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History of Computers. By Colin Anderson. The Beginning . 3000BC: creation of abacus The basic idea of computing developed in the 1200's when a Moslem cleric proposes solving problems with a series of written procedures.
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History of Computers By Colin Anderson
The Beginning • 3000BC: creation of abacus • The basic idea of computing developed in the 1200's when a Moslem cleric proposes solving problems with a series of written procedures. • 1640 – mechanical calculators first sold, created by Blaise Pascal. Used for taxes • 1801 - Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a ‘computer loom’ powered by water
Birth of computers • Charles Babbage wanted a reprogrammable machine – coined the term ‘computers’ • Created two ‘engines’ to compute: • Difference engine: made to compute values of polynomial functions by using the method of finite differences, it was possible to avoid the need for multiplication and division. • Analytical engine: could be programmed using punch cards
Birth of computers contin. • 1892 – ex-teller William Burroughs introduced a ‘printing’ calculator • 1925 – MIT student Vannevar Bush unknowingly creates machine similar to Babbage, but can do calculus • From 1930s to 1950s not much is known, due mainly to the fact of WWII and the start of the Cold War, everybody is keeping their finds secret from one another
Computers in WWII • The Enigma was created by the Germans to encode messages, believed to be unbreakable • Poland first breaks the code, then Britain and USA. The info gained led to an earlier stop date of fighting • Colossus Mark I breaks the code • Britain helps US Navy build machine to break German and Japanese codes
‘Modern’ computers • 1971 – first pocket calculator put on market by Texas Instruments • 1975 – first personal computer marketed by Microsoft • One year later, Apple does the same, but includes monitor and keyboard During the next few years the personal computer explodes on the American scene. Microsoft, Apple, and many smaller PC related companies form (and some die).By 1977 stores begin to sell PC's. IBM enters in 1981, after a miserable first attempt earlier. Time selects the computer as its Man of the Year in 1982.
Computers now • Powerful, cheap, and used in just about every aspect of life. • Asus Eee PC -$245, size of a book • IBM Kittyhawk – supercomputer IBM states that will be able to host the entire internet on one platform as one application
Interesting Facts • In 1947 at Harvard university, a moth was found inside the computer and caused many problems, and since then the term ‘debugging’ has been used • In 1952 CBS used an ENIAC computer to predict the presidential election, though they didn’t air the prediction for 3 hours because they didn’t trust it • The technology contained in a single Game Boy Advance exceeds all the computing power that was used to put the first man on moon in 1969. • If you opened up the case of the original Macintosh, you will find 47 signatures… one for each member of Apple's Macintosh division as of 1982. • Bill Gate’s house was designed using a Mac
Other notable people • Ada Lovelace: considered world’s first programmer, worked for Charles Babbage • George Boole: father of computer science, writes An Investigation of the Laws of Thought(1854) • Tim Berners-Lee: the father of the World Wide Web. He created Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), with a Universal Resource Locator (URL) that could locate data. • David Filo & Jerry Yang – in 1994 these two created Yahoo! to help their Stanford friends find cool websites
Brief History of Video Game • 1961 - Spacewar! Is created by a group of MIT students • 1966 - first game to show up on TV screen called “Chase” • 1969 - AT&T worker created Space Travel, which later would be credited with Unix’s first application • 1971 - Beginning of Golden Age of Games • 1978 - The Golden Year (Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pacman)
Video Game History contin. • Mid 1970’s finally produces cartridges that contained the game software • Atari 2600 • Intellivision • ColelcoVision • Market flooded, big crash
Huge Growth in gaming • The 1980s skyrocketed the popularity of video games as more and more technology was developed to allow a more mass marketed genre. Commodore 64 was the world’s first ‘gaming computer’ and would become the world’s most popular PC of all time in 1982. • 1980’s sparked the first internet gaming -- now known as MMORPGs
Nintendo • 1985, the Nintendo NES was released (Famicon in other countries) • Gamepads now took over joysticks • Late 1980s developed some of the most popular video game franchises to date, including Metal Gear, Zelda, Mario, and Final Fantasy
1990’s to present • Sony Playstation ‘wowed’ the world with it’s 3D graphics capabilities in 1994 • Nintendo 64 doubles the ‘bit power’ to 64 and releases in 1996. As of 2007, N64 sold 33 million units worldwide • Playstation 2 - Hugely successful, sold almost 1 million units in one day. • Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, PS3
Sources • http://goldenink.com/computersandnetworks.shtml • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Babbage • http://members.fortunecity.com/pcmuseum/people.html • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Gene#Major_features • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_and_video_games#1960s