Pioneers of computing

[Chuck Guzis]

On 3/12/19 5:23 PM, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Mar 12, 2019, at 5:51 PM, Murray McCullough via cctalk
>> <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>> 
>> ... I’ve written in my book on the History of the Microcomputer a
>> history of the processing chip as the timeline follows an
>> approximation of:
>> 
>> Late *1950*s – patent on integrated circuit by Texas Instruments
>> 
>> *1950*s to *1960*s – move from vacuum tubes to TTL technology
>> 
>> programs/functions in ROM
> 
> You turned two steps into one: vacuum tubes to discrete transistors
> (1958 to mid 1960s) then transistors to TTL SSI ICs (1965-1975 or
> so), then CMOS and LSI.  With some detours -- some high end computers
> using ECL, for example.

I recall that in the late 1960s, RTL and DTL were far more common IC
families than TTL.  ECL had several sub-families; the first was a bear
to work with.

I think bitsavers has a couple of old Motorola, TI and Fairchild IC
databooks from that time.

CMOS ICs, when they first came out, were glacially slow and could only
get speed by running them at 15 volts or so.   Except for some
low-speed/low-power applications, they weren't really a contender for
computer logic.

This is a bit interesting in that Brattain, Bardeen and Shockley are
credited in the popular press as having invented the transistor.
However, that was a bit overstated; they had to re-word their patent
application to state that they'd developed a "junction" transistor, when
a patent search turned up the fact that a Hungarian immigrant named
Julius Lilienfeld had obtained a patent on a field-effect transistor in
1930--a full year before he obtained a patent on the electrolytic
capacitor (ever heard of those?.  Dr. J applied for the patent in 1926,
which is a bit mind-boggling, when you consider that tubes like the
UV20A1 were introduced in 1924.   It's those field-effect transistors
that are widely used today, not Shockley and chums' bipolar cousins.

Such is history and those who write accounts of it.  Names like
Atanasoff and Zuse are consigned to the dustbin of history, while Eckert
and Mauchly get the historical mention.

Ah well, some people still believe that Thomas Edison invented the
incandescent lamp.

Also, there was capacitor ROM as well as transformer ROM.

--Chuck