Computers: History and Development - Research Paper Example

?Computers: Introduction: The modern times are driven by digital dominance. This dominance comes in form of various digital devices. Computer is one of them that is ubiquitously present all around. It is part of almost every digital device that we possess. In some it is used in direct method, in others computer provides support in indirect method. The advancements that have taken place in recent three to four decades can be attributed to the computers directly. They are part of our houses, offices, leisure, sports grounds, roads, airways. In short in present day we can hardly find a corner that is void of computer and its excellences. They have truly provided us with a lot of comfort and things that were subject to completion in days and weeks are matter of hours and minutes now. History: The history of computers in modern times can be stretched back to middle of 20th century when Von Neumann introduced an architecture that would hold good for many decades to come(Lewis and Dale), 125). Even today we see it implemented in its original form with slight advancements and modifications. The medieval times history that can be stretched towards existence of computer comes in form of Abacus that was more used for business purposes. Abacus was a manual and non digital form of computer used for computation purposes in businesses and other accounting methods. This was followed by the use of calculators, which at first were limited to primary functions and later on adopted scientific methods for counting and calculations. It was only in the 20th century that computer took form of digital device. The progress in world of computer became more rapid with the advent of internet. It was not so long ago when internet gave world of computer a new dimension and enabled getting connected with other people from different parts of the world. With this a total revolution can into being and soon it crept in to offices, enterprises, institutes, governmental departments, individuals. It became an integral part of people’s life and today in the progressive states of the world it is part of every one’s life in one way or other. Internet came to surface in the 90s decade of the last century and in no time it has everything under its control and soon all forms of communications were subject to its working. This further took a new dimension when the web 2.0 was introduced with offers like social networking sites, blogs, and other similar features which made it more interesting and hard to resist and avoid. The intensity of the usage and its presence in our daily life can be imagined by the fact that just a single website has as many as eighty million members on it. With time the progress made by computers was so enormous that they crept into different disciplines of life and today they are part of every mobile phone, every television set, every refrigerator and every screen that is out on the road and in the sports gymnasiums. Mid 80s: While the first twenty years were slow in progress with regard to computer’s development. The dominant force in those times was I.B.M and computers were quite large in size. The changes came in, in time when the black and white and colorless scheme was replaced by the colored screens. The command line interface (C.L.I) was replaced by Graphic User Interface (G.U.I) and it brought more interest in to it(Kumar, 51). Apple Computer Inc. (now Apple Inc) was the pioneer in this regard and introduced resulted in more interest attraction from the customers (O'Grady, 32). The next step in the overall journey was the reduction of sizes of computers. While at first the computers were not able to be handled by single user and mainframe computers were quite common which were only limited to organizational usage, they were soon replaced by the personal computers which resulted in one computer per home and one computer per room. However even this was to change and the change came in form of the monitors and display screens. The cathode ray tubes (C.R.T) were replaced by L.C.D (Liquid Crystal Displays) which were brighter in color, more options and most importantly were less space consuming. With time the transistors were being replaced integrated circuits and each I.C containing loads of transistors in them. With this even the technology changed and in modern day the Nano technology drive is another advancement that has taken place in computer world. With the sizes as small as 32 and 16 Nano meter small devices running the processors. The advancing trend came into the computer world in form of the micro controllers that were introduced later. While earlier computers were limited to the micro processors, the modern day computers and other digital devices became equipped with the microcontrollers as a result of which the overall technology became more flexible and applicable in almost every digital device. Modern day computers: The current status of computers is the best the world has seen. Running at technologies and speeds that were only imaginable in past and providing storage space and other functionalities that were only limited to imagination. For example the case of RAM ( Random Access Memory), a vital part of the computer body, at one time Bill Gates the man behind geniuses of many computer world inventions and organization, predicted that a mere few hundred kilobytes of storage capacity by RAM would be sufficient enough. It did not take long for the technology itself to prove the man wrong and in less than two decades time the RAM alone has seen advancements in to gigabytes of storage. This in addition to the terabytes of storage spaces that is being offered by the secondary storage devices. The storage capacities have improved with time, while earlier entire computer system were limited to a few megabytes or at most a few hundred megabytes. The journey unfolded and it went on to gigabytes and with present day standing at terabytes. The storage devices themselves have undergone massive changes and improvements. apart from the storage spaces, it is their compactness and the size reduction that has come along with them. The earlier form of storage devices were those of Floppy disks. Which at first were 5.1 inches in length, later reduced to 3.1 inches and eventually replaced by a device further compact known as U.S.B flash drive. This in a few inches size provides storage space as much as 30 gigabyte. Modern day computers stand at super fast processing capabilities, highly compact, portable, easy to operate, user friendly, bright and full of colors and various other functions that make them the right device to be used and be utilized for various activities. While the earlier computers had single processors in them and that too relatively slow in operations, they were soon changed into multiple processors in a single component. The Pentium family by Microsoft was the one that lasted many years, but soon the dual core technology and the multiple cores on single system became common in practice and today as many as four to six processors are part of single computing device. the marketing technologies that are being utilized in for it are core i3, core i5 , and i7 processors respectively(Smith and Wempen, 6). The bus sizes, the registers capacity and their speeds are phenomenal compared to the recent times and what could be performed by multiple computers are being performed by the single computer that is far more equipped and far better in services and functions. Micro controllers: Computers are part of almost every device. For example the mobile phones that we see today are basically built on computing technology. The micro controllers that are used in them are actually the computers and are dedicated for particular purpose. Mobile phones have got separate operating systems in them in present day. The examples are that of Android operating systems, the mobile windows operating system supported and provided by Microsoft and Linux operating system that is part of number of mobile phones. Besides this these micro controllers are part of the wrist watches, the digital devices such as digital clocks, the microwave ovens, the televisions, all incorporate computers in them and provide us with the colorful world of digital devices and facilities. Computers are not just limited to the four walls rather they are part of our outside world, for example they are part of our vehicles as well that are out on the road. The engines are computerized so are the navigation systems installed in these vehicles, the tracking system and Global positioning system being used is all because of computer. The era of compact computers: Other advancements that have been seen in the world of computer are that of further compact computers in form of tablets. For example the devices such as the ones introduced by Samsung and others introduced by Apple Inc in form of I-pads are equal and complete computers. They provide the same functionalities as a normal computer and from a technical view point they possess the same components as those possessed by an ordinary laptop or 14 inch desktop computer and C.P.U. The graphic world is another new domain of computer world advancements. All the animations that we see in the movies, these digital billboards and the gaming facilities in corporate computing trends. The gaming consoles such as Nintendo, Play station, Xbox 360 which is the latest trends in the world of gaming are result of the computers and they have dedicated micro controllers fitted in them(Goel,114). They are further enhanced by the presence of excellent graphic cards and adapters which make them more colorful and faster. Conclusion: Moore rightly predicted change and increase in the number of computer electronic devices every eighteen to twenty months (Shuman, 10). Where we stand today can be the ground breaking foundation for what is to come ahead. What we consider mammoth in terms of the progress made by computers might well be the stepping stone towards more advanced technologies and with the progress so far made, it is promised to bring further revolution and change in the manner in which computers are being handled. The terabyte space which might seem large enough today might not be even sufficient to accommodate the requirements of future single hard disk drive. They have created a total new world of digital existence with lots of jobs on offer and many other activities which would not be possible otherwise. It is the true gift of 20th century that is bound to stay here for times to come. Works cited: Goel, Sanjay. Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime:. Springer, 2010. O'Grady, Jason D. Apple Inc. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Kumar. Human Computer Interaction. Firewall Media, 2005. Lewis, John and Nell Dale. Computer Science Illuminated. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2010. Shuman, Bruce A. Issues for Libraries and Information Science in the Internet Age. Libraries Unlimited, 2001. Smith, Andrew and Faithe Wempen. CompTIA Strata Study Guide. John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Read More