Invention Journal of Research Technology in Engineering & Management (IJRTEM) ISSN: 2455-3689 www.ijrtem.com Volume 2 Issue 5 ǁ May 2018 ǁ PP 01-04 |Volume 2| Issue 5 | www.ijrtem.com | 1 | A Brief History of Computation’s in Portugal Pedro Ramos Brandão (Interdisciplinary Center of History, Cultures and Societies, Évora University, Portugal) ABSTRACT : A history of the great development of information technology in the twentieth century, at a global level. The story of the emergence and development of information technology in Portugal, also in the twentieth century, is highlighted. KEYWORDS : computers, computer history, Internet, Portugal, software history. I. INTRODUCTION The introduction of information technology in Portugal was late, and it was in the 60s of the twentieth century, but it was not an isolated case in Europe. But in Portugal the difficulties were even greater because it was a poor country, with an average income per capita (in 1950) 38% below the average of the more developed European countries and 22% below the average income in the USA. Portugal was also a country where large companies had no representation. And the scientific community was small. With the 1974 revolution, there was an expansion of the higher education system, universities became an incentive for investment in information technology, but openness to foreign companies also favoured investment in this area. For all this, it is interesting to understand how Portugal, in the 21st century, is one of the most sophisticated European countries in information technology. The beginning of this process is what we are going to address here, in a contextualized perspective with the beginnings of computing. II. GENERAL HISTORICAL REVIEW The entire modern economy of the twentieth century was directly based on a scientific and research infrastructure, based on a set of technological innovations related to the computing sector. The last fifty years of the twentieth century were technologically advanced and based on four major inventions: valves, transistor, integrated circuit, and the microprocessor. All the initial advances in computing were directly related to military projects, mainly in the United States of America. And many of these military projects, in which computer science was developed, arise from war efforts, some of which had begun their journey before World War II had ended. Some even related to the "Manhattan" project that gave rise to the atomic bomb the start-up of the use of computers at company level was in 1955. Remington has produced its first UNIVAC, having sold about forty-six units to one million Dollars each. In 1952, IBM has produced the 701 Defense Calculator, the first digital computer. Ten years later, this company was on top of sales, with regard to computers. Sperry Rand was in second place, but only with a 10% market share. In the late 1940s, IBM has developed some designs for electromechanical calculators, which we can consider as the precursors to our modern PCs. This includes the IBM 704, that at the time was the faster and more sophisticated computer in the market. The development of the FORTRAN programming language arised from the need to implement a system that would allow new functionalities in these first computers. It was implemented in the IBM 704. However, this development only achieves effective results with the IBM 360. The INM 360 brings new technological advances, replacing the transistors with integrated circuits, which allowed to produce faster and smaller computers. It also brought another breakthrough, the introduction of an 8-bit group- based architecture, which has become an industry standard. [1] In the 1970s there was a huge leap in computer technology and the commercialization of business level computers, especially with the VAX line from Digital. It was intended with this line to obtain machines with multitasking characteristics along with high processing capacities in relation to previous lines. This line was a huge success, leading in 1977 to the integration of Digital into Compaq. At that time, nearly half a million VAX line computers had been sold. [2] After 1975, IBM dominated the computer market, mainly due to the success of the IBM 370 system. This system's performance was multiplied by four and its reliability greatly increased, largely thanks to new CPUs and new integrated circuits. The ferrite memories have been replaced by semiconductor memories. The storage capacity has also been improved. The 8-inch floppy disk drives appeared with this IBM system. That is, shortly before the great general impact of computing in society as a whole, IBM dominated the market. This revolution takes place with the development of a single integrated circuit of all the basic instructions and control functions which allowed to operate a computer. Intel, Texas Instruments and Motorola were at the forefront of this breakthrough.