Influences of Personal Computers Today essays

Influences of Personal Computers Today essays Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, people wanted and needed an easier way of calculating and measuring. Through the dreams of Charles Babbage, the computer was born. These new machines could do any regular math more than twice as fast as any human. Sadly, these ideas were not appreciated until almost one hundred years later. In the 1950's, the idea of computers was broght up again. This is when people finally started crediting Babbage's work. The technology available now made it possible for people to construct a digital computer. The idea of building a computer became a necessity when World War II came about. Many important names such as ENIAC and IBM cam about, and computers became a very wide interest in the world. What influenced personal computers of today? The thought of a machine being more intelligent than a mathmetician was laughed at, and thought of as an impossibility. That all changed when Charles Babbage was brought into the world. Charles Babbage was a mathmetician, engineer, and a future computer designer. He was actually known as the "Grandfather" (Slater 3) of the modern day computer. He was and still is, thought of as ahead of his time. Charles Babbage entered Trinity College, Cambridge in 1810. There he studied mathematics and chemistry. Between 1815 and 1820, he was involved mostly in mathematics, studying algebra. In 1822, he finally built his first mechanical computer, the Difference Engine. This was the first ever mechanical computer. It could add, subtract, divide, and multiply. He then started working on a more advanced machine in 1834, the Analytical Engine. This would be much more advanced than the Difference Engine. It would be steam powered and fully automatic. This would have been his greatest achievement. Unfortunately, the technology available to him was not advanced enough for Babbage to build, what would have been, the first digital computer. Another reason he never bui...