Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

532 Appendix II• Users of the new IBM 704 mainframe, frustrated at thelack of technical supported, formed the first computer usergroup, called SHARE.• The large ibm 705 mainframe is marketed by IBM. It usesmagnetic core memory.1956• The IBM 704 and Univac 1103 introduced a new generationof commercial mainframes with magnetic core storage.• John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence,or AI.• The Dartmouth AI conference brought together leadingresearchers such as McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, HerbertSimon, and Allen Newell. It would set the agenda for the field.• Newell, Shaw, and Simon developed Logic Theorist, the firstprogram that can prove theorems.• A. I. Dumey described hashing, a procedure for quicklysorting or retrieving data by assigning calculated values.• The infant transistor industry began to grow as companiessuch as IBM began to build transistorized calculators.• IBM signed a consent decree ending the 1952 antitrust complaintby restricting some of its business practices in sellingmainframe computers.1957•John Backus and his team released fortran, which wouldbecome the most widely used language for scientific computingapplications.Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was founded by KenOlsen and Harlan Anderson. The company’s agenda involvedthe development of a new class of smaller computer, theminicomputer.Minicomputer development would be inspired by the MITTX-0 computer. While not yet a “mini,” the machine was thefirst fully transistorized computer.The hard drive came into service in ibm’s 305 RAMAC.IBM developed the first dot matrix printer.••••1958• The I/O interrupt used by devices to signal their needs tothe CPU was developed by ibm. It would be used later inpersonal computers.• China began to build computers based on Soviet designs,which in turn had been based upon American and Britishmachines.• Sperry Rand introduced the Univac II, a huge, powerful,and surprisingly reliable computer that used 5,200 vacuumtubes, 18,000 crystal diodes, and 184,000 magnetic cores.• Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments built the first integratedcircuit, fitting five components onto a half-inch piece of germanium.• As the cold war continued, the U.S. Air Force brought SAGEon-line. This integrated air defense system featured realtimeprocessing and graphics displays.1959• John McCarthy developed Lisp, a language based onAlonzo Church’s lambda calculus and including extensivefacilities for list processing. It would become the favoritelanguage for artificial intelligence research.• cobol was introduced, with much of the key work andinspiration coming from Grace Hopper.• ibm marketed the 7090 mainframe, a large transistorizedmachine that could perform 229,000 additions a second. Thesmaller IBM 1401 would prove to be even more popular. IBMalso introduced a high-speed printer using type chains.• Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor built a differenttype of integrated circuit, using aluminum traces and layersdeposited on a silicon substrate.1960• Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) marketed the PDP-1,generally considered the first commercial minicomputer.• Control Data Corporation (CDC) impressed the industrywith its CDC 1604, designed by Seymour Cray. It offeredhigh speed at considerably lower prices than ibm and theother major companies.• The Algol language demonstrated block structure for betterorganization of programs. The report on the language introducedBNF (Backus-Naur form) as a systematic descriptionof computer language grammar.• Donald Blitzer introduced PLATO, the first large-scaleinteractive computer-aided instruction system. It wouldlater be marketed extensively by Control Data Corporation(CDC).• Paul Baran of RAND developed the idea of packet-switching toallow for decentralized information networks; the idea wouldsoon attract the attention of the U.S. Defense Department.• In an advance in practical robotics, the remote-operated“Handyman” robot arm and hand was put to work in anuclear power plant.• The U.S. Navy began to develop the Naval Tactical DataSystem (NTDS) to track targets and the status of ships in acombat zone.1961• Time-sharing computer systems came into use at MIT andother facilities. Among other things, they encouraged theefforts of the first hackers to find clever things to do withthe computers.• Leonard Kleinrock’s paper “Information Flow in Large CommunicationNets” was the first description of the packetswitchingmessage transfer system that would underlie theInternet.• Arthur Samuel’s ongoing research into computer gamesdesign culminated in his checkers program reaching masterlevel. The program includes learning algorithms that canimprove its play.• The ibm STRETCH (IBM 7030) is installed at Los AlamosNational Laboratory. Its advanced “pipeline” architectureallowed new instructions to begin to be processed whilepreceding ones were being finished. It and Univac’s LARCare sometimes considered to be the first supercomputers.• IBM made a major move into scientific computing withits modular 7040 and 7044 computers, which can be used