Where would computer technology be today if we had never had the cold war?

Great Debates
21

TriPolar#17,

Second sourcing is a field unto itself. A case that may fit your mold is the agreement for AMD to second source Intel. But, that was well beyond the cold war and any early computer development. We did provide second sources for the benefit of major customers. I cannot recall any that were driven by the military.

The TI7400 series (that’s a pin out and spec) had many competitors but finally won out as the industry standard. National Semiconductor second sourced the pinouts using CMOS technology as 74CXX.

The MilAero specs were developed by the semiconductor companies to meet the needs of the military. They were not driven by the military or second sourcing.

Crane

22

Little Nemo,

Nope it was born when Hollerith got involved in the 1890 census.

Crane

23

Actually, the first Cray-1 computer was not bought, but ‘loaned’ to Los Alamos. They just never returned it. And later bought another one.

But actually, the defense industry did fund Cray, indirectly. He knew that if he produced a very fast machine, they would buy it for the price he set. He expected to sell about a dozen machines, half of them to defense organizations, that was part of the financial plan for the corporation*. And he was correct, many of the early buyers were defense-connected, and their purchases made the company profitable.

*So he priced it accordingly. When they sold 7 times that many, it made the early Cray years very financially successful. And did pretty well for their stockholders, including the CDC founder & many CDC employees who had known Cray.

24

None of that invalidates what I was saying; without the cold war to provide the impetus for computing, and by extension the “academic novelties”, we might well be many years behind where we are now.

The first test program run on ENIAC was computations for hydrogen bomb feasibility. If there’s a more Cold War-esque application, I don’t know what it is.

25

bump#24,

Of course you are correct that Eniac is an important step in the history of computers. But in the context of the OP for this thread, it was not a product of the cold war. It was designed and built during WW2. It happened to be around for use with the Hydrogen Bomb. It was also used for weather studies and other less than ‘cold war’ applications.

Eniac evolved into the UNIVAC commercial systems. Early units were competitors of the IBM 701. The UNIVAC was a BCD machine, essentially a large calculator. The 701 was a high speed 71 bit (+sign) binary machine with a large capacity electrostatic memory. The two were developed in parallel and had no relation to each other.

The point is that computer development did not need assistance from the cold war.

Crane

26

I disagree. I’m not saying they developed ENIAC for the nuclear weapons program, but that the first meaningful applications of the first computers were Cold War related ones. This stimulated the appetite for more capable computers, presumably for these Cold War uses. ALL of those “academic curiosities” were used for Cold War related defense applications and calculations.

It was these machines’ success that stimulated IBM to create commercial versions for scientific and commercial use, not the other way around.

You’re also not drawing (IMO a very important distinction) between tabulating machines like Hollerith’s and the pre-war IBM ones and actual digital computers, such as ENIAC, Whirlwind, etc…

27

There’s no denying the relation between computers & the Internet.
But the Internet is about connectivity.
Computer technology itself would seem a separate issue.

When I bought my first IBM PC in 1981 the industry standard for RAM was 64K. Sinclair had it. Commodore had it (and that was also the model name, “the Commodore 64”. Radio Shaft had it, and IBM had it too.

BUT !!

For splurgers like me more RAM was available. So instead of 64K, I got 128K.
The computer cost me $4,000.oo
And when I went to pick it up, the tech at the store asked me:
“What are you going to do with all that memory?!” 128K !! - yikes -

As I type this post I’m awaiting a UPS delivery of 960 GB of computer memory, which only cost a few $hundred. They’re flash drives, aka “thumb-drives” formatted FAT32, suitable for feeding program content to today’s audio equipment (one in my car, another in my living room) [one for camping, and one for … etc].

The miracle of computing technology, now including not only desktop computers but also:

  • laptops
  • tablets
  • smart-phones (a super-computer that fits in your shirt pocket)
  • microwave oven
  • a modern car (modern cars can be hacked!!)
  • all sorts of other contraptions
    this miracle results from economy of scale.

IBM founder Thomas John Watson (1874-1956) predicted only a few (~5?) computers would ever be needed.

What has driven the per GB cost of computers is not the amount of development needed, but that the cost is shared by so many hundreds of millions of consumers.

28

bump,

Thanks for the comments. I list the EDP machines because they were part of a long unbroken stream that led to the development of modern computers. ASCII is just modified Hollerith.

I was able to find a list of purchasers by Googling ‘IBM704 Applications’:

1961, IBM 704

U. S. Air Force, Headquarters, Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska
U. S. Air Force SWWVD, Headquarters, 4925th Test Group (Atomic,Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico
Argonne National Laboratory, Box 299, Lemont, Illinois
Federal Aviation Agency, Bureau of Flight Standards, Aircraft Management Division, P. 0. Box 1082, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lewis Research Center,21000 Brookpark Road, Cleveland 35, Ohio
National Bureau of Standards, Connecticut and Van Ness Street, N. W.,Washington, D. C.
National Security Agency, Ft. George G. Meade, Maryland
Tennessee Valley Authority, Computing Center, 116 Old Post Office,Chattanooga, Tennessee
Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
AVCO Corporation, Research & Advanced Development Division, 201Lowell St., Wilmington, Mass.
Bell Aerosystems Company, P. 0. Box 1, Buffalo 5, New York
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Whippany Road, Whippany, New Jersey
Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey
The Bendix Corporation, Bendix Systems Division, 3300 PlymouthRoad, Ann Arbor, Michigan
C-E-I-R, Incorporated, 1200 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington 2,Virginia
Convair, Fort Worth Division of General Dynamics Corporation, FortWorth, Texas
Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, Incorporated, 4455 Gene seeStreet, Buffalo 21, New York
Convair-San Diego, Plant I, Building 54A, Pacific Highway, San Diego,California
Douglas Aircraft Company, Department G-318, 3000 Ocean Park Blvd.,Santa Monica, California
General Electric Company, Black Canyon Highway, Phoenix,Arizona
General Electric Company, Evendale Computations Operation,Building 305, Evendale 15, Ohio
General Electric Company, Computer Systems and Operations,Schenectady, New York
General Motors Corporation, General Motors Technical Center, 12 Mile &Mount Roads, Warren, Michigan
General Motors Corporation, Allison Division, Plant No. 8, Indianapolis6, Indiana
Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, Engineering Department,Research Section, Bethpage, New York
Gulf Research & Development Company, P. 0. Drawer 2038, Pittsburgh30, Pennsylvania
IBM Corporation, Product Development Laboratory, High Street, Poughkeepsie, New York
GPD Development Laboratory, IBM Dept., 284, Endicott, New York
The Service Bureau Corporation, IBM Plant, Bldg. 10, Monterey & Cottle Roads, San Jose, California
IBM Research Center, P. O. Box 218, Yorktown Heights, New York
Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, Marietta, Georgia
The Marquardt Corporation, 16555 Saticoy Street, Van Nuys,California
Martin Company, Box 179, Denver, Colorado
North American Aviation, Incorporated, 4300 East Fifth Avenue,Columbus 6, Ohio
Pratt & Whitney Aircraft, Florida Research & Development Center, United,Florida
Rand Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, California
Raytheon Company, Missile Systems Division, Applied Math Section,Bedford, Massachusetts
Republic Aviation Corporation, Farmingdale, N. Y.
Sandia Corporation, Department 5240, Box No. 5800, Albuquerque, NewMexico
Socony Mobil Oil Company, Inc., 150 East 42nd St., New York 17, NewYork
Standard Oil Company of California, Electronic Computing Center, 225Bush St., San Francisco, Calif.
Standard Oil Company of Indiana, 2400 New York Avenue,Whiting, Indiana.
Temco Electronics & Missiles Company, P. O. Box 6191, Dallas, Texas
United Aircraft Corporation, Research Laboratories, 400 Main Street, EastHartford 8, Connecticut (3)
Chance Vought Aircraft, Incorporated, Dallas, Texas
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Air Arm Division,Box 746, Baltimore 3, Maryland
Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 4L39, East Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania
California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 OakGrove Drive, Pasadena 3, Calif.
Midwestern Universities Research Association, 2203 University Avenue,Madison 5, Wisconsin
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Texas Engineering Experiment Station, Data Processing Center, College Station, Texas
University of California, Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, P.O. Box1663, Los Alamos, New Mexico
University of California, Computer Center, 201 Campbell Hall, Berkeley, California
University of Michigan, Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington
U. S. Navy Mine Defense Laboratory, Panama City, Florida(Anticipated)
U. S. Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut

As you can see there is a wide distribution of applications. Admittedly many are defense related. But, they were just customers for a commercial product. During 1957, I worked on the Lockheed 704 that was located in Burbank CA. At the time it was primarily used for development of the Lockheed Electra commercial aircraft. In 1958 I worked on the installation of the 704 at JPL in Pasadena. The biggest event then was an unsuccessful attempt to orbit a Redstone rocket.

I’m sure that Cold War efforts contributed to the development of computers, but they were not the primary impetus for the industry. Especially not so as it moved toward the very high volume production of integrated circuits. It was a commercial effort driven by good old American ingenuity and funded by good old American greed.

Crane