Introduction to Computer Systems - Fundamentals of Computer Organization and Architecture - page 3

In 1946 and while the EDVAC project was in progress, a similar project was
initiated at Cambridge University. The project was to build a stored-program com-
puter, known as the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). It
was in 1949 that the EDSAC became the world's first full-scale, stored-program,
fully operational computer. A spin-off of the EDSAC resulted in a series of machines
introduced at Harvard. The series consisted of MARK I, II, III, and IV. The latter
two machines introduced the concept of separate memories for instructions and
data. The term Harvard Architecture was given to such machines to indicate the
use of separate memories. It should be noted that the term Harvard Architecture
is used today to describe machines with separate cache for instructions and data.
The first general-purpose commercial computer, the UNIVersal Automatic
Computer (UNIVAC I), was on the market by the middle of 1951. It represented an
improvement over the BINAC, which was built in 1949. IBM announced its first com-
puter, the IBM701, in 1952. The early 1950s witnessed a slowdown in the computer
industry. In 1964 IBM announced a line of products under the name IBM 360 series.
The series included a number of models that varied in price and performance. This led
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) to introduce the first minicomputer, the PDP-8.
It was considered a remarkably low-cost machine. Intel introduced the first micropro-
cessor, the Intel 4004, in 1971. The world witnessed the birth of the first personal
computer (PC) in 1977 when Apple computer series were first introduced. In 1977
the world also witnessed the introduction of the VAX-11

780 by DEC. Intel followed
suit by introducing the first of the most popular microprocessor, the 80

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86 series.
Personal computers, which were introduced in 1977 by Altair, Processor
Technology, North Star, Tandy, Commodore, Apple, and many others, enhanced
the productivity of end-users in numerous departments. Personal computers from
Compaq, Apple, IBM, Dell, and many others, soon became pervasive, and changed
the face of computing.
In parallel with small-scale machines, supercomputers were coming into play.
The first such supercomputer, the CDC 6600, was introduced in 1961 by Control
Data Corporation. Cray Research Corporation introduced the best cost performance

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supercomputer, the Cray-1, in 1976.
The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the introduction of many commercial parallel
computers with multiple processors. They can generally be classified into two
main categories: (1) shared memory and (2) distributed memory systems. The
number of processors in a single machine ranged from several in a shared
memory computer to hundreds of thousands in a massively parallel system.
Examples of parallel computers during this era include Sequent Symmetry, Intel
iPSC, nCUBE, Intel Paragon, Thinking Machines (CM-2, CM-5), MsPar (MP),
Fujitsu (VPP500), and others.
One of the clear trends in computing is the substitution of centralized servers by
networks of computers. These networks connect inexpensive, powerful desktop
machines to form unequaled computing power. Local area networks (LAN) of
powerful personal computers and workstations began to replace mainframes and
minis by 1990. These individual desktop computers were soon to be connected
into larger complexes of computing by wide area networks (WAN).