More handpicked essays just for you.
A history of computers from Abacus to mid 1940
A history of computers from Abacus to mid 1940
A history of computers from Abacus to mid 1940
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: A history of computers from Abacus to mid 1940
Professor John Atanasoff was a pioneer in the electronic and computer industry. Atanasoff was an American inventor and physicist. Something that he was best known for was creating the first electronic digital computer. Atanasoff’s early life started out when he was born on October 4th 1903 in Hamilton, New York. His parent’s professions was an electrical engineer and a school teacher. Atanasoff learned very quickly and excelled at what he learned, learning to use a slide rule by the age of 9. He was able to complete all of high school in two years and then later on in 1925 he received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering graduating with straight A’s. He ventured to Iowa state college and eventually earned a master’s degree in mathematics and later a Ph. D in 1930 of theoretical physicals from a different university. Atanasoff had huge contributions to computer development. Atanasoff had always seeked for faster methods of computation and translations. Atanasoff spent his time constantly working to figure these technicalities out. In 1936 he had an invention that was an ...
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.
George Stibitz constructed a 1-bit binary adder suing relays in 1937. This was one of the first binary computers. In the summer of 1941 Atanasoff and Berry completed a special purpose calculator for solving systems of simultaneous linear equations, later called "ABC" ( Atanasoff Berry Computer). In 1948 Mark I was completed at Manchester University. It was the first to use stored programs. In 1951 whirlwind was the first real-time computer was built for the US Air Defense System.
Alan Turning is known to be a pioneer of many facets of the computer age. The digital computer, artificial intelligence, memory subroutines, the Turning Machine, the Turing Test, and the application of algorithms to computers are all ideas somehow related to this man.
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
Years later in 1956 John Von Neumann would develop one of the most influential computers called the JOHNNIAC (John V. Neumann Integrator and Computer). The JOHNNIAC was an early effort at AI prog...
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.
Then came Linus Benedict Torvalds. At the time he was a sophomore majoring in Computer Science at the University of Helsinki, his hobby also included computer programming. At 21 he found himself spending most of his time toying with computer systems, trying to see what he could do in order to push their limits and increase their functionality. The key missing in his tests was an operating system that had the flexibility craved for by professionals. MINIX was available, though it was still just a stu...
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.
The purpose of writing this essay is to give an idea how these two respected CEOs of multinational companies has changed the world. Technology is booming nowadays, even the minor things that we can do manually are done using technology. Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple computer and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has changed the world. These two leaders are best known for their innovations which has taken our world to the next level. Steve and Bill has got something in common. Surprisingly, both of these CEO had never graduated from college, but they are known to be the world most successful leaders and they both work in the same kind of company (Lashinsky, 2013). Nevertheless, their leadership styles differs (Peralta,2011). The way they treat the employees at the workplace is in contrast.
Douglas Engelbart, who was an electrical engineer and former naval radar technician, saw computers as more than number crunchers. “He knew from his days as a radar technician that screens could be used to display digital data, and therefore assumed it was possible to use a screen to display output from a computer (Mitchell).” It was a good ten years before Engelbart had the resources to build the devices that he had been thinking of for so long. Then invention that he knew would change the way computer w...
Computers are changing the world as we know it, and they offer an exciting new way of working. The news represented a complete turnaround for the corporate giant. Microsoft Chairperson, Bill Gates publicly announced his company's new connection to the Internet. The announcement rang through the nation. Gates has consistently ignored the Internet in favor of desktop computing. So, with Microsoft's approval, computers kicked into even higher gear . The pace of innovation continues to astonish even those involved from the start. If one wants to find enthusiasm, intellect, hard work, and imagination; then computers is the place to be .
Ada Lovelace was the daughter of famous poet at the time, Lord George Gordon Byron, and mother Anne Isabelle Milbanke, known as “the princess of parallelograms,” a mathematician. A few weeks after Ada Lovelace was born, her parents split. Her father left England and never returned. Women received inferior education that that of a man, but Isabelle Milbanke was more than able to give her daughter a superior education where she focused more on mathematics and science (Bellis). When Ada was 17, she was introduced to Mary Somerville, a Scottish astronomer and mathematician who’s party she heard Charles Babbage’s idea of the Analytic Engine, a new calculating engine (Toole). Charles Babbage, known as the father of computer invented the different calculators. Babbage became a mentor to Ada and helped her study advance math along with Augustus de Morgan, who was a professor at the University of London (Ada Lovelace Biography Mathematician, Computer Programmer (1815–1852)). In 1842, Charles Babbage presented in a seminar in Turin, his new developments on a new engine. Menabrea, an Italian, wrote a summary article of Babbage’s developments and published the article i...
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.
The Whirlwind computer had a video display that was controlled interactively by a light gun. The display attracted users much more than computer code. The Whirlwind computer became the basis for SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), a defense command-and-control system developed for the Air force. In the 1960s Ivan Sutherland’s MIT doctoral thesis introduced a Sketchpad interactive drawing system, which established the theoretical groundwork for computer graphics software (Machover 14). In the mid-1960s, computer graphics was booming in private industry. General Motors had released DAC-1 a computer-aided design system, and Itek developed the Digigraphics electronic drafting machine. By the late 1960s the first storage-tube display terminals appeared, shortly followed by direct-view storage tube display terminals (DVST) which cost thousands of dollars; however this was an improvement to the tens to hundreds of thousands spent initially for display systems. In the 1970s Turnkey systems emerged, beforehand users had to develop software to make their hardware work however turnkey systems provided a haven to users from software issues. Bit-mapped raster displays developed as memory...
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.