The History of Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s world wide web browser, and the name for a set of Internet-based technologies that provide browsing, email, collaboration and multimedia features to millions of people around the world.  It’s a four-year old product that has received glowing reviews from end users and the media, harsh criticism from Microsoft’s competitors and the anti-Microsoft crowd, and it is one of the cornerstones of an ongoing anti-trust trial that the Department of Justice has brought against Microsoft.  It remains a testament to Microsoft’s ability to turn it’s product strategy on a dime, it is used by millions upon millions of users navigate the World Wide Web, and it has emerged the victor in the long-standing browser wars with Microsoft’s competitor, Netscape Corporation.

To properly understand the security aspects surrounding Internet Explorer, I believe one should begin with a historical perspective.  This is important for two reasons.  First, given the many different released versions of Internet Explorer, you need to determine where you are in the Internet Explorer product timeline.  Only then will you be able to determine what security issues you’re facing and what you can do about them.  Second, and more importantly, Internet Explorer is here to stay.  Microsoft has forever interwoven the Internet Explorer suite of products and set of technologies into its Windows, Office and BackOffice family product lines.  There are over 200 million Windows users, and I don’t think Windows is going to disappear any time soon.

The Beginning of an Era

In 1995, Microsoft was busily working on a very important project, code-named “Chicago.”  An extension of that project – code-named “O’Hare” after Chicago’s O’Hare Airport – was being developed in tandem.  Microsoft’s intent was to combine the technologies of both projects into a single consumer product.  Toward the end of these projects, Microsoft decided to take the O’Hare technologies, and distribute them as part of a separate add-on pack to the Chicago product.  Chicago, now known as Windows 95, proved to be one of the most successful operating systems to date.  O’Hare, now known as Internet Explorer 1.0, first shipped as an Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95.

Although Internet Explorer 1.0 integrated nicely with Windows 95, few customers used it, preferring instead to use the highly popular browser from Netscape Development Corporation, or other web browsers such as Mosaic, Lynx and Opera.  Microsoft remained undeterred.  Microsoft’s market research indicated that their customers wanted to use Windows 95 as a universal network client; one that could connect to Windows NT, Novell NetWare, Banyan Vines, and the Internet.

Microsoft made great strides over the next year with version 2.0.  This was Microsoft’s first cross-platform browser, available to both Macintosh and 32-bit Windows users.  Version 2 introduced support for a wide variety of emerging Internet technologies, such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), HTTP cookies, RealAudio, Virtual Reality Modeling Language (“VRML”), and support for Internet newsgroups (NNTP).  We’ll discuss these things more in depth in forthcoming chapters.

Full Steam Ahead

In the summer of 1996, Microsoft released version 3.0, which seemingly overnight triggered a mass exodus from Netscape’s browser to Internet Explorer. The Internet community became polarized on the issue of which web browser had the most features and the most support for the latest Internet technologies, as well as which one more closely adhered to RFCs and other Internet standards.  Internet Explorer 3 boasted a wide variety of features, including support for video and audio multimedia, Java applets, cascading style sheets, and Microsoft’s ActiveX controls.  Ever since the release of version 3, the browser wars have raged on.  But the debate was nearly made moot by one distinguishing aspect – Netscape charged nearly $50 for its web browser, while Microsoft gave Internet Explorer away for free.

One of the primary reasons behind the success of Microsoft Office, was the fact that it was a bundled suite of products.  Microsoft felt that, by applying this practice to Internet Explorer, they would be able to duplicate this success.  So they introduced additional integrated components when they released version 3, such as Internet Mail and News 1.0, a Windows Address Book, and later on, Microsoft NetMeeting and the Windows Media Player.  As a result of these new compelling features, version 3’s popularity skyrocketed.  This new and quickly increased popularity had the unintended side-effect of putting Microsoft and it’s web browser under intense public scrutiny.

Trouble Begins to Brew

Technologists and pundits began to write about how Microsoft was trying to dominate the Internet by flooding the market with their web browser and turning the Internet into a Microsoft proprietary domain.  Others were concentrating on other issues, such as browser security.  There was much to be concerned about.  On August 22, 1996, a mere nine days after Internet Explorer 3 was released, the first Internet Explorer security problem was reported – The Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole.

The Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole should have been a wake-up call for Microsoft.  Discovered by two well-known Princeton researchers – Edward Felten and Dirk Balfanz – this security hole enabled a malicious webmaster to download files to an unsuspecting user’s PC without their knowledge.  This could be any file, including a Microsoft Word Macro that could in turn execute DOS commands.  Or worse, a malicious webmaster could transmit a virus, a Trojan program that could open a “back door” into the target system, or a program designed to discretely transmit files back to the malicious web site.

The very next day, Microsoft released a patch to close the Princeton Word Macro Virus Loophole.  While Microsoft downplayed the significance of the loophole, the Internet community was becoming increasingly concerned.  Months before reporting this loophole, Felten reported his discovery of some serious Java vulnerabilities in Netscape Navigator.  The picture was becoming clear – this new territory called the Internet could be a dangerous place.

More and more security bugs started appearing.  In December, 1996, Felton reported another security flaw in Internet Explorer.  This flaw allowed malicious websites to “spoof” other web sites.  A spoofed web site is a site that looks real; it can literally be an identical copy of a real site, except that it isn’t hosted on a web server that belongs to the web site you think you’re visiting.  In other words, while you think you’ve just purchased the latest subscription to Foo Magazine, you’ve actually just transmitted your credit card number and other personal information to a fake site.

Month after month, one security problem after another was being steadily reported.  There were numerous vulnerabilities which exposed computer files to malicious web sites; there were other bugs that inadvertently transmitted encrypted information in plain text to unauthorized sites; and there was the revelation that Internet Explorer maintained a bit-by-bit record of where users went online.  Between Java bugs, scripting holes, Year 2000 problems, and a growing anti-Microsoft sentiment, Microsoft was being attacked on all sides, all because of Internet Explorer.

Goodbye Web Browser, Hello Integrated Functionality

Microsoft’s strategy for Internet Explorer took an interesting turn in late 1997 when Microsoft claimed that, once installed, Internet Explorer 3.0 could not be completely uninstalled from Windows 95.  This claim was made early on in the still-running antitrust trial against Microsoft, and hotly disputed by many, including the Department of Justice.  Again, Microsoft was undeterred.  In fact, in September 1997 they stepped up their efforts to improve upon version 3 by releasing an all new version – version 4 – one that was completely integrated into Windows 95, Windows NT and, when later released, Windows 98.

Internet Explorer 4 represented a quantum leap over the prior versions of Internet Explorer.  In 1990, Microsoft had unveiled its “Information at Your Fingertips” (IAYF) campaign.  According to Microsoft, IAYF means “the right information at the right time for the right purpose.”  Microsoft’s goal was to make finding, browsing and retrieving information easy, with access to the information location-independent.  Internet Explorer 4 was a major milestone in this campaign.  In fact, it was so critical to their vision, that Microsoft completely scrapped earlier betas and alphas of Internet Explorer in favor of the version that is available today.

Microsoft was targeting three major markets with this latest version.  For companies and organizations, Internet Explorer 4 would make users more productive and evangelize intranets, while allowing IS departments a granular level of control.  For home users, Internet Explorer 4 provided a much richer Internet experience.  For programmers and software developers, Internet Explorer 4 provided a platform for delivering interactive and compelling content.

But it was much more than that.  The launch of Internet Explorer 4 meant the end of the already extremely blurred line between Windows and Internet Explorer.  In Windows terminology, the word “shell” refers to the user interface (“UI”).  When Windows 95 debuted, the original Windows Program Manager shell was replaced with the Windows Explorer shell.  Explorer was a slick, new interface that caught on, and allowed novice users to quickly learn how to use Windows.  When a Windows 95 user installed Internet Explorer 4, their Explorer shell was replaced with Internet Explorer.  On the surface, the user didn’t notice much change.  The changes were there, however, and they were significant.  Internet Mail and News was replaced with Outlook Express, Microsoft Chat was added and Microsoft NetMeeting was upgraded.  In addition, Microsoft introduced a new feature called the “Active Desktop.”  This allowed Internet Explorer 4 users to replace their normal desktop and wallpaper with any web content they wanted.  Instead of icons and a single wallpaper image, Internet Explorer 4 users could, in effect, create their own custom UI for Windows.  It also brought drag-and-drop functionality to the Start Menu, and added integrated Favorites, a Quick Launch Bar and Address Bars.

Thanks, but No Thanks

Despite this power and flexibility, many users didn’t care for the Active Desktop.  Some felt that this feature was “code bloat,” that is, a feature that no one really wanted, but that Microsoft added anyway because they thought it was cool.  To a certain extent, they were right.  A lavishly customized Active Desktop can add quite a bit of resource overhead to a Windows PC.  Many Windows users were still running with 28.8Bps modem connections, 32MB of RAM or less in their systems, and, when turned on, the Active Desktop would slow the system to a crawl.  Today’s systems, however, are significantly more powerful that those in 1997, making the Active Desktop features useful and richly interactive.

Internet Explorer 4 also introduced a slew of new features, such as Channels, Subscriptions, Dynamic HTML, enhanced multimedia, and webcasting. Security was also beefed up with the addition of Authenticode 2.0, and Security Zones.  Channels, subscriptions and webcasting (aka “Push” technology) were Microsoft’s efforts to move from a technology company to a content company.  This only fueled the now prevalent fears that Microsoft’s intent was to dominate the Internet.  Some went so far as to claim that, by dumping its web browser into the market for free, Microsoft would control who got on the Internet, where they went, and what they would see.  The very nature of the Internet made this a technical impossibility, but nonetheless, people complained.

Despite Microsoft’s best attempts to add features, provide integration, and secure Internet Explorer, everything they did seemed to backfire.  Customers didn’t like Internet Explorer 4’s heavy footprint or the way Active Desktop performed.  Microsoft’s partners didn’t like having to license and distribute Internet Explorer 4 – unmodified – in order to retain their status as a Windows licensee.  And security experts worldwide, such as Carnegie-Mellon’s Computer Emergency Response Team (“CERT”), were reporting one serious security hole after another.

A Very Long Life – In Internet Time

The concept of “Internet Time” refers to the frenzied and never-ending pace at which things on the Internet, or things related to the Internet, occur.  It’s a sort of “dog years” analogy for technology.  For example, say your company’s product happens to be a web browser.  Software development cycles can run anywhere from twelve months to several years.  But on Internet Time, the development cycle might now be six months to a year.  By Internet Time standards, Internet Explorer 4 has enjoyed an extremely long life cycle. 

It is common for development on the next version of a product to occur simultaneously with the release or near-release of the current version.  This is what happened with Internet Explorer 4.  Version 3 was an ambitious project to begin with.  The project – code-named “Athena” – was scheduled to be released in the Summer of 1996, and it was supposed to include a web browser, an email client and news reader, a new TCP/IP auto-dialer, and Microsoft NetMeeting.

   

Athena would also be the primary client in another project – code-named “Normandy.”  Normandy was a product line comprised of various Internet-related technologies, such as Microsoft Chat Server, Microsoft Personalization Server, Internet News Server, Microsoft Merchant Server, and others.  The “summer Internet package,” as it came to be known, would later become blended into another project – code-named “Nashville” – which was to be the successor to Windows 95 UI shell.

Late in the development cycle for Internet Explorer 3, it became apparent that Microsoft would not be able to deliver Athena as planned in the Summer of 1996.  So, Microsoft cut back on their plans and released Internet Explorer 3, Internet Mail and News 1.0 and Microsoft NetMeeting 1.0.  Microsoft then began working on a new project under the code-name of “Nashville.”  Nashville was being billed as an “Internet Update Release.”  Microsoft had ambitious plans for Nashville.  It would be a web browser (at the time based on Internet Explorer 3), an email client, a news reader, a personal web server, data and audio conferencing, and a personal information manager.  More importantly, it would replace the existing Windows shell, making it a completely integrated product.  Their intent was to release a new version of Windows with Nashville blended in.

Nashville’s goal was to evolve the Windows 95 shell to provide integration between the user’s PC and the Internet, blurring (and removing), the boundary between Windows 95 and Internet Explorer.  The Nashville team merged elements from the Windows 95 Explorer with features from Internet Explorer, and created a new shell (which is still called Explorer).  Nashville’s goal was realized in on September 30, 1997, when Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4.

The demand for version 4 was impressive.  In the first 24 hours it was available, it was being downloaded once every six seconds.  This amounted to the transmission of a whopping ten terabytes of data!  The demand exceeded everyone’s expectations, including Microsoft’s.  But in a matter of days, security issues began cropping up, and Microsoft began releasing what was to be a long stream of patches, updates and service packs, resulting in a number of different builds for version 4.

Resistance is Futile

Microsoft continues to integrate Internet Explorer into its other product lines, including its Office and BackOffice family of products.  Microsoft Outlook 98 – like it’s cousin Outlook Express – uses Internet Explorer’s HTML parsing and rendering engine.  Therefore, if you install Outlook 98 onto a computer without version 4 or higher, Internet Explorer gets installed, as well.  Office 2000 extends this practice by including and using Internet Explorer 5 technologies.  This foundational approach makes sense.  Why reinvent the wheel (or in this case why re-write the code) if it already exists?  On the other hand, this also means that security issues that affect Internet Explorer more often than not also affect products which use its codebase.  This only adds to the already mounting challenges of maintaining a safe and secure operating environment.

 Internet Explorer 4 continues to be a popular browser.  Nearly two years after its release it is still the most popular version in use today.  It is feature-rich, user-friendly and highly configurable.  On March 18, 1999, Microsoft capitalized on version 4’s success with the release of Internet Explorer 5.  Before it was even released, over 2 million copies of the beta version were downloaded.  Version 5 isn’t too much of a departure from version 4.  It does add a some very nice features, but like its predecessors, it, too has security vulnerabilities.  In fact, it’s a pretty safe assumption that all future versions of Internet Explorer – as with any web browser – will be affected by one or more security issues.

So there you have it.  The history thus far of Internet Explorer.

How the Personal Computer Was Born

The Smithsonian Institution's "Information Age" exhibit in Washington has long had a section devoted to the early days of personal computing. One of the most prominently displayed early computers in the exhibit is a rare pre-production model of the famous Altair 8800. How that computer got from my Texas office to the Smithsonian Institution is a story worth telling.

The Altair computer sparked the personal when this magazine appeared on newsstands nearly three decades ago. Photograph by Forrest M. Mims III. Click image to enlarge.computing revolution

Twenty-five years ago Popular Electronics magazine featured on its cover a photograph of a build-it-yourself computer called the Altair 8800. An accompanying article by Ed Roberts described how to build the computer. You could even order a complete kit of parts for a little less than $400 from MITS, Inc., Roberts's company in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bill Gates and Paul Allen were so excited by the Altair that they left Harvard and moved to Albuquerque. There they formed a tiny company called Microsoft and worked alongside Roberts at MITS to develop software for the Altair. It was 1975, and no one then could possibly have imagined that Bill Gates, an 18-year old college dropout who never slept and who always needed a haircut, would one day become the richest man on Earth.

At a time when business computers sold for tens of thousands of dollars, the Altair was a major breakthrough. Roberts and Gates understood that better than anyone else. Yet by today's standards, the Altair was unbelievably primitive. Instead of a keyboard, information was entered into a clumsy row of toggle switches. The Altair's "monitor screen" was a row of flashing red lights. You had to understand the binary number system to know what they meant.

That meant I had to learn binary, for Roberts asked me to write the Altair operator's manual. Since MITS was near bankruptcy, my fee would be one of the first Altairs. That Altair is the one that has been displayed at the Smithsonian for the past dozen or so years. In next week's column, I'll tell that story. But first, I want to tell you more about Ed Roberts and MITS, the company he and I began.

Roberts and I became friends in 1968 when we were assigned to the Air Force's state-of-the-art laser laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Roberts was a second lieutenant who had entered the service as an enlisted man and was commissioned when he received his college degree. I was a first lieutenant just back from a year as an intelligence officer in Vietnam.

While working at the laser lab, Roberts and I had long discussions about our common interests in science and electronics. Roberts used to say that his goals were to earn a million dollars before he reached 30, learn to fly, become a medical doctor and move to a farm in Georgia. Roberts also said that he wanted to design an inexpensive digital computer. None of us then realized that the invention of the computer-on-a-chip known as the microprocessor would eventually allow all of Ed Roberts's dreams to come true.

In 1969 I began writing articles on model rocketry and hobby electronics for various magazines. Being an entrepreneur at heart, Roberts noticed this and wondered if we could form a company to sell kits based on the projects I wrote about. We soon held a meeting in Ed's kitchen with two other guys from the lab, Stan Cagle and Bob Zaller. Within a few weeks we had formed Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems Inc. or simply MITS.

My job was to write magazine articles about how to build and use our products. My wife Minnie Minnie and Robert's wife Joan helped package the kits in blue plastic boxes. Our first product was a tiny light flasher I had designed for tracking and recovering test flights of guided model rockets at night.

The flasher circuit was based on a basic code-practice oscillator from Radio Shack that I had modified to send pulses to an infrared-emitting diode used in a miniature travel aid for the blind that I designed in 1966.

We sold a few hundred light flasher kits, but it soon became obvious that MITS needed a bigger market. So I wrote an article about how to build a device that would transmit your voice over a beam of invisible light. Popular Electronics magazine made the project one of their 1970 cover stories, and we sold a hundred or so kits. With this money we began work on a laser system for hobbyists, which was also published in Popular Electronics. Most of our customers were hobbyists, but we also received orders from universities, corporations and even the FBI,

The kit business eventually reached a break-even point. But MITS needed a product with much more appeal. Next time I'll tell you about that product and how it led directly to the Altair 8800.

Forgotten critics said the Altair was simple and plain. But Bill Gates looked inside and saw an electronic brain. 

Forrest M. Mims III is an independent scientist, writer and photographer.

This feature was originally published in Forrest Mims's weekly science column in the Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, Seguin, Texas. The column is written for a general audience.

A Brief History of Computers and Networks, Part II

n 1943 development begins on the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) in earnest at Penn State. Designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert of the Moore School, they get help from John von Neumann and others. In 1944, the Havard Mark I is introduced. Based on a series of proposals from Howard Aiken in the late 1930's, the Mark I computes complex tables for the U.S. Navy. It uses a paper tape to store instructions and Aiken hiresGrace Hopper("Amazing Grace") as one of three programmers working on the machine.Thomas J. Watson Sr. plays a pivotal role involving his company, IBM, in the machine's development.

Early in 1945, with the Mark I stopped for repairs, Hopper notices a moth in one of the relays, possibly causing the problem. From this day on, Hopper refers to fixing the system as "debugging". The same year Von Neumann proposes the concept of a "stored program" in a paper that is never officially published.

Work completes on ENIAC in 1946. Although only three years old the machine is woefully behind on technology, but the inventors opt to continue while working on a more modern machine, the EDVAC. Programming ENIAC requires it to be rewired. A later version eliminates this problem. To make the machine appear more impressive to reporters during its unveiling, a team member (possibly Eckert) puts translucent spheres(halved ping pong balls) over the lights. The US patent office will later recognize this as the first computer.

The next year scientists employed by Bell Labs complete work on the transistor (John Bardeen,Walter Brattain and William Shockley receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956), and by 1948 teams around the world work on a "stored program" machine. The first, nicknamed "Baby", is a prototype of a much larger machine under construction in Britain and is shown in June 1948.

The impetus over the next 5 years for advances in computers is mostly the government and military. UNIVAC, delivered in 1951 to the Census Bureau, results in a tremendous financial loss to its manufacturer, Remington-Rand. The next year Grace Hopper, now an employee of that company proposes "reuseable software," code segments that could be extracted and assembled according to instructions in a "higher level language." The concept of compiling is born. Hopper would revise this concept over the next twenty years and her ideas would become an integral part of all modern computers. CBS uses one of the 46 UNIVAC computers produced to predict the outcome of the 1952 Presidential Election. They do not air the prediction for 3 hours because they do not trust the machine.

Small portion of the IBM 701 Courtesy IBM

IBM introduces the 701 the following year. It is the first commercially successful computer. In 1956 FORTRAN is introduced(proposed 1954, it takes nearly 3 years to develop the compiler). Two additional languages, LISP and COBOL, are added in 1957 and 1958. Other early languages include ALGOL and BASIC. Although never widely used, ALGOL is the basis for many of today's languages.

With the introduction of Control Data's CDC1604 in 1958, the first transistor powered computer, a new age dawns. Brilliant scientist Seymour Cray heads the development team. This year integrated circuits are introduced by two men, Jack Kilby andJohn Noyce, working independently. The second network is developed at MIT. Over the next three years computers begin affecting the day-to-day lives of most Americans. The addition of MICR characters at the bottom of checks is common.

In 1961 Fairchild Semiconductor introduces the integrated circuit. Within ten years all computers use these instead of the transistor. Formally building sized computers are now room-sized, and are considerably more powerful. The following year the Atlas becomes operational, displaying many of the features that make today's systems so powerful including virtual memory, pipeline instruction execution and paging. Designed at the University of Manchester, some of the people who developed Colossus thirty years earlier make contributions.

On April 7, 1964, IBM introduces the System/360. While a technical marvel, the main feature of this machine is business oriented...IBM guarantees the "upward compatibility" of the system, reducing the risk that a business would invest in outdated technology. Dartmouth College, where the first network was demonstrated 25 years earlier, moves to the forefront of the "computer age" with the introduction of TSS(Time Share System) a crude(by today's standards) networking system. It is the first Wide Area Network. In three years Randy Golden, President and Founder of Golden Ink, would begin working on this network.

Within a year MIT returns to the top of the intellectual computer community with the introduction of a greatly refined network that features shared resources and uses the first minicomputer(DEC's PDP-8) to manage telephone lines. Bell Labs and GE play major roles in its design.

In 1969 Bell Labs, unhappy with the direction of the MIT project, leaves and develops its own operating system, UNIX. One of the many precursors to today's Internet, ARPANet, is quietly launched. Alan Keys, who will later become a designer for Apple, proposes the "personal computer." Also in 1969, unhappy with Fairchild Semiconductor, a group of technicians begin discussing forming their own company. This company, formed the next year, would be known as Intel. The movie Colossus:The Forbin Project has a supercomputer as the villain. Next year, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was the first feature length movie with the word computer in the title. In 1971, Texas Instruments introduces the first "pocket calculator." It weighs 2.5 pounds.

With the country embroiled in a crisis of confidence known as Watergate, in 1973 a little publicized judicial decision takes the patent for the computer away from Mauchly and Eckert and awards it to Atanasoff. Xerox introduces the mouse. Proposals are made for the first local area networks.

In 1975 the first personal computer is marketed in kit form. The Altair features 256 bytes of memory. Bill Gates, with others, writes a BASIC compiler for the machine. The next year Apple begins to market PC's, also in kit form. It includes a monitor and keyboard. The earliest RISC platforms become stable. In 1976, Queen Elizabeth goes on-line with the first royal email message.

During the next few years the personal computer explodes on the American scene. Microsoft, Apple and many smaller PC related companies form (and some die). By 1977 stores begin to sell PC's. Continuing today, companies strive to reduce the size and price of PC's while increasing capacity. Entering the fray, IBM introduces it's PC in 1981(it's actually IBM's second attempt, but the first failed miserably). Time selects the computer as its Man of the Year in 1982.Tron, a computer-generated special effects extravaganza is released the same year.

A Brief History of Computers and Networks,

Webster's Dictionary defines "computer" as any programmable electronic device that can store, retrieve, and process data. The basic idea of computing develops in the 1200's when a Moslem cleric proposes solving problems with a series of written procedures.

As early as the 1640's mechanical calculators are manufactured for sale. Records exist of earlier machines, but Blaise Pascal invents the first commercial calculator, a hand powered adding machine. Although attempts to multiply mechanically were made by Gottfried Liebnitz in the 1670s the first true multiplying calculator appears in Germany shortly before the American Revolution.

In 1801 a Frenchman, Joseph-Marie Jacquard builds a loom that weaves by reading punched holes stored on small sheets of hardwood. These plates are then inserted into the loom which reads (retrieves) the pattern and creates(process) the weave. Powered by water, this "machine" came 140 years before the development of the modern computer.

Ada Lovelace

Shortly after the first mass-produced calculator(1820), Charles Babbage begins his lifelong quest for a programmable machine. Although Babbage was a poor communicator and record-keeper, his difference engine is sufficiently developed by 1842 that Ada Lovelace uses it to mechanically translate a short written work. She is generally regarded as the first programmer. Twelve years later George Boole, while professor of Mathematics at Cork University, writes An Investigation of the Laws of Thought(1854), and is generally recognized as the father of computer science.

The 1890 census is tabulated on punch cards similar to the ones used 90 years earlier to create weaves. Developed by Herman Hollerith of MIT, the system uses electric power(non-mechanical). The Hollerith Tabulating Company is a forerunner of today's IBM.

Just prior to the introduction of Hollerith's machine the first printing calculator is introduced. In 1892 William Burroughs, a sickly ex-teller, introduces a commercially successful printing calculator. Although hand-powered, Burroughs quickly introduces an electronic model.

In 1925, unaware of the work of Charles Babbage, Vannevar Bush of MIT builds a machine he calls the differential analyzer. Using a set of gears and shafts, much like Babbage, the machine can handle simple calculus problems, but accuracy is a problem.

The period from 1935 through 1952 gets murky with claims and counterclaims of who invents what and when. Part of the problem lies in the international situation that makes much of the research secret. Other problems include poor record-keeping, deception and lack of definition.

In 1935, Konrad Zuse, a German construction engineer, builds a mechanical calculator to handle the math involved in his profession. Shortly after completion, Zuse starts on a programmable electronic device which he completes in 1938.

John Vincent Atanasoff Courtesy Jo Campbell The Shore Journal

John Vincent Atanasoff begins work on a digital computer in 1936 in the basement of the Physics building on the campus of Iowa State. A graduate student, Clifford (John) Berry assists. The "ABC" is designed to solve linear equations common in physics. It displays some early features of later computers including electronic calculations. He shows it to others in 1939 and leaves the patent application with attorneys for the school when he leaves for a job in Washington during World War II. Unimpressed, the school never files and ABC is cannibalized by students.

The Enigma Courtesy U. S. Army

The Enigma, a complex mechanical encoder is used by the Germans and they believe it to be unbreakable. Several people involved, most notably Alan Turing, conceive machines to handle the problem, but none are technically feasible. Turing proposes a "Universal Machine" capable of "computing" any algorithm in 1937. That same year George Steblitz creates his Model K(itchber 11, 1940, Steblitz uses a teletype machine at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire to transmit a problem to his Complex Number Calculator in New York and receives the results. It is the first example of a network.

First in Poland, and later in Great Britain and the United States, the Enigma code is broken. Information gained by this shortens the war. To break the code, the British, led by Touring, build the Colossus Mark I. The existence of this machine is a closely guarded secret of the British Government until 1970. The United States Navy, aided to some extent by the British, builds a machine capable of breaking not only the German code but the Japanese code as en), a conglomeration of otherwise useless and leftover material, to solve complex calculations. He improves the design while working at Bell Labs and on Septem

History of Computers

The development of the modern day computer was the result of advances in technologies and man's need to quantify. Papyrus helped early man to record language and numbers. The abacus was one of the first counting machines.. 
Some of the earlier mechanical counting machines lacked the technology to make the design work. For instance, some had parts made of wood prior to metal manipulation and manufacturing. Imagine the wear on wooden gears. This history of computers site includes the names of early pioneers of math and computing and links to related sites about the History of Computers, for further study. This site would be a good Web adjunct to accompany any book on the History of Computers or Introduction to Computers. The "H" Section includes a link to the History of the Web Beginning at CERN which includes Bibliography and Related Links. Hitmill.com strives to always include related links for a broader educational experience. The material was originally divided into