The modern age is usually considered to have begun with the renaissance (“rebirth”), a time medieval man rediscovered the literature and philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome. For several centuries, European were busy both discovering the rest of the world and investigating the laws of universe. A belief in the rationality of the universe gradually took the place of the purely religious view. Modern science was born at this time with the help such men as Newton and Galileo. What is rational can be controlled, and so people began to believe that the universe could be controlled in order to serve humankind. The Industrial Revolution, the next stage of modern time, was an attempt to control the universe by making use of energy sources other than the labor of men and animals, such as coal and, later, petroleum. It began with watt’s invention of the steam engine in the latter part of eighteenth century.
The next revolution, and the one were are concerned with here, was an attempt to do for intellectual labor what the Industrial Revolution did for physical labor. The modern computer uses an energy source outside the human brain to perform a much larger amount of intellectual labor than the brain could do unassisted.
The earliest form of computer was the abacus, used in oriental countries for thousands of year. It is more what we would call a calculator than a computer, it did not make use of any energy source beyond human fingers and human brain. It is essentially a system of beads strung on a set rods to enable the user to keep track of the number while doing the basic arithmetic operation of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The interest in science that was sweeping Europe in the seventeenth century. Gave rise to an interest in mathematics and to a need for being able to do numerous kinds of calculation. The famous philosopher/ mathematicians Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) both devised somewhat primitive calculating devices as did a lesser known professor of astronomy named William Schickard (1592-1635).
The real advance towards the computer, however, came in nineteenth century. Of particular interest to us were Charles Babages’s invention of the Analytical Engine, George Boole’e development of Symbolic logic (or Boolean algebra), and the use of the punched card in the United States Census of 1890.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an Englishman who was one of the most respected mathematicians of his time. His interest in calculating devices was stimulated by his irritation and boredom at the amount of arithmetic that mathematicians had to perform in the course of working out problem. His fist attempt at automating such calculations was a difference Engine designed to deal with the calculations involved with a specific type of algebraic problem. After a great deal time and effort, a working model of this difference Engine was constructed. It was essentially a very specialized calculator that suffered from a number of practical problem.
However, Babbage’s real contribution was his idea for Analytical Engine, a device that he has unable to finish constructing. Babbage was inspired by an invention in the textile industry known as the jacquard loom, in which holes in them determined the pattern of the cloth. He conceived of this Analytical Engine as consisting of two parts: (1) a set of cards on the which the mathematical operations are stored, and (2) a set of cards on which the numbers to be operated on are stored. It was a revolutionary concepts and a long step towards to modern computer.
Two other events in the nineteenth century are worth noting: the first is George Boole’s symbolic logic. This new mathematical methodology would later make programming a computer both easier and more affective. The second event of importance was the development by Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) of the punched card for use in sorting out of data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Although the punched card is now becoming obsolete, it was of critical importance in the development of computer.
The early part of twentieth century was saw the development of the mechanical calculator, now also almost obsolete. Other developments occurred as well, but we shall skip over them to the development of a device called ENIAC during World War II. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) combined Babbage’s concepts with the use of vacuum tube, a device unknown in Babbage’s time. ENIAC made use of about 18,000 vacuum tubes and 1500 relays and was capable of solving complex problems in ballistics. It could perform a single addition or subtraction in 1/5000 of a second. (This was amazing at the time but extremely slow by modern standards.)
Further developments from this point were greatly influenced by truly remarkable genius, John Von Neumann (1903-1957), who was born in Budapest, Hungary. Von Neumann developed the theory of Games in the years between World War I and World War II. His facility with mathematics and languages was legendary. When he was six, he joked with his father in ancient Greek. Once in less than ten minutes, he mentally solved a series of problems that a colleague had stayed up until 4:30 the previous morning to complete using pencil and paper.
In working on the development of ENIC’s successor, EDVAC, Von Neumann perfected the idea of the stored program, which was basic to the future evolution of the computer. A program-the sequence of arithmetic and logical operations that the computer was to perform-was not built the circuitry of the computer but was fed into it from the outside and stored within the computer. When a particular program was completed, a new one could be started and the old discarded. (Actually the new one is simply read in over the old one, which is destroyed in the process.) Subsequent technological developments have replaced vacuum tubes by transistors and then by printed circuits and microchips. Thus the size of the modern computers has been greatly reduced arid the speed greatly increased from the ones Von Neumann developed, but his basic concept of the stored program underlies all of them.
The next revolution, and the one were are concerned with here, was an attempt to do for intellectual labor what the Industrial Revolution did for physical labor. The modern computer uses an energy source outside the human brain to perform a much larger amount of intellectual labor than the brain could do unassisted.
The earliest form of computer was the abacus, used in oriental countries for thousands of year. It is more what we would call a calculator than a computer, it did not make use of any energy source beyond human fingers and human brain. It is essentially a system of beads strung on a set rods to enable the user to keep track of the number while doing the basic arithmetic operation of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The interest in science that was sweeping Europe in the seventeenth century. Gave rise to an interest in mathematics and to a need for being able to do numerous kinds of calculation. The famous philosopher/ mathematicians Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and Gottfried Leibnitz (1646-1716) both devised somewhat primitive calculating devices as did a lesser known professor of astronomy named William Schickard (1592-1635).
The real advance towards the computer, however, came in nineteenth century. Of particular interest to us were Charles Babages’s invention of the Analytical Engine, George Boole’e development of Symbolic logic (or Boolean algebra), and the use of the punched card in the United States Census of 1890.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was an Englishman who was one of the most respected mathematicians of his time. His interest in calculating devices was stimulated by his irritation and boredom at the amount of arithmetic that mathematicians had to perform in the course of working out problem. His fist attempt at automating such calculations was a difference Engine designed to deal with the calculations involved with a specific type of algebraic problem. After a great deal time and effort, a working model of this difference Engine was constructed. It was essentially a very specialized calculator that suffered from a number of practical problem.
However, Babbage’s real contribution was his idea for Analytical Engine, a device that he has unable to finish constructing. Babbage was inspired by an invention in the textile industry known as the jacquard loom, in which holes in them determined the pattern of the cloth. He conceived of this Analytical Engine as consisting of two parts: (1) a set of cards on the which the mathematical operations are stored, and (2) a set of cards on which the numbers to be operated on are stored. It was a revolutionary concepts and a long step towards to modern computer.
Two other events in the nineteenth century are worth noting: the first is George Boole’s symbolic logic. This new mathematical methodology would later make programming a computer both easier and more affective. The second event of importance was the development by Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) of the punched card for use in sorting out of data for the 1890 U.S. Census. Although the punched card is now becoming obsolete, it was of critical importance in the development of computer.
The early part of twentieth century was saw the development of the mechanical calculator, now also almost obsolete. Other developments occurred as well, but we shall skip over them to the development of a device called ENIAC during World War II. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) combined Babbage’s concepts with the use of vacuum tube, a device unknown in Babbage’s time. ENIAC made use of about 18,000 vacuum tubes and 1500 relays and was capable of solving complex problems in ballistics. It could perform a single addition or subtraction in 1/5000 of a second. (This was amazing at the time but extremely slow by modern standards.)
Further developments from this point were greatly influenced by truly remarkable genius, John Von Neumann (1903-1957), who was born in Budapest, Hungary. Von Neumann developed the theory of Games in the years between World War I and World War II. His facility with mathematics and languages was legendary. When he was six, he joked with his father in ancient Greek. Once in less than ten minutes, he mentally solved a series of problems that a colleague had stayed up until 4:30 the previous morning to complete using pencil and paper.
In working on the development of ENIC’s successor, EDVAC, Von Neumann perfected the idea of the stored program, which was basic to the future evolution of the computer. A program-the sequence of arithmetic and logical operations that the computer was to perform-was not built the circuitry of the computer but was fed into it from the outside and stored within the computer. When a particular program was completed, a new one could be started and the old discarded. (Actually the new one is simply read in over the old one, which is destroyed in the process.) Subsequent technological developments have replaced vacuum tubes by transistors and then by printed circuits and microchips. Thus the size of the modern computers has been greatly reduced arid the speed greatly increased from the ones Von Neumann developed, but his basic concept of the stored program underlies all of them.
Source: Reading for A Reason, 1989 p. 167-9
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