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History of computers
History of computers
Short note about the first generation of computers
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Computer Science
Computer science dates back to about 1960, although the electronic digital computer that was the object of its study was invented only two decades earlier. The field of science has grown extensively due to the development of the computer. Computers have moved into every nook and cranny of our daily lives. People use them in education, retailing, law enforcement, transportation, agriculture, homes, medicine, and an endless number of other areas. Scientists have to develop new programs and methods of repair for these computers (Development).
Charles Babbage developed the theory for the first computer in 1830. He called it an analytical engine. He designed it to perform many kinds of calculations. However, he never built it before he died. Another developer of the computer was Herman Hollerith. He designed a machine to calculate the 1890 census. Finally, in the late 1930s, the first digital computer that worked electronically was developed and called the ABC, or the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. Dr. John Mauchly used the principles of the Atanasoff-Berry computer to develop the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC). This was the first general-purpose computer. The ENIAC was the forerunner of the UNIVAC I computer, or the first computer sold on a commercial basis (Sample).
Since Babbage built the first computer, there was a need for a computer programmer for the computer to run. The first programmer was Augusta Byron. She programmed Charles Babbage’s analytical engine. Since then programming has come a long way. The industry has developed five different languages. One of the first languages to be developed was FORTRAN, an acronym for FORmula TRANslation. In 1957, scientists developed FORTRAN ...
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...thing from cars, copying machines, and televisions to bread-making machines, telephones, and stereos (Capron).
Scientists are always trying to build a faster and more reliable computer. They are also expanding the uses of the computer to include many things such as the Internet. The challenge to find a better method of computing is always happening. Maybe one day the computer will be able to take care of itself.
Bibliography:
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Bronson, Gary J., and Stephen Menconi. A First Book of ANSI C. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: West,
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Capron, H.L. Computers Tools for the Information Age 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2000.
“Development of Computer Science” Britannica Encyclopedia. Online. America Online. .
Sample, James O. “Computer: History and Development.” Jones Telecommunications and Multimedia Encyclopedia. Ed. Glenn R. Jones. 1999. .
Also, I read the chapters 5, 6 and 7 from “A history of the personal computer: the people and the technology” even though I was not convinced because I find them too general and somehow historical, but I was
The subject of this term paper will be about computers in the 1950’s. The divisions that will be covered are; the types of computers there were, the memory capacity of computers, the programming languages of that time, and the uses of the computers for that time. Information will be gathered from the Internet, from books, and from magazines, and from the encyclopedia.
Mark I. It was actually a electromechanical calculation. It is said that this was the first potentially computers. In 1951 Remington Rand’s came out with the UNIVAC it began
Computer engineering started about 5,000 years ago in China when they invented the abacus. The abacus is a manual calculator in which you move beads back and forth on rods to add or subtract. Other inventors of simple computers include Blaise Pascal who came up with the arithmetic machine for his father’s work. Also Charles Babbage produced the Analytical Engine, which combined math calculations from one problem and applied it to solve other complex problems. The Analytical Engine is similar to today’s computers.
Watson, J. (2008). A history of computer operating systems (pp. 14-17). Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books.
"The most transforming technological event since the capture of fire." This is the way one expert describes the revolution introduced in this century by computers. Such extravagant interpretations aside, there is no doubt that the acceleration of computer technology has produced enormous changes in all our lives. As late as the 1950s, computers were rarely seen outside university centers. Now, of course, they are everywhere, in classrooms, libraries, offices, stores, factories, research labs, and, increasingly, in our homes.
Modern technology is changing mankind's way of life, and at the forefront, computers are paving the way. New media and technology offer new, and exciting jobs allowing humans to live at the speed of light. Computers have advanced our civilization and from now on, nothing will ever be the same. One thing is certain. Computer engineering will not be the same five years from now . . . maybe not even in five minutes.
The fist computer, known as the abacus, was made of wood and parallel wires on which beads were strung. Arithmetic operations were performed when the beads were moved along the wire according to “programming” rules that had to be memorized by the user (Soma, 14). The second earliest computer, invented by Blaise Pascal in 1694, was a “digital calculating machine.” Pascal designed this first known digital computer to help his father, who was a tax collector. Pascal’s computer could only add numbers, and they had to be entered by turning dials (Soma, 32). It required a manual process like its ancestor, the abacus. Automation was introduced in the early 1800’s by a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. He created an automatic calculation machine that was steam powered and stored up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Unlike its two earliest ancestors, Babbage’s invention was able to perform various operations. It relied on cards with holes punched in them, which are called “punch cards.” These cards carried out the programming and storing operations for the machine. Unluckily, Babbage’s creation flopped due to the lack of mechanical precision and the lack of demand for the product (Soma, 46). The machine could not operate efficiently because technology was t adequate to make the machine operate efficiently Computer interest dwindled for many years, and it wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that people became interested in them once again.
Since the beginning of time, humans have thought and made many inventions. Repeatedly the newer one is better than the older. Our minds have created many remarkable things, however the best invention we ever created is the computer. computers are constantly growing and becoming better every day. Every day computers are capable of doing new things. Even though computers have helped us a lot in our daily lives, many jobs have been lost because of it, now the computer can do all of the things a man can do in seconds! Everything in the world relies on computers and if a universal threat happens in which all computers just malfunction then we are doomed. Computers need to be programmed to be able to work or else it would just be a useless chunk of metal. And we humans need tools to be able to live; we program the computer and it could do a lot of necessary functions that have to be done. It is like a mutual effect between us and he computer (s01821169 1).
The history of computers is an amazing story filled with interesting statistics. “The first computer was invented by a man named Konrad Zuse. He was a German construction engineer, and he used the machine mainly for mathematic calculations and repetition” (Bellis, Inventors of Modern Computer). The invention shocked the world; it inspired people to start the development of computers. Soon after,
The history of the computer dates back all the way to the prehistoric times. The first step towards the development of the computer, the abacus, was developed in Babylonia in 500 B.C. and functioned as a simple counting tool. It was not until thousands of years later that the first calculator was produced. In 1623, the first mechanical calculator was invented by Wilhelm Schikard, the “Calculating Clock,” as it was often referred to as, “performed it’s operations by wheels, which worked similar to a car’s odometer” (Evolution, 1). Still, there had not yet been anything invented that could even be characterized as a computer. Finally, in 1625 the slide rule was created becoming “the first analog computer of the modern ages” (Evolution, 1). One of the biggest breakthroughs came from by Blaise Pascal in 1642, who invented a mechanical calculator whose main function was adding and subtracting numbers. Years later, Gottfried Leibnez improved Pascal’s model by allowing it to also perform such operations as multiplying, dividing, taking the square root.
Houghton. A Brief Timeline in the History of Computers. Western Carolina University Retrieved January 30th 2014 from Western Carolina University:
In 1947 Howard Aiken, an engineer, predicted six computers would satisfy the computing needs of the U.S. By the year 1955, 244 computer systems were in use and by 1984 U.S. businesses and individuals purchased over two million personal computers. By 1994, shipments of over 47 million personal computers were made worldwide. The use of personal computers has increased rapidly over the past half-century and therefore the need for new hardware and software will keep the need for computer engineers to continue producing new products. The first position for a person becoming a computer Engineer is a Junior Computer Engineer.
Capron, H. L. Computers, Tools for an Information Age, Upper Saddle River: Addison Wesley, 2002.
If nineteenth century was an era of the Industrial revolution in Europe, I would say that computer and Information Technology have domineered since the twentieth century. The world today is a void without computers, be it healthcare, commerce or any other field, the industry won’t thrive without Information Technology and Computer Science. This ever-growing field of technology has aroused interest in me since my childhood.