Anna Posyniak‑Dutka Digital History

Can abacusabacusabacus or the early mechanical counting machines be called the first computers? It depends how you define a computer and hencehencehence the opinions about it are divided. Before we dive into the history of the most useful, as some say, invention in the history of mankind, let’s try to define what is and what isn’t a computer. The term computer comes from the Latin word computare, which means to calculate. Modern era computers are described as electronic deviceselectronic devices [electronic device]electronic devices which can be programmed to accept inputs of raw dataaccept inputs of raw dataaccept inputs of raw data, process it according to the built‑in instructionsbuilt‑in instructions [built‑in instruction]built‑in instructions, and produce certain outputproduce certain outputproduce certain output. They also have memory to store the results ofstore the results of [store the result of]store the results of the operations for future use.

Charles Babbage is commonly considered to be the father of the computer. This English mathematician, philosopher, and engineer, born in 1791, first came up with the ideacame up with the idea [come up with an idea]came up with the idea of a calculating enginecalculating enginecalculating engine and laid outlaid out [lay out]laid out the mathematical and mechanical principlesprinciples [principle]principles which subsequently led to the creation of more and more complex computing machines. That was back in the mid‑nineteenth century.

Around the same time, in 1854 to be precise, another prominent figureprominent figureprominent figure made an appearancemade an appearance [make an appearance]made an appearance on the computer science stage. George Boole was a self‑taughtself‑taughtself‑taught English mathematician and logician to whom we owe the foundations of the modern information age. What we call Boolean logic is a theory according to which everything can be represented by allocating a value of either 1 or 0 to bits, that is basic units of informationbasic units of information [basic unit of information]basic units of information. That's the binary number systembinary number systembinary number system which constitutes the basis of all computer science.

Fast forward to the mid‑twentieth century (although in the meantime there were many interesting and important inventions which definitely contributed tocontributed to [contribute to]contributed to the development of the science behind modern machines), First Generation Computers started to take uptake uptake up a lot of space in people’s lives. Literally. They were huge, ran on vacuum tubesran on vacuum tubes [run on vacuum tubes]ran on vacuum tubes, and generated large amounts of heat. Transporting them anywhere was not an option and they had extremely limited programming capabilities. They used punch cardspunch cards [punch card]punch cards by means of which data was entered into those early computers. A card reader interpreted a sequence of holes in a card and converted it intoconverted it into [convert something into something]converted it into digital information. It was costly, not very time‑efficient, and unreliable, so scientists spared no effort tospared no effort to [spare no effort to]spared no effort to further develop computer technology.

Transistorstransistors [transistor]Transistors started to replace the earlier solutions. From then on, everything started to become smaller, faster, and, however surprisingly it may sound, cheaper. Each subsequent generation of machines was also more energy‑efficient than its predecessor. The invention of semiconductorssemiconductors [semiconductor]semiconductors and integrated circuitsintegrated circuits [integrated circuit]integrated circuits was the breakthroughbreakthroughbreakthrough that caused unprecedented acceleration ofunprecedented acceleration ofunprecedented acceleration of the development of computers. In 1965, Gordon Moore, an engineer, made a very significant statement. He predicted that computing power would double every two years while the cost of it would drop by half in the same period of time. It turned out to be a very accurate forecast for decades and is nowadays referred to as Moore’s law. Although chip densitychip densitychip density is no longer doubling every two years, it’s not true to say that the law is obsoleteobsoleteobsolete. The pace of growthpace of growthpace of growth is just slower.

The size and capacitycapacitycapacity of the devices we use nowadays, as well as their proliferationproliferationproliferation to every sphere of our lives, is a result of the semiconductor revolution. Although digitalisationdigitalisationdigitalisation of many services is far from complete in many parts of the world, people ask these days what the future holds. Are we going to transfer into virtual reality? Will quantum computersquantum computers [quantum computer]quantum computers replace our current devices? Or perhaps there are solutions we cannot conceive ofconceive ofconceive of yet?

1 Źródło: Anna Posyniak‑Dutka, licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.