History Of Computer

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

when Blaise Pascal invented
the first "digital calculating machine". It could only add numbers and they had to be entered by turning dials. It was designed to
help Pascal’s father who was a tax collector (Soma, 32).In the early 1800Õs, a mathematics professor named Charles
Babbage designed an automatic calculation machine. It was steam powered and could store up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built
in to his machine were operations that included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was
programmed by--and stored data on--cards with holes punched in them, appropriately called "punch cards". His inventions
were failures for the most part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and the lack of demand
for such a device (Soma, 46).After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers. However, between 1850 and 1900
there were great advances!
in mathematics and physics that


began to rekindle the interest (Osborne, 45). ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

that Howard Hathaway Aiken, in collaboration
with engineers at IBM, undertook construction of a large automatic digital computer based on standard IBM electromechanical
parts. Aiken's machine, called the Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all four arithmetic operations.
Also, it had special built-in programs to handled logarithms and trigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from
prepunched paper tape. Output was by card punch and electric typewriter. It was slow, requiring 3 to 5 seconds for a
multiplication, but it was fully automatic and could complete long computations without human intervention (Chposky, 103).The
outbreak of World !
War II ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: