Life story of Computers.. Part 1

Okay, I'm finally ready to blog about this dense and dull book.

So, society has come a really long way from our first ever calculator, the abacus, to my 1 inch thick MacBook Pro that I am using right now and for almost everything!

The first part of the book explains society's need to find a way to count and to make calculations. Obviously, counting with our fingers and toes are not enough to make huge calculations like the orbiting of the planets, universe, and so on. So even before the existence of computers, it all began with the invention of calculating systems. Scientists now know that humankind have created early forms of 'computers' - for example, there are bone carvings of prime numbers. The next step was the invention of abacus, a calculation system using moveable beads and rocks. I've actually used an abacus before because my grandmother still uses it. She's still so stuck in her generation that she's more comfortable using an abacus to calculate things than using an solar powered calculator. It's very interesting that an apparatus using beads to make calculations eventually sparked an idea of the inventions of computers.

Then in the 19th century,  a really smart English dude named Charles Babbage started thinking about the high error rate in calculations in math tables. So.. by removing the human error factor, he created the two greatest inventions that he called, the Babbage Difference Engine and Analytical Engine (genius). Babbage proposed a machine that was able to calculate polynomials by using numerical method called the differences method. This machine not only calculated numbers but it also was capable of printing mathematical tables. Like any other great inventions, there were definite trial and errors. During the physical building process of the Difference Engine, Babbage thought up another invention which would be capable of major logical components and techniques for the modern electronic computer (Ferro 17). However this was never invented and only stayed as a proposal - this would later be considered the first realizable design for a general-purpose computer (Ferro 17).

The first fully electronic computer is born! During WW2, the army needed a technology that would calculate artillery-firing tables and the settings used for different weapons under varied conditions for target accuracy. So, John Mauchly and John Presper Eckert developed the Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) computer. Completed in 1945, the ENIAC consisted of 49ft high cabinets, almost 18,000 vacuum tubes and many miles of wiring and weighed 30 tons (Ferro 39). This amazing technology was able to solve a ballistic trajectory calculation in 30 seconds while it would take a human mathematician 20 hrs to solve!