Computers and computing have advanced at amazing speed. It’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there were no such things as cell phones or the internet, at least not for the average person. In order to better understand how to program computers, we’ll take a look at where they came from. This will help you better understand why computers work the way they do. Knowing how a computer works can help improve the programs that run them.
Main What?
Computers were not always as small and mobile as they are now. Today’s computers can do everything from intricate drawings to navigating complex roadways. People can do those things with the small device in their pocket.
The first powerful computers were the size of a room and many of them did a single task. The British Colossus code-breaking computer of the 1940s is a good example. Another is the IBM 7094. These big computers were used in the Mercury and Gemini space programs in the United States.
These huge machines were called “mainframes” because of the cabinets (or frames) they were stored in. Some mainframes were programmed with switches. Others were fed tape that told them what to compute. In most cases, these machines did complex math to help humans save time. Programming in early computer science was difficult and time-consuming.
Shrinking Devices
As technology moved forward and the transistor was invented, computers got smaller. One of the early computers that many people could buy was a hand-held calculator. This device did only one thing (simple math), but they were pretty affordable and portable. These evolved into computers with screens and the ability to run programs. These changes made computers more flexible and powerful.
As computers evolved, the computing industry grew quickly. Within 10-15 years, computers were showing up everywhere, from homes to businesses. Over time, they moved beyond being a hobby to being an essential part of work and life for many people.
As computers became an essential part of life, a problem arose. If something on the computer broke or went wrong, people couldn’t get to the data or tools they needed. For example, suppose a business relied on a computer to take customer payments. If that business had one computer that did everything and it broke down, customers wouldn’t be able to pay for their goods. This could seriously hurt business.
In the early days of modern computing, this happened frequently. So people started making backups. Backups are copies of the data on a computer so it can be put on another computer if needed. Businesses (and some homes) began using multiple computers too, in case one failed.
Today’s modern computers are much more resilient. New approaches to programming also make computing less prone to fail. For example, many modern programs automatically save work as it’s being created. If the computer program fails, the data isn’t lost.
A Long Way
Computers clearly have come a long way. Mainframes were a big change in how people did complex work. Smaller “microcomputers” brought computing to many more people and made them mainstream. As computers became more important, they had to get tougher. The next big change in computing is happening now. It’s distributing the work computers do to the cloud making things more reliable and powerful.
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