| The early computers | | | | history. |
| The history of computer dates back a lot longer | | | | ENIAC proved to be a very efficient machine but |
| than the 1900s, in fact computers have been | | | | not a very easy one to operate. Any changes |
| around for over 5000 years. | | | | would sometime require the device itself to be |
| In ancient time a "computer", (or "computor") was | | | | re-programmed. The engineers were all too |
| a person who performed numerical calculations | | | | aware of this obvious problem and they |
| under the direction of a mathematician. | | | | developed "stored program architecture". |
| Some of the better known devices used are the | | | | John von Neumann, (a consultant to the ENIAC), |
| Abacus or the Antikythera mechanism. | | | | Mauchly and his team developed EDVAC, this new |
| Around 1725 Basile Bouchon used perforated | | | | project used stored program. |
| paper in a loom to establish the pattern to be | | | | Eckert and Mauchly later developed what was |
| reproduced on cloth. This ensured that the | | | | arguably the first commercially successful |
| pattern was always the same and hardly had any | | | | computer, the UNIVAC. |
| human errors. | | | | Software technology during this period was very |
| Later, in 1801, Joseph Jacquard (1752 - 1834), | | | | primitive. The first programs were written out in |
| used the punch card idea to automate more | | | | machine code. By the 1950s programmers were |
| devices with great success. | | | | using a symbolic notation, known as assembly |
| The First computers? | | | | language, then hand-translating the symbolic |
| Charles Babbage's. (1792-1871), was ahead of his | | | | notation into machine code. Later programs |
| time, and using the punch card idea he developed | | | | known as assemblers performed the translation |
| the first computing devices that would be used | | | | task. |
| for scientific purposes. He invented the Charles | | | | The Transistor era, the end of the inventor. |
| Babbage's Difference Engine, which he begun in | | | | Late 1950 saw the end of valve driven |
| 1823 but never completed. Later he started work | | | | computers. Transistor based computers were |
| on the Analytical Engine, it was designed in 1842. | | | | used because they were smaller, cheaper, faster |
| Babbage was also credited with inventing | | | | and a lot more reliable. |
| computing concepts such as conditional branches, | | | | Corporations, rather than inventors, were now |
| iterative loops and index variables. | | | | producing the new computers. |
| Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), was a colleague of | | | | Some of the better known ones are: |
| Babbage and founder of scientific computing. | | | | - TRADIC at Bell Laboratories in 1954, |
| Many people improved on the Babbage inventions, | | | | - TX-0 at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory |
| George Scheutz along with his son, Edvard | | | | - IBM 704 and its successors, the 709 and 7094. |
| Scheutz, began work on a smaller version and by | | | | The latter introduced I/O processors for better |
| 1853 they had constructed a machine that could | | | | throughput between I/O devices and main |
| process 15-digit numbers and calculate | | | | memory |
| fourth-order differences. | | | | - First supper computers, The Livermore Atomic |
| On of the first notable commercial use, (and | | | | Research Computer (LARC) and the IBM 7030 |
| success), of computers was the US Census | | | | (aka Stretch) |
| Bureau, which used punch-card equipment | | | | - The Texas Instrument Advanced Scientific |
| designed by Herman Hollerith to tabulate data for | | | | Computer (TI-ASC) |
| the 1890 census. | | | | Now the basis of computers was in place, with |
| To compensate for the cyclical nature of the | | | | transistors the computers were faster and with |
| Census Bureau's demand for his machines, | | | | Stored program architecture you could use the |
| Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company | | | | computer for almost anything. |
| (1896), which was one of three companies that | | | | New high level programs soon arrived, FORTRAN |
| merged to form IBM in 1911. | | | | (1956), ALGOL (1958), and COBOL (1959), |
| Later, Claude Shannon (1916- 2001) first | | | | Cambridge and the University of London |
| suggested the use of digital electronics in | | | | cooperated in the development of CPL (Combined |
| computers and in 1937 and J.V.Atanasoff built the | | | | Programming Language, 1963). Martin Richards of |
| first electronic computer that could solve 29 | | | | Cambridge developed a subset of CPL called BCPL |
| simultaneous equations with 29 unknowns. But this | | | | (Basic Computer Programming Language, 1967). |
| device was not programmable | | | | In 1969, the CDC 7600 was released, it could |
| During those trouble times, computers evolved at | | | | perform 10 million floating point operations per |
| a rapid rate. But because of restrictions many | | | | second (10 Mflops). |
| projects remained secret until much later and | | | | The network years. |
| notable example is the British military "Colossus" | | | | From 1985 onward the race was on to put as |
| developed in 1943 by Alan Turing and his team. | | | | many transistors as possible on one computer. |
| In the late 1940 the US army commissioned John | | | | Each one of them could do a simple operation. But |
| V. Mauchly to develop a device to compute | | | | apart from been faster and been able to perform |
| ballistics during World War II. As it turned out the | | | | more operations the computer has not evolved |
| machine was only ready in 1945, but the | | | | much. |
| Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or | | | | The concept of parallel processing is more widely |
| ENIAC, proved to be a turning point in computer | | | | used from the 1990s. |