THE HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER

The first mechanical calculating machine, a forerunner of the digital computer was invented in 1642 by French mathematician Blaise Pascal. One device used a series of wheels on which ten teeth each tooth representing a digit from 0 to 9. The wheels were connected so that they could join making numbers of teeth move the correct number. In 1670 the German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz perfected this and invented a machine that could also multiply.

THE ANALYTICAL ENGINE

Also in the nineteenth century British mathematician and inventor Charles Babbage developed the principles of the modern digital computer. He invented a number of machines, like the difference engine, designed to solve complex mathematical problems. Many historians consider Babbage and his partner, the British mathematician Augusta Ada Byron (1815-1852), daughter of the poet Lord Byron, as the true inventors of the modern digital computer. The technology of the time was not able to move their successful practice concepts, but one of his inventions, the Analytical Engine, and had many of the features of a modern computer. It included a current or inflow package as punch cards, a memory for storing data, a processor for math and a printer for permanent record.

FIRTS COMPUTERS

Analog computers began to be built in the early twentieth century. Early model calculations performed by rotating shafts and gears. With these machines were evaluated numerical approximations of equations as too difficult to be solved by other means. During the two world wars were used analog systems, the first mechanical and then electrical, to predict the path of the torpedoes on submarines and remote operation of pumps in aviation.

ELECTRONIC COMPUTERS

During World War II (1939-1945), a team of scientists and mathematicians working at Bletchley Park, north London, created what is considered the first fully electronic digital computer: the Colossus. By December 1943 the Colossus, 1500 incorporating valves or vacuum tubes, was already operational.

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

In the late 1960 came the integrated circuit (IC), which enabled the production of multiple transistors on a single silicon substrate in which the interconnecting cables were soldiers. The integrated circuit allowed a further reduction in price, size and error rates. The microprocessor has become a reality in the mid-1970, with the introduction of circuit large scale integration (LSI stands for Large Scale Integrated) and, later, with the circuit on a larger scale integration (VLSI, acronym for Very Large Scale Integrated), with several thousand soldiers interconnected transistors on a single silicon substrate.