ACP: Medicine in the Computer Age: The ACP and Medical Informatics

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Medicine in the Computer Age: The ACP and Medical Informatics

A Brief History of Computers

Hardware and Communications Technology

In 1943, British mathematicians M.H.A. Newman and Alan Turing developed the first electronic digital computer. Their machine, the Colossus, was quickly put to use by the British military to decipher German message codes during World War II. In the United States, John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of University of Pennsylvania built the first American electronic digital computer in 1946 with funding from the U.S. Army Ballistics Research Laboratory.

Mauchly's and Eckert's electronic digital computer, The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator)
Courtesy of The Computer Museum Archives

The Colossus and the ENIAC were able to perform predefined "logical steps" due to the wiring of their circuit boards. To perform a different sequence of steps, the computers had to be rewired. In 1945, this changed with John von Neumann's invention of an electronically alterable memory that allowed the programmer to change machine commands by employing arithmetic operations, rather than by rewiring the computer's circuits. Four years later, Harvard University Scientist An Wang devised the first magnetic core memory.

Almost a decade later, companies such as IBM began to market a new generation of computers that utilized transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The invention of the computer chip in 1959 also marked an important turning point: from hence forth, computers would operate via integrated circuits of transistors and tiny silicon chips. This technology made the marketing of minicomputers possible. In 1965, Digital Equipment developed the first commercially-successful minicomputer.

Apple II Personal Computer
Courtesy of The Computer Museum Archives

The 1970s ushered in a new age of personal computers. Companies such as Intel developed microprocessor chips and random access chips that paved the way for other soon-to-be computer giants, such as IBM and Microsoft, to transform the computer industry. The Xerox Palo Alto Research Center contributed greatly to this transformation by creating the "mouse" and an interactive computer language called Smalltalk that incorporated icons and pull-down menus. Apple exploited these developments in its Apple I and II.

Networking Computers

Initially, modems and copper wiring made computer communication a reality. Modems converted electronic pulses generated by computers to analog sound signals which then could be passed through copper wires. In 1960, AT&T designed the first commercial modem for converting digital data into analog signals for long distance transmission.

AT&T Modem, 1960
Courtesy of The Computer Museum Archives

In 1964, Paul Baran of the Rand Corporation separately transmitted small segments of information, or bits, to a receiving computer which then reassembled the bits into a coherent message. This technology, later named packet switching, was adopted by wide area networks such as Telenet.

Six years later, optic fibers were invented. The high frequency of light allowable in fiber optic cables enables them to carry more data than analog sound signals transmitted through copper wires. Beginning in the 1970s, computer technologists employed fiber optic cables and packet switching technology in local and wide area networks. One WAN of note, the Department of Defense's ARPANET, connected computers at the University of California-Santa Barbara, University of California-Los Angeles, SRI International and the University of Utah. ARPANET was a precursor to the more renowned network, the Internet.

ARPANET, 1970
Courtesy of The Computer Museum Archives

Programming Languages

As computer hardware evolved, so, too, did programming languages. Initially, programming languages were instructions in "machine" code. Beginning in the 1950s, higher level programming languages transformed a sequence of machine instructions into operations that could be achieved with a single mnemonic command. Interpreters, a device that converts mnemonic commands into machine code, made higher level programming languages a reality. Today, computer programming languages instruct the machine by listing tasks, rather than instructing the machine how to perform the tasks.

BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), 1964
Courtesy of The Computer Museum Archives

Important programming languages developed in the twentieth century include FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator), 1957; COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), 1960; BASIC (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), 1964; C Language, mid 1970s.

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