Video Professor Computer Training

What is computer technology? Where did it come from? The origin of the computer, as we know it today, is hard to pinpoint precisely, mostly because the distinction computer is so ambiguous. According to the dictionary, a computer is: a programmable machine that inputs, process, and outputs data, an electronic device for the storage and processing of information, or a machine for performing calculations automatically. Early computers included abaci, which helped humans speedily complete mathematical calculations. The first of which is dated to around 3000 BC. Much later, in the early 17th century, a Scotsman named John Napier invented logarithms, a precursor to today’s computer technology. Napier was also responsible for Napier’s bones, which were a type of abacus that calculated the products and quotients of numbers. This, in turn, was followed by the invention of the slide rule and astrolabe (an astronomical instrument used by astronomers, navigators and astrologers to predict the positions of planets, stars, sun and moon, determine local time, survey and triangulate, among many other uses)—which are sometimes cited as among the world’s earliest computers.

Groundbreaking as they were, none of these early computing devices would be called a proper computer today. What chiefly differentiates today’s computers from those of yore is their programmability. They can be given a set of instructions that is stored and then carried out in the future. The first programmed device made its debut in 1801, when Joseph Marie Jacquard implemented an improvement to the textile loom. Using a configuration of punched paper cards held in a long row by rope, Jacquard’s improved loom was able to weave patterns automatically. Though this was a very limited program, it would eventually pave the way to more advanced programming.

In 1837, the first computer was conceptualized, described and designed by the great British mathematician, philosopher and mechanical engineer Charles Babbage. Applying some of Jacquard’s punch card insights, Babbage came up with a mechanical, general purpose device and named his revolutionary idea the Analytical Engine. This marked a significant advancement in computer history. Like its modern-day equivalent, the Analytical Engine pre-dated the first general-purpose computers by approximately 100 years. Babbage labored to perfect the Analytical Engine until the day of his death in 1871, though the construction was never actually realized. It would have been as large as a house, powered by six steam engines.

Babbage realized that punched paper could be used as a storage mechanism. A notion that became essential to modern computers: the memory unit and central processing unit (CPU) became the present-day equivalent of punched paper. In 1890, his concepts would be applied to automated tabulating machines for the U.S. Census. The machines, designed by Herman Hollerith and manufactured by the Computer Tabulating Recording Corporation, could count holes in the census cards and display the results of the count. The technology saved the government $5 million. The Computer Tabulating Recording Company eventually became the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM®) and in the years to come, punched cards became ubiquitous.

The first modern computers came in the early 1940s. The first computers filled entire rooms, and consumed as much power as several hundred personal computers. Z-machines used binary arithmetic and could be programmed to some degree. In 1944, IBM and Harvard joined forces to produce the Harvard Mark I computer. Weighing 5 tons and spanning 51 feet, it was constructed from a series of switches, relays, clutches and rotating shafts and was the U.S.’ first programmable, digital computer.

The Harvard Mark I was followed by the U.S. Army’s Ballistics Research Laboratory ENIAC which used decimal arithmetic. After ENIAC, several developers went to work on an improved design: stored program architecture also known as von Neumann architecture. Today, nearly all computers use stored program architecture.

In the 1950s, there were vacuum tube-based computers, followed by transistor-based computers in the 1960s. In the 1970s, integrated circuit technology was adopted. April, 1972 saw the release of the 8008 from Intel®, the world’s first 8-bit microprocessor. In the 1980s, computers began to approach the size and cost of what we are familiar with today.