The very first computer in the world. Who invented the first computer virus? And now - Chaos

Today's personal computers are very different from the massive, clunky devices that emerged during World War II, and the difference isn't just their size. The “fathers” and “grandfathers” of modern desktops and laptops did not know how to do much of what they easily cope with modern cars. However The very first computer in the world was a breakthrough in the field of science and technology. Sit back in front of your monitor and we'll tell you how the PC era began.

Who created the very first computer in the world

In the 40s of the last century, there were several devices that could lay claim to the title of the first computer.

Z3

Konrad Zuse

An early computer created by German engineer Konrad Zuse, who worked in complete isolation from the developments of other scientists. It had a separate memory block and a separate console for data entry. And their carrier was an eight-track punched card made by Zuse from 35 mm film.

The machine had 2,600 telephone relays and could be freely programmed in binary floating point code. The Z3 was used for aerodynamic calculations, but was destroyed during the bombing of Berlin at the end of 1943. Zuse oversaw the reconstruction of his brainchild in the 1960s, and the programmable machine is now on display in a museum in Munich.

The Mark 1, conceived by Professor Howard Aiken and released by IBM in 1941, was America's first programmable computer. The machine cost half a million dollars, and was used to develop equipment for the US Navy, such as torpedoes and underwater detection. Mark 1 was also used in the development of implosion devices for the atomic bomb.

It is “Mark 1” that can be called the very first computer in the world. Its characteristics, unlike the German Z3, made it possible to perform calculations in automatic mode, without requiring human intervention in the work process.

Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC)

In 1939, Professor John Vincent Atanasoff received funds to create a machine called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). It was designed and assembled by Atanasov and graduate student Clifford Berry in 1942. However, the ABC device was not widely known until the patent dispute surrounding the invention of the computer. It was only resolved in 1973, when it was proven that ENIAC co-author John Mauchly had seen the ABC computer shortly after it became functional.

The legal outcome of the litigation was landmark: Atanasov was declared the originator of several major computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared non-patentable and therefore freely open to all developers. A full-scale working copy of ABC was completed in 1997, proving that the ABC machine functioned as Atanasov claimed.

ENIAC

ENIAC was developed by two scientists from the University of Pennsylvania - John Eckert and John Mauchly. He could solve "a wide range of numerical problems" by reprogramming. Although the machine was introduced to the public after the war, in 1946, it was important for calculations during subsequent conflicts such as the Cold War and the Korean War. It was used for calculations in the creation of the hydrogen bomb, engineering calculations and the creation of firing tables. She also made weather forecasts in the USSR so that Americans knew where radioactive fallout might fall in the event of a nuclear war.

Unlike the Mark 1 with its electromechanical relays, the ENIAC had vacuum tubes. It is believed that ENIAC performed more calculations during its ten years of operation than all of humanity up to that time.

EDSAC

The first computer with stored memory software called EDSAC. It was collected in 1949 at the University of Cambridge. The project to create it was led by Cambridge professor and director of the Cambridge Computational Research Laboratory Maurice Wilkes.

One of the major advances in programming was Wilkes's use of a library of short programs called "subroutines." It was stored on punch cards and used to perform general repetitive calculations within the lager program.

What did the first computer in the world look like?

The American Mark 1 was huge, measuring over 17 meters in length and over 2.5 meters in height. The machine, encased in glass and stainless steel, weighed 4.5 tons, and the total length of its connecting wires almost reached 800 km. A fifteen-meter shaft, which drove a 4 kW electric motor, was responsible for synchronizing the main computing modules.

Mark 1 at the IBM Museum

Even heavier than the Mark 1 was the ENIAC. It weighed 27 tons and required 174 kW of electricity. When it was turned on, the city lights dimmed. The machine had neither a keyboard nor a monitor, occupied an area of 135 square meters and was entwined with kilometers of wires. To get an idea about appearance“ENIAKA” imagine a long row of metal cabinets, which are filled from top to bottom with light bulbs. Since the computer did not yet have high-quality cooling, it was very hot in the room where it was located, and ENIAC malfunctioned.

ENIAC

The USSR did not want to lag behind the West and carried out its own developments to create computers. The result of the efforts of Soviet scientists was (MESM). Its first launch took place in 1950. The MESM used 6 thousand lamps and occupied an area of 60 square meters. m and required power up to 25 kW for operation.

MESM

The device could perform up to 3 thousand operations per second. MESM was used for complex scientific calculations, then it was used as tutorial, and in 1959 the car was dismantled.

In 1952, MESM had an older sister - (BESM). Quantity vacuum tubes it increased to 5 thousand, and the number of operations per second also increased - from 8 to 10 thousand.

BESM

The world's first commercial computer

Introduced in the United States in 1951, it can be called the first computer intended for commercial use.

He became famous after using polling data from the 1% of the voting population to correctly predict that General Dwight Eisenhower would win the 1952 election. When people realized the capabilities of computer data processing, many businesses began to purchase this machine for their needs.

The very first personal computer in the world

For the first time, the term “personal computer” was applied to the creation of the Italian engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto called Program 101. It was released by Olivetti.

Program 101

The device cost $3,200 and sold about 44,000 copies. NASA bought ten of them to use in calculations for the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. The ABC (American Broadcasting Company) network used Programma 101 to predict the 1968 presidential election. The US military used it to plan their operations during the Vietnam War. It was also purchased for schools, hospitals and government agencies and marked the beginning of an era of rapid PC development and sales.

The first mass-produced home computer abroad

In 1975, an article about a new computer kit, the Altair 8800, appeared in an issue of Popular Electronics magazine. Within weeks of the device's introduction, customers flooded its manufacturer, MITS, with orders. The machine was equipped with 256-byte memory (expandable to 64 KB) and a universal interface bus, which evolved into the "S-100" standard, widely used in amateur and personal computers that era.

Altair 8800 could be purchased for $397. After the purchase, the radio amateur owner had to independently solder and check the functionality of the assembled components. The difficulties did not end there; we still had to master writing programs using zeros and ones. The Altair 8800 did not have a keyboard or monitor, hard drive and a disk drive. To enter the desired program the user clicked the toggle switches on the front panel of the device. And checking the results was carried out by observing the lights flashing on the front panel.

A in 1976, the first Apple computer was born, designed and handcrafted by Steve Wozniak and promoted by his friend as the first product of the Apple Computer Company. The Apple 1 is considered to be the first PC to ship off the shelf.

Apple 1

In fact, the device had neither a monitor nor a keyboard (the possibility of connecting them was provided). But there was a fully equipped circuit board, which contained 30 microcircuits. The Altair 8800 and other devices that entered the market did not have this; they had to be assembled from a kit. The Apple 1 originally had a near-hell price of $666.66, but was reduced to $475 a year later. Later, an additional board was released that allowed data to be recorded onto a cassette recorder. It cost 75 dollars.

The first mass-produced home computer in the USSR

Since the 80s of the 20th century, a computer called “Pravets” began to be produced in Bulgaria. It was a clone of the second version of Apple. Another clone included in the Pravets line was the “Soviet” IBM PC, based on Intel processors 8088 and 8086. A later clone of Oric Atmos was the “home” model “Pravets 8D” in a small case and with a built-in keyboard. It was produced from 1985 to 1992. Pravets computers were installed in many schools in the Soviet Union.

Those who want to collect home computer could use the instructions in the magazine "Radio" 1982-83. and reproduce a model called "Micro-80". It was based on the KR580VM80 microprocessor, similar to the Intel i8080.

In 1984, the Agat computer appeared in the Soviet Union, quite powerful compared to Western models. The amount of RAM was 128 KB, which was twice the amount random access memory for Apple models from the early 80s of the twentieth century. The computer was produced in several modifications, had an external keyboard with 74 keys and a black-and-white or color screen.

Production of "Agates" continued until 1993.

Computers of our time

Nowadays, modern computer technology is changing very quickly. modern people are billions of times greater than their ancestors. Every company wants to surprise already jaded users, and so far many have succeeded in doing so. Here are just some of the main topics in recent years:

The laptop that had an important impact on the development of the industry: Apple Macbook (2006).
A smartphone that had an important impact on the development of the industry: Apple iPhone(2007).
The tablet that had an important influence on the development of the industry: Apple iPad(2010).
The first " smart watch": Pulsar Time Computer (1972). They can be seen on James Bond's hand in the 1973 action film Live and Let Die.

And, of course, various game consoles: Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo, etc.

We live in interesting times (even if it sounds like a Chinese curse). And who knows what awaits in the near future. Neural computers? Quantum computers? Wait and see.

Good afternoon friends. We return again to the topic of computer viruses. As you know, a virus is a pest program that can do quite a lot of damage to a computer.

We can say that this is the nightmare of a modern person. At the same time, this nightmare has been present in our world for about seventy years. During this time, quite a lot of viruses appeared.

It can be said that a whole series of books could be written about computer pests. But, let's return to our topic, how, and, most importantly, when did the first one appear?

When appeared computer virus? Computer pests on the Internet first began to appear with the emergence of the Internet itself. The premise of the first virus was laid by programmer John von Neumann in 1949. This scientist created a theory about programs that can reproduce themselves.

In 1969, the American company AT&T Bell Laboratories created a multi-level operating system - UNIX. At the same time another Research company Projects Agency creates an operating system - ARPANET. Since these OS multitasking, it became possible to use them to create more complex programs, and, consequently, viruses.

First computer virus

In 1979, programmers from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center created a program that, in fact, was the first computer worm. By modern standards, the program is quite simple and elementary. Its essence was to search for computers on the Internet.

A little later, in 1983, a scientist at the University of California created the very concept of a computer virus. This concept describes a program, the essence of which is to influence other programs and introduce changes into their code, thanks to which it can reproduce itself without effort.

Creator of the first computer virus

In 1986, the first malware came out of Pakistan. It was called – The Brain. This “Brain” caused the first destruction on the network in 1988. It primarily affected computers on the ARPANET network.

A certain Robert Morris invented a pest that infected about 6,000 PCs around the world. Robert was only 23 years old at this time. After this, a gigantic scandal took place all over the world. Three years after this incident, Symantec developed the first antivirus, Norton Anti-Virus software.

In 1998, approximately five hundred US government and military departments were infected. In this hacker attack Iraq was blamed. However, it was revealed that a couple of Californian teenagers were involved in this infection of systems.

In 1999, the pest Melissa appeared. This virus was able to infect several thousand computers very quickly, causing damage of approximately $80,000,000. At the same time, antiviruses broke sales records. In the same year, a certain Robot Melissa was infected office documents, mainly Word programs. The infection occurred through the Outlook mailing list.

Note! Text files have been infected! What I mean is that many users believe that text files cannot contain a virus!

I think you've heard about the virus: - “I love you.” At one time, he managed to become famous. This pest appeared in 2000. If I can say so, this is a successful virus. In just one day, it infected several million computers.

This malware sent various passwords, ciphers, and confidential data about the computer owner to its creator. Anna Kournikova stated in 2001 that the pest was created using tools. It is noteworthy that using this toolkit, even an inexperienced programmer can create a similar virus.

Viruses even threaten the White House government website. For example, the Code Red virus infected several tens of thousands of PCs in 2001. The damage amounted to more than $200,000,000. Infected computers at a certain point produced the White House.

The virus was defeated in time. In the same year, 2001, the Nimda virus appeared. It is considered a particularly sophisticated virus. In 2003, the Slammer pest managed to infect several hundred thousand computers within three hours.

This is a unique virus; it could delay the flight of almost any plane in the world. It also spread very quickly.

In 2004, the MyDoom malware claimed to be the fastest-spreading virus using Email. But, it did little damage. I described the history of computer sabotage until 2004.

After that, there were no such large-scale damages, with the exception of isolated cases. Mainly due to improvements antivirus programs and firewalls!

Video virus “I love you”

P.S. It's now the end of 2018, and it's been two years since I purchased ESET Antivirus. On the official website there are various versions of this antivirus, for home, business, phone, etc.

The very first viruses were harmless. These were experiments - like one of the first viruses, “Creeper,” which simply displayed the message “I’M A CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN.” Their distribution was limited to home networks (Creeper existed on TENEX OS). This was in 1971.

Now there are millions of viruses spreading through the Internet in all sorts of ways - file distributions, e-mail, websites. When everything is connected to everything, viruses spread quickly. Virus protection is a profitable business.

It started quite slowly and much earlier than one might have expected. The first viruses spread offline - they worked with floppy disks and were transferred to them between computers. Who invented the virus?

The first Mac virus was written as a teenage joke. The first PC virus was made to combat piracy.

Elk Cloner

I pranked my peers by changing copies of pirated games so that they would self-destruct after a certain number of starts. I handed out games, people got hooked on them, and then it suddenly stopped working and made some funny comment on the screen (the sense of humor of a ninth grader).

As a result, the friends stopped letting Skrenta near their floppy disks. They stopped lending him games, everyone stopped playing with his toys, etc. But he did not calm down. He began poring over instructions and descriptions, trying to find a security hole in the Apple II. And he came up with a way to execute code without touching the floppy disks.

“I came up with the idea of leaving a certain trace in the OS on a working school computer. If next user did not reboot the computer from its disk, its disk was exposed to my code.”

He wrote the code in assembler and called it Elk Cloner. It became what was later called the “boot sector virus.” When an uninfected disk was inserted into the disk drive of an infected computer, it infected the disk by writing a copy of the virus to the boot sector. This code was automatically executed on boot. By bringing an infected disk to another computer and booting from it, the person infected that computer with a copy of the virus.

The virus slightly interfered with the operation of the computer, and on the 50th launch, instead of starting the program, it displayed an entire poem on the screen:

Elk Cloner: A program with personality

Will fit on your disks
Will penetrate your chips
Yes, it's Cloner!
Sticks like glue
He will correct your RAM
Send the Cloner quickly.

Due to the delayed appearance, the program was not immediately noticeable, which improved the chances of distribution. The epidemic lasted for several weeks.

The program also reached the computer of teacher Skrenta, who accused him of breaking into his office. Skrenta's relatives from Baltimore (he himself lived in Pittsburgh) also caught the virus, and many years later he heard about a case of infection of a computer that belonged to a sailor.

Brain

The Brain virus became available for the IBM PC. He also settled in the loading sector. It was written by brothers Basit and Amjad Farooq Alvi from Pakistan in 1986. They were 17 and 24 years old.

The brothers owned a computer company, Brain Computer Services, and they wrote a virus to track pirated copies of their medical software. The pirated program consumed RAM, slowed down the disk, and sometimes prevented data from being saved. According to the brothers, she did not destroy the data. The program contained the following message:

Welcome to the Dungeon 1986 Basit & Amjad (pvt) Ltd. BRAIN COMPUTER SERVICES 730 NIZAB BLOCK ALLAMA IQBAL TOWN LAHORE-PAKISTAN PHONE:430791,443248,280530. Beware of this VIRUS... Contact us for vaccination... $#@%$@!!

Welcome to the dungeon... Beware of this virus... Contact us for treatment...

The title contained real contacts. When someone called them for help, they were able to identify the pirated copy. The virus also counted the number of copies made.
They discovered that piracy was widespread, and copies of their programs were distributed very far. Amjad says that their first call came from the USA, Miami.

Alvi brothers in 2011

This was the first of many calls from the US. The problem turned out to be that Brain was distributed on other floppy disks, not just copies of their program. There was even an epidemic of this virus at the University of Delaware in 1986, and then it appeared in many other places. No lawsuits were filed, but the newspapers wrote a lot about it. The creators were even mentioned in Time Magazine in 1988.

The New York Times wrote in May 1988: "Bold computer program, which appeared on Providence Bulletin computers this month, destroyed one reporter's files and spread via floppy disks throughout the newspaper's network. Computer scientists believe this is the first time an American newspaper's computer system has been infected by such a daring program, which is called a computer "virus."

The Alvi brothers had to change their phones and remove contacts from later versions of the virus. They stopped selling the program in 1987. Their company has grown into a telecommunications provider and is now the largest provider in Pakistan. It is still located at the same address.

And now - Chaos

Skrenta in 2012

Skrenta worked in the area information security, and now he is the CEO of Blekko, which deals with search technologies.

Although floppy disks are long gone, viruses are in boot sectors exist. Now they work with USB flash drives. As physical media is increasingly used for data transfer, the days of boot viruses are numbered.

The war against viruses has moved online. Skrenta said in an interview: “It's sad that there is such a big antivirus industry. We need to make more secure systems, and not organize a multi-million dollar industry to clean up existing ones.”

Skrenta and the Alvi brothers feel no guilt for starting the hellish procession malware around the world. “The genie would have come out of the bottle anyway,” Skrenta wrote on his blog, “I was interested in being the first to release it.”