History Of Evolution Of The Modern Computers

There are some aspects you just can’t live without. These include food, water, air and many more. One the most commonly used and important is the computer which most people don’t acknowledge. They are everywhere mobile phones, fridges, washing machines, cars and practically all around us. The first computers were made to decrease human error because most people struggled doing mathematic problems. The machine had some very important and genius minds behind the invention and evolution of what is called now the computer.

The first mechanical computer was introduced in 1822 and was made by an English mathematician named Charles Babbage. The reason that he came up with this idea was because he wanted to remove human error. The machine that he made was a designed to calculate math’s. His machines used number from 0-9 which is based 10. The machines that he invented were called the Difference Engine, Difference Engine 2 and the Analytical Engine. Babbage had a circle of friends which were very high profile people, this led him be on the British governments radar. Babbage was trying to present his idea to people who would be interested and would buy it.

The British Government was interested in the idea, so Babbage got 17,000 pounds from the government as funding to finish his project. One thing that not many people know is that Charles Babbage had Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). This is when a person’s mind wants everything to be perfect, it made him keep on changing the device’s design which caused him to run out of money. The government had already given him which was considered to be a great sum of money back in the day, so they did not support him anymore.Next is the most important and contributing women towards the making of the computer, Ada Lovelace. She was mostly recognised for her work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical engine. She had recognised the machines potential and published an algorithm (a set of instructions to solve problems) to be used by such a machine. Due to this Babbage was able to finish the invention of his machine. Lady Ada was known to be one of the first computer programmers.

There were no major changes in the world of computers up until around 110 years after Charles Babbage and Lady Ada’s contribution. It was a German civil engineer, Konrad Zuse, used binary which is base 2 because he used switches that turn on/off and it was very simple to use. Using this he gave us the first entirely automatic programmable computer the Z3, which became operational in 1941. The Nazi’s in world war 2 didn’t see the importance of this computer and did not trust it. If this did not happen the world would not be the same to what it is now.

Then came an English mathematician Alan Turing who saw that the computer was capable of doing much more than maths. He was a code breaker for the British army. Turin came up with and designed a machine which he called the Universal Machine that could solve extremely difficult codes and equations however he could not make his ideas come to life.

A post office engineer Tommy Flowers who was presented with Alan Turing’s idea. He was the one who figured out how to build the universal machine. Flower’s presented the building plans to the government but they did not want to fund the project because they thought that it couldn’t be built by the time the war ended. Flower’s did not care though and still decided to build it by using 1000 pounds of his own money which was a massive amount at that time. He finished the project in 10 months instead of the estimated 12, This machines name was the Colossus. The British government was very impressed with his creation so they straight away 10 of them. This machine could break the hardest of codes within days or hours when before it took months. The Universal Machine

Computers have always had switches. It went from mechanical switches to valves and then transistors, these are used to power the computer. This is the reason that the colossus was massive it had 2000 switches which took up a whole room. This problem had to be solved to do this the silicon chip was invented in 1958. This chip was revolutionary it could store over 100 million switches which is equal to 50 thousand Colossus. This enabled the computer to become a common household product.

Around 40 years after the war had ended an American company named Xerox Gave the world GUI, mouse, email, keyboard and many more things that we use on a daily basis. As you can see for the computer to come to the stage which it is at took a lot of work and a massive amount of time. It can solve the world’s greatest mathematical problems at extreme speeds. The computer has come to this point with the help of some great minds of which some have been mentioned. It is hard to imagine that something that was only a device of dreams has come this far, and is still evolving. The computer is and will remain one of the most revolutionary inventions ever.