The History Of Computers :: essays research papers

The History of Computers     A computer is a machine built to do routine calculations with speed,reliability, and ease, greatly simplifying processes that without them would bea much longer, more drawn out process.     Since their insane asylum in the 1940s. Computers overhear become animportant part of the world. Besides the systems lay down in offices, and homes,microcomputers are now used in everyday locations such(prenominal) as automobiles, aircrafts,telephones, and kitchen appliances.     Computers are used for education as well(p), as verbalise by Rourke Guides inhis book, Computers Computers are used in schools for scoring exampapers, and grades are sometimes recorded and kept on computers (Guides 7).     "The original nous of a computer came from Blaise Pascal, who inventedthe first base digital calculating machine in 1642. It performed only conduceitions ofnumbers entered by dials and was intended to help Pascals father, who was a appraisecollector" (Buchsbaum 13).     However, in 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a computer thatcould not only add only, multiply. Multiplication was quite a step to be takenby a computer because until then, the only thing a computer could do was add.The computer multiplied by successive adding and shifting (Guides 45).     Perhaps the first actual computer was made by Charles Babbage. Heexplains himself rather well with the following quote     "One evening I was sitting in the rooms of the Analytical Society atCambridge with a table just of logarithms lying open before me. Another membercoming into the room, and see me half asleep called out, Well Babbage, whatare you dreaming about?, to which I replied, I am thinking that all thesetables might be work out by machinery"(Evans 41).     "The first general purpose comput er was invented in 1871 by CharlesBabbage, just before he died"(Evans 41). It was still a prototype of course,but it was a beginning.     Around this time, there was little or no interestingness in the development ofcomputers. People feared, due to the lack of their knowledge, that computerswould take all over everything and run their lives (Buchsbaum 9).     If only these 18th century Americans, who were ignorant to the necessityof computers, would have known the many benefits they were missing out on, theywould have more promptly funded individuals such as Charles Babbage.     As Glossbrenner states in The Complete Handbook of private Computers,