From 1 transistor on a chip in the 1950's to over 592,000,000 in the 2000's. Pics show the rapid evolution of scale and complexity in the engines that power computing, communications, and electronic devices in general.
Microelectronic silicon computer “chips” have grown in capability from a single transistor in the 1950s to hundreds of millions of transistors per chip on today’s microprocessor and memory devices. From the first…
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Charles Babbage completed plans for an elaborate, all-mechanical calculator in 1849. His Difference Engine #2 was so complicated, with more than 8,000 separate parts, that it was never built during his lifetime. But now, Babbage's Difference Engine is on display in Silicon Valley…and it works!
Clearing up some misconceptions: the engine was not built in Babbage's lifetime, as it says in the text. This is the second one ever built. Myhrvold is a donor because he donated the cost of building a printer for the first engine (the one…
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The London Science Museum finally completed work on the Victorian era’s greatest supercomputer, the Difference Engine No. 2, 120 years after the death of inventor Charles Babbage. This five-ton machine is currently traveling across the pond to San Francisco, and will go on display in America for the first time starting May 10th at the Computer Hist
Actually it is already here (see Wired report). And on the subject of triviagasm, one of the staff at the Computer History Museum is Chris Garcia, a well-known Bay Area fan who happens to be up for a couple of Hugos this year. by…
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