A Brief History of the Computer

Computers and computer applications are on almost every aspect of our daily lives.
As like many ordinary objects around us, we may need clearer understanding of
what they are. You may ask "What is a computer" or "What is a software", or "What
is a programming language" !irst, let"s e#amine the history.
$. %he history of computers starts out about &''' years ago in (abylonia
)*esopotamia+, at the birth of the abacus, a wooden rack holding two
hori,ontal wires with beads strung on them.
&. (laise -ascal is usually credited for building the .rst digital computer in $/0&.
1t added numbers entered with dials and was made to help his father, a ta#
collector.
%he basic principle of his calculator is still used today in
water meters and modern2day odometers. 1nstead of having
a carriage wheel turn the gear, he made each ten2teeth
wheel accessible to be turned directly by a person"s hand
)later inventors added keys and a crank+, with the result
that when the wheels were turned in the proper se3uences,
a series of numbers was entered and a cumulative sum was
obtained. %he gear train supplied a mechanical answer
e3ual to the answer that is obtained by using arithmetic.
%his .rst mechanical calculator, called the -ascaline, had several
disadvantages. Although it did o4er a substantial improvement over manual
calculations, only -ascal himself could repair the device and it cost more than
the people it replaced5 1n addition, the .rst signs of technophobia emerged
with mathematicians fearing the loss of their jobs due to progress.
6. A step towards automated computing was the development of punched cards,
which were .rst successfully used with computers in $78' by 9erman
9ollerith and :ames -owers, who worked for the ;<. Census (ureau. %hey
developed devices that could read the information that had been punched
into the cards automatically, without human help. (ecause of this, reading
errors were reduced dramatically, work =ow increased, and, most importantly,
stacks of punched cards could be used as easily accessible memory of almost
unlimited si,e. !urthermore, di4erent problems could be stored on di4erent
stacks of cards and accessed when needed.
0. %hese advantages were seen by commercial companies and soon led to the
development of improved punch2card using computers created by
1nternational (usiness *achines )1(*+, >emington )yes, the same people that
make shavers+, (urroughs, and other corporations. %hese computers used
electromechanical devices in which electrical power provided mechanical
motion 22 like turning the wheels of an adding machine. <uch systems included
features to?
o feed in a speci.ed number of cards automatically
o add, multiply, and sort
o feed out cards with punched results
@. %he start of World War 11 produced a large need for computer capacity,
especially for the military. Aew weapons were made for which trajectory tables
and other essential data were needed. 1n $80&, :ohn -. Bckert, :ohn W.
*auchly, and their associates at the *oore school of Blectrical Bngineering of
;niversity of -ennsylvania decided to build a high 2 speed electronic computer
to do the job. %his machine became known as BA1AC )Blectrical Aumerical
1ntegrator And Calculator+
%wo men )in uniform+ being trained to
maintain the BA1AC computer. %he two
women in the photo were programmers. %he
BA1AC occupied the entire thirty by .fty feet
room.
/. %he si,e of BA1ACCs numerical "word" was $' decimal digits, and it could
multiply two of these numbers at a rate of 6'' per second, by .nding the
value of each product from a multiplication table stored in its memory. BA1AC
was therefore about $,''' times faster then the previous generation of relay
computers. BA1AC used 18,000 vacuum tubes, about $,7'' s3uare feet of
=oor space, and consumed about $7',''' watts of electrical power. 1t had
punched card 1DE, $ multiplier, $ dividerDs3uare rooter, and &' adders using
decimal ring counters, which served as adders and also as 3uick2access
).'''& seconds+ read2write register storage. %he e#ecutable instructions
making up a program were embodied in the separate "units" of BA1AC, which
were plugged together to form a "route" for the =ow of information.
F. Barly in the @'Cs two important engineering discoveries changed the image of
the electronic 2 computer .eld, from one of fast but unreliable hardware to an
image of relatively high reliability and even more capability. %hese discoveries
were the magnetic core memory and the %ransistor 2 Circuit Blement.
%hese technical discoveries 3uickly found their way into new models of digital
computers. >A* capacities increased from 7,''' to /0,''' words in
commercially available machines by the $8/'Cs, with access times of & to 6
*< )*illiseconds+. %hese machines were very e#pensive to purchase or even
to rent and were particularly e#pensive to operate because of the cost of
e#panding programming. <uch computers were mostly found in large
computer centers operated by industry, government, and private laboratories
2 sta4ed with many programmers and support personnel. %his situation led to
modes of operation enabling the sharing of the high potential available.
7. *any companies, such as Apple Computer and >adio <hack, introduced very
successful -CCs in the $8F'"s, encouraged in part by a fad in computer )video+
games. 1n the $87'"s some friction occurred in the crowded -C .eld, with
Apple and 1(* keeping strong. 1n the manufacturing of semiconductor chips,
the 1ntel and *otorola Corporations were very competitive into the $87's,
although :apanese .rms were making strong economic advances, especially in
the area of memory chips. (y the late $87's, some personal computers were
run by microprocessors that, handling 6& bits of data at a time, could process
about 0,''',''' instructions per second.

%his page is compiled with contents from "A <hort 9istory of the Computer" by
*eyers, :eremy. 1t is available at http?DDwww.softlord.comDcomp