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The Rather Recent Past of Computers
With the widespread use of computers today in all there many forms, it is hard to remember that computers are a recent event. A look back through time shows they are a recent event.
The past of computers is actually the history of man's attempts to understand and manipulate mathematics. Some would consider the abacus, an elementary device used for counting, as the world's first computer. The history of mathematics was spread over thousands of years, and then suddenly in the last 200 years everything seemed to come together. The concept of zero and of negative numbers was developed between 300 B.C. and 600 A.D. Slowly, mankind began to understand the power of numbers.
As the power and use of numbers became more apparent, attempts were made to make mathematical calculations with mechanical devices. Leonardo da Vinci created a mechanical calculator around 1500. Blaise Pascal's Arithmetic Machine in 1640 was another. Some people call Pascal's invention the first real computer. At the same time these mechanical contraptions were being invented, the other components that would come together to create the modern computer were being invented one at a time. The slide rule was invented in 1621, and the typewriter, that would give us the keyboard, was developed in the late 1800's.
During World War II, the first programmable computers were developed. The United States had the Harvard Mark I and Germany had the Z4. The Mark I was invented by Howard Aiken, and the Z4 by Konrad Zuse. These computers were based on relays rather than vacuum tubes. They were large, awkward, and would not interest a child of our generation. They were the start, however. After the war, when communication was resumed around the world, the Industrial age was giving way to the Technological age, and the personal computer of today was going to be the prime result.
Inventions on the side continued, and made the new personal computers possible. In 1947, the first point contact transistor was invented. Perhaps this was one of the most significant developments of all in the move to the personal computer. The ENIAC, a post war computer, was 50 feet tall and weighed over 30 tons. It also drew enough power to light a small town. Around 1975, It had become possible to create computers that would sit on top of a desk rather than fill two rooms. The Altair 8800 was one of the first to use micro processing. It was followed by the Apple II. The Apple II had only a tiny bit of memory compared with today's PCs. It did have a keyboard and a color display, and sold for around $1300. Commodore and Tandy were two companies that also introduced computers intended for individual users around this time.
The final stage of the transformation to the computers of today was the development of the operating systems of Microsoft and software in general. In 1975, an IBM mainframe computer capable of 10 million instructions per second would have cost around 10 million dollars. Just 20 years later, a computer video game was performing 500 million instructions per second at a cost of only $500. Some view us at the end of the journey and history of computers, but the truth is we are only standing just inside the doorway. The future looms ahead, and it is hard to imagine what it has in store for us. |
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