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Third Generation

(1963-1972)

The third generation brought huge gains in computational power. Innovations in this era include the use of integrated circuits, or ICs (semiconductor devices with several transistors built into one physical component), semiconductor memories starting to be used instead of magnetic cores, microprogramming as a technique for efficiently designing complex processors, the coming of age of pipelining and other forms of parallel processing (described in detail in Chapter CA), and the introduction of operating systems and time-sharing.

Intel first microprocessor

The first ICs were based on small-scale integration (SSI) circuits, which had around 10 devices per circuit (or "chip''), and evolved to the use of medium-scale integrated (MSI) circuits, which had up to 100 devices per chip. Multilayered printed circuits were developed and core memory was replaced by faster, solid state memories. Computer designers began to take advantage of parallelism by using multiple functional units, overlapping CPU and I/O operations, and pipelining (internal parallelism) in both the instruction stream and the data stream. In 1964, Seymour Cray developed the CDC 6600, which was the first architecture to use functional parallelism. By using 10 separate functional units that could operate simultaneously and 32 independent memory banks, the CDC 6600 was able to attain a computation rate of 1 million floating point operations per second (1 Mflops). Five years later CDC released the 7600, also developed by Seymour Cray. The CDC 7600, with its pipelined functional units, is considered to be the first vector processor and was capable of executing at 10 Mflops. The IBM 360/91, released during the same period, was roughly twice as fast as the CDC 660. It employed instruction look ahead, separate floating point and integer functional units and pipelined instruction stream. The IBM 360-195 was comparable to the CDC 7600, deriving much of its performance from a very fast cache memory. The SOLOMON computer, developed by Westinghouse Corporation, and the ILLIAC IV, jointly developed by Burroughs, the Department of Defense and the University of Illinois, were representative of the first parallel computers. The Texas Instrument Advanced Scientific Computer (TI-ASC) and the STAR-100 of CDC were pipelined vector processors that demonstrated the viability of that design and set the standards for subsequent vector processors.

Early in the this third generation Cambridge and the University of London cooperated in the development of CPL (Combined Programming Language, 1963). CPL was, according to its authors, an attempt to capture only the important features of the complicated and sophisticated ALGOL. However, like ALGOL, CPL was large with many features that were hard to learn. In an attempt at further simplification, Martin Richards of Cambridge developed a subset of CPL called BCPL (Basic Computer Programming Language, 1967). In 1970 Ken Thompson of Bell Labs developed yet another simplification of CPL called simply B, in connection with an early implementation of the UNIX operating system. comment):

Year wise summery of development

1963 : On the basis of an idea of Alan Turing's, Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT develops a "mechanical psychiatrist" called Eliza that appears to possess intelligence. In January, Ivan Sutherland introduces Sketchpad, leading to the consolidation of computer graphics. The American National Standards Institute accepts ASCII 7-bit code for information exchange. The Institute of Radio Engineers and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers merge to form the IEEE. At the University of California, Berkely, Lofti Zadeh begins work on fuzzy logic. The SAGE system for military defense is fully deployed at a total project coast of about $8 bilion. Many of its technological advances prove beneficial to the entire computer industry.

1964: IBM announces the System/360 "third-generation" line of computers. Basic (Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is developed at Dartmouth by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. It spawns many variations. IBM's seven-year-long Sabre project, allowing travel agents anywhere to make airline reservations, is fully implemented. With a speed of 9 megaflops, Control Data Corp.'s CDC 6600, designed by Seymour Cray, claims the title of first commercially successful supercomputer.IBM develops a computer-aided design system.

Doug Engelbart invents the mouse. BASIC (Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Language) is created by Tom Kurtz and John Kemeny of Dartmouth. First time-sharing BASIC program runs. Graphic tablet is developed by M.R. Davis and T.D. Ellis at Rand Corporation. Honeywell introduces the H-200 attacking IBM's installed base of 1400 systems. NCR introduces the 315/100.

1965: DEC debuts the first minicomputer, the PDP-8, which used transistor circuitry modules.Project MAC, a large collaborative time-sharing project, leads to the Multics operating system.J.A. Robinson develops unification, the underpinning of logic programming and important to many of today's programming technologies. Maurice Wilkes proposes the use of a cache memory on the basis of an idea by Gordon Scott. At the University of Belgrade, Rajko Tomovic makes one of the earliest attemps to develop an artifical limb with a sense of touch. IBM ships the first System 360, its first integrated circuit-based, or third generation, computer.

1966: Honeywell acquires Computer Control Company, a minicomputer manufacturer. Scientific Data Systems (SDS) introduces Sigma 7. Texas Instruments offers the first solid-state hand-held calculator.

1967 : Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard at the Norwegian Computing Centre complete a general-purpose version of the language Simula, the first object-oriented language.Fairchild introduces its 3800 8-bit ALU chip. At Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman, and James Van Tassel invent a four-function handheld calculator. Donald Knuth writes about algorithms and data structures as entities seperate from the programs they are used in. DEC introduces the PDP-10 computer. A.H. Bobeck at Bell Laboratories develops bubble memory.

1968: A conference sponsored by the NATO Science Committee addresses the "software crisis" and introduces the term "software engineering". Edsger Dijkstra writes about the harmful effects of the goto statement, and interest in structured programming burgeons. The first computers to incorporate integrated circuits--the B2500 and B3500--are introduced by Burroughs. A Federal Information Processing Standard encourages use of the six-digit data format (YYMMDD) for information interchange, sowing the seeds of the "Year 2000 Crisis." Robert Noyce, Andy Grove, and Gordon moore establish Intel, which is incorporated on July 18. The Seymour Cray-designed CDC 7600 supercomputer achieves 40-megaflops performance. The Rand Corp. presents a decentralized comminucations network concept to ARPA.

Univac introduces the 9400 computer. Integrated Electronics (Intel) Corp. is founded by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce.

1969: The US Department of Defense commissions Arpanet for research networking, and the first four nodes become operational at UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, SRI, and the University of Utah. Bell Labs withdraws from Project MAC, which developed Multic, and begins to develop Unix. The RS-232-C standard is introduced to facilitate data exchange between computers and peripherals.

Edson deCastro leaves DEC to start Data General Corp. and introduces the Nova, the first 16-bit minicomputer. First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence is held. IBM unbundles hardware and software; introduces a minicomputer line, System/3. Lockheed Electronics ships the MAC-16. PASCAL compiler is written by Nicklaus Wirth and installed on the CDC 6400.

1970: Shakey, developed at SRI International, is the first robot to use artificial intelligence to navigate. Winston Royce publishes "Managing the Development of Large Software systems," which outlines the waterfall development method. Unix is developed at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thomson.The Computer Group News becomes Computer, a monthly magazine for all Computer Society members. RCA's MOS (metal-oxide semiconductor) technology promises cheaper and smaller ICs. Xerox establishes the Palo Alto Research Center at Standford University for computer research.
E.F. Codd describes the relational model. The floppy disk and the daisywheel printer make their debut.

1971: The team of Ted Hoff, S. Mazor, and F. Fagin develops the Intel 4004 microprocessor--a "computer on a chip" Don Hoefler writes a series of articles for Electronic News called "Silicon Valley USA," using in print the name that had been adopted to describe the area. David Parnas describes the principle of information hiding. Ray Tomlinson of Bolt Beranek and Newmann sends the first network e-mail message.Niklaus Wirth develops Pascal, a predecessor to Modula-2. The IEEE Computer Group becomes the IEEE Computer Society.

Computer Automation introduces the Alpha-16. IBM introduces the 370/135 and 370/195 mainframe computers. Floppy disks are introduced to load the IBM 370 microcode. Intel Corporation announces the first microprocessor , the Intel 4004, developed by a team headed by Marcian E. Hoff.

1972 : Hand-held calculators become popular, making the slide rule obsolete. Intel's 8008, the first 8-bit microprocessor, appears but is soon replaced by the 8080. Nolan Bushnell's Pong video game is so successful that he founds Atari. Dennis Ritchie develops C at Bell Labs, so named because its predecessor was named B. Smalltalk is developed by Xerox PARC's Learning Research Group, based largely on the ideas of Alan Kay. Alain Colmerauer at the University of Marseille develops Prolog, which popularizes key logic programming concepts. Analytic complexity theory develops the idea of NP-completeness, showing that a large class of computing problems, such as the "traveling salesman problem," may be computationally intractable. Wang, VYDEC, and Lexitron all introduce word processing systems. In Wimbledon, England, an experimental computerized axial tomography imager finds a brain tumor in a patient. DEC's PDP 11/45 is introduced, its circuitry encased in chips. Steve Wozniak builds a "blue box" tone generator to make free phone calls and sells them in the dorm at UC Berkeley.

Gary Kildall at Naval Postgraduate School writes PL/1, the first programming language for the Intel 4004 microprocessor. Intel introduces the 8008, an 8 bit microprocessor.

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