50 Kbps.
The acoustically coupled modem, invented in the early 1960s, is vastly improved by John van Geen of the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). He introduces a receiver that can reliably detect bits of data amid the hiss heard over long-distance telephone connections.
1968: Roberts and the ARPA team refine the overall structure and specifications for the ARPANET. They issue an RFQ for the development of the IMPs.
At Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), Frank Heart leads a team to bid on the project. Bob Kahn plays a major role in shaping the overall BBN designs. BBN wins the project in December.
Roberts works with Howard Frank and his team at Network Analysis Corporation designing the network topology and economics. Kleinrock's team prepares the network measurement system at UCLA, which is to become the site of the first node.
The ILLIAC IV, the largest supercomputer of its time, is being built at Burroughs under a NASA contract. More than 1,000 transistors are squeezed onto its RAM chip, manufactured by the Fairchild Semiconductor Corporation, yielding 10 times the speed at one-hundredth the size of equivalent core memory. ILLIAC-IV will be hooked to the ARPANET so that remote scientists can have access to its unique capabilities.
1969: Frank Heart puts a team together to write the software that will run the IMPs and to specify changes in the Honeywell DDP-516 they have chosen. The team includes Ben Barker, Bernie Cosell, Will Crowther, Bob Kahn, Severo Ornstein, and Dave Walden.
Four sites are selected. At each, a team gets to work on producing the software to enable its computers and the IMP to communicate. At UCLA, the first site, Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker, and Jon Postel work with Kleinrock to get ready. On April 7, Crocker sends around a memo entitled “Request for Comments.” This is the first of thousands of RFCs that document the design of the ARPANET and the Internet.
The team calls itself the Network Working Group (RFC 10), and comes to see its job as the development of a “protocol,” the collection of programs that comes to be known as NCP (Network Control Protocol).
The second site is the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), where Doug Engelbart saw the ARPA experiment as an opportunity to explore wide-area distributed collaboration, using his NLS system, a prototype “digital library.” SRI supported the Network Information Center, led by Elizabeth (Jake) Feinler and Don Nielson.
At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Glen Culler and Burton Fried investigate methods for display of mathematical functions using storage displays to deal with the problem of screen refresh over the net. Their investigation of computer graphics supplies essential capabilities for the representation of scientific information.
After installation in September, handwritten logs from UCLA show the first host-to-host connection, from UCLA to SRI, is made on October 29, 1969. The first “Log-In” crashes the SRI host, but the next attempt works!
1970: Nodes are added to the ARPANET at the rate of one per month.
Programmers Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson at Bell Labs complete the UNIX operating system on a spare DEC minicomputer. UNIX combines many of the time-sharing and file-management features offered by Multics and wins a wide following, particularly among scientists.
Bob Metcalfe builds a high-speed (100 Kbps) network interface between the MIT IMP and a PDP-6 to the ARPANET. It runs for 13 years without human intervention. Metcalfe goes on to build another ARPANET interface for Xerox PARC's PDP-10 clone (MAXC).
DEC announces the Unibus for its PDP-11 minicomputers to allow the addition and integration of myriad computer-cards for instrumentation and communications.
In December, the Network Working Group (NWG) led by Steve Crocker finishes the initial ARPANET Host-to-Host protocol, called the Network Control Protocol (NCP).
1971: The ARPANET begins the year with 14 nodes in operation. BBN modifies and streamlines the IMP design so it can be moved to a less cumbersome platform than the DDP-516. BBN also develops a new platform, called a Terminal Interface Processor (TIP) which is capable of supporting input from multiple hosts or terminals.
