Computing in the early phases — P1
The Evolution of Information Technology (IT)
It can be impossible for us to envision modern tech while we live in a Westernized computing society. In the last few decades, it has been witnessed that there was an escalation of high-tech devices such as computers, mobile phones, short message service (SMS), Internet, and World Wide Web (WWW).
Software programs are vitally important, and that importance just keeps growing over time for business development, maintenance, and publication purposes that are used and suited for various business models in all industrial sectors such as hospitality, automobile, mass media, telecommunication, and other professional services. As a result of all emerging developments, the scale of transformation has been tremendous.
Today, the facility of Information Technology (IT) in providing World Wide Web services has influenced different parts of the world to expand their development leading to increased globalization services and we consumers being part are provided with extreme convenience such as in booking flight tickets over the web to communicate and work over different culture, etc.
In the far past generations, communication took place by sending and receiving letters, which took a frequent time to reach out a particular. In the 19th century, communication improved with telegrams and telephones, and now communication has rapidly improved in terms of vast services like quick send and receives through text messaging e.g: SMS even written emails on high-tech portable devices such as on our personal computers or handy mobile devices, tabs or even your smartwatch, and these things have probably viewed very different from old-fashioned generations from parents to grandparents.
The contributions of early civilizations to computing
The Babylonians
The Babylonian civilizations flourished in Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) from about 2000 B.C. until about 300 B.C. Various clay cuneiform tablets containing mathematical materials including tables for multiplication, division, squares, cubes, square root, and other measurements related to calculation of length and area were discovered. These mathematical took forms to solve linear and one root of quadratic equations. The late Babylonian period (c. 300 B.C.) includes work in astronomy. The Babylonians recorded their developed mathematics e.g: Their base 60 number system on soft clay using a wedge-shaped instrument to form an impression of cuneiform numbers, these symbols were then baked in the oven or by the heat of the sun.
The Egyptian Civilizations
The Egyptian Civilizations flourished around the Nile for over 3000 years. They used their mathematical expertise to solve practical problems with practical solutions. A few examples include evaluating the annual Nile flood and participating in the building of temples and pyramids.
The Greeks: Hellenistic
The Greeks and the Hellenistic period made important contributions to Western culture. Contributing to western theory, architecture, politics, logic, geometry, and maths one aspect of this. The Euclidean algorithms are used to find the greatest common divisor of two numbers, while Eratosthenes created an algorithm to find the prime numbers up to a given number.
Archimedes
They formed the “Archimedes screw,” “Archimedes claw,” and a form of heat ray.
The Islamic Civilizations
This civilization helped conserve western technology lost during Europe’s dark years and helped to develop mathematics and algebra. Hindu mathematicians have also published decimal notes which we are now using. The resulting method is known to be Hindu Arabic systems and was adopted by Islamic mathematicians.
Engineers employed on the Apollo program used side rules to do much of their estimates, but in the early 1970s, they were replaced by electronic calculators. Mechanical calculators were also used to execute arithmetic measurements and operations.
Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator in 1642. He designed and built his first prototype computer when he was 19 years old, which was used to carry out the weight of his father’s work. He also built and designed a variety of prototype machines before the launch took place in 1642 which was then named Pascaline which could perform the basic operations such as addition, multiplication, division, and subtraction of two numerals. Pascaline machines were later used in offices. He invented and commercialized 20 of these devices, and 9 of them could still be found in museums in France, Germany, and the United States.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, a German mathematician, and a philosopher invented a mechanical calculator in 1672. It was named to be “Step Reckoner” it was also said to be a powerful pascal machine that could perform all 4 arithmetic operations. The operating mechanism was called “Stepped Cylinder” or called as “Leibniz wheel”. This device was continued to be used in performing calculations for over 200 years. Then, Leibniz also designed to build 2 prototype machines but only one that survives today is found to be the National Library of Lower Saxony in Hannover (Germany).
Further Evolution of Computers
Sand Tables
Civilians used to do rudimentary calculations with their fingers; however, man discovered that it would be simpler to use pebbles than fingers, so pebbles were used to present numerals, which contributed to the invention of sand tables, as seen in the above figure. It takes into account three sand grooves with a maximum of ten pebbles in each groove. A pebble must be applied to the right-hand side of the groove to raise the count by one. They were taken out, and one pebble was placed in the subsequent left groove. Finally, the sand tables were altered and called Abacus.
Napier Bones
In 1614, John Napier, a Scottish mathematician made a more sophisticated computing machine called Napier Bones. This was a remarkable invention as it enabled to perform multiplication and division by converting them to simple addition and subtraction.
Punch Card System
In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard, a French textile weaver, invented a power loom with an automatic card reader. The idea of using punch cards is to communicate with machines was an important step in building computers. The presence or absence of a hole in a punched card represents two digits of binary systems, which is now the base for all digital computers in the modern world.
Difference Engine
In1822, Charles Babbage, a professor of mathematics, derived a calculating machine called difference engine, which could be used to mechanically generate mathematical tables. The difference could be viewed as a huge complex abacus. It was also used to perform mathematical equations as well. Thus, Babbage never made a fully functional difference engine. And in 1833, he quit his job and focused on the analytical engine.
Analytical Engine
Analytical Engine is known to be the 1st general-purpose programmable computer. Babbage’s innovation in the design of the analytical engine has made it possible to test the sign was negative. He also designed this in order to advance or reverse the flow of punch cards to permit branching to any other desired instructions within the program. This was the fundamental difference between the analytical engine and the difference engine. Lady Ada Lovelace helped him with the development of the analytic engine through various contributions as in article writing, as a mathematician, and other programs proposed machine, and so she was known as the “first programmer” However Babbage never brought his analytic engine to completion, but his proposal for this device contained the elements of a modern computer such as input, output, storage, processor and control unit.
Hollerith’s Tabular
Herman Hollerith designed and built the punch-card tabulating machines to process the data collected in the US census. This electronic machine was able to read the information on the cards and process it electronically. This tabular was used to read the presence or absence of holes in the cards by using spring-mounted nails that passed through the holes to make electrical connections and finally Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company which was named IBM (International British Machines).
Added inventions
In the process of the development of automating computers, many computer scientists and engineers have made massive contributions.
- In 1904, Sir John Ambrose Fleming worked to design and develop the 1st thermionic valve which is known as vacuum tubes in other words.
- In 1906, Lee De Frost, an American Inventor introduced the 3rd electrode into the diode (Vacuum Tube) this resulting triode could be used both as an amplifier and a switch created a marvelous impact in digital computing.
- In 1931, Vannevar Bush, an American Electrical Engineer, developed a differential analyser to solve differential equations.
- In 1938, Claude Shannon, a student at MIT, analysed the connection between electronic circuits and Boolean algebra. He also provided the other electronic engineers with the mathematical tools intended to design and implement digital electronic circuits. These methods remain the backbone of today’s digital electronics.
