HistoryCDComputerFacts

Lexikon's History of Computing

* * * Interesting Computer Facts * * *

Total Computers in the World

Total Number of Digital Computers in the world in 1935. - 0 -

Total Number of Digital Computers in the world in 2002: Over 600 million

Total Number of Internet Users in the world:

Year	Total Worldwide	Total U.S. Alone
2001	494,320,000	185,000,000
2002	568,820,000	198,000,000
2003	657,077,000 (projected)	210,000,000 (projected)
2004	743,257,000 (projected)	224,000,000 (projected)
2005	814,312,000 (projected)	230,200,000 (projected)

Data Storage:

1962 IBM Magnetic Disk Unit for the 1302 was two feet wide and held 1/2 MB (500,000 bytes). (5 hundred thousand bytes)

1990's DVD optical based storage disks are about 4-1/4 inches wide and hold 17 GB (17,000,000,000 bytes). (17 billion bytes)

Many of today's data storage units are measured in Terabytes. One Terabyte is 1 trillion bytes or 1,000,000,000,000.

Largest Computer Ever:

At 250 tons and 60,000 vacuum tubes, the SAGE system was the largest, heaviest and most expensive computer system ever built!
The SAGE required over 20,000 square feet (1950's).

First Mass Produced Computer

The first UNIVAC I was delivered on June 14, 1951. From 1951 to 1958 a total of 46 UNIVAC I computers were delivered, all of which have since been phased out. The UNIVAC was the first computer to be mass-produced.

Transistors and Microprocessors

The Intel 4004 Microprocessor available in 1969 had the equivalent of 2,300 transistors.

The Intel Itanium Processor available now has the equivalent of over 15 million transistors.

More powerful chips are being designed all the time.

See Intel Microprocessor Table

Did you know?

IBM got its nickname "Big Blue" not from the color of the computers but from the dark blue suits that its early sales force wore. IBM had one of the greatest sales forces in the country, even before IBM started making and selling digital computers.

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