History Of Computers

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only add numbers and they had to be entered by
turning dials. It was designed to help Pascal's father who was a tax collector
(Soma, 32).
In the early 1800's, a mathematics professor named Charles Babbage
designed an automatic calculation machine. It was steam powered and could store
up to 1000 50-digit numbers. Built in to his machine were operations that
included everything a modern general-purpose computer would need. It was
programmed by--and stored data on--cards with holes punched in them,
appropriately called �punchcards�. His inventions were failures for the most
part because of the lack of precision machining techniques used at the time and
the lack of demand for such a device (Soma, 46).
After Babbage, people began to lose interest in computers. However,
between 1850 and 1900 there were great advances in mathematics and physics that
began to rekindle the interest (Osborne, 45). Many of these new advances
involved complex calculations and formulas that were very ...

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of a large automatic digital computer
based on standard IBM electromechanical parts. Aiken's machine, called the
Harvard Mark I, handled 23-digit numbers and could perform all four arithmetic
operations. Also, it had special built-in programs to handle logarithms and
trigonometric functions. The Mark I was controlled from prepunched paper tape.
Output was by card punch and electric typewriter. It was slow, requiring 3 to 5
seconds for a multiplication, but it was fully automatic and could complete long
computations without human intervention (Chposky, 103).
The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate need for computing
capability, especially for the military. New weapons ...

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