Let's start recapitulate the history of software - Looking Back on Software Development:
– There are many precursors to modern software. Some concepts such as the abacus (possibly as early as 5,000 years ago) are very ancient, but the first algorithm was devised in the 19th century by Charles Babbage / Ada Lovelace. However this was purely theoretical.
– In 1935 Alan Turing wrote the first theory of software, and the first electronic computer, the ENIAC, came into existence in 1946, and was used to calculate artillery firing tables for the US army.
– From 1948 to 1979, various binary codes were developed to perform calculations, and the programming languages Fortran, COBOL and BASIC were developed. The Apollo mission was the first endeavor that depended on software for practical and complex tasks.
– From the 1960’s onwards, minicomputers started to be sold. They were essentially miniaturized mainframes, and came with pre-installed software. Most of the software was stored on cassette tapes and cartridges.
– From the 1980’s to early 2000’s, PC’s came into wider use, with the industry dominated first by Apple and then IBM.
In Taiwan, the computer industry started in 1976, driven by the local production prowess, and affinity to technology. The expertise grew fast, with Taiwan quickly becoming a critical element in the international supply chains.
The 1980’s and 90’s saw the emergence of Taiwan’s semiconductors industry, which necessitated advanced researchers to develop the coming generations of microchips.
The emergence of Taiwan’s large-scale software industry started in the 1990’s but really took off around 2010, which is incidentally the year in which 4i DPS was founded.
Taiwan is now such a critical element of the semiconductors industry that the New York Times recently called it “pound for pound the most important place in the world”. It has both hardware and software capabilities that are unmatched by any other territory that small.
With this, we wish you a very successful year of the Ox! And please do check out our clients in the high-tech industry. Contact us here.
