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Christian InTech Articles - Computers

 

 

Informative Articles

5th generation Computers & Corporate infrastructure
Visit : www.drvsrs.com/compinfra.htm About the Author Visit :...

Can It Get Any More Digital?
Everyone seems to be talking about digital photography because it’s fun, fast and less costly than we might think. It’s almost everywhere – in printed materials, in the news, and on the net. What makes digital photography a hit? One, digital takes...

New MSN Search Engine: How Good Is It?
If you have an online business or you just use Internet as one of your marketing tools, you know that how important are the search engines in your quest to get more targeted visitors to your website. The changes in search engine field can have...

The Cost of Spyware on your Computer.
Spyware is known to be software, or sometimes hardware, that is installed in a computer outside of the user's knowledge so the spyware can gather information about the users and send it back to the spyware controller. Spyware is generally broken...

The Dark Side of P2P File Sharing
P2P file sharing programs are free. Period. But there are P2P scam sites out there that want you to pay them instead. P2P scam sites are rogue companies that have set up shop to fleece unsuspecting music downloaders looking for file sharing...

 
A Brief History of Computers

The word 'computer' originally implied a person, who, under instructions from a mathematician, performed mechanical calculations. Mechanical calculating devices such as the abacus were often put to use to aid this process.

At the end of the Middle Ages, mathematics and engineering in Europe received a considerable boost, thus leading to the invention of numerous mechanical calculating devices. The technology for clockwork was developed by the early 17th century. The period between the early 19th century and early 20th century saw the development of a number of technologies which would be vital for the development of the digital computer later on. Some examples are the punched card and the valve. Charles Babbage was the first person to design a fully programmable computer as early as 1837. However, he was unable to actually construct his computer due to a variety of reasons.

Analog computers were increasingly used in the first half of the 20th century for a number of scientific computing needs. However, they became obsolete after the development of the digital computer.

The first digital computer was the Atanasoff Berry Computer . It used a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, a separation of memory and computing functions and regenerative memory. Binary math and electronic circuits


- both of which are used in today's computers - were first used in the Atanasoff Berry Computer.

In the 1930's and 1940's, newer and more efficient computers were continuously developed. Gradually, they came to possess the key features which are present in modern day computers - digital electronics and flexibility of programming.

Among the more important machines to be developed during this time, the American ENIAC was prominent. It was a general purpose machine, but had an inflexible architecture. Later a far superior technique known as the stored program architecture was developed. It is the foundation from which all modern computers are derived.

Throughout the 1950's, computer design was primarily valve driven. This was later replaced by transistor-driven design in the 1960's. Transistor-based computers were smaller, faster and cheaper, and hence commercially viable. Integrated circuit technology, adopted in the 1970's enabled computer production costs to hit a new low, so that even individuals could afford them. That was the birth of the personal computer, as it is known today.

About the author:

Logan writes about various topics. This article is free to re-print as long as all hyper links remain intacked and the rel="nofollow" tag isnt added to any links. Thank-You