History of Computer Technology

A computer is a machine that can process data and perform calculations much more effectively than a man can do manually. The computer can consist of mechanical, electronic, optical or other components and controlled by instructions from a computer program.

Initially, the computer essentially a tool for performing arithmetic and other mathematical calculations, but has since become an important tool in particular, automation of administrative procedures, communications, information storage and media processing. During childhood, computers were used expression Electron brain as a popular title.

With the miniaturization of electronics has the basic components of what constitutes a computer (control unit, a unit of account and with memory circuits for communications with the outside world) could be on fewer silicon plates. In its extreme form, a computer (albeit somewhat limited capacity) fit on a single silicon plate, and is then called microprocessor. For common people the word computer aimed mostly at a personal computer, but there are many other types of computers.

History of Computer Technology

Calculators have been around for centuries, but it was not until the 1900s that they became electric. Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator in 1642, which could add or subtract, and can be seen as a precursor to the computer. Three decades later designed Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, a machine that also survived multiplication and division.

Reconstruction of Zuses Z1

Thereafter the development stagnated until the 1820s, when Charles Babbage presented drawings to the difference machine, essentially a mechanical computer, whose program was predetermined by the design itself. Babbage invented after the screening machine in 1834, a fully programmable mechanical computer with working memory, processor, punch card readers for input for writing and punching the hole cards. Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer programs for the analytical machine. However, part of the design of mechanical problems and was never completed. 

In 1936 German engineer Konrad Zuse designed the first electromechanical computer based on electromagnetic relays, which is called Z1, and a number of other computers. The devices were destroyed in 1944 when the Allies bombed Berlin during World War II, and his work did not affect the development of later computers significantly.

The British government gave in great secrecy to build Colossus to decode German Enigma encrypted messages, a job that Alan Turing took part in. The machine was in use in 1943, but did not affect the rest of the development, because it was classified in three decades. In 1944, Howard Aiken at Harvard University created decimal computer which is called Mark I, inspired by Babbage's work.

ENIAC

John Mauchley, a physics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with his student Presper Eckert, designed decimal computer, which is called ENIAC, on behalf of the U.S. Army to calculation of projectile paths. ENIAC, which began construction in 1943, was completed only in 1946, when the world war is over. The computer, which was based on vacuum tubes and relays, however, created great interest within the scientific community and was the beginning of a tremendous variety.

Von Neumann Architecture

John von Neumann, who has been involved in this project, realized that instead of being programmed by the settings of the relays and wiring would be stored in computer memory with data. Based on this, he created IAS machine, which was built in 1952. The same principle was also used in computer created by Maurice Wilkes Edsac 1949^th. Since then, the von Neumann architecture was the prevailing principle of computer design.

Transistor-based Computers

The first generation computers were based on vacuum tubes. When John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley at Bell Labs invented the transistor in 1948 (which they later received the Nobel Prize in physics for) this was the basis for the second generation of computers. 

The first transistor-based computer was the TX-0, which was developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, inspired by the former MIT Project Whirlwind I from 1952. One of the engineers at the laboratory, Kenneth Olsen, who founded in December 1961 began selling the PDP-1, a commercial minicomputer similar to TX-0. PDP-1 competed primarily with IBM 7090, a transistor-based computer company from IBM, which started to become interested in computers are increasingly having previously funded Aikens Mark I. PDP -1 had admittedly only half of the performance compared to the IBM 7090, but it cost also less than a tenth as much. It was a huge success and sold 50 units. The successor to the PDP-8 came in 1965 became an even bigger success and sold 50.000 units.

Integrated Circuits

The next major advances came in 1958, when Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit, which permitted more efficient miniaturization. This era, which lasted until the early 1980s was dominated by the IBM System 360, the first standardized computer series with machines in different performance classes. While DEC's created PDP-11 series, which was very successful, slightly less powerful and much cheaper than similar IBM model.

VLSI and IBM PCs

Integration trend continued and at the beginning of the 1980s had reached what is known as VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration, "very large scale integration") with millions of transistors on an integrated circuit board. This meant that computers were getting small enough to be used privately and this gave rise to the trend of home computer. In 1977 Commodore released an 8-bit computer (PET) and about the same time Apple released the Apple II. In 1981 International Business Machine produced IBM personal computer which is call IBM PC with an open standard for plug-in card and other components. A few weeks before release, however, another PC named Sirius I was also released, which was created by Chuck Peddle. IBM PC is the computer that became known and soon started to emerge an industry for making what it called the IBM PC-compatible personal computers. 1984 showed that one competitor from Apple (Macintosh, 128k) which had one of those days very easy to use graphical interface that still has many similarities with modern operating systems.

PC or Personal Computer

The term comes from the English PC Personal Computer, "PC". The term has been used in full in the 1960s, but the acronym became known as IBM registered and marketed the brand IBM PC. The specification for this early home computers were published openly, and IBM PC-compatible computers became common. These often came to be known only for PC, so that the term now often refers to any kind of computer whose parts are compatible with other PCs. A rival group is known as the Mac family, which is marketed by Apple Inc. Meanwhile, the broader significance PCs maintained in parallel. 

Computer Components

Components of a modern personal computer: (1) monitor, (2) motherboards, (3) CPU, (4) ATA ports, (5) memory, (6), plug-in card, (7) power supply, (8) CDs or DVDs, (9) hard drive, (10) and keyboard (11) mouse. 

Although computers technology has changed dramatically since the early 1940's, as used in most cases is still the basic structure was first proposed by John von Neumann in the 1940s. Von Neumann architecture divides the computer into four main sections: the arithmetic unit, control unit, memory and various input / output devices (I/O devices). Arithmetic units and the controller are now often integrated in a chip processor and is called after the English shortened CPU Central Processing Unit.

Types of Computers

There are several types of design of personal computers, such as tower, desktop computer, laptop and PDA. Tower model is most common, and is designed for the computer to stand upright. The traditional desktop computer is less common today. It is usually slightly smaller in size and is designed to provide the bottom of the screen placed on top, but could in itself well be on edge. The difference is more about how you want to see their workplace. Laptop model, the portable computer, is constructed of a plate, including processor, hard drive, working memory, keyboard, etc.. and another plate with a screen - these panels folded against one another during transport. It is intended to be held in your lap when you sit down. Palmtop is a handheld computer - often integrated in a mobile phone. 

Mainframes are available in several styles, from the individual computers that can resemble a small personal computer to the really big and can fill a room. A server can be described as something between a mainframe and a PC without a monitor, mouse and keyboard. Often, a server in a standard format that permits many assembled together in one stand (sometimes housed in a cabinet).  There are also smaller computers that are often more specialized, such as bike computers and flight computers.

Memory

 
The memory consists of a sequence of cells, each one housing a small piece of information. The information can either be the data processing or computer instructions, parts of the program, that tells the computer what to do. The blurry line between data and programs are an important part of the Von Neuman architecture. The size of each memory cell and the number of such cells naturally vary from computer to computer. Memory size is usually measured in bytes unit. The amount of memory in a PC today is measured in how much working memory it contains. The year 2006 is a normal amount of memory between 256 and 4096 megabytes (MB).  It is important to distinguish between working memory and storage memory. Working memory is the fastest, but emptied the power is turned off. Storage memory is the memory where programs and data stored long-term. Nowadays, hard drives, flash drives and CD-ROM/DVD discs most common storage memories. 

Arithmetic Logic Unit 

This part of the computer performs arithmetic and logic operations. By adding two numbers, or invert a speech. 

Controller 

Controller is the computer connection, a control unit, especially on the part of a computer system that controls the interpretation of instructions and data transmission from main memory to the various units and vice versa. There are controller including USB, hard drive, floppy drive and graphics. 

I / O devices

I / O stands for English input / output. Input devices that allow data retrieved from the outside world, and output devices means that the results are presented in an appropriate manner. There is a lot of different types of I / O devices, everything from keyboards, monitors, printers and floppy disks for webcams. 

Computer Programs 

The computer program is a long list of instructions the computer carries out in turn. Some instructions, called programs hope, instructs the computer to continue the process with a different instruction than the one immediately succeeding. Those can be conditional so that the program only hope is lost if a certain condition is met. This allows the computer to make decisions and to perform various actions, depending on the result of a calculation or due to another condition. Many programs contain millions of instructions and the instructions are usually performed repeatedly. A typical modern PC (2003) can carry between two and three billion such instructions per second. Programs can be written in different so-called programming languages such as C + +, Java and Pascal. For the computer to understand the instructions are translated to the program usually known as machine code with a compiler. 

A computer may seem to run multiple applications simultaneously. This is usually with an English word is called multitasking. In fact, the controller jumps with short intervals between programs in different parts of the memory in such a way that it gives the impression that it goes together. Your computer's operating system is the software that makes sure that all this is that it is intended. The operating system also includes software code that exploited a lot of their regular programs, such as drivers to help with the details of how to control and communicate with all I / O devices. Another example of built-in utilities are the math coprocessor, which is specially designed to rapidly perform mathematical calculations such as trigonometric functions, logarithms and so on. 

When you buy a computer it also usually follows with a series of utility programs with the operating system. For example, the Web browser, word processor, calculator and more. Also entertainment programs such as movie and music player or computer games can follow.

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