Today’s computers have an huge family tree. One of the earliest computing devices was Abacus also called counting frame. The use of Abacus dates back 2700-2300 BC, the ancient Mesopotamian was the first civilization to be found using this device. Then it was spread to other civilization from Ancient Egypt, Iranian Persian, Greek, Roman, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Native American and finally Russian. The machine is quite simple, constructed from frame that usually made from Bamboo, and beads sliding on rods. As the beads moved back and forth on the rods, their positions represent stored values. For the processing system, the machine depend on human operator. Thus Abacus is not really computational device, unless it is combined with a human operator, otherwise it is only merely data storage system.
The development of Computing Machines in more recent year was based on technology of gears. Blaise Pascal (1632 – 1662) of France, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 – 1716) of Germany, and Charles Babbage (1792 – 1871) of England were among the inventors. These Machine represented data through gear positioning, with data being input mechanically by establishing initial gear positions. Output from Pascal’s and Leibniz’s machines was achieved by observing the final gear positions. Babbage, on the other hand, envisioned machines that would print results of computation on paper so that the possibility of transcription errors would be eliminated.
As for the ability to follow an algorithm, we can see a progression of flexibility in these machines. Pascal’s machine was built to perform only addition. Consequently, the appropriate sequence of steps was embedded into the structure of the machine itself. In a similar manner, Leibniz.s machine had its algorithms firmly embedded in its architecture, although it offered a variety of arithmetic operations from which the operator could select. Babbage’s difference Engine (Demonstration Model) could be modified to perform a variety of calculations, but his Analytical Engine was designed to read instructions in the form of holes in paper cards. Thus Babbage’s Analytical Engine could was programmable. In fact, Augusta Ada Byron who published a paper in which she demonstrated how Babbage’s Analytical Engine could be programmed to perform various computations, is often identified today as the world’s first programmer.
Babbage Analytical Engine
The idea of communicating an algorithm via holes in paper was not originated by Babbage. He got the idea from Joseph Jacquard (1752 – 1834), who, in 1801, had developed a weaving loom in which the steps to be performed during the weaving process were determined by patterns of holes in paper cards. In this manner, the algorithm followed by the loom could be changed easily to produce a different woven designs. Another beneficiary of Jacquard’s idea was Herman Hollerith (1860 – 1929), who applied the concept of representing information as holes in paper cards to speed up the tabulation process in the 1890 U.S census. (It was this work by Hollerith that led to the creation of IBM). Such cards ultimately came to be known as punched cards and survived as popular means of communicating with computers well into the 1970s. Indeed, the technique lives on today, as witnessed by the voting issues raised in the 2000 in the U.S presidential election.
The technique of the time was unable to produce the complex gear-driven machines of Pascal, Leibniz, and Babbage in a financially feasible manner. But with the advances in electronic in the early 1900s, this barrier was overcome. Examples of this progress include the electromechanical machine of George Stibitz, completed in 1940 at Bell Laboratories, and the Mark 1, completed in 1944 at Harvard University by Howard Eiken and a group of IBM engineers. These machines made heavy use of electronically controlled mechanical relays. In this sense they were obsolete almost as soon as they were built, because other researchers were applying the technology of vacuum tubes to construct totally electronic computers. The first of these machines was apparently the Atanasoff-Berry machine, constructed during the period from 1937 to 1941 at Iowa State Collage (now Iowa State University) by John Atanasoff and his assistant, Clifford Berry.Another was a machine called Colossus, built under the direction of Tommy Flowers in England to decode German messages during the latter part of World War II (Many of these machine were built, but Military secrecy and issues of national security kept their existence from becoming part of “computer family tree”). Other, more flexible machine such as the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) developed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering University of Pennsylvania, soon followed.
ENIAC : One of the very first electronic computer, It was very huge that occupied a big room
From that point on, the history of Computing machines has been closely linked to advancing technology, including the invention of transistors and the subsequent development of Integrated Circuits, the establishment of communication satellites and advances in optic technology. Today, small handheld computers have more computing power than the room-size machines of the 1940s and can exchange information quickly via global communication systems.
A major step forward popularizing computing was the development of desktop computers. The origins of these machine can be traced to the computer hobbyist who began to experiment with homemade computers shortly after the development of the large research machines of the 1940s. It was this within this “underground” of hobbyist activity that Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak built a commercially viable home computers and in 1976, established Apple Computer, Inc (now Apple Inc.) to manufacture and market their products. Other companies that marketed similar products were Commodore, Heathkit, and Radio Shack. Although these product were popular among computer hobbyist, they were not widely accepted by the business community, which continued to look to well-established IBM for the majority of its computing needs.
In 1981, IBM introduced its first desktop computer, called the personal computer, or PC, whose underlying software was developed by newly formed company known as Microsoft. The PC was an instant success and legitimized the desktop computer as an established commodity in the minds of the business community. Today, the term PC is widely used to refer all those machines (from various manufacturers) whose design has evolved from IBM’s initial desktop computer, most of which continue to be marketed with software from Microsoft. At times, however, the term PC is used interchangeably with the generic terms desktop or laptop.
IBM Personal Computer
The miniaturization of computers and their expanding capabilities have brought computer technology to the forefront of today’s society. Computer technology is so prevalent now that familiarity with it is fundamental to being a member of modern society. Home computers have become integrated with entertainment and communication systems. Cellular telephones, digital cameras, and audio/video players are now combined with computer technology in single hand-held devices called personal digital assistant (PDAs) that communicate via radio broadcast technology. Computing technology has altered the ability of government to exert control; had enormous impact on global economics; led to starling advances in scientific research; revolutionized the role of data collection, storage, and applications; and has repeatedly challenged society’s status quo. The result is a proliferation of subjects surrounding computer science, each of which is now significant field of study in its own right. Moreover, as with mechanical engineering and physics, it is often difficult to draw a line between these fields and computer science itself.
Today’s computer is very small and lightweight, thanks to miniaturization. This 2009 Macbook Air has much more computing power than room-size computers in the 1940s.
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