their problem-solving speed.
As integrated circuits spread, the main direction in computer technology was smaller, faster, cheaper. The fourth generation of computers (1971ânow) began with one of the breakthrough inventions of the twentieth century, the microprocessor. In 1971, the Intel 4004 chip contained all the computerâs components (CPU, memory, and input/output controls). This first microprocessor contained 2,300 transistors and performed about 60,000 calculations in a second. It was manufactured in quantity and then separately programmed for all types of functions.
Soon, computers were everywhereâin televisions, automobiles, watches, microwave ovens, coffeemakers, toys, cash registers, airplanes, telephone systems, electric power grids, and stock market tickers.
Steady improvements in photolithographyâthe method used to etch circuits onto chipsâpushed component sizes even smaller, resulting in faster computer speeds. The smaller the component, the faster a signal traveled between transistors. Large-scale integration (LSI) fit hundreds of transistors onto a chip about half the size of a dime. In the 1980s, VLSI (very large-scale integration) fit hundreds of thousands of components onto a chip. ULSI (ultra-large-scale integration) increased that number into the millions. In 1995, approximately 3.1 million transistors could be fit onto a single square-inch chip (Intelâs Pentium chip). Modern microprocessors contain as many as twenty million transistors and perform hundreds of millions of calculations per second. A computer with the power of ENIAC, with its 18,000
vacuum tubes, could today fit onto a chip smaller than the period that finishes this sentence.
Industry experts estimate that there are more than 15 billion microprocessors in use today. Without them, telephones would still have rotary dials, TVs would have knobs instead of remotes, ATMs wouldnât exist, and thousands of other facets of modern life wouldnât work. Nor would an unmanned probe have walked on Mars, sending us pictures of another planetâs landscape.
Equally important, microprocessors enabled computer companies to manufacture computers for home use. In 1981, IBM introduced its Personal Computer (PC) for the home, office, and schools. Today, along with at least half a billion PCs, we have lap-tops and handheld computers: Palm Pilots, Newtons, a multitude of tiny computers that netsurf for us.
On the original Star Trek , the communicators looked like todayâs handheld computers. The etch-a-sketch-sized pads used by Captain Kirk to sign instructions, letters, and invoices (while he ogled Yeoman Rand in her miniskirt and cracked jokes about âthe pleasures of shore leaveâ) were larger and clunkier than todayâs powerful handheld computers. But the use of those pads by Kirk and crew exhibited an astonishing foresight.
Kirk and his crew also used what look like todayâs desktop PCs to access databases, communicate with each other, and analyze sensor information. But the most amazing example of the original seriesâ foresight is that crewmembers routinely gave each other data on disks that look exactly like todayâs floppy disks.
While much of the original series reflected the machines and cultural paranoia of the 1960s, the show also provided a remarkable glimpse of technology in the 1980s. Looking twenty-years ahead is a far cry from looking 300 years into the future, of course, but itâs probably the best that can be expected.
Just as Kirkâs computers reflected the thinking of the 1960s, the TNG, VGR , and DS9 computers reflect todayâs thinking. They incorporate much of todayâs best computer science research: redundant architectures, neural nets, top-down as well as bottom-up artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and virtual reality.
This creates some problems. For example, the Trek computers are outlandish in design and concept. They supposedly run
As integrated circuits spread, the main direction in computer technology was smaller, faster, cheaper. The fourth generation of computers (1971ânow) began with one of the breakthrough inventions of the twentieth century, the microprocessor. In 1971, the Intel 4004 chip contained all the computerâs components (CPU, memory, and input/output controls). This first microprocessor contained 2,300 transistors and performed about 60,000 calculations in a second. It was manufactured in quantity and then separately programmed for all types of functions.
Soon, computers were everywhereâin televisions, automobiles, watches, microwave ovens, coffeemakers, toys, cash registers, airplanes, telephone systems, electric power grids, and stock market tickers.
Steady improvements in photolithographyâthe method used to etch circuits onto chipsâpushed component sizes even smaller, resulting in faster computer speeds. The smaller the component, the faster a signal traveled between transistors. Large-scale integration (LSI) fit hundreds of transistors onto a chip about half the size of a dime. In the 1980s, VLSI (very large-scale integration) fit hundreds of thousands of components onto a chip. ULSI (ultra-large-scale integration) increased that number into the millions. In 1995, approximately 3.1 million transistors could be fit onto a single square-inch chip (Intelâs Pentium chip). Modern microprocessors contain as many as twenty million transistors and perform hundreds of millions of calculations per second. A computer with the power of ENIAC, with its 18,000
vacuum tubes, could today fit onto a chip smaller than the period that finishes this sentence.
Industry experts estimate that there are more than 15 billion microprocessors in use today. Without them, telephones would still have rotary dials, TVs would have knobs instead of remotes, ATMs wouldnât exist, and thousands of other facets of modern life wouldnât work. Nor would an unmanned probe have walked on Mars, sending us pictures of another planetâs landscape.
Equally important, microprocessors enabled computer companies to manufacture computers for home use. In 1981, IBM introduced its Personal Computer (PC) for the home, office, and schools. Today, along with at least half a billion PCs, we have lap-tops and handheld computers: Palm Pilots, Newtons, a multitude of tiny computers that netsurf for us.
On the original Star Trek , the communicators looked like todayâs handheld computers. The etch-a-sketch-sized pads used by Captain Kirk to sign instructions, letters, and invoices (while he ogled Yeoman Rand in her miniskirt and cracked jokes about âthe pleasures of shore leaveâ) were larger and clunkier than todayâs powerful handheld computers. But the use of those pads by Kirk and crew exhibited an astonishing foresight.
Kirk and his crew also used what look like todayâs desktop PCs to access databases, communicate with each other, and analyze sensor information. But the most amazing example of the original seriesâ foresight is that crewmembers routinely gave each other data on disks that look exactly like todayâs floppy disks.
While much of the original series reflected the machines and cultural paranoia of the 1960s, the show also provided a remarkable glimpse of technology in the 1980s. Looking twenty-years ahead is a far cry from looking 300 years into the future, of course, but itâs probably the best that can be expected.
Just as Kirkâs computers reflected the thinking of the 1960s, the TNG, VGR , and DS9 computers reflect todayâs thinking. They incorporate much of todayâs best computer science research: redundant architectures, neural nets, top-down as well as bottom-up artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and virtual reality.
This creates some problems. For example, the Trek computers are outlandish in design and concept. They supposedly run
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