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How long have computers been around? If you count mechanical computers, computers have been around for about years. If you count just the types of personal home computers we use today; these computers have been around for about 50 years.
The first mechanical computer was created by Englishman Charles Babbage in about years ago. The first personal computer similar to the ones we use today was introduced in about 50 years ago , called the Kenbak-1, by American John Blankenbaker. From to today, in only about 50 years, the advancements in computer technology have climbed incredibly fast.
Keep reading to learn more about how long computers have been around, where they originated from, and the future of computers. From to the 19 th century, the definition of the term computer remained the same until the machines whose main function was to perform and complete these computations were invented. Today, we know computers as an electronic device that stores and processes data based on what the user instructs it to do.
This device was able to compute several sets of numbers and make physical copies of the results. The Difference Engine was considered to be the first automatic computing machine. Ada Lovelace, regarded as the first computer programmer, helped Babbage with the development of the machine. Sadly, because of funding, a full-scale functioning model was never made. In Babbage introduced the first general mechanical computer, which he called the Analytical Engine. This device featured an Arithmetic Logic Unit, a complex digital circuit responsible for performing mathematical operations on binary numbers.
Inspired by the Jacquard Loom, the Analytical Engine also had punch cards and had an integrated memory. Again, due to funding, this device was never created.
Between and , the Z1 was born. This device is considered to be the first truly functional modern computer. This device was a binary programmable computer that had a word memory and made use of a punch tape for both its programming and output functions. The Turing Machine was proposed in by Alan Turing, an English mathematician, logician, and computer scientist regarded as the father of computer science.
This machine paved the way for further theories about computers and computing. The Turing Machine printed symbols on paper, similar to how a person would if they were following a set of logical instructions. Due to the need of the British to read encrypted German messages, the Colossus was born. This device was developed by Tommy Flowers and was first demonstrated in This device was very valuable during World War II as it helped the British gain valuable intelligence information during the war.
The Colossus is also regarded as the first programmable computer. This device was an electrical computer that made use of over vacuum tubes for digital computing, but it had no CPU, which meant it was not programmable.
With construction beginning in and ending in , this computer was the first to use the binary code system still used to this day. The basic technology for the modern computer was further developed for use in World War Two.
Examples of this include the "Colossus" the world's first completely electronic computer developed by the British to crack German codes, and the Harvard Mark I, which was the first computer capable of being fully programed. This computer was the first of the modern type to be used in business, and like its mechanical predecessors it was sold to the Census Bureau in Throughout the '50s, computers were increasingly used to process large amounts of data and began to come into use for high technology design and manufacturing purposes requiring complex calculations.
When the transistor was invented in , this allowed for computers to be developed that could process information 1, times faster than previous computers, without the huge bulk and space once needed.
When the integrated circuit chip was developed in , its increased processing capacity and paved the way for the work of Gordon Moore who postulated "Moore's Law. The fact that Moore has been proven right over the years is perhaps the biggest reason why computer use in business has grown exponentially over the past forty years. With more complex transistors, computers came down in price and size enough to be used by many corporations all over the word, brought into service in order to manage inventories, payrolls, files, and produce a wide variety of reports.
The first electronic computers were developed during the World War II, with the earliest of those being the Colossus. The Colossus was developed to decrypt secret German codes during the war. It used vacuum tubes and paper tape and could perform a number of Boolean e. Williams Tube used RAM for its computations.
With the exception of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, all the major models were programmable, either using punch cards, patch cables and switches, or through stored programs in memory. The first commercially available computers came in the s. While computing up until this time had mainly focused on scientific, mathematical, and defense capabilities, new computers were designed for business functions, such as banking and accounting.
The J. Lyons Company, which was a British catering firm, invested heavily in some of these early computers. By November of that year, they were using the LEO to run a weekly bakery valuations job. Census Bureau. It was the first mass-produced computer , with more than 45 units eventually produced and sold. The IBM was another notable development in early commercial computing; it was the first mainframe computer produced by IBM.
It was around the same time that the Fortran programming language was being developed for the A smaller IBM was developed in the mids, and was popular due to its smaller size and footprint it still weighed over kg, with a separate kg power supply. The development of transistors led to the replacement of vacuum tubes, and resulted in significantly smaller computers.
In the beginning, they were less reliable than the vacuum tubes they replaced, but they also consumed significantly less power. These transistors also led to developments in computer peripherals. Remote terminals also became more common with these second-generation computers. The microchip or integrated circuit is one of the most important advances in computing technology.
Many overlaps in history existed between microchip-based computers and transistor-based computers throughout the s, and even into the early s. Micochips allowed the manufacturing of smaller computers. Photo by Ioan Sameli. The microchip spurred the production of minicomputers and microcomputers, which were small and inexpensive enough for small businesses and even individuals to own. The microchip also led to the microprocessor, another breakthrough technology that was important in the development of the personal computer.
There were three microprocessor designs that came out at about the same time. The first was produced by Intel the The first personal computers were built in the early s. Most of these were limited-production runs, and worked based on small-scale integrated circuits and multi-chip CPUs. The Commodore PET was a personal computer in the 70s.
From this point on, IBM set the standards. In the mids, a special approach to data processing was introduced. It was predominant in Germany, where the whole range of office computers was referred to as Mittlere Datentechnik, in English later dubbed mid-range systems. Various companies - many of them from the office machine industry, such as Kienzle and Philips, or newcomers like Nixdorf - launched special small office computers for commercial administration, tailored to meet end users' needs.
This approach was an extraordinary success because it bundled application software and customer training with the hardware. This all-in service led to the rapid spread of office computers through small and medium-sized companies, which could not afford their own data processing department and therefore wanted complete solutions for their business organization. At the beginning of the s, numerous newly founded software houses in the USA and Europe discovered this market opening and satisfied the exploding demand for application programs by developing manufacturer-independent standard software.
Minicomputers came onto the market in the USA at about the same time as office computers in Europe.
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