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1970

It is Gilbert Hyatt  who takes the IC technology a step further and files for a patent for the Micro Processor. But the paperwork took a long time to get through the "windings" of the patent bureau. Three engineers from Intel Corporation were faster and they created the first commercially viable microprocessor. That is why those three are accredited to have invented the microprocessor, however Hyatt will be awarded the patent in 1990 after all. A similar case to that of Atanasov with his first electronic computer.

Ray Holt, working with his brother - Bill holt - on an engineering team, designs the onboard main flight computer for the U.S. Navy's F-14A "Tomcat" fighter jet. It is a computer on a chip and this processor is more powerful than the 4004 designed by Intel. The project started in 1968.

Ray Holt is getting his chance to claim to be the father of the microprocessor not before 1999.
It will take Holt 30 years to have the Navy declassify the project and be able to make his invention known to the public.
Interviews with Holt's co-workers and his own documents confirm that their work preceded the 1969-1971 efforts of Santa Clara-based Intel Corp. that turned the microprocessor into a business empire. "It was very frustrating," says Holt, about keeping silent for so long. "I almost had to forget about it." (1)

Ken Thompson develops the programming language 'B' of which stems the language 'C'. It is said that the name like that is chosen because there already was a prototype of this or another language called "A".

The theory of Relational Database is introduced by Ted Codd at IBM. However algebraic laws for query optimization were not formulated here.(3) With this model though it became possible to work with data represented as a form to fill out without having to tell the computer how to store and were to find it back.

The eight inch ⁽¹⁵⁾ floppy disk is developed by OPIUM and IBM. The first floppy disk measures 8 inch in diameter (1 inch = 25,4 mm). The first type is of a read only format. Officially the floppy wil lbe announce one year later and used for the IBM mainframe's data storage cabinet IBM 3330

This disk is built from an 8" plastic disk on which a thin magnetic layer is applied on a single side. The storage capacity is 100-130 Kbytes, about 60 pages A4. The first versions were used without any external protection, soon dust forms a problem and the floppy is put into an square envelop lined with some protective material inside. A hole in the middle is for the driving spindle that turns the disk around and the slot to provide access to the floppy's data for the read and write head(16) of the disk drive. The drives and floppies are extremely expensive and only large companies can afford to buy them. This new medium will also not be received favorably at first because it is mainly used in a mainframe environment. In later develpments so called hard disks and so called storage packs, also called Winchester disks, and tapes that can contain many mega bytes will dwarf this floppy disk, to render the floppy almost useless for large mainframes.
Alan Shugart at IBM invents the first regular use of an 8 inch "floppy" (magnetic storage) or diskette: for DisplayWrite an IBM word processor.(19) (see also the official release date in 1971)

Pascal-a is developed by Niclaus Wirth (Swiss). Pascal supports development of software because it allowed the programmer to divide the program in various blocks called functions or procedures. It made the program code easier to understand and better to maintain. Pascal is going to be the programming language of choice by many universities and other colleges in the next 20 some years.
The story goes that Niclaus Wirth, member of the ALGOL committee, was not really satisfied the way the definition of ALGOL seemed to be going. He found the language got too complicated and designed the easier to understand Pascal.

Intel creates three chips that will form the cornerstones of future computers

• in October the first chip 4001 followed a month later the 4002 and then 4003. ⁽¹⁷⁾
• the 1103--the first generally available DRAM chip of 1024b (1K). By 1972, it is the best-selling semiconductor memory chip in the world. You would need more than 65,000 of them to put 8 MB of memory into a PC.
• ROM - Read Only memory - is invented by Intel.(20) This technology makes it possible for computers to keep information stored even when the computer is switched off.

Dec. 14: First mention of the concept behind teletext is made in a BBC internal memo.(4)

1971

The Computer Group became the Computer Society. (The Computer Group promoted this name change to better represent the stature it and other IEEE groups had attained.) For the Computer Society, the seventies was a decade of significant growth in both the depth and breadth of services. Membership grew by a factor of over two-and-a-half.⁽¹⁹⁾

The first IBM computer fully constructed on IC's is system 370. Model 145 has 262 Mb of memory and an access time of 200 Ns. Very fast for this type of machine.

Robert Noyce invents the MICRO PROCESSOR. A Microprocessor is the heart of a computer. It is the active brain. When combined with memory, in and output ports than it becomes a complete computer.

Gilbert Hyatt developed the first single chip microcomputer at Micro Computer Inc., Los Angeles. The work started in 1968.

It is Wayne D. Pickette (Intel) who invented the principle of the computer on a chip. That eventually became the 4004 and forms the core of all the other Intel processors to come.

Ted Hoff (Intel) decided that it would be easier to use that "computer on a chip" for his purpose than to custom-develop a calculator chip. Thus Intel created the 4004 in response to the request from a Japanese company (Busicom) to create a chip for a calculator. Giving birth to a family of "processors on a chip". Busicom went into bankruptcy before it could take the chip into production.

Marcian E. (Ted) Hoff received the IEEE Computer Society Pioneer Award in 1988.⁽¹⁹⁾

In February Intel released the 4004 microprocessor to the market. It has 12 sq mm die size and 16 pins which fit in motherboard.

Intel created the first EPROM short for: Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory.
This eprom can contain or store data or even entire programs. The data can only be erased by directing intense Ultra Violet light on the chip itself.

The world of personal computing has its roots in 1971, with two important products

• First commercially available microprocessor
• The first floppy disk.

Texas Instruments brings out their first microprocessor: the TI F8

UNIX is available for the Bell laboratories. UNIX is rewritten in 'B' and "ported" (= translated) to the newer  PDP-11 system family.

Dennis Ritchie (and Brian Kernighan⁽¹³⁾) (USA), another programmer working at Bell Labs, are fine tuning the language "B" and they call it "C"

This language now combines the properties of "Structured Programming" as this can be found in Pascal and Modula. But in the same time it contains the possibility to get to the innards of the computer, the bits and bytes or the nut and bolts so to speak, is needed to have, or create, an efficient operating system. The language 'C'  will be one of the most important programming languages for development of system and application software.

Commodore is the first manufacturer that will market a compact electronic calculator as mass product. Up till now calculators were heavy, clumsy and for the average person un payable. That is now over and out.

In this same year Commodore puts a rechargeable calculator on the market.

The 1971 Kenbak-1 is one of the earliest form of a personal computer. It uses 130 IC's with a 256 byte memory and 8-bit words, processed 1000 instructions per second, and cost $750.

May 1st 1971. (5) Alan Shugart and his team, headed by David Noble, at IBM announce the first “floppy disk” invented a year earlier. This first disk officially referred to as "memory disk" is 8 inches in diameter and soon gets nicknamed as floppy disk by the IBM staff. It can hold as much as 100Kb of data and it's first use is as read only disk to contain a bootstrap routine for the IBM/370.

Bob Bemer is recognized as the first person in the world to publish warnings of the Year 2000 problem, and again in 1979. This got much attention of the USA media.

Project Gutenberg is found by Michael Hart. Its mission, according to its stated history and philosophy, is to "make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search." The project provide thousands of books (mostly novels) scanned by volunteers that are either free of copyrights or donated to the foundation. It will have over 10,000 titles on line by 2003

Last Updated on October 2, 2004

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