The history of computers

The literal meaning of computer is a machine which can compute or calculate.
Simple arithmetic lead to calculations. The history talks about the various
calculating techniques human beings used from the time immemorial. In olden
times techniques to count their cattle were used by early human beings. Later,
this developed, when it was found that immensely great numbers were difficult
to calculate. Starting with the stones and pebbles to the abacus, which had
coloured beads, were used for calculations, some 5000 years back. Later with
new inventions electronic calculators came in to existence with the efforts
of a scientist called Pascal. This machine was capable of doing multiplication,
division, and the evaluation of square roots apart from simple addition and
subtractions, by a series of stepped additions, not unlike the methods used
in modern digital. Then came the electronic digital computers and the first
such product was called 'Eniac' and it is said to be built somewhere in Pennsylvania
in the mid 20th century.

Then came the microprocessors and with its advent companies like Apple, MS,
Compaq, etc came into being. They started manufacturing microprocessors and
microcomputers of their own. Within a decade, a term hard disk was being used
for the disks which were fixed and along with it other computer hardware were
also invented. Simultaneously floppy disks were also invented with which data
could be easily transferred from one PC to the other. After this the first
home PC was brought out by IBM in the early 80's. From then on continuous progress
have been made by the companies in terms of bringing out more compact and neat
products which are more user friendly.

A hard disk can have varied capacity and is counted in gigabytes. It contains
the central processing unit (CPU) which is the brain of the computer. The hard
disk stores data in the form of files and their capacity is counted in bytes.
If a program running on the computer asks for a file, the hard disk finds out
its bytes and sends them to the CPU one at a time.

All this time software's were also being developed side by side to hardware.
Innumerable software programs have been developed till date to make computations
easier and user friendly. You name a job and lo and behold! a program can be
written to simplify it. With these programs the cost of labour and time have
come down considerably. If a computer programmer is appointed, he can bring
down the cost of labour and time to many folds.

Initially, PC's were limited to commercial uses but now we can find computers
at home for entertainment, in schools for education and at various public places
for assistance.

Telecommunications advancements such as the internet have shown themselves
to be useful both in education and business. While the developments in PC's
were going on, some telecommunication experts were busy developing the internet
and when these two joined hands the valuable internet of today found its place
in the information sector. This was essential for sharing the various scientific
developments going on in the world. It finds a great potential value in the
information technology network across the world. This network is so vast that
in today's world almost all the countries are linked and working together for
the progress and development of various fields of studies.

With the e-mails becoming very easy to use the non-technical people also started
using this electronic media instead of postal service for easier and faster
sharing of information. Now one can find almost everybody from the technical
to the non technical to the house wives and the children easily using the net
for their individual interests. In today's world, internet, e-mails, Internet
Service Providers (ISP's), world wide webs, etc are very common terms.

Internet contains vast data and information and hence people turn to this
instead of books and encyclopedias for their knowledge quench. Instead of visiting
the libraries people have started flocking the cyber cafe where they find easy
access at lower prices. Schools and universities have opened up libraries with
internet connections so that students can find out ebooks for reference.

Now the major work is to continuously go on increasing the speed of the connections.
Earlier only dial up modems were used which were later found to be slow with
the advent of cable modems, broad band and the DSL connections. Local networks
have also progressed and hence the speed has become an issue for continuous
development.

Within half a century from Eniac to the present day we have done a lot and
come a long way. Almost 85 percent of American homes have at least one PC and
most homes have a PC entirely for PC games, audio-videos or surfing the net.