LEARNINGS OF THE WEEK
(by: CIELITO M. CANTERO IV - RIZAL )
In this week, I learned a lot of things about the computer and its history. The history of computer which includes the Pre – Mechanical Age, Mechanical Age, Electromechanical Age and Electronic Age. I also understand about the generations of computer from the first generation of computer up to the second generation of computer.
THE PRE - MECHANICAL AGE (3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D.)
The first humans just communicate through speaking and simple drawings called the petroglyths (signs or simple figures carved in rock) and in this period, the early humans knew how to write and use alphabet as means of communication. This period also uses pictographs or pictures or sketches that visually resemble that which is depicted, geometric signs (dots, squares, etc) with no apparent depicted object and ideographs (symbols to represent ideas or concepts). The computing began when our ancient ancestors devised the first, rudimentary counting methods. Yet, many people think computers are 20th century inventions. First development of signs corresponding to spoken sounds, instead of pictures, to express words.
The Sumerians in Mesopotamia developed the cuneiform that was the first true written language and the first real information system. The cuneiform evolved as a clay tablet and then Phoenicians created symbols that expressed single syllables and constants (the first true alphabet) and the Greeks later adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added vowels.
The Early humans also developed in this period the paper and pens. The Sumerians that use stylus that could scratch marks in wet clay, the Egyptians wrote on the papyrus plant in 2600 B.C. and the Chinese made paper from rags, on which modern-day paper-making is based.
The Early humans also developed books as a permanent storage device like the Egyptians that used scrolls and the Greeks that began to fold sheets of papyrus vertically into leaves and bind them together.
Aside from they already knew and developed about the alphabet and books, they also knew how to count by the use of the First Numbering System. The first numbering system 1 – 9 was developed by the Hindus in India similar in those used today and the Egyptians who developed their own numbering system that represented by symbols like the numbers 1-9 as vertical lines, the number 10 as a U or circle, the number 100 as a coiled rope and the number 1000 as a louts blossom and they also created the concept of zero.
Even if the Early humans knew how to count, it’s hard for them to add very very large numbers manually and that lead to the discovery of the first calculator or the man’s first recorded adding machine, the abacus that was invented in Babaylonia in 500 B.C and then popularized in China.
THE MECHANICAL PERIOD (1450 - 1840)
This period is the first information explosion because of the invention of Johann Gutenberg from Mainz, Germany which was the movable metal-type printing process in 1450 that lead to the printing of the first book which was a Latin language Bible or the Gutenberg’s Bible. This period also developed the book indexes and the widespread use of page numbers.
In this period, John Napier was widely known because he introduce logarithms and invented the logs which allows multiplication and division to be reduced to addition and subtraction and the four – sided rods for multiplying and dividing large numbers and find square and cube roots. Many of locals said that believed him to be in league with the Devil because of his intelligence.
Wilhelm Shickard, also appeared in this period and invented he first mechanical calculator that can work with six digits and carries digits across columns.
William Oughtred, also known in this period because he invented the slide rule that was an erarly example of an analog computer.
Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline that was a mechanical calculation machine that can solve basic mathematical problems.
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was also known in this period because of his invention a machine called the stepped reckoner that could multiply 5 digit and 12 digit numbers yielding up to 16 digit numbers.
Joseph Marie Jacquard's automatic loom and Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar’s arithmometer became the first mass-produced calculator.
Charles Babbage “The Father of Computers” invented the thinking machines which were the analytical engine and difference engine. Because of his depression caused by the death of his wife and some of his children, Babbage did not continue to make the thinking machines. His youngest child was the one who made it.
Ada Augusta Lovelace was the first computer programmer and the programming language Ada is named in her honor.
THE ELECTROMECHANICAL AGE (1840 - 1940)
In the electromechanical period, the discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.
In this period, the telecommunication started like the voltaic battery, telegraph, telephone and radio. The first electric battery, known as the Voltaire pile was invented 8th century by Alessandro Volta. The telegraph that was invented by Samuel F.J. Morse conceived of his version of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832 and constructed an experiment version in 1815. The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell. The radio that was invented by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894 that electrical waves travel through space and can produce an effect far from the point at which they originated.
The electromechanical computing that start from the Tabulating Machine, comptometer, comptograph and punched cards. Pehr and Advard Scheutz complete their tabulating Machine, capable of processing fifteen-digit numbers, printing out results and rounding off to eight digits. Dorr Felt who invented the comptometer(1885) a key driven adding and subtracting calculator and comptograph(1889) containing built-in printer. The punched cards that were invented by Herman Hollerith that provided computer programmers with a new way to put information into their machine.
Herman Hollerith was the father of information processing and found the Tabulating machine Company which later became the Computer Tabulating Recording Company which went to become the International Business Machines Corporation known today as IBM.
In 1893, the Millionaire was invented by Otto Shweiger and the vacuum tube in 1906 which provide electricity controlled switch.
THE ELECTRONIC AGE (1941 - PRESENT)
In this age, the Z3 was invented by Konrad Zuse which was the first programmable computer. The first stored program computer tha Mark 1 by Howard Aiken. The ABC that is first all-electric computer by John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry and was the the first computer to use electricity in the form of vacuum tubes to make electric computation possible.
THE SECOND GENERATION OF COMPUTER
This generation used transistors as a main logic element that replaces the vacuum tube. Crystalline minerals materials called semiconductors could be used in the design of a device called a transistor. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal storage technology.
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