Category: Computer History
The Origins of Computing
The past and future history of the internet
HE INTERNET HAS REVOLUTIONIZED THE COMPUTER AND COMMUNICATIONS world like nothing before. The telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer have all set the stage for the Internet’s unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a worldwide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their…
The history of Computing in the History of Technology
After surveying the current state of the literature in the history of computing, this paper discusses some of the major issues addressed by recent work in the history of technology. It suggests aspects of the development of computing which are pertinent to those issues and hence for which that recent work could provide models of…
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Introduction to Computers and Generations of Computers
Characteristics of Computers The characteristics which make the computer make indispensable are 1. Speed The computer is able to process the data and gives the output in fractions of seconds, such that required information is given to the user on time enabling the user to take right decisions on the right time. A powerful computer…
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History of the Computer
The word ‘computer’ is an old word that has changed its meaning several times in the last few centuries. Originating from the Latin, by the mid-17th century it meant ‘someone who computes’. The American Heritage Dictionary (1980) gives its first computer definition as “a person who computes.” The computer remained associated with the human activity…
History of Computers
Tejas: Many such algorithms were developed around the world by early mathematicians like Panini, Euclid, Leibniz and others. Jyoti: Yes. By the middle of 16th-century explorations of various continents and trading brought in the requirements of precise calculations of sea routes, accounting, etc. Some mechanical devices were also developed to assist in tedious and repetitive…
History of Computers and the Internet
What would the world be like if the British had lost to Napoleon in the battle of Waterloo, or if the Japanese had won World War II? In The Difference Engine, authors William Gibson and Bruce Sterling ask a similar question: What would have happened if nineteenth-century inventor Charles Babbage had succeeded in creating the…