Computers In Society :: essays research papers

Computers in SocietyMy report is on the development of the computing machine for personal use by home consumers and their impact on society. Computers were world developed as early as the 1800s and were much of a machine than a computer. The number one digital computer that worked electronically was make by Clifford Berry and Dr. John V. Atanasoff in the late 30s and early 40s. The first computer as we know it was intentional by Howard Aiken and built by IBM in 1944. This first computer was called the interbreeding I and was eight feet high and over fifty five feet long. It was do of steel and glass and was very unreliable and extremely noisy. The beginning of the commercial computer age was in June of 1951. This was when the UNIVAC (universal automatic computer) was delivered to a client. The client was the U.S. vanity of the census and was to be apply for calculating the previous years census. This was the first time that a computer had been built for a business industr y rather than for the use of the military or for scientific or engine room use. These first computers came to be known as the first generation computers and utilize vacuum tubes, which were electronic tubes about the size of light bulbs as the intrinsic computer components. However, due to the fact that literally thousands of these tubes were required, they generated enormous amounts of heat that caused some(prenominal) problems in the temperature regulation and climate control inside these computers. In supplement all(prenominal) tube had to be working simultaneously in coif for the computer to function and due to the short tube life (one failed every couple of hours) the computer operators didnt know if the problem was due to a programming error or the machine itself. These first generation computers in any case used a language called machine language that used verse instead of todays languages that are more like English. In 1948 three Bell lab engineers John Bardeen, Wal ter Brattain, and William Shockley, developed the transistor, which was a small device that transfers electric signals crossways a resistor. The transistor would replace the vacuum tube that was being used in computers. The engineers later received the Nobel Prize for their invention. The transistor revolutionized the computer industry, because they were much smaller than vacuum tubes and had numerous advantages as well. They didnt require any warm up time, they consumed less energy, were faster, and more reliable.