History of the computer
It's not very often that a new invention comes about that changes the way we do math, science, work, and play. The computer has managed to do just that. With roots dating back over 2000 years the modern computer has changed peoples lives.Dating back to 500 B.C., the Abacus is the oldest ancestor of the modern computer. It's a simple wooden rack holding parallel wires on which beads are strung. All ordinary arithmetic operations could be done by moving the beads along the wire according to the programming rules that the user must memorize.The next big step in computer history happened in 1644 when Blais Pascal invented the first digital calculating machine. All it could do was add numbers that had to be entered by turning dials.Charles Babbage designed the first automatic calculation machine in 1820. This steam powered machine, the size of a football field, could store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. It was programmed by and stored data on cards with holes punched in the, appropriately named punch cards. This was the first automatic computer but it failed because of lack of demand at the time.After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers until the late 1800's. The U.S. population was increasing at such a fa
The computer had made its mark everywhere in society and built a huge industry. The computer truly is one of the most incredible inventions in history and will continue to advance in the future. Even thou it didn't do anything very useful it sold over one million USD in its first year. In the 1930's Howard Aiken, in collaboration with IBM, undertook construction of a large digital computer called the Harvard Mark I. At the present day computers are everywhere effecting our lives. Almost every business, office, store, school, and industry has at least one computer doing some type of work for them. Herman's computer did the 1880 census in an unbelievable time of two years ( the 1870 census was still being tallied at this time). The computer has changed in many ways since the abacus, it has grown from a standing start to one of the biggest and most profitable industries in the world. Two out of three households have a computer and even our cars have built in computer systems. the personal computer (PC) industry became a fierce battle ground. Around the size of a grand piano, theses computers were fast but required almost constant maintenance. During the 1960's memory storage capacities increased by over 1000% and the speeds increase by the same large margin but the size the same. It's first assignment was to carry out a long and involving calculation having to do with nuclear bombs, the problem and its out come are still classified. st rate that it was almost impossible to do a census. As manufacturing techniques are further perfected the prices of personal computers are expected to steadily go down.
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