Studying the Entwining of Humans and Computers
Even though the history of the computer is relatively short, the invention of the computer and the World Wide Web has had one of the biggest effects on the world. Today most people cannot imagine life without a computer.
We depend on them for our meals, education, and careers. They are our primary source of communication and a key element in our transportation.
The development of these marvelous inventions began in fourth century B.C. with the abacus. The abacus was basically a primitive calculator that assisted people in counting things.
This counting tool was created first in Babylonia, which is known as Iraq today. Three hundred years later the Antikythera tool was invented.
The Antikythera was used to help register and predict the motion of the stars and the planets. This tool was found in 1901 near Greece.
Nine to ten centuries later, the well developed Arabic numeral system was brought to Europe. People quickly switched over to using Arabic numerals, but Roman numerals were what is cialis still commonly used in some areas of Europe for quite a long time.
The Arabic system is similar to what we use today with the zeros indicating size and fixed places for tens, hundreds, thousands, and so forth. The use of this system made the calculation of numbers immensely easier.
Later, in 1614 John Napier invented the use of logs. The Baron Merchiston, Scotland, Napier found that logs allowed him to simplify multiplication Tadalis SX and division to addition and subtraction.
The first actual mechanical calculator was then developed in 1623 by Wilhelm Schickard. Schickard was a professor at the University of Tubingen.
This calculator could work with up to six digits. Although the calculator worked, it did not ever rise to fame or popularity.
Several years later, Blaise Pascal constructed another, but more advanced, mechanical calculator. In 1642, his calculator could work with eight digits. However, it was a pain to carry around and the gears on the mechanism were given to jamming which made it too difficult to use.
Time went on and small developments were made until 1941 when Konrad Zuse, a German engineer, finished his work on the first real general purpose programmable calculator. Zuse was the first one to employ the use of binary math and Boolean logic in a device.
Two years later, Colossus, a British computer that was intended to be used for code-breaking began to operate. Another military development, the ENIAC or Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer was created for the Ballistics Research Laboratory in Maryland.
The ENIAC was intended to help the Ballistics Research Laboratory create and prepare firing tables for artillery. This computer was built at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering.
This computer was finished by the end of 1945. Finally in 1947, Bell Telephone Laboratories developed the idea for and created the first transistor.
UNIVAC the Universal Automatic Computer was created on four years later. It was a marvel of the time and could store 12,000 digits in random access mercury-delay lines.
A year later in 1952, the Electronic Discrete Variable Computer, EDVAC, was developed for the Ordinance Department. This year G.W. Dummer, from the British Royal Radar Establishment and an expert in the use of radar, put forth the idea that electronic equipment should be developed so that it does not have any connecting wires.
However, his research receives very little support and his attempt at building such a machine failed. It was not until seven years later that another big discovery was made in the field of computers.
IN 1959, Texas Instruments and Fairchild semiconductors both claim that they have developed an integrated circuit. As a result, the IBM 360 was released in 1964 during April.
The IBM 360 became very popular. It was soon the standard for institutional mainframe computers. By the mid-80s these computers created more than $100 billion revenue for IBM.
During this time Ivan Sutherland created a device called the Sketchpad that uses a TX-2 mainframe. The Sketchpad was developed in MIT’s Lincoln Labs in 1962.
This Sketchpad assisted Sutherland in making engineering related sketches for his work using a light pen. About this time Cialis a minicomputer cost about $20,000 to purchase.
Today, we can get a computer for about $200, or less, and still get a computer that had hundreds of times more capabilities and features than in 1962.
Improvements and innovations will continue into the future and computers are going to become an even more integral part of our lives.
Author Bio: Tom Selwick has worked as a marketer for the past 18 years and written hundreds of articles about marketing and direct mail fulfillment.
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Category: Computers
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