How The Computer Came About

Created and designed by Rachel:)

The Computer

When asking who invented the computer, it may seem more simple of a question than it actually is. A computer isn’t just one machine someone

invented, it’s a whole complex system of mini-machines that different people made and put together. But whose idea was

the computer, you ask? Why, it was Charles Babbage of

course! In 1840 he invented a machine he called the

“Analytical Engine,” but the first computer wasn’t actually

made until 100 years later. The first electro-mechanical

computer, or Mark I, was used in World War 2 by the U.S. Navy and it was huge. It

weighed about 5 tons! That’s ten thousand pounds!

Charles Babbage

Debugging

Although the name is misleading, when it comes to computers debugging doesn’t

have anything to do with critters that crawl around on

many legs. When you debug a computer, it means that you

try to find a reduce the number of bugs, or defects, that a

program has in it. The term “debugging” came about in the late 1940’s by Grace Hopper. When she and a team were working on the Mark II they

found a moth stuck in the relay and, jokingly, she remarked

that they were “debugging” it and the name stuck. :)

The Internet

The internet was originally invented in 1978 by an American computer scientist named Vinton Cerf as part of a project sponsored by the United States Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or the ARPA because they wanted communication between computers to be easier and more convenient. It began as a network that connected computers at research laboratories and universities, but became world wide in 1989 by an English computer scientist named Timothy Berners-Lee.

The Internet is just like the Universe.

Babbage’s Analytical Engine

The analytical engine was created in 1837 by Charles Babbage.

Although it was made in 1837, Babbage continued to refine and

improve the analytical engine until his death in 1871. The Analytical

Engine was going to be the world’s first programmable computer. It was supposed to be able to not only solve one problem, but an

entire range of calculations. According to Wikipedia, the analytical engine was never

actually built because of “the complexity of the machine, the

lack of project management science, the expense of its

construction, and the difficulty of assessing its value by Parliament relative to other projects being

lobbied for.” Even if building the machine had been possible, it

would have been very dangerous and roughly the size of a train

engine.

Herman Hollerith

The first commercial data processing machines were punched card tabulating

systems that were invented by Herman Hollerith. Herman worked for the U.S. Census

Bureau and during that time he began to design machines that reduced the time that would be

collected in the Census of a county experiencing a rapid

growth in population.

Herman Hollerith and the Tabulating System

ENIAC

Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer, or just ENIAC,

was the first general electronic computer. It was capable of being reprogrammed so it

would be able to solve a large amount of computing

problems. It was made to calculate artillery and firing tables for the U.S. Army’s

Ballistic Research Laboratories, but was used for calculations

having to do with the hydrogen bomb. Building the computer began in July of 1943 in secret

by the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of

Electrical Engineering under the codename “Project PX” and was completed in February of

1946.

The ENIAC

What is a program?

This one is very simple. A program is a piece of software that is like instructions for the

computer.

Transistorsvs.

Vacuum Tubes

Transistors win this fight. One, vacuum tubes were huge. Two: Vacuum tubes produced a lot of heat making whatever was using them real hot and the object around them got hot,

too. The first electronic computer used hundreds and

hundreds of vacuum tubes and were being repaired as often

as they were being used. They were so big that they filled

large rooms and required a lot of electricity.

A replica of the first transistor.

Vacuum Tubes

Microcomputers

In 1975 Ed Roberts, the “father of the microcomputer,”

created the microcomputer or, as we call it today, the PC. A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit and although it is much smaller

than the first computers ever made, it much more complex.

It was produced by Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry

Systems, or MITS.

Ed Roberts and a microcomputer

What is the binary system?

“Binary” means a system that has only two possible digits. For

example, the word “decimal” describes a system that can only have ten possible digits which are the digits 0-9. Each number in the decimal system is a combination

of those ten digits. The binary system works basically the same way except that there are only two digits instead of ten. Those

two digits are 0 and 1. Every number in the binary system is a

combination of these two numbers. A bit is a single digit in the binary system that encodes a single unit of information. A byte

is a sequence of bits. Usually, eight bits equal on byte. Bits are grouped into byte to increase the

efficiency of the computer hardware such as network

equipment, disks, and memory.

Resources! :DInformation:http://www.invention-ifia.ch/computer_age_and_the_inventor.htmhttp://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debugginghttp://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/internet.htmhttp://www.boutell.com/newfaq/history/inventednetwhy.htmlhttp://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/babbage.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_enginehttp://www.officemuseum.com/data_processing_machines.htmhttp://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-tabulating-machine.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAChttp://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_invented_the_first_microcomputerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcomputerhttp://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/binary1.htmlhttp://compnetworking.about.com/cs/basicnetworking/f/bitsandbytes.htmhttp://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100831151856AA3NjCThttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/computer_program

Pictures: http://www.onlinemathtutor.org/help/mathematicians/charles-babbage-famous-mathematicians-2/http://www.asp.net/data-access/tutorials/debugging-stored-procedures-vbhttp://www.thedailyinquirer.net/011110-or-011110-another-2010-date-palindrome/018233http://www.retroist.com/2010/04/05/retroist-access-monday-ram-–-dr-ed-roberts-father-of-the-pc-dies-at-

68/http://www.math.ntnu.no/~ronquist/kurs/super/2004h/lectureplan.htmlhttp://www.radford.edu/wkovarik/class/design/designhist/index.htmlhttp://www.chronarion.org/ada/