The History Of Computers :: essays research papers

The History of Computers     A computer is a machine construct to do r popine calculations with speed,reliability, and ease, greatly simplifying processes that without them would bea much longer, more than drawn out process.     Since their introduction in the 1940s. Computers have become an most-valuable part of the world. Besides the systems found in offices, and homes,microcomputers argon now employ in everyday locations such as automobiles, aircrafts,telephones, and kitchen appliances.     Computers are employ for learning as well, as stated by Rourke Guides inhis book, Computers Computers are used in schools for scoring examinationpapers, and grades are sometimes recorded and unplowed on computers (Guides 7).     "The original idea of a computer came from Blaise Pascal, who inventedthe first digital calculating machine in 1642. It performed only additions ofnumbers entered by dials and was intend to help Pascals father, who was a taxcollector" (Buchsbaum 13).     However, in 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a computer thatcould not only add but, multiply. Multiplication was quite a measuring rod to be takenby a computer because until then, the only affair a computer could do was add.The computer multiplied by straight adding and shifting (Guides 45).     Perhaps the first actual computer was made by Charles Babbage. Heexplains himself rather well with the following quote     "One eve I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society atCambridge with a table full of logarithms lying open before me. some other membercoming into the room, and seeing me half asleep c every last(predicate)ed out, Well Babbage, whatare you dreaming about?, to which I replied, I am thinking that all thesetables might be calculated by machinery"(Evans 41).     "The first general office computer was invented in 1871 by CharlesBabbage, just before he died"(Evans 41). It was so far a prototype of course,but it was a beginning.     Around this time, there was piffling or no interest in the development ofcomputers. People feared, imputable to the lack of their knowledge, that computerswould take over everything and run their lives (Buchsbaum 9).     If only these 18th ampere-second Americans, who were ignorant to the necessityof computers, would have known the many benefits they were missing out on, theywould have more readily funded individuals such as Charles Babbage.     As Glossbrenner states in The Complete Handbook of Personal Computers,