the history of computers 作文

the history of computers 作文
the history of computers 作文

the history of computers 作文
It is hard to say exactly when the modern computer was invented. Starting in the 1930s and through the 1940s, a number of machines were developed that were like computers. But most of these machines did not have all the characteristics that we associate with computers today. These characteristics are that the machine is electronic, that it has a stored program, and that it is general purpose.
One of the first computerlike devices was developed in Germany by Konrad Zuse in 1941. Called the Z3, it was general-purpose, stored-program machine with many electronic parts, but it had a mechanical memory. Another electromechanical computing machine was developed by Howard Aiken, with financial assistance from IBM, at Harvard University in 1943. It was called the Automatic Sequence Control Calculator Mark I, or simply the Harvard Mark I. Neither of these machines was a true computer, however, because they were not entirely electronic.
Perhaps the most influential of the early computerlike devices was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC. It was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly at the University of Pennsylvania. The project began in 1943 and was completed in 1946. The machine was huge; it weighed 30 tons and contained over 18,000 vacuum tubes.
The ENIAC was a major advancement for its time. It was the first general-purpose, electronic computing machine and was capable of performing thousands of operations per second. It was controlled, however, by switches and plugs that had to be manually set. Thus, although it was a general-purpose electronic device, it did not have a stored program. Therefore, it did not have all the characteristics of a computer .
While working on the ENIAC, Eckert and Mauchly were joined by a brilliant mathematician, John von Neuman. Together, they developed the idea of a stored program computer. This machine, called the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, or EDVAC, was the first machine whose design included all the characteristics of a computer. It was not completed, however, until 1951.
Before the EDVAC was finished, several other machines were built that incorporated elements of the EDVAC design of Eckert, Mauchly, and von Neuman. One was the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer, or EDSAC, which was developed in Cambridge, England. It first operated in May of 1949 and is probably the world’s first electronic stored-program, general-purpose computer to become operational. The first computer to operate in the United States was the Binary Automatic Computer, or BINAC, which became operational in August of 1949.
Like other computing pioneers before them, Eckert and Mauchly formed a company in 1947 to develop a commercial computer. The company was called the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. Their objective was to design and build the Universal Automatic Computer or UNIVAC. Because of difficulties of getting financial support, they had to sell the company to Remington Rand in 1950. Eckert and Mauchly continued to work on the UNIVAC at Remington Rand and completed it in 1951. Known as the UNIVAC I, this machine was the first commercially available computer .
The first UNIVAC I was delivered to the Census Bureau and used for the 1950 census. The second UNIVAC I was used to predict that Dwight Eisenhower would win the 1952 presidential election, less than an hour after the polls closed. The UNIVAC I began the modern of computer use.