Final_Final

| History of the Computer | | BIT 123 | | History of the Computer | | BIT 123 | Minot state university March 4, 2012 Authored by: Yves Mensah Minot state university March 4, 2012 Authored by: Yves Mensah Introduction Computers are electronic devices used for inputting, processing and storing information for future retrieval and use, as explained by techterms.com. Computers have become so embedded in modern day life that they are pretty much used in every industry one can think of, from industry and commerce, to education and research, sports and entertainment to medicine and beyond. Their applications vary from a personal to public use in each of these industries. Common uses range from preparing reports, be it in school or business, analysis to communicating on social networks. But how many a time when we update our Facebook statuses, say from a Dell laptop, or submit a report onto a learning management system using a Hewlett-Packard desktop, have we taken time to think of how these machines came to be' These machines we have become so attached we feel we cannot live without anymore' Never or not often I guess, and as such this will be the focus of this document. Pre-History As extracted from pbs.org’s nerds’ timeline, computers have come a long way. Way back most of us can even imagine. The basic idea computing started off with the idea of working out or solving numeric problems. Math problems have been around since about 3,000 B.C. when the abacus (the computer’s earliest known ancestor) was developed in Babylonia (now Iraq). The abacus was a simple counting aid tool useful then, for livestock or money management. Together with the Arabic number system which was developed at about the same time, it introduced notions of the zero and fixed decimal places for units, tens, hundreds, thousands and so on. This made mathematical computations very easy. Further on the computer’s timeline, notable advancements were made when logs were invented in 1614 by John Napier of Scotland. Thanks to him, multiplication and division could be lessened to addition and subtraction. Not too late, within the same century in 1642, Blaise Pascal made his contribution by way of his remarkable invention of a mechanical calculator. His invention had the capacity of computing up to eight digits. Somehow the device’s physical set-up was poor as it’s gears often jammed during operation. Joseph-Marie Jacquard made his mark as well when he devised an automatic loom controlled by punch cards. This was a closer step towards the development of the computer as the device we know it to be today. Then there was the outstanding milestone in the development of the computer between 1820 and 1821 by Charles Babbage, often credited as inventor of the computer, who created the “Difference Engine”, a colossal steam-powered calculator that printed out astronomical tables. His next invention, almost two decades later, the “Analytic Engine” was a mechanical problem that solved any mathematical problem using punch cards, similar to Joseph-Marie Jacquard’s invention. Electronics The development of electrical circuits was crucial in shaping the computer into the device we know it today. A German engineer by the name of Konrad Zuse pioneered the development of computers in this direction when he invented a general programmable calculator in 1941. He was the first to develop a device that manipulated binary math and Boolean logic in electronic calculation. The next milestone was the conception of Colossus, a British computer designed for code breaking in December, 1943. Two years later, the Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer, known throughout history as ENIAC, was developed by the Ballistics Research Laboratory in Maryland, USA, to aid in the preparation of firing tables for artillery. Advancement of the computer in the electronic direction continued with the advent of the transistor in 1947, courtesy of Bell Telephone Laboratories. This was important as the transistor is the single most important building block of today’s electronic devices. This paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators and computers (wikipedia.org). In 1951, another icon in computer history, the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) was developed. This computer had the capacity to store up to 12,000 digits in random access mercury-delay lines. In 1959, Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductor announced the development of the integrated circuit; know commonly today as the IC chip or microchip. It is used today in almost all electronic equipment and has revolutionized the electronics industry since then. Computers have become very affordable today, thanks to the low cost production of microchips. Fast forward to April of 1964, IBM introduced the IBM 360 which fast became the standard institutional mainframe computer. History of the Minicomputer After Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductor’s breakthrough with the microchip in 1959, a typical minicomputer cost about $20,000, definitely a reservation for the rich and institutions unlike today where pretty much anyone can now own one. A microchip that cost about $1,000 back in 1959 now costs less than $10. Setting up the computer for wide use occurred when Doug Engelbart demonstrated a word processor, an early hypertext system and a collaborative application in 1968. These three have now become popular computer applications. History of the Microcomputer The personal computer revolution began in April, 1972 with Intel’s introduction of the 8008, the very first ever 8-bit microprocessor. Two years later Jonathan A. Titus designed what was termed a “personal minicomputer” by an electronics publication of the time. However, it was the MITS Altair 8800 that was hailed as the first personal computer when it was released in January of 1975, and thousands of orders were placed. In just about the same year, Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed BASIC for the Altair – giving birth to Microsoft. And from there on personal computing took off. Conclusion The computer was developed across centuries by different collaborators, and will definitely continue to do so in the future. Throughout its evolution it is becoming more complex and at the same time executing more tasks, becoming versatile. It beats the mind to try and think what computers will look like a century from now or wonder what they will do. Applying the history of the computer to the future can reveal that the will do more and better. Work Cited Tech Terms. Definition of a computer. Retrieved October, 10 2012 from www.techterms.com/definition/computer PBS. A History of the Computer. Retrieved October, 10 2012 from www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/index.html Wikipedia. Transistor. Retrieved October, 10 2012 from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/transistor Wikipedia. Integrated Circuit. Retrieved October, 10 2012 from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit