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The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid state devices such as the transistor and later the integrated circuit. By 1959 discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Computer main memory slowly moved away from magnetic core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size and power consumption of computer devices. == Third generation == The mass increase in the use of computers accelerated with 'Third Generation' computers. These generally relied on Jack Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit (or microchip), starting around 1965. However, the IBM System/360 used hybrid circuits, which were solid-state devices interconnected on a substrate with discrete wires. The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. Some of their early uses were in embedded systems, notably used by NASA for the Apollo Guidance Computer, by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile, the Honeywell ALERT airborne computer,〔("Honeywell ALERT" ). 1965.〕 and in the Central Air Data Computer used for flight control in the US Navy's F-14A Tomcat fighter jet. By 1971, the Illiac IV supercomputer, which was the fastest computer in the world for several years, used about a quarter-million small-scale ECL logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.〔D. A. Slotnick, ''The Fastest Computer'', ''Scientific American'' February 1971, reprinted in ''Computers and Computation'', Freeman and Company, San Francisco 1971, ISBN 0-7167-0936-8〕 While large mainframe computers such as the System/360 increased storage and processing abilities, the integrated circuit also allowed development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP and VAX computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating systems like Unix. In November 1966, Hewlett-Packard introduced the 2116A〔''History of the 2116A digital computer'' http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/histnfacts/museum/earlyinstruments/0001/0001history.html〕〔''HP: The Accidentally, On-Purpose Computer Company'' http://www.hp9825.com/html/hp_2116.html〕 minicomputer, one of the first commercial 16-bit computers. It used CTµL (Complementary Transistor MicroLogic)〔''Fairchild CTµL Integrated Circuits'' http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~hilpert/e/HP21xx/CTL.html〕 in integrated circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor. Hewlett-Packard followed this with similar 16-bit computers such as the 2115A in 1967,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=HP Computer Museum )〕 the 2114A in 1968,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=HP Computer Museum )〕 and others. In 1969, Data General introduced the Nova and shipped a total of 50,000 at $8000 each. The popularity of 16-bit computers such as the Hewlett-Packard 21xx series and the Data General Nova led the way toward word lengths that were multiples of the 8-bit byte. The Nova was first to employ medium-scale integration (MSI) circuits from Fairchild Semiconductor, with subsequent models using large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits. Also notable was that the entire central processor was contained on one 15-inch printed circuit board. In 1973, the TV Typewriter, designed by Don Lancaster, provided electronics hobbyists with a display of alphanumeric information on an ordinary television set. It used $120 worth of electronics components, as outlined in the September 1973 issue of Radio Electronics magazine. The original design included two memory boards and could generate and store 512 characters as 16 lines of 32 characters. A 90-minute cassette tape provided supplementary storage for about 100 pages of text. His design used minimalistic hardware to generate the timing of the various signals needed to create the TV signal. Clive Sinclair later used the same approach in his legendary Sinclair ZX80. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of computing hardware (1960s–present)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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