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A Beginning History of Scientific Computing

The history of scientific computing arguably began in the 20th Century, when computers were designed and built specifically to solve scientific problems. The history can be traced through the development of the technology, computing algorithms, operating systems and computer languages. In terms of the technology, valve computing was replaced by transistors, and silicon chip transistor density has been following Moore's law ever since… algorithms were originally developed for single processors, but now the standard is to operate with many processors. New languages were developed for dealing with multiple processors, and new operating systems were evolved to share computational resources amongst many users. Looking back over the 90 years of scientific computing there are some highlights that stand out in each area, which we will present in a 'Beginning History of Scientific Computing' followed by an optional tour of the Living Computer Museum, housing the computers that were important to Paul Allen.