The History Of Computers Essay

Submitted By dunksome41
Words: 602
Pages: 3

Genealogy

Where did the computer begin? Who came up the idea of this genius creation that would allow you to surf the internet and chat with friends worldwide. Who knew it would eventually and ultimately control our main outlet of communication…Thousands of years ago (Caveman Era) calculations were done using people’s fingers and pebbles that were found just lying around. Technology has transformed so much that today the most complicated computations are done within seconds. Human dependency on computers is increasing every day. Just think how hard it would be to live a week without a computer or even a cell phone for that matter. We owe the advancements of computers and other such electronic devices to the intelligence of men of the past.
The origin of computers go way, way back. The beginning of this revolution all started in Babylon in B.C. . Babylon was originally a Semitic Akkadian city dating from the period of the Akkadian Empire. These civilians used a counting tool as a “calculator”. The following years the calculator would have a breakthrough. Finally, in 1625 the slide rule was invented, now becoming “the first analog computer of the modern ages”. But the biggest breakthrough had emerged in 1642. In this year a mechanical calculator was born. Blaise Pascal was the inventor of this. Pascal was a Frenchmen , he was very intelligent and had a great variety of knowledge ranging from mathematics, writing, reading, science, and even philosophy. And by the way Blaise was only a young teenager when he began this revolutionary mechanical work. As the years proceeded so did the prosperity of technology, foremost computers. Designs to tabulate the results of mathematical functions began to raise within the early 1800’s. From the 1940’s to the 50’s computers were often made from vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes or vacuum valve are electronic devices that control the powerful electric currents through a vacuum in a sealed container. These tubes are actually constructed simply made up of a glass tube, anode, heated cathode, and a heater. Vacuum tubes were also debuted in the military based computer ENIAC and Whirlwind, the Ferrari Mark 1 (which was the first commercially available electronic computer). The twentieth century was filled with important inventions that are still widely used today everywhere across the world. Inventions like the transistor,