What is a computer?
A computer is an electronic device which operates under the control of instructions stored in its own memory. It can accept and process data according to specified rules and later produce /store results for future use. A computer consists of input devices, output devices, a system unit, storage devices and communication devices.
The first computer that was ever made was called the von Neumann Machine. This computer served as the prototype for subsequent stored program computers worldwide. The
IAS machine was the first electronic computer built by the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. It is sometimes called the von Neuman machine, since the paper describing its design was edited by John von Neumann, a mathematics professor at both Princeton University and IAS. The computer was built from late 1945 until 1951 under his direction.
In 1946, EINAC aka Electronic Numerical Intergrator And Computer was born. It is the first large scale electronic, general-purpose digital computer. IT occupied 1,800 square feet and used 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs about 30 tons. Computers at that time used vacuum tubes as their electronic elements in the 50s but was quickly replaced by transistor-based machines in the 60s. Transistors compared to vacuums are smaller, cheaper, faster, required less power and were more reliable. The transistor was invented by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.
Later in 1951, the first commercial computer UNIVAC was born and it id introduced by Remington Rand. This is the first computer that was able to pick the presendtial candidate who happened to be President D. Eisenhower. It then quickly gained publicity because of that.
Later, IBM came up with a computer. The IBM model 650 was the most widely used computer in the 50s. In 1957, IBM is the first computer to yse magnetic dick for external storage. The computer provides storage capacity similar to magnetic tape that previously was used but offers that advantage to semi-random access capability.
In 1968, the floppy disk was produced. It is an 8 inch floppy disk and Alan Shugart demonstrated the uses of this floppy disk. As the time passed, the size of the floppy disk changed and eventually it became thumbdrive which is small and reliable.
ARPANET network, the predecessor of the Internet is established in 1969.
From 1975-1980, LAN was developed, the first public online information services are founded, a microprogrammable chip and harddisk was made. There came the first computer virus in 1981 spread via floppy disks. And a short rhyme would appear on the computer screen.
In 1989, The world wide web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. It then released stadards that describe a framework for linking documents on different computers in 1991. The microprocessor chips had more transistors as well.
Windows released their operating system starting from Windows 3.1 (1992) and progressed till today's Windows 7. There are other operating systems such as Linux.
On the Internet side, Yahoo!, Amazon started to pop out in 1994. Others browsers came along such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla and Safari later on. Social networking became more popular throughout the years such as Friendster, Myspace and Facebook. These are the 3 most happening social networking sites though Facebook is the most happening one nowadays.
Slowly, came the tablet PCs instead of desktops. Desktops are heavy and immobile so there was the invention of laptops and other portable computers. The PSP, PalmPilot and smartphones were the technologies that came along after the desktops. Smartphones nowadays acts as a mini computer where you can use it to store information and go online.
