For as long as man has been on this planet he has had the need to exchange information, whether it be about how many sheep he has or how many days it is until his crop will be ready to pick. The definition of computing is the act of exchanging information in the form of words, numbers, or both. Therefore it could be said that the act of computing is nothing new. However, ever since Charles Babbage's invention of the Analytical Engine, man has tried to create machines that could exchange information in the form of both numbers, and words. Man has also tried to make the machine that makes the exchange of information smaller and smaller. It was not until the 1970s that exchange of numbers and words could be done on the same machine. Today computers use the combination of numbers and words to carry out the commands that they receive. It is now time to talk about the history of computing, what today's computers are used for, the future of computing/computers, and the hardware and software that power computers.
It was said above that computing has been around for as long as man has been on this planet. However, Wilhelm Schikard built the first machine that was created to compute for man in 1623. This machine that he created could add and, with the help of logarithm tables, multiply and divide. Eleven complete and six incomplete sprocketed wheels powered Schikard's machine. Blaise Pascal was the next one to create a computing machine; however, Pascal's machine could only add and subtracted. After this shaky lift off, computing did improve with Joseph-Marie Jacquard's creation of the loom in the early 19th century. The loom was the first machine that used punched cards to enable it to carry out its tasks. With Jacquard's invention others could invent better computing machines, such as the Analytical Engine, which was supposed to be able to perform all arithmetic operations efficiently. After the Analytical Engine came the Mark I calculating machine, which was built by IBM in the 1930s. The only thing that slowed machines down was the fact that machines up to this point depended on punched cards to carry out their tasks. John von Neumann's computer was the first computer that stored its tasks/programs in memory.
Once memory was put into the machine, things got a little quicker, because computer operators did not need to re-program the punched cards. The next major computer to come out was the ENIAC in 1945, which was developed by American physicist John Mauchly, and engineer J. Presper Eckert. The difference between this machine and the machines before it was that this machine was the first computer to separate data processing from memory. ENIAC is regarded as the first successful, general digital computer. ENIAC, however, was big, bulky and extremely expensive to maintain. UNIVACs succeeded ENIAC, but UNIVACs quickly died out with the invention of the transistor by Bell Telephone laboratories in 1948. Once the transistor came out it quickly replaced the large vacuum tubes, and it also got smaller.
Transistors led to the development of the first modern microprocessor in the 1970s. The first PC to use a microprocessor was the Altair 8800 in 1975, which was developed and sold by Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems, which used an 8-bit Intel (INTC) 8080. After 1975 companies like Compaq (CPQ), DELL, and Apple (AAPL) started to mass-produce PCs. Since 1975 PC's have become ever increasing in popularity. The microprocessor's that powered computers since 1975 have become smaller and smaller. In the first week of March 1999, Intel (INTC) will release its Pentium III microprocessor, which is packed on a .18micron piece of silicon. The first Intel chips were packed on a .45micron piece of silicon.
Today, in February 2nd, 1999 computers are used for a rather large variety of tasks. The range involves the little computer inside a digital watch to predicting A and H-bomb explosions. In a business, workstations, laptops, and mainframes are used for creating new products, testing existing products, allowing people within the company to communicate with each other, and keeping track of financial and business transactions. Computers are also used by businesses to show their stockholders or senior officers demonstrations of upcoming products, to show on graphs the company's financial standing, and to help the company manage their employees time better. At home, desktops and laptops are used for telecommuting, playing games, checking world markets, and stocks, and they are also used for gathering information quickly and efficiently. It is also hoped that computers are used for homework. Computers are also starting to be used in travel. People who go on trips often use a computer to make hotel and car rental arrangements, and check the weather conditions in the place to which they will be traveling. When traveling, people also use computers to keep track of what is happening back home.
Tomorrow's computers will most likely not be silicon based. Currently universities around the globe are pursuing the ideas of building computers that work by way of DNA, quantum mechanics, and fiber optics. The silicon CPU's in computers are not the only thing that is going to be changed. Other current ideas that are being perused involve making holographic hard drives, making CD like discs that can contain more then one petabyte, and producing extremely thin monitors. The computers in the future will be far faster and will have a greater storage capacity than today's computers. However, tomorrows' computers are going to have to map whole global weather patterns, sequence the whole human DNA structure, make sure that all household needs are meet, and some will have to control at least three hundred satellites. These are just the easy tasks that people today are hoping that computers will be capable of.
As one might have noticed, computing hardware and software over the years has changed. The first computing machine used sprocketed wheels, the next punched cards, then vacuum tubes with a little silicon, and so on. Another thing that could be said or noticed about hardware is that over the years it has continually shrank in size. Again, right now, microprocessors are being packed on a .18micron piece of silicon. .18microns is significantly smaller then a medium sized sprocket, or a vacuum tub. Storage devices have also shrunk in size. Hard drives that were made in the 1970s stored very tiny pieces of information, in comparison to today's CDs. Software has changed from punched cards, to written computer codes like pearl, CSC, and Java.
Software, unlike hardware, has not shrunk in size over the years. While hardware is constantly getting smaller and smaller, software is getting bigger and bigger. Windows 3x was a relatively small OS (operating system), Windows 95, was quite a bit bigger then Windows 3x and Windows 98 is monstrous in comparison with the previous OS's. Since OS's have gotten bigger, games and applications have followed suite. Today, it is almost impossible to get a decent demonstration of a game or application that is less then 15Mbs. It is to be hoped that, in the future, both hardware and software will get smaller not bigger.
Over the past three hundred and seventy six years, computers and all that is included in a computer have drastically changed. Man has gone from creating huge bulky inefficient machines to creating whippersnapper machines like today's PIII PCs. Tomorrow's computers and their components will be very different from today's computers. However, no matter how much computers change in size and shape, they will always do the same thing. Computers will always exchange information in the form of either numbers, words, or a combination of both. That was the surety of yesterday, today, and it will be in the future, too.
