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The history of computer development
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History of Programming There’s a running joke that programmers spend more time automating a task than it takes to actually do the task. This joke has a lot more ground in the history of programming than most people realize. Even before the creation of what computers are currently perceived as, programming and computational thinking were evolving. From punch cards to text documents, computer programming has evolved to make it easier and more user friendly. Throughout computer history, people have been trying to make machines do anything. Machines were made to do complex mathematics; the problem was technology couldn’t make a computer that would do multiple steps. Thus came giant machines made out of pipes and gears and parts straight from …show more content…
While converting binary to letters has always been something that worked, there wasn’t a standardized way of telling what data was what letter so computers printed out different letters on different machines. Each letter or symbol hasd a certain value in binary that the computer recognizes. A problem with this system is that different computer companies might assign different letters or symbols to a binary value that another computer company assigned to something different so, when information travels to another computer, it will read like gibberish (ASCII). That’s where ASCII comes in. Created by IBM, it was meant to standardize what binary value belonged to what symbol. Soon, every computer in the US would use the ASCII guidelines (ASCII). This was the first step to making computer programming easier to decipher. C is what most programming languages and compilers look like today and C++ was just object oriented C. Computer engineers thought that C was so lightweight and easy enough to work with that they created the first ever operating system with it: Unix (Denning 31). Soon, most computers were running Unix and along with it C. The easy to understand interface and color coordination made programming a lot easier to understand. After a while, though, the limitations of C were felt as the industry started expanding. Thus came C++, an addition to C that allowed cross referencing of code, object-oriented
Lest a whole new generation of programmers grow up in ignorance of this glorious past, I feel duty-bound to describe, as best I can through the generation gap, how a Real Programmer wrote code. I'll call him Mel, because that was his name.
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.
Machines used today are engineered based on the
The programming language C++ can be used in many ways. It has exploded into the gaming community allowing PC game programmers to have access to a stabile, yet powerful, programming language, utilizing as little code as possible. It has also been used in other commercial software, such as word processors, audio players, screen savers, and other computer desktop tools.
First off let’s get something straight. When I refer to computers in this essay I am not referring only to the microprocessor sitting on your desk but to microprocessors that control robots of various structure.
Although the majority of people cannot imagine life without computers, they owe their gratitude toward an algorithm machine developed seventy to eighty years ago. Although the enormous size and primitive form of the object might appear completely unrelated to modern technology, its importance cannot be over-stated. Not only did the Turing Machine help the Allies win World War II, but it also laid the foundation for all computers that are in use today. The machine also helped its creator, Alan Turing, to design more advanced devices that still cause discussion and controversy today. The Turing Machine serves as a testament to the ingenuity of its creator, the potential of technology, and the glory of innovation.
Alan Turing was a dedicated mathematician who devoted his lives works to developing computer knowledge, as we know it today. Alan was born in London, England on June 23, 1912. Alan soon began to attend a local school and his interest in the science fields arose. His teachers an others would try and make him concentrate on other fields such as History an English but his craving for knowledge of mathematics drove him the opposite way. Turing’s prosperous career in math started at King's College, Cambridge University in 1931. After graduation Alan moved on to Princeton University and that is where he explored his idea of a multi propose computer that used one’s and zero’s to describe the steps that needed to be done to solve a particular problem. His machine was later named the “Turning Machine”, which would read each of the steps and perform them in sequence, resulting in the proper answer. Turing had a vision of a computer that could do more than just a few tasks. Turing believed that an algorithm, which is a procedure for solving a mathematical problem in a finite number of steps that frequently involves repetition of an operation, or a step-by-step procedure for solving a problem or accomplishing an answer used by a computer. The hard part was finding what the little steps were a how to break down the larger problems.
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.
When one thinks of computer programming, one might think of complicated problems and challenges. People may think that computer programming is hard, well it’s really rather easy if you have the right training and education. Someone may think that it requires a lot of work and years in college, when it really does not require much. There are many job opportunities opening every day for computer programmers. Computer
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.
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 field of Computer Science is based primarily on computer programing. Programming is the writing of computer programs using letters and numbers to make "code". The average computer programer will write at least a million lines of code in his or her lifetime. But even more important than writting code, a good programer must be able to solve problems and think logicaly.
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.