History of Computers in US - Essay Example

The paper "History of Computers in the US" is a great example of an essay on information technology. History of computers can be traced back to at least 1940s when during World War II, the computers became necessary to build military superiority in combat operations. In 1941, the German engineer Konrad Zuse developed a computer to build missiles and airplanes; however, subsequently, allied powers went ahead developing their own computers.  First Generation Computers (1945-1955) The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), was developed as a collaborative approach between the University of Pennsylvania and the US government.

The ENIAC had 70,000 resistors and 18,000 vacuum tubes that consumed huge 160 Kilowatts of electricity. It was a general-purpose computer and was used extensively while constructing a hydrogen bomb. Its other uses were weather prediction, wind tunnel design. The first commercial computer called UNIVAC I came into existence during the 50s. This computer successfully predicted Dwight D. Eisenhower as the winning candidate in 1952 presidential election (First Generation of Modern Computers). Second Generation Computers (1956-63) Transistor replaced vacuum tubes around 1956 shrinking the size of computers and with that began the second generation of computers.

These computers were faster, smaller and consumed less energy than the first generation computers. Its uses included atomic energy laboratories however due to its enormous costs were not much used by business needs. These computers had disk storage, tape storage, memory and can be associated with printers as well. Computer languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN had its beginning during this time. It can be said that the software industry had its beginning during this time. Third Generation Computers (1964-71) In 1958, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments developed integrated circuits (IC), a path-breaking invention, paved the way for third-generation computers.

Two major issues with previous computers such as heat and bulky sizes were greatly solved due to a semiconductor device used in third-generation computers. In 1969, the UNIX operating system developed by Kenneth and Dennis Ritchie of AT&T Bell Laboratories opened new vistas for the computer industry. Fourth Generation Computers In 1971, the Intel made revolutionary changes by putting several components of a computer on a small chip. They came out with the chip called Intel 4004 during the year and that changed the ways of computers.

The 4004 chip was made of 2300 transistors and was used in Pioneer 10 spacecraft too. With the advent of microprocessors, the software industry started booming around. Once IBM decided to introduce Intel microprocessors in their PCs, Bill Gates from Microsoft began developing a new operating system for the computers known as MS-DOS. As Intel went on developing faster and faster microprocessors, computer’s processing power increased manifold. The computer industry was just waiting for a user-friendly operating system that could increase its commercial applications significantly and that was provided by Microsoft in the form of Windows.

With Windows loaded in PCs, the sales of computers increased to millions of pieces a year. That revolutionized the whole computer industry significantly. In less than four decades, the PCs became more powerful from yesteryear’s IBM fame mainframe computers, which consumed huge space and energy compared to minuscule space of the latest PCs available at fraction of the cost. Thus, many people contributed to the journey of sophisticated computers of the present age from hardware and software point of view.

Sophisticated computers also facilitated the development and evolution of communication technology in last one decade.