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Amiga CD-Sensation: Demos Are Forever
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Amiga CD-Sensation - Ausgabe 1 - Demos Are Forever (1996)(GTI - Schatztruhe)(DE)[!].iso
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computerstory
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computerstory
Wrap
Text File
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1993-01-03
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3KB
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93 lines
³¼THE HISTORY OF THE¼³
³¼COMPUTER¼³
¹
In 1834 Charles Babbage, who had
invented an advanced calculator 20
years before, hit on the idea of the
computer. Calculators had replaced a
few human `skills'; the simplest could
only add and subtract, while others
could multiply and divide. A computer,
as conceived by Babbage, went far
beyound this. It was a general-purpose
calculating machine capable of carrying
out any calculation that the operator
could specify. It could even `decide'
how to proceed in the course of a
calculation.
But Babbage's dreams of a mechanism
comprising of thousands of gear-wheels
went far beyond the abilities of
Victorian engineering, and the machine
was never completed. But more
conventional calculating machines
capable of adding, subtracting and
sometimes of multipling and dividing,
made progress, mainly in America. They
acquired keyboards and built-in
printing machines.
In the 20th century electricity was
harnessed to drive a variety of
calculating machines. But the first
general-purpose computing machine that
was fully electronic was ENIAC
(Electronic Numeral Integrator and
Calculator), completed at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1945. It
employed more than 18,000 thermionic
valves, weighed 30 tons and occupied
1,500 sq. foot of floor space.
In the post-war years more computers
were built, generally in university
research departments. But it was the
mammoth American company IBM that
dominated these developments. When
delivery of Univac II, announced by
IBM's rival Remington Rand in 1955, was
delayed until 1957 by production
difficulties, IBM captured the market
in large computers.
IBM maintained its lead when the
`second generation' of computers
appeared around 1960. These employed
transisters in place of valves and were
more powerful than their predecessors,
yet more compact, reliable and
economical of energy. They could be
housed in a few cabinets, rather than
filling a large air-conditioned room.
This trend towards smallness and
cheapness was enormously accelerated
when the `third generation' of
computers, based on the silicon chip,
appeared around 1965. Electronic
components, such as transistors, could
now be made in large numbers on a thin
square on silicon, typically a quarter
of an inch square. By 1971 the first
microprocessor was the heart of a
computer - the part that does th actual
calculating - on a single chip. Other
chips could provide memory stores.
When input/output devices, such as a
keyboard and printing machine, were
added, a complete computing system was
obtained that could fit onto a desktop.
Such a unit could store about 2 and a
half million characters - letters or
numbers - of information. Calculations
were completed in seconds and the
print-out was between 80-120 characters
a second.
A visual display unit - a TV screen
that could display text punched in by
means of a keyboard, together with the
computer's replies - permitted an
operator to put instructions and
questions to the computer and receive
responses - And now we have the
computer that we know today!
³Malarky/Trance Inc.