History of Computers

The history of computers goes back much further than many people might thing. Many people feel that the first computer was the abacus. As far back as the fourth century, the abacus was helping people count, a prelude to modern computers. The next machine to help man was the Antikythera mechanism. This was used to both register and predict the movement of planets and stars.

Believe it or not, it was in 1623 when Wilhelm Schickard, of Germany, built the first mechanical calculator, although it never left the prototype stage. It was Blaise Pascal who managed to do that in 1642 with his calculator that had capacity for eight digits.

Charles Babbage, in the early 1820s, set out to invent a “difference engine,” a steam powered mechanical calculator that would print out astromomical tables, however after twenty years of work, the British government cancelled project. His next invention, the Analytical Engine created in the mid-1800s, made a big difference in the history of computers by using punch cards to perform simple conditional operations. Though many of his inventions were never finished and proved to have problems, his thoughts on computing were very visionary.

It was not until 1941 that the first programmable calculator was created by Konrad Zuse. It was during the 1940s that many new developments occurred. The British were using a computer called Colossus to break code, the US had its own Electronic Numerical Integrator Analyzer and Computer (ENIAC) for creating artillery firing tables and Bell Telephone Laboratories created the transistor.

The next two decades also brought on many advances in the history of computers. In 1951, the Universal Automatic Computer could store 12,000 digits. During this time, computers were used mainly for military and scientific study. The first mainframe in the history of computers was introduced in 1964 by IBM. By 1968, the first word processor was created by Doug Engelbart.

Although personal computers would not really take off until the 1980s, the history of computers was changed by the developments in the Seventies. The big names of this decade were Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak, all of who would help bring the personal computer into each household.

The Eighties were a big decade in the history of computers. The easy access of personal computers combined with the many services of the Internet brought computers into homes. The Nineties continued in growth until today, in 2005, it is hard for people to imagine their lives before computers because they are so intertwined not only with work and school, but people’s personal lives as well.