Final Paper : Computers

Jaritza Flores

MCS 244

Jonah Bruckner-Cohen

5/14/19

Computers are devices that help us, humans, to get connected with the web in our society today. According to GeeksforGeeks.com’s article entitled, “Generation of Computers”, Anusha Sharma explained that “A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information or data. It has the ability to store, retrieve, and process data. Nowadays, a computer can be used to type documents, send an email, play games, and browse the Web. It can also be used to edit or create spreadsheets, presentations, and even videos.” This quote is a fact that computers also help us learn to use them properly so they won’t get damaged or frozen but it is also a good idea to use them for different purposes such as school, work, and other projects so that way we could get our work done on time.

Computers are all kinds including PCs and laptop so we could understand how they work these days but there is a history to go back in time where technology was first introduced to the world and each of them belonged to the five generations of computers. For example, as stated in Mindy DeMars’ article, “A Computer History: First Generation (1930-1958)”, “Far from today’s computer technology, the first electric computers were very different. First generation computers could take up the space of an entire room, were expensive to run, and generated much heat, often the cause of their own malfunctions. The first computers only carried out mathematical equations. Only one calculation was solved at a time, using punch card and paper tape as input and printouts as output.” The first computers used vacuum tubes to speed up the process so they could run very smoothly but in the Live Science article, “History of Computers: A Brief Timeline”, Kim Zimmerman mentioned that “1882: English mathematician Charles Babbage conceives of a steam-driven calculating machine that would be able to compute tables of numbers. The project, funded by the English government, is a failure. More than a century later, however, the world’s first computer was actually built”. These first computers could start a revolution or in this case, an evolution in technology that would change the lives of humans and the whole world itself.

But not only Charles Babbage but other inventors who also got involved with the computing evolution such as German inventor Konrad Zuse who invented the Zuse Z1 computer back in 1936, John Atanasoff who created the first electrical computer known as the Atanasoff-Berry, Howard Aiken who was the founder of IBM and the maker of the Harvard Mark I, and Alan Turing, the English mathematician who was inventor of the Turing Machine that uses symbols to make artificial intelligence. In fact, the first electronic computer in computing history was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer or ENIAC which was invented by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert from the Moore School of the University of Pennslyvania in 1946 to help solve problems in numbers through reprogramming.

Personal computers were first introduced to the digital world that according to Low-End Mac’s article, “Personal Computer History: 1975-1984”, Daniel Knight explained that “The first personal computers, introduced in 1975, came as kits: The MITS Altair 8800, followed by the IMSAI 8080, an Altair clone. (Yes, cloning has been around that long!) Both used the Intel 8080CPU. That was also the year Zilog created the Z-80 processor and MOS Technology produced the 6502. Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote a BASIC compiler for the Altair and formed Microsoft”. He also explained that In 1976, Apple’s two Steves (Jobs and Wozniak) designed the Apple I, Apple’s only “kit” computer (you had to add a keyboard, power supply, and enclosure to the assembled motherboard), around the 6502 processor. That was also the year that Electric Pencil, the first-word processing program, and Adventure, the first text adventure for microcomputers, were released. Shugart introduced the 5.25″ floppy drive; it would become a key component in the personal computing revolution. The young industry exploded in 1977 as Apple introduced the Apple II, a color computer with expansion slots and floppy drive support; Radio Shack rolled out the TRS-80 to its stores across the nation; Commodore tapped into the pet rock craze with its PET; Digital Research released CP/M, the 8-bit operating system that provided the template for MS-DOS; and the first ComputerLand franchise store (then Computer Shack) opened.”

Laptop computers were made to help bring a whole new generation of computers to the tech world that as mentioned in ThoughtCo.com’s article, “The History of Laptop Computers”, Mary Bellis said that “The Grid Compass was designed in 1979 by a Briton named William Moggridge for Grid Systems Corporation. It was one-fifth the weight of any model equivalent in performance and was used by NASA as part of the space shuttle program in the early 1980s. As far as technical specs, it featured a 340K byte bubble memory laptop computer system with a die-cast magnesium case and folding electroluminescent graphics display screen.” She also mentioned that “The computer considered by most historians to be the first truly portable computer was the Osborne 1. Adam Osborne, an ex-book publisher was the founder of Osborne Computer Corp, which produced the Osborne 1 in 1981. It was a portable computer that weighed 24 pounds and cost $1795. For that, users got a five-inch screen, modem port, two 5 1/4 floppy drives, a large collection of bundled software programs and a battery pack. Unfortunately, the short-lived computer company was never successful.”

Computers also have games that users could play in them, as a matter of fact, the first computer was called Spacewar, created by Stephen Russell of MIT in 1962 but in 1982, the Commodore 64 computer was invented for users to play classic computer games to their enjoyment but its popularity has ended in 1994. Today, people still play computers games from Steam which is an online gaming service that has millions of games for gamers to play through purchasing and downloading them. Computers also have the World Wide Web which was invented in 1989 by Tim-Berners Lee of England and the Internet which was created in the early 1960s to help users connect with each other through websites of all kinds including gaming, shopping, music, and of course, social media sites that help us interact with others through communication such as messaging and email.

Computers are the future of technology because of the methods they have done for us to make connectivity more efficient and our communication more precise. Not only do computers made us more connected but they made us more safe and secure through software that protects them from viruses, crashes, and other computer issues so we could use them more accurately but we have to use them carefully otherwise without computers, the digital world will never be the same in the future.

 

Works Cited

Sharma, Anusha. “Generations of Computers”. Geeks for Geeks https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/generations-of-computer/

DeMars, Mindy. “A Computer History: First Generation (1930-1958)”.  DeMars’ Computer History. https://demarscomputerhistory.weebly.com/1st-generation.html

Zimmerman, Kim. “History of Computers: A Brief Timeline”. LiveScience. 2017. https://www.livescience.com/20718-computer-history.html

Knight, Daniel. “Personal Computer History: 1975-1984”. 2014. http://lowendmac.com/2014/personal-computer-history-the-first-25-years/

Bellis, Mary. “The History of Laptop Computers”. 2019. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-laptop-computers-4066247

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