Should you reboot your automation process and integrate an industrial PC?

To truly see how far we have come, it is crucial to look back at those pioneers and pivotal moments in technological history which made such developments possible. 

Even back in the 1800s, the likes of Joseph Jacquard and Charles Babbage had a desire to simplify working lives, creating punch card systems for looms and steam-driven calculating machines. As the 1900s took centre stage, creative minds were blooming. In 1936, Alan Turing produced a concept of a universal machine capable of “computing anything that is computable.” Just one year later, George Stibitz was working as a research mathematician at the renowned Bell Telephone Labs but his work did not end when he got home. While sitting at his kitchen table, Stibitz built a device capable of adding binary digits (the binary adder) from just a few lightbulbs, relays, batteries and metal strips taken from tin cans. Dubbed Model K as an ode to his kitchen, this was the first electromechanical computer ever to exist in America. With this, the foundations had been laid and in 1942, Professor John Vincent Atanasoff  began building on them.

Iowa State University Professor Atanasoff partnered with his graduate student Clifford Berry to design the first electronic digital computer, making the university a hub of buzzing creativity. This computer could perform just one command every fifteen seconds and although this seems insignificant when compared to modern technology, this duo created something which would form the design principles of all future computers. With no patent for their invention, the Atanasoff–Berry computer (or ABC) remained in the shadows for many years. Inspired by the works of Atanasoff and Berry, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert created the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) in 1944. This brainchild spanned approximately eight hundred square feet and was considered to be the “grandfather of digital computers.” To round up the 1940s, Bell Laboratories housed a trio of researchers, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain who invented the transistor, a semiconductor device used to switch electrical signals and even power. This discovery nullified the need for a vacuum as the team made the switch  with solid materials. 

The end of the fifties saw Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce present the computer chip. Previously, most devices used vacuum tube technology but the creation of the silicon-based integrated circuit transformed the computing landscape. This is arguably one of the most significant developments when we consider the impact it has had on today. With microchips being used in our smartphones, medical practices and televisions to name a few, this invention paved the way for us all. At a time when the Beatles disbanded, Apollo 13 malfunctioned and Microsoft and Apple computers were born, the 1970s was a decade to remember. As Robert Metcalfe developed the ethernet technology we all know and love today, his creation connected multiple computers and additional hardware, transforming them into communicative devices. This technology revolutionised connectivity, linking millions of personal computers around the world. 

In the 1980s, the first industrial computer was born as IBM launched the 5531 industrial PC (arguably the first of its kind) and this intrinsically resulted in the development of industrial applications.