Topic: Computers
A computer is a machine that can be instructed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical
operations automatically via computer programming. Modern computers have the ability to
follow generalized sets of operations, called programs. These programs enable computers to
perform an extremely wide range of tasks. A "complete" computer including the hardware, the
operating system (main software), and peripheral equipment required and used for "full"
operation can be referred to as a computer system. This term may as well be used for a group
of computers that are connected and work together, in particular a computer network or
computer cluster.
Computers are used as control systems for a wide variety of industrial and consumer devices.
This includes simple special purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls, factory
devices such as industrial robots and computer-aided design, and also general purpose devices
like personal computers and mobile devices such as smartphones. The Internet is run on
computers and it connects hundreds of millions of other computers and their users.
Early computers were only conceived as calculating devices. Since ancient times, simple
manual devices like the abacus aided people in doing calculations. Early in the Industrial
Revolution, some mechanical devices were built to automate long tedious tasks, such as
guiding patterns for looms. More sophisticated electrical machines did specialized analog
calculations in the early 20th century. The first digital electronic calculating machines were
developed during World War II. The first semiconductor transistors in the late 1940s were
followed by the silicon-based MOSFET (MOS transistor) and monolithic integrated circuit (IC)
chip technologies in the late 1950s, leading to the microprocessor and the microcomputer
revolution in the 1970s. The speed, power and versatility of computers have been increasing
dramatically ever since then, with MOS transistor counts increasing at a rapid pace (as
predicted by Moore's law), leading to the Digital Revolution during the late 20th to early 21st
centuries.
Conventionally, a modern computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a
central processing unit (CPU) in the form of a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS)
microprocessor, along with some type of computer memory, typically MOS semiconductor
memory chips. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logical operations, and a
sequencing and control unit can change the order of operations in response to stored
information. Peripheral devices include input devices (keyboards, mice, joystick, etc.), output
devices (monitor screens, printers, etc.), and input/output devices that perform both functions
(e.g., the 2000s-era touchscreen). Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an
external source and they enable the result of operations to be saved and retrieved.
Etymology
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word "computer" was in
1613 in a book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by English writer Richard Braithwait: "I haue
[sic] read the truest computer of Times, and the best Arithmetician that euer [sic] breathed, and
he reduceth thy dayes into a short number." This usage of the term referred to a human
computer, a person who carried out calculations or computations. The word continued with the
same meaning until the middle of the 20th century. During the latter part of this period women
were often hired as computers because they could be paid less than their male counterparts. By
1943, most human computers were [Link] Online Etymology Dictionary gives the first
attested use of "computer" in the 1640s, meaning "one who calculates"; this is an "agent noun
from compute (v.)". The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the use of the term to mean
"'calculating machine' (of any type) is from 1897." The Online Etymology Dictionary indicates
that the "modern use" of the term, to mean "programmable digital electronic computer" dates
from "1945 under this name; [in a] theoretical [sense] from 1937, as Turing machine".
History
Pre-20th century
Devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, mostly using one-to-one
correspondence with fingers. The earliest counting device was probably a form of tally stick.
Later record keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones,
etc.) which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in hollow unbaked
clay containers. The use of counting rods is one example.
The abacus was initially used for arithmetic tasks. The Roman abacus was developed from
devices used in Babylonia as early as 2400 BC. Since then, many other forms of reckoning
boards or tables have been invented. In a medieval European counting house, a checkered
cloth would be placed on a table, and markers moved around on it according to certain rules, as
an aid to calculating sums of money.
The Antikythera mechanism is believed to be the earliest mechanical analog "computer",
according to Derek J. de Solla Price. It was designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was
discovered in 1901 in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between
Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to c. 100 BC. Devices of a level of complexity
comparable to that of the Antikythera mechanism would not reappear until a thousand years
later.
Many mechanical aids to calculation and measurement were constructed for astronomical and
navigation use. The planisphere was a star chart invented by Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī in the early
11th century. The astrolabe was invented in the Hellenistic world in either the 1st or 2nd
centuries BC and is often attributed to Hipparchus. A combination of the planisphere and
dioptra, the astrolabe was effectively an analog computer capable of working out several
different kinds of problems in spherical astronomy. An astrolabe incorporating a mechanical
calendar computer and gear-wheels was invented by Abi Bakr of Isfahan, Persia in 1235. Abū
Rayhān al-Bīrūnī invented the first mechanical geared lunisolar calendar astrolabe, an early
fixed-wired knowledge processing machine with a gear train and gear-wheels, c. 1000 AD.
The sector, a calculating instrument used for solving problems in proportion, trigonometry,
multiplication and division, and for various functions, such as squares and cube roots, was
developed in the late 16th century and found application in gunnery, surveying and navigation.
The planimeter was a manual instrument to calculate the area of a closed figure by tracing over
it with a mechanical linkage.
The slide rule was invented around 1620–1630, shortly after the publication of the concept of
the logarithm. It is a hand-operated analog computer for doing multiplication and division. As
slide rule development progressed, added scales provided reciprocals, squares and square
roots, cubes and cube roots, as well as transcendental functions such as logarithms and
exponentials, circular and hyperbolic trigonometry and other functions. Slide rules with special
scales are still used for quick performance of routine calculations, such as the E6B circular slide
rule used for time and distance calculations on light aircraft.
In the 1770s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, a Swiss watchmaker, built a mechanical doll (automaton) that
could write holding a quill pen. By switching the number and order of its internal wheels different
letters, and hence different messages, could be produced. In effect, it could be mechanically
"programmed" to read instructions. Along with two other complex machines, the doll is at the
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and still [Link] 1831–1835,
mathematician and engineer Giovanni Plana devised a Perpetual Calendar machine, which,
though a system of pulleys and cylinders and over, could predict the perpetual calendar for
every year from AD 0 (that is, 1 BC) to AD 4000, keeping track of leap years and varying day
length. The tide-predicting machine invented by Sir William Thomson in 1872 was of great utility
to navigation in shallow waters. It used a system of pulleys and wires to automatically calculate
predicted tide levels for a set period at a particular location.
The differential analyser, a mechanical analog computer designed to solve differential equations
by integration, used wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. In 1876, Lord Kelvin
had already discussed the possible construction of such calculators, but he had been stymied
by the limited output torque of the ball-and-disk integrators. In a differential analyzer, the output
of one integrator drove the input of the next integrator, or a graphing output. The torque
amplifier was the advance that allowed these machines to work. Starting in the 1920s, Vannevar
Bush and others developed mechanical differential analyzers.