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Impacts of computers to society
The history of the development of computers
The history of the development of computers
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Computers This essay will explore the history of computers, show its importance and analyse theories of future computers and their use. Computers definition A computer defines as a device that accepts information and manipulates it for results based on instructions. The instructions are saved in the device as so called "Programs" and creating instructions is therefore called "Programming". There are usually two kinds of computers. Either a computer with only one program built into it or a customizable computer that can run different programs and also be available for programming new programs. These two types of computers can be found all over the society, in cars, households, stores, infrastructure etc. History The first computer device was created by a mechanical engineer and polymath named Charles Babbage. He is considered as ”father of the computer” since invented the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs. In 1833 Charles had just finished his revolutionary difference engine, a mechanical calculator. Upon completion he realized that a much more general design, a Analytical Engine, was possible. The input of programs and data was gonna be provided to the machine with punched cards. For output the machine would have a printer, a curve plotter and a bell. The machine would also be able to punch numbers onto cards to be read in later. The machine was too early for its time. All thousands parts for the machine was made by hand. That was a major problem. Eventually the project was dissolved with the decision of the British Government to cease funding. But then his son, Henry Babbage, completed a simplified version of the Analytical Engine in 1888. He gave a successful demostration of its ... ... middle of paper ... ... to imagine. Problem with that theory is that transistors generate heat, and a hot processor can cause a computer to shut down. So the more transistors the hotter computers. Computers with fast processors need efficient cooling systems to avoid oerheating. So to summarize. In the future computers will probably not be built with the current transistor build. Since the transistor is creating too much heat. There will be a new sort of computer, question is, how close are we? Sources: http://www.preservearticles.com/201103264739/importance-of-computer-in-the-modern-society.html http://computer.howstuffworks.com/computer-evolution.htm http://searchwinit.techtarget.com/definition/computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer
In previous years, the first computers were mechanical, not electronic. One of the first computers ever made was the Difference Engine, designed by Charles Babbage. (Babbage, C, n.d.). The Difference Engine was able to calculate polynomials using the differences method. After the Difference Engine, Babbage began his work on an improved calculating engine, the Analytical Engine. The Analytical Engine used punch cards to operate, just like the Jacquard Loom. The Jacquard Loom used punch cards to control weaving that created interesting patterns in textiles. The punch cards were used in the Analytical Engine to define the input and the calculations to carry-out. The Analytical Engine had two major parts. The first part was the mill, which is similar to a modern day computer processing unit, or a CPU. The CPU is the brain of a modern day computer; it is what carries out modern day instructions inside a computer. The mill would execute what it received from the store. The second part was the store, which was the memory of the computer. “It was the world’s first general-purpose computer.” (Babbage, C, n.d.)....
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.
In 500 B.C. the abacus was first used by the Babylonians as an aid to simple arithmetic. In 1623 Wihelm Schickard (1592 - 1635) invented a "Calculating Clock". This mechanical machine could add and subtract up to 6 digit numbers, and warned of an overflow by ringing a bell. J. H. Mueller comes up with the idea of the "difference engine", in 1786. This calculator could tabulate values of a polynomial. Muellers attempt to raise funds fails and the project was forgotten. Scheutz and his son Edward produced a 3rd order difference engine with a printer in 1843 and their government agreed to fund their next project.
Computers are a magnificent feat of technology. They have grown from simple calculators to machines with many functions and abilities. Computers have become so common that almost every home has at least one computer, and schools find them a good source for information and education for their students (Hafner, Katie, unknown). Computers have created new careers and eliminated others and have left a huge impact on our society. The invention of the computer has greatly affected the arts, the business world, and society and history in many different areas, but to understand how great these changes are, it is necessary to take a look at the origins of the computer.
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.
Compiler, in computer science, computer program that translates source code, instructions in a program written by a software engineer, into object code, those same instructions written in a language the computer's central processing unit (CPU) can read and interpret. Software engineers write source code using high level programming languages that people can understand. Computers cannot directly execute source code, but need a compiler to translate these instructions into a low level language called machine code.
Imagine having a computer without running software. Computers would be slightly pointless without programs to run it. There would be no directions in the computer to tell it how to run, where to run, and what to do. A computer would have the ability to turn on, but a blank screen would be the only thing to appear on a monitor. I am sure that the question of "Who creates these programs?" has run through many minds in the past. These programs aid you in typing papers, connect you to the Internet, send information to other computers, or provide an interface for games that help to occupy your time. Computer programmers are the individuals that create and work with these programs. On a broad scale, computer programmers write the programs, test the programs, and then maintain the programs that millions of people use daily (Computer Programming 243-249). The every day duties of a computer programmer include investigating work requests from system analysts, understanding the problem and the desired resolution, choosing an appropriate approach, and planning an outcome that will tell the mechanism what to do to produce the desired results. Programmers must be experienced in high levels of mathematics, computer science, and programming languages. A programmer must also have experience with critical thinking, reading comprehension, and deductive reasoning. Programmers need to master these subjects, since they write in a language different from everyday English or French.
In the past few decades, one field of engineering in particular has stood out in terms of development and commercialisation; and that is electronics and computation. In 1965, when Moore’s Law was first established (Gordon E. Moore, 1965: "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits"), it was stated that the number of transistors (an electronic component according to which the processing and memory capabilities of a microchip is measured) would double every 2 years. This prediction held true even when man ushered in the new millennium. We have gone from computers that could perform one calculation in one second to a super-computer (the one at Oak Ridge National Lab) that can perform 1 quadrillion (1015) mathematical calculations per second. Thus, it is only obvious that this field would also have s...
Prior to the revolution in technology that was microprocessors, making a computer was a large task for any manufacturer. Computers used to be built solely on discrete, or individual, transistors soldered together. Microprocessors act as the brain of a computer, doing all mathematics. Depending on how powerful the machine was intended to be, this could take weeks or even months to produce with individual components. This laborious task put the cost of a computer beyond the reach of any regular person. Computers before lithographic technology were massive and were mostly used in lab scenarios (Brain 1).
The First Generation of Computers The first generation of computers, beginning around the end of World War 2, and continuing until around the year 1957, included computers that used vacuum tubes, drum memories, and programming in machine code. Computers at that time where mammoth machines that did not have the power our present day desktop microcomputers. In 1950, the first real-time, interactive computer was completed by a design team at MIT. The "Whirlwind Computer," as it was called, was a revamped U.S. Navy project for developing an aircraft simulator.
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.
Computer programming can as well be defined as a process that leads from an original formulation of a computer problem to execute problems. Computer programming is also referred to as programming. It encompasses other activities such as understanding, analysis and generally solving problems that result in algorithm, verifying the algorithm requirements and coding algorithm in a target program language. The program also involves the implementation of the build system and managing derived artifacts like computer programs machine codes. Most often, the algorithm is represented in human-parseable languages such as Java, Python, Smalltalk among others.
These statistics are amazing, but even more amazing is the development of computers. Now in 2005, in this short 68-year period, computer technology has changed its entire look; now, we use computer chips instead of vacuum tubes and circuit board instead of wires. The changes in size and speed are probably the biggest. When we look at computers today, it is very hard to imagine computers 60 years ago were such big, heavy monsters.
Technology continued to prosper in the computer world into the nineteenth century. A major figure during this time is Charles Babbage, designed the idea of the Difference Engine in the year 1820. It was a calculating machine designed to tabulate the results of mathematical functions (Evans, 38). Babbage, however, never completed this invention because he came up with a newer creation in which he named the Analytical Engine. This computer was expected to solve “any mathematical problem” (Triumph, 2). It relied on the punch card input. The machine was never actually finished by Babbage, and today Herman Hollerith has been credited with the fabrication of the punch card tabulating machine.
Almost every device has some type of computer in it. Whether it is a cell phone, a calculator, or a vending machine. Even things that we take for granted most cars since the 1980’s have a computer in it or a pacemaker. All of the advancements in computers and technology have led up to the 21st century in which “the greatest advances in computer technology will occur…” Mainly in areas such as “hardware, software, communications and networks, mobile and wireless connectivity, and robotics.”