SUJECT INFORMATION EDUCATION CICLO 02 -2010

COMPUTER HISTORY 

Introduction 

Some authors consider that no single person that can be attributed with having invented the computer, but it was the effort of many people. However, in the old Physics Building at the University of Iowa p lacquer appears with the caption: "The first electronic digital computer for automatic operation of the world, was built in this building

1939 by John Vincent Atanasoff, a mathematician and physicist at the Faculty of the University, who conceived the idea, and Clifford Edward Berry, a graduate student in physics. " 

History of the Computer 

Mauchly and Eckert, after several conversations with Dr. Atanasoff, reading notes describing the principles of the ABC computer and view it in person, Dr. John W. Mauchly collaborated with J. Presper Eckert, Jr. to develop a machine to calculate trajectory tables for the U.S. military. The final product, a fully operational electronic computer on a large scale, was completed in 1946 and was called ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer), or electronic numerical integrator and calculator. The ENIAC applications built for World War II, was completed in 30 months by a team of scientists working under watch.

The ENIAC, a thousand times faster than its electromechanical predecessors, broke as a breakthrough in computer technology. It weighed 30 tons and occupied a space of 450 square meters, filled a quarter of 6 mx 12 m and had 18,000 bulbs, I had to manually programmed by connecting it to 3 boards containing over 6000 switches. Enter a new program was a very tedious process that required days or even weeks. Unlike today's computers operating on a binary system (0.1) the ENIAC operated with a decimal (0, 1.2 ... 9) The ENIAC required a large amount of electricity. Legend has it that the ENIAC, built at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia down the lights whenever you turn. The imposing scale and many general applications of the ENIAC marked the beginning of the first generation of computers.

In 1945, John von Neumann, who had worked with Eckert and Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania, published an article about the storage of programs. The stored program concept allowed the reading of a program within the computer memory, and after the execution of its instructions without having to re-write. The first computer to use that concept was called EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer-ie Computer Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic), developed by Von Neumann, Eckert and Mauchly. The stored program computer gave a tremendous flexibility and reliability, making them faster and less subject to error than mechanical programs. A computer with stored program capability could be used for applications arias v loading and executing the appropriate program. At this point, programs and data could be entered into the computer only with the binary notation, which is the only code that computers "understand."

The next important development in computer design programs were the performers, allowing people to communicate with computers using means other than binary numbers. In 1952 Grace Murray Hopper an officer of the U.S. Navy, developed the first compiler, a program that can translate English-like statements in a binary code understandable by the machine called COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language).

THE ABACO, maybe it was the first mechanical device that existed accounting. It has been estimated to have originated at least 5000 years ago and its effectiveness has stood the test of time.

The Pascaline, the inventor and painter Leonardo Da I conquered (1452-1519) mapped out ideas for a mechanical adding machine. Century and a half later, the French philosopher and mathematician Pascal Balice (1623-1662) finally invented and built the first mechanical adding. Pascaline was called and served as a base machine and wheel gear. Although Pascal was lifted across Europe because of his achievements, the Pascaline, was a dismal financial failure, because for those moments, it was more expensive than human labor for arithmetic calculations.

MADNESS Babbage, Charles Babbage (1793-1871), visionary professor of English and Cambridge, could accelerate the development of computers if he and his inventive mind had been born 100 years later. Advanced the state of computer hardware by inventing the "machine differences," can calculate mathematical tables. In 1834, while working for the progress of the Babbage difference engine conceived the idea of ​​an "analytical engine." In essence, this was a general purpose computer. In accordance with its design, Babbage's analytical engine could sum r, subtract, multiply and divide in automatic at a speed of 60 additions per minute.

The design called for thousands of gears and mechanisms to cover the area of ​​a football field and would need to be operated by a locomotive. Skeptics gave him the nickname "Babbage's madness." Charles Babbage worked on his analytical engine until his death. Babbage strokes describing detailed features now incorporated in the modern electronic computer. If Babbage had lived in the era of electronic technology and precision parts, would advance the birth of the electronic computer for several decades. Ironically, his work was forgotten so much so that some pioneers in the development of electronic computer completely ignored his views on memory, printers, punch cards and process control program sequence.