The 1960's

Developments over the 1960's now saw computers with a solid state of design and contained the components associated with computers we use today (memory, disk storage, operating systems and stored programs).

With a developing industry and market, new types of careers were being created and the software industry was starting to being developed.

Computers were reducing in size because of the inventions of the integrated circuit in 1958, allowing more components to be integrated onto one chip. Power, efficiency and reliability of computers also increased.

1960 - AT and T Dataphone

AT & T Dataphone

(Image courtesy of Computer History Museum)

This was designed as the first commercial modem, specifically for converting digital computer data to analog signals for transmission across its long distance network. (Computer History Museum).

John Silk talks about the use of punchcards at ICI in the Agrochemical department

1960 - DEC PDP-1

The precursor to the minicomputer, one of these would have sold for $120,000! (Computer History Museum)

DEC PDP-1

(Image courtesy of Computer History Museum)

1960 - Software Languages

The developments in the stored program and programming languages such as COBOL (Common Business Orientated Language) aimed for easy readability of computer programs and as much machine independence as possible. Such languages enabled computers to be cost effective and productive for business use.

1961 - John Kennedy

President John Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade transformed the US space program into a complex of research and production centres with unlimited budgets and insatiable appetites for computing power. (Ceruzzi. P., 1998).

1961 - Clive Tomlin remembers a mainframe computer in a research centre in America

1961 - UNIMATE

The first industrial robot began work at General Motors obeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum, the 4,000 pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.

UNIMATE

(Image courtesy of Computer History Museum)

1962 - SPACEWAR!

This was considered the first interactive computer game, inspiring the development of future video games, arcade games and games consoles. It was first played on the DEC's PDP-1. (Computer History Museum)

1963 - Rancho Arm

Designed at Ranch Los Amigos Hospital, California. The idea behind this mechanism is a tool for the disabled. The arm has six joints that enables it to have the 'flexibility' of a human arm.

John Silk explains the problem of expanding chemical literature and how it led ICI into using computers

1964 - IBM System/360

IBM System / 360

(Image courtesy of Computer History Museum)

This year saw the development of six mutually compatible computers and forty peripheral's that could work together. Orders for the system reached 1,000 per month by 1966. (Computer History Museum)

Mid 1960s - The Minicomputer

Increased demands by well funded customers and advances in research into solid state physics, electronics and computer architecture led to the creation of the minicomputer. This was not a direct competitor to mainframes, but it opened up new areas of applications. It introduced large numbers of groups, at first engineers and scientists, to direct interaction with computing machines. They created the notion of the computer as a personal interactive device. (Ceruzzi. P., 1998).

Although minicomputers established a market in the 1960s, most computer dollars continued to be spent on large mainframes sold by IBM and its few competitors. (Ceruzzi. P., 1998).

1966 - Hewlett Packard

This company entered into the general purpose computer business with the HP-2115.

Hewlett Packard HP-2115

(Image courtesy of Computer History Museum)

1968 - Apollo Guidance Computer

This made its debut orbiting the Earth on Apollo 7. In 1969 it steered Apollo 11 to the lunar surface.

1968 - ICL

International Computers Limited (ICL) was a creation of ICT (International Computers and Tabulators) coming together with English Electric. Previous mergers and absorption of companies by ICT and English Electric now led to all the major British computer manufacturers under one roof.

Historically ICL contained a large component of punch card equipment manufacturing, sales of this equipment took a long time to fell the impact of stored program digital computers. (Lavington. S., 1980).

Late 1960s - Mainframes

Timesharing for mainframes was developed. (The History of Computing Project., 2002). For economic reasons a mainframe could not be dedicated to a single user, in practical terms the only way to use a large machine interactively was for several users to share its computational cycles, or 'time' simultaneously. (Ceruzzi. P., 1998).

During the 1960s and early 70s the foundations were laid for future transformations of the computer industry. This included building large systems using integrated circuits, large stores and all complex software, written in high level languages. Wall Street also learned that computers, semiconductors and software deserved the same attention as the Reading Railroad or United States Steel. (Ceruzzi. P., 1998).

Back to Timeline