The first binary system Essays

The first binary system Essays The first binary system Essay The first binary system Essay This essay will look at the history of computers, beginning from Stonehenge and going right through to today. It will look at what the future holds for the world of computing and I will try to determine the start of this particular technology. It will go on to discuss the computers of today and more importantly what the future holds for computers. I will try to briefly out line the history of the computer, presenting my findings chronologically. The continuous progression of the computer has lead us to the advanced machines they are today and offer us an insight into the pattern of future developments. Throughout the essay I will include information from a number of different resources, which I will use to explain and analyse my findings. I have traced the first findings of computer science back to many years ago when man still dwelled in caves. The religious and animalistic traditions of early man required instruments to calculate particular religious dates. From this Shamanistic traditions man created a primitive calculating device, counting notches on sticks or marks on walls. This primitive technique evolved and big Stonehenge structures were erected, these can still be seen today in Salisbury England. The enormous structures are today monuments of mans desire to calculate and compute information. Over on the other side of the globe in china the abacus was born. The abacus aided the calculation process and therefore must be considered a computing device. The way the abacus works shares similarities with the dictionaries definition of a computer. This is the place value notion and the retrieve and store method mentioned in the dictionary. Twelve centuries later, an 18-year-old taxpayers son invented a numerical wheel to help his father calculate tax. The device was called a Pacaline named after its creator. The problem with the Pascalator is that it could only be repaired by Pascaline. This resulted in job loss and techno phobia which still occurs today. The device was later improved and can still be found today in water meters and modern day odometers. The real beginning of the computer as we know them today is a result of the English mathematician Charles Babbage. He hoped there would one day be an automated computer powered by steam. It was never constructed, but outlined the elements of the modern day general-purpose computer. Babbages computer was a real analytical engine, it had built in control and allowed instructions to be represented in specific order, rather then numerical order. An American inventor set a task to create a faster computer using the jacquard loom concept. The computing process used cards to store dates, this differed from previous methods, which used cards to instruct the computer. This system enabled the computer to work faster, store more information, and resulted in fewer errors. The creator Hollerith brought his machine, known as the punch card reader, in to the business world. The company later became the International Business Machine or IBM. The punch card system become very popular in the 60s and was used by business and the government. Holleriths machine was limited to certain tabulation and could not accommodate more complex forms. The first binary system was developed by a German in 1941. The binary system was a programmable computer design composed of zeros and ones. The binary representation proved important in the design of modern day computers.  The punch card machine became so well established and reliable, that Howard Aiken collaborated with the engineers at IBM and refined the IBMs standard automated computer to build the Howard Mark 1. The Mark 1 remained in use until 1959, even thought other machines had surpassed it in performance. It provided vital calculations for the navy in world war two. Meanwhile over in Great Britain a mathematician named Alan turning wrote a paper called Computable numbers. Alan Turnings paper described a hypothetical device that presaged programmable computers. The Turning machine was designed to perform logical operations and could read, write, or erase symbols that were written on squares of a infinite paper tape. The purpose of turnings paper was not to invent a computer but rather to describe problems that are logically possible to solve. Turnings hypothetical machine has characteristics that resemble modern day computers. The hypothetical machines memory allows it to read, write, and erase data, just like modern day RAM. Back in America the Havard Mark 1 was highly successful opening doors for further developments by Americans computer giants. The second contribution to the computing world was the ENIAC or electrical Numerical integrator. ENIAC is generally considered to be the first successful high speed digital computer and was used from 1946 to 1955.